We have had some tradgedies in our family and the end is not in sight. As it seems death come in triples. Setting that aside here comes on the continual story of my Native American Heritage....
The indigenous native peoples who would later become the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation were not forgotten. In an December 22, 1855 letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Governor Stevens told of meeting with some Indians, as he had promised during the Yakama Treaty negotiations, but "they did not sign a treaty although they pledged to take no part in the Yakama War which broke out that year."
The Yakama War lasted until 1859 and involved tribes located in today’s southern Washington State and Oregon. History indicates that Indian people and gold miners were involved in altercations in the Wenatchee and Okanogan valleys.
From 1859 until 1865, the federal government allowed the Indians of North Central Washington State to live without a treaty or an "Indian Agent" to oversee them. That changed in 1865 when George Paige was sent to the area as the first Indian Agent. He traveled and visited tribes through 1868 and made periodic reports to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs.
Superintendent McKenny, who oversaw the entire Washington Territory, commented on Paige’s May 9, 1867 written report as follows: "From this report, the necessity of trading with these Indians can scarcely fail to be obvious. They now occupy the best agricultural lands in the whole country and they claim an undisputed right to these lands. White squatters are constantly making claims in their territory and not infrequently invading the actual improvements of the Indians. The state of things cannot but prove disastrous to the peace of the country unless forestalled by a treaty fixing the rights of the Indians and limiting the aggressions of the white man. The fact that a portion of the Indians refused all gratuitous presents shows a determination to hold possession of the country here until the government makes satisfactory overtures to open the way of actual purchase."
At its inception by a President Grant’s Executive Order on April 9, 1872, the Colville Indian Reservation was in a different location from today’s reservation. The first reservation covered several million acres of diverse properties including rivers, streams, timbered forests, grass lands, minerals, plants and animals.
The aboriginal tribes of the Methow, Okanagan, San Poil, Lakes, Colvilles, Kalispels, Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, and other scattered tribes who were not parties to any treaty were confined to the original reservation.
Less than a month later, another Presidential Executive Order issued on July 2, 1872 moved the Colville Indian Reservation to its present location on the west side of the mighty Columbia River and diminished its size to less than three million acres or 2,825,000 acres. The areas between the Okanogan River and the crest of the Cascade Mountain Range in the Methow Valley and between the Columbia and Pend d’Orielle Rivers and the Colville Valley were excluded from the second and final reservation.