Christine Galler
In Chemawa, Oregon, delegates from the Klamath, Spokane, Yakama, Warm Springs, Colville, Taholah, Nez Perce, and Flathead reservations—speakers of approximately twenty different languages—expressed their views to Collier’s team. Among them was Christine Galler (1884–1936), an Okanogan woman from the Omak Colville District Association, who served as both an interpreter and delegate. Better known today as Christal Quintasket, she published the acclaimed novel Cogewea under her Okanogan name Hu-mi-shu-ma or Mourning Dove in 1927.17 On the first day of the conference, she cautioned federal officials to reconsider whose language presented a challenge: “You have many words that even an interpreter needs an interpreter for.”18 On what ground does Galler, who experienced allotment, spent part of her adult life as a migrant laborer, and became the first woman elected to the Colville tribal council in 1935, rest her case in favor of the Indian Reorganization Act.
I have spoken many times before the white people; and I am sure I am going to speak to you. . . . Ladies and gentlemen: My education did not come to me on a silver spoon. I am one of seven children. We children were very, extremely poor. My mother and father were prejudiced against education. What I have learned was through the hard ways. I learned of my own free will and I am proud today to say that I learned the education of the white man’s language and tongue. What little education I have I worked hard for it. And it was through the Indian school as a stepping stone. It was here that I first accomplished my education. I fought for 25 years for the cause of the Indian people. The reason I have fought for my people is this: I owe it to them, old men and the old women of the Colville Indians. It is for their benefit that I speak for them today. I am a woman and you might think it funny that the Colvilles elect a woman for a delegate but the capacity of an Indian woman’s head has the same amount as a man or a white man. Any woman can do what a man or a white man can do in any instance.
It is all up to you whether we will go back to the blanket. To those people who are not in favor of the bill, there is always a place for them. If they want to keep their allotments and their land they can ask the government for them. John Collier could take every foot of land, if they wish to, with the stroke of the pen according to law and we would lose every bit of ground we have. He has given us this privilege to find what kind of people we are. That is why he sent this Congress before you.
Someone said a while back that if it wasn’t for the government we would be retarded back to an environment where our children would not have an opportunity like the white people. Due to them, all over the Indian reservations there are schools that your children could attend, like Chemawa.19 There are schools for your children to go to. There is always a place for you if you don’t want to be self-governing and to pay your obligations of taxes and being a citizen of the United States, to direct in any way what you want done.
We have been driven. We have been led by the white people for 122 years since the white people came into this country. We have never been given the choice of our leaders. We have no voice in anything. And now you are opposed to this bill of Collier’s. He has worked for 15 years for the Indians cause. You want to be driven to it because you are not accustomed to lead your people. Your people as a people, industrious and self-governing, can do just what you want if you have the Federal Court to back you in your cause.
Ladies and gentlemen: I hope you are not going to think I am radical. I hope that you don’t think that I am like Emma Goldman or any other woman, but as an Indian, my heart is with the Indians.20 Let us hope that with this new form of government will not be imposing on our old people, that you younger men and women will have a voice in the government of the U.S. Let us try a new deal. It cannot be any worse than what it has been. You can say the government has stolen your land away from you. For the wagon, the implements, the government has given us direct compensation. That word “education” in exchange for the bow and arrow. That you can be thankful for. I thank you ladies and gentlemen.