Andrew Bolon
| Andrew J. Bolon | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | c. 1826 Pennsylvania |
| Died | September 25, 1855 (aged 29) Klickitat County, Washington |
| Police career | |
| Department | Bureau of Indian Affairs |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Years of service | 1853–1855 |
| Rank | Sub Agent |
Andrew Jackson Bolon (c. 1826 – September 25, 1855) was a Bureau of Indian Affairs agent whose 1855 death at the hands of renegade Yakama is considered one of several contributing factors in the outbreak of the Yakima War. Some sources assert Bolon was the first law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty in the territory that is now the state of Washington, though the Washington Peace Officers Memorial in Olympia, Washington lists a King County sheriff's deputy killed the year before Bolon's death.
Bolon was born in Pennsylvania, where he married, eventually emigrating west and settling in Vancouver, Washington. During the Cayuse War Bolon served in the Oregon militia.
By May 1855 he was working as a Sub-Agent in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, reporting to Agent James Doty. Bolon had been assigned responsibility for the Yakima Reservation and spent the summer of 1855 meeting tribal leaders and learning the geography of the area. Bolon was well-liked by the Yakama and had forged a close friendship with Shumaway, Kamiakin's younger brother.
Treaties between the United States and several Indian tribes in the Washington Territory resulted in reluctant tribal recognition of U.S. sovereignty over a vast amount of land in the Washington Territory. The tribes, in return for this recognition, were to receive half of the fish in the territory in perpetuity, awards of money and provisions, and reserved lands where white settlement would be prohibited. While governor Isaac Stevens had guaranteed the inviolability of Native American territory following tribal ascension to the treaties, he lacked the legal authority to enforce it pending ratification of the agreements by the United States Senate. Meanwhile, the widely-publicized discovery of gold in Yakama territory prompted an influx of unruly prospectors who traveled, unchecked, across the newly defined tribal lands, to the growing consternation of Indian leaders. In 1855 two of these prospectors were killed by Qualchin, the nephew of Kamiakin, after it was discovered they had raped a Yakama woman.
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