| Biography/History: |
Fur traders had just opened a post at Spokane House when a son was born to Illim Spokanee, chief of Spokane Middle Band. At age fourteen, the boy was chosen to learn English, French, agriculture, and Christianity at Red River near present-day Winnipeg, Manitoba. There, he was renamed Spokan Garry. Returning home, Garry opened a school for tribal members and became an interpreter for Protestant missionaries. Plateau tribes viewed Christianity as a safeguard against oppression and disease. Garry turned to farming after missionaries disapproved of Indian gambling traditions and broad interpretation of Christianity. During treaty negotiations, Garry was unable to protect ancestral lands near the falls of the Spokane River. The Spokane 1881 Reservation was located where the Spokane and Columbia rivers meet. Middle and Upper Band members moved there, or to the Coeur d’Alene Reservation. Garry and others attempted to remain at the falls. Garry lost his farm to a homesteader and lived the rest of his life in a tipi in the wooded hills known as Indian Canyon. |