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. However, fewer than 100 members of Moses's tribe had moved to the reservation. Moses himself did not live there, having relocated to the Colville Reservation just to the east of the Columbia Reservation when his tribe was expelled from the Columbia Basin. The settlers began a lobbying campaign to abolish the reservation and move the Sinkiuse-Columbia to the Colville Indian Reservation. Failing that, they asked for the return to white settlement of that portion of the reservation within 10 miles (16 km) of Canada. (Nearly all the mining claims were within that region.)