History Tidbits: The Petition of 1901

At the Wallowa History Center, we have decided to print the stories of racial injustices so that younger generations of our citizens can know our shared past and learn from our shared history.

The Petition of 1901 was one such story. Wallowa Valley settlers sent a petition to the Department of the Interior in Washington D.C. asking them to forever ban the tribes from Lapwai and Pendleton from entering the Wallowa Valley. Newspapers of the time carried stories of several Petitions being drafted over several years. The 1901 Petition was drafted by John Henry Wilson, an “Indian agitator” from Wallowa, who also lent his name to one of our “high lakes.”

Signers were about 400 in number, men only, and represented all the old families in the County.

Were these valid? Perhaps they were racially motivated or just the problem of two different cultures trying to share one small place. The government did not act on the Petition other than to compel Native Americans to enter the Valley in small family groups, not Tribal groups. Indians continued to come into the Valley each summer up until the WWII era.

Written by Marilyn Hulse, October 2023

This blog post represents the opinions of the individual author only.