The Agent Orders the Spokane Tribe Off Their Ancient Fishing Grounds
A newly arrived Indian agent, backed by orders from Washington, moves to clear the Spokanes and Coeur d'Alenes from the falls where they have always gathered — while promising land to those who comply.
When Mr. Sidney D. Waters arrived in this city on his way to take charge of the Colville Indian agency, he at once noticed the numerous lazy Indians of the Spokane tribe hanging about the Falls, and as soon as he became established in his quarters carefully examined into the matter. He found a distressing state of affairs existing. Diseases were being contracted and spread by them; they gave themselves up to idleness and drinking and were anything but desirable in their position to the population.
Mr. Waters at once opened a correspondence with the authorities at Washington, laying the case before them, and has received instructions to ascertain the number of heads of families and young men who need land, as they are to be removed upon the Coeur d'Alene reservation. These instructions are imperative, and Mr. Waters was down this week and held a council with the chiefs and head men of the Spokane and Coeur d'Alene Indians. The information he imparted to them is not in the shape of a request, but an order, and this place, so long the camping ground of the Spokanes, will be free from their presence as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made by Congress. Of course those Indians who have taken up lands will not be molested, and those upon the new reservation will be provided for by the government.
In every encouragement held out to them to follow in the footsteps of the Coeur d'Alenes, one of the most prosperous tribes in the Territory, this desired riddance has been brought about through the exertions of Mr. Waters and Maj. O'Neill, who deserve the thanks of our people for the matter they have displayed in this matter. The Agent Maj. Simms has long had this project in view, and often urged it upon the Indians.
“The information he imparted to them is not in the shape of a request, but an order, and this place, so long the camping ground of the Spokanes, will be free from their presence.”
The falls that gave Spokane its name were a Spokane fishing ground for millennia before this 1880 order declared the tribe's presence a nuisance to be removed. The same logic — that Indigenous people were obstacles to a growing city — shaped the region's land and water rights for the next century. Today the Spokane Tribe still fights for recognition of its relationship to the river and the falls.
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