In 1870, seven years after it was promised, the long deferred survey of the reservation was made. The superintendent and the agent both remonstrated, but in vain, against the manner in which it was done; and three years later a Board of Special Commissioners, appointed to inquire into the condition of the Indians in Idaho, examined the fence put up at that time, and reported that it was "a most scandalous fraud. It is a post-and-board fence. The posts are not well set. Much of the lumber is deficient in width and length. The posts are not dressed. The lumber laps at any joint where it may chance to meet, whether on the posts or between them, and the boards are not jointed on the posts where they meet; they are lapped and fastened generally with one nail, so that they are falling down rapidly. The lumber was cut on the reservation. The contract price of the fence was very high; the fencing done in places of no value to any one, for the reason that water cannot be had for irrigation. The Government cannot be a party to such frauds on the people who intrust it with their property."
In this year a commission was sent to Oregon to hold council with the band of Nez Percés occupying Wallowa Valley, in Oregon, "with a view to their removal, if practicable, to the Nez Percé Reservation in Idaho. They reported this removal to be impracticable, and the Wallowa Valley has been withdrawn from sale, and set apart for their use and occupation by Executive order."[14]
Report of the Secretary of the Interior for 1873.
This commission report that one of the most troublesome questions in the way of the Government's control of Indian affairs in Idaho is the contest between the Catholic and Protestant churches. This strife is a great detriment to the Indians. To illustrate this, they quote Chief Joseph's reason for not wishing schools on his reservation. He was the chief of the non-treaty band of Nez Percés occupying the Wallowa Valley, in Oregon:
"Do you want schools and school-houses on the Wallowa Reservation?" asked the commissioners.
_Joseph._ "No, we do not want schools or school-houses on the Wallowa Reservation."
_Joseph._ "They will teach us to have churches."
_Joseph._ "They will teach us to quarrel about God, as the Catholics and Protestants do on the Nez Percé Reservation, and at other places. We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that."