Treaties

Isaac I. Stevens, Washington's Territorial Governor, returned to the Pacific Northwest in 1855 to get the Native People here to sign treaties. According to his son, who wrote about this time in his father's life, Stevens' goals were to make peace with the Native People he found here, to "civilize" them by providing schooling in farming and traditional education, to buy most of the land the Native People currently occupied and to move them onto smaller pieces of land reserved for them -- "Reservations.".

Stevens did not speak the languages of the many people he had come to negotiate with. Nor did he know who their chiefs were. He brought a translator with him (William Craig) and an artist to record the proceedings in some places (Gustav Sohon). But, many suspect the people with whom he was negotiating probably didn't fully understand what Stevens was asking them to sign. Nor did Stevens keep the promises he made in those treaties. Americans were moving into Native lands, taking land and resources, and denying Native Peoples the rights they were guaranteed under those treaties.

Explore the Washington State History Museum's website to learn more about the people involved in the signing of the Treaty of Walla Walla. For another perspective, check out the Umatilla Tribe's description of those same events.