Correspondence between General O.O. Howard of the U.S. military and Chief Moses of the Columbia Sinkiuse
Letter from General Howard to Chief Moses, February 11, 1878, Washington Superintendency Records, 1853-80.
Chief "Moses"
Sir: Mr. E.D. Phelps will carry this letter to you. I hear that
you want peace with the whites and with the soldiers. I remember what
you said to me at Fort Simcoe and am very sorry not to have met you
at the Council at Spokane Falls but I could not be there on the
account of my war with the Nez Perces.
As soon as I return from Washington I would like to see you and talk
over the whole subject of your country and of your being chief of the
tribes you named to me at "Simcoe."
There are no orders to send soldiers against you or your Indians and
I am, as you know, your friend. I thank you for helping us to keep
the peace among discontented Indians and white men last summer.
When I see you again I will explain how every Indian who wishes to do
so can get some good land for his own.
Be sure and not believe any timid or lying people who keep the
country in trouble.
Mr. Phelps will tell you how friendly I am. If the Indians make war,
then I fight, of course, but I do not love war. As I told [the Nez
Perce chiefs] White Bird and Looking Glass and Joseph, so it came to
pass. They lost their country and their houses forever.
The Weekly Herald of Omaha, Nebraska, carried a letter written by Francis Streamer, a white man and friend of Chief Moses. The letter is said to be from Chief Moses, March 29, 1878.
Chiefs, we have heard from the great White Father and the Great White Chief at Washington. We have asked to give us peace, and let our old men and old women rest on these lands that belonged to the great chief of our fathers. We have asked them to let our young men and young women go free, to fish where they will, to hunt where they can. We have asked them to take away their soldiers, their agent and their traders, and let us all, old and young, buy where we want to, sell where it suits us. We have asked them to set us free, and not tie us down like wild ponies are tied down--to a stake on the sage sands. We have asked them to let us have our own religion, our own preachers and our places to meet the Great Spirit, and talk with him in our own way--in our own belief. We have asked them to make a good straight road, that all the white men and the black men and the red men could travel on it in peace, and not push each other off in anger. . . We have asked them to punish our bad people under the same laws they punish their bad whites. We have asked them not to kill our old men and our old women, because some of our bad young men had done wrong, when bad whites stole their ponies, and made them drunk on bad firewater. We have asked them to make strong words with us now, and keep them strong as long as these waters run (Columbia River) or that mountain (Cascade) stands. We have asked them to let us go to where the sun rises, when we want to see the Great Father and talk with him, and to come where the sun sets when we want to rest from our long trail--just the same as his white children come and go and go and come. We have asked them to hear [what] all our people have to say, to come and see us--to see how poor we are, to see how sick our old men are, and to see our naked bodies and bleeding feet. You see how the grass had died away from these lands they have tied us to; how the deer and fish have gone, and how our children cry for something to eat. We have asked them to take pity on us, and not get angry with us and drive us like dogs onto the sharp briars and rough stones, away yonder to where no water runs, no grass grows, no fish swim, or deer trail.
A letter of Chief Moses' written at a later date, published in the Omaha Weekly Herald, March 11, 1878.
Chiefs, what can we do? The white men are as many as the leaves on yonder trees--as many as sands on yonder shores. The Indians are as few as the leaves on one tree, or the sands on one shore. If we go to war we will all be shot down like dogs; if we stay on the reservations we will all starve and die, like salmon out of water. Let us go to the white man's chiefs and tell them to go to their Great White Council [Congress] and get their great council to set us free, as it set the black man free, and as it set the yellow man [Chinese] free. They have many ears and many hearts. Some of them will feel our pain and take pity on us. Then the great papers will tell all the good whites how poor we are, and we will be set free to go and hunt where the game is, to fish where the salmon runs, and to raise our ponies and corn where the grass grows and the rains fall and the water runs. Then if the Great White Council will not hear us, or is cold and stony, let the soldiers then come, and we will fight and die on our own grounds and die brave and good, and cry no more. Chiefs! I am done, my words are spoken.