Wallawalla

Biography of Chief Joseph – Nez Percé

Chief Joseph 1877

Chief Joseph. Hinmaton-yalatkit. The leader of the Nez Percé in the hostilities of 1877. His mother was a Nez Percé, his father a Cayuse, who re­ceived the name Joseph from his teacher, the missionary Spalding, who was with Dr. A. Whitman and who went to the Idaho country in the late thirties of the 19th century. Chief Joseph’s native name was Hinmaton-yalatkit (Hinmaton, `thunder’; yalatkit, ‘coming from the water up over the land.’ – Miss McBeth), but both he and his brother Ollicot were often called Joseph, as if it were a family name. Joseph was a man of fine presence and impressive features, and was one of the most remarkable Indians within the borders of the Union.

Reckoning with the Palouse and Walla Walla

Headquarters Expedition Against Northern Indians, Camp on the Ned-whauld (Lahtoo) River, W. T., September 25, 1858 Sir: Yesterday I sent Brevet Major Grier with three troops of dragoons to Colonel Steptoe’s battleground, twelve miles south of this place. The major has this moment returned, bringing with him the remains of Captain Taylor and Lieutenant Gaston, who fell in the battle, and also the two howitzers abandoned by the troops when they retreated. I shall march tomorrow morning for the Palouse River. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, G. Wright, Colonel 9th Infantry, Commanding Major W. W. Mackall, Assistant Adjutant General, Headquarters … Read more

Wright’s Order 3

Chief Timothy was proud of his own record of friendly relationship with the whites, and his counsel to his people was ever to preserve a spirit of good feeling between the two races. He possessed an old flint-lock gun which, he said, was given to his father by the explorers, Lewis and Clark, and which he valued highly as an heirloom. He himself remembered the visit of the explorers, and in his declining years loved to recount the events which clustered around the coming and going of the first party of federal officials that ever traveled across the continent. Colonel … Read more

Homili, Chief of the Walla Walla

Homili, the chief of the Walla Walla, lived in two places: a part of each year on the Umatilla Reserve with the Umatilla, Cayuse, and other Columbia River Indians who were willing to stay there with the government agent; and part of the year, indeed, the greater part of it, at what he called his home just above the steamboat landing near the hamlet of Wallula. On the Umatilla Reserve, Homili had good land, pasturage all around for his pongees, and a good farm-house. He could raise wheat and vegetables, too, in plenty when he could make his tillicums (children … Read more

Wallawalla Indians

Wallawalla Indians were located on the lower Wallawalla River, except perhaps for an area around Whitman occupied by Cayuse, and a short span along the Columbia and Snake Rivers near their junction, in Washington and Oregon. They are now on Umatilla Reservation, Oregon.

Treaty of June 9, 1855

Articles of agreement and convention made and concluded at the treaty-ground, Camp Stevens, in the Wall-Walla Valley, this ninth day of June, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five, by and between Isaac I. Stevens, governor and superintendent of Indian affairs for the Territory of Washington, and Joel Palmer, superintendent of Indian affairs for Oregon Territory, on the part of the United States, and the undersigned chiefs, head-men, and delegates of the Walla-Wallas, Cayuses, and Umatilla tribes and bands of Indians, occupying lands partly in Washington and partly in Oregon Territories, and who, for the purposes of this … Read more

Treaty of November 15, 1865

Articles of agreement and convention entered into at the Warm Springs Agency, Oregon, by J. W. Perit Huntington, sup’t Indian affairs for Oregon, on behalf of the United States, and the undersigned, chiefs and head-men of the confederated tribes and bands of Middle Oregon, the same being amendatory of and supplemental to the treaty negotiated with the aforesaid tribes on the twenty-fifth day of June, eighteen hundred and fifty-five, and ratified by the Senate of the United States on the eighteenth day of April, eighteen hundred and fifty-nine. Article 1. It having become evident from experience that the provision of … Read more

Treaty of June 25, 1855

Articles of agreement and convention made and concluded at Wasco, near the Dalles of the Columbia River, in Oregon Territory, by Joel Palmer, superintendent of Indian affairs, on the part of the United States, and the following-named chiefs and head-men of the confederated tribes and bands of Indians, residing in Middle Oregon, they being duly authorized thereto by their respective bands, to wit: Symtustus, Locks-quis-sa, Shick-a-me, and Kuck-up, chiefs of the Taih or Upper De Chutes band of Walla – Wallas; Stocket-ly and Iso, chiefs of the Wyam or Lower De Chutes band of Walla – Wallas; Alexis and Talkish, … Read more

Wallawalla Tribe

Wallawalla Indians (‘little river’). A Shahaptian tribe formerly living on lower Walla Walla river and along the east bank of the Columbia from Snake river nearly to the Umatilla in Washington and Oregon. While a distinct dialect, their language is closely related to the Nez Percé. Their number was estimated by Lewis and Clark as 1,600 in 1805, but it is certain this figure included other bands now recognized as independent. By treaty of 1855 they were removed to the Umatilla Reservation in Oregon, where they are now (1910) said to number 461, but are much mixed with Nez Percé, … Read more