The County Would Keep Her for Life — If It Could Sell Her Land
After 18 years at the Stevens County poor farm, an Indigenous woman named Katherine Martin becomes the object of a bargain between county officials and the Indian department over her allotment.
An arrangement has been made by the county auditor and the board of county commissioners with the Indian department whereby the county authorities agree to keep Katherine Martin, an Indian woman, who has been at the Stevens county poor farm for 18 years, for the balance of her life, and the county will receive as compensation the proceeds of the sale of her allotment, amounting to $1250.
— Statesman-Index.
“The county authorities agree to keep Katherine Martin, an Indian woman, who has been at the Stevens county poor farm for 18 years, for the balance of her life, and the county will receive as compensation the proceeds of the sale of her allotment, amounting to $1250.”
Katherine Martin's story is a stark window into how allotment policy turned Indigenous land into currency for local institutions. A county agreeing to 'keep' a woman for life in exchange for the sale of her land is the logic of dispossession made bureaucratic — the same machinery that fragmented tribal landholdings across Washington.
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