The Yakama War and the Puget Sound War: Kamiakin, Leschi, and the Fight for the Northwest
By Daniel R. Whitcomb
Length3h 41m
About this audiobook
Kamiakin had sat in councils all his life, and he knew how they went: days of talk, gifts and argument before anything was settled. What waited on the flat by the Walla Walla River in May 1855 was something else. Governor Isaac Stevens, thirty-seven years old and in a hurry, had brought beef, flour, blankets, tobacco and a treaty already written. By the end of the first week more than a thousand Nez Perce, Cayuse, Walla Walla, Umatilla and Yakama people were camped within sight of his tent. To the Yakama leader it looked like an army with a paper.
Stevens had already made his treaties on Puget Sound, and with word of gold in the Colville country he wanted the plateau's title cleared before the miners came through. He got his signatures. Within months both regions were at war, and both fronts are here: the Yakama stand at Union Gap, Leschi of the Nisqually taking to the trail, the killing of settler families on the White River, militia and marines slogging through the western mud, and Colonel George Wright's columns in the interior.
It ends with the hanging of Leschi in 1858, after two trials, and with what the treaties left behind: the reservations, and the sovereignty the nations of the Sound have kept asserting ever since.
Stevens came to the Walla Walla with the treaty already written. It took three years of war to learn what it would cost.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★★ 4.6 (10)
Includes Amazon
GenreHistory
Length3 hrs 41 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 18, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Chapter 1: The Council of the Walla Walla
2Chapter 2: Treaties of the Sound
3Chapter 3: Gold on the Columbia
4Chapter 4: The Battle of Union Gap
5Chapter 5: Leschi Takes the Trail
Show all chaptersShow less
6Chapter 6: The Longest Night on White River
7Chapter 7: Militia, Marines, and Mud
8Chapter 8: Colonel Wright's Columns
9Chapter 9: The Turning of the Chiefs
10Chapter 10: The Hanging of Leschi
11Chapter 11: The Reservation Era
12Chapter 12: Sovereignty on the Sound
13About the Author
More from Daniel R. Whitcomb
The Last of the Buffalo: Plains Ecology and the War for the GrasslandsDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 34m$6
The School on the Prairie: Carlisle and the War on Native ChildhoodDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 46m$6
The Great Law of Peace: The Iroquois Confederacy and the Making of the NortheastDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 12m$6
Crazy Horse and the End of Lakota FreedomDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 32m$6
The Medicine Line: Native Nations and the U.S.-Canada BorderDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 52m$6
The Long Hunter and the Shawnee Towns: Simon Kenton's Kentucky WarDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 45m$6
Sand Creek: The Colorado War, 1851-1865Daniel R. Whitcomb3h 48m$6
The Makah: Whaling, Treaties, and the Fight for the SeaDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 19m$6
The Pawnee: Earth Lodges, the Stars, and the ScoutsDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 2m$6
Seven Cargoes: How Corn, Horses, and Disease Remade Native AmericaDaniel R. Whitcomb5h 20m$6
Powder River: Red Cloud's War and the Fight for the Bighorn CountryDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 19m$6
Fallen Timbers: Little Turtle, St. Clair, and the Fight for OhioDaniel R. Whitcomb5h 6m4.3 (57)$6
The Black Hawk War: The Last War East of the MississippiDaniel R. Whitcomb4h 6m$6
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
Ghosts of HiroshimaCharles Pellegrino8h 59m4.5 (877)$23
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
Fall and RiseMitchell Zuckoff17h 23m4.6 (9.8K)$40 · $0.00
The SurvivorJosef Lewkowicz, Michael Calvin9h 22m4.6 (2.5K)$29 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789 (Annotated)Alexis de Tocqueville17h 25m4.6 (1.2K)$2 · $0.00
All the Gallant MenDonald Stratton, Ken Gire5h 55m4.6 (11.8K)$24 · $0.00
Medgar and MyrlieJoy-Ann Reid10h 52m4.5 (27.8K)$29 · $0.00
The History of the Peloponnesian War (Annotated)Thucydides24h 3m4.6 (1.1K)$2 · $0.00
Where the Birds Never SingJack Sacco10h 31m4.6 (3.8K)$29 · $0.00
Serviceman J: The Untold Story of an NZSAS SoldierJamie Pennell5h 51m4.6 (452)$24 · $0.00
Valley of the BirdtailAndrew Stobo Sniderman, Douglas Sanderson10h 1m4.6 (2.4K)$29 · $0.00
You may also like
The VortexScott Carney, Jason Miklian15h 26m4.4 (1K)$33 · $0.00
The War on HistoryJarrett Stepman7h 25m4.2 (1K)$20
Fox's Book of Martyrs John Foxe27h 58m4.3 (20.5K)Free
Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains (Annotated)Charles A. Eastman OhiyeS'a5h 1m4.2 (574)$2 · $0.00
The Black PhalanxJoseph T. Wilson18h 33m4.4 (364)$1 · $0.00
Homage to CataloniaEric Arthur Blair9h 49m4.2 (99.5K)$1 · $0.00
The Earth Is All That LastsMark Lee Gardner12h 42m4.4 (943)$33 · $0.00
Bury My Heart at Wounded KneeDee Brown14h 21m4.4 (139.5K)$25
High-RisersBen Austen13h 33m4.4 (2.8K)$33 · $0.00
The Cretan Insurrection of 1866-7-8William James Stillman6h 27m$1 · $0.00
Life among the Piutes (Summarized Edition)Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins3h 38m$2
Famous Indian ChiefsCharles H. L. Johnston10h 17m3.9 (34)$1.99 · $0.00
History of the Black Hawk War (Annotated)Black Hawk, Charles M. Scanlan9h 6m$2 · $0.00
The Life and Work of Jefferson DavisJefferson Davis, Frank H. Alfriend104h 53m$2 · $0.00
The Public Orations of Demosthenes (Vol. 1&2) (Annotated)Demosthenes16h 44m$2 · $0.00
History of the Black Hawk WarBlack Hawk, Charles M. Scanlan8h 55m$2 · $0.00
CawnporeGeorge Otto Trevelyan8h 17m4.0 (176)$1 · $0.00
The Life and Work of Jefferson DavisJefferson Davis, Frank H. Alfriend104h 59m3.9 (33)$1 · $0.00
The Tale of the Great MutinyW. H. Fitchett9h 49m4.0 (167)$2.30
An Impartial and Authentic Account of the Civil War in the CanadasHenry Samuel Chapman10h 26m$1 · $0.00