PHOTO COURTESY OF WASHINGTON STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

JONAS STANUP, LEADER OF THE PUYALLUP INDIANS

Puyallup Tribe History

A page in history… Jonas Stanup

By Tribal News

Jonas Stanup was born in 1857 in Oyster Bay and died Dec. 16, 1897. He had an allotment on the Puyallup reservation and was an active Tribal leader and warrior; a key player in the Treaty of Medicine Creek. Below are newspaper articles written after his death, as well as a letter written by Jonas Stanup himself.

My Dear Friends and Relatives:

You have done well to think this business over seriously. Look at the small number of us left of a once mighty tribe. Twenty years ago, we were all strong and brave. Now there are three times as many Puyallups down under the ground our grave-yard as there are standing before this house of Chief of Heaven. This house of prayer is little by little falling to pieces like our own tribe.

The pale faces on the contrary are coming over from the other side of the mountains in the fire wagons, and from away out of sight in the fire canoes on the water, and they are fast crowding us out. They are strong and fearless. They have all kinds of ways of hurting our body and soul.

The fish is disappearing in the waters of the bay and in our rivers. The deer are no longer in the prairies where the new corners hunt every day, and they are even scarce in our mountains.

We can sell no more bear skins and we can dry no more berries, because even our woods have been robbed of them. Very soon we will find nothing to live on, we will dry out like a stick that is cut off and has no say. Our hunting and fishing grounds can no longer be our homes.

We can only find a home with our Father in Heaven, and therefore we must only think of loving Him and serving Him better as we get nearer our graves. The best thing we can do is to build a hillside on which they are going to build a big camp called Tacoma after the name of our mountain. Two years ago you could see a house here and there among the trees, now you can only see a tree here and there among the houses.

Why can we not go to work all together, like one family, and build for us all and our children one house of prayer. We will need no other any longer on this earth. We must build this new church. We’ll put the bell on top of it. I am done.

Jonas Stanup

(Courtesy of W.P. Bonney, Secretary

Washington State Historical Society

Seattle P.I.

December 26, 1897

Jonas Stanup

A NOTABLE INDIAN

Jonas Stanup, who died at his home on the Puyallup River, in Pierce County, December 16, at the ripe old age of 94 years, was the last survivor among the more noted members of his tribe who took a prominent part in bringing about the treaty of 1854. He was equally active in the war with the whites, which followed soon after, and was one of the leading spirits in the final peace making. He was the father of Hon. Peter C. Stanup, who met an untimely and violent death, and who is supposed to have been murdered by political enemies of his tribe.

Jonas Stanup was born at Oyster Bay, in Mason County, early in the century, and from boyhood was noted as a great hunter, an athlete and warrior. At the time Washington Irving visited the West and during the sway of the Hudson’s Bay Company, he was among the most prominent Indians of America. It was after the exciting times incident to the transition from the dominion of the Hudson’s Bay Company to the United States, and the setting apart of the Puyallup reservation that Stanup married the daughter of one of the leading families of his tribe and settled on the farm where he lived for nearly half a century.

During his prime he was second to no warrior for bravery, although he was never noted for reckless killing, and in the history of his people none is credited with having possessed more influence over the tribe, or with having seen more clearly the future of the native born Americans after the first encroachments of the whites. When the Indians first realized that white men were taking from them their lands, killing their game and herding their sheep where elk and deer had formerly grazed, and that the time must come when they would be crowded from their own property, they reasoned that by killing these whites they would put an end to the trouble; but Stanup from the first advocated making terms with the white men. He proposed that certain lands be reserved to the Indians and that the whites be allowed to settle upon all other lands, and held to this idea through war and trouble. It required several years of bloodshed to convince his friends and tribesmen that he was right, and that the number of white men was “as trees in the forest," but in the end his conception of what should be done was proved wise and practicable. After having used all his power of oratory and having worked unceasingly he finally brought about the treaty he so earnestly believed in, and succeeded in having the Puyallup reservation set aside for his people by the government.

From the day the land was declared a reservation Jonas Stanup was foremost in resisting the many attacks upon it which have since been made by land grabbers and by the government as well, and his only son, Peter, ably seconded his father in thus defending their rights. The son was murdered May 15, 1893, at midnight at his own doorstep. This was the night succeeding the attack upon the Indians by Captain Carpenter and a company of troops while the Indians were at work grading a railroad through their lands under the direction of Frank C. Ross.

This fight is a memorable incident in the history of the tribe, and how the troops made a bayonet charge, being repulsed by the Indians rolling logs on them from the hill above, and now finally the troops were placed under arrest by the sheriff of King County, has already become a matter of history. Peter Stanup was the leader of the Indians at that time and before the troops began their attack made a stirring speech to them, warning them not to try to interfere, as the Indians were engaged in a lawful enterprise on their own lands.

The night after this trouble, young Stanup went home late and is said to have been killed as he stood on his own doorstep. His neck was broken and his body then thrown into the Puyallup River. The father never recovered from the shock caused by the death of his boy, and from a vigorous and hearty man soon declined into ill health, rapidly growing weaker and more helpless until the day of his death, when he said to his old wife: “I will sleep now.”

Old Stanup was always enterprising and progressive in business and tribal affairs. He was a warm friend of several of Tacoma’s more prominent citizens in years gone by, and worked in conjunction with Col. C.P. Ferry in securing the right of way for the Northern Pacific railroad through the reservation. The first fourth of July celebration ever held upon Commencement Bay was arranged by Stanup, who was the orator of the day, Col. C. P. Perry having acted as president of the gathering and reader of the Declaration of Independence. Delegations of Indians were in attendance from all parts of the Puget Sound country, a big feast was prepared, and nearly every resident of the then sleepy little village of Tacoma was on the scene to participate in the exercises and to join in the feast.

Old timers here still tell of this celebration, how they had horse and foot races, and games, and how old Stanup held them all entranced by his magnificent oration.

The Indians of the tribe had for years looked upon old Stanup as a father and adviser at all times, and his death is sincerely mourned by all. Last summer a portrait of the historic old character was painted for the Ferry Museum, where it now stands, but it is the picture of a feeble old man, showing only faint traces of the iron will, rugged honesty and remarkable intellect of one who was probably the ablest of all the Indians on Puget Sound.

– L.N. Levinson

December 17, 1897

JONAS STANUP IS DEAD

FATHER OF THE FAMOUS PETER PASSES AWAY.

Called to his last sleep at the age of 93.

Once a great fighter and orator among the Puyallups and sire of the most noted Indian of the Tribe.

The funeral will take place at reservation tomorrow.

Jonas Stanup, one of the oldest and best known Indians in western Washington, and father of the famous Peter Stanup, died on his old "illahee" (dwelling place), on the Puyallup reservation, at 9 o'clock yesterday morning.

The old brave was gathered to his fathers from among a little assembly of friends including his aged and faithful wife, Scho-wash-ni, Henry Bagley and Charles Johnson.

Stanup was strong until a few hours before his death, and scarcely did he have the little coterie about him think that he was being summoned to the happy hunting ground when he was suddenly taken ill night before last.

The old man had seen between 93 and 94 "snows," and time had dwarfed his once lithe and athletic frame and added line after line to his brow. He was subject since his boyhood to periodical fits, and it was during one of these that he yielded up his life. The fit lasted an hour, instead of about 15 minutes as usual. As it came on, his good klootchman, infirm and feeble under a weight of years, soothed his head and his friends gave him nourishment.

Putting his head back on the pillow for the last time he was admonished by his attendants to sleep. He replied in Chinook, saying, "Wake, wake" (no, no), "alki moosum" (bye and bye I will sleep).

He slept sooner than he anticipated and from a nervous twitching of the muscles about the lips that had so often spoken eloquently in the war councils of the Puyallups and the Nisquallys and in the tribal pow-wows of his people, the Mud Bay Indians slowly became quiet and finally cold. His last fit was the first he had suffered in a year.

The following is a copy of paper given to the State Historical Society by Rev. Peter F. Hylebos; and was said by him to be a copy of an address made by Jonas Stanup, at a time when the Catholics had under consideration the erection of church on the Puyallup Reservation. There were two factions of Indians on the Reservation, Presbyterians and Catholics, The old Presbyterians was about to fall down, and there was a community gathering to consider the construction of the new Catholic church.

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