The Indian Scare That Wasn't
A rumor that Little Spokane Indians planned to burn out settlers sent twenty-two armed Spokane men rushing to Four Mile Prairie—where they found frightened neighbors and a land dispute, not an attack.
On Thursday night two young men rode into Spokane with word that the Indians living on the Little Spokane had held a council of war and meant to burn out the settlers on Four Mile Prairie that night. The report spread quickly. Arms and ammunition were sought, three vehicles were secured, and by 1 o'clock Friday morning twenty-two men under S. B. Hyde set out for the prairie. At 2 o'clock the party reached the residence of I. B. Allen, a well-known settler who had sent an urgent note to under-Sheriff Gilliam asking for help. Several neighboring families had gathered at the Allen house. The appearance of the guns showed that the alarm was not wholly without foundation. Mr. Allen regretted that excited reports had been circulated. The cause of the trouble, he said, was that the Indians on the Little Spokane were very much concerned at the manner in which white men had been taking their land and locating claims they claimed. An Indian named Louis Peone, who had always been friendly, had told a white woman living near by that the Indians had held a council and expressed a determination to burn out the settlers on the prairie that night. The prairie had been fired Thursday, but the fire was extinguished without damage. It was also noticed that the Indians had taken up all their horses, which was considered a bad omen. The party lay about the premises until daylight, but no enemy appeared. The only accident was the accidental discharge of a gun in the hands of one of the crowd. At daybreak the would-be soldiers boarded their wagons and returned to the city. The trouble had blown over. The Indians, the report concluded, numbered only a few lodges and were not inclined to make a stand.
““The Indians living on the Little Spokane are very much concerned at the manner in which white men have been taking their land and locating claims they claimed.””
The scare was less an 'Indian outbreak' than a land conflict: settlers feared violence while Indigenous families watched their ground being claimed. In Spokane's own history, such panics helped justify dispossession—and the pattern of taking first and negotiating later still shapes debates over land and belonging.
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