The Last Chief

I did not come here to lie to anybody. I have come here with a true, honest heart. I would like to have you listen to what I have to say. Chief John Harmelt, 1893.

John Harmelt (1853-1937) was the last chief of the Wenatchi Indians. He once said that he would never leave his old hunting grounds, and true to his word, Harmelt (and a few others) kept their homes near the Wenachapam Fishery.

He continued to petition the government to protest the mistreatment of his people. In 1899-1900, Chief Harmelt traveled twice to Washington D.C. to protest about the lost reservation. When he died in 1937, the Wenatchi fight for their lands seemed to have died with him.

Chief John Harmelt's granddaughter, Celia Ann Dick, was forced to move from the Wenatchpam Fishery to the Colville Indian Reservation after her grandfather's death.

As an adult, Celia passed on to her children the history of the Wenatchi's ancestral homeland and how their tribe's reservation was taken from them. Those children made a promise to their mother that they would fight for the return of the Wenatchi Tribe's Reservation and treaty rights. Today, her children and other tribal elders help carry on the fight.