Kamiakin: the Last Hero of the Yakima

The Post-Treaty Wars (1855–1858)

Splawn frames the conflict as an inevitable collision caused by the “Treaty Period.” He emphasizes that while Kamiakin was a man of peace who initially sought to avoid war, the aggressive tactics of Governor Isaac Stevens and the encroachment of miners and settlers forced his hand.

The Outbreak (1855)

After the Walla Walla Council of 1855, the treaties were signed but not yet ratified. When gold was discovered in the Colville region, miners began trespassing through Yakama lands. Following the death of Indian Agent Andrew Bolon—who was killed while investigating the murder of miners—the U.S. Army moved to suppress the “insurrection.”

Key Figures & Actions

Splawn provides vivid, firsthand-style accounts of the major players:

• Kamiakin (Yakama): Splawn portrays him as a “Napoleon of the Indians.” He was a brilliant diplomat who organized a massive confederation of tribes (Yakama, Palouse, Walla Walla, and Cayuse). Splawn highlights his strategic mind, noting he fought not for glory, but out of a tragic realization that his people were being erased.

• Qualchan (Yakama/Palouse): Kamiakin’s nephew, whom Splawn depicts as a daring and fierce warrior. He and his father’s OW-hi eventual execution by Colonel Wright (without trial) is treated as one of the darker, more dishonorable moments of the campaign.

• Colonel George Wright (U.S. Army): The commander of the 1858 campaign. Splawn details Wright’s “scorched earth” policy—the burning of food stores and the slaughter of 800 Palouse horses at Horse Slaughter Camp (near present-day Liberty Lake/Spokane)—as the tactical blow that finally broke the tribal resistance.

• Major Granville Haller: Known for the “Haller Defeat” in 1855, where Kamiakin’s superior numbers and tactics forced a humiliating retreat for the U.S. troops, proving that the Plateau tribes were a formidable military force.

The Conclusion

The book concludes the war era with the Battle of Four Lakes and the Battle of Spokane Plains (1858). Splawn illustrates how the Army’s new long-range rifles and the destruction of the horse herds rendered traditional tribal warfare impossible, leading to Kamiakin’s flight to British Columbia and eventually the Bitterroot Valley.

About the Author: Jack Splawn (1844–1917)

Andrew Jackson “Jack” Splawn was more than a historian; he was a participant in the development of the Yakima Valley. Born in Missouri, he came west to the Oregon Territory as a boy. By the 1860s, he was a 15 year old “cow-boy” and cattle driver, moving herds through the very canyons where the wars had just ended.

Splawn’s life was deeply intertwined with the landscape of the Northwest. He established a trading post known as “Robber’s Roost” (the first store in what is now Ellensburg) and became a prominent livestock grower and local politician. Because he spent his life riding with both white pioneers and Indigenous elders, his writing contains details of geography and tribal lineage that “armchair” historians of his time often missed.

While his writing carries the biases of a 19th-century settler—often using the terminology of his era—he held a profound, late-life respect for Kamiakin. He saw the chief as a tragic hero rather than a “savage” enemy, and he wrote the book specifically to ensure that the “Indian side” of the story, as he had heard it from tribal leaders, would not be forgotten.

Jack Splawn’s Kamiakin: The Last Hero of the Yakamas (originally published in 1917) is a seminal—though distinctly frontier-flavored—account of the conflict in the Pacific Northwest. Splawn wasn’t an academic; he was a man who lived through the tail end of the era he described, making his book a mix of personal memoir and collected oral history.

 Splawn’s book is considered a “primary-secondary” hybrid. It is one of the few places where the oral traditions of the Yakama and local settlers were captured before that generation passed away.