A forgotten tribe, a lost homeland

LEAVENWORTH — Every May, the Wenatchi Indians drive 100 miles to a tiny cemetery here to tend the gravesite of their last chief. They cut the grass and decorate the tombstones in the small, fenced plot, squeezed between an apple orchard and Highway 2.

Wenatchi Chief John Harmelt died in 1937 hoping his people wouldn't have to travel so far to see his burial plot.

The people buried alongside Harmelt in the tribe's homeland represent the forgotten tribe's past, but members have their hearts set on the same future Harmelt envisioned — a long-promised reservation in the Wenatchi homeland near Leavenworth.

"It's important to me that we kind of hold the government's feet to the fire and make sure they keep those promises," said Mathew Dick, Harmelt's great-grandson and a full-blooded Wenatchi.

This spring, both houses of the state Legislature passed resolutions addressing the tribe's situation. State government can't change laws to affect the tribe, but the resolutions showed that government is starting to pay attention.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is considering legislation to begin a study into the Wenatchi band's proposal. The study, involving the U.S. departments of Agriculture and the Interior, would include public hearings and historical research to determine whether it would be feasible to transfer some national forestland to the Wenatchis.

Eventually, the tribe wants as many as 20,000 acres of the Wenatchee National Forest near Leavenworth for a reservation. Instead of a separate Wenatchi Reservation, the Colville Confederated Tribes would control the land.

The proposal hasn't drawn much public criticism so far, although some forest users question whether they would lose access if the tribe were to take ownership.

The most potent opposition is from the Yakama Nation, which is in a legal battle with the Wenatchis over use of the traditional Wenatchi fishery. Because the Yakamas and the Wenatchis both signed the Walla Walla Treaty in 1855, the Yakamas inherited fishing rights the Wenatchis believe should be theirs.

Boundaries marked

The treaty guaranteed the Wenatchis a 36 square-mile reservation around their fishery — where Icicle Creek and the Wenatchee River converge in a rush of whitewater near what is now Leavenworth.

Government officials marked boundaries for the reservation between 1856 and 1858 — but they were never surveyed by the federal government, according to research by Richard Hart, a historian hired by the tribe.

By the late 1800s, whites were settling in the area, and the railroad was making its way toward the fishery. Smallpox and other epidemics had reduced the tribe from about 2,000 in 1780 to a few hundred.

The Wenatchis almost got their reservation surveyed in 1892, when President Benjamin Harrison signed an executive order. But President Grover Cleveland took office the next year and his administration stopped the process, Hart said.

A newly appointed federal agent tried to move the reservation into the mountains, where there were few salmon and the winters were too cold to survive. The Wenatchis wouldn't move there.

Finally, Chief Harmelt met with federal officials and the Yakamas to talk about the reservation. Hart said the Wenatchis agreed to nothing, but after they left to travel home, U.S. agents led the Yakamas to believe the Wenatchis had agreed to give up their land. The Yakamas signed the paperwork to sell the Wenatchi land.

Later, the Wenatchis were offered $9.30 each for their share of the reservation. Almost all of them refused to take it.

Harmelt spent the rest of his life fighting for the lost reservation. He traveled to Washington, D.C., twice to ask federal agents for his tribe's land. Finally, in the early 1900s, destitute tribal members began to move 100 miles northeast to the Colville Reservation.

In 1931, the tribe voted to sue the U.S. government.

"We hereby request that full government rations be issued to all old Wenatchee Indians who have not sufficient funds to care for themselves," tribal leaders wrote to the Office of Indian Affairs around the time of the lawsuit.

But the government voided the contract the tribe had with its attorney, making the lawsuit impossible.

In 1937, Harmelt, about 80 years old, died in a house fire. He never left the Leavenworth area, though he saw many of his tribe move away.

Strained ties

Now recognized as one of the Colville Confederated Tribes, most of the Wenatchis see their homeland on road trips. But even those ties have been strained.

Sixty-year-old Dick, Harmelt's great-grandson, remembers his mother's tears on a childhood trip to Camas Prairie, near Leavenworth, where they went to dig for wild carrots and camas, an edible root. As their car rounded the last corner of the road, they saw vehicles covering the clearing. "She sat there and cried," Dick said.

The same sadness pierces Mary Marchand, 76, a Wenatchi elder, when she sees rock-climbers on the Peshastin Pinnacles, sandstone boulders shaped like salmon and other animals. The Wenatchis believe the salmon were stuck there, their giant mouths open to the sky, when the Indian spirit Coyote led them to the rivers.

And tribal elder Tillie George, 74, presses her hands to her chest to show the heaviness in her heart as she watches hatchery salmon swim on the other side of a chain-link fence at the site of the tribe's traditional fishery. The salmon at the fishery are off-limits to everyone but the Yakamas.

"It's hard for other races to understand the way we feel about our land," she said.

Except for a city park with some historical markers about the tribe, the Wenatchis' history in Leavenworth has disappeared. The place by the river where a main tribal village once stood is now filled with the tourist destination's Bavarian-themed downtown. Polka music pours from restaurants and beer gardens, and tourists stroll the flower-lined sidewalks eating ice cream cones and sausages.

The tribe offered a video presentation about its lost reservation earlier this summer to try to educate the Leavenworth locals.

Milt Anderson, a semiretired Leavenworth radio broadcaster, said he didn't know about the Wenatchi history in Leavenworth until he watched the film. In the end, he found himself siding with the tribe.

"Given ... all the yanking around that it seems like the federal government has given them over the years, I don't have a problem with a little advantage going their way," he said.

Some Leavenworth residents say they are concerned that the tribe will limit public access to land or build a casino. The tribe hasn't ruled out either, though members say they intend to keep land public unless it has spiritual significance to the tribe.

That probably would include the pinnacles, popular with climbers and hikers. The tribe's lack of specifics has some outdoor enthusiasts concerned, said Brian Behle, who owns Leavenworth Mountain Sports.

"I think that a lot of people really respect their intentions," he said. "But at the same time, since they don't have any specific plans, you feel kind of wary about it."

The Wenatchis are one of 12 bands that make up the Colville Confederated Tribes. With more than 8,000 enrolled members, the Colvilles live on a 1.4 million-acre reservation in North Central Washington. If the Wenatchis get their reservation, it will be controlled by the Colville tribal government.

The Colvilles have three casinos in northeastern Washington, and tribal leaders say they don't have immediate plans for a casino near Leavenworth. There is a running joke about tribal members wearing lederhosen and dealing blackjack in a Bavarian-themed casino.

In addition, the Wenatchis are in a bitter battle with the Yakama tribe over fishing rights in their Leavenworth fishery. After a U.S. District Court temporary restraining order issued last month, the Wenatchis cannot fish for salmon at the fishery. The judge is urging the tribes to talk and work out a compromise, but so far they haven't.

The Wenatchis' fight for a new reservation has become one of public relations and political lobbying.

"We've equalized ourselves through education," said descendant Tony Atkins. "We've learned the laws. We've learned how to articulate in the English language. We kind of gave up for a little while, but we're back now."

Emily Heffter: 206-464-2420 or eheffter@seattletimes.com