Yakima War
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The Yakima War was a conflict between the United States and the Yakama Indians (spelled Yakima at the time) between 1855 and 1858.
The mid-nineteenth century found the Yakama Indians living along the Columbia and Yakima Rivers on the plateau in central Washington Territory, on land in the path of white settlement.
In May and June of 1855, the first governor of the newly formed Washington Territory, Isaac Stevens, and Joel Palmer, Superintendent of the Oregon Territory, enacted three treaties at the Walla Walla Council. The Walla Walla, the Umatilla and the Cayuse tribes were coerced by the United States government to move from 4 million acres (16,000 km²) of tribal lands to the reservation in northeastern Oregon, which overtime was reduced down to 95,000 acres (384 km²). In a second treaty, fourteen different tribal groups agreed to go onto the Yakama Indian Reservation, giving up a combined 29,000 square miles (75,000 km²) of land. Under the third treaty, the Nez Perce were confined to a reservation that included parts of southeastern Washington, northwestern Oregon, and west-central Idaho.
The same year gold was discovered on the recently established Yakama reservation, and conflict erupted between encroaching white miners and tribes of the Plateau, eventually united together under the leadership of Yakima chief Kamiakin, marking the start of the Yakima War. The U.S. Army sent troops to the region, and in August 1856, Robert S. Garnett supervised the construction of Fort Simcoe as a military post. Initially the conflict was limited to the Yakama, but eventually the Walla Walla and Cayuse were drawn into the war, following the lead of the Yakima, and a number of raids and battles took place. This last phase of the war, sometimes referred to as the Coeur d'Alene War or Palouse War came in 1858. General Newman S. Clarke commanded the Department of the Pacific and sent a force under Col. George Wright to deal with the recent Indian attacks. Finally at the Battle of Four Lakes, near Spokane, Washington, (September 1858), Wright inflicted a decisive defeat on the Indians and they were afterward placed on reservations, although a few tribes remained outside them. Kamiakin fled to Canada, but 24 other chiefs were captured and hanged or shot.
This conflict is also referred to as the Yakima Indian War of 1855 and is often seen as a continuation of the Cayuse War, which began in 1848.
The Yakama tribe was put on a reservation south of the present city of Yakima.
