A Settler's Plea for Too-e-pi-ti
An old Pierce County resident says a white man, Jim Riley, shot an Indigenous man without cause—and asks voters not to let the case die.
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.
To the Voters of Pierce County:
As an old resident of this county, interested in preserving quiet and peace, I wish to make a plain statement of facts concerning the recent shooting of Too-e-pi-ti.
Some four years ago I had a claim in that neighborhood, but the Indian troubles of that period obliged me to give it up. I resumed the place this spring, and my experience with the Indians there had given me confidence in their good will and friendship. On Saturday, the 16th of this month, I left my claim with my three sons to return to my present residence. On Monday we returned, and on the way heard that an Indian had been shot in the upper Puyallup. I said to my son William, 'I will go and see Too-e-pi-ti; I wish you to go as interpreter.'
We found the Indians encamped on a bar near their fishery. An Indian rode Too-e-pi-ti's horse toward us, from side to side, as if afraid of being shot. We asked whether Too-e-pi-ti had been shot. He answered yes. Another Indian, when asked, stammered out that Mr. Riley had shot him, and was so frightened that he could hardly speak. He conducted us toward the lodge.
We found Too-e-pi-ti badly wounded. He told us that on Saturday morning he and another Indian had met Riley; that Riley charged him with having stolen his horse; that Too-e-pi-ti proposed they go to the house; and that as he mounted his horse Riley shot him. The ball struck him under the shoulder and lodged in the breast. Riley fired again, but Too-e-pi-ti escaped into the valley without hitting horse or rider. Charley afterwards said the whites had robbed him of his horse and clothes in order to deceive him.
I do not doubt the truth of this account, since it is confirmed by the other circumstances of the case. The Indians were told to keep quiet, and I said I would attend to it. The matter has been considerably talked of, and I ask the voters of Pierce County to see that justice is done.
“The Indian stammered out that Mr. Riley had shot him, and with so much fright that he could hardly speak.”
The letter is a rare settler's account of violence against a Native man, written to shame Pierce County voters into acting. It shows how law and order on the frontier depended on which lives counted, and how Indigenous testimony was routinely discounted. The Puyallup Valley remains a place where that history is still being reckoned with.
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