The Yakima War (1855–1858), also referred to as the Plateau War or Yakima Indian War, was a conflict between the United States and the Yakama, a Sahaptian-speaking people of the Northwest Plateau, then part of Washington Territory, and the tribal allies of each. It primarily took place in the southern interior of present-day Washington. Isolated battles in western Washington and the northern Inland Empire are sometimes separately referred to as the Puget Sound War and the Coeur d'Alene War, respectively.
Background
After the Washington Territory was formally organized as a U.S. territory in 1853, treaties between the United States government and several Indian tribes in the area resulted in reluctant tribal recognition of U.S. sovereignty over a vast amount of land within the new territory. In return for this recognition, the tribes were entitled to receive half of the fish in the territory in perpetuity, awards of money and provisions, and reserved lands where white settlement would be prohibited.
While territorial governor Isaac Stevens had guaranteed the inviolability of Native American territory following tribal accession to the treaties, he lacked the legal authority to enforce it pending ratification of the agreements by the United States Senate. Meanwhile, the widely publicized discovery of gold in Yakama territory prompted an influx of unruly prospectors who traveled, unchecked, across the newly defined tribal lands, to the growing consternation of Indian leaders. In 1855 two of these prospectors were killed by Qualchan, the nephew of Kamiakin, after it was discovered they had raped a Yakama woman.
Outbreak of hostilities
Death of Mosheel’s family
A party of American miners came across two Yakama women, a mother and daughter traveling together with a baby. The miners assaulted and killed both women and the infant. The husband and father of the women, a Yakama man named Mosheel, collected two friends, one of whom was Qualchin, and the men tracked down the miners who had killed Mosheel’s family. They ambushed the murderers in their camp and killed all of them.
Death of Andrew Bolon
On September 20, 1855, Bureau of Indian Affairs agent Andrew Bolon, hearing of the death of the prospectors at the hands of Qualchin, departed for the scene on horseback to investigate but was intercepted by the Yakama chief Shumaway, who warned him Qualchin was too dangerous to confront. Heeding Shumaway's warning, Bolon turned back and began the ride home. En route he came upon a group of Yakama traveling south and decided to ride along with them. One of the members of this group was Mosheel, Shumaway's son. After Bolon told Mosheel that the death of the miners was considered a wrongdoing and would be punished by United States army soon as he returned home, Mosheel grew angry. At some point, he decided Bolon should be killed. Though a number of Yakama in the traveling party protested, their objections were overruled by Mosheel, who invoked his regal status. Discussions about Bolon's fate took place over much of the day (Bolon, who did not speak Yakama, was unaware of this debate as it unfolded among his traveling companions).
During a rest stop, as Bolon and the Yakama were eating lunch, Mosheel and at least three other Yakama set upon him with knives. Bolon yelled out in Chinook Jargon, "I did not come to fight you!" before being stabbed in the throat. Bolon's horse was then shot, and his body and personal effects burned.
Battle of Toppenish Creek
When Shumaway heard of Bolon's death he immediately sent an ambassador to inform the U.S. Army garrison at Fort Dalles, before calling for the arrest of his own son, Mosheel, who he said should be turned over to the territorial government in order to forestall the American retaliation he felt would likely occur. A Yakama council overruled the chief, however, siding with Shumaway's older brother, Kamiakin, who called for war preparations. Meanwhile, district commander Gabriel Rains had received Shumaway's ambassador and, in response to the news of Bolon's death, ordered Major Granville O. Haller to move out with an expeditionary column from Fort Dalles. Haller's force was met and turned back at the edge of Yakama territory by a large group of Yakama warriors. As Haller withdrew, his company was engaged and routed by the Yakama at the Battle of Toppenish Creek.
War spreads
The death of Bolon and the United States defeat at Toppenish Creek caused panic across the Washington Territory, provoking fears that an Indian uprising was in progress. The same news emboldened the Yakama and many uncommitted bands rallied to Kamiakin.
Rains, who had just 350 federal troops under his immediate command, urgently appealed to Acting Governor Charles Mason (Isaac Stevens was still returning from Washington, D.C. where he had traveled to present the treaties to the Senate for ratification) for military aid, writing that
... all the disposable force in the district will at once take the field, and I have the honor to make a requisition upon you for two companies of volunteers to take the field the earliest possible moment. The composition of these companies to be as follows: One Captain, one First Lieutenant and one Second Lieutenant, two musicians, four Sergeants, four Corporals and seventy four privates. The greatest exertions should be made to raise and equip these companies at once.
Meanwhile, Oregon Governor George Law Curry mobilized a cavalry regiment of 800 men, a portion of which crossed into Washington Territory in early November. Now with more than 700 troops at his disposal, Rains prepared to march on Kamiakin, who had encamped at Union Gap with 300 warriors.
Raid on the White River settlements
As Rains was mustering his forces in Pierce County, Leschi, a Nisqually chief who was half Yakama, had sought to forge an alliance among the Puget Sound tribes to bring war to the doorstep of the territorial government. Starting with just the 31 warriors in his own band, Leschi rallied more than 150 Muckleshoot, Puyallup, and Klickitat, though other tribes rebuffed Leschi's overtures. In response to news of Leschi's growing army, a volunteer troop of 18 dragoons, known as Eaton's Rangers, was dispatched to arrest the Nisqually chief.
On October 27, while surveying an area of the White River, ranger James McAllister and farmer Michael Connell were ambushed and killed by Leschi's men. The rest of Eaton's Rangers were besieged inside an abandoned cabin, where they would remain for the next four days before escaping. The next morning Muckleshoot and Klickitat warriors raided three settler cabins along the White River, killing nine men and women. Many settlers had left the area in advance of the raid, having been warned of danger by Chief Kitsap of the neutral Suquamish. Details of the raid on the White River settlements were told by John King, one of the four survivors, who was seven years old at the time and was – along with two younger siblings spared by the attackers and told to head west. The King children eventually came upon a local Native American known to them as Tom.
I told him of the massacre. He said he suspected something of the kind, as he had heard firing in that direction. He told me that I should get the children and take them to his wigwam, adding that 'when the moon was high' he would take us to Seattle in his canoe. His squaw was as kind and amiable as could be, and did all in her power to make it pleasant for us, but the children were very shy. She set out dried fish and whortleberries for our repast, but nothing she could do would induce them to go to her. Our hunger was so great that the various and penetrating odors permeating the food she had brought us was no bar to our relish for it as I remember.
Leschi would later express regret for the raid on the White River settlements and post-war accounts given by Nisqually in his band affirmed that the chief had rebuked his commanders who had organized the attack.
Battle of White River
Army Captain Maurice Maloney, in command of a reinforced company of 243 men, had previously been sent east to cross the Naches Pass and enter the Yakama homeland from the rear. Finding the pass blocked with snow he began returning west in the days following the raid on the White River settlements. On November 2, 1855 Leschi's men were spotted by the vanguard of Maloney's returning column, and fell back to the right bank of the White River.
On November 3 Maloney ordered a force of 100 men under Lt. William Slaughter to cross the White River and engage Leschi's forces. Attempts to ford the river, however, were stopped by the fire of Indian sharpshooters. One American soldier was killed in a back-and-forth exchange of gunfire. Accounts of Indian fatalities range from one (reported by a Puyallup Indian, Tyee Dick, after the end of the war) to 30 (claimed in Slaughter's official report), though the lower number may be more credible (one veteran of the battle, Daniel Mounts, would later be appointed Indian agent to the Nisqually and heard Tyee Dick's casualty numbers confirmed by Nisqually). At four o'clock, when it was becoming too dark for the Americans to cross the White River, Leschi's men fell back three miles to their camp on the banks of the Green River, jubilant at having successfully prevented the American crossing (Tyee Dick would later describe the battle as hi-ue he-he, hi-ue he-he - "lots and lots of fun" in Chinook Jargon).
The next morning Maloney advanced with 150 men across the White River and attempted to engage Leschi at his camp at the Green River, but poor terrain made the advance untenable and he quickly called off the attack. Another skirmish on November 5 resulted in five American fatalities, but no Indian deaths. Unable to make any headway, Maloney began his withdrawal from the area on November 7, arriving at Fort Steilacoom two days later.
Battle of Union Gap
One hundred fifty miles to the east, on November 9, Rains closed with Kamiakin near Union Gap. The Yakama had erected a defensive barrier of stone breastwork which was quickly blown away by American artillery fire. Kamiakan had not expected a force of the size Rains had mustered and the Yakama, anticipating a quick victory of the kind they had recently scored at Toppenish Creek, had brought their families. Kamiakan now ordered the women and children to flee as he and the warriors fought a delaying action. While leading a reconnaissance of the American lines, Kamiakan and a group of fifty mounted warriors encountered an American patrol which gave chase. Kamiakan and his men escaped across the Yakima River; the Americans were unable to keep up and two soldiers drowned before the pursuit was called off.
That evening Kamiakan called a war council where it was decided the Yakama would make a stand in the hills of Union Gap. Rains began advancing on the hills the next morning, his progress slowed by small groups of Yakama employing hit and run tactics to delay the American advance against the main Yakama force. At four o'clock in the afternoon Maj. Haller, backed by a howitzer bombardment, led a charge against the Yakama position. Kamiakan's forces scattered into the brush at the mouth of Ahtanum Creek and the American offensive was called off.
In Kamiakan's camp, plans for a night raid against the American force were drawn up but abandoned. Instead, early the next day, the Yakama continued their defensive retreat, tiring American forces who eventually broke off the engagement. In the last day of fighting the Yakama suffered their only fatality, a warrior killed by U.S. Army Indian Scout Cutmouth John.
Rains continued to Saint Joseph's Mission which had been abandoned, the priests having joined the Yakama in flight. During a search of the grounds, Rains' men discovered a barrel of gunpowder, leading them to erroneously believe the priests had been secretly arming the Yakama. A riot among the soldiers ensued and the mission was burned to the ground. With snow beginning to fall, Rains ordered a withdrawal, and the column returned to Fort Dalles.