As a surveyor, engineer, US Army major, superintendent of Indian affairs, and, oh yeah, the first territorial governor of Washington, Isaac Stevens crammed a lot into just 44 years. What’s more, during his short gubernatorial tenure he managed to declare martial law and arrested a judge who tried to have him served and cited. With a reputation for being brash and short, Stevens was known during his Civil War service as “Little Napoleon.”
But his biggest impact may have been in the work he rushed through in two months in late 1854 and early 1855: snappy treaty councils with the Northwest’s Indigenous tribes. Each talk lasted about four days
→ Continue reading at SeattleMet