Chief Moses

The territory of his tribe extended approximately from Waterville to White Bluffs, in the Columbia Basin.

At the age of nine, he so impressed the missionary Henry H. Spalding that he was invited to be educated at the Presbyterian Mission of Lapwai, Idaho,[3] where for three years he learned the ways of whites and also made extensive contacts with Nez Perce, in whose territory the Mission was located.

He became fluent in several languages, including English, Nez Perce, Spokane, Colville and Yakima, a skill that served him later in life.

[3] At the time of the Yakima War, his brother Kwilninuk was chief of the Sinkiuse-Columbia; Moses had a minor role and following their defeat in 1858 surrendered in Chewelah.

[6] On April 18, 1879, the United States set aside the Columbia Reservation for Chief Moses and his tribe.

Interior Secretary Carl Schurz turned the matter over to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, with instructions that the white settlers would suffer no harm.

Colonel Henry C. Merriman, the army commander, sent Captain H.C. Cook north on August 19, 1880 to list and assess the improvements made by the white settlers and to ask them to leave.

In late 1880 or in 1881, the military determined that there were 17 bona fide white residents of the region prior to April 18, 1879.

Failing that, they asked for the return to white settlement of that portion of the reservation within 10 miles (16 km) of Canada.

On February 23, 1883, President Chester A. Arthur signed an executive order restoring a 15-mile (24 km) wide strip along the Canada–US border to the public domain.

His relatives include Lucy Friedlander Covington (1910-1982) and Paulette Jordan (born December 7, 1979).