Tribal Delegation Heads to Washington D.C.
After realizing a survey of their reservation omitted significant lands, the Yakama people sent a delegation to appeal directly to the 'Great Father.'
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Charles Lombard, clerk of the Yakima Indian agency, arrived in the city on Saturday last, on a week’s leave of absence, to get rested up from his labors. Mr. Lombard said that the Indians had been shown a plat of the new boundaries of the reservation, and that they were very much dissatisfied. A large territory on the Mt. Adams side which had always been claimed as reservation land was by the surveys declared outside of the boundary, and the Indians held a pow-wow over the decision and concluded to send a delegation of three or four of their number to Washington to see the Great Father and ask him to protect them in their rights.
“A large territory on the Mt. Adams side which had always been claimed as reservation land was by the surveys declared outside of the boundary.”
The ongoing struggle for treaty rights and the preservation of tribal land boundaries remains a central narrative in the history of the Pacific Northwest. This incident highlights the recurring issue of federal surveys encroaching upon Indigenous sovereignty.
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