The Project Gutenberg eBook of A History of Oregon, 1792-1849

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Title: A History of Oregon, 1792-1849

Author: W. H. Gray

Release date: January 18, 2012 [eBook #38607]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Adam Buchbinder, Pat McCoy and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(1st-hand-history.org)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HISTORY OF OREGON, 1792-1849 *** 


[Pg 1]



Astoria in 1811
Astoria in 1811






A HISTORY

OF

O R E G O N,


1792 - 1849,



DRAWN FROM PERSONAL OBSERVATION AND AUTHENTIC INFORMATION.



BY


W. H. GRAY,

OF


ASTORIA.


PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR FOR SUBSCRIBERS.


PORTLAND, OREGON: HARRIS & HOLMAN.



SAN FRANCISCO: H. H. BANCROFT & CO.



NEW YORK: THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY.



1870.




[Pg 2]


 CORRECTIONS:




FIRST LETTER.


4th page, 2nd line from bottom, after the word horror, read at.


6th page, 2nd line from bottom, “ quote.


7th page, end of paragraph, ”.


23rd page, in place of 283, page 273.


24th page, after zealous priest of, read the.


26th page, 5th line, for missionaries, read missions.


SECOND LETTER.


5th page, first word, for abrogate, read arrogate.


8th page, in this letter, read in his letter.


23rd page, for unmbers, read numbers.


29th page, 1st paragraph, for dispersing, read dispensing.


30th page, 2nd paragraph, for barely, read basely betrayed.


32nd page, for mith, read with many thanks.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by


W. H. GRAY,


In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Oregon.









[Pg 3]


INTRODUCTORY.


The reader will observe that when we commenced furnishing the
historical articles for the Marine Gazette, we did not know that they
would be of sufficient interest to justify arranging them in book
form; but few articles had been given, however, before there was a
call for back numbers of the paper, which were not on hand. It was
then decided to continue the articles, giving an opportunity to correct
errors in statement of historical facts, and collect such as were printed,
with all just criticisms, review the whole, and complete the manuscript
for publication.


As will be seen, we have endeavored to narrate events in plain
language, and as nearly in the order of occurrence as possible.


We make no claim to literary merit or attractive style; the facts
we have collected, the proofs we are able to give of the policy and
practices of one of the most gigantic frauds ever continued for a
series of years by one professedly civilized and Christian nation
upon another, in chartering and continuing to license a monster
monopoly; and the manner in which they have sought for a series
of years to prevent American trade and settlement of the western
portion of our country, is contained in the following pages. We can
only give the principal events, which in the future may be better
arranged in an interesting and authentic history, which we must
leave for others to write. The reader will find in the following
pages:—


I. The American history of the Hudson’s Bay and Puget Sound
Agricultural companies.


[Pg 4]II. The causes of failure of the Protestant missions, the causes
of Indian wars, and the causes that must tend to the utter destruction
of the Indian race on the American continent.


III. The adverse influences that the early settlers had to contend
with in coming to and settling in the country, fully explained.


IV. A concise history of the early settlement of the country, a
short sketch of many of the public men in it, their public character
and proceedings, and the organization of the provisional
government.


V. The mining and agricultural interests of the country.


There are two grounds upon which every fact is based:—


1. Personal knowledge, observation, and participation in what is
stated for one-third of a century.


2. The written and printed statements of others, so compared
that conclusions are intended to be without a possibility of truthful
contradiction; thus making this a standard history of the country
for the time included within the period from its discovery by Captain
Robert Gray to 1849.




[Pg 5]


CONTENTS.





[Pg 13]


HISTORY OF OREGON.




CHAPTER I.


First discovery of the river.—Natives friendly.—British ship.—Brig Jennet.—Snow Sea
Otter.—The Globe.—Alert.—Guatimozin.—Atahualpa.—Lewis and Clarke.—Vancouver.—Hamilton.—Derby.—Pearl.—Albatross.—First
house built in 1810.—Astor’s
settlement.—The Tonquin.—Astor’s Company betrayed to the Northwest Company.


In all countries it is difficult to trace the history of their early discovery
and settlement. That of Oregon is no exception. The Spanish claim,
and it is generally conceded, that they were the discoverers of the coast,
and gave names to the principal capes and to Fuca’s Straits. No
evidence can be found in national archives, or among the native tribes
of the country, that gives the discovery of the Columbia River to any
civilized people but to the Bostons (Americans); so that, so far as civil
history or national testimony is concerned, we are without any, except
the conjectures of men as ignorant as ourselves. Hence we are left to the
alternative of searching the old logs of vessels and such old books as
have been written, and, in connection with the legends and statements
of the aborigines of the country, form an opinion as to its discovery,
and from such dates and conclusions commence its civil history. That
of Oregon begins eight years previous to the commencement of the
present century.


A ship, owned by Messrs. Barrell, Bulfinch & Co., of Boston, and
commanded by Captain Robert Gray, discovered and entered the
mouth of the third great river upon the American continent. It then
had no name known to the civilized world. This unselfish American,
instead of following the example of many contemporary British navigators
by giving his own name to the majestic river he had discovered,
gave it that of his noble ship, Columbia.


On the 7th of May, 1792, he discovered and ran in abreast of Cape
Hancock, and anchored, and on the 11th ran ten miles up this river on
the north side, which is now known as a little above Chinook Point,
and at 1 P. M. they came to anchor. On the 14th they weighed[Pg 14]
anchor and ran, according to the ship’s log, fifteen miles, which would
bring them up abreast of Tongue Point, where their ship grounded
upon a sand bar for a short time, but they backed her off into three
fathoms of water and anchored. By sounding they discovered that
there was not sufficient water to pass up the river in their present
channel. Having filled all their water-casks, repaired, painted, and calked
the ship, and allowed the vast numbers of Indians that thronged around
them in the most peaceable and friendly manner, to visit and traffic
with them, on the 20th of May, 1792, they went to sea again.


On the 20th of October of this year, the Chatham, commanded by
Captain Broughton, of the British navy, entered the river. He grounded
his ship on what is now called the Sulphur Spit, and found in the bay
the brig Jennet, Captain Baker, from Bristol, Rhode Island. Captain
Broughton explored the river in his small boat as high up as the present
site of Vancouver, and left the river with his ship on the 10th of
November.


In 1797, five years later, the snow Sea Otter, Captain Hill, from
Boston, visited the river.


In 1798, the ship Hazard, Swift, master, owned by Perkins, Lamb
& Co., Boston, visited the river. This same ship visited the river again
in 1801.


In 1802, this same Boston company sent the ship Globe, Magee,
master, to the river.


During the year 1802, a brisk, and something like a permanent
American trade appears to have been in contemplation by this Boston
company. They sent the ship Caroline, Derby, master, from Boston,
and the ship Manchester, Brice, master, from Philadelphia.


In 1803, Lamb & Company sent the ship Alert, Ebbets, master; also
the ship Vancouver, Brown, master. This year, the ship Juno, Kendricks,
master, from Bristol, Rhode Island, owned by De Wolf, entered
the Columbia River for trade.


In the year 1804, Theodore Lyman sent the ship Guatimozin, Bumsted,
master, from Boston. The Perkins Company sent the ship Hazard,
Swift, master, to the river the same year.


In 1805, Lyman & Company sent the ship Atahualpa, O. Potter,
master, from Boston. Lamb & Company sent the ship Caroline,
Sturges, master, from the same place.


On the 15th of November, 1805, Lewis and Clarke, with their party,
having crossed the Rocky Mountains under the direction of President
Jefferson, of the United States, arrived at Cape Hancock; remaining
but a few days, they crossed the Columbia River and encamped near
the mouth of a small river still bearing the name of these two explorers.[Pg 15]
They left their encampment in March, 1806, and returned across the
continent and reported the result of their expedition to the government.


This expedition consisted of one hundred and eighty soldiers or
enlisted men. On arriving at the Mandan Village, on the Missouri
River, in 1804, they encountered the influence of the Northwest British
Fur Company, who, on learning their object, at once made arrangements
to follow and get possession of the country at the mouth of the
Columbia River.


In 1806, soon after Lewis and Clarke left their encampment on their
return to the United States, the ship Vancouver, Brown, master,
entered the river, having been sent out by Thomas Lyman, of Boston,
in expectation of meeting Lewis and Clarke’s party at the mouth of the
river. The Lamb Company sent the ship Pearl the same year, under
the command of Captain Ebbets. Lyman, in addition to the Vancouver,
sent the brig Lydia, Hill, master, to the river, making three
American ships from Boston in the year 1806.


In 1807, the ship Hamilton arrived in the river, sent by Thomas
Lyman, of Boston, L. Peters, master. The Perkins Company sent the
Hazard, Smith, master.


In 1808, the ship Derby, Swift, master, sent by the Perkins Company.
Lyman sent the ship Guatimozin, Glanville, master; both
made successful trips in and out of the river.


In 1809, the Perkins Company sent the ships Pearl and Vancouver
into the river, the former commanded by Smith, the latter by Whittimore.


In 1810, the ship Albatross, from Boston, T. Winship, master, entered
the river and sailed as high up as Oak Point, where the captain erected
a house, cleared a piece of land for cultivation, and planted a garden.
This year, John Jacob Astor, of New York, organized the Pacific Fur
Company, in connection with Wilson Price Hunt, of New Jersey. These
two gentlemen admitted as partners in the fur trade, Messrs. McKay,
McDougal, and David and Robert Stewart. These four last-mentioned
partners, with eleven clerks and thirteen Canadian voyageurs, and a
complete outfit for a fort, with cannon and small-arms, stores, shops,
and houses, with five mechanics, were all embarked on the ship Tonquin,
Captain Jonathan Thorn, master, in September, 1810, and sailed
for the Columbia River, where they arrived, March 24, 1811.


The present site of the town of Astoria was selected as the principal
depot for this American Fur Company, and called by them, in honor of
the originator of the company, Astoria. This establishment was soon
in full operation. The timber and thick undergrowth within musket[Pg 16]
range of the establishment were cleared away, and a kitchen-garden
planted outside the stockade.


In the highly-interesting narrative of Gabriel Franchere, we read
that, “in the month of May, 1811, on a rich piece of land in front of
our establishment [at Astoria], we put into the ground twelve potatoes,
so shriveled up during the passage from New York that we despaired
of raising any from the few sprouts that still showed signs of life.
Nevertheless, we raised one hundred and nineteen potatoes the first
season. And, after sparing a few plants to our inland traders, we
planted fifty or sixty hills, which produced five bushels the second year;
about two of these were planted, and gave us a welcome crop of fifty
bushels in the year 1813.”


They were cultivated at Astoria, by the old Northwest and Hudson’s
Bay companies, in their little fort gardens. A few Indian chiefs were
presented with the seed, but no general distribution was made among
them, as they were considered as the Bostons’ root, and no better than
those of the Indians, abounding in the country, which required less
labor to cultivate. Up to the time of the arrival of the American missionaries,
there never was an extra supply of potatoes in the country.
In other words, the potato was a luxury enjoyed by none except the
highest grades of the Fur Company’s servants and distinguished
visitors; its cultivation was not generally encouraged by the company.


In October, 1810, after dispatching the Tonquin, Mr. Astor fitted out
the ship Beaver, twenty guns, Captain Sowles, master, with Mr. Clark,
six clerks, and a number of other persons, to join the establishment at
Astoria. The ship touched at the Sandwich Islands; Mr. Clark engaged
twenty-six Kanakas as laborers for the establishments on the
Columbia River, where the ship arrived, May 5, 1812.


On the 15th of July, 1813, Mr. David Thompson, under the direction
of the Northwest Canadian British Company, arrived at Astoria. I
use the word Canadian, as applied to the Northwest Fur Company,
that was established by the charter of Louis XIII. of France, 1630, in
what was then called Acadia, or New France, forty years before Charles
of England gave his charter to the Hudson’s Bay Company. This
Northwest Fur Company, in the transfer of the sovereignty of Acadia,
or New France, to England, in 1714, at the treaty of Utrecht, was
acknowledged as having a legal existence, by both nations, and was
allowed to transfer its allegiance and continue its trade under the protection
of the British sovereign, as it had done under that of France.


As soon as the government and people of the United States entered
upon active measures to explore and occupy the country west of the
Rocky Mountains, this Canadian Northwest Fur Company dispatched[Pg 17]
Mr. Thompson to explore the Columbia River, and make an establishment
at its mouth; but, on account of delays and mistaking the course
of the various rivers through which the party traveled, Mr. Thompson
did not arrive at Mr. Astor’s American establishment till in July, 1813;
his object was to forestall Mr. Astor in the settlement of the country.
He was received, kindly treated, and furnished with such goods and
supplies as he and his party required, by Mr. McDougal, who was then
in charge of Fort Astor, and, in company with David Stewart, returned
as high up the Columbia as the Spokan,—Mr. Greenhow says Okanagon,—and
established a trading-post, while Mr. Thompson went among
the Kootenai and Flathead tribes, and established a trading-hut. It
is due to those parties to state that as late as 1836, a square, solid,
hewed log bastion, erected by Stewart’s party, was still standing at
Spokan, while no vestige of the Thompson huts could be found in the
Flathead country. At Spokan, garden vegetables were produced
about the fort, which the Indians in that vicinity learned to appreciate,
and continued to cultivate after the fort was abandoned in 1825, having
been occupied by the Northwest and Hudson’s Bay companies till that
time.


In the spring of 1811, the chief agent of the Pacific Fur Company,
Mr. Hunt, with other partners, Crooks, McKenzie, and McClellen, with
a party of sixty men, started across the continent. They were extremely
annoyed by the opposition fur traders on their route, and also
by hostile Indians. Such of the party as did not perish by famine and
hostile Indians, and British fur traders, arrived at Astoria on the 28th
of January, 1812.


On the 5th of May following the arrival of Mr. Hunt’s party, the
ship Beaver arrived with the third installment of traders, clerks, and
Kanaka laborers. In consequence of the loss of the ship Tonquin,
and all on board except the Indian interpreter, in the Cliquot Bay,
near the entrance of the Straits of Fuca, by the treachery of the Indians
in the vicinity, Mr. Hunt embarked in the Beaver for the Russian
establishment in August, 1812, effected an arrangement of trade
with them, and dispatched the ship to China. He continued in her till
she reached the Sandwich Islands, where he remained until June, 1813,
when the ship Albatross arrived from Canton, and brought the news
of the war between the United States and Great Britain, and also that
the ship Beaver was blockaded at Canton by a British ship of war.
Mr. Hunt at once chartered the Albatross and sailed for the Columbia
River, where he arrived on the 4th of August, 1813.


On his arrival at Astoria he learned that it was the intention of his
partners, all of whom claimed to be British subjects (McDougal and[Pg 18]
McKenzie having formerly been in the employ of the Northwest Company),
to sell to McTavish, of that company. Hunt embarked in the
Albatross for the Sandwich Islands, and from thence to the Washington
Islands, where he learned from Commodore Porter, then at those
Islands, in the frigate Essex, of the design of the British to seize all
American property on the Pacific coast. From thence he returned to
the Sandwich Islands, and chartered the brig Pedler, and arrived at
Astoria in February, 1814, and learned that soon after his departure
in the Albatross, in August, 1813, McTavish, with a party of the
servants of the Northwest Company, had arrived at Astoria, and, in
connection with McDougal, McKenzie, and Clarke, on the part of the
American Pacific Fur Company, and McTavish and Alexander Stewart,
on the part of the Canadian Northwest Company, had completed
the sale of Astoria to that company, and secured for themselves important
positions in the service of the latter company.


As a matter of fact and general historical interest, the amount and
value of property thus transferred is here given: Eighteen thousand one
hundred and seventy and one-fourth pounds of beaver, at two dollars
per pound, selling in Canton at that time at from five to six dollars
per pound; nine hundred and seventy otter skins, at fifty cents each,
selling at that time in Canton for five and six dollars per skin.


The expense of building Mr. Astor’s establishment at Astoria, including
those at Okanagon and Spokan, with boats, bateaux, tools,
cannon, munitions, goods, transportation and salaries of clerks and men,
etc., etc., was near two hundred thousand dollars, for which he received
in bills on Montreal about forty thousand, including the appraised value
of the furs at the fort, which was thirty-six thousand eight hundred
and thirty-five dollars and fifty cents; this would leave less than three
thousand one hundred and sixty-four dollars and fifty cents for the
improvements, boats, munitions, cannon, etc., for which the Hudson’s
Bay Company, in 1865, claims of our government, for the old,
rotten, and abandoned post at Okanagon, nineteen thousand four hundred
and sixty-six dollars and sixty-seven cents; the post at Colville,
still held in place of the one built by Astor’s company at Spokan,
eighty thousand three hundred dollars; the post at Fort George
(Astoria), abandoned in 1849, four thousand one hundred and thirty-six
dollars and sixty-seven cents; in all, for the three establishments,
one hundred and three thousand nine hundred and three dollars and
thirty-four cents—quite a contrast between the valuation of American
property when in possession of British fur traders, having been used
for forty years by British subjects, and abandoned as of little or no use
to their trade, and that of American property but lately brought into[Pg 19]
the country. It will be remembered that Mr. Astor’s Pacific Fur Company
was commenced in 1810; that at the time it was betrayed into
the possession of this Canadian Northwest Fur Company it had been
in operation but two years, hence was new, and but just ready to commence
a profitable trade in the country.


The contract transferring this valuable property from American to
British owners, was signed on the 16th day of October, 1813, by Duncan
McDougal, J. G. McTavish, and J. Stewart, and witnessed by the
principal clerks of the establishment. On the 1st of December following,
the British sloop of war Raccoon, Captain Black, arrived in the
river, and proceeded to take formal possession of Astoria, by lowering
the American flag and hoisting that of Great Britain in its place, and
changing the name of the fort to that of Fort George.


Previous to the landing of the British soldiers, or King George’s
warriors, an interview took place (as related by Ross Cox) between
the Indian warriors, with Concomly, their chief, at their head, and
McDougal and McTavish. On the arrival of the British war vessel
in Baker’s Bay, the Indians, having learned that there was war between
the King George people and Bostons (Americans), they said, as they
had always found the Bostons friendly and liberal toward them, they
were their friends, and were ready to fight for them, to prevent the
King George men from making them slaves. They proposed to conceal
themselves behind the rocks and trees outside of the fort and to
kill the King George soldiers with their arrows and spears, while the
men of the fort fought the ship and small boats which they came in,
with their big guns and rifles. McDougal assured them that the King
George warriors would not hurt them, and advised them to be friendly
with them, as they would do the people of the fort no harm. Concomly
and his warriors were only convinced that the Bostons would
not be made slaves by the King George warriors when they saw the
sloop leave the river without taking any of them away as prisoners or
slaves.


The treachery of the Canadian part of Astor’s company, which was
not known to Mr. Astor, but provided for by the Northwest Canadian
Company before the party left Montreal, and consummated by McDougal
and his associates, in the absence of the American partners from
the post, is proved by journals, letters, and facts still extant.




[Pg 20]


CHAPTER II.


The country restored.—The order.—Description of Astoria.—Different parties.—Northwest
Fur Company.—Astor’s plan.—Conflict of the two British fur companies.—The
treaties.—The Selkirk settlement.—Its object.—The company asserts chartered
rights as soon as united.


As stated in our first chapter, the English government, by its
Canadian Northwest Fur Company, and the arrival of the British
sloop of war, Raccoon, during the war of 1812-13, took possession
of Oregon, and held it as British territory till it was formally
restored to the United States on the 6th of October, 1818, in these
words:—


We, the undersigned, do, in conformity to the first article of the
treaty of Ghent, restore to the government of the United States,
through its agent, J. P. Provost, Esq., the settlement of Fort George,
on the Columbia River.


Given under our hands in triplicate, at Fort George (Columbia
River), this 6th day of October, 1818.



F. Hickey, Captain H. M. Ship Blossom.

J. Keith, of the N. W. Co.



The order from the Prince Regent of England to the Northwest
Company to deliver up the country to the American government, was
issued on January 27, 1818, and complied with as above.


On the 17th of April, 1814, the Canadian Northwest Fur Company’s
ship, Isaac Todd, reached Astoria, called Fort George.


According to the description sent to Washington by Mr. Provost,
it consisted of a stockade made of fir-logs, twenty feet high above the
ground, inclosing a parallelogram of one hundred and fifty by two
hundred and fifty feet, extending in its greatest length from northwest
to southeast, and defended by bastions, or towers, at two opposite
angles. Within this inclosure were all the buildings of the establishment,
such as dwelling-houses, magazines, storehouses, mechanics’
shops, etc.


The artillery were two heavy 18-pounders, six 6-pounders, four
4-pounders, two 6-pound coehorns, and seven swivels, all mounted.


[Pg 21]The number of persons attached to the place besides the few native
women and children, was sixty-five; of whom twenty-three were
white, twenty-six Kanakas, and the remainder of mixed blood from
Canada.


Of the party that crossed the Rocky Mountains with Mr. Hunt in
1811-12, six remained in the country, and but five returned to the
United States; the remaining forty-five that started with him in his
first expedition were mostly destroyed by the influence of the two
British fur companies acting upon the Indians for that object.


These men, as independent trappers and petty traders among the
Indians, were considered by those companies as intruders and trespassers
upon their French and British chartered rights; hence none
were allowed to remain in the country but such as were under their
control, or subject to their rule.


From the time the Northwest Fur Company took possession of the
country, with few exceptions, we have no authentic account of the
number of vessels of any nation that visited the river, but we have
reason to believe that they would average two each year; and, from
known facts, we conclude that as soon as the post at Astoria was betrayed
into the possession of the Canadian Northwest Fur Company by
McDougal and associates, and the British government had taken formal
possession of the country, this Northwest Company, with McDougal
and others equally prominent, commenced to instill into the minds of
the Indians a strong hatred of American traders by sea or land, and
to change as much, and as fast as possible, the friendly feeling of the
former toward the latter, so as to continue to hold the permanent and
absolute sovereignty of the country, and make the Indians subservient
to their commercial interests.


Mr. Astor says: “The plan by me adopted was such as must materially
have affected the interests of the Northwest and Hudson’s Bay
companies, and it was easy to be foreseen that they would employ every
means to counteract my operations, and which, as my impression, I
stated to the executive of your department as early as February, 1813.”
This hatred of Americans had been so assiduously impressed upon the
minds of the Indians, that one of their own vessels arriving in the river,
being cast away on Sand Island, all on board were murdered by the
Indians, who mistook them for Americans. The company sent a vessel
from Vancouver (to which place they had removed their stores and
principal depot) to punish the Indians, who had secured most of the
wrecked property. The vessel came down and sent shell and grapeshot
into the Indian village, destroying men, women, and children,
landed their men and took such of their goods as they could find,[Pg 22]
having gained satisfactory evidence of the murder of the crew of the
ship.


This view of the policy and practice of this Northwest and Hudson’s
Bay Company, is further sustained by the inquiries which Mr. Keith
felt it incumbent on him to make of Mr. Provost, on the restoration of
Astoria to the Americans by the British authorities.


Mr. Keith was anxious to learn the extent of the rights of his company
to remain and trade in the country. It would seem, from the
whole history of these companies, that they felt their rights in the
country to be but temporary, that they were trespassers upon American
interests, and shaped all their arrangements accordingly.


It is an admitted historical fact that, while the Northwest Fur
Company of Montreal was extending its trade across the Rocky
Mountains and supplanting the American Pacific Fur Company of Mr.
Astor, the Hudson’s Bay Company, with the assistance of Lord Selkirk’s
Red River settlement, was cutting off their communication with
these western establishments, and that, in consequence of this Red
River interference with their trade, a deadly feud sprang up between
the rival companies, in which both parties enlisted all the men and
Indians over whom they had any influence, and frequently met in
drunken and deadly strife, till they had quite destroyed all profits in
their trade, and rendered the Indians hostile alike to friend and foe of
the white race. So that, in 1821, the British Parliament was compelled
to notice their proceedings, and, on the 2d of July, 1821, in an act bearing
date as above, says of them:—


“Whereas, the competition in the fur trade between the governor
and company of adventurers of England trading into Hudson’s Bay,
and certain associations of persons trading under the name of the Northwest
Company of Montreal, has been found, for some years past, to be
productive of great inconvenience and loss, not only to the said company
and association, but to the said trade in general, and also of great
injury to the native Indians, and of other persons subjects of his
Majesty; and whereas, the animosities and feuds arising from such competition
have also, for some years past, kept the interior of America, to
the northward and westward of the provinces of Upper and Lower
Canada, and of the Territories of the United States of America, in a
state of continual disturbance; and whereas, many breaches of the peace
and violence extending to the loss of lives and considerable destruction
of property have continually occurred therein,” etc. (See Greenhow’s
History of Oregon, p. 467.)


The broad policy of British fur traders is here stated in plain language
by their own government in a manner not to be mistaken. Their[Pg 23]
influence upon the Indians was injurious. Their policy toward each
other was war and destruction to all opponents. The life and property
of an opposing trader must not come in competition with the
profits of their trade with Indians in any country.


How absurd it is for our government to spend millions of dollars to
form treaties with Indians who are constantly visited by these foreign
Indian traders and teachers, emissaries of a foreign power, who never
breathed an honest breath or spoke a truthful word! Feeble and insignificant
as they were, from 1813 to 1821 the whole Indian country of
North America fell under their blighting and withering influence.
Divided as they were, they were able to crush all honest competition,
and combine in deadly combat against their own countrymen for the
supremacy of the Indian trade. Have they lost their power and influence
by uniting the elements of opposition in one vast fur monopoly?
Nay, verily, as we shall see.


To gain a correct understanding of the foreign policy relative to the
western portion of our country, it will be necessary to refer to the
early history of the two fur companies, and trace their connection with
France and England, which, notwithstanding the English government
had given up the country to France in 1696 in the treaty of Ryswick,
and no reservation was made on account of the Hudson’s Bay Company—as
they did Oregon to the United States in the treaty of Ghent,
in 1815, and made no reservation on account of the Northwest Fur
Company—still the Hudson’s Bay Company held on to a single post,
called Albany, on the southwest part of James Bay, for twenty-six
years, as the Northwest and Hudson’s Bay fur companies did to
Astoria and Oregon for forty-nine years.


In the wording of the treaty of Utrecht, in 1714, in which the country
was given back to England by France, there is one proviso that is not
to be overlooked, viz.: “It is, however, provided, that it may be entirely
free for the company of Quebec, and all others the subjects of the most
Christian king whatsoever, to go, by land or by sea, whithersoever they
please, out of the lands of the said bay, together with all their goods,
merchandise, arms, and effects, of what nature or condition soever, except
such things as are above reserved in this article,” etc., the exceptions
referring to forts, cannon, and permanent war materials.


This French stipulation in the treaty of Utrecht, in 1714, is repeated
by the English diplomatist upon the Americans, in the third article of
the treaty of June 15, 1846, forming the basis of the claim urged
against our government in the treaty of 1864.


In the treaty stipulations between France and England in 1714, the
commercial rights of the French company of Quebec were secured to[Pg 24]
them. From that time forward, the aggressive and oppressive policy
of the British Hudson’s Bay Company was brought into collision, not
only with the French Northwest Fur Company, but with the United
States and all American fur companies and missionary and commercial
enterprises coming within their fur-trade influence.


It will be remembered that the Hudson’s Bay Company, who claim
their existence and privileges from the charter of Charles II., as early
as 1670, had, in forty-four years’ time, only established (as Mr. Fitzgerald
says) “four or five insignificant forts on the shores of Hudson’s
Bay to carry on a trade in furs with those Indians who resorted
thither;” while the French, for many years previous, had carried on an
active trade with the Indians, and had explored the country and
extended their posts up to the shores of the Saskatchewan, and over
the Rocky Mountains, on to the waters of the Columbia. The French
carried on the traffic by way of the St. Lawrence and the lakes to
Fort William, on Lake Superior, and through the Lake of the Woods
into Lake Winnipeg, or further south along the plains, crossing the
course of the Red River; this being the direct and only line of posts
kept up by the French Northwest Company, by which their food,
goods, and furs were transported. The Hudson’s Bay Company carried
theirs by way of Hudson’s Straits, around the coast of Labrador. In
order to destroy and cut off as much as possible the trade of this
Northwest Company, Lord Selkirk, in 1811-12, became a shareholder,
and was allowed to claim, through the directors of the company,
sixteen thousand square miles of territory in the Red River country,
for the professed purpose of colonization.


This colony was planted directly in the line of the fur traffic of the
Northwest Company, against which the Hudson’s Bay Company had
encouraged and carried on the most bitter hostility, enlisting both
men and Indians in a deadly feud between the two rival companies.


Our English writer remarks on page 57: “To those who had read
the mutual recriminations that had been bandied between these two
bodies, it was a strange sight to see the names of Messrs. McGillivray
and Edward Ellice associated with that of the Hudson’s Bay Company,—to
see men going hand-in-hand who had openly accused one
another of the foulest crimes, of wholesale robbery, of allowing their
servants to instigate the Indian tribes to MURDER the servants of their
rivals,—this was a strange sight. And to see gentlemen who had
publicly denied the validity of the company’s charter, who had taken
the opinion of the leading counsel of the day against it, who had tried
every means, lawful and unlawful, to overthrow it, to see these same
men range themselves under its protection, and, asserting all that they[Pg 25]
had before denied, proclaim its validity as soon as they were admitted
to share its advantages; who, without its pale, asserted the rights of
British subjects against its monopoly, and, within its pale, asserted its
monopoly against the rights of British subjects,—this, too, was a strange
sight. Yet to all this did the Hudson’s Bay Company submit, rather
than subject their charter and their claims to the investigation of a
court of law.”


The Hudson’s Bay Company, one hundred and fifty years from the
date of its charter, asserted its right to the country, and, by virtue of
the privileges conferred in that charter, seized the supplies and goods
of the Northwest French Canadian Company, and confiscated them
to its own use. This resulted in a deadly war between the two companies,
and was carried on, neither party applying to the courts of the
mother country for a settlement of their difficulties; in fact, as has been
shown by reference to the charter of the Hudson’s Bay Company, they
had no legal rights, because none were in existence at the date of their
charter; but, from the maneuvering of the company and the plausible
efforts of Lord Selkirk to colonize, civilize, and settle the Red River
country, they entered into his schemes, in order to crush the rival
company and secure the whole country to themselves. It is unnecessary
to detail any accounts of the horrid murders and infamous transactions
that were put on foot and perpetrated by these two companies.
After a furious contention, carried on for several years, “they bribed
rivals whom they could not defeat, and the two companies united and
agreed to carry on the fur trade together, to the exclusion of all others.”


The Selkirk settlement was soon made to feel the withering influence
of the company that had located it in the country for a specific purpose,
Neither, however, was there any compromise till its inhabitants
had been driven from their homes, its Governor (Semple) and seventeen
of his followers killed. Then a compromise was effected between
the rival companies, and they were united by an act of Parliament,
under the title of Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company, in 1821,—a
license given to Messrs. William and Simon McGillivray, of the Northwest
Company, and Edward Ellice, of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
These corporate members and their associates “were to share the
profits arising from the fur trade, not only from the Indian territories,
but also from the Hudson’s Bay Company’s proper territories of Rupert’s
Land.” The privileges of this company were limited to seven
years. This carried them forward to 1828, in which year their license
(called a charter) was renewed for ten years.


Our Indian missionary and American history commences in 1832,
six years before this combined Northwest and Hudson’s Bay Com[Pg 26]pany’s
license of exclusive privileges to trade in British Indian Territory,
and, jointly, in the Oregon Territory, would expire. Our
English historian and Sir Edward Belcher are both mistaken when
they attribute to the company the asking for, or in any way encouraging,
the American missionaries to come to the country. This was an
event wholly unknown to them, and brought about by the Indians
themselves, by sending a delegation of four of their number to St.
Louis, in 1832, to ask of the American people a religious teacher. Lee,
Parker, and Whitman heard the request, and volunteered to make the
effort to establish missions among them.


These missionaries all came across the Rocky Mountains unasked
and uninvited by any one in the service of that company.




[Pg 27]


CHAPTER III.


English Hudson’s Bay effort to secure Oregon.—British claim to Oregon.—Dr.
McLaughlin’s relation to the company.—Treatment of Red River settlers.—A
mistake.—Sir Edward Belcher.—Duplicity of the Hudson’s Bay Company.—A noble
man.—An Englishman’s opinion of the Hudson’s Bay Company.—Sir James
Douglas’s testimony.—J. Ross Browne.—Duty of an historian.—Cause and effect.


Since commencing this work we have, by the kindness of friends
who have taken a deep interest in all that relates to this country, been
furnished with many valuable and important statements, documents,
pamphlets, papers, and books, all relating to its early history.


Of the whole catalogue, the most valuable information is contained
in a work entitled “An Examination of the Charter and Proceedings
of the Hudson’s Bay Company, with Reference to the Grant of Vancouver’s
Island. By James Edward Fitzgerald. London.” Published
in 1849.


The author of this book, though not having the personal knowledge
of the company, the Indians, and the country about which he writes
requisite to a complete history, has shown a correctness of statistical
facts, a comprehensive knowledge of his subject, an enlarged view of
the British colonial system, and a correct idea of the debasing practices
and utterly false positions of the Hudson’s Bay Company not found
in any other writer.


Up to the time that this book of 293 pages fell into my hands, I did
not know that any writer entertained similar views with myself in
relation to this monstrous imposition upon the British and American
people.


Mr. Fitzgerald has fortified his statements by his knowledge of the
English people, their laws and usages, and the casual outcroppings of
a system of unparalleled selfishness and despotism, carried on under
the guise of a Christian commercial company, whose professed object
was to extend commerce, and civilize and christianize the savage tribes
of North America, yet who have invariably held up their Christian
chartered privileges for the sole purpose of carrying on the most degrading
and inhuman practices with not only the savages, but with
all civilized and Christian men who have attempted to expose or even
investigate their conduct.


As we proceed with our history, we feel confident that we shall be[Pg 28]
able to enlighten our readers on many dark subjects and transactions,
and to fully prove every statement we have made, or may yet make.
Mr. Fitzgerald has given us clearly and truthfully the English side of
our history as connected with this Hudson’s Bay Company. The
American part of it the writer is gathering up, and, in giving it to the
public, will discard every statement that does not bear the impress of
truth.


The reader will notice that our subject is extensive, that England
and America, commerce and Christianity, civilization and savagism,
are all involved and interested in it, and that Oregon, California, and
British and Russian America have all participated in it during the
past and present century; that we are tracing cause and effect and
bringing to light influences that, while producing their legitimate results,
were strange and unaccountable, because always kept under the
selfish and unscrupulous policy of this English corporation of fur
traders.


By referring to the charter of the Hudson’s Bay Company, we find
that it was given by Charles II., in 1670, granting to the “governor
and company and their successors the exclusive right to trade, fish, and
hunt in the waters, bays, rivers, lakes, and creeks entering into Hudson’s
Straits, together with all the lands and territories not already occupied
or granted to any of the king’s subjects, or possessed by the subjects
of any other Christian prince or State.”


Forty years previous to the giving of this charter by Charles II., of
England, Louis XIII., of France, gave a charter to a French company,
who occupied the country called Acadia, or New France.


In 1632, Charles I., of England, resigned to Louis XIII., of France,
the sovereignty of the country then called Acadia, or New France.


Forty years after Louis XIII., of France, had given his charter, and
thirty-eight years after Charles I., of England, had given up his right
to the country, Charles II., of England, imitating the example of him
who wished to give the world and all its glory to obtain the worship
of the Saviour of mankind, gave to the Hudson’s Bay Company
what he had not the shadow of a title to, as in the treaty of Ryswick,
in 1697, twenty-seven years after this charter of the Hudson’s
Bay Company had been given, the whole country was confirmed to
France, and no reservation made on account of the Hudson’s Bay
Company.


Mr. Fitzgerald, on his 12th page, says: “It has often been asserted,
and is to a great extent believed, because there is very little general
information on this subject, that the claim which Great Britain made
to the Oregon Territory was dependent upon, or, at any rate, strength[Pg 29]ened
by, the settlement of the Hudson’s Bay Company on the Columbia
River.


“Those who hold such an opinion will be surprised to learn that there
are many, and they well acquainted with the country itself, who assert
that the conduct and policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company in the Oregon
Territory formed the chief part of the title which the United
States had to the country, which was gratuitously given to her by the
settlement of the boundary. What the United States owe to the company
for its policy on the west side of the Rocky Mountains is a
question to which the English public will some day demand a satisfactory
answer.


“Dr. McLaughlin was formerly an agent in the Northwest Fur
Company of Montreal; he was one of the most enterprising and active
in conducting the war between that association and the Hudson’s Bay
Company. In the year 1821, when the rival companies united, Dr.
McLaughlin became a factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company. But his
allegiance does not appear to have been disposed of along with his
interests, and his sympathy with any thing other than British, seems
to have done justice to his birth and education, which were those of a
French Canadian. This gentleman was appointed governor of all the
country west of the Rocky Mountains, and is accused, by those who
have been in that country, of having uniformly encouraged the emigration
of settlers from the United States, and of having discouraged that
of British subjects. While the company in this country (England)
were asserting that their settlements on the Columbia River were giving
validity to the claim of Great Britain to the Oregon Territory, it appears
that their chief officer on the spot was doing all in his power to
facilitate the operations of those whose whole object it was to annihilate
that claim altogether.”


Mr. Fitzgerald has given us in the above statement an important
fact, and one that reveals to an American the deep-laid schemes of the
English government, which, by the influence of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
sought to secure the Oregon Territory to itself. He also explains
the conduct of Dr. McLaughlin in his treatment of emigrants, as well
as the relation he sustained to that company. While, as Americans,
we can admire and applaud the conduct of a noble and generous “Canadian-born”
citizen, we at the same time can see the low, debasing, and
mean spirit of the Englishman, as manifested in the attempt to deprive
the American Republic of its rightful domain.


We shall have occasion to refer to the bringing into Oregon of the
Red River settlers, and as the result of that move, the unparalleled
effort of Dr. Whitman to defeat the British designs upon the country.


[Pg 30]Mr. Fitzgerald explains that matter so well, that we could not do
justice to the truth of history not to quote him. He says, on the 14th
page of his work: “There is one story told, about which it is right that
the truth should be ascertained. It is said that a number of half-breeds
from the Red River settlement were, in the year of 1841-2, induced by
the company’s officers to undertake a journey entirely across the continent,
with the object of becoming settlers on the Columbia River.
It appears that a number went, but on arriving in the country, so far
from finding any of the promised encouragement, the treatment they
received from Dr. McLaughlin was such, that, after having been nearly
starved under the paternal care of that gentleman, they all went over
to the American settlement in the Wallamet Valley.”


This statement, while it affirms an important fact, gives a false impression
as regards Dr. McLaughlin. He, to our certain knowledge,
extended to the Red River settlers every facility within his power, and
all of those emigrants to this day speak of his kindness in the highest
terms. But not so of other leading or controlling members, who really
represented the English part and policy of that company. Those settlers
complained of the domineering and tyrannical treatment of their
English overseers, which was the cause of their leaving what they supposed
would eventually be the English part of Oregon Territory.
They also became sensible that the Hudson’s Bay Company in Oregon
was a different concern from the Hudson’s Bay Company in Rupert’s
Land; that, however small their privileges were there, they were less
on Puget Sound; and being near an American settlement, they naturally
sought its advantages and protection.


Mr. Fitzgerald informs us that “these emigrants became citizens of
the United States, and it is further said were the first to memorialize
Congress to extend the power of the United States over the Oregon
Territory. For the truth of these statements we do not, of course vouch,
but we do say they demand inquiry.”


This statement of Mr. Fitzgerald entitles him to be considered a candid
and fair writer, and one who is seeking for truth in reference to the
subject he is investigating. He has naturally imbibed the feelings of
an Englishman against Dr. McLaughlin, under the strong effort made
by the English Hudson’s Bay Company to suppress and supersede the
French Canadian influence in it.


He says, on page 15: “Dr. McLaughlin’s policy was so manifestly
American that it is openly canvassed in a book written by Mr. Dunn,
one of the servants of the company, and written for the purpose of
praising their system and policy.”


Sir Edward Belcher also alludes to this policy. He says: “Some few[Pg 31]
years since, the company determined on forming settlements on the rich
lands situated on the Wallamet and other rivers, and for providing for
their retired servants, by allotting them farms, and further aiding them
by supplies of cattle, etc. That on the Wallamet was a field too inviting
for missionary enthusiasm to overlook, but instead of selecting a
British subject to afford them spiritual assistance, recourse was had to
Americans, a course pregnant with evil consequences, and particularly
in the political squabble pending, as will be seen by the result. No
sooner had the American and his allies fairly squatted (which they
deem taking possession of the country), than they invited their brethren
to join them, and called on the American government for laws and
protection.”


The American reader will smile at Sir Edward’s little fling at the
squatters in Oregon. He asserts a great truth in the same sentence
that he utters a positive falsehood. No member of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, nor the whole company together, ever encouraged a single
American missionary to come to the country. Revs. Lee and Parker
and Dr. Whitman came without their invitation or aid. They were
entirely independent of the company, and were only suffered to remain,
the company not daring to drive them from the country on their
first arrival, as they all held the protection of the American government,
as Indian teachers, under the great seal of the Secretary of War.
This English fling at their own company is evidence of a jealousy
existing which could not be satisfied short of the utter extermination
of all American influence on this coast, and is further illustrated by
this same Sir Edward Belcher, in contrasting the treatment of Captain
Wilkes and his party with that of his own. He says (vol. 1, p. 297):
“The attention of the chief to myself and those immediately about
me, particularly in sending down fresh supplies, previous to my arrival,
I feel fully grateful for; but I can not conceal my disappointment at
the want of accommodation exhibited toward the crews of the vessels
under my command in a British possession.” We old Oregonians
are amused at Sir Edward’s ignorance of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s
treatment of the crews of vessels, and servants of the company. We
all know his crew were allowed to associate freely with the native
women in the country and to distribute their rations of rum, and any
other supplies they might have, without any remonstrance from the
company. Sir Edward continues: “We certainly were not distressed,
nor was it imperatively necessary that fresh beef and vegetables should
be supplied, or I should have made a formal demand. But as regarded
those who might come after, and not improbably myself among the
number, I inquired in direct terms what facilities her Majesty’s ship[Pg 32]
of war might expect, in the event of touching at this port for bullocks,
flour, vegetables, etc. I certainly was extremely surprised at the
reply that they were not in a condition to supply. As any observation
here would be useless, and I well knew this point could be readily
settled where authority could be referred to, I let the matter rest. But
having been invited to inspect the farm and dairy, and been informed
of the quantity of grain, and the means of furnishing flour, and notwithstanding
the profusion of cattle and potatoes, no offer having been
made for our crew, I regretted that I had been led into the acceptance
of private supplies; although, at that time, the other officers of the
establishment had told my officers that supplies would of course be
sent down.”


Mr. Fitzgerald says “the American policy of the Hudson’s Bay
Company would seem, from the above facts, to be more than a matter
of suspicion,” while we Americans are only disposed to regard them
as a part of the duplicity of that company in their effort to deceive
their own countrymen as to the value of the country over which they
had ruled so long.


They had been too successful in deceiving all American writers to
allow their own countrymen to understand their secret policy. Sir
Edward Belcher and our English historian were equally misled in
relation to the American policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company. It
is true that Dr. McLaughlin, though he was a French Canadian subject,
had not lost his American soul. The British iron had not driven
the last noble sentiment of humanity from his heart, nor his connection
with that polluted corporation of iniquity which pervades half the continent
of North America; for when he found that this Hudson’s Bay
Company was utterly lost to humanity, he tells them to their teeth:
“Gentlemen, I will serve you no longer.”


No true American historian will allow, without contradiction, that
corrupt company to hand down to future infamy the name of a noble
and generous servant, because their infamous policy was defeated by
the establishment of the American missions in the country. Dr.
McLaughlin did all that he could, honorably, to comply with their
“system of iniquity.”


Our English author says, on page 19, in reference to the conduct
of the company: “They are convictions which have strengthened and
deepened at every step of the inquiry; convictions that the Hudson’s
Bay Company has entailed misery and destruction upon thousands
throughout the country which is withering under its curse; that it
has cramped and crippled the energies and enterprise of England,
which might have found occupation in the directions from which they[Pg 33]
are now excluded; that it has stopped the extension of civilization,
and has excluded the light of religious truth; that it has alienated the
hearts of all under its oppression, and made them hostile to their country;
above all, that the whole and entire fabric is built upon utterly
false and fictitious grounds; that it has not one shadow of reality in
law or in justice; that there is not the smallest legal authority for any
one of the rights which this corporation claims. It is this conviction
which has urged me to submit the statements and arguments contained
in the following pages to the consideration of the public; and to
arraign before that tribunal, from which in these days there is no escape,—the
judgment of public opinion,—a corporation who, under the
authority of a charter which is invalid in law, hold a monopoly in
commerce, and exercise a despotism in government, and have so used
that monopoly and wielded that power as to shut up the earth from the
knowledge of man, and man from the knowledge of God.”


With the statements and convictions of this English author before
us, we will add a statement of Sir James Douglas, given in answer to
interrogatory 11 in the case of Hudson’s Bay Company’s Claim v.
United States, to give the reader a better idea of the power and
influence of that company in Oregon, in 1846.


Sir James says: “The Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company had fifty-five
officers and five hundred and thirteen articled men. The company having
a large, active, and experienced force of servants in their employ,
and holding establishments judiciously situated in the most favorable
portions for trade, forming, as it were, a net-work of posts aiding and
supporting each other, possessed an extraordinary influence with the
natives, and in 1846 practically enjoyed a monopoly of the fur trade
in the country west of the Rocky Mountains, north and south of the
forty-ninth parallel of latitude. The profits of their trade,” says this
witness, “from 1841 to 1846 were at least seven thousand pounds sterling
annually.”


The fifty-five officers and five hundred and thirteen articled men of
the company, with their eight hundred half-breeds, and the Indians
they could command by the judicious position of their respective
posts, were deemed by them sufficient security for their trade, and a
substantial reason why they should not give up the country without
making another direct effort to drive the missionary and American settlements
from it, notwithstanding all their pretension to join in the
provisional government organized by the pioneer Americans in 1843.


The reader is referred to the discussion on the liquor question
between Judge Sir James Douglas and Mr. Samuel Parker, as found in
the tenth and eleventh numbers, first volume, of the Spectator, pub[Pg 34]lished
June 11 and 25, 1845, and in another chapter of this work, and
requested to keep all these facts before the mind, so as not to lose
sight of the commanding influence, or, in other words, the commander,
when we enter upon the preliminary and immediate causes of the
Whitman massacre, and the Indian war that followed.


We have before us the original depositions in reference to the facts
stated, and also the attempt to excuse the principal actors in that horrible
transaction, as given by Brouillet in justification of the course
pursued by the Jesuit missionaries.


We have also the superficial and bombastic report of J. Ross Browne,
special agent of the Treasury Department, dated December 4, 1857,
containing a copy of this Jesuit history of the murder of Dr. Whitman.
In his remarks previous to giving Brouillet’s history, he says:
“In view of the fact, however, that objections might be made to any
testimony coming from the citizens of the Territories, and believing
also that it is the duty of a public agent to present, as far as practicable,
unprejudiced statements, I did not permit myself to be governed
by any representations unsupported by reliable historical data.” —— “The
fact also is shown that, as far back as 1835, the Indians
west of the Rocky Mountains protested against the taking away of
their lands by the white race. That this was one of the alleged causes
of the murder of Dr. Whitman and family.”


There are sixty-six pages in this report. Twelve of them are Mr.
Browne’s, one page of official acknowledgment, and fifty-three from
the parties implicated.


The statements of Mr. Browne, of Mr. Fitzgerald, and the oath of Mr.
Douglas, are sufficient to show the ignorance, stupidity, and falsehood
incorporated in his report, were there no other historical facts to convict
him of ignorance in allowing such representations to be made in
an official document. In the proper place we will bring this report
into our history, with both sides of the question.


Were we to express an opinion of Mr. J. Ross Browne’s report, with
our personal knowledge of what he pretends to relate, we would say
he ignored the people, the country, and the government whose agent
he claimed to be, and was reporting for the special benefit of the
Roman religion and British government, as these are extensively
quoted as historical data from which his report and conclusions are
drawn.


The reader will understand our main object to be to give a full history
of all influences and prominent transactions and events that have
occurred in Oregon from 1792 to 1849.


To understand cause and effect, and the true history of the country,[Pg 35]
we have to examine the facts as connected with actions, and also to
trace back the history of the actors, in order to see how far they may
be made responsible for the result of their actions.


Oregon, from the time of its discovery, has been a field where all
the influences of which we are writing have been living, active influences;
and they are by no means inactive or dead at the present time.
Some of them are more active now than they were in 1836.


A full knowledge of the past will enable us to guard the present and
the future. Our English writer has gathered his facts and drawn his
conclusions in London. We, upon this, our western coast, are witnesses
of the cause and results of his conclusions, and any statement he
makes we feel ourselves abundantly able to corroborate or correct.


As we proceed with our history we shall have frequent occasion to
quote Mr. Fitzgerald, as the best English evidence, in favor of our
American statements or positions. Since writing the above we have
noticed a lengthy article in the Edinburgh Westminster Review for
July, 1867, giving a concise history of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
under the heading, “The Last Great Monopoly.” In that article the
author has shown extensive historical knowledge of the operations and
influences of that monopoly in that portion of our continent over
which they have held exclusive control.


He regards them as a blight upon the country, and an “incubus”
to be removed by national legislation. If our work had been published,
we should conclude that he must have drawn many of his facts
from our own observations. But this is not the case; hence the value
to us of his corroboration of the facts we affirm from personal knowledge.




[Pg 36]


CHAPTER IV.


Care of Great Britain for her fur companies.—Columbia Fur Company.—Astor’s second
fur company.—Major Pilcher’s fur company.—Loss of the ship Isabel.—Captain
Bonneville’s expedition.—Cause of his failure.—Captain Wyeth’s, 1832.—Indians
ask for missionaries in 1833.—Methodist Mission.—Fort Hall established.—Fort
Boise.


By reference to the act of the British Parliament of June 2, 1821,
it will be seen that the affairs of the North American British Fur companies
were in a fair way to defeat all British interests in America. To
suppress these feuds among their own people became a matter of
national importance and policy.


To accomplish so desirable an object, Parliament, in the act above
referred to, extended the civil and criminal jurisdiction of Canada over
all the territories of the Hudson’s Bay Company; in the thirteenth
article of the act, and in the fourteenth, repealed all that was before
taken away from that company, and confirmed absolutely all the rights
supposed to have been given by the original charter, as follows:—


Section 14. “And be it further enacted, that nothing in this act contained
shall be taken or construed to affect any right or privilege,
authority or jurisdiction, which the governor and company of adventurers
trading to Hudson’s Bay are by law entitled to claim and exercise
under their charter; but that all such rights, privileges, authorities,
and jurisdictions, shall remain in as full force, virtue, and effect, as if
this act had never been made; any thing in this act to the contrary
notwithstanding.”


This act, however just it may have been considered, certainly embodied
a large amount of national prejudice against the people of
French or Canadian birth, in exempting the territory of the Hudson’s
Bay Company from its influence. It had a twofold effect: the one, to
check feuds among British subjects; the other, to unite them in one vast
Indian monopoly,—to license this united company to go forward with
their Indian political arrangements unmolested,—to punish and dispose
of all intruders upon their supposed, or asserted rights, as they might
deem for the interest of their trade, which, according to the charter
of Charles II., bearing date May 2, 1670, they were “at all times hereafter
to be personable and capable in law, to have, purchase, receive,
possess, enjoy, and retain lands, rents, privileges, liberties, jurisdiction,[Pg 37]
franchises, and hereditaments of what kind, nature, or quality soever
they be, to them and their successors.”


The whole trade, fisheries, navigation, minerals, etc., of the countries,
are granted to the company exclusively; all other of the king’s subjects
being forbidden to visit, hunt, frequent, trade, traffic, or adventure
therein, under heavy penalties; and the company is moreover empowered
to send ships, and to build fortifications for the defense of its
possessions, as well as to make war or peace with all nations or peoples
not Christian, inhabiting those territories, which are declared to be hence-forth
reckoned and reputed as one of his Majesty’s plantations or colonies
in America, called Rupert’s Land.


It will be remembered that as early as 1818, a question arose between
the United States and Great Britain, as to which was the rightful owner
of the Oregon country. The Northwest Fur Company were the only
subjects of Great Britain that had competed with the American fur
companies in the discovery or trade of the country. To ignore that
company altogether would weaken the British claim to Oregon by right
of prior discovery and occupancy. Hence, by uniting the two companies
under an ancient English charter, combining their united capital and
numerical strength, discarding all doubtful subjects, and confirming the
absolute power of their own British company, they could easily secure
Oregon as British territory. The wisdom and effect of this policy will
be developed as we proceed.


By the third article of the convention between the United States and
Great Britain, signed October 20, 1818, “it is agreed that any country
that may be claimed by either party on the northwest coast of America,
westward of the Stony Mountains, shall, together with its harbors, bays,
and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within the same, be free
and open for the term of ten years from the date of the signature of the
present convention, to the vessels, citizens, and subjects of the two
powers; it being well understood that this agreement is not to be construed
to the prejudice of any claim which either of the two high contracting
parties may have to any part of said country, nor shall it be
taken to affect the claims of any other power or state to any part of the
said country; the only object of the high contracting parties, in that
respect, being to prevent disputes and differences among themselves.”


This convention secured at that time the Northwest Fur Company’s
existence in the country, by the act uniting the two British fur companies
three years later. In 1821, the privileges here secured were transferred
and confirmed to the Hudson’s Bay Company, who at once took the
most active and efficient measures to guard against any future competition,
by assessing and setting apart ten per cent. on their capital stock,[Pg 38]
which was counted at £200,000, as a sinking fund for the special purpose
of opposing all competition in the fur trade by land or water.


The convention above referred to shows that Great Britain held a
watchful eye over her fur traders in this distant country; and the act of
her Parliament in 1821, that she was disposed, in a direct manner, to
secure to her own people, as traders, the absolute sovereignty of the
country. While Great Britain was protecting and strengthening her
fur traders in North America, the American government was simply
asserting its prior rights to the Oregon country, founded upon its
discovery and subsequent purchase in what is termed the Louisiana
purchase, from France; the treaties and conventions only serving to
encourage and strengthen the British claim, while they used their
influence, capital, and power against all American competition and settlement
in the country.


In 1821, as was to be expected by the union of the two great British
fur companies, under the license of the British Parliament, and absolute
charter of Charles II., many of the servants, and especially such as
were found favorable to the American fur traders, or violently opposed
to the Hudson’s Bay Company, were thrown out of employment. They
naturally sought to continue their wild Indian trade and habits, and
formed a company under the name of the Columbia Fur Company, extending
their operations up the Mississippi, Missouri, and Yellowstone
rivers. In 1826, they transferred their interests to Astor’s second North
American Fur Company, of which John Jacob Astor was the head.
This company appears to have been commenced or organized in connection
with Mr. W. H. Ashley, in 1823, and under his direction extended
its trade to the south and west, along the Platte River, and passed into
the Rocky Mountains as far as Green River, being the first to discover
its sources, making a successful trading expedition that year.


In 1824, another expedition under Mr. Ashley explored the Rocky
Mountains as far south as Salt Lake, and built a fort on the borders of
a small lake, to which he gave his own name. In 1826, Mr. Ashley transported
a 6-pound cannon to his establishment near Salt Lake, through
what has since been termed Fremont’s, or the south pass of the Rocky
Mountains, in a wagon. This establishment had in its employ over
one hundred men, and was remarkably successful and profitable to the
partners.


In 1826, Mr. Ashley sold all his interest to the Rocky Mountain Fur
Company, composed of Smith, Jackson, and Subleth, who extended
their trade into California, and as far north as the Umpqua River, in
Oregon; where Smith and his party were met by a professedly friendly
party of Indians, who murdered his men, seized his furs, and delivered[Pg 39]
them to a party of men sent by the Hudson’s Bay Company, under Mr.
John McLeod and Thomas McKay, to receive the furs and pay the Indians
for their services—as learned by the writer from eye-witnesses.


During this same year, 1827, Major Pilcher, with forty-five men, crossed
the Rocky Mountains, and, in 1828-9, traversed the western portion of
them as far north as Fort Colville. This fort had been established, and
farming operations commenced, in 1825. This party of Major Pilcher
were all cut off but two men, besides himself; his furs, as stated by
himself to the writer, found their way into the forts of the Hudson’s
Bay Company.


In 1828, the brig Owyhee, Captain Demenses, and the schooner Cowrey,
Captain Thompson, entered and remained nearly a year in the Columbia
River, trading with the Indians. They were owned in Boston.


In 1830, the British ship Isabel was lost on Sand Island—the second
known to have been wrecked on the bar, or in attempting to enter the
river. The crew were all saved, and it was the opinion of the company
at Vancouver that, had the crew remained with the ship, no great loss
would have been sustained.


In 1832, Captain Bonneville, of the United States army, on furlough,
started, with over one hundred men, on an expedition into the Rocky
Mountains. He crossed the mountains, and reached the Wallawalla Valley,
on the Columbia River; but, through the influence of the Hudson’s
Bay Company, his men were nearly all induced to leave him, so that
he was obliged to abandon his property, and his expedition was a total
failure, except the little scientific knowledge of the country gained by it.


To charge the failure of Captain Bonneville directly to the Hudson’s
Bay Company would not be strictly true; but their great influence over
the Indians was sufficient to prevent them from furnishing his party
with food or horses, while he was within reach of their forts. Hence,
many of his men became dissatisfied, and left him, till his party became
too weak to effect their return to the States with their valuable furs
and property. These eventually were lost, or fell into the hands of the
Indians, and through them, his furs reached the Hudson’s Bay traders’
establishments.


This same year, 1832, Captain Nathaniel Wyeth, of Massachusetts,
started on an exploring expedition to the mouth of the Columbia River,
with a view of establishing a permanent trade in the Oregon country.
He traveled across the continent and gathered all the information requisite
for the undertaking, and returned to Boston in 1833; and in
1834, having completed his arrangements, chartered the brig May
Dacre, and dispatched her with his own, and the goods of the Methodist
Mission, for the Columbia River.


[Pg 40]The same year, some Flathead Indians, from a tribe in the midst of
the Rocky Mountains, went to St. Louis, and, through Mr. Catlin, an
American artist, made known their object, which was to know something
more of the white man’s God and religion. Through the representations
of these Indians, the Methodist Episcopal Society in the United
States established their missions in Oregon, and the American Board
sent their missionaries among the Nez Percés, which, as will be seen,
was the commencement of the permanent settlement of the country.
It appears from the facts, briefly stated, that there had been eleven different
trading expeditions and companies, besides the Northwest and
Hudson’s Bay companies, that had sought for wealth by making fur-trading
establishments in Oregon. All of them, including the Northwest
and Hudson’s Bay companies, have retired from it, but the American
missionaries are residents of the country, and their influence and
labors are felt, notwithstanding other influences have partially supplanted
and destroyed the good impressions first made upon the natives
of the country by them. Still civilization, education, and religion, with
all the improvements of the age, are progressing, and the old pioneer
missionaries and settlers that were contemporary with them, with a
few exceptions, are foremost in every laudable effort to benefit the
present and rising generation.


In the month of March, 1833, a Japanese junk was wrecked near
Cape Flattery, in the then Territory of Oregon, and all on board, except
three men, were lost. Those three were received by Captain
McNeal on board the British ship Lama; taken to Vancouver, and
thence sent to England. Rev. Mr. Parker gives this, and another similar
wreck on the Sandwich Islands, as evidence of the origin of the
natives of those countries. But we give it for another object. The
three Japanese were taken to England, and, during their stay, learned
the English language, were sent back to Macao, and became the assistant
teachers of Mr. Gutzlaff, the English missionary at that place, and
were the means of opening their own country to missionary and commercial
relations with other nations.


Captain Wyeth, with Revs. Jason and Daniel Lee, Cyrus Shepard,
and P. L. Edwards, the first missionary party, together with Doctor
Nutall, a naturalist, and J. K. Townsend, an ornithologist, sent out by
a literary society in Philadelphia, all under the escort furnished by
Captain Wyeth, crossed the mountains and reached the plain formed
by the Portneuf and Snake rivers. At their junction Captain Wyeth
stopped, and established Fort Hall, while the missionaries and scientific
men of his party, in company with an Englishman by the name of
Captain Stewart, and a party of Hudson’s Bay traders, under the[Pg 41]
direction of Mr. McLeod and McKay, proceeded to Fort Nez Percés
(present name, Wallula). Thence they traveled in Hudson’s Bay
bateaux to Vancouver.


Captain Wyeth established his post on the Snake River, by erecting
a stockade of logs, and quarters for his men, and then proceeded to
the lower Columbia to receive his goods, which arrived in the May
Dacre, Captain Lambert, from Boston, about the time he reached Fort
William, on what is now known as Sauvies Island, a few miles below
the mouth of the Multnomah River, now called the Wallamet.


Rev. Mr. Lee and party made their first location about sixty miles
from the mouth of the Wallamet, near what is now called Wheatland,
ten miles below Salem.


Captain Wyeth received his goods, and commenced his trading
establishment, but found that, notwithstanding he was personally
treated by the principal officers of the Hudson’s Bay Company with
great courtesy, yet it was evident that every possible underhanded and
degrading device was practiced, both with the Indians and with his men,
to destroy, as much as was possible, the value and profits of his trade.
In the spring and summer of 1835 he supplied his Fort Hall establishment
with goods.


During the year 1835, the Hudson’s Bay Company erected a temporary
post about twelve miles up the Boise River, designed to counteract
and destroy as much as possible the American fur trade established
by Captain Wyeth, who continued his efforts less than three
years; and, having lost of the two hundred men who had been in his
employ one hundred and sixty (as stated to Rev. Samuel Parker), and
finding himself unable to compete with this powerful English company,
he accepted Dr. McLaughlin’s offer for his establishments, and
left the country in 1836.


In 1835, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
sent Rev. Samuel Parker and Dr. Marcus Whitman to explore the
Oregon country, with a view of establishing missions among the
Indians west of the Rocky Mountains.


These two missionaries reached the American rendezvous on Green
River, in company with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company’s traders,
under the direction of Captains Drips and Fitzpatrick. From the
American rendezvous Mr. Parker continued his explorations in company
with, and under the protection of the Nez Percé Indians, till he
reached old Fort Wallawalla, now called Wallula; thence he continued
in canoes to Vancouver, while Dr. Whitman returned to the United
States to procure associates to establish the Nez Percé mission.




[Pg 42]


CHAPTER V.


Extent and power of Hudson’s Bay Company.—Number of forts.—Location.—Policy.—Murder
of Mr. Black.—McKay.—Manner of dealing with Indians.—Commander of
fort kills an Indian.—Necessity of such a course.—Hudson’s Bay Company not
responsible for what their servants do.


Having briefly traced the operations of the two foreign fur companies
in Oregon, a knowledge of the location of their several trading
establishments will enable the reader to comprehend their power
and influence in the country.


Fort Umpqua was located in the extreme southwestern part of
Oregon, near the mouth of the river bearing that name. It was a
temporary stockade built of logs, overlooking a small farm in its immediate
vicinity, was generally occupied by a clerk and from four to
eight Frenchmen.


Fort George (Astoria) already described.


They had a farm and small establishment at the mouth of the
Cowlitz, and a more extensive farm some twenty-five miles up that
river.


Fort Vancouver,—a stockade, six miles above the mouth of the
Multnomah, or Wallamet River. This fort was the general depot for
the southwestern department, at which their goods for Indian trade
were landed, and their furs and peltries collected and shipped to
foreign markets. There was also a trading-house at Champoeg, some
thirty-five miles up the Wallamet River.


On the left bank of the Columbia River, near the 46° of north
latitude, stood Fort Nez Percés, called Wallawalla, now Wallula,—a
stockade, accidentally burned in 1841, and rebuilt with adobes in
1841-2.


On the left bank of the south branch of the Columbia, or Snake River,
at the junction of the Boise, was located Fort Boise, built formerly, in
1834, with poles; later, with adobes.


Continuing up Snake River to the junction of the Portneuf, on
its left bank we find Fort Hall, built by Captain Wyeth; a stockade
in 1834; rebuilt by the Hudson’s Bay Company, with adobes,
in 1838.


Thence up the Columbia, Fort Okanagon, at the mouth of Okan[Pg 43]agon
River, formerly a stockade, latterly a house or hut; and up the
Spokan some twenty miles, was the old Spokan Fort, built by Astor’s
Company, a stockade with solid bastions.


Continuing up the Columbia to Kettle Falls, and two miles above,
on the left bank is Fort Colville, formerly a stockade, still occupied by
the Hudson’s Bay Company.


Thence up the Columbia to the mouth of the Kootanie River, near
the forty-ninth parallel of latitude, is the trading establishment called
Kootanie House. Thence returning south, and ascending the Flathead
(Clark’s) and Kootanie rivers, into what is now Montana Territory, is,
or was, the hut called Flathead House. Still higher up on the Columbia
was a small establishment, called the boat encampment, or Mountain
House.


Entering the country by the Straits of Juan de Fuca and Puget
Sound, we find Fort Nasqualla, formerly a stockade. Proceeding up
Frazer River to near the forty-ninth parallel, upon the left or south
bank of the river is Fort Langley, an extensive stockade. Thence up
that river about ninety miles, half a mile below the mouth of the
Coquehalla, is Fort Hope, a stockade. On the right bank of the
Frazer, sixteen miles above, is Fort Yale, a trading-house.


Thence proceeding up the Frazer, and on to the waters of Thompson
River, is Fort Kamloops; still further north and east, extending into
New Caledonia, are Forts Alexander, William, Garey, and Abercrombie.


On the southeastern part of Vancouver Island is Fort Victoria,
formerly a stockade. On the north side of the island is Fort Rupert,
a stockade, still in good repair.


On the mainland, near Portland Channel, is Fort Simpson. At the
mouth of the Stiken River, on Dundas Island, was formerly Fort
Wrangle, a stockade. Recently the establishment has been removed
some sixty miles up the Stiken River, and called Fort Stiken.


This, as will be seen, gives the company twenty-three forts and five
trading-stations. In addition to these they had trading-parties extending
south to California, southeast to Fort Hall and into Utah and Arizona,
east into the Blackfoot country (Montana) and the Rocky Mountains,
and north into New Caledonia and along the northwestern watershed
of the Rocky Mountains.


They also had two steamers, the Beaver and Otter, to enter all the
bays, harbors, rivers, and inlets along the western coast of our country,
from Mexico on the south, to Russian America on the north, employing
fifty-five officers and five hundred and thirteen articled men,
all bound, under the strictest articles of agreement, to subserve the
interests of that company under all circumstances; being strictly for[Pg 44]bidden
to acquire any personal or real estate outside of their stipulated
pay as servants of the company, and were subject to such punishment
for deficiency of labor or neglect of duty as the officer in charge
might see fit to impose, having no appeal to any source for redress, as
the original charter of Charles II., confirmed by act of Parliament in
1821, clearly conferred on the company absolute control over the
country they occupied, and all in it.


As a matter of romance and adventure, many statements are made
of conflicts with Indians and with wild animals, all terminating favorably
to the interests of the company, confirming and strengthening
their absolute power over all their opponents; but as they do not
properly belong to a work of this character, they will be omitted,
except where they may be brought to illustrate a fact, or to prove the
principles and policy of the company.


As in the case of Mr. Black, a chief trader at Fort Kamloops, who
had offended an Indian, the Indian disguised his resentment, entered
the fort as a friend, and while Mr. Black was passing from the room in
which the Indian had been received, he was deliberately shot by him,
and fell dead. The Indian fled, and the fort was closed against the
tribe. Not a single article of trade or supplies was allowed to the
tribe till the murderer was given up, and hung by the company’s men,
when the fort was opened and trade resumed.


In another case, near the mouth of the Columbia, a trader by the
name of McKay was killed in a drunken row with the Indians at a
salmon fishery. A friendly Indian gave information at head-quarters,
when an expedition was fitted out and sent to the Indian camp. The
murderer, with a few other Indians, was found in a canoe, but escaped
to shore. They were fired at, and one woman was killed and others
wounded. Dr. McLaughlin, being in command of the party, informed
the Indians that if the murderer was not soon given up, he would punish
the tribe. They soon placed the murderer in the hands of the
party, who were satisfied of the guilt of the Indian, and at once hung
him, as an example of the punishment that would be inflicted upon
murderers of white men belonging to the company.


One other instance of daring and summary punishment is related as
having been inflicted by Mr. Douglas, while in charge of a fort in the
midst of a powerful tribe of Indians. A principal chief had killed one
of the company’s men. Mr. Douglas, learning that he was in a lodge
not far from the fort, boasting of his murderous exploit, armed himself,
went to the lodge, identified the murdering chief, and shot him
dead; then walked deliberately back to the fort.


A compliance with licensed parliamentary stipulations would have[Pg 45]
required the arrest of the murderers in all these cases, and the testimony
and criminals to be sent to Canada for conviction and execution.


These cases illustrate, whether just or otherwise, the absolute manner
of dealing with Indians by the company. The following chapter
gives us the particulars of an aggravated case of brutal murder of the
person in charge of one of their extreme northwestern forts by the
men under his charge.




[Pg 46]


CHAPTER VI


Murder of John McLaughlin, Jr.—Investigation by Sir George Simpson and Sir James
Douglas.


Very different was the course pursued by Sir George Simpson and
Mr. (now Sir James) Douglas in the case of conspiracy and murder of
John McLaughlin, Jr., at Fort Wrangle, near the southern boundary
of Russian America.


In this case, Sir George Simpson went into a partial examination of
the parties implicated, and reported that Dr. John McLaughlin, Jr.,
was killed by the men in self-defense. This report, from the known
hostility of Sir George to the father and son, was not satisfactory, and
Esquire Douglas was dispatched to Fort Wrangle, and procured the
following testimony, which, in justice to the murdered man and the
now deceased father, we will quote as copied from the original documents
by Rev. G. Hines.


Pierre Kanaquassee, one of the men employed in the establishment
at the time of the murder, and in whose testimony the gentlemen of the
company place the utmost reliance, gives the following narrative, in
answer to questions proposed by James Douglas, Esq., the magistrate
that examined him:—


Q. Where were you on the night of the murder of the late Mr. John
McLaughlin?


A. I was in my room, in the lower part of the main house, where I
lived with George Heron, in an apartment in the lower story, immediately
under the kitchen. My door opened into the passage which led
to the apartment of Mr. John McLaughlin in the second story.


Q. What occurred on the night of the murder?


A. I will tell you the whole story, to the best of my recollection.


A few days preceding the murder, five Indians from Tako, with letters
from Dr. Kennedy, arrived at the fort about midnight. The
watchmen, hearing the knocking, called Mr. John. When he got up,
he mustered a few hands to defend the gates, in case of any treacherous
attack from the Indians, whom they did not, as yet, know. They were
then admitted into the fort, delivered up their arms, according to custom,
and were lodged in a small room in the lower story of the main
house. A day or two after this, he beat, and put one of these Indians,
a native of Nop, in irons, as Peter was told, for having committed some[Pg 47]
theft in Tako. About eight o’clock of the evening of the 20th of April,
Mr. John gave liquor to the Indians, and made them drunk; after
which he called the white men, viz., Laperti, Pripe, Lulaire, Heroux,
Bellinger, Simon, Fleury, McPherson, Smith, and Antoine Kawanope.
During this time, Peter was in his own, which was the adjoining room,
lying awake in bed, and overheard all that passed. He heard Mr. John
say to McPherson, “Peter is not among us. Where is he?” McPherson
replied, that he was in bed, and he was sent for him by Mr. John.
Peter, in consequence, went into the room, and saw all the men seated in
a ring, on the floor, around a number of bottles standing within the
ring, and the Indians lying dead drunk on another part of the floor,
Mr. John himself was standing outside of the ring, and McPherson
placed himself on the opposite side of the ring; neither of them appeared
to be partaking of the festivities of the evening but were looking
on, and forcing the people to drink. Antoine Kawanope was seated
on his bed, apart from the other men, perfectly sober, as he told Peter
afterward. Mr. John had ordered him not to drink, observing, “You
are not to drink at this time, as I am going to die to-night, and you
will help me in what I am going to do.” On entering the room, Mr.
John told Peter to sit down with the other people, and ordered his servant,
Fleury, to give him a good dram, which he did, in a tin pan. Peter
could not drink the whole, and was threatened by Mr. John with violence
if he did not finish it. He succeeded in emptying the pan, by
allowing the liquor to run into the bosom of his shirt. Mr. John, in
doing this, did not appear to be angry, but in a half-playful mood.
Peter remained there about a quarter of an hour, during which time he
was careful not to drink too much, as a few hours previously Antoine
had called at his room and said, “My uncle, take care of yourself to-night;
the master is going to die.” Peter said, “Who is going to kill
him?” and Antoine said, “The Bluemen,” meaning the Kanakas, “are
going to kill him.” This, Peter thought, was likely to be the case, as the
men, some time before Christmas preceding, had agreed among themselves
to murder him, and had signed a paper, which McPherson drew
up, to that effect. Every one of the men of the place agreed to the commission
of this deed, Smith and Heron as well as the others. Peter’s
name was signed by McPherson, and he attested it by his cross. This
paper was signed in Urbaine’s house, where the men severally repaired
by stealth for the purpose, as Mr. John kept so vigilant a watch upon
them, that they were afraid he might suspect their intentions if they
were there in a body. The same impression made him also remark, in
a low tone of voice, to Laperti, on his first entering the room, when he
observed Mr. John forcing the people to drink, “I really believe our[Pg 48]
master feels his end near, as he never used to act in this manner.”
As above mentioned, after Peter had been about fifteen minutes in
the room where the men were drinking, Mr. John retired, followed by
Antoine. Mr. John had not on that occasion drank any thing with the
men, neither did he (Peter) ever see him, at any time preceding, drink
in their company. He, however, supposed that he must have taken
something in his own room, as he appeared flushed and excited, but not
sufficiently so as to render his gait in the least unsteady. McPherson
also did not taste any thing in the room. As soon as Mr. John was
gone, Peter also left the room, and went to bed in his own room.


Peter was informed by Antoine that Mr. John, on leaving the room
where the men were drinking, went up-stairs to his own apartment,
and he heard him say to his wife, “I am going to die to-night.” And
he and his wife both began to cry. Mr. John soon rallied, and observed,
“Very well; if I die, I must fall like a man.” He then told Antoine
to load his rifles and pistols, and ordered him also to arm himself with
his own gun. He and Antoine then went out, and Peter thinks he
heard the report of more than fifteen shots. Antoine afterward told
Peter that Mr. John fired at Laperti, but missed him, and afterward
ordered Antoine to fire at Laperti. Antoine refused to do so, until his
own life was threatened by Mr. John, when he fired in the direction,
without aiming at Laperti. He also told the Kanakas to kill the Canadians,
and it was in part they who fired the shots that he (Peter) had
heard. Peter then got up and placed himself behind his door, and saw
Mr. John come in and go up-stairs with Antoine, when he took the
opportunity of going out, armed with his gun and a stout bludgeon,
and found the men standing here and there on the gallery watching an
opportunity to shoot Mr. John. Laperti’s position on the gallery
was fronting the door of the main house, toward which he had his
gun pointed; when Peter saw him, he was on his knees, the small end
of the gun resting on the top rail of the gallery, in readiness to fire.
Laperti exclaimed, on seeing Peter, “I must kill him now, as he has
fired two shots at me.” Peter objected to this, and proposed to take
and tie him. Nobody answered him. At that moment, Smith came
up to Laperti and told him to hide himself or he would certainly be
killed. Laperti said, “Where can I hide myself?” and Smith said,
“Come with me and I will show you a place in the bastion where you
can hide yourself,” and they went off together in the direction of the
bastion at the corner of Urbaine’s house. Peter, after a few minutes’
stay on the gallery, returned to his house, as he had previously agreed
upon with George Hebram, who was lying sick in bed, and who had
entreated him not to leave him alone. At the door of the main house,[Pg 49]
he met Mr. John coming out, followed by Antoine, who was carrying
a lamp. Mr. John said to Peter, “Have you seen Laperti?” Peter
answered, “No, I have not seen him;” and then Mr. John said, “Have
you seen Urbaine?” And Peter again answered that he had not. The
minute before this, as he (Peter) was returning from the gallery, he had
seen Urbaine standing at the corner of the main house, next to Urbaine’s
own dwelling, in company with Simon. Urbaine said, “I don’t
know what to do; I have no gun, and do not know where to hide myself.”
Simon said, “I have a gun, if he comes I will shoot him, and
will be safe.” Mr. John, after Peter passed him, said to Antoine, “Make
haste, and come with the lamp,” and proceeded with a firm step to Urbaine’s
house, as Peter, who continued watching at the door, saw.


After he saw them go to Urbaine’s house, he proceeded toward his
own room, and he and Antoine called out, “Fire! fire!” The report
of several shots, probably five, immediately followed, and he heard
Antoine exclaiming, “Stop! stop! stop! He is dead now.” Antoine
afterward related to Peter, that on reaching Urbaine’s house, Mr.
John ordered him to go round by one corner, while he went round by
the other, directing Antoine to shoot any of the Canadians he might
meet. Mr. John then proceeded in a stooping position, looking very
intently before him, when a shot was fired from the corner of the house
toward which he was going, which caused his death, the ball having
entered at the upper part of the breast-bone, a little below the gullet,
and come out a little below the shoulder, having broken the spine in
its passage. Peter was also told by one of the Kanakas, that as soon
as Mr. John fell, Urbaine sprung forward from the corner of the house
within a few paces of the body, and put his foot savagely on his neck,
as if to complete the act, should the ball have failed in causing death.
The Kanakas immediately asked Urbaine who had killed the master.
Urbaine replied, “It is none of your business who has killed him!”
Peter, who during this time had removed to his house, seeing Heron
go out without his gun, went out round the body, and said, “My
friend, we have now done what we long intended to do; let us now
carry the body back to the house.” Urbaine, Laperti, Bellinger, and
other white men who were present replied, “When we kill a dog, we
let him lie where we kill him.” And Antoine told him they had previously
given him the same reply to a similar proposition from him.
Peter then approached the body, and, with one hand under the neck,
raised the head and trunk, when a deep expiration followed, which was
the last sign of animation. He had previously perceived no signs of
life, nor did he hear any one say that any appeared after the deceased
fell. The white men being unwilling to assist him, he carried the body,[Pg 50]
with the aid of the Kanakas, into the main house, where he had it
stripped, washed clean, decently dressed, and laid out. In doing so he
received no help from any but the Kanakas. The wounds made by the
balls were very large, both openings being circular, and severally three
inches in diameter. The body bled profusely, there being a deep pool
of blood found around it, which was washed away afterward by the
Kanakas. Peter never heard that he spoke or moved after he fell.
There was a perpendicular cut on the forehead, skin-deep, in a line with
the nose, which Peter thinks was caused by his falling on the barrel of
his rifle, though Urbaine said that he had received it from an Indian
with his dog. It was, as Peter supposes, about eleven o’clock, P. M.,
when he had done washing and laying out the body; the watches had
not then been changed, therefore he thinks it could not be midnight.
The people continued coming and going during the night, to see the
body, and Peter proposed praying over the body, as is customary in
Canada; but they objected, saying they did not wish to pray for him.
He did sit up with the body all night, having soon after gone, first to
Urbaine’s and then to Lulaire’s house, who each gave him a dram,
which he took, saying, “There is no need of drinking now; they might
drink their fill now.” He soon afterward went to bed.


He inquired of Martineau, who also lived in the same room, if he had
fired at the deceased. He replied, that he had fired twice. He then
asked him if it was he that had killed him, and he said, “I do not know
if it was me or not.” He (Peter) put the same question to several of
the other men whom he saw afterward; they all said that they had
not shot him, and Martineau afterward said that he had not directed
his gun at him, but had fired in the air.


The following morning he asked Antoine Kawanope if he knew who
had killed the deceased. He replied, “I know who killed him, but I am
not going to tell you, or any one else. When the governor comes, I
will tell him.” He asked Antoine why he would not tell; he said he
was afraid it might cause more quarrels, and lead to other murders. He
then advised Antoine not to conceal it from him, as he would tell no
one. Antoine then said, he thought it was Urbaine who had done the
deed. Peter observed that Urbaine had no gun. Antoine replied, “I
think it was Urbaine, because as soon as the deceased fell, Urbaine rushed
out from his lurking-place at the corner of the house, where, I was informed
by the people, he always kept his gun secreted, with the intention
of shooting the deceased.” Peter says Laperti, Urbaine, and Simon
were all concealed in the corner whence the shot came, and he thinks
it to be one of the three who fired it. Urbaine always denied having
committed the murder, and said, “I am going to the Russian fort for[Pg 51]
trial, and will be either banished or hung. I will let the thing go to the
end, and will then inform upon the murderers.”


Simon always said that he was never in the corner from whence the
shot was fired, and knew nothing about the matter; but Peter thinks
that he must have been there, as he saw him, as before related, at the
corner of the main house, when he promised to protect Urbaine; and
from the situation of the fort, he must have passed that spot with Urbaine,
as there was no other passage from the place where they had
been standing. Laperti also said he never fired at all. When Peter,
as before related, went upon the gallery after the first firing had ceased,
while Mr. John and Antoine had gone into the house, he saw all the
men on the gallery, except Pripe, Lulaire, and McPherson, and he asked
each of them, respectively, if they were going to shoot the master that
night, and they all answered (as well as himself), they would do so at
the first chance, except Pehou, a Kanaka, who would not consent to the
murder. Smith was then without a gun.


Before the Christmas preceding, Peter put the question to Smith, how
he should like to see him kill Mr. John? He replied, “I should like it
very well; I would have no objection, because his conduct is so very
bad that he can never expect to be protected by the company.” Peter
Manifree says that Mr. John appeared to be aware of the plot formed
by the men against his life; as he supposes, through the information of
Fleury, his servant, who was aware of every thing that passed among
them. Mr. John had often said to the men, “Kill me, if you can. If
you kill me, you will not kill a woman—you will kill a man.” And he
kept Antoine as a sentinel to watch his room. One evening George
Heron proposed taking his life, and said if he could find a man to go
with him, he would be the first to shoot him. Peter refused to go, and
Heron watched a great part of the night in the passage leading to Mr.
John’s room, holding his gun pointed toward its door, with the object
of shooting Mr. John if he appeared, as he usually did at night when
going to visit the watchmen; but he did not go out that night, or Peter
thinks that he would have been shot by Heron. The following morning
Peter asked Antoine if he would defend Mr. John were he attacked by
the people. Antoine said he would not, and would be the first man to
seize or shoot him, should any attempt be made against his life or
liberty. He put the same question to McPherson; but McPherson said,
“No, do not kill him till the governor comes, by and by, and then
we shall have redress.”


Peter also says that all the unmarried men were in the habit of secretly
going out of the fort at night, contrary to order, to visit the Indian
camp, and that one evening, when he wished to go out, he met George[Pg 52]
Heron on the gallery, who showed him where a rope was slung to the
picket, by which he might let himself down to the ground outside of
the fort, saying, “This is the way I and others get out, and you may
do the same without fear of detection.” On the morning after the
murder he went into Urbaine’s and Lulaire’s house and got a dram in
each of them, out of two bottles of rum which he saw there. He said,
“Now Mr. John is dead, I shall go out of the fort and spend the day
with my wife.” Urbaine replied, “No: no one shall go out of the
fort. We keep the keys, and we shall keep the gates shut.” Peter
was angry at this, and said to Antoine, “When Mr. John was alive, he
kept us prisoners, and would not allow us to run after women; and
now that we have killed him, the Canadians wish to keep us as close as
he did. I see we must raise the devil again with these Canadians,
before we can get our liberty.”


Peter also says that one principal cause of their dislike to John, and
their plots against his life, was the strictness with which he prevented
their sallying from the fort in quest of women; that he flogged Martineau
for having given his blanket to a woman with whom he maintained
illicit commerce, and he also flogged Lamb and Kakepe for
giving away their clothes in the same manner. This, Peter says, exasperated
the men.


The day after the murder many of the men went up to Mr. John’s
room to see the body, and McPherson remarked to them, that when
the master was living they were not in the habit of coming up there;
but they did so now that he was dead. On hearing this, Peter and
Urbaine went away and never returned. On their way to their own
house, they met Pripe and Bellinger.


Urbaine told them what McPherson had said, and in a threatening
manner said, “McPherson is getting as proud as the other, and will be
telling tales about us. We will not murder him, but we will give him
a sound thrashing.” And Peter says that he soon after went to Smith
and told him to put McPherson on his guard, as the Canadians intended
to attack him. Smith asked Peter what he would do, now the master
was dead, and Peter said he would obey McPherson’s orders. Smith
replied, “That is good, Peter. If we do not do so, we shall lose all
our wages.” All the Canadians, and, he thinks, Simon, continued
drinking the whole of the day following the murder; the other men of
the fort did not drink. He thinks it was the remains of the liquor
they had been drinking the preceding night. Peter also says that, for
a month previous to the murder, Urbaine, Laperti, and Simon, were in
the habit of getting drunk every night on rum purchased from the Indians.
Peter told them to take care of themselves, because Mr. John[Pg 53]
would be angry if he knew it. Mr. John took no notice of their conduct,
because, as Peter thinks, he knew of the plot against his life, and
felt intimidated. He also says that Laperti was excited against Mr.
John on account of a suspected intrigue which he carried on with his
wife. The night following the murder, they all went to bed quietly.
The next day all was also quiet, and all work suspended, except watching
the Indians, which they did very closely, as they were afraid they
might be induced to attack the fort, on learning that the master was no
more. They continued watching, turn about. The second day a coffin
was made, and the corpse removed from the main house to the bath,
when McPherson gave the men a dram. The third day the corpse was
buried and the men had another dram. He does not know whether
the men asked for the dram, or whether McPherson gave it of his own
accord. The corpse was carried to the grave by Laperti, Pripe, Lulaire,
and some Kanakas, but Urbaine did not touch it; does not think
it was through fear. Peter often heard Laperti say, “I wish the governor
was here, to see what he would do.” He also says there was no
quarrel in the room where they were drinking on the night of the murder;
but he thinks there might have been a quarrel after they left, as
Pripe was put in irons after that time. He also says that the Canadians
must have fixed on that night to murder him, and that Fleury told
him so, which accounts for his apparent dejection of mind, and of his
having shed tears in presence of his wife and Antoine, when he said,
“I know that I am going to die this night.” He also thinks this might
have led to the outbreak, but of this he is not sure. It is a mere matter
of opinion. Mr. John was a little in liquor, but knew perfectly well
what he was about. He never saw him so far gone with liquor as not
to be able to walk actively about, except on one occasion, the preceding
Christmas Eve, when he appeared to walk unsteady, but nevertheless
could mount the gallery. They only knew he had tasted liquor
from the excitement and changed appearance of his countenance. He
does not know who first suggested the idea of murdering Mr. John.


Since the above disclosures were made, a few other facts have come
to light, which, however, do not materially affect the character of these
atrocities. Mr. John McLaughlin, Jr., was doubtless intemperate,
reckless, and tyrannical, and often unnecessarily cruel in the punishments
inflicted upon his men; but he was surrounded by a set of desperadoes,
who, for months before the arrival of the night, during the
darkness of which the fatal shot ushered him into the presence of his
Judge, had been seeking an opportunity to rob him of life. Some time
before this event, he flogged Peter for the crime of stealing fish. Peter was
exceedingly angry, and resolved upon the destruction of his master.[Pg 54]
At a time to suit his purpose, he went to the bastion, where were fire-arms,
loaded to his hands, and rung the bell of alarm, with the intention
of shooting Mr. McLaughlin when he should make his appearance.
A man by the name of Perse came out to see what was the matter,
instead of the intended victim, when Peter fired, but missed him, the
ball hitting a post near his head. For this offense, Peter was again
seized, put in irons, and subsequently severely flogged, and liberated.
Nearly all the men had been flogged from time to time, for various
offenses, and all conspired against the life of their master. As might
have been expected, when the case was examined by Sir George Simpson,
the murderers attempted to cast all the odium upon Mr. McLaughlin,
doubtless for the purpose of exculpating themselves, in
which attempt they but too well succeeded, in the estimation of Sir
George. Whether the persons who procured his death would be pronounced,
by an intelligent jury, guilty of willful murder, or whether,
from the mitigating circumstances connected with these transactions,
the verdict should assume a more modified form, is not for me to determine.
But it can not be denied by any one, that the circumstances
must be indeed extraordinary that will justify any man, or set of men,
to cut short the probation of an immortal being, and usher him, with
all his unrepented sins, into the presence of his God.


This account illustrates English and Hudson’s Bay Company’s dealings
with Indians, and their treatment of men and murderers, both
among the Indians and their own people.


We are forced to acknowledge that we can not see the correctness of
moral principle in Mr. Hine’s conclusions. There was unquestionably
a premeditated and willful murder committed by the men at that fort.
We can understand the motives of Sir George Simpson and Mr. Douglas,
in allowing those men to escape the penalty of their crime, from
the amount of pecuniary interests involved, and the personal jealousy
existing against Dr. McLaughlin and his sons, in the company’s service.
We know of jealousies existing between Mr. Simpson and John
McLaughlin, Jr., on account of statements made in our presence at the
breakfast-table, that were only settled temporarily, while at Vancouver.
These statements, and the placing of this young son of the doctor’s at
that post, we are satisfied had their influence in acquitting his murderers,
if they did not in bringing about the murder, which to us appears
plain in the testimony; and we so expressed our opinion, when the father
requested us (while in his office) to examine a copy of those depositions.
We have no hesitancy in saying, that we believe it to have been a
malicious murder, and should have sent the perpetrators to the gallows.
We have never been able to learn of the trial of any one implicated.




[Pg 55]


CHAPTER VII.


Treatment of Indians.—Influence of Hudson’s Bay Company.—Rev. Mr. Barnley’s statement.—First
three years.—After that.—Treatment of Jesuits.—Of Protestants.—Of
Indians.—Not a spade to commence their new mode of life.—Mr. Barnley’s statement.—Disappointed.—His
mistake.—Hudson’s Bay Company disposed to crush
their own missionaries.


Rev. Mr. Beaver says of them: “About the middle of the summer
of 1836, and shortly before my arrival at Fort Vancouver, six
Indians were wantonly and gratuitously murdered by a party of
trappers and sailors, who landed for the purpose from one of the
company’s vessels, on the coast somewhere between the mouth of the
river Columbia and the confines of California. Having on a former
occasion read the particulars of this horrid massacre, as I received
them from an eye-witness, before a meeting of the Aborigines Society,
I will not repeat them. To my certain knowledge, the circumstance
was brought officially before the authorities of Vancouver, by whom
no notice was taken of it; and the same party of trappers, with the
same leader, one of the most infamous murderers of a murderous fraternity,
are annually sent to the same vicinity, to perform, if they please,
other equally tragic scenes. God alone knows how many red men’s
lives have been sacrificed by them since the time of which I have been
speaking. He also knows that I speak the conviction of my mind, and
may he forgive me if I speak unadvisedly when I state my firm belief
that the life of an Indian was never yet, by a trapper, put in
competition with a beaver’s skin.”


One other case we will give to illustrate the conduct and treatment
of this company toward the Indians under their “mild and paternal
care,” as given, not by a chaplain, or missionary, but by Lieut. Chappel,
in his “Voyage to Hudson’s Bay in H. M. S. Rosamond.” He
relates that on one occasion, an English boy having been missed from
one of the establishments in Hudson’s Bay, the company’s servants,
in order to recover the absent youth, made use of the following
stratagem:—


“Two Esquimaux Indians were seized and confined in separate apartments.
A musket was discharged in a remote apartment, and the
settlers, entering the room in which one of the Esquimaux was confined,
informed him by signs that his companion had been put to death[Pg 56]
for decoying away the boy; and they gave him to understand at the
same time that he must prepare to undergo the same fate, unless he
would faithfully pledge himself to restore the absentee. The Esquimaux
naturally promised every thing, and, on being set at liberty, made
the best of his way into the woods, and, of course, was never afterward
heard of. They kept the other a prisoner for some time. At
length he tried to make his escape by boldly seizing the sentinel’s fire-lock
at night; but the piece going off accidentally, he was so terrified at
the report, that they easily replaced him in confinement; yet either the
loss of liberty, a supposition that his countryman had been murdered,
or that he was himself reserved for some cruel death, deprived the
poor wretch of reason. As he became exceedingly troublesome, the
settlers held a conference as to the most eligible mode of getting rid
of him; and it being deemed good policy to deter the natives from similar
offenses by making an example, they accordingly shot the poor
maniac in cold blood, without having given themselves the trouble to
ascertain whether he was really guilty or innocent” (p. 156). We have
quoted these two examples, from two British subjects, to show the
Hudson’s Bay Company’s manner of treating the Indians, who were
under their absolute control from the mouth of the Umpqua River,
in the extreme southwestern part of Oregon, to the extreme northern
point on the coast of Labrador, including a country larger in extent
than the whole United States.


This country had for two hundred and thirty years been in possession
of these two powerful and equally unprincipled companies, who
had kept it, as Mr. Fitzgerald says, “so us to shut up the earth from
the knowledge of man, and man from the knowledge of God.”


But, we are asked, what has this to do with the history of Oregon,
and its early settlement? We answer, it was this influence, and this
overgrown combination of iniquity and despotism—this monster monopoly,
which England and America combined had failed to overcome,—that
was at last, after a conflict of thirty years, forced to retire from
the country, by the measures first inaugurated by Lee, Whitman, and
the provisional government of Oregon; and now this same monopoly
seeks to rob the treasury of our nation, as it has for ages robbed the
Indians, and the country of its furs.


They may succeed (as they have heretofore, in obtaining an extension
of their licensed privileges with the English government), and obtain
from the American government what they now, by falsehood, fraud,
and perjury, claim to be their just rights. If they do, we shall be satisfied
that we have faithfully and truly stated facts that have come to
our knowledge while moving and living in the midst of their opera[Pg 57]tions,
and that we are not alone in our belief and knowledge of the
events and influences of which we write.


Before closing this chapter we will quote one other witness (a British
subject), the Rev. Mr. Barnley, a missionary at Moose Factory, on the
southwestern part of James Bay, to show the full policy of that company
toward British missionaries, and also to prove the assertion we
make that the Hudson’s Bay Company, as such, is, in a measure, guilty
of and responsible for the Whitman and Frazer River massacres, and
for the Indian wars and the murder of American citizens contiguous
to their territory.


The missionary above referred to says: “My residence in the Hudson’s
Bay territory commenced in June, 1840, and continued, with the
interruption of about eight months, until September, 1847.” The
Whitman massacre was in November, 1847. Mr. Barnley continues:
“My letter of introduction, signed by the governor of the territory,
and addressed ‘To the Gentlemen in charge of the Honorable Hudson’s
Bay Company’s Districts and Posts in North America,’ in one of its
paragraphs ran thus: ‘The governor and committee feel the most
lively interest in the success of Mr. Barnley’s mission, and I have to
request you will show to that gentleman every personal kindness and
attention in your power, and facilitate by every means the promotion
of the very important and interesting service on which he is about to
enter;’ and, consequently, whatsoever else I might have to endure, I
had no reason to anticipate any thing but cordial co-operation from the
officers of the company.


“For the first three years I had no cause of complaint. The interpretation
was, in many cases, necessarily inefficient, and would have been
sometimes a total failure, but for the kindness of the wives of the gentlemen
in charge, who officiated for me; but I had the best interpreters
the various posts afforded, the supply of rum to Indians was
restricted, and the company, I believe, fulfilled both the spirit and
the letter of their agreement with us, as far as that fulfillment was then
required of them, and their circumstances allowed.


“In giving, however, this favorable testimony, so far as the first three
years are concerned, I must say, that in my opinion we should have
been informed, before commencing our labors, that the interpreters at
some of the posts would be found so inefficient as to leave us dependent
on the kindness of private individuals, and reduce us to the very
unpleasant necessity of taking mothers from their family duties, that
they might become the only available medium for the communication
of Divine truth.


“But after the period to which I have referred, a very perceptible[Pg 58]
change, i. e., in 1845, took place. [The company had decided to introduce
the Roman Jesuits to aid them in expelling all Protestant missionaries
and civilization from the Indian tribes.] There was no longer that hearty
concurrence with my views, and co-operation, which had at first appeared
so generally. The effect was as if the gentleman in charge of the
southern department had discovered that he was expected to afford
rather an external and professed assistance than a real and cordial one;
and, under his influence, others, both of the gentlemen and servants,
became cool and reluctant in those services of which I stood in need,
until at length the letter as well us the spirit of the company’s engagement
with me failed.” The reader will remember that while Mr. Barnley
was receiving this treatment at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s
establishment at Moose Factory, James Douglas and his associates were
combining and training the Indians in Oregon for the purpose of relieving,
or, to use the language of the Jesuit De Smet, “to rescue Oregon
from Protestant and American influence.”


Mr. Barnley continues: “I was prohibited from entertaining to tea two
persons, members of my congregation, who were about to sail for England,
because I happened to occupy apartments in the officer’s residence,
and was told that it could not be made a rendezvous for the company’s
servants and their families.” P. J. De Smet, S. J., on the 113th page of
his book, says: “The Canadian-French and half-breeds who inhabit the
Indian territory treat all the priests who visit them with great kindness
and respect.” On page 313, he says of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
just about this time: “In what manner can we testify our gratitude in
regard to the two benefactors [Douglas and Ogden] who so generously
charged themselves with the care of transporting and delivering to us
our cases, without consenting to accept the slightest recompense?—How
noble the sentiments which prompted them gratuitously to burden
themselves and their boats with the charitable gifts destined by the
faithful to the destitute missionaries of the Indians!” These last quotations
are from letters of Jesuit missionaries, who were brought to the
Indian country by this same Hudson’s Bay Company, and furnished
transportation and every possible facility to carry on their missions
among the Indians all over the American Indian country.


These missionaries have made no attempt to improve the condition
of the Indians, but have impressed upon their ignorant minds a reverence
for themselves and their superstitions. See Bishop Blanchet’s
reply to Cayuse Indians, November 4, 1847, page 44 of Brouillet’s
“Protestantism in Oregon;” also pages 34-5, Executive Doc. No. 38,
J. Ross Browne, as given below:—


“The bishop replied that it was the pope who had sent him; that he[Pg 59]
had not sent him to take their land, but only for the purpose of saving
their souls; that, however, having to live, and possessing no wealth, he
had asked of them a piece of land that he could cultivate for his support;
that in his country it was the faithful who maintained the priests, but
that here he did not ask so much, but only a piece of land, and that the
priests themselves would do the rest. He told them that he would not
make presents to Indians, that he would give them nothing for the
land he asked; that, in case they worked for him, he would pay them
for their work, and no more; that he would assist them neither in
plowing their lands nor in building houses, nor would he feed or clothe
their children,” etc.


At Moose Factory, Mr. Barnley says: “A plan which I had devised
for educating and training to some acquaintance with agriculture native
children was disallowed, but permission was given me by the governor
in council to collect seven or eight boys from various parts of the surrounding
country, to be clothed, and at the company’s expense. A
proposal made for forming a small Indian village near Moose Factory
was not acceded to; and, instead, permission only given to attempt the
location of one or two old men who were no longer fit for engaging in
the chase, it being very carefully and distinctly stated by Sir George
Simpson that the company would not give them even a spade toward
commencing their new mode of life. When at length a young man was
found likely to prove serviceable as an interpreter, every impediment
was interposed to prevent his engaging in my service, although a distinct
understanding existed that neither for food nor wages would
he be chargeable to the company. And the pledge that I should
be at liberty to train up several boys for future usefulness, though not
withdrawn, was treated as if it had never existed at all; efforts being
made to produce the impression on the mind of my general superintendent
that I was, most unwarrantably, expecting the company to
depart from their original compact, when I attempted to add but two
of the stipulated number to my household.  ⚹  ⚹  ⚹  ⚹  ⚹  ⚹


“At Moose Factory, where the resources were most ample, and
where was the seat of authority in the southern department of
Rupert’s Land, the hostility of the company (and not merely their
inability to aid me, whether with convenience or inconvenience to
themselves) was most manifest.


“The Indians were compelled, in opposition to their convictions and
desires, to labor on the Lord’s day. They were not permitted to purchase
the food required on the Sabbath, that they might rest on that
day while voyaging, although there was no necessity for their proceeding,
and their wages would have remained the same.  ⚹  ⚹  ⚹


[Pg 60]“At length, disappointed, persecuted, myself and wife broken in
spirit, and almost ruined in constitution by months of anxiety and
suffering, a return to England became the only means of escaping a
premature grave; and we are happy in fleeing from the iron hand of
oppression, and bidding farewell to that which had proved to us a
land of darkness and of sorrow.


“From the above statements you will perceive that if true in some
cases, it is not all, that the company have furnished the ‘means of
conveyance from place to place.’ They have not done so, at all events,
in the particular case mentioned, nor would they let me have the
canoe, lying idle as it was, when they knew that I was prepared to
meet ‘the expense.’


“And equally far from the truth is it, that the missionaries have
been ‘boarded, lodged, provided with interpreters and servants free of
charge.’”


In this last statement, Mr. Barnley is mistaken, for, to our certain
knowledge, and according to the voluntary statement of the Roman
Jesuits, Revs. Bishop Blanchet, Demer, P. J. De Smet, Brouillet, and
many other Jesuit missionaries, they received from the Hudson’s Bay
Company board and lodging, and were provided with interpreters,
catechist, transportation, and even houses and church buildings.


The only mistake of Mr. Barnley was, that he was either an Episcopal
or Wesleyan missionary or chaplain, like Mr. Beaver, at Fort
Vancouver, and he, like Mr. Beaver, was a little too conscientious as
to his duties, and efforts to benefit the Indians, to suit the policy of
that company. The Roman Jesuitical religion was better adapted
to their ideas of Indian traffic and morals; hence, the honorable company
chose to get rid of all others, as they had done with all opposing
fur traders. What was a civilized Indian worth to that company? Not
half as much as a common otter or beaver skin. As to the soul of
an Indian, he certainly could have no more than the gentlemen who
managed the affairs of the honorable company.




[Pg 61]


CHAPTER VIII.


Petition of Red River settlers.—Their requests, from 1 to 14.—Names.—Governor
Christie’s reply.—Company’s reply.—Extract from minutes.—Resolutions, from 1 to
9.—Enforcing rules.—Land deed.—Its condition.—Remarks.


Before closing this subject we must explain our allusion to the Red
River settlement, and in so doing illustrate and prove beyond a doubt
the settled and determined policy of that organization to crush out
their own, as well as American settlements,—a most unnatural, though
true position of that company. It will be seen, by the date of the
document quoted below, that, four years previous, that company, in
order to deceive the English government and people in relation to the
settlement on the Columbia River, and also to diminish the number of
this Red River colony, had, by direction of Sir George Simpson, sent a
part of it to the Columbia department. The remaining settlers of
Rupert’s Land (the Selkirk settlement) began to assert their right to
cultivate the soil (as per Selkirk grant), as also the right to trade with
the natives, and to participate in the profits of the wild animals in the
country. The document they prepared is a curious, as well as important
one, and too interesting to be omitted. It reads as follows:—






 




}





“Red River Settlement,

“August 29, 1845.



“Sir,—Having at this moment a very strong belief that we, as
natives of this country, and as half-breeds, have the right to hunt furs
in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s territories whenever we think proper,
and again sell those furs to the highest bidder, likewise having a doubt
that natives of this country can be prevented from trading and trafficking
with one another, we would wish to have your opinion on the
subject, lest we should commit ourselves by doing any thing in opposition
either to the laws of England or the honorable company’s
privileges, and therefore lay before you, as governor of Red River
settlement, a few queries, which we beg you will answer in course.


“Query 1. Has a half-breed, a settler, the right to hunt furs in this
country?


“2. Has a native of this country, not an Indian, a right to hunt furs?


“3. If a half-breed has the right to hunt furs, can he hire other half-breeds
for the purpose of hunting furs?[Pg 62]
Can a half-breed sell his furs to any person he pleases?


“5. Is a half-breed obliged to sell his furs to the Hudson’s Bay Company
at whatever price the company may think proper to give him?


“6. Can a half-breed receive any furs, as a present, from an Indian,
a relative of his?


“7. Can a half-breed hire any of his Indian relatives to hunt furs for
him?


“8. Can a half-breed trade furs from another half-breed, in or out of
the settlement?


“9. Can a half-breed trade furs from an Indian, in or out of the settlement?


“10. With regard to trading or hunting furs, have the half-breeds, or
natives of European origin, any rights or privileges over Europeans?


“11. A settler, having purchased lands from Lord Selkirk, or even
from the Hudson’s Bay Company, without any conditions attached to
them, or without having signed any bond, deed, or instrument whatever,
whereby he might have willed away his right to trade furs, can
he be prevented from trading furs in the settlement with settlers, or
even out of the settlement?


“12. Are the limits of the settlement defined by the municipal law,
Selkirk grant, or Indian sale?


“13. If a person can not trade furs, either in or out of the settlement,
can he purchase them for his own and family use, and in what
quantity?


“14. Having never seen any official statements, nor known, but by
report, that the Hudson’s Bay Company has peculiar privileges over
British subjects, natives, and half-breeds, resident in the settlement, we
would wish to know what those privileges are, and the penalties attached
to the infringement of the same.



“We remain your humble servants,







"James Sinclair, Alexis Gaulat,


Baptist La Roque, Louis Letende De Batoche,


Thomas Logan, William McMillan,


John Dease, Antoine Morran,


Bat. Wilkie, John Anderson,


John Vincent, Thomas McDermot,


William Bird, Adall Trottier,


Peter Garioch, Charles Hole,


Henry Cook, Joseph Monkman,


John Spence, Baptist Farman.




“Alexander Christie, Esq.,

“Governor of Red River Settlement.”




[Pg 63]Governor Christie’s reply to these inquiries was so mild and conciliatory
that it will not add materially to our knowledge of the company
to give it. But the eight rules adopted by the company in council let us
into the secret soul of the monstrosity, and are here given, that Americans
may be informed as to its secret workings, and also to show what little regard
an Englishman has for any but an aristocratic or moneyed concern.




“Extracts from minutes of a meeting of the Governor and Council of
Rupert’s Land, held at the Red River settlement, June 10, 1845.


“Resolved, 1st, That, once in every year, any British subject, if an
actual resident, and not a fur trafficker, may import, whether from London
or from St. Peter’s, stores free of any duty now about to be imposed,
on declaring truly that he has imported them at his own risk.


“2d. That, once in every year, any British subject, if qualified as
before, may exempt from duty, as before, imports of the local value of
ten pounds, on declaring truly that they are intended exclusively to
be used by himself within Red River settlement, and have been purchased
with certain specified productions or manufactures of the aforesaid
settlement, exported in the same season, or by the latest vessel,
at his own risk.


“3d. That once in every year, any British subject, if qualified as
before, who may have personally accompanied both his exports and
imports, as defined in the preceding resolution, may exempt from duty,
as before, imports of the local value of fifty pounds, on declaring truly
that they are either to be consumed by himself, or to be sold by himself
to actual consumers within the aforesaid settlement, and have been purchased
with certain specified productions or manufactures of the settlement,
carried away by himself in the same season, or by the latest
vessel, at his own risk.


“4th. That all other imports from the United Kingdom for the aforesaid
settlement, shall, before delivery, pay at York Factory a duty of
twenty per cent. on their prime cost; provided, however, that the governor
of the settlement be hereby authorized to exempt from the same
all such importers as may from year to year be reasonably believed
by him to have neither trafficked in furs themselves, since the 8th day
of December, 1844, nor enabled others to do so by illegally or improperly
supplying them with trading articles of any description.


“5th. That all other imports from any part of the United States shall
pay all duties payable under the provisions of 5 and 6 Vict., cap. 49,
the Imperial Statute for regulating the foreign trade of the British
possessions in North America; provided, however, that the governor-in-chief,
or, in his absence, the president of the council, may so modify[Pg 64]
the machinery of the said act of Parliament, as to adapt the same to
the circumstances of the country.


“7th. That, henceforward, no goods shall be delivered at York Factory
to any but persons duly licensed to freight the same; such licenses
being given only in cases in which no fur trafficker may have any interest,
direct or indirect.


“8th. That any intoxicating drink, if found in a fur trafficker’s possession,
beyond the limits of the aforesaid settlement, may be seized and
destroyed by any person on the spot.


“Whereas the intervention of middle men is alike injurious to the
honorable company and to the people; it is resolved,


“9th. That, henceforward, furs shall be purchased from none but the
actual hunters of the same.



“Fort Garry, July 10, 1845.”






Copy of License referred to in Resolution 7.


“On behalf of the Hudson’s Bay Company, I hereby license A. B. to
trade, and also ratify his having traded in English goods within the
limits of Red River settlement. This ratification and this license to
be null and void, from the beginning, in the event of his hereafter
trafficking in furs, or generally of his usurping any whatever of all the
privileges of the Hudson’s Bay Company.”




It was to save Oregon from becoming a den of such oppressors and
robbers of their own countrymen, that Whitman risked his life in 1842-3,
that the provisional government of the American settlers was formed
in 1843, that five hundred of them flew to arms in 1847, and fought
back the savage hordes that this same Hudson’s Bay Company had
trained, under the teaching of their half-breeds and Jesuit priests, to
sweep them from the land. Is this so? Let us see what they did just
across the Rocky Mountains with their own children, as stated by their
own witnesses and countrymen.


Sir Edward Fitzgerald says of them, on page 213:—


“But the company do not appear to have trusted to paper deeds to
enforce their authority.


“They were not even content with inflicting fines under the form of a
hostile tariff; but, as the half-breeds say, some of the fur traders were
imprisoned, and all the goods and articles of those who were suspected
of an intention to traffic in furs were seized and confiscated.


“But another, and even more serious attack, was made on the privileges
of the settlers.


“The company being, under their charter, nominal owners of the[Pg 65]
soil, dispose of it to the colonists in any manner they think best. A
portion of the land in the colony is held from Lord Selkirk, who first
founded the settlement.


“Now, however, the company drew up a new land deed, which all
were compelled to sign who wished to hold any land in the settlement.”


This new land deed, above referred to, is too lengthy and verbose to
be given entire; therefore we will only copy such parts as bind the settlers
not to infringe upon the supposed chartered rights of the Hudson’s
Bay Company.


The first obligation of the person receiving this deed was to settle
upon the land within forty days, and, within five years, cause one-tenth
part of the land to be brought under cultivation.


The second: “He, his executors, administrators, and assigns, shall not,
directly or indirectly, mediately or immediately, violate or evade any of
the chartered or licensed privileges of the said governor and company,
or any restrictions on trading or dealing with Indians or others, which
have been or may be imposed by the said governor and company, or
by any other competent authority, or in any way enable any person
or persons to violate or evade, or to persevere in violating or evading
the same; and, in short, shall obey all such laws and regulations as within
the said settlement now are, or hereafter may be in force”——
Here are enumerated a long list of political duties pertaining to the
citizen.


The deed in its third condition says: “And also that he [the said receiver
of the deed], his executors, administrators, and assigns, shall not
nor will, without the license or consent of the said governor and company
for that purpose first obtained, carry on or establish, in any part
of North America, any trade or traffic in, or relating to, any kind of
skins, furs, peltry, or dressed leather, nor in any manner, directly or indirectly,
aid or abet any person or persons in carrying on such trade or
traffic.”——Here follows a long lingo, forbidding the settler to
buy, make, or sell liquors in any shape on his lands, and requiring
him, under pain of forfeiture of his title, to prevent others from doing so,
and binding the settler, under all the supposed and unsupposed conditions
of obligation, not to supply or allow to be supplied any articles
of trade to any unauthorized (by the company) person supposed to
violate their trade, including companies “corporate or incorporate,
prince, power, potentate, or state whatsoever, who shall infringe or
violate, or who shall set about to infringe or violate the exclusive
rights, powers, privileges and immunities of commerce, trade, or traffic,
or all or any other of the exclusive rights, powers, privileges, and im[Pg 66]munities
of, or belonging, or in any wise appertaining to, or held, used
or enjoyed by the said governor and company, and their successors,
under their charter or charters, without the license or consent of the
said governor and company and their successors, for the time being,
first had and obtained.


“And, lastly,”—here follows a particular statement asserting that
for the violation of any one of the thousand and one conditions of that
deed, the settler forfeits to the company his right to the land, which
reverts back to the company.


Our country delights to honor the sailor and soldier who performs a
good, great, or noble act to save its territory from becoming the abode
of despotism, or its honor from the taunt of surrounding nations. In
what light shall we regard the early American missionaries and pioneers
of Oregon?


It is true they heard the call of the oppressed savage for Christian
light and civilization. They came in good faith, and labored faithfully,
though, perhaps, mistaking many of the strict duties of the Christian
missionary; and some, being led astray by the wiles and cunning of an
unscrupulous fur monopoly, failed to benefit the Indians to the extent
anticipated; yet they formed the nucleus around which the American
pioneer with his family gathered, and from which he drew his encouragement
and protection; and a part of these missionaries were the
leaders and sustainers of those influences which ultimately secured this
country to freedom and the great Republic.


The extracts from the deed above quoted show what Oregon would
have been, had the early American missionaries failed to answer the call
of the Indians, or had been driven from the country; or even had not
Whitman and his associates separated, the one to go to Washington
to ask for delay in the settlement of the boundary question, the others
to the Wallamet Valley to aid and urge on the organization of the
provisional government.




[Pg 67]


CHAPTER IX.


Puget Sound Agricultural Company.—Its original stock.—A correspondence.—No law
to punish fraud.—A supposed trial of the case.—Article four of the treaty.—The
witnesses.—Who is to receive the Puget Sound money.—Dr. Tolmie, agent of the
company.—The country hunted up.—Difficult to trace a fictitious object.—Statement
of their claim.—Result of the investigation.


The Puget Sound Agricultural Company, now claiming of our government
the sum of $1,168,000, was first talked of and brought into
existence at Vancouver in the winter of 1837, in consequence of, and
in opposition to, the Wallamet Cattle Company, which was got up and
successfully carried through by the influence and perseverance of Rev.
Jason Lee, superintendent of the Methodist Mission. This Nasqualla
and Puget Sound Company was an opposing influence to Mr. Lee and
his mission settlement, and was also to form the nucleus for two other
British settlements in Oregon, to be under the exclusive control of the
Hudson’s Bay Company.


The original stock of the company was nominally £200,000. The
paid-up capital upon this amount was supposed to be ten per cent.,
which would give £20,000, or $96,800, at $4.84 per pound. From the
most reliable information we can get, this amount was taken from a
sinking fund, or a fund set apart for the purpose of opposing any opposition
in the fur trade. About the time this Puget Sound Company
came into existence, the American fur companies had been driven from
the country, and the fund was considered as idle or useless stock; and
as the question of settlement of the country would in all probability
soon come up, Rev. Mr. Lee having taken the first step to the independence
of his missionary settlement in the Wallamet, this Puget
Sound Company was gotten up to control the agricultural and cattle
or stock interests of the country. It was in existence in name some
two years before its definite arrangements were fixed by the Hudson’s
Bay Company, through the agency of Dr. W. F. Tolmie, who went to
London for that purpose, and by whom they were concluded, “with
the consent of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who stipulated that an
officer connected with the fur-trade branch of the Hudson’s Bay
Company should have supreme direction of the affairs of the Puget
Sound Company in this country. It was also stipulated that the[Pg 68]
Puget Sound Company should be under bonds not to permit any of
its employés to be in any way concerned in the fur trade, in opposition
to the Hudson’s Bay Company.”


It is easy to be seen by the above-stated condition, that the Hudson’s
Bay Company were not willing to allow the least interference
with their fur trade by any one over whom they had any control or
influence; that their design and object was to control the trade of
the whole country, and that they had no intention in any way to encourage
any American settlement in it, as shown by the arrangements
made as early as 1837.


There had been a correspondence with the managing directors of the
company in London previous to Dr. Tolmie’s visit. The directors
had discouraged the proposed enlargement of their business, but it
seems from the statement of Dr. Tolmie, and the arrangements he
made, that they acceded to his plans, and constituted him their special
agent. There was at the time a question as to a separate charter for
that branch of their business. It was finally conceded that a separate
charter would enable this agricultural and cattle company to become
independent of the fur branch, and thus be the means of establishing
an opposition by the use of the funds appropriated to prevent any thing
of this kind, and decided that as the company had stipulated that they
were to have the “supreme direction of the Puget Sound Agricultural
Company,” no charter was necessary, and hence any arrangements
to that effect were withdrawn. It was from a knowledge of the fact
that that company had not even the Parliamentary acknowledgment
of its separate existence from the Hudson’s Bay Company, that all
their land claims were at once taken; and upon that ground they have
not dared to prosecute their claims, only under the wording of the
treaty with the United States, which is the only shadow of a legal
existence they have, and which, there is no question, would have been
stricken from the treaty, except through the fur influence of the company
to increase the plausibility of their claims against our government.


If there was any law to punish a fraud attempted to be committed
by a foreign company upon a friendly nation, this would be a plain
case; as the Hudson’s Bay Company, they claim $3,822,036.37; as the
Puget Sound Company, $1,168,000. The original stock of the Hudson’s
Bay Company was £10,500, or $50,820. In 1690 the dividends
upon this capital invested were so enormous that the company voted
to treble their stock, which was declared to be £31,500, or $152,460.
In 1720 the capital was again declared trebled, and to be £94,500, or
$457,380, while the only amount paid was £10,500, or $50,820. It was[Pg 69]
then proposed to add three times as much to its capital stock by subscription;
each subscriber paying £100 was to receive £300 of stock, so
that the nominal stock should amount to £378,000, or $1,820,520—the
real additional sum subscribed being £94,500, and the amount
of real stock added or paid but £3,150. In 1821, the Hudson’s
Bay Company and Northwest Company, of Montreal, were united.
The Hudson’s Bay Company called £100 on each share of its stock,
thus raising it nominally to £200,000, or $958,000. The Northwest
Company called theirs the same. The two companies combined
held a nominal joint stock of £400,000, or $1,916,000, while
we have reason to suppose that the original stock of the two companies,
admitting that the Northwest French Company had an equal
amount of original capital invested, would give £37,300, or $135,134,
as the capital upon which they have drawn from our country never less
than ten per cent. per annum, even when counted at £400,000, or
$1,916,000; and what, we would ask, has America received in return
for this enormous drain of her wealth and substance?


Have the Indians in any part of the vast country occupied by that
company been civilized or bettered in their condition? Have the
settlements under their fostering care been successful and prosperous?
Have they done any thing to improve any portion of the country they
have occupied, any further than such improvements were necessary to
increase the profits of their fur trade?


To every one of these questions we say, emphatically, No, not in a
single instance. On the contrary, they have used their privileges
solely to draw all the wealth they could from the country, and leave as
little as was possible in return.


The British author, from whose book we have drawn our figures of
that company’s stock, says of them: “To say, then, that the trade of
this country (England) has been fostered and extended by the monopoly
enjoyed by the company, is exactly contrary to the truth.”


We come now to learn all we can of a something that has assumed
the name of Puget Sound Agricultural Company, and under that name,
through the paternal influence of a bastard corporation, presumes to ask
an immense sum of the American government, whose country they
have used all their power and influence to secure to themselves, by acting
falsely to their own. We do not claim to be learned in the law of
nations, therefore we can only express such an opinion in this case as
we would were the case argued before a learned court and we one of
the jurors, giving our opinion as to the amount the parties were entitled
to receive. We will suppose that the lawyers have made their
pleas, which would, when printed, with the testimony on both sides,[Pg 70]
make a volume of the usual size of law books of one thousand
pages. Of course the fourth article of the treaty would be read to us
by both the lawyers, and explained by the judge, who would doubtless
say to the jury the first question to decide is, whether there is sufficient
evidence to convince you that the company claiming this name
have any legal existence outside the wording of the fourth article of
this treaty. Our answer would be: “Your honor, there is not the
least word in a single testimony presented before us to show that they
ever had any existence, only as they assumed a name to designate
the place a certain branch of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s business,
outside of its legitimate trade; that this being a branch legitimately
belonging to a settlement of loyal citizens of the country, we find
that this Hudson’s Bay Company, in assuming the supreme direction,
as per testimony of Dr. Tolmie, superseded and usurped the prerogatives
of the State; that the claim of this company, as set up in the
wording of the treaty, is for the benefit of a company having no natural
or legal right to assume supreme direction of the soil or its productions.
Hence any improvement made, or stock destroyed, was at
the risk of the individual owning, or making, or bringing such stock or
improvements into the country, and subject exclusively to the laws of
the country in which the trespass occurred. The claiming a name
belonging to no legal body cannot be made legal by a deception practiced
upon the persons making the treaty, as this would be equivalent
to pledging the nation to the payment of money when no cause could
be shown that money was justly due, as neither nation (except by a
deception brought to bear upon commissioners forming the treaty by
the mere assertion of an interested party) acknowledged the reported
existence of such a corporation, thereby creating a corporate body by
the wording of a treaty.” This, to a common juror, we confess, would
look like removing the necessity of a common national law, in relation
to all claims of foreigners who might feel disposed to come over and
trespass upon our national domain. A word in this treaty does not
settle the matter, and the claim should not be paid. The article above
referred to is commented upon by Mr. Day as follows:—


“That by article four of the treaty concluded between the United
States of America and Great Britain, under date of the 15th day of
June, 1864, it was provided that the farms, lands, and other property,
of every description, belonging to the Puget Sound Agricultural Company,
on the north side of the Columbia River [they should have included
those in the French possession, and added another million to
their claim; but we suppose they became liberal, and consented to take
half of the country their servants had settled upon], should be con[Pg 71]firmed
to the said company; but that in case the situation of those
farms and lands should be considered by the United States to be of
public and political importance, and the United States government
should signify a desire to obtain possession of the whole, or of any
part thereof, the property so required should be transferred to the said
government at a proper valuation, to be agreed upon between the
parties.


“That the government of the United States has not, at any time,
signified to the company a desire that any of the said property should
be transferred to the said government at a valuation as provided by the
treaty, nor has any transfer thereof been made [this was a great
misfortune. Uncle Sam had so much land of his own he did not want
to buy out this bastard company right away after the treaty was
made]; but the company have ever since continued to be the rightful
owners of the said lands, farms, and other property, and entitled to the
free and undisturbed possession and enjoyment thereof. [True; so
with all bastards. They live and die, and never find a father to own
them, except they come up with a big pile of money, which in your
claim is a case of clonas (don’t know.)]


“That, by a convention concluded between the two governments on
the 1st day of July, 1863, it was agreed that all questions between the
United States authorities on the one hand, and the Puget Sound Agricultural
Company on the other, with respect to the rights and claims
of the latter, should be settled by the transfer of such rights and
claims to the government of the United States for an adequate money
consideration.


“And the claimants aver that the rights and claims of the Puget
Sound Agricultural Company, referred to and intended in and by the
said convention, are their rights and claims in and upon the said lands,
farms, and other property of every description which they so held and
possessed within the said territory, and which, by reason of the said
treaty of the 15th of June, 1846, and according to the terms of the fourth
article thereof, the United States became and were bound to confirm.
And of the said farms and other property, they now submit to the honorable
the commissioners a detailed statement and valuation, as
follows.”


There have been twenty-seven witnesses examined to prove the claims
above set forth, and not a single one of them testified or gave the least
intimation that there ever was any such company as here set forth in
existence, only as connected with and subject to the control and management
of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the same as their farming operations
at Vancouver or Colville, or any other of their posts. The claim is so[Pg 72]
manifestly fictitious and without foundation, that the learned attorney
for the company bases his whole reliance upon the wording of the
treaty, and in consequence of the wording of that treaty, “and according
to the terms of the fourth article thereof, he says the United States
became and were bound to confirm.” So we suppose any other monstrous
claim set up by a band of foreign fur traders having influence
enough to start any speculation on a nominal capital in our country
and failing to realize the profits anticipated, must apply for an
acknowledgment of their speculation, be mentioned in a treaty, and be
paid in proportion to the enormity of their demands. We are inclined
to the opinion that so plain a case of fraud will be soon disposed of,
and the overgrown monster that produced it sent howling after the
Indians they have so long and so successfully robbed, as per their own
admission, of £20,000,000 sterling. (See Mr. M. Martin’s Hudson’s
Bay Company’s Territory, etc., p. 131.)


There is another question arising in this supposed Puget Sound concern.
Suppose, for a moment, the commissioners decide to pay the
whole or any part of this demand, who will be the recipients of
this money? We doubt whether the learned commissioners or the
counsel of the supposed company could tell, unless it is to be his fee
for prosecuting the case.


Doctor William Fraser Tolmie and Mr. George B. Roberts are the
only two witnesses that appear to know much about the matter, and
Mr. Roberts’ information seems to be derived from the same source as
our own, so that the writer, though not a member of the company,
has about as good a knowledge of its object and organization as Mr.
Roberts, who was connected with the Hudson’s Bay Company, and also
an agent of this Puget Sound Company.


Dr. Tolmie says: “The Puget Sound Company acquired, or purchased
from the Hudson’s Bay Company, all its improvements at Cowlitz and
Nasqualla, with its lands, live stock, and agricultural implements, all
of which were transferred, in 1840 or 1841, by the Hudson’s Bay Company
to the Puget Sound Company.”


As we understand this matter, it amounts to just this, and no more:
The Hudson’s Bay Company had consented to enlarge their business by
employing an outside capital or sinking fund they had at their disposal;
they instructed Dr. Tolmie, their special agent for that purpose,
to receive all the property at the two stations or farms named, to take
possession of them, and instead of opening an account with their opposition
sinking fund, they called it the Puget Sound Agricultural
Company. This explains the ten per cent. paid stock into that company.
Now, if this venture is profitable, nothing is lost; if it is not,[Pg 73]
it does not interfere with the legitimate business of the fur company—hence
the distinct claim under this name.


“The Puget Sound Company charged the Hudson’s Bay Company
for all supplies furnished, and paid the Hudson’s Bay Company for all
goods received from them.”


This was exactly in the line of the whole business done throughout
the entire Hudson’s Bay Company, with all their forts, and other
establishments.


“Were not the accounts of the Puget Sound Company always forwarded
to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s depot?” “They were,” says
Dr. Tolmie; and so were all the accounts of all the posts on this coast
sent to the depot at Vancouver, and thence to head-quarters on the other
side of the Rocky Mountains.


We have shown, by reference to the capital stock of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, that, in 1821, it was counted at £200,000. From this sum ten
per cent., or £20,000, was set apart as a sinking fund to oppose any fur
company or traders on the west side of the mountains, and an equal
sum for the same purpose on the east.


This western amount, being placed under the direction of Dr. Tolmie
and his successors, produced in seven years £11,000 sterling, equal to
$53,240. This transaction does not appear, from the testimony adduced
in the case, to have interfered in the least with the fur trade carried on
at these stations, and by the same officers or clerks of the Hudson’s Bay
Company; hence, we are unable, from the whole catalogue of twenty-seven
witnesses in the case, to find out who is to receive this nice little
sum of $1,168,000 or £240,000—only £40,000 more than the mother
had to trade upon when she produced this beautiful full-grown child,
the Puget Sound Agricultural Company,—having had an abortion on
the other side of the continent in the loss, without pay, of a large
portion of the Red River or Selkirk country. Uncle Sam was ungenerous
there.


This is truly an acre of wonders, and this Hudson’s Bay Company and
its productions are entitled to some consideration for their ingenuity, if
not for their honesty. It will be interesting to look at our British
cousins and see what is said about this “itself and its other self.” Mr.
Fitzgerald says, page 260: “It is a matter of importance to know
whether the Hudson’s Bay Company is about to submit itself and its
other self—the Puget Sound Association—to the same regulations
which are to be imposed on other settlers of Vancouver Island and
British Columbia.”


On page 287, he further states: “The Oregon Territory was peopled,
under the influence of the company, with subjects of the United[Pg 74]
States. (Since Writing the former chapter, I have heard this account
given of the conduct of the Hudson’s Bay Company, in regard to
the Oregon boundary, which offers still stronger ground for inquiry.
The country south of the 49th parallel, it seems, was hunted up—therefore
the posts of the Hudson’s Bay Company were become of no
value at all. By annexing all that country to the United States, and
inserting in the treaty a clause that the United States should pay the
company for all its posts if it turned them out, the company were
able to obtain from the Americans a large sum of money for what would
have been worth nothing had the territory remained British.) That lost
us the boundary of the Columbia River. That is one specimen of the
colonization of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The boundary westward
from the Lake of the Woods, we have seen, gave to the United States
land from which the company was engaged, at the very time, in
driving out British subjects, on the plea that it belonged to the company;
and now that the boundary has been settled only a few years,
we learn that the settlers on our side are asking the United States to
extend her government over that country.”


If this does not show a clear case of abortion on the part of that
honorable Hudson’s Bay Company east of the Rocky Mountains, tell us
what does. But it is interesting to trace a little further the British
ideas and pretensions to this Pacific coast. Our British author says,
page 288:—


“Make what lines you please in a map and call them boundaries, but
it is mockery to do so as long as the inhabitants are alienated from your
rule, as long as you have a company in power whose policy erases the
lines which treaties have drawn.


“Forasmuch, then, as these things are so, it becomes this country
[Great Britain] to record an emphatic protest against the recent policy
of the Colonial Office in abandoning the magnificent country on the
shores of the Pacific Ocean to the Hudson’s Bay Company.


“The blindest can not long avoid seeing the immense importance of
Vancouver Island to Great Britain. Those who, two years ago [1846],
first began to attract public attention to this question, are not the less
amazed at the unexpected manner and rapidity with which their anticipations
have been realized.


“Six months ago it was a question merely of colonizing Vancouver
Island; now it is a question involving the interests of the whole of
British North America, and of the empire of Great Britain in the
Pacific Ocean.”


It is always more or less difficult to trace the course of a false or
fictitious object. It becomes peculiarly so when two objects of the[Pg 75]
same character come up; the one, by long practice and experience,
assuming a fair and honorable exterior, having talent, experience, and
wealth; the other, an illegitimate production, being called into
existence to cripple the energies of two powerful nations, and living
under the supreme control of the body, having acquired its position
through the ignorance of the nations it seeks to deceive. It is out of
the question to separate two such objects or associations. The one is
the child of the other, and is permitted to exist while the object to be
accomplished remains an opponent to the parent association.


The opposition to the fur monopoly having ceased west of the Rocky
Mountains, a new element of national aggrandizement and empire
comes within the range of this deceitful and grasping association. Its
child is immediately christened and set to work under its paternal eye.
We have the full history of the progress made by this Mr. Puget
Sound Agricultural Company in the testimony of the twenty-seven
witnesses summoned to prove his separate existence from that of the
Hudson’s Bay Company.


We find, in tracing the existence of these two children of the British
empire in North America, that they have established themselves in an
island on the Pacific coast called Vancouver. In this island they are
more thrifty and better protected than they were in the dominions of
Uncle Samuel. Notwithstanding they are comfortably located, and
have secured the larger part of that island and the better portion of
British Columbia, there is occasionally a British subject that grumbles
a little about them in the following undignified style:—


“If the company were to be destroyed to-morrow, would England
be poorer? Would there not rather be demanded from the hands of
our own manufacturers ten times the quantity of goods which is sent
abroad, under the present system, to purchase the skins?” My dear
sir, this would make the Indians comfortable and happy. “We boast
[says this Englishman] that we make no slaves, none at least that can
taint our soil, or fret our sight; but we take the child of the forest,
whom God gave us to civilize, and commit him, bound hand and foot,
to the most iron of all despotisms—a commercial monopoly.


“Nor, turning from the results of our policy upon the native population,
to its effect upon settlers and colonists, is there greater cause for
congratulation.


“The system which has made the native a slave is making the settler
a rebel.


“Restrictions upon trade, jealousy of its own privileges, interference
with the rights of property, exactions, and all the other freaks in
which monopoly and despotism delight to indulge, have, it appears,[Pg 76]
driven the best settlers into American territory, and left the rest, as it
were, packing up their trunks for the journey.”


This, so far as relates to the proceedings, policy, and influence of
that company upon the settlement of Vancouver Island and British
Columbia, is verified by the facts now existing in those British colonies.
Their whole system is a perfect mildew and blight upon any country
in which they are permitted to trade or to do business.


We have little or no expectation that any thing we may write will
affect in the least the decision of the commissioners, whose business it
is to decide this Puget Sound Company’s case; but, as a faithful historian,
we place on record the most prominent facts relating to it, for
the purpose of showing the plans and schemes of an English company,
who are a nuisance in the country, and a disgrace to the nation under
whose charters they profess to act. Up to the time we were permitted
to examine the testimony they have produced in support of their
monstrous claims, we were charitable enough to believe there were
some men in its employ who could be relied upon for an honest and
truthful statement of facts in relation to the property and improvements
for which these claims are made; but we are not only disappointed,
but forced to believe the truth is not in them,—at least in
any whose testimony is before us in either case. Our English author
says:—


“It does not appear that the interposition of ‘an irresponsible company’
can be attended with benefit to the colony.——A company
whose direction is in London, and which is wholly irresponsible,
either to the colonists or to the British Parliament.——There
is ample evidence in the foregoing pages that it would be absurd to
give this company credit for unproductive patriotism.——Considering
the identity existing between this association [the Puget Sound
Association] and the Hudson’s Bay Company, in whose hands the whole
management of the colonization of Vancouver Island is placed, there is a
very strong reason to fear that the arrangements which have been made
will, for some years at any rate, utterly ruin that country as a field for
colonial enterprise. There is a strong inducement for the company to
grant all the best part of the island to themselves, under the name of the
Puget Sound Association; and to trust to the settlements which may be
formed by that association as being sufficient to satisfy the obligation
to colonize which is imposed by the charter.


“There is a strong inducement to discourage the immigration of
independent settlers; first, because when all the colonists are in the
position of their own servants, they will be able much more readily to
prevent interference with the fur trade; and secondly, because the[Pg 77]
presence of private capital in the island could only tend to diminish
their own gains, derived from the export of agricultural produce.


“And, on the other hand, there will be every possible discouragement
to emigrants of the better class to settle in a colony where a large
part of the country will be peopled only by the lowest order of workmen,
where they may have to compete with the capital of a wealthy
company, and that company not only their rival in trade, but at the
same time possessed of the supreme power, and of paramount political
influence in the colony.


“There is a reason, more important than all, why the Hudson’s Bay
Company will never be able to form a colony. An agricultural settlement
they may establish; a few forts, where Scotchmen will grumble
for a few years before they go over to the Americans, but never a community
that will deserve the name of a British colony. They do not
possess public confidence.


“But the Hudson’s Bay Company—the colonial office of this unfortunate
new colony—has positive interests antagonistic to those of an
important settlement.


“It is a body whose history, tendency, traditions, and prospects
are equally and utterly opposed to the existence, within its hunting-grounds,
of an active, wealthy, independent, and flourishing colony,”
(we Americans say settlements) “with all the destructive consequences
of ruined monopoly and wide-spread civilization.”


Need we stop to say the above is the best of British testimony in
favor of the position we have assumed in relation to a company who
will cramp and dwarf the energies of their own nation to increase the
profits on the paltry capital they have invested.


Have the Americans any right to believe they will pursue any more
liberal course toward them than they have, and do pursue toward their
countrymen? As this writer remarks, “civilization ruins their
monopoly.” The day those two noble and sainted women, Mrs. Spalding
and Mrs. Whitman, came upon the plains of the Columbia, they
could do no less than allow England’s banner to do them reverence, for
God had sent and preserved them, as emblems of American civilization,
religious light, and liberty upon this coast. One of them fell by the
ruthless hand of the sectarian savages, pierced by Hudson’s Bay balls
from Hudson’s Bay guns. The other was carried, in a Hudson’s Bay
boat, to the protecting care of the American settlement; and for what
purpose? That the savage might remain in barbarism; that the monster
monopoly might receive its profits from the starving body and soul
of the Indian; that civilization and Christianity, and the star of empire
might be stayed in their westward course.


[Pg 78]Not yet satisfied with the blood of sixteen noble martyrs to civilization
and Christianity, quick as thought their missives are upon the
ocean wave. Wafted upon the wings of the wind, a foul slander is sent
by the representatives of that monopoly all over the earth, to blast her
(Mrs. Whitman’s) Christian and missionary character with that of her
martyred husband. And why?


Because that husband had braved the perils of a winter journey to
the capital of his country, to defeat their malicious designs, to shut up
the country and forever close it to American civilization and religion.
And now, with an audacity only equaled by the arch-enemy of God and
man, they come to our government and demand five millions of gold
for facilitating the settlement of a country they had not the courage or
power to prevent.


This, to a person ignorant of the peculiar arrangements of so monstrous
a monopoly, will appear strange—that they should have an exclusive
monopoly in trade in a country, and have not the courage or power
to prevent its settlement, especially when such settlement interferes
with its trade. So far as American territory was concerned, they were
only permitted to have a joint occupancy in trade. The sovereignty or
right of soil was not settled; hence, any open effort against any settler
from any country was a trespass against the rights of such settler.
They could only enforce their chartered privileges in British territory.
The country, under these circumstances, afforded them a vast field in
which to combine and arrange schemes calculated to perpetuate their
own power and influence in it. The natives of the country were their
trading capital and instruments, ready to execute their will upon all
opponents. The Protestant missionaries brought an influence and a
power that at once overturned their licensed privileges in trade, because
with the privilege of trade, they had agreed, in accepting their original
charter, to civilize and Christianize the natives of the country. This
part of their compact the individual members of the company were
fulfilling by each taking a native woman, and rearing as many half-civilised
subjects as was convenient. This had the effect to destroy
their courage in any investigation of their conduct. As to their power,
as we have intimated above, it was derived from the capacity, courage,
prejudices, and ignorance of the Indians, which the American missionary,
if let alone, would soon overcome by his more liberal dealings with
them, and his constant effort to improve their condition, which, just in
proportion as the Indians learned the value of their own productions
and labor, would diminish the profits in the fur trade.


This increase of civilization and settlement, says chief-trader Anderson,
“had been foreseen on the part of the company, and to a certain[Pg 79]
extent provided for. The cession of Oregon, under the treaty of 1846,
and the consequent negotiations for the transfer to the American government
of all our rights and possessions in their territory, retarded
all further proceedings.”


In this statement of Mr. Anderson, and the statement of Mr. Roberts,
an old clerk of the company, and from our own observations, this
“foreseeing” on the part of the company was an arrangement with
the Indians, and such as had been half civilized by the various individual
efforts of the members and servants of the company, to so
arrange matters that an exterminating war against the missionary settlements
in the country should commence before the Mexican difficulty
with the United States was settled.


This view of the question is sustained by the reply of Sir James
Douglas to Mr. Ogden, by Mr. Ogden’s course and treatment of the
Indians on his way up the Columbia River, his letters to Revs. E.
Walker and Spalding, his special instructions to the Indians, and
payment of presents in war materials for their captives, and the course
pursued by Sir James Douglas in refusing supplies to the provisional
troops and settlers, and the enormous supplies of ammunition furnished
to the priests for the Indians during the war of 1847-8.


We are decidedly of the same opinion respecting that company as
their own British writer, who, in conclusion, after giving us a history
of 281 pages, detailing one unbroken course of oppression and cruelty
to all under their iron despotism, says:—


“The question at issue is a serious one,—whether a valuable territory
shall be given up to an irresponsible corporation, to be colonized or not,
as it may suit their convenience; or whether that colonization shall be
conducted in accordance with any principles which are recognized as
sound and right?”


We can easily see the connection in the principle of right in paying
any portion of either of the monstrous claims of that company, which
never has been responsible to any civilized national authority.


“The foregoing exposure of the character and conduct of the company
has been provoked. When doubts were expressed whether the
company were qualified for fulfilling the tasks assigned to them by the
Colonial Minister, and when they appealed to their character and history,
it became right that their history should be examined, and their
character exposed.


“The investigation thus provoked has resulted in the discovery that
their authority is fictitious, and their claims invalid. As their power is
illegal, so the exercise of it has been mischievous; it has been mischievous
to Great Britain, leaving her to accomplish, at a vast national expense,[Pg 80]
discoveries which the company undertook, and were paid to perform;
and because our trade has been contracted and crippled, without any
advantage, political or otherwise, having been obtained in return; it
has been mischievous to the native Indians, cutting them off from all
communication with the rest of the civilized world, depriving them of
the fair value of their labor, keeping them in a condition of slavery,
and leaving them in the same state of poverty, misery, and paganism
in which it originally found them; it has been mischievous to the
settlers and colonists under its influence, depriving them of their liberties
as British subjects, frustrating, by exactions and arbitrary regulations,
their efforts to advance, and, above all, undermining their loyalty
and attachment to their mother country, and fostering, by bad government,
a spirit of discontent with their own, and sympathy with foreign
institutions.”


This writer says: “This is the company whose power is now [in
1849] to be strengthened and consolidated!—to whose dominion is to
be added the most important post which Great Britain possesses in the
Pacific, and to whom the formation of a new colony is to be intrusted.”


And, we add, this is the power that has succeeded in forcing their infamous
claims upon our government to the amount above stated, and
by the oaths of men trained for a long series of years to rob the Indian
of the just value of his labor, to deceive and defraud their own nation
as to the fulfillment of chartered stipulations and privileges.


The facts developed by our history may not affect the decision of the
commissioners in their case, but the future student of the history of
the settlement of our Pacific coast will be able to understand the influences
its early settlers had to contend with, and the English colonist
may learn the secret of their failure to build up a wealthy and prosperous
colony in any part of their vast dominion on the North American
continent.




[Pg 81]


CHAPTER X.


Case of The Hudson’s Bay Company v. The United States.—Examination of Mr.
McTavish.—Number of witnesses.—Their ignorance.—Amount claimed.—Original
stock.—Value of land in Oregon.—Estimate of Hudson’s Bay Company’s property.—Remarks
of author.


I have carefully reviewed all the testimony in the above case, on both
sides, up to May 1, 1867. On April 12, the counsel on the part of
the United States having already spent twenty-five days in cross-examining
Chief-Factor McTavish, so as to get at the real expenditures
of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and arrive at a just conclusion as to the
amount due them,—Mr. McTavish having frequently referred to accounts
and statements which he averred could be found on the various books
of the company,—gave notice to the counsel of the company in the following
language:—


“The counsel for the United States require of Mr. McTavish, who, as
appears from his evidence, is a chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
and its agent in the prosecution of this claim, to produce here for
examination by the United States or their counsel, all accounts, account-books,
and letter-books of said company, together with the regulations
under which their books were kept, and the various forms of contracts
with servants of the company, all of which books, rules, and forms contain
evidence pertinent to the issue in this case, as appears from the
cross-examination of Mr. McTavish, and suspends the further cross-examination
of this witness until he shall produce such books, accounts,
rules, and forms.”


On the 1st of May Mr. McTavish’s examination was resumed.


Int. 952.—“Will you please produce here for examination by the
United States or their counsel, all accounts, account-books, and letter-books
of the Hudson’s Bay Company which were kept at the various
posts of that company south of the 49th parallel of north latitude during
their occupation by the company, together with the regulations under
which their books were kept, and the regular forms of contracts with
the company’s servants?”


Ans.—“I can not say whether I will produce them or not.”


(The above question was objected to as incompetent, and as asking
the witness, not as to what he knows of the subject, but as to what his[Pg 82]
future course of action will be, over which, as witness, he can have no
control.)


During the examination of Mr. McTavish it was evident that he was
the main prosecuting witness, and considerably interested in the results
of the claim, or suit.


It would doubtless be interesting to most of our readers to see a review
of the testimony, or at least a summary of the evidence presented
on both sides in this case. There are now printed about one thousand
pages of documents and depositions. That relating particularly to the
Hudson’s Bay Company comprises about two-thirds of the whole
amount. The balance relates more particularly to the Puget Sound
Agricultural Company’s claim. This claim, the company have not
been able, by any testimony yet presented, to separate from that of the
Hudson’s Bay Company; so that there is no prospect of their receiving
one dollar on that account. There have been examined on the
part of the Puget Sound Company, to prove its separate existence from
the Hudson’s Bay Company, thirty witnesses; on the part of the United
States, twenty-one. On the part of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s claim
as separate from the Puget Sound Company, nineteen witnesses; on the
part of the United States, thirty. On both sides not far from forty-five
witnesses have been called upon the stand to testify in this important
case. The company in London have been requested to furnish evidence
of the separate organization or independent existence of the two companies;
and with all this evidence produced, nothing definite or certain
is shown, except that the concern was gotten up to deceive the English
people and rob the American government, and to counteract and oppose
the American settlement of this country.


As a looker-on and an observer of events in this country, I must confess
my astonishment at the ignorance, perverseness, and stupidity of
men whom I have ever heretofore regarded as honorable and
truthful.


From the testimony before me of the twenty odd English witnesses,
it really appears as though they felt that all they had to do was to ask
their pay, and our government would give it to them; or, in other
words, they, as Englishmen and British subjects, are prepared to compel
the payment of any sum they demand.


There are many interesting developments brought out in this case
relative to the early history of this country, which renders the depositions
in the case, though voluminous and tedious in the main, yet
interesting to the close and careful student of our history.


If time and opportunity is given, I will review this whole testimony
as a part of the history of this country, and, in so doing, will endeavor[Pg 83]
to correct an erroneous impression that will result from the testimony
as now before us.


The amount claimed in this case is four million nine hundred and
ninety thousand thirty-six dollars and sixty-seven cents, or, nine hundred
and eighty-five thousand three hundred and fifty pounds sterling,
in gold coin.


I now have before me, including the Hudson’s Bay Company’s memorial,
eleven hundred and twenty-six pages of printed documents and
depositions relating to this case. I also have what may properly be
termed British testimony, bearing directly upon this case, which is entitled
to its full weight in a proper and just decision as to the amount of
compensation this Hudson’s Bay Company is entitled to receive from
our government.


I do not propose to review all the one thousand four hundred and
nineteen pages of statements and depositions in detail; that would be
too tedious, though I might be able to make it interesting to the general
reader, as it develops the whole history of that portion of our continent
that has for one hundred and ninety-seven years been under the
exclusive jurisdiction of a monopoly that effectually closed it to all outside
influences up to the year A. D. 1834.


According to our British testimony, it was originally £10,500. In
1690, in consequence of the enormous profits upon this small capital, it
was increased threefold, making it £31,500. In 1720 it was declared
to be £94,500. In this year the stock was (as is termed) watered. The
then proprietors each subscribed £100, and received £300 of stock,
calling the whole nominal stock £378,000, while the actual subscription
was but £94,500, and only £3,150 was paid. The stock was ordered
to reckon at £103,500, while the actual total amount paid was but
£13,650.


In 1821, there was another “watering” of the stock, and a call of
£100 per share on the proprietors, which raised their capital to £200,000.
The Northwest Fur Company joined the Hudson’s Bay Company
in this year, and the joint stock was declared to be £400,000.


We are ready to admit, in fact, the testimony in the case goes to
prove, that the French Northwest Company brought into the concern
an equal amount of capital with that of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
This would give the present Hudson’s Bay Company a real capital of
£27,300, a nominal capital of £400,000.


By reference to the memorial of the company, we find they claim,
on the 8th of April, 1867, of our government:—


For the right to trade, of which the settlement of the country and
removal of Indians to reservations has deprived them, £200,000.


[Pg 84]For the right of the free navigation of the Columbia River,
£300,000.


For their forts, farms, posts, and establishments, with the buildings
and improvements, £285,350, making, in all, £785,350, or $3,822,036.67,
or £385,350 more than the whole amount of nominal stock which they
claim to have invested in their entire trade.


We will not stop to speak of the morality of this claim; it is made
in due form, and this with the claim as set forth in the same document,
to wit: For lands, farms, forts, and improvements, £190,000; loss of live
stock and other losses, £50,000; total, £240,000—equal to $1,188,000,
to be paid in gold. In British money these two sums amount to
£1,025,350 sterling, in American dollars to $4,990,036.67; or £625,350
sterling money more than their nominal stock, and £998,050 sterling
more than all their real stock invested.


It will be remembered that this demand is simply on account of the
settlement of Oregon by the Americans. A part of the posts for
which this demand is made are still in their undisputed possession, and
a large portion of the claim is set up in consequence of the loss of the
profits of the fur trade, of that portion of their business as conducted
in territory that originally belonged to the United States, and was
actually given up to them by the treaty of December 24, 1814.


The reader will bear in mind, that in the review or discussion of
this Hudson’s Bay Company’s claim on our government, we only refer
to that part of their trade, and the rights or privileges they were
permitted to enjoy, jointly with Americans, in what is now absolutely
American territory. Over two-thirds of their capital has always been
employed in territory that the American has not been permitted to
enter, much less to trade and form a settlement of any kind.


The witnesses on the part of the Hudson’s Bay Company have been
forty-one in number. Of this number fifteen are directly interested in
the results of the award. Fourteen were brought to the country by, and
remained in the service of the company till they left the country; and
were all British, though some of them have become naturalized American
citizens. Twelve are American citizens, and are supposed to have no
particular interest in the results of the case; in fact, their statements
are all of a general and very indefinite character. Having come to
the country since 1850, they know but little or nothing about the
Hudson’s Bay Company, its rights, policy, or interests there. Not one
of them appears, from the testimony given, to understand the justness
of the company’s claim, or the injustice there would be in allowing
any part of it. Their testimony appears to be given under the impression
that because the treaty stipulated that the possessory rights[Pg 85]
of the company were acknowledged and to be respected, that therefore
full payment must be paid the company for the right of trade,
and the prospective profits in trade, and the increased value of assessable
property for an indefinite period in the future. As, for example,
a witness is asked:—


“What is the present value per acre of the company’s claims at
Cowlitz and Nasqualla, for farming and grazing purposes?”


Ans.—“Supposing both claims to belong to the same person or company,
having a clear and undisputed title, and perfectly exempt from
molestation in the transaction of business, I think the Cowlitz claim
worth to-day thirty dollars an acre, and the Nasqualla claim five
dollars an acre, for farming and grazing purposes.”


The fifteen interested witnesses all testify to about the same thing,
asserting positively as to the real value of the company’s supposed
rights. One of the chief factors, in answer to the interrogatory,
“State the value of the post at Vancouver, as well in 1846 as since,
until the year 1863; give the value of the lands and of the buildings
separately; and state also what was the value of the post in relation
to the other posts, and as a center of trade,” said:—


“It being the general depot for the trade of the company west of
the Rocky Mountains, in 1846 the establishment at Vancouver, with its
out-buildings, was in thorough order, having been lately rebuilt;
taking into account this post” (a notorious fact that but two new
buildings were about the establishment and in decent repair), “together
with the various improvements at the mill, on the mill plain, on
the lower plain, and at Sauvies Island, I should estimate its value
then to the company at from five to six hundred thousand dollars.”


The value of the land used by the company, at Fort Vancouver, in
1846, say containing a frontage of twenty-five miles on the Columbia,
by ten miles in depth, in all two hundred and fifty square miles, or
about 160,000 acres, I should calculate as being worth then, on an
average, from $2.50 to $3 an acre (at $2.50 would give us $400,000);
this, with the improvements, say $500,000, gives us, at this witness’s
lowest estimate, $900,000 for the company’s possessory rights.


This witness goes into an argument stating surrounding and probable
events, and concludes in these words: “I am clearly of opinion that
had the company entire control to deal with it as their own, without
any question as to their title, from the year 1846 and up to 1858, when
I left there, taking the fort as a center point, the land above and below
it, to the extent of three square miles, or 1,920 acres, with frontage on
the Columbia River, could have been easily disposed of for $250 per
acre ($480,000). The remainder of the land claim of the company at[Pg 86]
Vancouver is more or less valuable, according to its locality; thus, I
consider the land on the lower plain, having frontage on the river for a
distance of five miles, or 3,200 acres, as worth $100 per acre ($320,000).
Below that, again, to the Cathlapootl, a distance of probably ten miles,
with a depth of two miles, or 12,800 acres, is worth $25 an acre ($320,000).
Going above the fort plain, and so on to the commencement of the
claim, two miles above the saw-mill on the Columbia River, say a distance
of six or seven miles and back three miles, or about 13,500 acres,
should be worth from $10 to $15 per acre” ($135,000, at $10, his lowest
estimate). “The remainder of the claim is worth from $1.50 to $3 per
acre.” It being 128,580 acres, at $1.50 per acre, $192,580. This would
make for the Vancouver property, as claimed, and several witnesses
have sworn the value to amount, as per summary of a chief factor’s
testimony—






Forthe fort, buildings, farm and mill improvements$500,000


„ 1,920acresof land about the fort at $250peracre480,000


„3,200„below the fort, at $100„„320,000


„12,800„on lower plain, at $25„„320,000


„13,500„above the saw-mill, at $10„„135,000


„128,580„balance of claim, at $1.50„„192,580




(Note)


This gives us the sum of $1,947,580 in gold coin, as the value of the possessory
rights of the honorable the Hudson’s Bay Company to Fort
Vancouver and its immediate surroundings.


This chief factor’s oath and estimate of the property is sustained by
the estimates and oaths of three other chief factors, amounting to about
the same sum. This one, after answering in writing, as appears in his
cross-examination, twenty sworn questions affirming to the facts and
truth of his knowledge of the claims and business of the company, etc.,
is cross-questioned (Interrogatory 477), by the counsel for the United
States, as follows: “Can you not answer the last interrogatory
more definitely?” The 476th interrogatory was: “Have you not as
much knowledge of what the company claimed in this direction as
any other?” The answer to the 477th interrogatory is: “Referring
to my answer to the last interrogatory, it will be at once seen that I
have no personal knowledge as to what land the company actually
claimed on that line or any other, as regards the land in the neighborhood
of Fort Vancouver. This answer embraces even the present
time.”


There are several American witnesses introduced to prove this monstrous
claim, and to show the reasonableness and justness of their
demand. I will give a specimen of an answer given by one of them.
After estimating the amount of land in a similar manner to the witness
above referred to, calculating the land in four divisions, at $50, $10, and[Pg 87]
$1.25 per acre, and 161,000 acres amounting to $789,625, without any
estimate upon the buildings or improvements, the following question
was put to him: “Have you any knowledge of the market value of land
in the vicinity of Vancouver, at any time since 1860?”


Ans.—“I only heard of one sale, which was near the military reserve;
I think this was of 100 acres, and I understand brought $100 an
acre. I heard of this within the last few months, but nothing was said,
that I remember, about the time when the sale was made.”


From the intelligence and official position of this American witness,
we are forced to the conclusion that the enriching effects of old Hudson’s
Bay rum must have made him feel both wealthy and peculiarly
liberal in estimating the possessory rights of his Hudson’s Bay Company
friends.


There is one noticeable fact in relation to quite a number of the witnesses
called, and that have testified in behalf of the company’s claim.
It is their ignorance—we may add, total ignorance—of the general business,
profits, and policy of the company. This remark will apply to
every witness whose deposition has been taken, including their bookkeepers
and clerks in London, and their chief factors in Oregon. Dr.
McLaughlin seems to have been the only man upon this coast that
knew, or that could give an intelligent account of its policy or its proceedings.


The whole Hudson’s Bay Company concern appears like a great barrel,
bale, or box of goods, put up in London, and marked for a certain
district, servants and clerks sent along with the bales, and boxes, and
barrels of rum, to gather up all the furs and valuable skins they can
find all over the vast country they occupy, then bale up these furs and
skins and send them to London, where another set of clerks sell them
and distribute the profits on the sale of the furs.


As to the value of the soil, timber, minerals, or any improvements
they have ever seen or made in the country, they are as ignorant as the
savages of the country they have been trading with. This ignorance
is real or willful. The oaths of the two witnesses to which I have referred
show this fact beyond a doubt, they having been the longest in
the service, and attained a high position, and should know the most of
its business and policy.


There is one other American witness that has given his testimony in
the case of Puget Sound Agricultural Company v. United States.
He came to this country in 1853. In cross-interrogatory 55, he is
asked: “In your opinion, did not the agents of this company afford
great protection to the first settlers of this section of country by the
exercise of their influence over the different Indian tribes?”


[Pg 88]Ans.—“In my opinion, the officers of the company, being educated
gentlemen, have always exerted whatever influence they might have
had with the Indians to protect the whites of all nations in the early
settlement of the country.”


This opinion is expressed by a gentleman having no knowledge of
the policy and proceedings of the company in relation to all American
settlers previous to his arrival in the country. He concludes that
because he, in his official transactions, having no occasion to ask or
receive the company’s protection, was treated kindly, all others must
have been, as the company’s officers were, in his opinion, “educated
gentlemen.”


In answer to this last official American gentleman and his officious
opinion, as expressed on oath in this case, I will quote a statement,
under oath, of one of our old bed-rock settlers, who came on to the
west side of the Rocky Mountains in 1829, twenty-four years previous
to the last witness, who pretends to know so much.


Int. 7.—“What influence did the Hudson’s Bay Company exercise
over the Indians in the section where you operated, with reference to
the American trappers and traders? State such facts as occur to you
in this connection.”


Ans.—“The Hudson’s Bay Company exercised a great influence
over the western Indians; that is, the Cayuses, Nez Percés, Flatheads,
and Spokans, and others through these; they had no influence over the
Indians east of the Rocky Mountains at all, and away south they could
do almost any thing with the Indians. I know of one party that was
robbed by order of one of the Hudson’s Bay Company men, the
commander of Fort Wallawalla (Wallula); the party was robbed, and
the fur brought back to the fort and sold. I was not with the party;
that was my understanding about the matter; and that was what the
Indians said, and what the whites said that were robbed.” (A fact
known to the writer.)


Int. 13.—“Was it not generally understood among the American
trappers that the Hudson’s Bay Company got a very large quantity of
Jedediah Smith’s furs, for which he and they failed to account to the
company to which they belonged?” (Objected to, because it is leading,
immaterial, and hearsay.)


Ans.—“It used to be said so among the trappers in the mountains,”
(and admitted by the company, as no correct account was ever
rendered.)


Int. 14.—“If you remember, state the quantity which was thus
reported.” (Objected to as before.)


Ans.—“It was always reported as about forty packs.”


[Pg 89]Int. 15.—“Give an estimate of the value of forty packs of beaver
at that time.”


Ans.—“Forty packs of beaver at that time, in the mountains, was
worth about $20,000. I do not know what they would be worth at
Vancouver.”


Int. 16.—“State whether the dispute about this matter was the
cause of the dissolution of the firm of Smith, Jackson & Sublet, to
which you refer in your cross-examination.” (Objected to as above.)


Ans.—“I do not know; that was the report among mountain men.”


With these specimens of testimony on both sides, I will venture a
general statement drawn from the whole facts developed.


About the time, or perhaps one year before, the notice that the joint
occupancy of the country west of the Rocky Mountains was given by
the American government to that of the British, the Hudson’s Bay
Company, as such, had made extensive preparations and arrangements
to hold the country west of the Rocky Mountains. This arrangement
embraced a full and complete organization of the Indian tribes under
the various traders and factors at the various forts in the country.


The probability of a Mexican war with the United States, and such
influences as could be brought to bear upon commissioners, or the
treaty-making power of the American government, would enable them
to secure this object. In this they failed. The Mexican war was successfully
and honorably closed. The Hudson’s Bay Company’s claims
are respected, or at least mentioned as in existence, in the treaty of 1846,
that the 49th parallel should be the boundary of the two national
dominions.


On the strength of their supposed possessory right, they remain
quietly in their old forts and French pig-pens, take a full inventory
of their old Indian salmon-houses, and watch the progress of American
improvement upon this coast, till 1863, when the American people are
in the midst of a death struggle for its civil existence. They then for
the third time “water” this monstrosity under the name of “‘The International
Financial Society, limited,’ are prepared to receive subscriptions
for the issue at par of capital stock in the Hudson’s Bay Company,
incorporated by royal charter, 1670,” fixing the nominal stock
of the Hudson’s Bay Company at £2,000,000; and taking from this
amount £1,930,000, they offer it for sale under this new title in shares
of £20 each, claiming as belonging to them [i. e., the Hudson’s Bay
Company] 1,400,000 square miles, or upward of 896,000,000 acres of
land, and, after paying all expenses, an income of £81,000 in ten years,
up to the 31st of May—over four per cent. on the £2,000,000. This
vast humbug is held up for the English public to invest in,—a coloniza[Pg 90]tion
scheme to enrich the favored shareholders of that old English
aristocratic humbug chartered by Charles II. in 1670.


In the whole history of that company there has never been any
investigation of its internal policy so thorough as in the present proceedings.
In fact, this is the first time they have ventured to allow a
legal investigation into their system of trade and their rights of property.
They have grown to such enormous proportions, and controlled
so vast a country, that the government and treasury of the United
States has become, in their estimation, a mere appendage to facilitate
their Indian trade and financial speculations. From our recent purchases
of Russian territory, it becomes an important question to every
American citizen, and especially our statesmen, to make himself familiar
with so vast an influence under the British flag, and extending along
so great an extent of our northern frontier. Should they establish, by
their own interested and ignorant testimony, their present claims, there
will be no end to their unreasonable demands, for they have dotted the
whole continent with their trading-posts. They claim all that is supposed
to be of any value to savage and civilized man. The English
nation without its Hudson’s Bay Company’s old traps and hunting-parties
would have no claim west of the Rocky Mountains, yet, for the
sake of these, it has almost ventured a third war with our American
people in sending from its shores, instead of land pirates, under the
bars and stars, the red flag of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The two
flags should be folded together and laid up in the British Museum, as
a lasting monument of British injustice.


I apprehend, from a careful review of all this testimony of the forty-one
witnesses who were on the part of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
and the forty-two on the part of the United States, that the whole
policy of the company has been thoroughly developed; yet, at the same
time, without a long personal acquaintance with their manner of doing
business, it would be difficult to comprehend the full import of the testimony
given, though I apprehend the commissioners will have no
very difficult task to understand the humbuggery of the whole claim,
as developed by the testimony of the clerks in London and the investigation
at head-quarters. As to the amount of award, I would not risk
one dollar to obtain a share in all they get from our government. On
the contrary, a claim should be made against them for damages and
trespass upon the American citizens, as also the lives of such as they
have caused to be murdered by their influence over the Indians.


The telegraph has informed us that the commissioners have awarded
to the Hudson’s Bay Company, $450,000, and to the Puget Sound
concern, $200,000. We have no change to make in our opinion of the[Pg 91]
commissioners previously expressed, as they must have known, from the
testimony developed in the Puget Sound concern, that that part of the
claim was a fictitious one, and instituted to distract the public and
divide the pretensions to so large an amount in two parts. That the
commissioners should allow it can only be understood upon the principle
that the Hudson’s Bay Company were entitled to that amount as
an item of costs in prosecuting their case.


No man at all familiar with the history of this coast, and of the Hudson’s
Bay Company, can conscientiously approve of that award. Our
forefathers, in 1776, said “millions for defense, but not one cent for
tribute,” which we consider this award to be,—for the benefit of English
duplicity and double-dealing, in the false representations they made at
the making of the treaty, and the perjury of their witnesses.




[Pg 92]


CHAPTER XI.


Quotation from Mr. Swan.—His mistake.—General Gibbs’ mistake.—Kamaiyahkan.—Indian
agent killed.—I. I. Stevens misjudged.


The gigantic fraud of slavery fell, in our own land, in the short space
of four years; but that of this company—holding and destroying as
many lives as the African slave trade—holds its own, and still lifts its
head, under the patronage of a professed Christian nation; and claims
to be an honorable company, while it robs and starves its unnumbered
benighted Indians, and shuts up half of North America from civilization.
At the same time it has obtained $650,000 for partially withdrawing
its continued robberies of the American Indians within the
United States, after implanting in the savage mind an implacable hatred
against the American people.


While we have our own personal knowledge on this point, we will
give a quotation from Mr. Swan’s work, written in 1852, page 381,
showing his views of the subject, which are mostly correct; but, in
speaking of the trade of the Americans and of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, he says: “The Indians preferred to trade with the Americans,
for they kept one article in great demand, which the Hudson’s Bay
people did not sell, and that was whisky.”


In this Mr. Swan is entirely mistaken. The Hudson’s Bay people
always had liquor, and let the Indians have all they could pay for, as
proved by their own writer, Mr. Dunn. (See 12th chapter.) Mr. S.
continues: “Reckless, worthless men, who are always to be found in
new settlements, would give or sell whisky to the Indians, and then,
when drunk, abuse them. If the injury was of a serious nature, the
Indian was sure to have revenge; and should he kill a white man,
would be certainly hanged, if caught; but, although the same law
operated on the whites, I have never known an instance where a white
man has been hanged for killing an Indian.” This has been my experience,
Mr. Swan, for more than thirty years, with the Hudson’s
Bay Company, or English. When a white man kills an Indian, the
tribe, or his friends, are satisfied with a present, instead of the life of
the murderer. It has been invariably the practice with the Hudson’s
Bay Company to pay, when any of their people kill an Indian, and to
kill the Indian murderer; not so when an American is killed. Says[Pg 93]
Mr. Swan: “The ill-feelings thus engendered against the Americans, by
this, and other causes, was continually fanned and kept alive by these
half-breeds and old servants of the company, whose feelings were irritated
by what they considered an unwarrantable assumption on the
part of these settlers, in coming across the mountains to squat upon
lands they considered theirs by right of prior occupancy. The officers
of the company also sympathized with their old servants in this respect,
and a deadly feeling of hatred had existed between these officers and the
American emigrant, for their course in taking possession of the lands
claimed by the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, and other places
on the Sound and the Columbia River; and there is not a man among
them who would not be glad to have had every American emigrant
driven out of the country.” It is unnecessary to add examples of this
kind to prove to any reasonable mind the continued hostility of that
company, and all under its influence, to the American government and
people.


Can their friendship be bought by paying them the entire sum they
claim? We think not.


Whatever sum is given will go to enrich the shareholders, who will
rejoice over their success, as an Indian would over the scalp of his
enemy. The implacable hatred will remain, and nothing but extermination,
or a complete absorption of the whole continent into the
American republic, will close up the difficulty, and save a remnant of
the Indian tribes. This, to some, may not be desirable; but humanity and
right should, and will, eventually, prevail over crime, or any foreign
policy.


The American people are taunted by the Roman Jesuits and English
with having driven the Indian from his lands, and having occupied it
themselves; but how is it with the English? While the American has
attempted to gather the Indians into convenient communities, and spent
millions of dollars to civilize and better their condition, the English
nation, as such, has never given one dollar, but has chartered company
after company of merchants, traders, and explorers, who have
entered the Indian country under their exclusive charters, or license to
trade, and shut it up from all others. They have, in the profitable
prosecution of their trade, so managed as to exterminate all surplus
and useless Indians, and reduce them to easy and profitable control.
Should one of their half-breed servants, or a white man, attempt to
expose their system, or speak of their iniquitous policy, a great hue
and cry is raised against him, both in England and America, and he
must fall, either by a misinformed public or by savage hands, while
they triumphantly refer to the ease with which they exercise absolute[Pg 94]
control over the Indians in their jurisdiction, as a reason why they
should be permitted to continue their exclusive occupation and government
of the country. Thus, for being forced partially to leave that
portion of Oregon south of the 49th parallel, they presumed to make
a claim against our government three times larger than the whole
capital stock of the two companies combined.


This hue and cry, and the public sentiment they have continued to
raise and control, has its double object. The one is to continue their
exclusive possession of, and trade in the country, the other is to obtain
all the money they can from the American government for the little
part of it they have professedly given up.


It will be remembered that in the investigation of their claims, and
the depositions given, it was stated that Forts Okanagon, Colville,
Kootanie, and Flathead, were still in their possession in 1866; that
Wallawalla, Fort Hall, and Boise were given up because they were
prohibited by the government from trading ammunition and guns to
the Indians. This means simply that the last-named posts were too
far from their own territory to enable them to trade in these prohibited
articles, and escape detection by the American authorities. The
northern posts, or those contiguous to the 49th parallel, are still occupied
by them. From these posts they supply the Indians, and send
their emissaries into the American territory, and keep up the “deadly
hatred,” of which Mr. Swan speaks, and about which General Gibbs, in
his letter explaining the causes of the Indian war, is so much mistaken.


There is one fact stated by General Gibbs, showing the continued
combination of the Roman priests with the Hudson’s Bay Company,
which we will give in this connection. He says: “The Yankamas have
always been opposed to the intrusion of the Americans.” This is also
a mistake of Mr. Gibbs, as we visited that tribe in the fall of 1839, and
found them friendly, and anxious to have an American missionary
among them. At that time there had been no priest among them, and
no combined effort of the company to get rid of the American missionary
settlements. Kamaiyahkan, the very chief mentioned by General
Gibbs as being at the head of the combination against the Americans,
accompanied us to Dr. Whitman’s station, to urge the establishment of
an American mission among his people.


General Gibbs says, that, “as early as 1853, Kamaiyahkan had projected
a war of extermination. Father Pandosa, the priest at
Atahnam (Yankama) mission, in the spring of that year, wrote to
Father Mesplie, the one at the Dalls, desiring him to inform Major
Alvord, in command at that post, of the fact. Major Alvord reported
it to General Hitchcock, then in command on this coast, Hitchcock cen[Pg 95]sured
him as an alarmist, and Pandosa was censured by his superiors,
who forthwith placed a priest of higher rank over him.”


The next year, Indian agent Bolon was killed, and the war commenced.
How did General Hitchcock learn that Pandosa, a simple-hearted
priest, and Major Alvord were alarmists? The fact of the
censure, and placing a priest of higher rank over Pandosa at the
Yankama station (the very place we selected in 1839 for an American
station), is conclusive evidence on this point.


“The war of extermination,” that General Gibbs, in his mistaken
ideas of Hudson’s Bay policy and Indian character, attributes to the
policy of Governor I. I. Stevens, was commenced in 1845. At that
time, it was supposed by James Douglas, Mr. Ogden, and the ruling
spirits of that company, that all they had to do was to withhold
munitions of war from the Americans, and the Indians would do the
balance for them.


The Indian wars that followed, and that are kept up and encouraged
along our borders, and all over this coast, are the legitimate fruits of
the “DEADLY HATRED” implanted in the mind and soul of the Indian
by the Hudson’s Bay Company and their allies, the priests.
There is an object in this: while they teach the Indians to believe that
the Americans are robbing them of their lands and country, they at
the same time pretend that they do not want it.


Like Bishop Blanchet with the Cayuses, they “only want a small
piece of land to raise a little provisions from,” and they are continually
bringing such goods as the Indians want; and whenever they are ready
to join their forces and send their war-parties into American territory,
this company of honorable English fur traders are always ready to
supply them with arms and ammunition, and to purchase from them
the goods or cattle (including scalps, in case of war between the two
nations) they may capture on such expeditions.


The more our government pays to that company, or their fictitious
agent, the more means they will have to carry on their opposition to
American commerce and enterprise on this coast. Should they obtain
but one-third of their outrageous claim, it is contemplated to invest it,
with their original stock, in a new company, under the same name,
Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company, and to extend their operations so
as to embrace not only the fur, but gold and grain trade, over this
whole western coast.


Will it be for the interests of this country to encourage them? Let
their conduct and proceeding while they had the absolute control of it
answer, and prove a timely warning to the country before such vampires
are allowed to fasten themselves upon it.




[Pg 96]


CHAPTER XII.


Review of Mr. Greenhow’s work in connection with the conduct and policy of the Hudson’s
Bay Company.—Schools and missionaries.—Reasons for giving extracts from
Mr. Greenhow’s work.—Present necessity for more knowledge about the company.


As stated by General Gibbs, Mr. Greenhow has given us a complete
history of the discovery of Oregon. At the point where he leaves us
the reader will observe our present history commences. We did not
read Mr. Greenhow’s very elaborate and interesting history till ours
had been completed in manuscript. On reading it, we found abundant
proof of statements we have made respecting the policy of the British
government to hold, by the influence of her Hudson’s Bay Company,
the entire country west of the Rocky Mountains that was not fully
occupied by the Russian and Spanish governments.


This fact alone makes our history the more important and interesting
to the American reader. Mr. Greenhow, upon pages 360 and 361
of his work, closes the labors of the eleven different American fur
companies with the name of Captain Nathaniel Wyeth, and upon these
two pages introduces the American missionaries, with the Roman
Jesuits, though the latter did not arrive in the country till four years
after the former.


On his 388th page, after speaking of various transactions relative to
California, the Sandwich Islands, and the proceedings in Congress
relative to the Oregon country, he says: “In the mean time, the Hudson’s
Bay Company had been doing all in its power to extend and
confirm its position in the countries west of the Rocky Mountains, from
which its governors felicitated themselves with the idea that they had
expelled the Americans entirely.”


Page 389. “The object of the company was, therefore, to place a
large number of British subjects in Oregon within the shortest time,
and, of course, to exclude from it as much as possible all people of the
United States; so that when the period for terminating the convention
with the latter power should arrive, Great Britain might be able to
present the strongest title to the possession of the whole, on the ground
of actual occupation by the Hudson’s Bay Company. To these ends
the efforts of that company had been for some time directed. The immigration
of British subjects was encouraged; the Americans were by[Pg 97]
all means excluded; and the Indians were brought as much as possible
into friendship with, and subject to, the company, while they were taught
to regard the people of the United States as enemies!”


In a work entitled “Four Years in British Columbia,” by Commander
R. C. Mayne, R. N., F. R. G. S., page 279, this British writer says:
“I have also spoken of the intense hatred of them all for the Boston
men (Americans). This hatred, although nursed chiefly by the cruelty
with which they are treated by them, is also owing in a great measure
to the system adopted by the Americans of removing them away from
their villages when their sites become settled by whites. The Indians
often express dread lest we should adopt the same course, and have
lately petitioned Governor Douglas on the subject.”


Commander Mayne informs us, on his 193d page, that in the performance
of his official duties among the Indians, “recourse to very strong
expressions was found necessary; and they were threatened with the
undying wrath of Mr. Douglas, whose name always acts as a talisman
with them.”


We shall have occasion to quote statements from members of the
Hudson’s Bay Company, and from Jesuit priests, further confirming the
truth of Mr. Greenhow’s statement as above quoted. It would be gratifying
to us to be able, from our long personal experience and observations
relative to the policy and conduct of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
to fully confirm the very plausible, and, if true, honorable treatment of
the aborigines of these countries; but truth, candor, observation, our
own and other personal knowledge, compel us to believe and know that
Mr. Greenhow is entirely mistaken when he says, on his 389th page,
speaking of the Hudson’s Bay Company:—


“In the treatment of the aborigines of these countries, the Hudson’s
Bay Company admirably combined and reconciled humanity with policy.
In the first place, its agents were strictly prohibited from furnishing
them with ardent spirits; and there is reason to believe that the prohibition
has been carefully enforced.


“Sunday, March 11, 1852,” says Mr. Dunn, one of their own servants,
“Indians remained in their huts, perhaps praying, or more likely singing
over the rum they had traded with us on Saturday.——Tuesday,
April 26.—Great many Indians on board.——Traded a number
of skins. They seem to like rum very much.——May 4.—They
were all drunk; went on shore, made a fire about 11 o’clock;
being then all drunk began firing on one another.——June 30.—The
Indians are bringing their blankets—their skins are all gone; they
seem very fond of rum.——July 11.—They traded a quantity of
rum from us.”


[Pg 98]The Kingston Chronicle, a newspaper, on the 27th of September,
1848, says: “The Hudson’s Bay Company have, in some instances with
their rum, traded the goods given in presents to the Indians by the
Canadian Government, and afterward so traded the same with them at
an advance of little short of a thousand per cent.”


Question asked by the Parliamentary Committee: “Are intoxicating
liquors supplied in any part of the country—and where?” The five
witnesses answered:—


1st. “At every place where he was.”


2d. “All but the Mandan Indians were desirous to obtain intoxicating
liquor; and the company supply them with it freely.”


3d. “At Jack River I saw liquor given for furs.”


4th. “At York Factory and Oxford House.”


5th. The fifth witness had seen liquor given “at Norway House
only.”


The writer has seen liquor given and sold to the Indians at every
post of the company, from the mouth of the Columbia to Fort Hall,
including Fort Colville, and by the traveling traders of the company;
so that whatever pretensions the company make to the contrary, the
proof is conclusive, that they traffic in liquors, without any restraint or
hinderance, all over the Indian countries they occupy. That they charge
this liquor traffic to renegade Americans I am fully aware; at the same
time I know they have supplied it to Indians, when there were no
Americans in the country that had any to sell or give.


In the narrative of the Rev. Mr. King, it is stated that “the agents
of the Hudson’s Bay Company are not satisfied with putting so insignificant
value upon the furs, that the more active hunters only can gain
a support, which necessarily leads to the death of the more aged and
infirm by starvation and cannibalism, but they encourage the intemperate
use of ardent spirits.”


Says Mr. Alexander Simpson, one of the company’s own chief traders:
“That body has assumed much credit for the discontinuance of the sale
of spirituous liquors at its trading establishments, but I apprehend that
in this matter it has both claimed and received more praise than is its
due. The issue of spirits has not been discontinued by it on principle,
indeed it has not been discontinued at all when there is a possibility of
diminution of trade through the Indians having the power to resent
this deprivation of their accustomed and much-loved annual jollification,
by carrying their furs to another market.”


This means simply that Mr. Greenhow and all other admirers of the
Hudson’s Bay Company’s manner of treating Indians have been humbugged
by their professions of “humanity and policy.”


[Pg 99]We are inclined to return Mr. Greenhow’s compliment to the Rev.
Samuel Parker in his own language, as found on the 361st page of his
work. He says: “Mr. Samuel Parker, whose journal of his tour beyond
the Rocky Mountains, though highly interesting and instructive, would
have been much more so had he confined himself to the results of his
own experience, and not wandered into the region of history, diplomacy,
and cosmogony, in all of which he is evidently a stranger.” So with Mr.
Greenhow, when he attempts to reconcile the conduct of the Hudson’s
Bay Company with “humanity,” and admires their policy, and gives
them credit for honorable treatment of “Indians, missionaries, and settlers,”
he leaves his legitimate subject of history and diplomacy, and
goes into the subject of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s moral policy, to
which he appears quite as much a “stranger” as Mr. Samuel Parker
does to those subjects in which Mr. Greenhow found him deficient.


But, notwithstanding we are inclined to return Mr. Greenhow’s compliment
in his own language, his historical researches and facts are
invaluable, as developing a deep scheme of a foreign national grasping
disposition, to hold, by a low, mean, underhanded, and, as Mr. Greenhow
says, “false and malicious course of misrepresentation, the country
west of the Rocky Mountains.” There are a few pages in Mr. Greenhow’s
history that,—as ours is now fully written, and we see no reason
to change a statement we have made,—for the information of our readers,
and to correct what we conceive to be an erroneous impression of his
relative to our early settlements upon this coast, we will quote, and request
our readers to observe our corrections in the history or narration
of events we have given them.


“Schools for the instruction of their children, and hospitals for their
sick, were established at all their principal trading-posts; each of
which, moreover, afforded the means of employment and support to
Indians disposed to work in the intervals between the hunting seasons.”


Says the Rev. Mr. Barnley, a Wesleyan missionary at Moose Factory,
whose labors commenced in June, 1840, and continued till September,
1847: “A plan which I had devised for educating and turning
to some acquaintance with agriculture, native children, was disallowed,——it
being very distinctly stated by Sir George Simpson, that
the company would not give them even a spade toward commencing
their new mode of life.”


Says Mr. Greenhow: “Missionaries of various sects were encouraged
to undertake to convert these people to Christianity, and to induce them
to adopt the usages of civilized life, so far as might be consistent with
the nature of the labors in which they are engaged; care being at the
same time taken to instill into their minds due respect for the company,[Pg 100]
and for the sovereign of Great Britain; and attempts were made, at
great expense, though with little success, to collect them into villages,
or tracts where the soil and climate are favorable to agriculture.”


Mr. Barnley says: “At Moose Factory, where the resources were
most ample, and where was the seat of authority in the southern department
of Rupert’s Land, the hostility of the company (and not
merely their inability to aid me, whether with convenience or inconvenience
to themselves) was most manifest.”


Another of the English missionaries writes in this manner: “When
at York Factory last fall (1848), a young gentleman boasted that he
had succeeded in starting the Christian Indians of Rossville off with
the boats on a Sunday. Thus every effort we make for their moral and
spiritual improvement is frustrated, and those who were, and still are,
desirous of becoming Christians, are kept away; the pagan Indians
desiring to become Christians, but being made drunk on their arrival
at the fort, ‘their good desires vanish.’ The Indians professing Christianity
had actually exchanged one keg of rum for tea and sugar, at
one post, but the successive offers of liquor betrayed them into intoxication
at another.”


The Rev. Mr. Beaver, chaplain of the company at Fort Vancouver,
in 1836, writes thus to the Aborigines Protection Society, London,
tract 8, page 19:—


“For a time I reported to the governor and committee of the company
in England, and to the governor and the council of the company
abroad, the result of my observations, with a view to a gradual amelioration
of the wretched degradation with which I was surrounded, by
an immediate attempt at the introduction of civilization and Christianity,
among one or more of the aboriginal tribes; but my earnest
representations were neither attended to nor acted upon; no means
were placed at my disposal for carrying out the plan which I suggested.”


Mr. Greenhow says, page 389: “Particular care was also extended to
the education of the half-breed children, the offspring of the marriage
or the concubinage of the traders with the Indian women, who were
retained and bred as much as possible among the white people, and
were taken into the service of the company, whenever they were found
capable. There being few white women in those countries, it is evident
that these half-breeds must, in time, form a large, if not an important
portion of the inhabitants; and there is nothing to prevent their being
adopted and recognized as British subjects.


“The conduct of the Hudson’s Bay Company, in these respects, is
worthy of commendation; and may be contrasted most favorably with[Pg 101]
that pursued at the present day by civilized people toward the aborigines
of all other new countries.”


It is a most singular fact, that while Mr. Greenhow was writing the
above high commendation of the conduct and policy of the Hudson’s
Bay Company, in relation to their treatment of Indians and missionaries
under their absolute control, that that company were driving
from their posts at Moose Factory and Vancouver, their own Wesleyan
and Episcopal missionaries, and doing all they could to prevent the
settlement or civilization of the Indians, or allowing any missionary
intercourse with them, except by foreign Roman Jesuits, and were
actually combining the Indians in Oregon to destroy and defeat civil
and Christian efforts among the Indians and American settlements then
being established in the country. Page 390, Mr. Greenhow further
says: “The course pursued by the Hudson’s Bay Company, with regard
to American citizens in the territory west of the Rocky Mountains,
was equally unexceptionable and politic. The missionaries and
immigrants from the United States, or from whatever country they
might come, were received at the establishments of the company with
the utmost kindness, and were aided in the prosecution of their respective
objects, so far and so long as those objects were not commercial;
but no sooner did any person, unconnected with the company, attempt
to hunt, or trap, or trade with the Indians, than all the force of the
body was turned against him.”


The statement in the last part of the foregoing paragraph can be
attested by more than one hundred American hunters and traders, who
have felt the full force of that company’s influence against them; as
also by missionaries and settlers on first arriving in the country. But
Mr. Greenhow says: “There is no evidence or reason to believe that
violent measures were ever employed, either directly or indirectly, for
this purpose; nor would such means have been needed while the company
enjoyed advantages over all competitors, such as are afforded by
its wealth, its organization, and the skill and knowledge of the country,
and of the natives, possessed by its agents.” This is simply an assertion
of Mr. Greenhow, which our future pages will correct in the mind of
any who have received it as truth. It is unnecessary to pursue Mr.
Greenhow’s history of the Hudson’s Bay Company respecting their
treatment of American or English missionaries or American settlers;
the statements we have quoted show fully his want of a correct knowledge
of the practices of that company in dealing with savage and
civilized men. We only claim for ourselves close observation and
deeply interested participation in all that relates to Oregon since 1832,
having been permitted to be present at the forming of its early civil settle[Pg 102]ment
and political history. This work of Mr. Greenhow’s appears to be
peculiarly political as well as strongly national, and in the passages we
have quoted, with many other similar ones, he seems to us to have written
to catch the patronage of this foreign English corporation, which, according
to his own showing, has been an incubus upon the English, and, so
far as possible, the Americans also. While he shows his utter ignorance
of their internal policy and history, his researches in the history of the
early discoveries on this western coast are ample And most useful as
vindicating our American claim to the country. But as to its settlement
and civilization, or its early moral or political history, as he says
of Mr. Samuel Parker, “in all of which he is evidently a stranger.”


Our reasons for giving the extracts from Mr. Greenhow’s work are—


1st. That the reader may the better understand what follows as our
own.


2d. To avoid a future collision or controversy respecting statements
that may be quoted from him to contradict or controvert our own, respecting
the policy and practices of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
which, Mr. Greenhow says, page 391, “did no more than they were
entitled to do. If the Americans neglected or were unable to avail
themselves of the benefits secured to both nations by the convention,
the fault or the misfortune was their own, and they had no right to
complain.” If this is true, as against the American, what right has the
Hudson’s Bay Company to complain and ask pay for what had been
rendered worthless to them by the American settlement of the
country?


“The hospitable treatment extended to them [American citizens]
by the agents of the Hudson’s Bay Company was doubtless approved
by the directors of that body; and all who know Messrs. McLaughlin
and Douglas, the principal managers of the affairs of that body on the
Columbia, unite in testifying that the humanity and generosity of those
gentlemen have been always carried as far as their duties would permit.
That their conduct does not, however, meet with universal approbation
among the servants of the company in that quarter, sufficient evidence
may be cited to prove.” He quotes John Dunn’s book, chap. 12.


Mr. Greenhow wrote his history with the light then existing, i. e.,
in 1844. About that time Dr. McLaughlin was called to an account by
the directors of the Hudson’s Bay Company, in London. He explained
to them his position, and the condition of the Americans, who came to
this country both naked and hungry, and that, as a man of common
humanity, he could do no less than he did. The directors insisted
upon the enforcement of their stringent rule, which was, to starve and
drive every American from the country. He then told them: “If such[Pg 103]
is your order, gentlemen, I will serve you no longer.” As to Mr. Douglas,
we have no such noble sentiment to record in his behalf; he
belonged to that English party called by Mr. Greenhow “Patriots.”
He says: “There were two parties among the British in Oregon,
the Patriots and the Liberals, who, while they agreed in holding all
Americans in utter detestation, as knaves and ruffians, yet differed
as to the propriety of the course pursued with regard to them by the
company. The Patriots maintained, that kindness showed to the people
of the United States was thrown away, and would be badly requited;
that it was merely nurturing a race of men, who would soon
rise from their weak and humble position, as grateful acknowledgers of
favors, to the bold attitude of questioners of the authority of Great
Britain, and her right, even to Vancouver itself; that if any attempts
were made for the conversion of the natives to Christianity, and to the
adoption of more humanized institutions (which they limited to British
institutions), a solid and permanent foundation should be laid; and for
that purpose, if missionaries were to be introduced, they should come
within the direct control of the dominant power, that is, the British
power, and should be the countrymen of those who actually occupied
Oregon, etc. The Liberals, while admitting all that was said on the
other side, of the character of the Americans, nevertheless charitably
opined that those people should not be excluded, as they possessed some
claim, ‘feeble, but yet existing,’ to the country, and until ‘these were
quashed or confirmed, it would be unjust and impolite’ to prevent them
from all possession; that these missionaries, though bad, were better
than none; and that good would grow out of evil in the end, for the
Americans, by their intercourse with the British, would become more
humanized, tolerant, and honest.”


As most of the above sentiment relative to the two English parties in
the country appears to be quoted by Mr. Greenhow from some author,
it would be interesting to know who he is; still, the fact is all that is
essential to know, and we have reason to believe and know that the
sentiments expressed were entertained by the controlling authority of
the company in London and in Oregon; and that Messrs. Douglas and
Ogden, and the Roman priests under their patronage, acted fully up to
them as Roman and British Jesuits, there is no question; and under
such circumstances, it is not surprising that the immigration from the
United States in 1843, ’44, and ’45, should increase that feeling of hostility
and hatred of the American settlement and civilization in the
country.


We do not propose at present to speak of the action of the American
Congress relative to Oregon, but, as will be seen, to connect and bring[Pg 104]
into our own history such allusions of Mr. Greenhow as serve to illustrate
and prove the several propositions we have stated respecting the
early history of its settlement, and also to prepare the reader to understand
in a manner the combined influences that were ready to contest
any claim or effort any American company or citizen might make for
the future occupation of the country.


It will be seen that no company of settlers or traders could have
succeeded, having arrived in advance of the American missionaries.
They were unquestionably the only nucleus around which a permanent
settlement could have been formed, eleven different American fur
companies having commenced and failed, as will be shown; and
although Mr. Greenhow seems to regard and treat the American missionary
effort with contempt, yet impartial history will place them in
the foreground, and award to them an honorable place in counteracting
foreign influences and saving the country to its rightful owners.


It will be seen by the preliminary and following remarks and narrative
of events, and by a careful study of all the histories and journals
to which we have had occasion to refer, or from which we have quoted
a statement, that the forming, civilizing, and political period in our
Oregon history is all a blank, except that the Hudson’s Bay Company
were the patron saints, the noble and generous preservers of the
“knaves” and “ruffians” that came to this country to rob them of
their pious and humane labors to civilize their accomplished native
“concubines.” That, according to their ideas, the missionaries, such
as came from the United States, “though bad,” could become “humanized,
tolerant,” and even “honest,” by associating with such noble,
generous, tolerant, virtuous, and pure-minded traders as controlled the
affairs of that company, under the faithfully-executed and stringent
rules of the honorable directors in London.


At the present time there is an additional important reason for a
better understanding and a more thorough knowledge of the influences
and operations of this British monopoly than formerly. Notwithstanding
they have been driven from Oregon by its American settlement,
they have retired to British Columbia, and, like barnacles upon
a ship’s bottom, have fastened themselves all along the Russian and
American territories, to repeat just what they did in Oregon; and,
with the savage hordes with whom they have always freely mingled,
they will repeat their depredations upon our American settlements,
and defeat every effort to civilize or Christianize the natives over whom
they have any influence.


Six generations of natives have passed away under their system
of trade and civilization. The French, English, and Indians before[Pg 105]
our American revolution and independence could not harmonize.
The French were driven from their American possessions and control
over the Indians, and peace followed. The Indians, English, and
Americans can not harmonize; they never have, and they never will;
hence, it becomes a question of vast moment, not only to the Indian
race, but to the American people, as to the propriety and expediency
of allowing the English nation or British or foreign subjects to further
exercise any influence among our American Indians.


Mr. A. H. Jackson estimates the expense of our Indian wars, since
1831 to the present time, at one thousand millions of dollars and
thirty-seven thousand lives of our citizens, not counting the lives of
Indians destroyed by our American wars with them. If the reader
will carefully read and candidly judge of the historical facts presented
in the following pages, we have no fears but they will join us in our
conclusions, that the Monroe doctrine is irrevocably and of necessity
fixed in our American existence as a nation at peace with all, which
we can not have so long as any foreign sectarian or political organizations
are permitted to have a controlling influence over savage minds.
A Frenchman, an Englishman, a Mormon, a Roman priest, any one, or
all of them, fraternizing as they do with the Indian, can work upon his
prejudices and superstitions and involve our country in an Indian war—which
secures the Indian trade to the British fur company. This is
the great object sought to be accomplished in nearly all the wars our
government has had with them.


One other remarkable fact is noted in all our Indian wars, the
American or Protestant missionaries have been invariably driven from
among those tribes, while the Roman Jesuit missionaries have been
protected and continued among the Indians, aiding and counseling them
in the continuance of those wars. It is no new thing that ignorance,
superstition, and sectarian hate has produced such results upon the
savage mind, and our Oregon history shows that a shrewd British fur
company can duly appreciate and make use of just such influences to
promote and perpetuate their trade on the American continent.




[Pg 106]


CHAPTER XIII.


Occupants of the country.—Danger to outsiders.—Description of missionaries.


In 1832, this entire country, from the Russian settlement on the north
to the gulf of California on the south, the Rocky Mountains on the east
to the Pacific Ocean on the west, was under the absolute and undisputed
control of the Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company; and the said
company claimed and exercised exclusive civil, religious, political, and
commercial jurisdiction over all this vast country, leaving a narrow
strip of neutral territory between the United States and their assumed
possessions, lying between the Rocky Mountains and the western
borders of Missouri. Its inhabitants were gentlemen of the Hudson’s
Bay Company,—their clerks, traders, and servants,—consisting mostly
of Canadian-French, half-breeds, and natives.


Occasionally, when a venturesome Yankee ship or fur trader entered
any of the ports of the aforesaid country for trade, exploration, or settlement,
this honorable company asserted its licensed and exclusive right
to drive said vessel, trader, explorer, or settler from it. Should he be
so bold as to venture to pass the trained bands of the wild savages of
the mountains, or, even by accident, reach the sacred trading-ground
of this company, he was helped to a passage out of it, or allowed to
perish by the hand of any savage who saw fit to punish him for his
temerity.


While this exclusive jurisdiction was claimed and exercised by the
company, four wild, untutored Indians of the Flathead tribe learned
from an American trapper, who had strayed into their country, that
there was a Supreme Being, worthy of worship, and that, by going to
his country, they could learn all about him. Four of these sons of the
wilderness found their way to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1832. Mr. Catlin,
a celebrated naturalist and artist, I believe not a member of any religious
sect, learned the object that had brought these red men from the
mountains of Oregon, and gave the fact to the religious public.


This little incident, though small in itself, resulted in the organization,
in 1833, of the Missionary Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
the appointment of Rev. Jason Lee and associates, to the establishment
of the Methodist Mission in the Wallamet Valley in 1834, the appointment
of Rev. Samuel Parker and Dr. Marcus Whitman, by the Ameri[Pg 107]can
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, to explore the
country in 1835, and the establishment of a mission by said Board in
1836.


Rev. Jason Lee, of Stansted, Canada East, a man of light hair, blue
eyes, fair complexion, spare habit, above ordinary height, a little stoop-shouldered,
with strong nerve and indomitable will, yet a meek, warm-hearted,
and humble Christian, gaining by his affable and easy manners
the esteem of all who became acquainted with him, was the first to
volunteer.


Rev. Daniel Lee, a nephew of Jason, was the second;—the opposite
of the former in every particular—of medium height. The general
impression of outsiders was, that his moral qualities were not of the
highest order, yet it is not known that any specific charges were ever
brought against him.


Cyrus Shepard, a lay member, was a devoted Christian, and a faithful
laborer for the advancement of the objects of the mission and the general
welfare of all in the country. We have never learned that he had an
enemy or a slanderer while he lived in it. On his first arrival he
taught the Hudson’s Bay Company’s school at Vancouver, consisting
of children belonging to persons in the employ of the company, till the
mission buildings were ready, when he gathered a large school of Indian
and French half-breed children, and was quite successful in teaching
the rudiments of an English education. Rev. D. Lee and Mr.
Shepard were from New England.


Mr. P. L. Edwards, of Missouri, also a lay member, was of the company.
But little is known of him; the inducements to become a permanent
settler in the country do not appear in his case.


Rev. Samuel Parker, of Ithaca, New York, a man of good education
and refinement, and exceedingly set in his opinions and conclusions of
men and things, came to explore the country, and report to the American
Board as to the feasibility of establishing missions among the Indians,
one of the missionaries of the American Board, from the Sandwich
Islands, having visited the coast in an American ship, several years
previous, and made an unfavorable report on account of the fur-trade
influence against American traders, giving the impression that American
missionaries would not be tolerated in the country.


Mr. Parker was inclined to self-applause, requiring his full share of
ministerial approbation or respect, though not fully qualified to draw
it cheerfully from an audience or his listeners; was rather fastidious.


Dr. Marcus Whitman, of Rushville, New York, sent in company
with Mr. Parker to explore the country. A man of easy, don’t-care
habits, that could become all things to all men, and yet a sincere and[Pg 108]
earnest man, speaking his mind before he thought the second time,
giving his views on all subjects without much consideration, correcting
and changing them when good reasons were presented, yet, when fixed
in the pursuit of an object, adhering to it with unflinching tenacity.
A stranger would consider him fickle and stubborn, yet he was sincere
and kind, and generous to a fault, devoting every energy of his mind
and body to the welfare of the Indians and objects of the mission;
seldom manifesting fears of any danger that might surround him, at
times he would become animated and earnest in his argument or conversation.
In his profession he was a bold practitioner, and generally
successful. He was above medium height; of spare habit; peculiar
hair, a portion of each being white and a dark brown, so that it might
be called iron-gray; deep blue eyes, and large mouth.


The peculiarities of Messrs. Parker and Whitman were such, that,
when they had reached the rendezvous on Green River, in the Rocky
Mountains, they agreed to separate; not because Dr. Whitman was not
willing and anxious to continue the exploring expedition, in company
with Mr. Parker, but because Mr. P. could not “put up” with the off-hand,
careless, and, as he thought, slovenly manner in which Dr. Whitman
was inclined to travel. Dr. W. was a man that could accommodate
himself to circumstances; such as dipping the water from the
running stream with his hand, to drink; having but a hunter’s knife
(without a fork) to cut and eat his food; in short, could rough it
without qualms of stomach.


Rev. Mr. Parker had left a refined family circle, and his habits had
become somewhat delicate from age and long usage in comfortable and
agreeable society; hence his peculiar habits were not adapted to
Rocky Mountain travel in those early days. Still, the great object on
which they were sent must not be lost sight of. Their sense of moral
obligation was such, that a reason must be given why Dr. Whitman
returns to the States, and Mr. Parker proceeds alone on his perilous
journey to this then unknown country. Here again the wild Indian
comes in, by instinct, order, or providence (as the unbeliever may
choose to call it), and offers to take charge of this delicate old gentleman,
and carries him in triumph through the Rocky Mountains, and all
through his country, and, in Indian pomp and splendor, delivers this
rev. “black coat” to P. C. Pambrun, Esq., chief clerk of the Honorable
Hudson’s Bay Company, at old Fort Wallawalla, supplying his every
want on the journey, caring for his horses and baggage, not asking or
receiving any thing, except such presents as Mr. Parker chose to give
them on the way and at parting.


Dr. Whitman, it will be remembered, was associated with Mr.[Pg 109]
Parker, under the direction of the American Board. They had arrived
at the rendezvous in the Rocky Mountains; most of the Nez Percés
were at the American rendezvous. Ish-hol-hol-hoats-hoats, a young Nez
Percé Indian (named by the American trappers, Lawyer, on account
of his shrewdness in argument, and his unflinching defense of American
against British and foreign influences), having learned of their arrival,
came to them and settled matters quite satisfactorily to both, by
requesting Mr. Parker to go with them to their country, they having
heard of Rev. Mr. Lee and party going to settle near the husus-hai-hai
(White Head), as the natives called Dr. John McLaughlin, in
the Wallamet Valley. They consented to let the Doctor take two of
their boys. To Ites he gave the name of John; Tuetakas he called
Richard. Dr. Whitman was to go to the States, report to the American
Board, and procure associates and the material to establish a mission
in the Nez Percé country.


The Nez Percés were to take charge of Mr. Parker, and carry him
forward in his explorations, and meet Dr. W., on his return next
year, at the place of rendezvous in the mountains, to conduct him and
his party to the place Mr. Parker might select for a mission establishment.
Rev. S. Parker, in company with the Indians, went on, and Dr.
Whitman, with his two Indian boys, with the American Fur Company,
Capts. Fitzpatrick, Bridger, and others, started on their way to the
States, or “home from the Rocky Mountains.” Dr. Whitman, by his
off-hand, easy manner of accommodating himself to circumstances, and
by his kind-heartedness and promptness to relieve all who needed his
professional skill, had won the esteem of all with whom he traveled,
so that the gentlemen of the American Fur Company cheerfully supplied
his wants on his return trip to the States, where he arrived in
due time, made his report to the American Board, who decided to
establish the mission, as per arrangement with Parker and Whitman,
on separating in the Rocky Mountains.


Mrs. Whitman, formerly Miss Narcissa Prentiss, of Prattsburg, Steuben
County, New York, was a lady of refined feelings and commanding
appearance. She had very light hair, light, fresh complexion, and light
blue eyes. Her features were large, her form full and round. At the
time she arrived in the country, in the prime of life, she was considered
a fine, noble-looking woman, affable and free to converse
with all she met. Her conversation was animated and cheerful.
Firmness in her was natural, and to some, especially the Indians, it
was repulsive. She had been brought up in comparative comfort, and
moved in the best of religious society in the place of her residence.
She was a good singer, and one of her amusements, as well as that of[Pg 110]
her traveling companions, was to teach the Doctor to sing, which she
did with considerable success,—that is, he could sing the native songs
without much difficulty.


The American Board appointed Rev. H. H. Spalding and wife to
accompany Dr. Whitman and wife, to aid in establishing the Nez Percé
mission. Mr. Spalding and wife had just completed their preparatory
course of education in Lane Seminary, near Cincinnati, Ohio.


The first impression of the stranger on seeing H. H. Spalding is, that he
has before him an unusual countenance. He begins to examine, and finds
a man with sharp features, large, brown eyes, dark hair, high, projecting
forehead, with many wrinkles, and a head nearly bald. He is of medium
size, stoop-shouldered, with a voice that can assume a mild, sharp, or
boisterous key, at the will of its owner; quite impulsive, and bitter in
his denunciations of a real, or supposed enemy; inclined in the early
part of his missionary labors to accumulate property for the especial
benefit of his family, though the practice was disapproved of and forbidden
by the regulations of the American Board. In his professional
character he was below mediocrity. As a writer or correspondent he
was bold, and rather eloquent, giving overdrawn life-sketches of passing
events. His moral influence was injured by strong symptoms of
passion, when provoked or excited. In his labors for the Indians, he
was zealous and persevering, in his preaching or talking to them, plain
and severe, and in his instructions wholly practical. For instance, to
induce the natives to work and cultivate their lands, he had Mrs.
Spalding paint a representation of Adam and Eve, as being driven from
the garden of Eden by an angel,—Adam with a hoe on his shoulder,
and Eve with her spinning-wheel. He taught the natives that God
commanded them to work, as well as pray. Had he been allowed to
continue his labors with the tribe, undisturbed by sectarian and anti-religious
influences, he would have effected great good, and the tribe
been now admitted as citizens of the United States. As a citizen and
neighbor he was kind and obliging; to his family he was kind, yet
severe in his religious observances. He was unquestionably a sincere,
though not always humble, Christian. The loss of his wife, and the
exciting and savage massacre of his associates, produced their
effect upon him. Charity will find a substantial excuse for most of his
faults, while virtue and truth, civilization and religion, will award him
a place as a faithful, zealous, and comparatively successful missionary.


Mrs. Spalding was the daughter of a plain, substantial farmer, by the
name of Hart, of Oneida County, New York. She was above the
medium height, slender in form, with coarse features, dart brown hair,
blue eyes, rather dark complexion, coarse voice, of a serious turn of[Pg 111]
mind, and quick in understanding language. In fact she was remarkable
in acquiring the Nez Percé language, so as to understand and converse
with the natives quite easily by the time they reached their station
at Lapwai. She could paint indifferently in water-colors, and had
been taught, while young, all the useful branches of domestic life; could
spin, weave, and sew, etc.; could prepare an excellent meal at short
notice; was generally sociable, but not forward in conversation with or
in attentions to gentlemen. In this particular she was the opposite of
Mrs. Whitman. With the native women Mrs. Spalding always appeared
easy and cheerful, and had their unbounded confidence and
respect. She was remarkable for her firmness and decision of character
in whatever she or her husband undertook. She never appeared to be
alarmed or excited at any difficulty, dispute, or alarms common to the
Indian life around her. She was considered by the Indian men as a
brave, fearless woman, and was respected and esteemed by all. Though
she was frequently left for days alone, her husband being absent on
business, but a single attempted insult was ever offered her. Understanding
their language, her cool, quick perception of the design enabled
her to give so complete and thorough a rebuff to the attempted insult,
that, to hide his disgrace, the Indian offering it fled from the tribe, not
venturing to remain among them. In fact, a majority of the tribe
were in favor of hanging the Indian who offered the insult, but Mrs.
Spalding requested that they would allow him to live, that he might
repent of his evil designs and do better in future. In this short sketch
of Mrs. Spalding the reader is carried through a series of years. We
shall have occasion, as we progress in our sketches, to refer to these
two ladies. They are not fictitious characters,—they lived; came over
the Rocky Mountains in 1836; they are dead and buried, Mrs. Spalding
near the Callapooya, in the Wallamet Valley. Mrs. Whitman’s
remains, such portions of them as could be found, are buried not far
from the place of her labors among the Cayuses. The last time we
passed the ground not even a common board marked the place. We
noticed a hollow in the ground, said to be the place where the very
Rev. Mr. Brouillet, vicar-general of Wallawalla, says “the bodies
were all deposited in a common grave which had been dug the day previous
by Joseph Stanfield, and, before leaving, I saw that they were
covered with earth, but I have since learned that the graves, not having
been soon enough inclosed, had been molested by the wolves, and
that some of the corpses had been devoured by them.” Bear this
statement in mind, reader, as we proceed. We will tell you just how
much he knows of the why and wherefore such things occurred in those
early times. A part of the facts are already in history.


[Pg 112]Messrs. Whitman and Spalding, with their wives, and a reinforcement
for the Pawnee mission, made their way to Liberty Landing, on the
Missouri River. At that place they were joined by a young man by
the name of W. H. Gray, from Utica, New York, who was solicited by
the agents of the American Board to join this expedition as its secular
agent.




[Pg 113]


CHAPTER XIV.


Missionary outfit.—On the way.—No roads.—An English nobleman.—A wagon taken
along.—Health of Mrs. Spalding.—Meeting mountain men and Indians.—A feast
to the Indians.


The mission party had brought with them a full supply of all the supposed
et cæteras for a life and residence two thousand miles from any
possible chance to renew those supplies when exhausted, having the
material for a blacksmith shop, a plow, and all sorts of seeds, clothing,
etc., to last for two years. Gray found his hands full in making calculations
for the transportation of this large amount of baggage, or
goods, as the trader would say. In a few days wagons, teams, pack-mules,
horses, and cows, were all purchased in the county of Liberty,
Missouri, the goods all overhauled, repacked, loaded into the two mission
wagons, and an extra team hired to go as far as Fort Leavenworth.
Spalding and Gray started with the train, three wagons, eight
mules, twelve horses, and sixteen cows, two men, two Indian boys, and
the man with the extra team. Dr. Whitman, having the ladies in
charge, was to come up the Missouri River in the first boat, and await
the arrival of the train having the greater portion of the goods with
it. Boats on the Missouri River not being so numerous as at the present
time, the Doctor and party did not reach Leavenworth till the
train had arrived. They rearranged their goods, discharged the extra
team, held a consultation, and concluded that the Doctor and ladies
would keep the boat to Council Bluffs, the point from which the American
Fur Company’s caravan was to start that year. Learning that the
company was to start in six days, the conclusion was that the cattle
and goods had better proceed as fast as possible.


The third day, in the morning, some forty miles from Fort Leavenworth,
as we were about starting, a white boy, about sixteen years old,
came into camp, having on an old torn straw hat, an old ragged fustian
coat, scarcely half a shirt, with buckskin pants, badly worn, but
one moccasin, a powder-horn with no powder in it, and an old rifle.
He had light flaxen hair, light blue eyes, was thin and spare, yet
appeared in good health and spirits. He said he had started for the
Rocky Mountains; he was from some place in Iowa; he had been
without food for two days; he asked for some ammunition; thought[Pg 114]
he could kill some game to get along; the rain the night previous had
wet him quite effectually; he was really cold, wet, nearly naked, and
hungry. He was soon supplied from our stores with all he wanted,
and advised to return to his friends in Iowa. To this he objected, and
said if we would allow him he would go with us to Council Bluffs,
and then go with the fur company to the mountains. He agreed to
assist all he could in getting along. He was furnished a horse, and
made an excellent hand while he remained with the party, which he
did till he reached Fort Hall, on Snake River. There he joined a
party that went with the Bannock Indians, and became a member of
that tribe, and, as near as we can learn, married a native woman (some
say three), and is using his influence to keep the tribe at war with the
United States. Of this we have no positive knowledge, though if such
is the fact he may have been a deserter from Fort Leavenworth. His
name was Miles Goodyear.


Within thirty miles of Council Bluffs a messenger overtook the missionary
caravan, and stated that Mrs. Satterley, of the Pawnee mission,
was dead; that Dr. Whitman and ladies were left at Fort Leavenworth;
that they were coming on as fast as possible, with extra teams,
to overtake us. Our party went into camp at once; the two wagons
with horse teams started back to meet and bring up the balance of the
party; wait two days at Omaha; fix one of the wagon boxes for a
ferry-boat; Doctor and party arrive; cross all safe; get to camp late
in the night. There was a slight jar in the feelings of some on account
of haste, and slowness of movement, in others. However, as the fur
company, with whom the mission party was to travel, was to start on
a certain day, haste was absolutely necessary, and no time to be lost.
Useless baggage overhauled and thrown away, cows started, mules
and wagons loaded; Gray in charge of mules and cows, Spalding
driver for a two-horse light wagon, Whitman the four-horse farm
wagon. On goes the caravan; in two hours a message goes forward
to Gray that Spalding has driven his wagon into a mud stream and
broken his axletree; Gray goes back; soon repairs axletree by a new
one; on Platte River; rains as it only can on that river, cold and
almost sleet; nothing but a skin boat, that could carry but two trunks
and one lady at a time; all day swimming by the side of the boat to
get goods over; swim cattle, mules, and horses all over safe to north
side.


Overhaul and lighten our baggage; Rev. Mr. Dunbar for pilot, three
men, and two Indian boys, we hasten on to overtake fur company’s
caravan. Second day, met one hundred Pawnee warriors on their way
to Council Bluff agency. Mr. Dunbar being the missionary of the[Pg 115]
Pawnees, and understanding their language, we had no difficulty with
them. Traveling early and late, we came up to the fur company at
the Pawnee village, some two hours after their caravan had arrived
and camped.


At this point the missionary menagerie was first exhibited, not that
they attempted to make any display, or posted any handbills, or
charged any fee for exhibiting, but the strange appearance of two
white ladies in a caravan consisting of rough American hunters, Canadian
packers with Indian women, with all the paraphernalia of a wild
mountain expedition, drew the attention of all. The mission party
had with them some fine cows, good horses and mules, and were tolerably
well fitted out for their expedition, except a superabundance of
useless things, causing much perplexity and hard labor to transport
over the rough plains in 1836.


It will be borne in mind that at that early time there was no road,—not
even a trail or track, except that of the buffalo; and those made by
them were invariably from the river, or watering-places, into the hills
or bluffs. Their trails being generally deep, from long use by the animal,
made it quite severe and straining upon our teams, wagons, and the
nineteen carts the fur company carried their goods in that year. The
caravan altogether consisted of nineteen carts, with two mules to each,
one in the shafts and one ahead, one light Dearborn wagon, two mules
and two wagons belonging to an English nobleman, his titles all on, Sir
William Drummond, K. B., who had come to the United States to allow
his fortune to recuperate during his absence. He had been spending
his winters in New Orleans with the Southern bloods, and his bankers in
England complained that his income was not sufficient to meet his large
expenditures; he was advised to take a trip to the Rocky Mountains,
which would occupy him during the summer and sickly season, during
which time he could only spend what he had with him, and could have
a fine hunting excursion. This English nobleman with his party consisted
of himself and a young English blood. I did not learn whether
he was of the first, second, third, or fourth grade in the scale of
English nobility; be that as it may, Sir William D., K. B., messed and
slept in the same tent with this traveling companion of his, who,
between them, had three servants, two dogs, and four extra fine horses,
to run and hunt the buffalo. Occasionally, they would give chase to
that swiftest of mountain animals, the antelope, which, in most
instances, would, especially where the grass was short, leave them in
the distance, when Sir William and his companion would come charging
back to the train, swearing the antelope could outrun a streak of
lightning, and offering to bet a thousand pounds that if he had one of[Pg 116]
his English ’orses he could catch ’em. The English nobleman, as a
matter of course, was treated with great respect by all in the caravan;
while in the presence of the ladies he assumed quite a dignified carriage,
being a man (excuse me, your honor), a lord of the British realm,
on a hunting excursion in North America, in the Rocky Mountains, in
the year A. D. 1836. He was about five feet nine inches high. His
face had become thin from the free use of New Orleans brandy, rendering
his nose rather prominent, showing indications of internal heat
in bright red spots, and inclining a little to the rum blossom, that
would make its appearance from the sting of a mosquito or sand-fly,
which to his lordship was quite annoying. Though his lordship was
somewhat advanced in years, and, according to his own account, had
traveled extensively in the oriental countries, he did not show in his
conversation extensive mental improvement; his general conversation
and appearance was that of a man with strong prejudices, and equally
strong appetites, which he had freely indulged, with only pecuniary
restraint. His two wagons, one with two horses, the other with four
mules, with drivers, and a servant for cook and waiter, constituted his
train—as large as his means would permit on that trip. All of the
carts and wagons were covered with canvas to protect the goods from
storms. Sir William traveled under the alias of Captain Stewart.


The order of march was as follows: Cattle and loose animals in advance
in the morning, coming up in rear at night; fur company and
Captain Stewart’s teams in advance; mission party in rear till we
reached Fort Laramie. All went smoothly and in order. At the
Pawnee village the fur company was short of meat or bacon. Arrangements
were made to slaughter one of the mission cows, and replace it at
Laramie. Two days from Pawnee village the hunters brought into
camp some bull buffalo meat; next day cow buffalo meat in abundance.
Not far from Scott’s Bluff, passed some hunters on their way down
Platte River in boats; arrive at Fort Laramie, just above the mouth of
that river; cross the Platte in two dug-outs, lashed together with sticks
and poles, so as to carry the goods and carts all over to the fort. At
that establishment the company and Captain Stewart leave all their
wagons and carts except one, deeming it impracticable to proceed
further with them.


On account of the ladies, Dr. Whitman insisted on taking one of the
mission wagons along. The fur company concluded to try the experiment
with him, and took one of their carts along. Overhaul all the
baggage, select out all, that, with the knowledge any one had of the
future wants of the mission party, could be dispensed with; put the
balance up in packages of one hundred pounds each; for the top packs,[Pg 117]
fifty pounds; for mules, two hundred and fifty pounds; for horses, in
proportion to strength. About the first of June, 1836, the caravan
started from Laramie. All the goods on pack animals, wagon and
cart light, Gray in charge of mission pack-train, with two men and one
boy, two pack animals each; Spalding of cows, loose animals, and
ladies, with the two Indian boys to assist in driving; Dr. Whitman in
charge of the wagon train, consisting of the fur company’s cart and mission
wagon; but one man in the cart and one in the wagon. On we
go; the first day from Laramie had some difficulty in getting through
a cotton-wood bottom on the river, on account of fallen timber in the
trail. Whitman came into the camp puffing and blowing, in good
spirits, all right side up, with only one turn over with the wagon and
two with the cart. The fur company being interested in exploring a
wagon route to Green River, next day gave the Doctor two additional
men to assist in exploring and locating the road, and getting the wagon
and cart over difficult places. Second day all right; train moves on;
hunters in advance; cattle usually traveling slower than the train, were
started in the morning in advance of the train, which usually passed
them about one hour before reaching camp at night; at noon they usually
all stop together. At the crossing of Platte below Red Buttes, in
the Black Hills, kill buffalo, took hides, made willow frames for boats,
sewed the hides together to cover the frames, used tallow for pitch,
dried the skin boats over a fire, the rain having poured down all the
time we were getting ready to cross. However, as fortune always
favors the brave, as the saying is, it did us this time, for in the morning,
when our boats were ready, it cleared up, the sun came out bright
and clear, so that we had a fine time getting all things over. Next
day on we moved, over the hills, through the valleys, around and
among the salt pits to a willow grove to camp.


With the company was a gentleman from St. Louis, a Major Pilcher.
He usually rode a fine white mule, and was dressed in the top of hunting
or mountain style, such as a fine buckskin coat trimmed with red cloth
and porcupine quills, fine red shirt, nice buckskin pants, and moccasins
tinged and nicely trimmed; he was, in fact, very much of a gentleman
in all his conversation and deportment. The major was also considerable
of a gallant (as I believe most titled gentlemen are). He was proceeding
around one of those clay salt pits, and explaining to the ladies
their nature and danger, when suddenly mule, major and all dropped
out of sight, except the mule’s ears and the fringe on the major’s coat.
Instantly several men were on hand with ropes, and assisted the major
and mule out of the pit. Such a sight! you may imagine what you
please, I will not attempt to describe it. However, no particular harm[Pg 118]
was done the major, only the thorough saturation of his fine suit of
buckskin, and mule, with that indescribably adhesive mud. He took it
all in good part, and joined in the jokes on the occasion. No other
remarkable incident occurred till we arrived at Rock Independence.
On the south end of that rock nearly all the prominent persons of the
party placed their names, and date of being there.


Later wagon trains and travelers have complained, and justly, of
sage brush and the difficulties of this route. Whitman and his four men
opened it as far as they could with a light wagon and a cart. To him
must be given the credit of the first practical experiment, though
Ashtley, Bonneville, and Bridger had taken wagons into the Rocky
Mountains and left them, and pronounced the experiment a failure, and
a wagon road impracticable. Whitman’s perseverance demonstrated
a great fact—the practicability of a wagon road over the Rocky Mountains.
You that have rolled over those vast plains and slept in your
Concord coaches or Pullman palace cars, have never once imagined the
toil and labor of that old off-hand pioneer, as he mounted his horse in
the morning and rode all day in the cold and heat of the mountains
and plains, to prove that a wagon road was practicable to the waters
of the Columbia River. Even Fremont, seven years after, claims to be
the discoverer of the passes through which Whitman took his cart and
wagon, and kept up with the pack-train from day to day.


From Rock Independence the health of Mrs. Spalding seemed gradually
to decline. She was placed in the wagon as much as would relieve
her, and changed from wagon to saddle as she could bear, to the
American rendezvous on Green River.


From Rock Independence information was sent forward into the
mountains of the arrival of the caravan, and about the time and place
they expected to reach the rendezvous. This information reached not
only the American trapper and hunter in the mountains, but the Snake,
Bannock, Nez Percé, and Flathead tribes, and the traders of the Hudson’s
Bay Company. Two days before we arrived at our rendezvous,
some two hours before we reached camp, the whole caravan was alarmed
by the arrival of some ten Indians and four or five white men, whose
dress and appearance could scarcely be distinguished from that of the
Indians. As they came in sight over the hills, they all gave a yell,
such as hunters and Indians only can give; whiz, whiz, came their
balls over our heads, and on they came, in less time than it will take
you to read this account. The alarm was but for a moment; our guide
had seen a white cloth on one of their guns, and said, “Don’t be alarmed,
they are friends,” and sure enough, in a moment here they were. It
was difficult to tell which was the most crazy, the horse or the rider;[Pg 119]
such hopping, hooting, running, jumping, yelling, jumping sage brush,
whirling around, for they could not stop to reload their guns, but all
of us as they came on gave them a salute from ours, as they passed to
the rear of our line and back again, hardly stopping to give the hand
to any one. On to camp we went.


At night, who should we find but old Takkensuitas and Ish-hol-hol-hoats-hoats
(Lawyer), with a letter from Mr. Parker, which informed
the party that he had arrived safely at Wallawalla, and that the
Indians had been kind to him, and from what he had seen and could
learn of them, they were well disposed toward all white men. Mr.
Parker, as his journal of that trip and observations will show, was a
man of intelligence, and a close observer of men and things.


He soon learned, on arriving at Wallawalla, that there was a bitter
anti-American feeling in the country, and that, notwithstanding he had
arrived in it uninvited, and without the aid of the Honorable Hudson’s
Bay Company, he was in it, nevertheless, as the guest of the Nez Percé
Indians. They had found him in the Rocky Mountains; they brought
him to Wallawalla; they had received him, treated him kindly, and
proved to him that they were not only friendly, but anxious to have
the American influence and civilization come among them. Rev.
Jason Lee and party were in the country. Abundance of unasked
advice was given to him by Hudson’s Bay Company’s men; his
caution prevailed; he was to let Dr. Whitman, or the mission party
that might be sent across the mountains, hear from him by the Indians.
Feeling certain that any advice or information he might attempt to
communicate to his missionary friends would in all probability be
made use of to their detriment, and perhaps destroy the mission itself,
he did not deem it prudent to write or to give any advice. Should
any party come on before he could reach them, his note was sufficient
to inform them of the fact of his safe arrival and the friendly treatment
he had received of the Indians; further than this he did not feel
safe to communicate—not for want of confidence in the Indians, but
from what he saw and learned of the feelings of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Yet he felt that, notwithstanding they were showing him outwardly
every attention, yet they evidently did not wish to see the
American influence increase in any shape in the country.


Rev. Mr. Parker’s letter, short and unsatisfactory as it was, caused
considerable expression of unpleasant feeling on the part of those who
considered they had a right to a more full and extended communication.
But Mr. Parker was at Vancouver, or somewhere else; they might and
they might not meet him; he may and he may not have written more
fully.


[Pg 120]At supper time old Takkensuitas (Rotten Belly) and Ish-hol-hol-hoats-hoats
were honored with a place at the missionary board. With
your permission, ladies and gentlemen, I will give you the bill of
fare on this memorable occasion. Place—by the side of a muddy
stream called Sandy, about thirty miles south of Wind River Mountain.
This mountain, you will remember, is about as near the highest
point of the North American continent as can be. This fact is established,
not from geographical or barometrical observations, but from
the simple fact that water runs from it by way of the Missouri, Colorado,
and Columbia rivers into the eastern, southern, and western
oceans, and but a short distance to the north of this mountain commences
the waters of the Saskatchewan River, running into Hudson’s
Bay and the northern ocean. There are doubtless many other mountains
whose peaks ascend higher into the clouds, but none of them supply
water to so vast an extent of country, and none of them are so decidedly
on top of the continent as this one. Of course our little party
is in a high altitude, and in sight of this mountain, which may or may
not have been ten thousand feet higher to its snow-capped peaks.
Date—about the 20th day of July, 1836. Our table was the grass beside
this muddy stream; cloth—an old broken oil-cloth badly used up;
plates—when the company started were called tin, but from hard usage
were iron in all shapes; cups—ditto; knives—the common short-bladed
wooden-handled butcher knife; forks—a stick each cut to suit himself,
or, if he preferred the primitive mode of conveying his food to its proper
destination, he was at liberty to practice it; food extra on this occasion—a
nice piece of venison, which the Indians had presented to the
ladies, a piece of broiled and roast buffalo meat, roasted upon a stick
before the fire, seasoned with a little salt, with a full proportion of sand
and dirt. Dr. Whitman was inclined to discard the use of salt entirely;
as to dirt and sand it was a matter upon which he and Mr. Parker differed
on the trip the year previous, though Mrs. Whitman took sides
with Mr. Parker against the Doctor, and with the assistance of Mrs.
Spalding, the Doctor was kept in most cases within reasonable distance
of comfortable cleanliness. On this occasion tea, with sugar, was used;
the supply of bread was limited; we will not trouble the reader with
an extra list of the dessert. Of this feast these sons of the wilderness
partook with expressions of great satisfaction. The Lawyer, twenty-seven
years after, spoke of it as the time when his heart became one
with the Suapies (Americans).




[Pg 121]


CHAPTER XV.


Arrival at American rendezvous.—An Indian procession.—Indian curiosity to see white
women.—Captain N. Wyeth.—McCleod and T. McKay.—Description of mountain
men.—Their opinion of the missionaries.


In two days’ easy travel we arrived at the great American rendezvous,
held in an extensive valley in the forks formed by Horse
Creek and Green River, on account of the abundance of wood, grass,
and water all through the valley. Each party selected their own
camp grounds, guarding their own animals and goods, as each felt or
anticipated the danger he might be exposed to at the time. We will
pass through this city of about fifteen hundred inhabitants—composed
of all classes and conditions of men, and on this occasion two classes
of women,—starting from a square log pen 18 by 18, with no doors,
except two logs that had been cut so as to leave a space about four
feet from the ground two feet wide and six feet long, designed for an
entrance, as also a place to hand out goods and take in furs. It was
covered with poles, brush on top of the poles; in case of rain, which we
had twice during our stay at the rendezvous, the goods were covered
with canvas, or tents thrown over them. Lumber being scarce in that
vicinity, floors, doors, as well as sash and glass, were dispensed with.
The spaces between the logs were sufficient to admit all the light
requisite to do business in this primitive store. At a little distance
from the store were the camps of the fur company, in which
might be seen the pack-saddles and equipage of the mules, in piles to
suit the taste and disposition of the men having them in charge. The
trading-hut was a little distance from the main branch of Green River,
so situated that the company’s mules and horses could all be driven
between the store and the river, the tents and men on either side, the
store in front, forming a camp that could be defended against an
attack of the Indians, in case they should attempt any thing of the kind.
Green River, at the point where our city in the mountains is situated,
is running from the west due east. West of the fur company’s camp
or store were most of the camps of the hunters and trappers; east
of it, close to the river, was the missionary camp, while to the south,
from one to three miles distant along Horse Creek, from its junction
with Green River, where the Snake and Bannock Indians were camped,[Pg 122]
to six miles up that stream, were the camps of the Flatheads and Nez
Percés. All these tribes were at peace that year, and met at the
American rendezvous. The Indian camps were so arranged in the
bends of the creek that they could defend themselves and their horses
in case of any attack from the neighboring tribes, and also guard their
horses while feeding in the day-time. The whole city was a military
camp; every little camp had its own guards to protect its occupants
and property from being stolen by its neighbor. The arrow or the
ball decided any dispute that might occur. The only law known for
horse-stealing was death to the thief, if the owner or the guard could
kill him in the act. If he succeeded in escaping, the only remedy for
the man who lost his horse was to buy, or steal another and take his
chances in escaping the arrow or ball of the owner, or guard. It was
quite fashionable in this city for all to go well armed, as the best
and quickest shot gained the case in dispute. Of the number assembled,
there must have been not far from one hundred Americans,—hunters
and trappers; about fifty French, belonging principally to the
caravan; some five traders; about twenty citizens, or outsiders, including
the mission party. The Snakes and Bannocks mustered about one
hundred and fifty warriors; the Nez Percés and Flatheads, about
two hundred. By arrangement among themselves they got up a
grand display for the benefit of their white visitors, which came off
some six days after our American caravan had arrived at the rendezvous.


The procession commenced at the east or lower end of the plain in
the vicinity of the Snake and Bannock camps. The Nez Percés and
Flatheads, passing from their camps down the Horse Creek, joined the
Snake and Bannock warriors, all dressed and painted in their gayest
uniforms, each having a company of warriors in war garb, that is,
naked, except a single cloth, and painted, carrying their war weapons,
bearing their war emblems and Indian implements of music, such as
skins drawn over hoops with rattles and trinkets to make a noise.
From the fact that no scalps were borne in the procession, I concluded
this must be entirely a peace performance, and gotten up for the occasion.
When the cavalcade, amounting to full five (some said six) hundred
Indian warriors (though I noticed quite a number of native belles
covered with beads), commenced coming up through the plain in sight
of our camps, those of us who were not informed as to the object or
design of this demonstration began to look at our weapons and calculate
on a desperate fight. Captain Stewart, our English nobleman,
and Major Pilcher waited on the mission ladies and politely informed
them of the object of the display; they assured them there would be no[Pg 123]
danger or harm, and remained at their tents while the cavalcade
passed. Mrs. Whitman’s health was such that she could witness most
of the display. Mrs. Spalding was quite feeble, and kept her tent most
of the time. All passed off quietly, excepting the hooting and yelling
of the Indians appropriate to the occasion.


The display over, the mission camp around the tent was thronged.
On first hearing the war-whoop, the savage yell, and the sound of the
Indian war drum, all parties not in the secret of this surprise party, or
native reception for their missionaries, at once drove in their animals,
and prepared for the worst; hence the mission cows, horses, and camp,
were all together. Major Pilcher and Captain Stewart enjoyed the
surprise of the party, and were equally delighted with the effect and
surprise manifested by the Indians, as they approached the mission
camp. The wagon, and every thing about their camp, was examined.
The Indians would pass and repass the tent, to get a sight of the two
women belonging to the white men. Mrs. Spalding, feeble as she was,
seemed to be the favorite with the Indian women; possibly from that
fact alone she may have gained their sympathy to some extent. The
Lawyer and Takkensuitas were constant visitors at the tent. Their
Indian wives were with them, and showed a disposition to do all in
their power to assist the missionaries. Mrs. Spalding’s rest from the
fatigues of the journey soon enabled her to commence a vocabulary of
the Indian language. Mrs. Whitman also commenced one with her,
but she was often interrupted by the attentions thought necessary to be
paid to gentlemen callers. Excuse me, whoever believes that thirty-three
years since there were no gentlemen on top of the Rocky
Mountains. I can assure you that there were, and that all the refined
education and manners of the daughter of Judge Prentiss, of Prattsburg,
Steuben County, N. Y., found abundant opportunity to exhibit the cardinal
ornaments of a religious and civilized country. No one, except
an eye-witness, can appreciate or fully understand the charm there was
in those early days in the sight of the form and white features of his
mother. The rough veteran mountain hunter would touch his hat in a
manner absolutely ridiculous, and often fail to express a designed compliment,
which the mischief or good-humor of Mrs. Whitman sometimes
enjoyed as a good joke. In consequence of these attentions or
interruptions, she did not acquire the native language as fast as Mrs.
Spalding, who showed but little attention to any one except the natives
and their wives.


The Indian curiosity had not fully subsided before the company were
introduced to, and cordially greeted by, Captain Wyeth, who had been
to the lower Columbia on a trading expedition. He had conducted[Pg 124]
Rev. Jason Lee and party to Fort Hall, where he had established a
trading-post; thence he had gone to the lower country, received his
goods from the brig May Dacre, made arrangements with the Hudson’s
Bay Company, sold his goods and establishment at Fort Hall to the
Hudson’s Bay Company, and was then on his way back to the States.
Captain Wyeth, in all his motions and features, showed the shrewd
Yankee and the man of business. He politely introduced the mission
party to Messrs. John McLeod and Thomas McKay, of the Hudson’s
Bay Company. After the usual etiquette of introduction and common
inquiries, Messrs. McLeod and McKay having retired to their camps,
Captain W. entered into a full explanation of the whys and wherefores
of Rev. Mr. Parker’s short note, confirming the observations and
suspicions of Mr. Parker, in reference to the treatment the missionaries
might expect, giving a full statement of the feelings and efforts of the
Hudson’s Bay Company to get rid of all American influence, and
especially traders. Turning, with a smile, upon the ladies, but
addressing the gentlemen, he said, “You gentlemen have your wives
along; if I do not greatly mistake the feelings of the gentlemen of the
Hudson’s Bay Company, they will be anxious to have their influence
in teaching their own wives and children, and you will meet with a
different reception from any other American party that has gone into
the country.” It would be useless to add in this sketch that the advice
of Captain W. was of incalculable value in shaping the policy and conduct
of the mission of the American Board in their necessary transactions
and intercourse with the Hudson’s Bay Company. Captain W.
had fallen in with Rev. S. Parker, but could give no definite information
about him or his plans, except that he was on his return to the United
States, by way of the Sandwich Islands.


As we have never seen a description of these semi-civilized men, that
in youth had left their native countries, and found themselves thousands
of miles away, in the midst of the Rocky Mountains, surrounded on all
sides by wild, roving bands of savages, cut off from communication with
civilization, except by the annual return of the fur company’s traders,
or occasional wandering to some distant trading-post, a thousand or
five hundred miles from the borders of any State or settlement, we will
at this time introduce to the reader several men as we found them at
this American rendezvous, most of them finding their way eventually
into the settlement of Oregon, and becoming active and prominent men
in the organization of the provisional government, as also good citizens.
Among these veteran Rocky Mountain hunters was a tall man, with
long black hair, smooth face, dark eyes (inclining to turn his head a
little to one side, as much as to say, “I can tell you all about it”),[Pg 125]
a harum-scarum, don’t-care sort of a man, full of “life and fun in the
mountains,” as he expressed it. He came and paid his respects to the
ladies, and said he had been in the mountains several years; he had
not seen a white woman for so long he had almost forgotten how they
looked. He appeared quite fond of telling “yarns.” In the conversation,
Mrs. Whitman asked him if he ever had any difficulty or fights
with the Indians. “That we did,” said he. “One time I was with
Bridger’s camp; we were traveling along that day, and the Blackfeet
came upon us. I was riding an old mule. The Indians were discovered
some distance off, so all the party put whip to their horses and started
to get to a place where we could defend ourselves. My old mule was
determined not to move, with all the beating I could give her, so I sung
out to the boys to stop and fight the Indians where we were; they kept
on, however. Soon, my old mule got sight of the Blackfeet coming;
she pricked up her ears, and on she went like a streak, passed the boys,
and away we went. I sung out to the boys, as I passed, ‘Come on,
boys, there is no use to stop and fight the Indians here.’” Fun and
firmness were the two prominent characteristics of this young mountain
hunter. He expressed a wish and a determination to visit and settle in
lower Oregon (as the Wallamet Valley was then called). He had a
native wife, and one son, just beginning to speak a few words. The
father seemed, on my first noticing him, to be teaching this son of his
to say “God d——n you,” doubtless considering this prayer the most
important one to teach his son to repeat, in the midst of the wild scenes
with which he was surrounded. Though, to his credit be it said, this
same wild, youthful mountaineer has become a good supporter of
religious society, and has a respectable family, in an interesting neighborhood,
near Forest Grove, in Oregon.


We will call these mountain hunters by numbers, for convenience, as
we shall refer to them in our future political sketches, in which they
participated.


No. 2. A man of medium height, black hair, black whiskers, dark-brown
eyes, and very dark complexion; he was formerly from Kentucky.
(I am not positive.) He was quite fond of telling yarns; still,
as he was not considered very truthful, we will only give the story as
we have it of the manner in which he and the one we will give as No.
3 obtained their titles. 2 and 3 were traveling together; 3 was from
Cincinnati, Ohio. They had reached Independence, Mo.; says 3 to 2,
“Titles are very necessary here in Missouri, what titles shall we take?”
“Well,” says 2, “I will take Major.” 3 says, “I will take Doctor.”
Very good. They rode up to the best hotel in the place and called for
lodgings.


[Pg 126]2. “Well, Doctor, what shall we have for supper?”


3. “I don’t care, Major, so as we get something to eat.”


The Major and the Doctor enjoyed their supper and have borne their
titles to the present time. The Major has never been, from all I could
learn of him, a very truthful man or reliable citizen. He spent several
years in Oregon and in the mountains, and found his way back to Missouri.
The Doctor is now a resident of Idaho. The most remarkable trait
in his composition is story-telling, or yarns, and a disposition to make
friends of all political parties, or join all religious sects—something of
a good lord and good devil order. He appeared in those early times to
belong to that party that paid him the best. He was first in the employ
of the American Fur Company, but appeared to lend his influence
to the Hudson’s Bay Company. He also had a native wife of the Nez
Percé tribe, and was considered by the Hudson’s Bay Company a useful
man to divide the American influence in trade with the Indians in the
mountains, and equally useful to distract and divide the political influence
of the early settlers. By his connection with the natives in marriage,
the Hudson’s Bay Company in trade, and good lord and good
devil principles, he could adapt himself to the Protestant or Catholic
religion, and in this manner become a kind of representative man, something
like strong lye and aquafortis mixed, and just about as useful as
such a mixture would be. He succeeded, by political maneuvering, or
as the sailors say, “boxing the compass,” to fill a place and draw a
salary from Uncle Sam; carrying out the principles he has acted upon
in his whole life, his efforts have been to neutralize what good others
might do.


No. 4. A young man from Ohio, of a serious turn of mind; at least I
concluded this to be the case, from the fact that he asked of the ladies
if they had any books to sell, or that they could spare. A nice pocket-bible
was given him, for which he politely expressed his thanks, after
offering to pay for it. The pay, of course, was declined, as a few bibles
were brought along for distribution. This young man, in a few years,
followed the mission party and became a settler and a prominent man
in the provisional government.


No. 5. A wild, reckless, don’t-care sort of a youth, with a Nez Percé
wife, so thoroughly attached to Indian ideas and customs that he has
felt it beneath his dignity to turn from the ancient habits of the Indian
to a “more recent invention” of religion and civilization. His
curiosity was a little excited, which induced him to pay his respects to
the missionaries, on account of their wives. He called on them, and
spoke of some day finding his way somewhere down about where the
missionaries might be located; as he had bought him a Nez Percé wife,[Pg 127]
she might want to go and see her people, and he might make up his
mind to go and settle. This man, from his utter disregard for all moral
and civilized social relations, has coiled himself up in the tribe he
adopted, and spit out his venomous influence against all moral and civil
improvement, training his children so that the better portion of the
natives treat them with contempt. For a time he had considerable influence
in shaping government policy toward the tribe and securing his
own personal Indian position, to the injury of all other interests. I am
unable to say how he obtained his title of colonel, unless it was from
the influence he once pretended to have with the Indians, and a disposition
on the part of those of his countrymen to title those who aspire to
such honors.


No. 6. What the miners nowadays would call a “plain, honest farmer,”
with a native wife and one child. He called on the party, took
a look at their cattle, and some four years afterward, after going into
Mexico and Taos, found his way to the Wallamet as a settler, with a
few head of cattle, which he managed to get through. This man is a
quiet and good citizen, and has a respectable family of half-native children.
The accursed influence of slavery in his neighborhood has borne
heavily upon his children. Whether they will be able to rise above
it and stand as examples of good citizens remains for them to demonstrate.


No. 7. A short, thick-set man, with a Nez Percé wife; a good honest
farmer; has done credit to himself and family in giving them every
possible advantage for education and society, though the aquafortis
mixture has been strong in his neighborhood; his family are respected;
his Indian wife he considers as good as some of his neighbors’, that don’t
like her or her children. In this opinion all who are not saturated with
our cultus mixture agree with him. His title in the mountains was
Squire, but I think it has been improved since he came to the settlements
by adding the E to it, he having been duly elected to fill the
office under the provisional, territorial, and State government. I have
learned, with much regret, that the Squire of the Rocky Mountains,
who had courage and strength to meet and overcome all the dangers
and trials of early times, has not the courage to resist the approaches
of false friends and bad whisky, which will ultimately bring himself
and his family to that certain destruction that follows the debasing
habit of using liquor in any shape.


No. 8. A fair, light-haired, light-complexioned, blue-eyed man, rather
above the medium height, with a Nez Percé wife, came about the
camp, had little or nothing to say. I am not quite certain that he had
his native wife at that time, still he had one when he came into the[Pg 128]
settlement. He has a good farm, and if he avoids his false friends and
the fatal habits of his neighbors, he may have a good name, which will
be of more value to his children than his present social and vicious
habits.


Doctor Marcus Whitman, they considered, on the whole, was a good
sort of a fellow; he was not so hide-bound but what he could talk with
a common man and get along easily if his wife did not succeed in
“stiffening,” starching him up; he would do first-rate, though there
appeared considerable doubt in their minds, whether, from her stern,
commanding manner, she would not eventually succeed in stiffening
up the Doctor so that he would be less agreeable. Mrs. Whitman,
they thought, was a woman of too much education and refinement to
be thrown away on the Indians. “She must have had considerable
romance in her disposition to have undertaken such an expedition with
such a common, kind, good-hearted fellow as the Doctor. As to Spalding,
he is so green he will do to spread out on a frog-pond; he may do
to preach to Indians, but mountain men would have to be fly-blown
before he could come near them. Mrs. Spalding is a first-rate woman;
she has not got any starch in her; it is strange she ever picked up such
a greenhorn as she has for a husband; she will do first-rate to teach the
Indians, or anybody else; she has got good common sense, and doesn’t
put on any frills. As to Gray, he is young yet, is not quite so green as
Spalding; he seems inclined to learn a little; by the time he goes to
the Columbia River and travels about more, he will know a good deal
more than he does now. He may do well in his department if he
‘keeps his eye skinned.’”


I suppose by this expression was meant a sharp look out for
swindlers, rogues, and thieves, to see that they do not lie, cheat, and
steal, every opportunity they may have, or at least that you do not
allow them to take your property under false pretenses. Be that as it
may, the general conclusion was, that, as this mission party had succeeded
in getting thus far on their journey, they might get still further,
and perhaps (most were certain) make a failure, either by being sent
out of the country by the Hudson’s Bay Company, or destroyed by the
Indians. Good wishes and hopes that they might succeed were abundant
from all, as was plainly expressed, and a disposition, in case the mission
succeeded in establishing themselves, to find their way down into the
Columbia River Valley with their native families, and become settlers
about the mission stations. Lightly as these frank, open expressions
of good wishes and future ideas of the mountain hunter may appear,
the missionaries saw at once there was the germ of a future people to
be gathered in the Columbia River Valley, probably of a mixed race.[Pg 129]
These men had all abandoned civilization and home for the wild hunter
life in the midst of the mountains. They had enjoyed its wild sports,
felt its fearful dangers and sufferings, and become, most of them, connected
with native women—a large proportion of them with the Nez
Percé and Flathead tribes. Their family, at least, could be benefited
by education, and taught the benefits of civilization and Christianity.
The men had expressed kind wishes, good feelings, and treated them
kindly; why should they not include this class of men and their families
in their efforts to benefit the Indians in the valleys of the Columbia
River.


As before stated, the mission party had been introduced by Captain
Wyeth to Mr. John McLeod, a gentleman holding the rank of chief
trader in the Hudson’s Bay Company. He had frequent interviews and
conversations with the mission party while at rendezvous, and as often
as any of these mountain men met him at the mission camp, he would
leave without ceremony. There appeared a mutual dislike, a sort of
hatred between them. This chief trader of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
in the conversations had with him, informed the mission party
that it was not the wish of the company to encourage any of these
mountain hunters and trappers to go to the Columbia River to settle,
or to have any thing to do with them, assigning as a reason that they
would cause trouble and difficulties with the Indians. He also gave
them to understand that should they need manual labor, or men to
assist them in putting up their houses and making their improvements,
the company would prefer to furnish it, to encouraging these men in
going into the country. This intimation was distinctly conveyed to
the party, with the advice and intimations received from Captain
Wyeth, who had seen and understood all the policy of the Hudson’s
Bay Company, and had been compelled to sell his improvements at
Fort Hall to this same McLeod, and his goods designed for the trade
to Dr. McLaughlin, soon after their arrival in the country. These facts
and statements, with the decided manner of Mr. McLeod, compelled
the mission party to defer any effort for these mountain men, but subsequently
they advised the sending of a man to travel with their
camps.




[Pg 130]


CHAPTER XVI.


Missionaries travel in company with Hudson’s Bay Company’s party.—The Lawyer’s
kindness.—Arrival at Fort Hall.—Description of the country.—The Salmon Indians.—The
Hudson’s Bay Company’s tariff.


Letters all written to friends, and everybody supposed to have any
particular interest in the person or individual who wrote them; the
letters placed in the hands of Captain Wyeth; mission camp overhauled
and assorted; all goods supposed unnecessary, or that could be
replaced, such as irons for plows, blacksmith’s tools, useless kettles, etc.,
etc., disposed of. (All articles left, the party were careful to learn, could
be had at Vancouver of the Hudson’s Bay Company, or Methodist
Mission, at reasonable prices.) Tents struck; good-byes said; over the
party goes to Horse Creek, not far from the Nez Percé camp, where
we found that of McLeod and McKay. Soon after we reached camp,
along comes Dr. Whitman with his wagon, notwithstanding all parties
and persons, except the Indians, advised him to leave it. He was literally
alone in his determination to get his old wagon through on to
the waters of the Columbia, and to the mission station that might be
established no one knew where. The man that says Dr. Whitman is
fickle-minded, knows nothing of his character and less of his moral
worth.


Next day, all camps, including those of the Flathead and Nez Percé
Indians, were “raised,” as the expression is, and on we went; the Hudson’s
Bay Company and mission camp, or caravan, together, Dr. Whitman
in charge of his wagon, with some Indians to help him. They
seemed rather to get the Doctor’s ideas of this chick-chick-shauile-kai-kash
(iron rolling carriage), and hunted a road around the bad places,
and helped him along when he required their assistance. Our route
was nearly the same as the great overland route to Bear River and
Soda Springs.


Two days before we reached Soda Springs one of the mission party
became quite unwell, and unable to sit upon his horse. He was left, at
his own request, on a little stream, while the caravan passed on some
six miles further to camp. After remaining alone and resting some
two hours, The Lawyer and an Indian companion of his came along,
picked up the sick man, put him upon a strong horse, got on behind[Pg 131]
him, and held him on till they reached camp. Dr. Whitman gave
him a prescription, which relieved him, so that next day he was able
to continue the journey with the camp. This transaction has always
been a mystery to the writer. The place where the sick man was left
was a beautiful stream, and a good place for a camp for the whole caravan.
The sick man was wholly unable to proceed; did not ask the
caravan to stop and bury him, but simply informed them he could proceed
no further; his strength was gone; they could leave him to die
alone if they chose. A word from McLeod would have stopped the
caravan. Should the mission party remain with him? He said: “No;
go on with the caravan and leave me; you will be compelled to seek
your own safety in continuing with the caravan; I am but an individual;
leave me to my fate.” He requested a cup that he might get some
water from the stream, close to the side of which he wished them to
place him. Dr. Whitman remained with him as long as was deemed
safe for him, and passed on to overtake the caravan. The Lawyer and
his companion came along two or three hours afterward, picked up
the dying or dead man (for aught the caravan knew), and brought
him into camp. My impression of this transaction has always been
that McLeod wished to get rid of this young American, who was then
in the service of the mission party.


“That d——d Indian, Lawyer,” as the Hudson’s Bay Company’s
men called him, by his kindness of heart and determination not to
let an American die if he could help it, defeated the implied wish
of these Hudson’s Bay Company’s men in this case. The Lawyer says
the sick man vomited all the way into camp, and called for water,
which his young man got for him.


From the Soda Springs the Indian camps went north into the mountains
for buffalo.


The Hudson’s Bay Company and mission party continued their
journey through the spurs of the mountains over on to the waters of
the Portneuf to Fort Hall. It is due to Dr. Whitman to say that notwithstanding
this was the most difficult route we had to travel, yet
he persevered with his old wagon, without any particular assistance;
from Soda Springs to Fort Hall his labor was immense, yet he overcame
every difficulty and brought it safe through. I have thrice since
traveled the same route, and confess I can not see how he did it, notwithstanding
I was with him, and know he brought the wagon through.


Fort Hall, in 1836, was a stockade, made of cotton-wood logs, about
twelve feet long, set some two feet in the ground, with a piece of timber
pinned near the top, running entirely around the stockade, which was
about sixty feet square. The stores and quarters for the men were[Pg 132]
built inside with poles, brush, grass, and dirt for covering, stamped
down so as to partially shed rain, and permit the guards to be upon
the tops of the quarters and see over the top of the stockade. It is
situated on an extensive level plain or flat, with spurs of the Rocky
Mountains on the east, at the distance of thirty miles, high ranges
of barren sage hills on the south, some eight miles distant. As you
leave the flat level bottom formed by the Snake and Portneuf rivers,
all along its banks it is skirted with a fine growth of cotton-wood, relieving
the landscape and forming a beautiful contrast to the high barren
plains beyond. To the west is the valley of the Snake River, from
thirty to sixty miles wide, a high, sandy, and barren sage plain. This
valley is bounded on the south by a low range of hills, running from
northwest to southeast. On the north side of Fort Hall is an extensive
high plain; this plain is, from Fort Hall, across it, full forty miles.
The only objects that meet the eye on this extensive plain are three high
basaltic buttes or mountains thrown up near its center. At the foot
of the one a little to the south and west of the two rounder and equally
prominent ones, is a fine spring of water. In 1837, the writer, in his
explorations of the country, was anxious to learn more than was
then known of the character of this great basin in the mountains,
having the year previous entered it by way of Soda Springs and Portneuf.
This time he came into it from the north by Codie’s Defile, and
concluded he would take a straight course and pass between the two
northeastern buttes, and reach Snake River near Fort Hall. His Indian
guide objected; still, as we had good horses, and were traveling light,
we took the precaution to water our animals before entering this plain.
We were twenty-six hours on horseback, having stopped but six hours
to rest; we tied our horses to the sage brush, to prevent them from
leaving us to hunt for water. Not a drop did we find on our route
till we reached Snake River, thirty-two hours from the time we left
running water on the north and west sides of this plain. In our course
we found nothing but barren, basaltic rock, sand, and sage. It is possible,
had we turned to the right or left, we might have found water,
but I saw nothing that gave indications that water was near; on the
contrary, I noticed that the fine stream at which we watered our animals
sank into the rocks, leaving no marks of a channel to any great
distance. In fact, my impression was, after twelve hours’ ride, that it
was useless to spend our time and strength to hunt for water, and kept
our course. Jaded and fatigued as our animals were, as we approached
Snake River every nerve seemed strung to the utmost; our animals
became frantic and unmanageable; they rushed forward at full speed
and plunged into the first water they saw. Fortunately for them and[Pg 133]
the riders, the water was only about three feet deep; water appeared
to be preferred to air; they plunged their heads deep in and held their
breaths till their thirst was relieved.


This plain is bounded on the north and east by spurs of the Rocky
and Bear River mountains; on the south and west by the high plains
of Portneuf and Snake River valleys. There is a range of mountains
commencing on the northwest of this plain, extending west and north
along Snake River, dividing the waters of the Snake and La Rivière
aux Bois (the wooded river.) This whole plain has the appearance
of having been one vast lake of lava, spread over the whole surrounding
country, appearing to have issued from the three basaltic
mountains in the midst of it. I noticed, as we passed between the
two, which were probably not more than ten miles apart, that we appeared
to be on higher rock than in any direction around us. From
this fact I concluded that the three must have been pouring out their
volcanic lava at the same time and ceased together, leaving the country
comparatively level. The small amount of soil found upon the surface,
as well as the barrenness of the rock, indicated no distant period
of time when this volcanic plain had been formed.


At Fort Hall we had another overhauling and lightening of baggage.
The Doctor was advised to take his wagon apart and pack it, if he calculated
to get it through the terrible cañons and deep, bottomless
creeks we must pass in going down Snake Plains. Miles Goodyear, the
boy we picked up two days from Fort Leavenworth, who had been
assigned to assist the Doctor, was determined, if the Doctor took his
wagon any further, to leave the company. He was the only one that
could be spared to assist in this wild, and, as all considered, crazy undertaking.
Miles was furnished a couple of horses, and the best outfit
the mission party could give him for his services, and allowed to remain
or go where he might choose. In his conclusions, he was influenced
by the stories he heard about the treatment he might expect should he
reach the lower Columbia. His idea of liberty was unlimited. Restraint
and obedience to others was what he did not like at home; he would
try his fortune in the mountains; he did not care for missionaries,
Hudson’s Bay men, nor Indians; he was determined to be his own man,
and was allowed to remain at Fort Hall. This loss of manual strength
to the mission party compelled the Doctor to curtail his wagon, so he
made a cart on two of the wheels, placed the axletree and the other
two wheels on his cart, and about the 1st of August, 1836, our camp
was again in motion. As we reached camp on Portneuf the first night,
in passing a bunch of willows, Mrs. Spalding’s horse, a kind and perfectly
gentle animal, was stung by a wasp, causing him to spring to[Pg 134]
one side. Mrs. S. lost her balance; her foot hung fast in the stirrup;
the horse made but a single bound from the sting of the wasp, and
stopped still till Mrs. S. was relieved from what appeared almost instant
death. Next day we continued on down the river till we reached
Salmon Falls, on Snake River.


We found a large number of the Salmon and Digger Indians at their
fishing stations. Their curiosity was excited, and overcame all the
fears that had been attributed to them by former travelers. All of
them came about the camp, and appeared quite friendly, furnishing to
the party all the fresh and dried salmon they wanted, at the most
reasonable rates, say a fine fresh salmon for two fish-hooks; four for a
common butcher-knife; ten dried ones for a shirt; in fact, receiving
only such pay or presents for their fish and roots, as the Hudson’s Bay
Company’s traders saw fit, or would allow the missionary party to give
them. It will be remembered that, in the conversation with Captain
Wyeth, the party had been cautioned as to dealing with the Indians,
or in any way interfering with the Indian trade, or tariff, as the Hudson’s
Bay Company gentlemen call the prices they were in the habit
of giving to the Indians, for any article of property they might have to
dispose of, or that the company might want. If the Indian would part
with it at all, he must receive the price or the article they chose to give
him, not as an equivalent for his article, but as a condescension on the
part of the trader, in allowing him the honor of making the exchange.
The Indian’s property or article, whatever it might be, was of no consequence
to the trader, but the article he gave or furnished to him was
of great value. The Indian knew no other system of trade; it was that
or nothing; hence the wealth of this arrogant and overgrown company,
claiming exclusive trading privileges, as also the right to occupy the
country in such a manner, and for such purposes as they chose. As a
matter of course, the mission party were not in a condition to vary or
change this system of trade; neither were they allowed to encourage
the Indians in the expectation of any future change, except as to the
religious instructions they were at liberty to impart to them.


The gentlemen of the Hudson’s Bay Company were frank with the
mission in giving them their tariff: For a salmon at Salmon Falls, two
awls or two small fish-hooks; one large hook for two salmon; for a knife,
four salmon; for one load of powder and a charge of shot, or a single
ball, one salmon. At Wallawalla the tariff was nearly double, say two
balls and powder for one large-sized salmon; a three-point blanket, a
check shirt, a knife, five or ten balls and powder, from half a foot to three
feet of trail-rope tobacco, the price of a good horse. In short, there was
but one single object the Indian could live for; that was to contribute his[Pg 135]
little mite of productive labor to enrich the Honorable Hudson’s Bay
Company, and to assist them, when required, to relieve the country of
intruders. That they were in a state of absolute subjection to the control
of the company no one that traveled in it at that early day can
doubt for a moment. Speak of improving the condition of the Indians
to gentlemen of the company, they would insist that it only made
them more insolent, demand higher prices for their produce, and be
less inclined to hunt for the furs necessary to supply the goods furnished
for their use. The idea of improving the condition of the Indian, and
raising him in the scale of civilization, and by that means increase his
natural wants, and encourage him with a fair compensation for his labor,
was no part of their chartered privileges. They found the Indian as he
was; they would leave him no better. The country and all in it was
theirs; they could not allow any interference with their trade. “If you
missionaries wish to teach them your religion, we have no particular
objection, so long as you confine yourselves to such religious instruction;
as to trade, gentlemen, we will not object to your receiving from
the Indians what you may require for your own personal use and subsistence,
provided you do not pay them more for the article you buy
of them than the company does. We will give you our tariff, that you
may be governed by it in your dealings with the Indians. You will
readily perceive, gentlemen, that it is necessary for us to insist on these
conditions, in order to protect our own interests, and secure our accustomed
profits.”




[Pg 136]


CHAPTER XVII.


An explanation.—Instructions of company.—Their tyranny.—Continuation of journey.—Fording
rivers.—Arrival at Boise.—Dr. Whitman compelled to leave his wagon.


It may be asked why the writer gives this explanation of trade and
intercourse with the Indians and missionaries before they have reached
the field of their future labors? For the simple reason that the party,
and the writer in particular, commenced their education in the Rocky
Mountains. They learned that in the country to which they were going
there was an overgrown, unscrupulous, and exacting monopoly that
would prevent any interference in their trade, or intercourse with the
Indians. This information was received through the American fur
traders, and from Captain Wyeth, who was leaving the country; and
from Mr. John McLeod, then in charge of our traveling caravan. It is
true, we had only reached Salmon Falls, on Snake River, and we only
wished to buy of the miserable, naked, filthy objects before us, a few
fresh salmon, which they were catching in apparent abundance; and
as is the case with most American travelers, we had many articles that
would be valuable to the Indian, and beneficial to us to get rid of. But
this overgrown company’s interest comes in. “You must not be liberal,
or even just, to these miserable human or savage beings; if you
are, it will spoil our trade with them; we can not control them if they
learn the value of our goods.”


This supreme selfishness, this spirit of oppression, was applied not
only to the Digger Indians on the barren Snake plains and the salmon
fisheries of the Columbia River, but to the miserable discharged, and, in
most cases, disabled, Canadian-French. This policy the Hudson’s Bay
Company practiced upon their own servants, and, as far as was possible,
upon all the early settlers of the country. In proof of this, hear
what Messrs. Ewing Young and Carmichael say of them on the thirteenth
day of January, 1837, just three months after our mission party
had arrived, and had written to their friends and patrons in the United
States glowing accounts of the kind treatment they had received from
this same Hudson’s Bay Company. How far the Methodist Mission
joined in the attempt to coerce Mr. Young and compel him to place
himself under their control, I am unable to say. The Hudson’s Bay
Company, I know, from the statement of Dr. McLaughlin himself, had[Pg 137]
an abundance of liquors. I also know they were in the habit of furnishing
them freely to the Indians, as they thought the interest of their
trade required. Mr. Young’s letter is in answer to a request of the
Methodist Mission, signed by J. and D. Lee, C. Shepard, and P. L.
Edwards, not to erect a distillers on his land claim in Yamhill County
(Nealem Valley). The Methodist Mission was made use of on this occasion,
under the threat of the Hudson’s Bay Company, that in case Mr.
Young put up his distillery the Hudson’s Bay Company would freely
distribute their liquors, and at once destroy all moral restraint, and
more than probable the mission itself. Lee and party offered to indemnify
Mr. Young for his loss in stopping his distillery project. The
Hudson’s Bay Company held by this means the exclusive liquor trade,
while the mission were compelled to use their influence and means to
prevent and buy off any enterprise that conflicted with their interests.
Mr. Young says, in his reply:—


“Gentlemen, having taken into consideration your request to relinquish
our enterprise in manufacturing ardent spirits, we therefore do
agree to stop our proceedings for the present: but, gentlemen, the reasons
for first beginning such an enterprise were the innumerable difficulties
placed in our way by, and the tyrannizing oppression of, the
Hudson’s Bay Company, here under the absolute authority of Dr.
McLaughlin, who has treated us with more disdain than any American’s
feelings could support; but, gentlemen, it is not consistent with our
feelings to receive any recompense whatever for our expenditures, but
we are thankful to the society for their offer.”


The writer of the above short paragraph has long since closed his
labors, which, with his little property, have done more substantial benefit
to Oregon than the Hudson’s Bay Company, that attempted to
drive him from the country, which I will prove to the satisfaction of
any unprejudiced mind as we proceed, I am fully aware of the great
number of pensioned satellites that have fawned for Hudson’s Bay
Company pap, and would swear no injustice was ever done to a single
American, giving this hypocritical, double-dealing smooth-swindling,
called honorable, Hudson’s Bay Company credit for what they never
did, and really for stealing credit for good deeds done by others. The
company insisted that the mission party should, as a condition of being
permitted to remain in the country, comply with their ideas of Indian
trade and justice in dealing with the natives. The utmost care and
attention was given to impress this all-important fact upon the minds
of these first missionaries. They were told: “Gentlemen, your own
pecuniary interests require it; the good—yes, the good—of the natives
you came to teach, requires that you should observe our rules in trade.”[Pg 138]
And here, I have no doubt, lies the great secret of the partial failure of
all the Protestant missions. But, thank God, the country is relieved of
a curse, like that of slavery in the Southern States. An overgrown
monopoly, in using its influence with Catholicism to destroy Protestantism
in Oregon and the American settlements, has destroyed itself.
Priestcraft and Romanism, combined with ignorance and savagism,
under the direction of the Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company traders,
is a kind of mixture which Mr. Ewing Young says “is more than any
American citizen’s feelings could support;” yet for six years it was submitted
to, and the country increased, not so much in wealth, but in
stout-hearted men and women, who had dared every thing, and endured
many living deaths, to secure homes, and save a vast and rich country
to the American Republic. Was the government too liberal in giving
these pioneers three hundred and twenty acres of land, when, by their
toil and patient endurance they had suffered every thing this arrogant,
unscrupulous, overgrown monopoly could inflict, by calling to its aid
superstition and priestcraft, in the worst possible form, to subdue and
drive them from the country?


Is there an American on this coast who doubts the fact of the tyrannical
course of the company? Listen to what is said of them in
1857, ’58, in their absolute government of Vancouver Island and British
Columbia, by a resident. He says:—


“In my unsophisticated ignorance, I foolishly imagined I was entering
a colony governed by British institutions; but I was quickly undeceived.
It was far worse than a Venetian oligarchy; a squawtocracy
of skin traders, ruled by men whose lives have been spent in the wilderness
in social communion with Indian savages, their present daily
occupation being the sale of tea, sugar, whisky, and the usual et cæteras
of a grocery, which (taking advantage of an increased population) they
sold at the small advance of five hundred per cent.; by men, who, to
keep up the entente cordiale with the red-skins, scrupled not (and the
iniquitous practice is still continued) to supply them with arms and
ammunition, well knowing that the same would be used in murderous
warfare. I found these ’small fry’ claiming, under some antediluvian
grant, not only Vancouver Island, but a tract of country extending from
the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, from British Columbia to Hudson’s
Bay—a territory of larger area than all Europe. The onward march of
civilization was checked; all avenues to the mineral regions were closed
by excessive, unauthorized, and illegal taxation; and a country abounding
with a fair share of Nature’s richest productions, and which might now
be teeming with a hardy and industrious population, was crushed and
blasted by a set of unprincipled autocrats, whose selfish interests, idle[Pg 139]
caprices, and unscrupulous conduct, sought to gratify their petty ambition
by trampling on the dearest rights of their fellow-men. In Victoria
and British Columbia the town lots, the suburban farms, and the
water frontage were theirs,—the rocks in the bay, and the rocks on the
earth; the trees in the streets, which served as ornaments to the town,
were cut down by their orders and sold for fire-wood; with equal right
(presumption or unscrupulousness is the appropriate term) they claimed
the trees and dead timber of the forests, the waters of the bay, and the
fresh water on the shores; all, all was theirs;—nay, I have seen the
water running from the mountain springs denied to allay the parched
thirst of the poor wretches whom the auri sacra fames had allured to
these inhospitable shores. They viewed with a jealous eye all intruders
into their unknown kingdom, and every impediment was thrown in the
way of improving or developing the resources of the colony. The coal
mines were theirs, and this necessary article of fuel in a northern
climate was held by them at thirty dollars per ton. The sole and exclusive
right to trade was theirs, and the claim rigidly enforced. The
gold fields were theirs likewise, and a tax of five dollars on every man,
and eight dollars on every canoe or boat, was levied and collected at
the mouth of the cañon before either were allowed to enter the sacred
portals of British Columbia. This amount had to be paid hundreds
of miles from the place where gold was said to exist, whether the
party ever dug an ounce or not. They looked upon all new arrivals
with ill-subdued jealousy and suspicion, and distrusted them as a prætorian
band of robbers coming to despoil them of their ill-gotten
wealth.”


Was this the case in 1858? Show me the man who denies it, and I
will show you a man devoid of moral perception, destitute of the principle
of right dealing between man and man; yet this same Hudson’s
Bay Company claim credit for saving the thousands of men they had
robbed of their hard cash, in not allowing a few sacks of old flour and
a quantity of damaged bacon to be sold to exceed one hundred per
cent. above prime cost. “Their goods were very reasonable,” says the
apologist; “their trade was honorable.” Has any one ever before attempted
to claim honorable dealing for companies pursuing invariably the
same selfish and avaricious course? This company is not satisfied with
the privilege they have had of robbing the natives of this coast, their
French and half-native servants, the American settlers, and their own
countrymen, while dependent upon them; but now, when they can no
longer rob and steal from half a continent, they come to our government
at Washington and make a demand for five millions of dollars for
giving up this barefaced open robbery of a whole country they never[Pg 140]
had the shadow of a right to. It is possible the honorable commissioners
may admit this arrogant and unjust claim. If they do,—one
single farthing of it,—they deserve the curses due to the company who
have robbed the native inhabitants of all their labor, their own servants
they brought to it, the country of all they could get from it that was
of any value to them, and the nation upon whom they call for any
amount, be it great or small.


I have not time, and it would be out of place, to say more upon
this subject, at this rime, in the historical sketches we propose to give.
Be assured we do not write without knowing what we say, and being
prepared to prove our statements with facts that have come under our
own observation while in the country. We will leave the Hudson’s
Bay Company and return to our mission party.


After getting a full supply of salmon for a tin whistle, or its equivalent,
a smell of trail-rope tobacco, we came to the ford at the three
islands in Snake River, crossed all safe, except a short swim for Dr.
Whitman and his cart on coming out on the north side or right bank
of the river. As nothing serious occurred, we passed on to camp.
The next day, in passing along the foot hills of the range of mountains
separating the waters of the Snake River and La Rivière aux Bois, we
came to the warm springs, in which we boiled a piece of salmon. Then
we struck the main Boise River, as it comes out of the mountain,
not far below the present location of Boise City; thence, about ten
miles down the river, and into the bend, where we found a miserable
pen of a place, at that time called Fort Boise. It consisted of cotton-wood
poles and crooked sticks set in a trench, and pretended to be
fastened near the top. The houses or quarters were also of poles,
open; in fact, the whole concern could hardly be called a passable
corral, or pen for horses and cattle. I think, from appearances, the fort
had been used to corral or catch horses in. We were informed that
it was established in opposition to Fort Hall, to prevent the Indians, as
much as possible, from giving their trade to Captain Wyeth, and that
the company expected, if they kept it up, to remove it near the mouth
of Boise River.


At this place, McLeod and McKay, and all the Johnny Crapauds of
the company, united in the opinion that it was impossible to get the
Doctor’s cart any further without taking it all apart and bending the
iron tires on the wheels, and packing it in par-fleshes (the dried hide
of the buffalo, used as an outside covering for packs), and in that way
we might get it through, if the animals we packed it upon did not fall
with it from the precipices over which we must pass. Impossible to
get it through any other way. After several consultations, and some[Pg 141]
very decided expressions against any further attempt to take the
wagon further, a compromise was made, that, after the party had
reached their permanent location, the Doctor or Mr. Gray would return
with the Hudson’s Bay Company’s caravan and get the wagon and
bring it through. To this proposition the Doctor consented. The
wagon was left, to the great advantage of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
in removing their timber and material to build their new fort, as was
contemplated, that and the following seasons.


All our goods were placed upon the tallest horses we had, and led
across. Mrs. Spalding and Mrs. Whitman were ferried over on a bulrush
raft, made by the Indians for crossing. The tops of the rushes
were tied with grass ropes, and spread and so arranged that, by lying
quite flat upon the rushes and sticks they were conveyed over in safety.
Portions of our clothing and goods, as was expected, came in contact
with the water, and some delay caused to dry and repack. This
attended to, the party proceeded on the present wagon trail till they
reached the Grand Ronde; thence they ascended the mountain on the
west side of the main river, passed over into a deep cañon, through
thick timber, ascended the mountain, and came out on to the Umatilla,
not far from the present wagon route.


As the party began to descend from the western slope of the Blue
Mountains, the view was surpassingly grand. Before us lay the great
valley of the Columbia; on the west, and in full view, Mount Hood
rose amid the lofty range of the Cascade Mountains, ninety miles distant.
To the south of Mount Hood stood Mount Adams, and to the
north, Mount Rainier; while, with the assistance of Mr. McKay, we
could trace the course of the Columbia, and determine the location of
Wallawalla. It was quite late in the evening before we reached camp
on the Umatilla, being delayed by our cattle, their feet having become
worn and tender in passing over the sharp rocks, there being but little
signs of a trail where we passed over the Blue Mountains in 1836.




[Pg 142]


CHAPTER XVIII.


Arrival at Fort Wallawalla.—Reception.—The fort in 1836.—Voyage down the Columbia
River.—Portage at Celilo.—At Dalles.—A storm.—The Flatheads.—Portage at
the Cascades.


Next day Mr. McLeod left the train in charge of Mr. McKay, and
started for the fort, having obtained a fresh horse from the Cayuse Indians.
The party, with Hudson’s Bay Company’s furs and mission
cattle, traveled slowly, and in two days and a half reached old Fort
Wallawalla, on the Columbia River,—on the second day of September,
1836, a little over four months from the time they left Missouri.
Traveling by time from two to three miles per hour, making it two
thousand two hundred and fifty miles.


Their reception must have been witnessed to be fully realized. The
gates of the fort were thrown open, the ladies assisted from their
horses, and every demonstration of joy and respect manifested. The
party were soon led into an apartment, the best the establishment had
to offer. Their horses and mules were unloaded and cared for; the cattle
were not neglected. It appeared we had arrived among the best of
friends instead of total strangers, and were being welcomed home in
the most cordial manner. We found the gentleman in charge, Mr. P.
C. Pambrun, a French-Canadian by birth, all that we could wish, and
more than we expected.


Mr. J. K. Townsend, the naturalist, we found at Wallawalla. He had
been sent across the Rocky Mountains, in company with Dr. Nutall, a
geologist, by a society in Philadelphia, in 1834, in company with Captain
Wyeth. He had remained in the country to complete his collection
of specimens of plants and birds, and was awaiting the return of
the Hudson’s Bay Company’s ship, to reach the Sandwich Islands, on
his homeward course, having failed to get an escort to connect with
Captain Wyeth, and return by way of the Rocky Mountains. From
Mr. Townsend the mission party received much useful information relating
to the course they should pursue in their intercourse with the
Hudson’s Bay Company and the Indians. He appeared to take a deep
interest in the objects of the mission, confirming, from his own observation,
the information already received, cautioning the party not to
do any thing with the Indians that would interfere with the Hudson’s[Pg 143]
Bay Company’s trade. Repeating almost verbatim Captain Wyeth’s
words, “The company will be glad to have you in the country, and
your influence to improve their servants, and their native wives and
children. As to the Indians you have come to teach, they do not want
them to be any more enlightened. The company now have absolute
control over them, and that is all they require. As to Mr. Pambrun, at
this place, he is a kind, good-hearted gentleman, and will do any thing
he can for you. He has already received his orders in anticipation of
your arrival, and will obey them implicitly; should the company learn
from him, or any other source, that you are here and do not comply
with their regulations and treatment of the Indians, they will cut off
your supplies, and leave you to perish among the Indians you are here
to benefit. The company have made arrangements, and expect you to
visit Vancouver, their principal depot in the country, before you select
your location.”


Mr. Townsend had gathered from the gentlemen of the Hudson’s
Bay Company, during the year he had been in the country, a good
knowledge of their policy, and of their manner of treatment and trade
with the Indians. He had also learned from conversations with Rev.
Samuel Parker and the various members of the company, their views
and feelings, not only toward American traders, but of the missionary
occupation of the country by the Americans. The mission party of
1836 learned from Mr. McLeod that the Hudson’s Bay Company had
sent for a chaplain, to be located at Vancouver, and from Mr. Townsend
that he had arrived.


It will be borne in mind that this honorable company, on the arrival
of Rev. J. Lee and party to look after the civil and religious welfare of
the Indians, examined their old charter, and found that one of its requirements
was to Christianize as well as trade with the natives of this
vast country. They found that the English church service must be
read at their posts on the Sabbath. To conform to this regulation, a
chaplain was sent for. He came, with his wife; and not receiving the
submission and attention from the chivalry of the country he demanded,
became thoroughly disgusted, and returned to England (I think) on the
same ship he came in. As we proceed, we will develop whys and
wherefores.


Old Fort Wallawalla, in 1836, when the mission party arrived, was
a tolerably substantial stockade, built of drift-wood taken from the
Columbia River, of an oblong form, with two log bastions raised, one
on the southwest corner, commanding the river-front and southern space
beyond the stockade; the other bastion was on the northeast corner,
commanding the north end, and east side of the fort. In each of these[Pg 144]
bastions were kept two small cannon, with a good supply of small-arms.
These bastions were always well guarded when any danger was suspected
from the Indians. The sage brush, willow, and grease-wood had
been cut and cleared away for a considerable distance around, to prevent
any Indians getting near the fort without being discovered. Inside
the stockade were the houses, store, and quarters for the men, with
a space sufficiently large to corral about one hundred horses. The
houses and quarters were built by laying down sills, placing posts at
from eight to twelve feet apart, with tenons on the top, and the bottom
grooved in the sides, and for corner-posts, so as to slip each piece of
timber, having also a tenon upon each end, into the grooves of the posts,
forming a solid wall of from four to six inches thick, usually about seven
feet high from floor to ceiling, or timbers overhead. The roofs were of
split cedar, flattened and placed upon the ridge pole and plate-like
rafters, close together; then grass or straw was put on the split pieces,
covered with mud and dirt, and packed to keep the straw from blowing
off. The roofs were less than one-fourth pitch, and of course subject
to leakage when it rained. For floors, split puncheons or planks
were used in the chief trader’s quarters. In the corner of the room
was a comfortable fireplace, made of mud in place of brick. The room
was lighted with six panes of glass, seven inches by nine, set in strips
of wood, split with a common knife, and shaped so as to hold the glass
in place of a sash.


The doors were also of split lumber, rough hewn, wrought-iron hinges,
and wooden latches; the furniture consisted of three benches, two stools,
and one chair (something like a barber’s chair, without the scrolls and
cushions); a bed in one corner of the room upon some split boards for
bottom; a rough table of the same material roughly planed. This,
with a few old cutlasses, shot-pouches, and tobacco sacks (such as were
manufactured by the Indians about the post), constituted the room
and furniture occupied by P. C. Pambrun, Esq., of the Honorable Hudson’s
Bay Company. Into this room the mission party were invited,
and introduced to Mrs. Pambrun and two young children-misses. The
kind and cordial reception of Mr. Pambrun was such that all felt cheerful
and relieved in this rude specimen of half-native, half-French dwelling.
The cloth was soon spread upon the table, and the cook brought
in the choice game of the prairies well cooked, with a small supply of
Irish potatoes and small Canadian yellow corn. This was a feast,
as well as a great change from dried and pounded buffalo meat
“straight,” as the miners say, upon which we had subsisted since we
left the rendezvous, except the occasional fresh bits we could get along
the route. Dinner being disposed of, some fine melons were served,[Pg 145]
which Mr. Pambrun had succeeded in raising in his little melon patch,
in the bends of the Wallawalla River, about two miles from the fort.
The supply of melons was quite limited, a single one of each kind for
the party. Mr. Townsend on this occasion yielded his share to the
ladies, and insisted, as he had been at the fort and partaken of them on
previous occasions, they should have his share. Dinner over, melons
disposed of, fort, stores, and quarters examined, arrangements were
made for sleeping in the various sheds and bastions of the fort. Most
of the gentlemen preferred the open air and tent to the accommodations
of the fort. Rooms were provided for the two ladies and their husbands,
Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding.


Next morning early, Messrs. McLeod and Townsend started for Vancouver
in a light boat, with the understanding that Mr. Pambrun, with
the company’s furs, and the mission party, were to follow in a few days.
Mr. McKay was to remain in charge of the fort. All things were arranged
to Mr. Pambrun’s satisfaction; two boats or barges were made
ready, the furs and party all aboard, with seven men to each barge,
six to row and one to steer, with a big paddle instead of a helm, or an
oar; we glided swiftly down the Columbia River, the scenery of which
is not surpassed in grandeur by any river in the world. Fire, earth,
and water have combined to make one grand display with melted lava,
turning it out in all imaginable and unimaginable shapes and forms on
a most gigantic scale. In other countries, these hills thrown up would be
called mountains, but here we call them high rolling plains, interspersed
with a few snow-capped peaks, some fifteen and some seventeen thousand
feet high. The river is running through these plains, wandering
around among the rocks with its gentle current of from four to eight
knots per hour; at the rapids increasing its velocity and gyrations
around and among the rocks in a manner interesting and exciting to
the traveler, who at one moment finds his boat head on at full
speed making for a big rock; anon he comes along, and by an extra
exertion with his pole shoves off his boat to receive a full supply of
water from the rolling swell, as the water rushes over the rock he has
but just escaped being dashed to pieces against. As to danger in such
places, it is all folly to think of any; so on we go to repeat the same
performance over and over till we reach the falls, at what is now called
Celilo, where we find about twenty-five feet perpendicular fall.


Our boats were discharged of all their contents, about one-fourth of
a mile above the main fall, on the right bank of the river. Then
the cargo was packed upon the Indians’ backs to the landing below the
falls, the Indian performing this part of the labor for from two to six
inches of trail-rope tobacco. A few were paid from two to ten charges[Pg 146]
of powder and ball, or shot, depending upon the number of trips they
made and the amount they carried. The boats were let down with
lines as near the fall as was considered safe, hauled out of the water,
turned bottom up, and as many Indians as could get under them, say
some twenty-five to each boat, lifted them upon their shoulders and
carried them to the water below. For this service they each received
two dried leaves of tobacco, which would make about six common
pipefuls. The Indian, however, with other dried leaves, would make
his two leaves of tobacco last some time.


This portage over, and all on board, we again glided swiftly along,
ran through what is called the Little Dalles, and soon reached the
narrowest place in the Columbia, where the water rushes through
sharp projecting rocks, causing it to turn and whirl and rush in every
conceivable shape for about three-fourths of a mile, till it finds a large
circular basin below, into which it runs and makes one grand turn
round and passes smoothly out at right angles and down in a deep
smooth current, widening as it enters the lofty range of the Cascade
Mountains. The river was deemed a little too high, by our Iroquois
pilot, to run the Big Dalles at that time, although, in January following,
the writer, in company with another party, did run them with no
more apparent danger than we experienced on the same trip at what
is called John Day’s Rapids. At the Dalles our party made another
portage, paying our Indians as at Celilo Falls.


The Indians’ curiosity to look at the white women caused us a little
delay at the falls, and also at the Dalles; in fact, numbers of them
followed our boats in their canoes to the Dalles, to look at these two
strange beings who had nothing to carry but their own persons, and
were dressed so differently from the men.


We proceeded down the river for a few miles and met the Hudson’s
Bay Company’s express canoe, in charge of Mr. Hovey, on its way to
Lachine, going across the continent; stopped and exchanged greetings
for a few minutes and passed on to camp just above Dog River.
Next morning made an early start to reach La Cascade to make the
portage there before night. We had proceeded but about one hour,
with a gentle breeze from the east, sails all set, and in fine spirits,
admiring the sublimely grand scenery, when, looking down the river,
the ladies inquired what made the water look so white. In a moment
our boatmen took in sail, and laid to their oars with all their might to
reach land and get under shelter, which we did, but not till we had
received considerable wetting, and experienced the first shock of a
severe wind-storm, such as can be gotten up on the shortest possible
notice in the midst of the Cascade Mountains. Our camp was just[Pg 147]
below White Salmon River. The storm was so severe that all our
baggage, furs, and even boats had to be taken out of the water to
prevent them from being dashed to pieces on the shore. For three
days and nights we lay in this miserable camp watching the storm as
it howled on the waves and through this mountain range. Stormy as
it was, a few Indians found our camp and crawled over the points of
rocks to get sight of our party.


Among the Indians of the coast and lower Columbia none but such
as are of noble birth are allowed to flatten their skulls. This is accomplished
by taking an infant and placing it upon a board corresponding
in length and breadth to the size of the child, which is placed upon
it and lashed fast in a sort of a sack, to hold its limbs and body in one
position. The head is also confined with strings and lashing, allowing
scarcely any motion for the head. From the head of the board, upon
which the infant is made fast, is a small piece of board lashed to the
back piece, extending down nearly over the eyes, with strings attached
so as to prevent the forehead from extending beyond the eyes, giving
the head and face a broad and flat shape. The native infants of the
blood royal were kept in these presses from three to four months, or
longer, as the infant could bear, or as the aspirations of the parent
prompted. For the last fifteen years I have not seen a native infant
promoted to these royal honors. My impression is that the example
of the white mother in the treatment of her infant has had more influence
in removing this cruel practice than any other cause. As a
general thing, the tribes that have followed the practice of flattening
the skull are inferior in intellect, less stirring and enterprising in their
habits, and far more degraded in their morals than other tribes. To this
cause probably more than any other may be traced the effect of vice
among them. The tribes below the Cascade Mountains were the first
that had any intercourse with the whites. The diseases never feared
or shunned by the abandoned and profligate youth and sailor were introduced
among them. The certain and legitimate effect soon showed
itself all along the coast. So prevalent was vice and immorality among
the natives, that not one escaped. Their blood became tainted, their
bodies loathsome and foul, their communication corrupt continually.
The flattened head of the royal families, and the round head of the
slave, was no protection from vice and immoral intercourse among the
sexes; hence, when diseases of a different nature, and such as among
the more civilized white race are easily treated and cured, came among
them, they fell like rotten sheep. If a remnant is left, I have often
felt that the reacting curse of vice will pursue our advanced civilization
for the certain destruction that has befallen the miserable tribes[Pg 148]
that but a few years since peopled this whole coast. It is true that
the missionaries came to the country before many white settlers came.
It is also true that they soon learned the causes that would sweep the
Indians from the land, and in their feeble efforts to check and remove
the causes, they were met by the unlimited and unbridled passions of
all in the country, and all who came to it for a number of years subsequent,
with a combined influence to destroy that of the missionaries
in correcting or checking this evil. Like alcohol and its friends, it
had no virtue or conscience, hence the little moral influence brought
by the first missionaries was like pouring water upon glass: it only
washed the sediment from the surface while the heart remained untouched.
Most of the missionaries could only be witnesses of facts
that they had little or no power to correct or prevent; many of them
lacked the moral courage necessary to combat successfully the influences
with which they were surrounded, and every action, word, or
expression was canvassed and turned against them or the cause they
represented.


The reader will excuse this little digression into moral facts, as he
will bear in mind that we were in a most disagreeable camp on the
Columbia River, between the Cascades and the Dalles, and for the
first time were introduced to real live Flatheads and the process of
making them such. The men, also, or boatmen, amused themselves in
getting the members of the royal family who visited our camp drunk
as Chinamen (on opium), by filling their pipes with pure trail-rope
tobacco.


On the fourth morning after the storm stopped us, we were again on
our way. Arrived at the Cascades and made a portage of the goods
over, around, and among the rocks, till we reached the basin below the
main shoot or rapids. The boats were let down by lines and hauled
out to repair leakage from bruises received on the rocks in their descent.
Damage repaired, all embarked again, and ran down to Cape
Horn and camped; next day we reached the saw-mill and camped
early. All hands must wash up and get ready to reach the fort in the
morning. From the saw-mill an Indian was sent on ahead to give notice
at the fort of the arrival of the party. Our captain, as the Americans
would call Mr. Pambrun, who had charge of the boats, was slow
in getting ready to start. Breakfast over, all dressed in their best
clothes, the party proceeded on down the river. In coming round a
bend of the upper end of the plain upon which the fort stands, we
came in full view of two fine ships dressed in complete regalia from
stem to stern, with the St. George cross waving gracefully from the
staff in the fort. Our party inquired innocently enough the cause of[Pg 149]
this display. Captain Pambrun evaded a direct answer. In a short
time, as the boats neared the shore, two tall, well-formed, neatly-dressed
gentlemen waved a welcome, and in a moment all were on shore. Rev.
Mr. Spalding and lady were introduced, followed by Dr. Whitman
and lady, to the two gentlemen. One, whose hair was then nearly
white, stepped forward and gave his arm to Mrs. Whitman. The
other, a tall, black-haired, black-eyed man, with rather slim body, a
light sallow complexion and smooth face, gave his arm to Mrs. Spalding.
By this time Mr. McLeod had made his appearance, and bade the
party a hearty welcome and accompanied them into the fort. We began
to suspect the cause of so much display. All safely arrived in the
fort, we were led up-stairs, in front of the big square hewed-timber
house, and into a room on the right of the hall, where the ladies were
seated, as also some six gentlemen, besides the tall white-headed one.
The writer, standing in the hall, was noticed by Mr. McLeod, who came
out and invited him into the quarters of the clerks. We will leave our
ladies in conversation with the two fine-looking gentlemen that
received them on arriving at the water’s edge, while we take a look
at the fort, as it appeared on September 12, 1836.




[Pg 150]


CHAPTER XIX.


Fort Vancouver in 1836.—An extra table.—Conditions on which cattle were supplied
to settlers.—Official papers.—Three organizations.


Fort Vancouver was a stockade, built with fir-logs about ten inches
in diameter, set some four feet in the ground, and about twenty feet
above, secured by pieces of timber pinned on the inside, running
diagonally around the entire stockade, which at that time covered or
inclosed about two acres of ground. The old fort, as it was called, was
so much decayed that the new one was then being built, and portions
of the old one replaced. The storehouses were all built of hewn timber,
about six inches thick, and covered with sawed boards one foot wide
and one inch thick, with grooves in the edges of the boards, placed up
and down upon the roof, in place of shingles; of course, in case of a
knot-hole or a crack, it was a leaky concern. All the houses were
covered with boards in a similar manner in the new quarters. The partitions
were all upright boards planed, and the cracks battened; floors
were mostly rough boards, except the office and the governor’s house,
which were planed. The parsonage was what might be called of the
balloon order, covered like the rest, with a big mud and stone chimney
in the center. The partitions and floors were rough boards. There
were but two rooms, the one used for dining-room and kitchen, the other
for bedroom and parlor. The doors and gates of the fort, or stockade,
were all locked from the inside, and a guard stationed over the gate.
In front of the governor’s house was a half semicircle double stairway,
leading to the main hall up a flight of some ten steps. In the center
of the semicircle was one large 24-pound cannon, mounted on a
ship’s carriage, and on either side was a small cannon, or mortar gun,
with balls piled in order about them, all pointing to the main gate
entrance; latterly, to protect the fort from the savages that had commenced
coming over the Rocky Mountains, a bastion was built, said to
be for saluting her Majesty’s ships when they might arrive, or depart
from the country.


At 12 M. the fort bell rang; clerks and gentlemen all met at the
common dinner-table, which was well supplied with potatoes, salmon,
wild fowl, and usually with venison and bread. Dinner over, most of
the gentlemen passed a compliment in a glass of wine, or brandy, if pre[Pg 151]ferred;
all then retired to the social hall, a room in the clerks’ quarters,
where they indulged in a stiff pipe of tobacco, sometimes filling the
room as full as it could hold with smoke. At 1 P. M. the bell rang
again, when all went to business.


The party had no sooner arrived than the carpenter was ordered to
make an extra table, which was located in the governor’s office, in the
room where we left them on first bringing them into the house. This
extra table was presided over by the governor, or the next highest
officers of the fort; usually one or two of the head clerks or gentlemen
traders were, by special invitation, invited to dine with the ladies, or,
rather, at the ladies’ table. The governor’s wife was not sufficiently
accomplished, at first, to take a seat at the ladies’ table. I never saw
her in the common dining-hall; neither was the mother of the chief
clerk’s children permitted this honor at first. However, as Mrs. Whitman
and Mrs. Spalding soon learned the fort regulations, as also the
family connection there was in the establishment, they very soon introduced
themselves to the two principal mothers they found in the governor’s
house, one belonging to the governor, and the other to the chief
clerk, and made themselves acquainted with the young misses; and, in
a short time, in opposition to the wish of the governor and his chief
clerk, brought them both to the ladies’ table. They also brought the
youngest daughter of the governor to the table, and took considerable
pains to teach the young misses, and make themselves generally useful;
so that, at the end of two weeks, when arrangements had been made
for the party to return to Wallawalla to commence their missionary
labors, the governor and chief clerk would not allow the ladies to
depart, till the gentlemen had gone up and selected their stations
and built their houses, so that they could be comfortable for winter.
Captain Wyeth and Mr. Townsend were correct in their ideas of the
reception of this party. The utmost cordiality was manifested, the
kindest attention paid, and such articles as could be made about the
establishment, that the party wanted, were supplied. The goods were
all to be furnished at one hundred per cent. on London prices, drafts
to be drawn on the American Board, payable in London at sight.
They were cashed by the Board at thirty-seven cents premium on
London drafts, costing the mission two dollars and seventy-four cents
for every dollar’s worth of goods they received; freight and charges
from Fort Vancouver to Wallawalla were added. These goods were
received and paid for, not as a business transaction with the Hudson’s
Bay Company, by any means, but as a gracious gift; or, to quote
the governor and chief clerk, “You gentlemen must consider yourselves
under great obligation to the Hudson’s Bay Company, as we[Pg 152]
are only here to trade with the natives. In your future transactions
you will make out your orders, and we will forward them to London
to be filled at their rates, and with this understanding.”


While at Vancouver, Dr. Whitman concluded that some more cattle
than the mission had were necessary to facilitate the labor in breaking
up the prairie for a spring crop; and a few cows might be useful to
assist in getting a start in cattle. The proposition was made to the
Hudson’s Bay Company, to know upon what terms they could get
them. “Certainly,” said Dr. McLaughlin, “you can have what cattle
you want on the conditions we furnish them to the company’s servants
and the settlers in the Wallamet.” “What are those conditions?”
said Dr. Whitman. “Why, in case of work cattle, you can take them
from our band; we can not, of course, spare you those we are working,
but the cattle you take, you break in, and when the company requires
them you return them to the company.” “And what are your terms in
letting your cows?” said Dr. Whitman. “Why, we let them have the
cows for the use of the milk; they return the cow and its increase to
the company.” “And how is it in case the animal is lost or gets
killed?” “You gentlemen will have no difficulty on that account;
you have some cattle; you can replace them from your own band.”


Dr. Whitman seemed a little incredulous as to the conditions upon
which cattle could be had of the company, and inquired if such were
the conditions they furnished them to their servants and the settlers.
Dr. McLaughlin replied emphatically, it was. We learned in this connection
that there was not a cow in the country, except those of the
American Board, that was not owned by the Hudson’s Bay Company.
The same was the case with all the beeves and work cattle. The
mission party concluded they would not mortgage their own cattle for
the use of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s; hence dropped the cattle
question for the time being.


While at Vancouver, it was deemed necessary for a copy of the
official papers of the mission party to be made out, and forwarded to
the Sandwich Islands, to the American and British consuls, and one
to the commercial agent of the Hudson’s Bay Company, with an order
from Dr. McLaughlin, to the agent of the Hudson’s Bay Company, to
forward any supplies or goods designed for the mission of the American
Board. These documents were made out, and duly signed, by Rev.
Mr. Spalding and Dr. Whitman. The question arose whether the name
of the secular agent of the mission ought not also to be attached to the
documents, and was decided in the affirmative. Gray was sent for; he
entered the office with his hat under his arm, as per custom in entering
the audience chamber where official business was transacted, examined[Pg 153]
hastily the documents, attached his name, and retired. The incident
was noticed by Dr. McLaughlin, and while the mission party were
absent, locating and building their stations, Dr. McLaughlin inquired
of Mrs. Whitman who the young man was that Mr. Spalding and her
husband had to sign a copy of the public documents sent to the Sandwich
Islands. Mrs. Whitman replied, “Why, that is Mr. Gray, our
associate, and secular agent of the mission.” The inquiries about Mr.
Gray were dropped till the ladies reached their stations, and Mr. Gray
was advised, when he visited Vancouver again, to present his credentials,
and show the Hudson’s Bay Company his connection with the
mission. Accordingly, when Mr. Gray visited Vancouver, in January,
1837, he presented his credentials, and was received in a manner contrasting
very strongly with that of his former reception; still, the
lesson he had learned was not a useless one. He saw plainly the condition
of all the settlers, or any one in the country that had no official
position or title; he was looked upon as a vagabond, and entitled to no
place or encouragement, only as he submitted to the absolute control
of the Hudson’s Bay Company, or one of the missions. There was
nothing but master and servant in the country, and this honorable company
were determined that no other class should be permitted to be in
it. To the disgrace of most of the missionaries, this state of absolute
dependence and submission to the Hudson’s Bay Company, or themselves,
was submitted to, and encouraged. At least, no one but Rev.
Jason Lee, of the Methodist Mission, fully comprehended the precise
condition of an outsider. This will be shown as we proceed. We
were made a party to a special contract, in 1837, touching this
question.


Then we had three distinct organizations in the country: The first,
and the most important in wealth and influence, was the Hudson’s
Bay Company’s traders; the second, the Methodist Mission, with their
ideas and efforts to Christianize the savages, and to do what they
could to convert the gentlemen of the Hudson’s Bay Company from
the error of their ways; third, the mission of the American Board, to
accomplish the same object. The fact of these two missions being in
the country, both having the same object to accomplish, elicited a discussion
as to the proper location for both to operate in. It was not
deemed advisable to locate in the same tribe, as the field was large
enough for both. The Cowlitz and Puget Sound district was proposed,
but not favored by the Hudson’s Bay Company; Mr. Pambrun kept the
claims of the Nez Percés and Cayuses before the party. His interests
and arguments prevailed.




[Pg 154]


CHAPTER XX.


Settlers in 1836.—Wallamet Cattle Company.—What good have the missionaries done?—Rev.
J. Lee and party.—The Hudson’s Bay Company recommend the Wallamet.—Missionaries
not dependent on the company.—Rev. S. Parker arrives at
Vancouver.


There were in the country, in the winter of 1836, besides those connected
with the Hudson’s Bay Company and the missions, about fifteen
men, all told. The two missions numbered seven men and two women,
making the American population about twenty-five persons. To bring
the outsiders from the Hudson’s Bay Company and the two missions
into subjection, and to keep them under proper control, it was necessary
to use all the influence the Methodist Mission had. They, as a matter of
interest and policy, furnished to such as showed a meek and humble
disposition, labor, and such means as they could spare from their stores,
and encouraged them to marry the native women they might have, or
be disposed to take, and become settlers about the mission. Such as
were not disposed to submit to the government of the mission, or the
Hudson’s Bay Company, like Mr. E. Young, Carmichael, and Killmer,
were “left out in the cold.” They could get no supplies, and no employment.
They were literally outcasts from society, and considered as outlaws
and intruders in the country. All seemed anxious to get rid of
them.


McCarty, the companion of Mr. Young from California to Oregon,
had fallen out with him on the way, as Young was bringing to the
country a band of California horses (brood mares). McCarty, it seems,
to be avenged on Young, reported to Dr. McLaughlin and the mission
that Young had stolen his band of horses (though it has since been
stated upon good authority that such was not the case); still McCarty
was (I understand) a member of the class-meeting, on probation. His
statements were received as truth, and Young suffered. Young was a
stirring, ambitious man; he had spent some time in the Rocky
Mountains, and in Santa Fé and California, and the little property he
could get he had invested in horses, and brought them to Oregon. This
fact, with the malicious reports circulated about him, made him an
object of suspicion and contempt on the part of the Hudson’s Bay Company
and the mission. We find that Mr. Lee treated Mr. Young as an[Pg 155]
honest man, and, consequently, fell under the displeasure of Dr.
McLaughlin and the Hudson’s Bay Company. With Mr. Young, Mr.
Lee succeeded in getting up the first cattle company, and gave the first
blow toward breaking up the despotism and power of the company.
Mr. Young, as Mr. Lee informed us, was the only man in the country
he could rely upon, in carrying out his plan to supply the settlement
with cattle. He was aware of the stories in circulation about him, and
of the want of confidence in him in the mission and among the French-Canadians
and Hudson’s Bay Company. To obviate this difficulty, he
suggested that Mr. P. L. Edwards, a member of the mission, should go
as treasurer of the company, and Mr. Young as captain. This brought
harmony into the arrangement, and a ready subscription to the stock
of the Wallamet Cattle Company, all being anxious to obtain cattle.
But few of the settlers had any means at command. Many of the discharged
servants of the Hudson’s Bay Company had credit on their
books. There were outside men enough in the country willing to volunteer
to go for the cattle, and receive their pay in cattle when they arrived
with the band in Oregon. This brought the matter directly to the
Hudson’s Bay Company, and to Dr. McLaughlin. Rev. Jason Lee
received the orders of the company’s servants, went to Vancouver, and
learned from the clerks in the office the amounts due the drawers, then
went to the Doctor, and insisted that certain amounts should be paid
on those orders.


The Doctor very reluctantly consented to allow the money or drafts
to be paid. This amount, with all the mission and settlers could raise,
would still have been too small to justify the party in starting, but W.
A. Slacum, Esq., of the United States navy, being on a visit to the
country, Mr. Lee stated the condition of matters to him. Mr. Slacum
at once subscribed the requisite stock, and advanced all the money the
mission wished on their stock, taking mission drafts on their Board,
and gave a free passage to California for the whole party. (As the
missionaries would say, “Bless God for brother Slacum’s providential
arrival among us.”) Uncle Sam had the right man in the right place
that time. It was but a little that he did; yet that little, what mighty
results have grown out of it!


On the 19th of January, 1837, six days after Mr. Young had given
up his projected distillery, he is on board Mr. Slacum’s brig Lariat,
lying off the mouth of the Wallamet River, and on his way to California
with a company of stout-hearted men, eight (I think) in all, not to
steal horses or cheat the miserable savages, and equally miserable
settlers, out of their little productive labor, but to bring a band of
cattle to benefit the whole country. In this connection, I could not do[Pg 156]
justice to all without quoting a paragraph which I find in Rev. G.
Hines’ history of the Oregon missions. He says:—


“Mr. Slacum’s vessel left the Columbia River about the first of February,
and arrived safely in the bay of San Francisco, on the coast of
California. The cattle company proceeded immediately to purchase a
large band of cattle and a number of horses, with which they started
for Oregon. In crossing a range of mountains (Rogue River Mountains),
they were attacked by the rascally Indians, and a number of their
cattle were killed, but they at length succeeded in driving back their
foe and saving the remainder. Contrary to the predictions and wishes
of the members of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who INDIRECTLY OPPOSED
them at the outset, they arrived in safety in the Wallamet Valley
with six hundred head of cattle, and distributed them among the settlers,
according to the provisions of the compact. This successful
enterprise, which laid the foundation for a rapid accumulation of wealth
by the settlers, was mainly accomplished through the energy and perseverance
of Rev. Jason Lee.”


What good have the missionaries done in the country? I do
not know how Mr. Hines arrived at the conclusion that the Hudson’s
Bay Company “indirectly opposed” this cattle expedition. I know
they did it directly, and it was only through the influence of Rev. J.
Lee, and Mr. Slacum, of the United States navy, that they could have
succeeded at all. Mr. Lee, in his conversation with Dr. McLaughlin,
told that gentleman directly that it was of no use for the company to
oppose the expedition any more; the party was made up, and the men
were on the way, and the cattle would come as per engagement, unless
the men were lost at sea. The Hudson’s Bay Company yielded the
point only on the failure of the Rogue River Indians to destroy the
expedition. Mr. Slacum placed it beyond their control to stop it.
The courage of the men was superior to the company’s Indian allies.
The cattle came, and no thanks to any of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s
generosity, patronage, or power. They did all they dared to do,
openly and secretly, to prevent the bringing of that band of cattle into
the country; and, determining to monopolize the country as far as possible,
they at once entered upon the Puget Sound Agricultural
Company, under the auspices of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the
English government.


Do you ask me how I know these things? Simply by being at
Vancouver the day the brig dropped down the Columbia River, and
listening to the discussion excited on the subject, and to the proposition
and plan of the Puget Sound Company among the gentlemen
concerned in getting it up.


[Pg 157]The mission of the American Board had no stock in the cattle company
of the Wallamet, not venturing to incur the displeasure of the
Hudson’s Bay Company by expressing an opinion any way upon it.
The writer was picking up items and preparing for a trip to New York
overland, with one of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s traders, Mr. Francis
(or Frank) Ermatinger. While in New York, Cincinnati, and other
places, he stated the fact that the Methodist missionaries had fallen
under the displeasure of the Hudson’s Bay Company in entering too
freely into trade and speculation in cattle in the country. Truth and
justice to them require that I enter fully into their transactions as
men and missionaries.


Rev. J. Lee, it will be remembered, was the first man to answer the
call of the Indian to come to his country. The Methodist Board had
been formed, and J. Lee accepted their invitation and patronage. In
this expedition he gathered his associates, and at the same time made
arrangements for future supplies to arrive by sea, coming around Cape
Horn. Captain Wyeth was in Boston, getting up a trading expedition,
and chartering a vessel for the mouth of the Columbia River, the May
Dacre. On board Captain Lambert’s brig Captain Wyeth and the
Methodist Board shipped their goods for the two expeditions. The
goods on the way, it became necessary for the future objects of the
mission to have a few horses to carry on the improvements necessary
to a civilized life. Lee and associates start across the continent. Missouri
is the most western limit of civilization. They reach it, purchase
their outfit, and, in company with Captain Wyeth, reach Fort Hall;
here they fall in with Thomas McKay and our English nobleman,
Captain Stewart. Captain Wyeth stopped to build his fort, while
McKay, Stewart, Lee, Dr. Nutall, Townsend, and parties all made
their way to Wallawalla, on the Columbia River. The supreme selfishness
of the Hudson’s Bay Company seems here to begin to develop
itself. Lee and party were made to believe that the Flathead tribe,
who had sent their messengers for teachers, were not only a small, but
a very distant tribe, and very disadvantageously situated for the establishment
and support of a missionary among them. These statements
determined them to proceed to the lower Columbia, to find a better
location to commence operations. Leaving their horses at Wallawalla,
in charge of one of their party, they proceeded down the Columbia in
one of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s boats, being eleven days in reaching
the fort, and one hundred and fifty-two days on the way from
Missouri. They were kindly received by the gentlemen of the fort, and
in two days were on the hunt for a location.


The party that arrived just two years later, with two ladies, were[Pg 158]
not allowed to leave the fort to look for locations till they had remained
twelve days, and been invited to ride all over the farm, and visit the
ships, and eat melons and apples (being always cautioned to save all
the seeds for planting).


Lee and party were frank to make known to the company their
object, and plans of future operations. Questions of trade and morality
were comparatively new with the company. As religious teachers
and Christian men they had no suspicions of any interference in trade.
Mr. Lee hailed from Canada, and so did Dr. McLaughlin and a large
number of the servants of the company.


“Mr. Lee is the man we want to instruct our retired servants in
religious matters. Mr. Shepard will be an excellent man to take
charge of our little private school; we have commenced with a Mr. S.
H. Smith, who has found his way into this country, in company with
Captain Wyeth, an opposition fur trader and salmon catcher. We do
not know much about him, but if you will allow Mr. Shepard to take
charge of our school till you can make other arrangements, and you
require his services, we will make it all right.”


This arrangement placed the labor of selecting locations and the
necessary explorations upon our friend Jason Lee. All being smooth
and cordial with the company, Lee proceeds to French Prairie and up
the river till he reaches a point ten miles below Salem, about two miles
above Jarvie’s old place, and makes his first location. From all the
information he could gather, this was the most central point to reach
the greatest number of Indians and allow the largest number of
French and half-native population to collect around the station. In
this expedition he occupied about ten days. The whole country was
before them—a wilderness two thousand six hundred miles broad,
extending from the gulf of California on the south, to the Russian
settlements on the north, with a few scattering stations among the
border Indians along the western territories of Missouri, and the great
unknown, unexplored west, which the American Board, in a book published
in 1862, page 380, says, “brought to light no field for a great
and successful mission,” showing that, for twenty-five years, they have
neglected to give this country the attention its present position and
importance demanded, and also a total neglect on their part to select
and sustain proper men in this vast missionary field. They are willing
now to plead ignorance, by saying, “Rev. Samuel Parker’s exploring
tour beyond the Rocky Mountains in 1836 and 1837 (but two years
after the Rev. J. Lee came to it) brought to light no field for a great
and successful mission,” and console themselves by asserting a popular
idea as having originated from Mr. Parker’s exploration, “a practicable[Pg 159]
route for a railroad from the Mississippi to the Pacific.” Mr. Parker
never originated or thought of the practicability of the route till after
Dr. Whitman had left his wagon at Fort Boise, and demonstrated the
fact of a practicable wagon route. Then Mr. Parker, to give his work
or journal a wider circulation, talked about a railroad. The American
Board, I am sorry to feel and think, are good at attempting to catch at
straws when important missionary objects have been faithfully placed
before them.


Let us return to Mr. Lee. On Saturday, September 27, 1834, he was in
council with Dr. McLaughlin, at Vancouver. The result of his observations
were fully canvassed; the condition and prospects of the Indians
and half-natives, Canadian-French, straggling sailors and hunters that
might find their way into the country, were all called before this council.
The call from the Flathead Indians and the Nez Percés was not
forgotten. The Wallamet Valley had the best advocate in Dr. John
McLaughlin. He “strongly recommended it, as did the other gentlemen
of Vancouver, as the most eligible place for the establishment
of the center of their operations.” This located that mission under
the direct supervision and inspection of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
and, at the same time, placed the American settlement south of the
Columbia River.


Mr. Lee, the next day, was invited to preach in the fort. All shades
of colors and sects attended this first preaching in the wilderness of
Oregon. The effect in three months was the baptizing of four adults
and seventeen children.


The Protestant missions were not dependent on the Hudson’s Bay
Company for supplies any more than the Sandwich Islands were, or
the American Fur Company. If such were the fact, that they were
dependent upon the Hudson’s Bay Company, the missionaries themselves
and the Boards that sent them to Oregon must have been a set of
foolish men, not competent to conduct the commonest affairs of life.
The idea that seven men and two women should be sent to a distant
wilderness and savage country, and no provisions made for their subsistence
and future supplies, is one originated without a soul, a lie to
produce effect, a slander upon common honesty and common-sense
Christianity. Whitman’s party left in the Rocky Mountains a better
set of tools than could be found in Vancouver. They brought seeds of
all kinds. They had no occasion to ask of the Hudson’s Bay Company
a single seed for farming purposes, a single thing in establishing their
mission,—only as they had disposed of things at the suggestion of
McLeod and McKay as unnecessary to pack them further. Arrangements
were made to forward around Cape Horn, as soon as was deemed neces[Pg 160]sary,
such articles and supplies as might be required. Rev. Jason Lee
and party did not arrive in the country (as those who have all along
attempted to insinuate and make a stranger to the facts believe, and in
1865 claim the sum of $3,822,036.67 for stealing credit due to others,
and preventing the good others might have done to the natives in advancing
them in the scale of civilization) destitute and dependent upon
the Hudson’s Bay Company for supplies. On the contrary, by the time
they had selected their station, the goods on the brig May Dacre had
arrived, and were ready to be landed at the lower mouth of the Wallamet
River. These goods, whether suitable or not, were all received
and conveyed to the station selected by Mr. Lee by the 6th of October.
The rainy season soon commenced; they had no shelter for themselves
or their goods. All old Oregonians who have not been seduced and
brought up by the Hudson’s Bay Company can comprehend the condition
they were in. Rev. Jason Lee, like Dr. Whitman with his old
wagon, had undertaken a work he meant to accomplish. His religion
was practical. Work, labor, preach, and practice his own precepts,
and demonstrate the truth of his own doctrines. Religion and labor
were synonymous with him, and well did the noble Shepard, though
but a lay member of the mission and the church, labor and sustain
him. These two men were really the soul and life of the mission, as
Dr. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding were of the American Board. During
the first winter, 1834-5, they were wholly occupied in building
their houses and preparing for the cultivation of the land for their own
subsistence. There was no alternative; it was work or starve. Rev.
Jason Lee set the example. He held the plow, with an Indian boy to
drive, in commencing his farming operations. The first year they produced
enough for home consumption in wheat, peas, oats, and barley,
and abundance of potatoes, with a few barrels of salt salmon. The
superintendent of the mission put up at the Wallamet Falls late in the
season of 1834. They had a supply of their own for the first year. It
is true they did not have superfine flour to eat, but they had plenty of
pounded and boiled wheat, and a change to pea and barley soup, with
oats for the chickens they had received from the vessel.


Daniel Lee soon falls sick, and Edwards becomes dissatisfied. They
both arrange to leave the country on the May Dacre. Rev. D. Lee is
advised to go to the Sandwich Islands, and Edwards is induced to
undertake an independent school at Champoeg.


Shepard toils on with his Indian and half-native school. Mr. Lee
preaches and labors at the mission among the French, and at Vancouver.


In October, 1835, Rev. S. Parker arrived at Vancouver. In Novem[Pg 161]ber
he made a flying visit to Mr. Lee’s mission. His Presbyterian
spectacles were not adapted to correct observations on Methodist
Episcopal missions. He was inclined to pronounce their efforts a failure.
This impression of Mr. Parker’s arose from the fact, that no female
influence, except that of the natives of the country, was seen or felt
about the mission. His impressions were also quite unfavorable to the
Hudson’s Bay Company from the same cause. These impressions were,
at the suggestion of the writer, omitted in his first published journal.
Four months after Mr. Parker’s visit to Mr. Lee’s mission, we find the
gentlemen of the Hudson’s Bay Company making a handsome donation
to Mr. Lee’s mission of $130, including a handsome prayer for a blessing
upon their labors, in the following words: “And they pray our
heavenly Father, without whose assistance we can do nothing, that of
his infinite mercy he may vouchsafe to bless and prosper your pious
endeavors.” This is signed in behalf of the donors by John McLaughlin.




[Pg 162]


CHAPTER XXI.


Arrival of Rev. Mr. Beaver and wife.—His opinion of the company.—A double-wedding.—Mrs.
Spalding and Mrs. Whitman at Vancouver.—Men explore the country and
locate stations.—Their opinion of the country.—Indian labor.—A winter trip down
Snake River.


Nothing of note occurred till about the middle of August, 1836.
The bark Nereus arrived from England, bringing back Rev. Daniel
Lee, recovered from his sickness while in the Sandwich Islands, and
Rev. Mr. Beaver and lady, an English Episcopal clergyman, as chaplain
to the Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Vancouver. Mr. Beaver was a
man below the medium height, light brown hair, gray eyes, light complexion,
a feminine voice, with large pretensions to oratory, a poor
delivery, and no energy. His ideas of clerical dignity were such, that
he felt himself defiled and polluted in descending to the “common herd
of savages” he found on arriving at Vancouver. “The governor was
uncivil, the clerks were boors, the women were savages. There was not
an individual about the establishment he felt he could associate with.”
This feeling was shared largely by Mrs. Beaver, who, from the little I
saw of her at a double-wedding party at her own house, I concluded,
felt she was condescending greatly in permitting her husband to perform
the services.


She appeared totally indifferent to the whole performance, so far as
giving it an approving smile, look, or word. The occasion was the
marriage of the youngest daughter of Dr. McLaughlin to Mr. Ray;
and of Miss Nelia Comilly to Mr. James Douglas, since governor of
Vancouver Island and British Columbia.


While at Vancouver, I met Mr. Beaver once outside the fort, with his
dog and gun. From what I could learn of him, he was fond of hunting
and fishing;—much more so than of preaching to the “ignorant savages
in the fort,” as he called the gentlemen and servants of the company.
“They were not sufficiently enlightened to appreciate good sermons,
and to conform to the English church service. However, as he was the
chaplain in charge, by virtue of his appointment received from the
executive committee and governor in London, he had rights superior to
any half-savage, pretended gentlemen at this establishment, and he would
let them know what they were, before they were done with him; he did[Pg 163]
not come to this wilderness to be ordered and dictated to by a set of
half-savages, who did not know the difference between a prayer-book
and an otter skin, and yet they presumed to teach him morals and religion.”
This tirade, as near as I could learn, was elicited from his
reverence soon after he arrived, on account of some supposed neglect
or slight offered by Dr. McLaughlin, in not furnishing his quarters in
the style he had expected. On reaching the post, in place of a splendid
parsonage, well fitted up, and servants to do his bidding, he found
what in early California times would be called an ordinary balloon
house, made of rough boards, the floors (I think) not planed, and no
carpets upon them, and none in the country to put upon them, except
the common flag mats the Indians manufacture; and these the Rev.
Mrs. Beaver considered “too filthy to step upon, or be about the house.”
In addition to these very important matters (judging from the fuss
they made about them), “the doctor and all the pretended gentlemen
of the company were living in adultery. This was a horrible crime he
could not, and would not, put up with; he could scarcely bring himself
to perform the church service in so polluted an audience.” We had
never been confirmed in the English church, and, consequently, did not
feel at liberty to offer any advice after listening to this long tirade of
abuse of the members of the Hudson’s Bay Company by his reverence.
A short time after, Mr. Beaver met Dr. McLaughlin in front of the house,
and commenced urging him to comply with the regulations of the English
church. The doctor had been educated in the Roman Catholic
faith; he did not acknowledge Mr. Beaver’s right to dictate a religious
creed to him, hence he was not prepared to conform wholly to the English
church service. Among other subjects, that of marriage was mentioned,
Rev. Mr. Beaver insisting that the doctor should be married
in accordance with the church service. The doctor claimed the right
to be married by whom he pleased, and that Mr. Beaver was interfering
and meddling with other than his parochial duties. This led his reverence
to boil over and spill out a portion of the contemptuous feelings
he had cherished from the moment he landed at the place. The doctor,
not being in the habit from his youth of calmly listening to vulgar and
abusive language, especially when addressed to his face, laid aside his
reverence for the cloth, as also the respect due to his position and age,
and gave Rev. Mr. Beaver a caning, some say kicking, causing his reverence
to retreat, and abruptly suspend enforcing moral lessons in conformity
to church usage. Rev. Mrs. Beaver very naturally sympathized
with her husband, and they soon made arrangements and left the
country, to report their case at head-quarters in London. Dr. McLaughlin
chose to comply with civil usage, and as James Douglas had received[Pg 164]
a commission from her Majesty as civil magistrate under the English
law, acting as justice of the peace, he united Dr. John McLaughlin in
marriage to Mrs. Margaret McKay, whose first husband had been lost
in the destruction of the bark Tonquin some years previous. This
wedding occurred at Vancouver, about the end of January, 1837. The
doctor was married privately, by Esquire Douglas, either a short time
before, or a few days after, I have not yet learned which.


Rev. Mr. Beaver and lady arrived at Vancouver about four weeks
before Mrs. Spalding and Mrs. Whitman. The gentlemen of the company,
like the rough mountaineers who paid their respect to Mrs.
Whitman and Mrs. Spalding at the American rendezvous, attempted
to be polite and kind to Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. They most emphatically
failed. The parsonage was a terror to them. They had become
objects of contempt, scorn, and derision in the estimation of their
religious guide and moral patron. Their wives and children were
looked upon as filthy savages, not fit to associate with decent people.
This feeling was so strong in the chaplain and his wife that it leaked
out in very injudicious and indiscreet expressions of disapproval of
actions and conduct, that, in a refined and polished society, would be
considered offensive; yet these traders and Indian merchants, not having
been in refined society for many years, did not understand or comprehend
their own awkwardness and want of more refinement. They had
forgotten that, in the progress of society, six hundred years had passed
since their great great grandmothers were like the women they saw about
them every day. They forgot that Mrs. Beaver was an English clergyman’s
wife, and claimed to belong to the best English society. They
thought there was but little difference in womankind; in short, they were
much better qualified to deal with Indians than with civilians. Under such
circumstances, and with such feelings existing in Fort Vancouver, the
reader will not be astonished at the reception of two ladies who could
interest and command the esteem and respect of the savage, the mountain
hunter, and the Hudson’s Bay Company fur trader. They came
among them expecting nothing but rough treatment; any little mistakes
were overlooked or treated as a jest. They know no distinction
in classes; they were polite to the servant and the master; their society
was agreeable and refining; not the least insult in word, or look, or act,
was ever given them by any white man; their courage had been tested
in the trip they had performed; their conversation and accomplishments
surprised and delighted those permitted to enjoy their acquaintance,
and, as Mr. Hines, in his history of the Oregon mission, says, “these
were the first American women that ever crossed the Rocky Mountains,
and their arrival formed an epoch in the history of Oregon.”


[Pg 165]Our mission party, with Captain Pambrun, his two boats loaded, two-thirds
of the goods for the mission, on their way up the Columbia River,
arrived all safe at the Dalles. Gray took a decided stand in favor
of the first location at that point, on account of its accessibility, and the
general inclination of all the Indians in the country to gather at those
salmon fisheries; Spalding and Pambrun opposed; Whitman was undecided;
Pambrun would not wait to give time to explore, nor assist in
getting horses for the Doctor and Gray to look at the country in view
of a location. On we go; make the portages at La Chute; reach John
Day’s River; Pambrun leaves boats in charge of Whitman and Gray,
and goes to Wallawalla on horseback. In four days’ hard pulling,
towing, and sailing, we reach Wallawalla all safe; find cattle and horses
all improving, and every thing in order, that is, as good order as could
be expected; boats discharged, goods all carefully stored. Next
morning, early, a fine band of Cayuse horses came into the fort; four
fine ones were selected and saddled, an extra pack animal with traveling
case and kitchen furniture, tent for camping, and provisions all
ready, a servant with two Indians, all mounted, off we go up the Wallawalla
River about twenty-five miles. Most of the land we passed
over we pronounced barren, and good for nothing except grazing cattle,
sheep, and horses. In the bends of the river, saw a few acres of
land that might be cultivated if arrangements could be made to irrigate.
Passed the Tuchet, but did not consider its appearance justified
much delay to examine it closely, though the whole bottom was covered
with a heavy coat of tall rye grass; went on into the forks of the Wallawalla
and Mill Creek (as it is now called), pitched our tent at the place
where Whitman’s station was afterward built, got our suppers. Whitman
and Gray took a look around the place, went into the bends in the
river, looked at the cotton-wood trees, the little streams of water, and
all about till dark; came back to camp; not much said. Mr. Pambrun
explained the quality of the soil, and what would produce corn, what
potatoes, and what would produce (as he thought) wheat, though he
had not tried it thoroughly; or, rather, he had tried it on a small scale
and failed. A few Cayuses came about camp at night. Next morning
up early; breakfast over, some fine fresh Cayuse horses were brought
up, ready to mount. We proceeded through the valley in several directions;
rode all day and returned to camp at night, stopping occasionally
to pull up a weed or a bush, to examine the quality of the soil.


At night, if an artist could have been present and taken a picture of
the group and the expressions of countenance, it certainly would have
been interesting: Spalding, Whitman, Pambrun, and Gray discussing
the quality of the soil, the future prospects of a mission, and of the[Pg 166]
natives it was contemplated to gather around. No white settlement
was then thought of. They unanimously concluded that there was but
a limited amount of land susceptible of cultivation, estimated at the
place for the station at about ten acres. Along all the streams and at
the foot of the Blue Mountains, there might be found little patches of
from half an acre to six acres of land suitable to cultivate for the use
of the natives. This, to say the least, was not an overestimate of the
qualities of the soil that has proved, by twenty-five years’ cultivation
without manure, to be richer to-day than soils of a different character
with all the manuring they have received. The great objection and
most discouraging indication to the party was the unlimited amount of
caustic alkali found all over those plains and all through the valley.
This fact alone proves the soil inexhaustible. All it requires is sufficient
water to wash from the surface the superabundant alkali that
forms upon it. Any cereals adapted to alkaline soil may be cultivated
to any extent in those valleys.


A stake was set to mark the place. Next day all returned to the
fort, and soon the mission tents, horses, goods, and cattle were upon
the ground and work commenced. The Indians, what few had not gone
for buffalo, came to our camp and rendered all the assistance they
were capable of in getting a house up and covered.


In a few days Spalding and Whitman started with the Nez Percés
to look at their country, in view of a location among them, leaving
Gray alone in charge of the building and goods, while they examined
the country up the Clearwater River, and selected a location in a
beautiful valley about two miles up the Lapwai Creek, and about
twelve miles from Lewiston. Whitman returned to assist in erecting
buildings at his station. Spalding started for Vancouver, to bring up
the ladies. About the middle of November, Mrs. Whitman’s quarters
were ready, and she came to occupy them. Spalding and Gray, with
Mrs. Spalding, started for the Lapwai station; arrived about the 1st
of December, 1836, and, with the assistance of the Indians, in about
twenty days a house was up, and Mrs. Spalding occupied it.


It is due to those Indians to say that they labored freely and faithfully,
and showed the best of feelings toward Mr. and Mrs. Spalding,
paying good attention to instructions given them, and appeared quite
anxious to learn all they could of their teachers. It is also due to truth
to state that Mr. Spalding paid them liberally for their services when
compared with the amount paid them by the Hudson’s Bay Company
for the same service: say, for bringing a pine-log ten feet long and one
foot in diameter from the Clearwater River to the station, it usually
took about twelve Indians; for this service Mr. Spalding paid them[Pg 167]
about six inches of trail-rope tobacco each. This was about four times as
much as the Hudson’s Bay Company paid. This fact soon created a
little feeling of unfriendliness toward Mr. Spalding. Dr. Whitman
managed to get along with less Indian labor, and was able, from his
location, to procure stragglers or casual men to work for him for a
time, to get supplies and clothing to help them on their way down to
the Wallamet settlement.


Mr. Spalding and Dr. Whitman were located in their little cabins
making arrangements to get in their gardens and spring crops, teaching
the Indians by example, and on the Sabbath interpreting portions of
the Bible to them, and giving them such religious instruction as they
were capable of communicating with their imperfect knowledge of their
language; Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding teaching the children at
their respective stations as much as was possible for them with their
domestic duties to perform.


All things going on smoothly at the stations and all over the Indian
country, it was thought advisable for Gray to visit Vancouver, procure
the requisite spring supplies, and a suitable outfit for himself to explore
the country, having in view further missionary locations, and return to
the United States and procure assistance for the mission. Gray’s expedition,
as contemplated then, would not be considered with present
facilities a very light one. He started from Spalding’s station about
the 22d of December, 1836. There had been about twenty inches of
snow upon the ground, but it was concluded from the fine weather
at the station that most of it had melted off. On reaching the forks
of Clearwater (Lewiston), he learned from the Indians that the snow
was too deep to go by land, sent his horses back to Spalding, got
an Indian dug-out, started from Lewiston for Wallawalla with two
Indians to pilot and paddle the canoe; reached the Paluce all safe;
camped with the Indians; found them all friendly; that night came on
bitter cold;—river full of floating ice; Indians concluded not safe to
proceed further in canoe; procure horses and start down on the right
bank of the river; travel all day; toward night, in passing over a high
point, snow-storm came on, lost our trail; struck a cañon, followed it
down, found the river and camped in the snow, turned our horses into
the tall grass and made the best of a snow-camp for the night. Next
day start early; wallow through the snow and drifts and reach an
Indian camp near the mouth of Snake River at night; leave horses;
next morning get canoe, leave one Paluce Indian; Paluce chief and
chief of band at Snake River in canoe; two Indians to paddle; pull
down the river into the Columbia in the floating ice, and reach Wallawalla,
December 26, 1836; Pambrun pays Indians what he thinks right:[Pg 168]
Paluce chief, for horses and services, one three-point Hudson’s Bay
blanket, one check shirt, one knife, half a brace (three feet) trail-rope
tobacco. Gray thought the price paid was very reasonable,—quite little
enough for the labor, to say nothing of the risk and suffering from
cold on the trip. The river all closed up; Indians did not reach their
homes for eight days; no communication in any direction for ten days.
About the tenth day Whitman sends orders down for goods to be
shipped from Vancouver. About the 10th of January, 1837, Mr.
Ermatinger arrived from Colville by boat, having made several portages
over ice in reaching Wallawalla. Next day we start down the river;
pass through and over several fields of ice; reach Vancouver about the
12th of January. Rev. J. Lee and Mr. Slacum had just left the fort as
our party arrived. We have previously given an account of the subjects
of special interest, and also of the weddings that occurred about
this time at the fort.




[Pg 169]


CHAPTER XXII.


The French and American settlers.—Hudson’s Bay Company’s traveling traders.—The
Flatheads.—Their manner of traveling.—Marriage.—Their honesty.—Indian fight
and scalp dance.—Making peace.—Fight with the Sioux.—At Council Bluffs.


The reader is already acquainted with all of the first missionaries,
and with the governing power and policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
and of the different parties and organizations as they existed. We
will now introduce parties of men as we find them in the Wallamet
settlement.


There were at this time about fifty Canadian-Frenchmen in the Wallamet
settlement, all of them retired servants of the Hudson’s Bay
Company. These men, who had spent the most active part of their
lives in the service of the company, had become connected with native
women, and nearly all of them had their families of half-native children.
This class of servants were found by the experience of the company not
as profitable for their purposes as the enlisted men from the Orkney
Isles, or even the Sandwich Islanders.


They were induced to allow those that had families of half-native
children to retire from the service and settle in the Wallamet. In this manner
they expected to hold a controlling influence in the settlement, and
secure a population dependent upon them for supplies. It was upon
this half-breed population that they relied to rally the Indian warriors
of the country to prevent an American settlement. As was plainly
stated by one of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Mr. F. Ermatinger, in the
fall of 1838, in case any effort should be made to remove them from the
country, they had but to arm the eight hundred half-breeds the company
had, and, with the Indians they could control, they could hold the country
against any American force that could be sent into it. The Hudson’s
Bay Company knew very well the power and influence they had
secured over the Indians. There was then too small a number of outside
Americans to make any effort to remove them, other than to afford
them facilities to leave the country. With all the facilities they furnished,
and encouragement they gave to go to the Sandwich Islands and
to California, there was a gradual increase of the population the company
did not wish to see;—sailors from vessels, and hunters from the
mountains. These sailors and hunters naturally gathered around the[Pg 170]
American mission; many of them had, or soon took, native women for
wives; the missionaries themselves encouraged them to marry these
women. This soon commenced an influence exactly like that held by
the Hudson’s Bay Company through their Canadian-French settlement.
The moral and religious influence of the English church had not been
favorably received at Vancouver.


Gray procures his outfit at Vancouver, in January, 1837, and starts
in company with Ermatinger on his return. First night camp at a saw-mill;
meet a young man who had crossed the mountains with Captain
Wyeth, and had remained as clerk at Fort Hall, under the Hudson’s
Bay Company. This young man has never risen very high in the community
where he resides. For a time he considered he was an important
member of the Hudson’s Bay Company. His self-approbation was
superior to the profits he brought to the company, and they found it
convenient to drop him from their employ. He attempted a settlement
out of the limits prescribed for Americans, and was soon compelled to
locate himself under the influence of the Methodist Mission.


There was also in the settlement another young man, who about that
time had taken a native wife and wished to locate at the mouth of the
Columbia River. This privilege was denied him, unless he could procure
some others to go with him. He had joined the Methodist class,
and was considered a reliable man; he came to the country with Captain
Wyeth, and had opened and taught the first school ever commenced
in the country.


Ermatinger and company were detained fourteen days under the lee
of a big rock just opposite Cape Horn, waiting for the east wind to
subside and allow them to pass up the river. Ermatinger was a traveling
trader of the Hudson’s Bay Company. That year he was with
the Flathead tribe. Gray continued with him, having his own tent and
traveling equipage. The route traveled was nearly that since explored
and located as Mullan’s military road. We struck the Cœur d’Alêne
Lake and took boats, passed through the lake and up the Flathead River,
making two portages with our boats and goods before we reached Flathead
House, as it was called, a common log hut, covered with poles
and dirt, about 16 by 20. At this point our horses came up. Their
packs and equipage were all put on board the boats, while the horses
came light through the woods and along the rough river trail. At the
place where we found our boats, we found a number of friendly Indians,
also at the head of the lake, and a few at the Flathead House or hut.
Here we found an old Frenchman in charge, with a small supply of
goods, and about two packs of beaver which he had collected during
the winter.


[Pg 171]We were joined by a part of the Flathead tribe. In a few days all
were ready. The tribe and trader started over the mountains on to the
waters of the Missouri, to hunt the buffalo and fight the Blackfeet. Our
route was along the main branch of Clark’s fork of the Columbia, till
we reached the Culas Patlum (Bitter Root). A halt was made to
allow the natives to dig and prepare the root for the season. The root
is quite nutritious, answering the Indian in place of bread; it is somewhat
bitter in taste, and to a person not accustomed to its use, is not a
very agreeable diet. This root secured for the season, the camp continued
over the dividing ridge into the Big Hole, or Jefferson fork of
the Missouri. In this place we were joined by the balance of the buffalo
Indians. All parties, persons, and property were carried upon horses.
The camps usually traveled from ten to fifteen miles per day. It is due
to this tribe to say that truth, honesty, and virtue were cardinal principles
in all their transactions. An article of property found during the
day was carried to an old chief’s lodge; if it were so light that he
could hold it in his hand and walk through the camp, he would pass
around and inquire whose it was. Sometimes several articles would be
lost and picked up; in such cases the old chief would go through the
camp on horseback and deliver them to the owner.


Their system of courtship and marriage was equally interesting. A
youth wishing to marry a young miss was required to present a horse
at the lodge of his intended, ready for her to mount as the camp should
move. In case all were suited, her ladyship would mount the horse and
ride it during the day; at night a feast was had at the lodge of the
bride, the old chief announced the ceremony complete, and the parties
proceeded to their own home or lodge. In case the suit was rejected
the horse was not suitable; he was left for the owner to receive at his
pleasure; the maid mounted her own horse and proceeded about her
business.


In case of any visitors from other tribes, which they frequently had
in going to buffalo, they would caution a stranger, and inform him of
the propensity to steal which they had learned was the habit of the
Indian visitor. This tribe claim to have never shed the blood of a
white man. I believe it is the only tribe on the continent truly entitled
to that honor; yet they are far more brave as a tribe than any other
Indians. They never fear a foe, no matter how numerous.


Our sketches perhaps would not lose in interest by giving a short
account of a fight which our Flathead Indians had at this place with a
war party of the Blackfeet. It occurred near the present location of
Helena, in Montana. As was the custom with the Flathead Indians in
traveling in the buffalo country, their hunters and warriors were in[Pg 172]
advance of the main camp. A party of twenty-five Blackfeet warriors
was discovered by some twelve of our Flatheads. To see each other
was to fight, especially parties prowling about in this manner, and at it
they went. The first fire of the Flatheads brought five of the Blackfeet
to the ground and wounded some five more. This was more than they
expected, and the Blackfeet made but little effort to recover their dead,
which were duly scalped, and the bodies left for food for the wolves,
and the scalps borne in triumph into the camp. There were but two
of the Flatheads wounded: one had a flesh-wound in the thigh, and the
other had his right arm broken by a Blackfoot ball.


The victory was complete, and the rejoicing in camp corresponded to
the number of scalps taken. Five days and nights the usual scalp-dance
was performed. At the appointed time the big war-drum was
sounded, when the warriors and braves made their appearance at the
appointed place in the open air, painted as warriors. Those who had
taken the scalps from the heads of their enemies bore them in their
hands upon the ramrods of their guns.


They entered the circle, and the war-song, drums, rattles, and noises
all commenced. The scalp-bearers stood for a moment (as if to catch
the time), and then commenced hopping, jumping, and yelling in concert
with the music. This continued for a time, when some old painted
women took the scalps and continued the dance. The performance was
gone through with as many nights as there were scalps taken.


Seven days after the scalps were taken, a messenger arrived bearing
a white flag, and a proposition to make peace for the purposes of trade.
After the preliminaries had all been completed, in which the Hudson’s
Bay Company trader had the principal part to perform, the time was
fixed for the meeting of the two tribes. The Flatheads, however, were
all careful to dig their war-pits, make their corrals and breastworks,
and, in short, fortify their camp as much as if they expected a fight
instead of peace. Ermatinger, the company’s trader, remarked that he
would sooner take his chances for a fight off-hand than endure the
anxiety and suspense of the two days we waited for the Blackfeet to
arrive. Our scouts and warriors were all ready, and all on the watch
for peace or war, the latter of which, from the recent fight they had
had, was expected most. At length the Blackfeet arrived, bearing a
red flag with H. B. C. in white letters upon it, and advancing to within
a short distance of the camp, were met by Ermatinger and a few Flathead
chiefs, shook hands, and were conducted to the trader’s lodge,—the
largest one in the camp,—and the principal chiefs of both tribes,
seated upon buffalo and bear skins, all went through with the ceremony
of smoking a big pipe, having a long handle or stem trimmed with[Pg 173]
horse-hair and porcupine quills. The pipe was filled with the trader’s
tobacco and the Indians’ killikinick. The war-chiefs of each tribe took
a puff each of the pipe, passed it to his right-hand man, and so around
till all the circle had smoked of the big medicine pipe, or pipe of peace,
which on this occasion was made by the Indians from a soft stone which
they find in abundance in their country, having no extra ornamental
work upon it. The principal chief in command, or great medicine man,
went through the ceremony, puffed four times, blowing his smoke in
four directions. This was considered a sign of peace to all around him,
which doubtless included all he knew any thing about. The Blackfeet,
as a tribe, are a tall, well-formed, slim-built, and active people. They
travel principally on foot, and are considered very treacherous.


The peace made with so much formality was broken two days afterward
by killing two of the Flatheads when caught not far from the
main camp.


It was from this Flathead tribe that the first Indian delegation
was sent to ask for teachers. Three of their number volunteered to go
with Gray to the States in 1837 to urge their claims for teachers to
come among them. The party reached Ash Hollow, where they were
attacked by about three hundred Sioux warriors, and, after fighting for
three hours, killed some fifteen of them, when the Sioux, by means of a
French trader then among them, obtained a parley with Gray and his
traveling companions,—two young men that had started to go to the
States with him. While the Frenchman was in conversation with
Gray, the treacherous Sioux made a rush upon the three Flatheads, one
Snake, and one Iroquois Indian belonging to the party, and killed them.
The Frenchman then turned to Gray and told him and his companions
they were prisoners, and must go to the Sioux camp, first attempting
to get possession of their guns. Gray informed them at once: “You
have killed our Indians in a cowardly manner, and you shall not have
our guns,” at the same time telling the young men to watch the first
motion of the Indians to take their lives, and if we must die, to take
as many Indians with us as we could. The Sioux had found in the
contest thus far, that, notwithstanding they had conquered and killed
five, they had lost fifteen, among them one of their war-chiefs, besides
several severely wounded. The party were not further molested till
they reached the camp, containing between one and two hundred
lodges. A full explanation was had of the whole affair. Gray had
two horses killed under him and two balls passed through his hat,
both inflicting slight wounds. The party were feasted, and smoked
the pipe of peace over the dead body of the chief’s son; next day they
were allowed to proceed with nine of their horses; the balance, with[Pg 174]
the property of the Indians, the Sioux claimed as part pay for their
losses, doubtless calculating to waylay and take the balance of the
horses. Be that as it may, Gray and his young men reached Council
Bluffs in twenty-one days, traveling nights and during storms to avoid
the Indians on the plains.


At Council Bluffs they found an Indian trader speaking the French
language, meaner than the Sioux Indian, by the name of Papeon. The
party had been twenty-one days on rations that ordinarily would have
been consumed in four days; they had killed and eaten parts of two
of the nine worn-out horses; they had with them six. The party
entered the trading establishment and requested some food and the
privilege of washing, not as beggars, but expecting to pay for what
they required. They waited an hour or more; no food was forthcoming;
Gray went to Papeon, the trader, and inquired the reason they
could get no food. The old French imp inquired, in his broken French,
“Have you got any ting to pa for de tings you vant?” He was
asked if gold would pay him, or a draft on his company. “Oh, yes,”
he said, and in a short time food and what was required was produced.


This is only a specimen of most Indian traders of the Catholic
stamp. There are honorable exceptions.




[Pg 175]


CHAPTER XXIII.


Re-enforcement to the Methodist Mission.—Re-enforcement to the mission of the American
Board.


We will leave Gray and party on their way down the Missouri
River, and return to Oregon to introduce to the reader a re-enforcement
to the Methodist Mission, consisting of Dr. Elijah White,
a man that few who have dealt with can speak well of, utterly destitute
of all morality and genuine piety, assuming the garb of religion
to cover his baseness of heart and meanness of life. He arrived at
the Columbia River in May, 1837. He entered upon his professional
duties, and in a few months boasted of the liberties he had taken
with most of the ladies of the mission who were so unfortunate as
to receive his medical attention. It was easy to see the influence of
such a man. His words were smooth and brotherly, his acts were
poison and infamy. He never had a friend but he betrayed or swindled
him in some deal. He would tell a lie when the truth would answer
his purposes better. This man for a time had considerable influence;
his calling as a physician was necessary and indispensable to the mission.
Rev. Jason Lee soon found out the character of this wolf in sheep’s
clothing, and presented charges against him for his immorality, and expelled
him from the mission. Previous to leaving the country, he called
a public meeting and made his statements, and attempted to mob Mr.
Jason Lee and get the settlers to give him a character, in both of which
he failed, and left the country to impose upon the government at Washington,
as he had done upon the mission and the early settlers of
Oregon. We will leave Dr. White for the present, and give him all the
credit due to his bad deeds and exhibitions of folly in his capacity as
sub-Indian agent.


Mr. Alanson Beers, a blacksmith by trade, was a good honest man,
a devoted Christian, a man whose moral worth was above price. True
as steel, and honest as he was faithful, he was slow to believe others to
be less true than himself. He was a pattern of honesty and piety, as
well as industry and economy; the opposite of White in every respect,
as was his wife when compared to Mrs. White. Though Mrs. Beers
never claimed or aspired to shine or display more than she really was,
yet her goodness of heart was manifested in her kind and generous[Pg 176]
treatment of all. If this man and his wife did not leave a handsome
competency for their children it was no fault of theirs. Others may
have felt it their duty to appropriate the orphan’s portion and receive the
miser’s paradise. Mr. Beers came to the country full-handed, with a
handsome competency to commence any business he might choose, independent
of missionary patronage. He was more faithful in his department
than most of his brethren.


He was considered by the early settlers an honest and sincere man;
by the ruling spirits of the Methodist Mission, a faithful servant of their
cause.


With this company came W. H. Wilson, an assistant missionary, of
whose early life we have but little knowledge. From his own statements
we learn that he had been connected with a whale ship as cooper.
On arriving in Oregon as an assistant missionary, he was licensed as a
preacher, and commenced the study of medicine with Dr. White, and,
in later years, received the title of doctor instead of reverend. The
doctor was a cheerful, whole-souled, good-sort of a fellow, with a
greater abundance of interesting and funny yarns than profound medical
skill, which always made him agreeable, and served to gain friends and
popularity in a community that, as a general thing, would prefer a tincture
of humbuggery.


The Misses Ann Maria Pitman, Susan Downing, and Elvira Johnson
were also of this party. The first became the wife of Rev. Jason Lee,
the second of Cyrus Shepard, the third of Rev. H. K. W. Perkins,
who came to the country with the second re-enforcement to the mission,
consisting of Rev. David Leslie, wife, and three daughters; H. K. W.
Perkins; and Miss Margaret Smith, who afterward became the wife of
an Englishman called Dr. Bailey. This gave to the Methodist Mission,
on the 21st of November, 1837, Rev. Jason Lee (superintendent of
the mission) and wife, Mr. C. Shepard and wife, Rev. Daniel Lee, Mr.
P. L. Edwards, Rev. David Leslie and wife, Dr. Elijah White and
wife, Rev. H. K. W. Perkins and wife, Mr. A. Beers and wife, Mr. W.
H. Wilson, and Miss Margaret Smith,—nine men and seven women,—with
three daughters of Rev. D. Leslie. From causes already mentioned,
the moral strength of these early missionaries was neutralized. The
larger portion of them had no knowledge of the influences that were
sapping the foundation of their Christian effort, and tending to destroy
the confidence of such as were considered ungodly outsiders. Instead
of meeting sin, and vice, and lust which could not be hid, and condemning
and banishing it, the attempt was made to excuse and cover up a
fault in a professed brother, and reprove others for less faults,—the mote
and the beam. The legitimate result followed,—though slow, yet certain.[Pg 177]
Here was a noble field, had all the men sent to occupy it been of the
right stamp! Still they toiled on, or rather continued to occupy a place
in the country, to form a nucleus for a settlement. In this position they
are entitled to much credit. The roving sailor and the wild mountain
hunter looked to this wilderness for a home. The shrewdness of these
men soon detected the assailable points in the mission’s character, and
adapted themselves to circumstances, and found it easy to profess compliance
and receive the benefits of the association. There were few or
none among this early set of missionaries that displayed much knowledge
of human nature. They were totally ignorant of savage life,
manners, and customs; hence were easily made the dupes of all.


In the winter of 1837-8, Gray is in the States giving an account of
his trip across the Rocky Mountains in company with Messrs. Spalding
and Whitman, and of his explorations of the country; the present
and future prospects of the missionary efforts; the influence of the
Hudson’s Bay Company and of the missions; the fact that a wagon
had been taken by Dr. Whitman and his party to Fort Boise, and that
it could be taken to the Wallamet settlement. Said one man in the
audience at Utica, New York: “How do you get through the timber
on the route?” “My dear sir, the traveler is compelled to use the
buffalo chips to cook his food for a large part of the route, for want of
wood; there is not twenty-five miles of timber on the route from the
Missouri to the Columbia.” Of course a description of the vast plains
and mountains had to be given, and the manner of travel and subsistence.


The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions sent
with Gray and wife, Rev. E. Walker and wife, C. Eells and wife, and
A. B. Smith and wife, to re-enforce their mission. There was with
this company a young man from Cincinnati, Ohio,—Cornelius Rogers,—active
and useful in every department, respected and beloved by all
who knew him. After remaining with the mission a few years, he
received an appointment from the Board, but he had made up his mind
to become a settler in the Wallamet, and made his arrangements accordingly.
Captain Sutter came with this party to Wallawalla.


They reached Whitman’s station the first of September, 1838, bringing
with them to Fort Hall some fourteen cows. A majority of the party
were made to believe that these could be replaced at Fort Colville with a
better stock of cows, and thus be saved the trouble of driving them further,
and accordingly made an even exchange of the choicest and best
stock that could be found in Missouri for such California stock as the
Hudson’s Bay Company might have at Colville. This was considered
by the greenhorns that made the bargain a good trade, till they came[Pg 178]
to receive the wild, furious, untamable California stock at Fort Colville,
that required a Spaniard with his lasso to catch and hold, to get the milk
for family use.


Rev. E. Walker was a tall, rather spare, stoop-shouldered, black-haired,
brown-eyed, rather light-complexioned man, diffident and unassuming,
always afraid to say amen at the end of his prayers, and requiring
considerable effort to speak with confidence or decision upon any
subject. This might arise from habit, or want of decision of character,
or fear of offending. He had no positive traits of mind, yet he was studious,
and kind as a friend and neighbor; faithful as a Christian, inefficient
as a preacher. His efforts among the Indians were of the negative
cast. The Indians respected him for his kindness, and feared him for
his commanding appearance. Not at all adapted to fill the position he
undertook,—as an Indian missionary in Oregon,—yet, as a citizen and
settler, one of the best.


Rev. C. Eells, a short, slim, brown-haired, light-brown eyed, fair-complexioned
man, with a superabundance of self-esteem, great pretensions
to precision and accurateness of statement and strictness of conduct;
very precise in all his actions, and about all his labors and property;
with no soul to laud and admire nature, no ambition to lift his thoughts
beyond the sphere of his own ideas of right, he was made to move in
a small circle; his soul would be lost outside of it. There were but two
instances on the trip from Boston to Oregon in which he ventured outside
of himself. The first was at Soda Springs. The day the party
arrived, notwithstanding they had made a long day’s drive to reach
that camp, the four ladies—Walker, Eells, Smith, and Gray—wished
to go round and see the springs and drink of the water, and look at the
Steamboat Spring, a place where water and gas issue at intervals of
about a minute, like the blowing of steam. These places the ladies,
tired as they were, must look at and admire. Rev. Mr. Eells puts up his
saddles, buckles, and tents, and takes his Testament and reads his chapter,
as usual, and after prayers retires to rest. Next morning all were
up and admiring the grand display of nature around, drinking of the
water, and enjoying its exhilarating influence. Camp all ready, on they
move. Nothing would satisfy the ladies but another look at the Steamboat.
All mounted their horses and rode down to it. Eells mounts his
horse as usual, and comes along down where all stood watching and
admiring the phenomenon, dismounts from his horse, and in utter astonishment
exclaims: “Well, this is really worth coming to see!” The
other instance in which he lost himself was in admiring the grandeur
of the great fall on Snake River. He had no poetry or romance in his
soul, yet by dint of perseverance he was a good artificial singer. He[Pg 179]
lacked all the qualities requisite for a successful Indian missionary and
a preacher of the gospel in a new country. As citizens and neighbors,
Mr. Eells and his family were highly respected; as a teacher he was
unreasonably strict.


Rev. A. B. Smith, a man whose prejudices were so strong that he could
not be reasonable with himself. He attempted to make himself useful
as a missionary, but failed for want of Christian forbearance and confidence
in his associates. As to literary ability, he was superior to
his associates, and probably excited their jealousy; so much so, that his
connection in the mission became unpleasant, and he found an excuse
to leave the country in 1841; not, however, till he and Mr. Rogers had,
with the assistance of the Lawyer, completed a vocabulary and a
grammar of the Nez Percé language, which was the cause of Ellis’s
jealousy of the Lawyer and Mr. Smith, and also of an extra effort
through the Jesuits and the company to get rid of him.




[Pg 180]


CHAPTER XXIV.


Arrival of Jesuit missionaries.—Toupin’s statement about Rev. A. B. Smith.—Death of
Mrs. Jason Lee.—First express.—Jesuits at work.—The first printing-press.—The
Catholic tree.


A short time after the arrival of the re-enforcement to the mission
of the American Board, Rev. F. N. Blanchet and Rev. Demerse arrived
at Wallawalla by the annual overland boats of the Hudson’s Bay
Company. While at Wallawalla, they induced a Cayuse, Young
Chief, to have one of his children baptized, Mr. Pambrun being sponsor,
or godfather. This was the first Indian child ever baptized in the
country. It caused considerable excitement among the Indians, as also
a discussion as to who was teaching the true religion. The interpreters
of Wallawalla being of the Catholic faith, made free to inform
the Indians that theirs was the true religion. The Indians soon came to
the station of Dr. Whitman and informed him of what had been done,
and that they had been told by the priest that his was the true religion;
that what he and Mr. Spalding had been teaching them for
two years past was all false, and that it was not right for the Indians
to listen to the Doctor and Mr. Spalding. The instructions given, and
the baptizing of the Indian child, were, unquestionably, designed to
create a diversion in the minds of the Indians, and ultimately bring
about the abandonment or destruction of the mission. I have never
been able to learn, from any source, that any other Indian child was
baptized by these priests on that trip from Canada to Vancouver.
In fact, I see from their published works that they claim this as their
first station or place of instruction.


The Rev. Mr. Blanchet was a black-haired, brown-eyed, smooth-faced,
medium-sized Frenchman.


The Rev. Mr. Demerse had dark-brown hair, full, round eye, fair
complexion, rather full habit, something of the bull-neck, inclining to
corpulency. He was fond of good cheer and good living; of the Jesuit
order of the Roman church; he seemed to have no scruples of conscience;
so long as he could secure subjects for “mother church,” it
mattered not as to intelligence or character.


During the year 1838, three clergymen arrived across the Rocky
Mountains: Revs. Walker, Eells, and Smith, with their wives, and[Pg 181]
Mr. Cornelius Rogers, Mr. Gray, with his wife, had also returned.
These new arrivals gave an addition of nine to the mission of the
American Board, making their number thirteen in all. The Methodist
Mission had sixteen, and the Roman Catholic, two. The total number
of missionaries in the country, in December, 1838, was thirty-one, twenty-nine
of the Protestant religion from the United States, and two of the
Roman Jesuitical order. The latter were located at Vancouver as their
head-quarters. The Methodists were in the Wallamet Valley, with one
out-station at the Dalles, Wascopum. The American Board had three
stations, one at Wailatpu, one at Lapwai, and one at Cimakain, near
Spokan.


This array of missionary strength looked like a strong effort on the
part of the Christian world to convert the tribes upon our western coast.
Had all the men been chosen with proper care, and all acted with a single
eye to the cause which they professed to espouse, each in his distinct
department; had they closed their ears to the suggestions of hypocritical
fur traders, and met their vices with a spotless life and an earnest
determination to maintain their integrity as representatives of religion
and a Christian people, the fruits of their labor would, undoubtedly,
have been far greater. As the matter now stands, they can claim the
influence they reluctantly yielded to the provisional government of
the early settlers of the country.


It will be seen at once that the Hudson’s Bay Company was acting
a double part with all the American missionary efforts in the country.
On the arrival of Rev. J. Lee and party they sent for Mr. Beaver, an
Episcopal clergyman. On the arrival of Dr. Whitman and party they
sent for Blanchet and Demerse, and established their head-quarters
at Vancouver. Blanchet took charge of the field occupied by the
Methodists, and Demerse of that occupied by the American Board.
A combination of Hudson’s Bay Company Indian traders Roman
priests, Protestant missionaries, and American settlers, each having a distinct
object in view. Unfortunately for the American missionaries
and settlers, there was no one bold enough to attempt to act against
these combinations. Cornelius Rogers and Robert Shortess were the
first to show signs of rebellion against the policy of the Hudson’s Bay
Company; Spalding, Whitman, and Smith chafed under the Jesuits’
proceedings in the interior.


“About the year 1839, in the fall, Mr. Smith, belonging to the same
society as Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding, asked permission of Ellis to
build upon his lands for the purpose of teaching the Indians as the
other missionaries were doing, and of keeping a school. Ellis allowed
him to build; but forbade him to cultivate the land, and warned him[Pg 182]
that if he did the piece of ground which he would till should serve to
bury him in. In the following spring, however, Mr. Smith prepared
his plow to till the ground; and Ellis, seeing him ready to begin, went
to him and said to him: ‘Do you not recollect what I told you? I
do not wish you to cultivate the land.’ Mr. Smith, however, persisted
in his determination; but, as he was beginning to plow, the Indians
took hold of him and said to him: ‘Do you not know what has been
told you, that you would be digging a hole in which you should be
buried?’ Mr. Smith then did not persist any longer, but said to them:
‘Let me go, I will leave the place;’ and he started off immediately.
This circumstance had been related to me by the Indians, and soon after
I saw Mr. Smith myself at Fort Wallawalla; he was on his way down
to Fort Vancouver, where he embarked for the Sandwich Islands,
whence he did not come back any more.” This is the statement of old
John Toupin, Pambrun’s Roman Catholic interpreter, by Brouillet.


It will be borne in mind that Rev. Jason Lee started with P. L.
Edwards and F. Y. Euing, across the Rocky Mountains, for the United
States, in May, 1838. He met Gray, and party, at the American rendezvous
that year, on the north fork of the Yellowstone River. Gray
and party, on arriving at Fort Hall, received the news of the death of
Mrs. Jason Lee, sent by Spalding and Whitman, and not by Dr.
McLaughlin, as stated by Rev. G. Hines. Dr. McLaughlin may have
allowed a messenger to go as far as Whitman’s station, but made no
arrangements for going any further. Spalding’s Indian messenger
delivered the packages to Gray, at Fort Hall. Gray employed Richardson
a young man he had engaged as guide and hunter for the
party, on starting from Westport, Missouri, to take these letters, and
deliver them to Lee, for which he was to receive $150.


This express was carried from the Wallamet Valley to Westport, Missouri,
in sixty days, forming the first data for the overland express and
mail routes. The sixty days included two days’ detention at Wailatpu,
and two at Fort Hall. It seems that Richardson, the messenger from
Fort Hall, met Lee, and delivered his packages to him at the Shawnee
mission, and received from Lee the price agreed upon. I am thus particular
in these little facts, that those who claim so much credit for
Hudson’s Bay Company patronage may understand what influences
were in those early times bringing about results for which a combination
of British fur traders now claim pay, and are awarded $650,000, in gold
coin.


I have said that in December, 1838, there were twenty-nine persons
connected with the Protestant missions in the country. This is not
strictly true, Rev. Jason Lee and Mr. P. L. Edwards had gone to the[Pg 183]
States; Mr. C. Shepard and Mrs. J. Lee had gone to their reward. The
devil had entered the field with his emissaries, and was exceedingly
busy sowing tares among the wheat, through fear that the natives
would be benefited, and the country become civilized. The Hudson’s
Bay Company and its servants, Indians and all, are about to become
converted to Christianity. Strange as this statement may appear, it is
literally true. The clerks, traders, and servants of the Hudson’s Bay
Company became catechists, to teach the Indians to repeat the catechism
presented to them by their Reverences Blanchet and Demerse.
Dr. McLaughlin and Esquire Douglas were both zealous supporters of
the Christian reformation in progress in the country. During the year
1839, “Rev. Mr. Demerse (Jesuit priest) spent three weeks at Wallawalla,
in teaching the Indians and baptizing their children,” employing
Mr. P. C. Pambrun as his catechist, and godfather to the native children.
(See page 87 of Rev. J. B. A. Brouillet’s “Protestantism in
Oregon.”) While the Protestant missions were struggling to improve
the condition of the Indians, to teach them to cultivate their lands and
become permanent settlers in their own country, and to give the Indian
children a knowledge of books, the Hudson’s Bay Company and
Jesuit priests were equally busy in attempting to persuade them that
the instructions given by these American or Boston missionaries were
only to cover up a secret design they had to take their lands and
property from them, and eventually to occupy the country themselves.
To a certain extent Dr. Whitman’s statement to them would confirm
this idea. As soon as those priests arrived and commenced their
instructions, under the patronage of the Hudson’s Bay Company (for it
will be remembered that their head-quarters were at Vancouver), their
entire transportation was provided or furnished by the company.
Doubtless it is to the assistance rendered these Roman missions to
occupy the country, that the counsel for the Hudson’s Bay Company,
Mr. Charles D. Day, alludes, in speaking of the “substantial benefits to
the people and government of the United States.” Dr. Whitman repeatedly
told the Indians about his station that he did not come among
them to buy their land, but he came to teach them how to cultivate and
live from what they produced from their own lands, and at some future
time, if the American government wished any of their country, then
the President would send men to buy and pay them for it. The
difficulty about land had no existence in the minds or thoughts of the
Indians till the fall of 1839, and after the renewal of the Hudson’s Bay
Company’s license for twenty-one years. From that time forward a
marked change was manifest in the feelings of most of the gentlemen
of the company.


[Pg 184]The first printing-press in Oregon was received as a donation from
the mission of the American Board of Foreign Missions in the Sandwich
Islands, to the mission of the Board in Oregon. It reached its destination
at Lapwai, and was put in operation by Mr. E. O. Hall, of the
Sandwich Islands Mission, and commenced printing books in the Nez
Percé language. Both Mr. Rogers and Mr. Spalding soon learned to set
type, and print the small books required for the Indian schools that had
been kept at the stations. The books and instructions were furnished
gratuitously to all the Indians that wished to receive them. This caused
special efforts on the part of the priests to counteract the influence of
the books printed by Spalding. To illustrate their ideas, and show the
evil of heretical books and teachings, they had a representation of a large
tree, with a cross on top, representing all religious sects as going up the
tree, and out upon the different branches, and falling from the end of
the branch into a fire under the tree, with a priest by the side of the
fire throwing the heretical books into it. This was an interesting picture,
and caused much discussion and violent denunciations among the
Indians. Mr. Spalding, to counteract the influences of the Roman
Catholic tree among the Indians, had Mrs. Spalding paint a number of
sheets of cap-paper, commencing with Adam and Eve in the garden of
Eden, representing the shrubbery, and all kinds of fruits, and the serpent,
and the angel (after the fall) as guarding the garden; giving the
pictures of most of the prominent patriarchs; Noah and the ark, and
the prophets, down to Christ and the twelve apostles; showing the crucifixion
of Christ by the Roman soldiers, and on down to the time when
they adopted the cross as a form of worship, and the priests as kneeling
to images. Spalding’s pictures were in such form, and contained so
much Bible history and information, that his Indian preachers, to whom
he gave them, could attract larger crowds of Indians, to listen to the
instructions given by Spalding, than those who had the Catholic tree.
This exasperated, or stirred up, as the Indians expressed it, all their
bad feelings toward each other, and caused quarrels between those that
were friends before,—a repetition of sectarian quarrels in all ages,
and among every people not understanding the true principles of a
genuine Christianity.


The main object of the priests was to destroy all interest in
books, and thereby check the growing influence of the American
missionaries in the country, substituting pictures and beads in place
of knowledge.




[Pg 185]


CHAPTER XXV.


Independent missionaries arrive.—Their troubles.—Conversion of Indiana at the Dalles.—Their
motives.—Emigrants of 1839.—Blubber-Mouth Smith.—Re-enforcement of
the Methodist Mission in 1840.—Father De Smet.—Rev. Harvey Clark and associates.—Ewing
Young.—Names of missionaries and settlers.


In the fall of 1839, the Rev. J. S. Griffin and wife arrived at Dr.
Whitman’s station. Mr. Griffin had undertaken an independent mission,
in company with a Mr. Munger and wife. They had received an outfit
from some warm-hearted Christians of the Litchfield North Association,
of Connecticut. Mr. Griffin reached St. Louis a single man, fell in
love and married on sight, I do not know whether it was first or
second. At all events, Rev. Mr. Griffin and Mr. Munger and their
wives consented to travel together till they reached Fort Hall, at
which place Mr. Griffin, being the getter-up of the mission and claiming
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, took it upon himself to leave Mr. Munger
and his wife at Fort Hall, to take care of themselves as best they could.
Frank Ermatinger, of the Hudson’s Bay Company, at once furnished
Mr. Munger and his wife the means of transportation, and brought
them to Dr. Whitman’s station, where he knew Mr. Munger could find
a place for himself and wife. This transaction of Mr. Griffin injured
his usefulness as a minister, and left him in the country but little inspected
by any who knew of his conduct to a fellow-traveler and an
intelligent Christian woman. The fact that Mr. Munger afterward became
deranged, or even that he was partially deranged at Fort Hall,
or before they reached that place, is no excuse for his treating a man
in that condition and his wife as he did. Mr. Griffin claims that Mr.
Ermatinger stole three of his horses, or had them hid, when at Fort
Hall, to get Mr. Munger and wife to travel with him, and, by so doing,
give the impression that he had abandoned them. From a careful review
of Mr. Griffin’s lengthy defense in this case, we can not conceive
that any further change or correction is required, as the facts stated
are by him admitted. From Mr. Griffin’s statement we are satisfied
that improper and undue influences were used to break up and defeat
his Indian missionary plans and settlement by Mr. Ermatinger and the
Hudson’s Bay Company, and also to destroy his clerical influence in
the country. Unfortunately, Mr. Griffin gave too much cause for his
enemies to do as they did.


[Pg 186]In the winter of 1850, Mr. Griffin made an attempt to pass the Salmon
River Mountains to Payette River, to establish a mission among
the Snake Indians in which he failed and found his way into the
Wallamet as a settler, where he still remains.


There were with Mr. Griffin’s party some four men, one by the name
of Ben Wright, who hail been a Methodist preacher in the States, but
whose religion failed him on his way over the mountains. He reached
the Dalles, where he renewed his religion under Rev. Mr. Perkins and
D. Lee.


While at the Dalles, the three clergymen succeeded in converting, as
they supposed, a large number of the Indians. While this Indian revival
was in progress the writer had occasion to visit Vancouver. On
his way, he called on the missionaries at the Dalles, and, in speaking of
the revival among the Indians, we remarked that, in our opinion, most
of the religious professions of the natives were from selfish motives.
Mr. Perkins thought not; he named one Indian that, he felt certain,
was really converted, if there was a true conversion. In a short time
Daniel Lee, his associate, came in, and remarked: “What kind of a
proposition do you think —— (naming Mr. Perkins’ truly converted
Indian) has made to me?” Perkins replied: “Perhaps he will perform
the work we wished him to do.” “No,” says Lee.; “he says he will pray
a whole year if I give him a shirt and a capote.” This fact shows
that the natives who were supposed to be converted to Christianity
were making these professions to gain presents from the missionaries.
We have witnessed similar professions among the Nez Percé and Cayuse
Indians. The giving of a few presents of any description to them
induces them to make professions corresponding to the wish of the
donor.


With Messrs. Griffin, Munger, and Wright, came Messrs. Lawson,
Keiser, and Geiger, late in the fall of 1839; also a man by the name of
Farnam, who seemed to be an explorer or tourist. I met him at Vancouver,
where he was receiving the hospitality of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, and collecting material for a journal, or history of Oregon.
It is said of him that, on starting from the States, he succeeded in getting
himself appointed captain of a company consisting of some fourteen
men. He soon attempted to exercise absolute control of the company,
which caused a division. The party voted to suspend his official functions,
and finally suspended him and expelled him from the train. On
returning to the States he published a book, which, as was to be
expected, was favorable to himself and friends (if he had any), and
severe on his opposers or enemies. The professed object of the party
was to form a settlement in Oregon. In consequence of the course[Pg 187]
pursued by Farnam, it all broke up. A man called Blubber-Mouth
Smith, Blair, a millwright, and Robert Shortess were of the party.
These all found their way into Oregon, while the balance of the party
went south and wintered in the mountains. Mr. Farnam was furnished
a free passage to the Sandwich Islands by the Hudson’s Bay Company,
for which his traveling companions and those best acquainted with
him have given the company credit, as one good act.


Sydney Smith—called “Blubber-Mouth,” from the fact that he was a
great talker and fond of telling big yarns, which he, no doubt, had repeated
so often that he believed them to be true, and would appear
somewhat offended if his statements were not believed by others—had
a tolerably fair education, and appeared to understand the lottery business,
as conducted in some of the States. He was a man who had read
considerable in his early days, and had he been less boisterous and persistent
in statements that appeared improbable to others, would have
been far more reliable and useful. As it was, in those early times, his
knowledge and free-speaking became quite useful, when combined with
the hearty action he gave to the objects in contemplation. He was
ambitious and extremely selfish, and, when opposed in his plans, quite
unreasonable.


Robert Shortess possessed a combination of qualities such as should
have formed one of the best and noblest of men; with a good memory,
extensive reading, inflexible purpose, strong hate, affectionate and kind,
skeptical and religious, honest and liberal to a fault, above medium
height, light-brown hair, blue eyes, and thin and spare features. His
whole life is a mystery, his combinations a riddle. He early entered
with heart and soul into the situation and condition of the settlements,
and stood for their rights in opposition to all the combined influences
in the country. As a politician he acts on the principle of right, without
any regard to expediency. As a religious man he has no faith; as
a skeptic he is severe on all alike. The country owes much to him for
his labor and influence in combating slavery and shaping the organic
policy of the settlements.


At the close of 1839, there were ten Protestant ministers and two
Roman priests, two physicians, six laymen, and thirteen American
women in the country—twenty-nine in all—connected with the Protestant
missions, or under their immediate control, and twenty settlers,
besides about ten men that were under the control of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, yet having strong American feelings. There were also ten
American children, five of them born in the country. Mrs. Whitman
gave birth to the first white child, a daughter, born on this coast, who
was drowned in the Wallawalla River at about two years of age;[Pg 188]
Mrs. Spalding the second, a daughter, still living; Mrs. Elkanah Walker
the first boy, and Mrs. W. H. Gray, the second. These boys are both
making good names for themselves. It is to be hoped that every act
and effort of their lives will be alike honorable to their parents, themselves,
and their native country. As to the first daughter of Oregon,
I regret to say, she disobeyed the wish of her parents and friends, and
married a man whose early education was neglected, but who has natural
ability and energy to rise above his present position, obtain an education,
and become an ornament to his adopted country, and an honor
to Oregon’s eldest daughter.


On the first of June of this year, the Lausanne, Captain Spalding,
arrived in the Columbia River with a re-enforcement for the Methodist
Mission of eight clergymen, five laymen, and one physician, all with
wives, five single ladies, and fifteen children, belonging to the different
families, with a full supply of goods, such as were needed and appropriate
for the settlement, the various missions, and for Indian trade. September
following, Rev. Harvey Clark and wife, A. T. Smith and wife,
and P. B. Littlejohn and wife, arrived across the Rocky Mountains.
With this company came eleven mountain men, eight of them with
native wives. We now had twenty-one Protestant ministers, three
Roman priests, fifteen lay members of the Protestant Church, thirty-four
white women, thirty-five American settlers, and thirty-two white
children—one hundred and eight persons immediately under control of
the missions. Thirty-six settlers, twenty-five of them with native wives.
These thirty-six settlers are counted as outside the missions and Hudson’s
Bay Company. There were about fifty Canadian-French under
the control of the company.


Thus we can begin to see the development of the three influences or
parties. The Hudson’s Bay Company had in their religious element
three Romish priests, assisted actively by all the Canadian-French
Catholics and such clerks as Pambrun, Guinea, Grant, and McBean,
with such interpreters as old Toupin, of whom Mr. Parker, in his journal,
says: “The interpreter I had been expecting did not arrive, and
consequently much of what I wished to say to these hundreds of Indians
could not be communicated for want of a medium.” On the preceding
page, Mr. Parker remarks: “But as I have little prospect of
the arrival of my interpreter, I shall probably be left to commiserate
their anxiety, while it will be out of my power to do them good.”


Old John Toupin, under the sanctity of a Roman Catholic oath, says,
at St. Louis, of Wallamet, on September 24, 1848; “I have been seventeen
years employed as interpreter at Fort Wallawalla. I was there
when Mr. Parker, in 1835, came to select places for Presbyterian mis[Pg 189]sions
among the Cayuses and Nez Percés, and to ask lands for those
missions. He employed me as interpreter in his negotiations with the
Indians on that occasion.” Mr. Parker has just said “the interpreter I
had been expecting did not arrive.” Toupin says: “Mr. Pambrun, the
gentleman then in charge of the fort, accompanied me to the Cayuses
and Nez Percés. Mr. Parker, in company with Mr. Pambrun, an American,
and myself, went first to the Cayuses, upon the lands called Wailatpu,
that belonged to three chiefs,—Splitted Lip, or Yomtip; Red
Cloak, or Waptachtakamal; and Feather Cap, or Tilokaikt.” Having
met them at that place, he told them that he was coming to select a place
to build a preaching-house, to teach them how to live, and to teach
school to their children, and that he would not come himself to establish
the mission, but a doctor, or medicine man, would come in his place;
that the doctor would be the chief of the mission, and would come in
the following spring. “I came to select a place for a mission,” said he,
“but I do not intend to take your lands for nothing. After the doctor
is come, there will come every year a big ship loaded with goods to be
divided among the Indians. These goods will not be sold, but given to
you. The mission will bring you plows and hoes to learn you how to
cultivate the land, and they will not sell, but give them to you.” From
the Cayuses Mr. Parker went to the Nez Percés, and there he made the
same promises to the Indians as at Wailatpu. “Next spring there will
come a missionary to establish himself here and take a piece of land;
but he will not take it for nothing, you shall be paid every year; this
is the American fashion.” This statement is made by authority of Rev.
J. B. A. Brouillet; vicar-general of Wallawalla.


Rev. Mr. Parker, as before remarked, and as his journal shows, soon
understood all the maneuverings of this Hudson’s Bay Company. He
had no confidence in their friendship or their interpreters. As a matter
of policy they could do no less than treat him kindly, or, more properly,
civilly, and allow him to leave the country, as he did. But mark the
strictness and care of the company to impress the necessity of compliance
with their arrangements upon the minds of those that followed
Mr. Parker. Keep the massacre to which Vicar-General Brouillet refers
before your mind. Life and blood and treasure have been expended.
The fair land we inhabit was not secured without a struggle. The early
Protestant missions were not defeated and broken up without outside
influences. The Indians were not abandoned till they had dipped their
hands in the blood of their best and truest friend, and “become seven-fold
more the children of the devil than they were in their native state,”
by the teachings they had received from malicious and interested parties
to make them so.


[Pg 190]Father P. J. De Smet, from Brouillet’s statements, was among the
Flatheads and at Wallawalla in 1840. This priest boasted of his belonging
to the Jesuit order of the Romish Church. He usually wore a
black frock-coat, was of full habit, arrogant and bigoted in his opinions,
and spoke with considerable sarcasm and contempt of all Americans,
and especially of the missionaries, as an ignorant set of men to represent
the American churches. He would be considered, in his church, a
zealous and faithful priest of the order of Jesus. His religious instructions
to the Indians were simple and easy to be understood: “Count
your beads, hate or kill the Suapies (Americans), and kiss the cross.”


Rev. Harvey Clark was a man whose religion was practical, whose
labors were without ceasing, of slender frame, black hair, deep, mellow
voice, kind and obliging to all. He organized the first Congregational
Church in Tualatin Plains, and one in Oregon City, and was the getter-up
of the Pacific University at Forest Grove; a warm friend to general
education and all objects calculated to do good to any and all of his
fellow-creatures. But few who knew him did not respect and esteem
him for his sincere piety and Christian conduct. He came to the country
as a missionary sent out by some of the northwestern churches in
the United States, without any definite organization further than sufficient
to furnish the means for outfit for himself and associates,—Smith
and Littlejohn and their wives,—trusting Providence and their own
strong arms and willing hearts to labor and do all they could for a subsistence.
Mr. Clark was perhaps the best man that could have been
sent with the early settlers. He early gained their confidence and
esteem, and was always a welcome visitor among them. He had not
that stern commanding manner which is usual to egotists of the clerical
order, but was of the mild, persuasive kind, that wins the rough heart
and calms the stormy passions. The country is blessed by his having
lived in it.


A. T. Smith, the associate of Rev. H. Clark was an honest and substantial
farmer, a sincere and devout Christian, a man not forward
in forming society, yet firm and stable in his convictions of right;
liberal and generous to all objects of real worth; not easily excited, or
ambitious of political preferment. His wife seemed, in all her life and
actions, to be a suitable helpmeet for him. They came early to this
country, and have ever been substantial and useful citizens, and supporters
of morality and religion. They were among the earliest settlers
at Forest Grove, and the first members of Rev. H. Clark’s church.


P. B. Littlejohn was the opposite of Smith, a confirmed hypochondriac;
yet, under excitement that was agreeable to his ideas, a useful
man. Owing to his peculiar temperament, or the disease with which[Pg 191]
he was afflicted, his usefulness, and that of an interesting and Christian
wife, were cramped and destroyed. He returned to the States
with his family in 1845.


At this point, perhaps a statement of all the names of persons I
have been able to collect and recollect, and the year they arrived in
the country, will not be uninteresting to the reader. A short history
of most of them has already been given.


In the year 1834, Rev. Jason Lee, Rev. Daniel Lee, Cyrus Shepard,
and P. L. Edwards, connected with the Methodist Mission; Captain
N. Wyeth, American fur trader, and of his party in 1832, S. H. Smith,
Burdet, Greeley, Sergeant, Bull, St. Clair, and Whittier (who was
helped to or given a passage to the Sandwich Islands by the Hudson’s
Bay Company); Brock, a gunsmith; Tibbets, a stone-cutter; Moore,
killed by the Blackfeet Indians; Turnbull, who killed himself by overeating
at Vancouver. There was also in the country a man by the
name of Felix Hathaway, saved from the wreck of the William and
Ann. Of this number, Smith, Sergeant, Tibbets, and Hathaway remained.
Of the party in 1834, James A. O’Neil, T. J. Hubbard, and
Courtney M. Walker remained in the country, making six of Wyeth’s
men and one sailor. C. M. Walker came with Lee’s company. With
Ewing Young, from California, came, in this year, John McCarty,
Carmichael, John Hauxhurst, Joseph Gale, John Howard, Kilborn,
Brandywine, and George Winslow, a colored man. By the brig Maryland,
Captain J. H. Couch, G. W. Le Breton, John McCaddan, and
William Johnson. An English sailor, by the name of Richard or Dick
McCary, found his way into the settlement from the Rocky Mountains.


In the year 1835 it does not appear that any settlers arrived in the
country. Rev. Samuel Parker visited and explored it under the direction
of the American Board of Foreign Missions.


In 1836, Rev. H. Spalding, Dr. M. Whitman, W. H. Gray, Mrs. Eliza
Spalding, and Mrs. Narcissa Whitman, missionaries of the American
Board, and Rev. Mr. Beaver, Episcopal chaplain at Vancouver, and
Mrs. Beaver. There appear to have been no settlers this year; at
least, none known to us.


In 1837, Mrs. A. M. Lee, Mrs. S. Shepard, Dr. E. White, Mrs. M.
White, A. Beers, Mrs. R. Beers, Miss E. Johnson, W. H. Wilson, Mr.
J. Whitcomb, members of the Methodist Episcopal Mission. Second
re-enforcement this year: Rev. H. K. W. Perkins, Rev. David Leslie,
Mrs. Leslie, Misses Satira, Mary, and Sarah Leslie, Miss Margaret
Smith, Dr. J. Bailey, an Englishman, George Gay, and John Turner.


In 1838, Rev. Elkanah Walker, Mrs. Mary Walker, Rev. Cushing
Eells, Mrs. Elvira Eells, Rev. A. B. Smith, Mrs. E. Smith, and Mrs.[Pg 192]
Mary A. Gray, missionaries of the American Board. As laborers
under special contract not to trade in furs or interfere with Hudson’s
Bay Company’s trade, James Conner, native wife, and one child, and
Richard Williams, both from Rocky Mountains. Jesuit priests: Rev.
F. N. Blanchet, Rev. Demerse, located at Vancouver and French
Prairie.


In 1839, Rev. J. S. Griffin, Mrs. Griffin, Asael Munger, Mrs. Mary
Munger, Independent Protestant Mission; Robert Shortess, J. Farnam,
Sydney Smith, Mr. Lawson, Rev. Ben. Wright (Independent Methodist),
Wm. Geiger, Mr. Keizer, John Edmund Pickernel, a sailor.


In 1840, Mrs. Lee, second wife of Rev. Jason Lee; Rev. J. H. Frost
and wife; Rev. A. F. Waller, wife, and two children; Rev. W. W.
Kone and wife; Rev. G. Hines, wife, and sister; Rev. L. H. Judson,
wife, and two children; Rev. J. L. Parish, wife, and three children;
Rev. G. P. Richards, wife, and three children; Rev. A. P. Olley and
wife. Laymen: Mr. George Abernethy, wife, and two children; Mr. H.
Campbell, wife, and one child; Mr. W. W. Raymond and wife; Mr.
H. B. Brewer and wife; Dr. J. L. Babcock, wife, and one child; Rev.
Mrs. Daniel Lee; Mrs. David Carter; Mrs. Joseph Holman; Miss
E. Phillips. Methodist Episcopal Protestant Mission: Rev. Harvey
Clark and wife; P. B. Littlejohn and wife. Independent Protestant
Mission: Robert Moore, James Cooke, and James Fletcher, settlers.
Jesuit Priest: P. G. De Smet, Flathead Mission.


Rocky Mountain men with native wives: William Craig, Robert or
Dr. Newell, J. L. Meek, James Ebbets, William M. Dougherty, John
Larison, George Wilkinson, a Mr. Nicholson, and Mr. Algear, and
William Johnson, author of the novel, “Leni Leoti; or, the Prairie
Flower.” The subject was first written and read before the Lyceum,
at Oregon City, in 1843.


In the above list I have given the names of all the American settlers,
as near as I can remember them, the list of names I once collected
having been lost. I never was fully informed as to the different occupations
of all these men. It will be seen that we had in the country
in the fall of 1840 thirty-six American settlers, twenty-five of them
with native wives; thirty-three American women, thirty-two children,
thirteen lay members of the Protestant missions, nineteen ministers
(thirteen Methodist, six Congregational), four physicians (three American
and one English), three Jesuit priests, and sixty Canadian-French,—making,
outside of the Hudson’s Bay Company, one hundred and
thirty-seven Americans and sixty-three Canadians, counting the three
priests as Canadians.




[Pg 193]


CHAPTER XXVI.


1840.—Petition to Congress of United States.—British subjects amenable to the laws of
Canada.—Esquire Douglas as justice of the peace.—Mr. Leslie as judge.


Eighteen hundred and forty finds Oregon with her little population
all active and busy, laboring and toiling to provide the necessaries of
life—food and raiment. And if a man did not wear the finest of broadcloth,
his intelligence and good conduct secured him a cordial welcome
to every house or shanty in the country among the American or
French settlers and missions. This was an innovation upon Hudson’s
Bay Company customs, and a violation of aristocratic rules sought to
be enforced by foreign influences and sustained by the missionaries
then in the country.


Mr. Hines, in his 21st chapter on Oregon, says: “The number of
people in the colony was so small, the business transactions so limited,
and the difficulties so few, that the necessity of organizing the community
into a body politic did not appear to be very great, though for
two years persons had been chosen to officiate as judges and magistrates.”


The fact that the judges and magistrates officiating were chosen by
the Methodist Mission, in opposition to the wish of the settlers, and
from whose decisions there was no appeal, and that there was no
statute or law book in the country, and nothing to guide the decisions
of the judge or magistrate but his own opinions, caprice, or preferences,
Mr. Hines leaves out of sight. This state of things was submitted
to from the combined organized influence of the Methodist
Mission and the unorganized condition of the settlers. A petition was
gotten up and sent to Congress. This petition is too important a
document to be omitted. The writer has no means at present to give
the names attached to it. The petition speaks for itself. As settlers,
we saw and knew the objects of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the
English government, by their actions and oft-repeated insolent assertions
that they meant to “hold the country” by fair or by foul means,
which, as men understanding the unscrupulous and avaricious disposition
of the entire English occupants of this country, we fully understood
and duly appreciated, as will be readily demonstrated upon a
perusal of the following:—


[Pg 194]Petition of 1840.


To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled:


Your petitioners represent unto your honorable bodies, that they are
residents in the Oregon Territory, and citizens of the United States, or
persons desirous of becoming such.


They further represent to your honorable bodies, that they have
settled themselves in said Territory, under the belief that it was a portion
of the public domain of said States, and that they might rely
upon the government thereof for the blessings of free institutions, and
the protection of its arms.


But your petitioners further represent, that they are uninformed of
any acts of said government by which its institutions and protection
are extended to them; in consequence whereof, themselves and families
are exposed to be destroyed by the savages around them, and
OTHERS THAT WOULD DO THEM HARM.


And your petitioners would further represent, that they have no
means of protecting their own and the lives of their families, other
than self-constituted tribunals, originated and sustained by the power
of an ill-instructed public opinion, and the resort to force and arms.


And your petitioners represent these means of safety to be an insufficient
safeguard of life and property, and that the crimes of theft,
murder, infanticide, etc., are increasing among them to an alarming
extent; and your petitioners declare themselves unable to arrest this
progress of crime, and its terrible consequences, without the aid of the
law, and tribunals to administer it.


Your petitioners therefore pray the Congress of the United States
of America to establish, as soon as may be, a Territorial government in
the Oregon Territory.


And if reasons other than those above presented were needed to
induce your honorable bodies to grant the prayer of the undersigned,
your petitioners, they would be found in the value of this Territory to
the nation, and the alarming circumstances that portend its loss.


Your petitioners, in view of these last considerations, would represent,
that the English government has had a surveying squadron
on the Oregon coast for the last two years, employed in making accurate
surveys of all its rivers, bays, and harbors; and that, recently, the
said government is said to have made a grant to the Hudson’s Bay
Company, of all lands lying between the Columbia River and Puget
Sound; and that said company is actually exercising unequivocal acts[Pg 195]
of ownership over said lands thus granted, and opening extensive
farms upon the same.


And your petitioners represent, that these circumstances, connected
with other acts of said company to the same effect, and their declarations
that the English government own and will hold, as its own soil,
that portion of Oregon Territory situated north of the Columbia River,
together with the important fact that the said company are cutting and
sawing into lumber, and shipping to foreign ports, vast quantities of
the finest pine-trees upon the navigable waters of the Columbia, have
led your petitioners to apprehend that the English government do
intend, at all events, to hold that portion of this Territory lying north
of the Columbia River.


And your petitioners represent, that the said Territory, north of the
Columbia, is an invaluable possession to the American Union; that in
and about Puget Sound are the only harbors of easy access, and commodious
and safe, upon the whole coast of the Territory; and that a
great part of this said northern portion of the Oregon Territory is rich
in timber, water-power, and valuable minerals. For these and other
reasons, your petitioners pray that Congress will establish its sovereignty
over said Territory.


Your petitioners would further represent, that the country south
of the Columbia River, and north of the Mexican line, and extending
from the Pacific Ocean one hundred and twenty miles into the interior,
is of unequaled beauty and fertility. Its mountains, covered with perpetual
snow, pouring into the prairies around their bases transparent
streams of the purest water; the white and black oak, pine, cedar, and
fir forests that divide the prairies into sections convenient for farming
purposes; the rich mines of coal in its hills, and salt springs in its valleys;
its quarries of limestone, sandstone, chalk, and marble; the salmon
of its rivers, and the various blessings of the delightful and healthy
climate, are known to us, and impress your petitioners with the belief
that this is one of the most favored portions of the globe.


Indeed, the deserts of the interior have their wealth of pasturage;
and their lakes, evaporating in summer, leave in their basins hundreds
of bushels of the purest soda. Many other circumstances could be
named, showing the importance of this Territory in a national, commercial,
and agricultural point of view. And, although your petitioners
would not undervalue considerations of this kind, yet they beg leave
especially to call the attention of Congress to their own condition as an
infant colony, without military force or civil institutions to protect their
lives and property and children, sanctuaries and tombs, from the hands
of uncivilized and merciless savages around them. We respectfully ask[Pg 196]
for the civil institutions of the American Republic. We pray for the
high privileges of American citizenship; the peaceful enjoyment of life;
the right of acquiring, possessing, and using property; and the unrestrained
pursuit of rational happiness. And for this your petitioners
will ever pray.



David Leslie, [and others.][1]




[1] Senate Document, Twenty-sixth Congress, first session. No. 514.


We have before alluded to the fact that the English government, by
act of Parliament, had extended the colonial jurisdiction and civil laws
of Canada over all her subjects on this coast, and had commissioned
James Douglas, Angus McDonald, and, I think, Mr. Wark, as justices
of the peace, having jurisdiction in civil cases not exceeding two hundred
pounds sterling. In criminal cases, if the magistrate found, on
examination, sufficient cause, the accused was to be sent to Canada for
final trial. In all minor matters the Hudson’s Bay Company were absolute.
Their men, by the articles of enlistment, were bound to obey all
orders of a superior officer, as much so as a soldier in the army. Flogging
was a common punishment inflicted by all grades of officers, from
a petty clerk of a trading-post up to the governor of the company. All
British subjects, or any that had been subjects to the British crown,
were considered as amenable to the laws of Canada, which were delivered
from the brain of the magistrate or judge, who perchance may
have passed through some parts of Canada on his way to this coast, no
one knew when. Of course he knew all about the laws he was to enforce
upon her Majesty’s subjects, the same as our American judge, I. L.
Babcock, did of the laws he was called upon to administer among the
American settlers. Although the following incident is not exactly in
the order of time in which we are writing, yet it illustrates the legal
knowledge of Esquire Douglas so well that the reader will excuse me
for giving it just here. The case occurred in the summer of 1846, I
think in August. The Hudson’s Bay Company and the British subjects
in the country had changed from the open opposition policy to that of
union with the provisional government, and some of the members of the
company had been elected to office. Mr. Douglas had received a commission
as justice of the peace and county judge from Governor Abernethy.
A man by the name of McLame had taken it into his head to
jump a claim belonging to one of the company’s servants, near Fort
Vancouver. The fact was duly stated to Esquire Douglas, who issued
his warrant commanding the sheriff, a servant of the company, to arrest
McLame. The sheriff proceeded with his warrant and posse, took
McLame, brought him to the fort, and put him in irons to keep him
[Pg 197]secure until he could be tried. The day following, the writer arrived
at the fort, and as he was an old acquaintance of Esquire Douglas, and
also holding a commission of justice of the peace and judge of the
county court, Esquire Douglas stated the case to him, and asked his
advice how to conduct it. I inquired what it was McLame had done.


“Why, he went upon the land of one of our people and set up a
claim to it, and made some threats.”


“Did he use any weapons, or injure any one?”


“No; but he was very insulting, as the men tell me; used abusive
language and frightened the men, and attempted to get them off the
claim, is the most he did.”


“Well, Esquire, I think if you do not manage this case carefully you
will have a devil of a muss among these fellows.”


“What do you think I had better do?” says the Esquire.


“If it was my case, as it is yours, I would call the court as soon as
possible, and call the parties. McLame claims to know something of
law, and he will plead his own case, or get some one that don’t know
any more about law than he does, and they will call for a nonsuit on
account of some illegality in the warrant or pleadings, and the first
show you have, give them a nonsuit, and decide against your own people.
This will satisfy McLame and his party, and the matter will end
there. The suit is a civil one, and should have been by notice and summons,
for ‘forcible entry and detainer,’ instead of an arrest and confinement
as a criminal. They may attempt to make false imprisonment
out of it. If they do, I would settle it the best way I could.”


I never learned the exact manner in which this case was settled. I
think McLame received some compensation and the matter was settled.
But the Esquire never fully recovered from the effect of this legal
attempt at provisional American wisdom, as he came as near involving
the two governments in a national war in the San Juan boundary question,
in 1849, as he did the country, in attempting to protect the unreasonable
claims of the company’s servants in 1846. As to law books or
legal knowledge, the country in those early times could not boast of
having an extensive law library or profound lawyers, and, as was to be
expected, some new and strange lawsuits occurred.


Of the following case we have no personal knowledge, and can only
give it as related to us by parties present. T. J. Hubbard, of Champoeg,
had a native wife. She was claimed and coveted by a neighbor
of his, who threatened to take her from him. Hubbard was armed, and
prepared to defend his own supposed or real right of possession from
his covetous neighbor, who attempted to enter his cabin window, or
space where a window might be put (in case the owner had one to go[Pg 198]
there). Hubbard shot him while attempting to enter, and submitted
to a trial. Rev. Mr. Leslie presided as judge. A jury was called,
and the statements of all parties that pretended to know any thing
about the case made. The verdict was, “Justifiable homicide.” The
petition which was gotten up about this time, says that “theft, murder,
and infanticide, are increasing among them to an alarming extent.”
A fact was unquestionably stated in the petition, that justice and virtue
were comparative strangers in the country. Despotism and oppression,
with false notions of individual rights and personal liberty, were strongly
at variance. The leading men, or such as one would naturally suppose
to be guides of the erring, seemed to have fixed a personal standard
for virtue, justice, and right, not difficult for the most abandoned
to comply with.




[Pg 199]


CHAPTER XXVII.


Death of Ewing Young.—First public attempt to organize a provisional government.—Origin
of the provisional government.—First Oregon schooner.


In the early part of this year, about the 15th of February, 1841, Mr.
Ewing Young, having been sick but a short time, died. He left a large
band of cattle and horses and no will, and seems to have had no heirs
in the country. On the 17th we find most of the settlers present at the
funeral. After burying Mr. Young, a meeting was called, over which
Rev. Jason Lee presided. After some discussion it was thought best to
adjourn to meet at the Methodist Mission.


On the next day, the 18th, short as the notice was, nearly all the
settlers were present,—Canadians, French, English, Americans, and
Protestant missionaries and Jesuit priests.


Rev. Jason Lee, for some cause not stated, was excused from acting
as chairman, and Rev. David Leslie elected to fill his place. Rev.
Gustavus Hines and Sydney Smith were chosen as secretaries. “The
doings of the previous day were presented to the assembly and adopted
in part.” Why does not Mr. Hines give us all the proceedings of the
previous day? Was there any thing in them that reflected upon the
disposition of the reverend gentleman to control the property of the
deceased Mr. Young, and apply it to the use of the mission, or distribute
it among its members?


We are well aware of the fact that, on the death of a person in any
way connected with, or in the service of, the Hudson’s Bay Company,
they at once administer upon his estate, to the setting aside of the will
of the deceased, as in the case of Mr. P. C. Pambrun, which occurred
the summer before Mr. Young’s decease; and, more recently, of Mr.
Ray, who died at San Francisco. Mr. Ray was an active, energetic
young man, had won the heart and hand of Miss McLaughlin, youngest
daughter of Governor McLaughlin, and by this marriage had three
interesting children, a son and two daughters. By his trading and
speculations with his private funds, he had acquired a handsome fortune
for his young family. At his death the Hudson’s Bay Company sent
an agent to take charge of the property. He claimed that as Mr. Ray
was a servant of the company, and in their employ, he had no right to
acquire property outside of their business; hence, the property belonged[Pg 200]
to the company. The books were canceled, and left his estate in debt
to the company, and his family destitute. His widow was obliged to
take in washing, which was given her by some American officers then
at that place. By this means she supported herself and young family
till she could obtain help from her father, who had withdrawn from the
company, and was then residing in Oregon City.


This is as good an illustration of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s generosity
as can be given. They pursued Dr. McLaughlin and his children
to the death. Their influence and statements have led the American
people to mistake the doctor’s unbounded generosity to them as
wholly due to the company, and changed the friendly feeling and rewards
due to Dr. McLaughlin for needed supplies in the hour of greatest
peril to their own account, at the same time holding the doctor’s estate
responsible for every dollar, as they did Mr. Ray’s.


As to Messrs. Shepard’s and Olley’s estates, they were both administered
by the Methodist Mission, or some one or more of its members. I
have never been able to learn the results, but have been informed that,
as they were members of the mission, the little property they had was
disposed of as per mission usage. In the case of Mr. Young, the settlers
found themselves somewhat interested. As to any Frenchman or
Roman Catholic, it was taken for granted, if he was not the servant of
the Hudson’s Bay Company, his property went to the priest.


The settlers were united in the opinion that some understanding or
laws should be adopted to govern the settlement of estates, other than
the custom adopted by the Hudson’s Bay Company or the missions;
hence they all turned out, and were completely defeated by the operations
of the Jesuit and Methodist missions. A resolution was ready,
prepared for the occasion:—


“Resolved, That a committee be chosen to form a constitution, and
draft a code of laws, and that the following persons compose that committee:
Rev. F. N. Blanchet, Rev. Jason Lee, Rev. Gustavus Hines,
Rev. Josiah L. Parish; Mr. D. Donpierre, Mr. M. Charlevo, Mr. Robert
Moore, Mr. E. Lucia, Mr. Wm. Johnson.”


The committee first named in the resolution contained the names of
the three first-named clergymen. This was clerical law and constitution
a little too strong. It was then moved to put upon the committee
some that were not clergymen. The committee was finally made up of
nine. Now comes the test of all,—the governor. Revs. Leslie and
Hines, and Drs. Babcock and Bailey were prominent candidates. The
prospects were that the three Protestant missionary candidates would
divide that influence so that Dr. Bailey would be elected.


It will be borne in mind that Dr. Bailey was a man of strong English[Pg 201]
prejudices, and opposed to religious societies and religion generally.
He could secure the French Catholic vote, and the majority of the settlers.
He was present at the meeting, with his Canadian, French, and
Hudson’s Bay servant voters, all trained to vote for him for governor.
He nominated himself, and so disgusted the American settlers that they
joined in the effort to defeat him.


Mr. Hines was the prominent candidate to enter the field, and secure
the leading influence in the government. That office was the leading
question,—Bailey could not be trusted, and Hines could not be elected;
hence the office of governor was discarded, and the committee instructed
to prepare a constitution and laws, to be executed without an executive.
This was a shrewd and cunning device, to say the least of it,
one calculated to make the judicial and executive office one, in the same
person; which seemed by common consent to be Dr. I. L. Babcock, a
man equally as ambitious and aspiring as Dr. Bailey, but in good standing
in the mission, and a stranger to the settlers. This point gained,
George W. Le Breton, a young adventurer, who came to the country in
the employ of Captain Couch, on the brig Maryland, having a fair education,
and generally intelligent and agreeable in conversation, who
had been brought up in good society, and was inclined to, or educated
in, the Roman faith. This young man was elected to fill the offices of
clerk of the court and public recorder, as a compromise with the Jesuits.
To harmonize the English element, Wm. Johnson was elected high
sheriff. Zavia Ladaroot, Pierre Billique, and Wm. McCarty were
chosen constables. Messrs. Gervais, Cannon, Robert Moore, and Rev.
L. H. Judson were chosen justices of the peace. Here comes the climax
of all wisdom:—


“It was then resolved, that, until a code of laws be drafted by the
Legislative Committee and adopted by the people, Ira L. Babcock, the
supreme judge, be instructed to act”—just as he pleased. Mr. Hines
says in his book, 419th page—“according to the laws of the State of
New York.”


I query whether there was a single copy of the laws of that State in
the country for ten years after the last resolution was passed. I know
there was none at the time, and only a single copy of the laws of Iowa
two years after; hence, Ira L. Babcock was law-maker, judge, and
executive to the settlement, just as much so as John McLaughlin was
to the Hudson’s Bay Company.


To keep up the farce (for the whole proceeding deserves no other
name), “it was then resolved to adjourn, to meet the first Thursday in
June, at the new building near the Roman Catholic church.” The record
proceeds: “Thursday, June 11, 1841. The inhabitants of the Wal[Pg 202]lamet
Valley met according to adjournment, and the meeting was
called to order by the chairman, Rev. David Leslie. On motion, the
doings of the former meeting were read, on which the committee for
drafting a constitution and code of laws was called for, and information
was communicated to the meeting by the chairman of the committee,
that, in consequence of his not having called the committee together,
no report had been prepared.” His Jesuitical Reverence, F. N. Blanchet,
was excused from serving on the committee, at his own request.
The settlers and uninitiated were informed by his reverence that he
was unaccustomed to make laws for the people, and did not understand
how to proceed, while divide and conquer, the policy adopted by the
Hudson’s Bay Company, was entered into with heart and soul by this
Reverend Father Blanchet and his associates. “On motion, it was
then resolved, that a person be chosen to fill the place thus vacated in
the committee for drafting a constitution and code of laws, and Dr.
Wm. J. Bailey was chosen.”


The motion that follows shows that the settlers were suspicious of
influences operating against them to deprive them of a voice in their
own government, for they then, “on motion, resolved that this committee
be instructed to meet for the transaction of their business on the
first Monday of August next.” They further instructed this committee
to report at a subsequent meeting, “to be held the first Thursday
in October next. On motion, resolved, that the committee be advised
to confer with the commander of the American exploring squadron
now in the Columbia River, concerning the propriety of forming a
provisional government in Oregon.”


“Resolved, That the motion to adopt the report of the nominating
committee presented at a previous meeting be rescinded.” Were the
settlers really in favor of an organization adapted to their wants, and
contrary to the wishes of the Hudson’s Bay Company and clerical government
then existing? The above resolution shows the fact. They
have handsomely relieved the Jesuits of their responsibility, and left
them to work with their associates and co-laborers,—the Hudson’s Bay
Company and Indians. They, to soften matters, allowed the committee
to consider the nature of the government about to be formed, and
the officers necessary, and—


“Resolved, That the committee to draft a constitution be instructed
to take into consideration the number and kind of officers it will be
necessary to create, in accordance with their constitution and code of
laws, and to report the same at the next meeting.” It was also
resolved that the report of the nominating committee be referred to
the Legislative Committee.


[Pg 203]Mr. Secretary Hines does not give us the names of the nominating
committee and the officers they first reported.


The meeting held at or near the Roman Catholic church on the
11th of June was adjourned to meet at the Methodist Mission at eleven
o’clock on the first Thursday in October following. Duly signed,
David Leslie, chairman; Gustavus Hines, Sydney Smith, secretaries.
The whole humbug had been completed; the Methodist Mission party
was safe; the Hudson’s Bay Company and Jesuits only wanted time to
carry out their arrangements and drive the whole concern from the
country, or make a grand sacrifice for the benefit of the Hudson’s Bay
Company’s trade and mother church.


The idea of resisting the American influence was no new one; it was
announced as early as 1838. The combinations were ready to be made
that, at the proper time, every Hudson’s Bay Company’s man felt certain,
would accomplish the object they desired. They were ready and did
invest their money upon the issue. It is true other parties came in
and formed combinations that they supposed themselves capable of
destroying by a single word. They failed; and in 1865 we find
them, the petitioners, with a host of those they sought to rob, crying
against their injustice. They ask for compensation for attempting to
prevent the rightful owners of the country from occupying it. This is
in keeping with their whole course. Their impudence may carry them
through and win their case, which justice and truth should deny them.


Mr. Hines says, page 240: “I have previously stated that the origin
of the attempt to form a kind of provisional government was the removal
by death of the late Ewing Young, leaving, as he did, a large and
unsettled estate, with no one to administer it, and no law to control its
administration. The exigency of this case having been met by the
appointment of a judge with probate powers, who entered immediately
upon his duties” (giving no bonds to any body), “and disposed of the
estate of Ewing Young to the entire satisfaction of the community, and
the fact that some of the most influential citizens of the country, and
especially some of the Legislative Committee, were adverse to the idea
of establishing a permanent organization so long as the peace and harmony
of the community could possibly be preserved without it, the
subject was permitted to die away and the committee for drafting a
constitution and code of laws did not meet according to their instructions,
nor did the meeting at which they were expected to report ever
take place.”


Mr. Hines, in his account of this affair, is not quite satisfied himself
with the reasons he has given, so he goes on to state many facts as
connected with the arrival of the exploring squadron of the United[Pg 204]
States, under command of Captain Wilkes, and says, page 421: “In
addition to this, the officers of the squadron were consulted on the
subject of organizing the country into a civil compact, and were found
to be decidedly opposed to the scheme, and recommended that the
subject be allowed to rest. They encouraged the people in the belief
that the United States government would probably soon extend jurisdiction
over the country.”


To the disgrace of the leader of that squadron, the general impression
of all the early settlers of this country is, to the present day, that he
understood and tasted the qualities of Dr. McLaughlin’s liquors, and received
the polite attentions of the gentlemen of the Hudson’s Bay Company
with far more pleasure than he looked into or regarded the wants
of this infant settlement of his countrymen. Mr. Hines says “the
officers of the squadron decidedly opposed the scheme.” And why did
they do it? Simply because the parties named above were opposed.
They had absolute control of the persons and property of all in the
country, and they scrupled not to keep and use their power to the last.


The unconquerable energy of the Americans was this year manifested
in the building of a schooner, of about forty tons burden, on a
little island some four miles above the present city of Portland. R. L.
Kilborn, of the party of Ewing Young, Charley Matts, P. Armstrong,
who was afterward killed in the Indian war on Rogue River, H. Woods,
John Green, and George Davis engaged in this enterprise. They employed
Felix Hathaway, who was saved from the wreck of the William
and Ann, as head carpenter, and commenced their work. To obtain
spikes and such irons as were required, they had it reported that they
were going to build a ferry-boat to cross the Wallamet River. To obtain
rigging, they induced the French farmers to go to Fort Vancouver
and get ropes to use in the old Dutch harness for plowing, Dr. McLaughlin
having informed them in the start, that he did not approve
of their scheme, and would furnish them no supplies. They, however,
were not to be deterred in their undertaking. Procuring a whip-saw of
the mission, and such tools as they could spare, these men commenced
their work; and when Captain Wilkes visited them, and found they
had a substantial and sea-worthy craft well under way, he furnished
them such articles from his stores as he could spare, and spoke favorably
of their enterprise to Dr. McLaughlin, who became more liberal;
so that, with the assistance of Captain Wilkes, the mission, and such as
they received from Dr. McLaughlin, the vessel was launched and made
trips to California, under the command of Captain Joseph Gale, who
returned to Oregon in 1843, and was elected one of our Executive
Committee, with David Hill and Alanson Beers.




[Pg 205]


CHAPTER XXVIII.


Lee and Hines explore the Umpqua River.—Hines tells a story.—Massacre and
plunder of Smith’s party by the Indians.—Sympathy of the Hudson’s Bay
Company.—Extract from the San Francisco Bulletin.


The reader is requested to note the statements that follow, as they
show influences operating that tell how active the enemies of the
Protestant missions had been. Mr. Hines admits that he owed his own
and Mr. Lee’s life to the wife of Guinea. (See his journal, page 109.)
He says: “During the evening Mr. Guinea came to us considerably
excited, and warmly congratulated us on the safe guardianship his wife
had exercised over us in our absence. He said that in all probability
we should have been robbed of all we had, if we had not lost our lives,
had it not been for the faithfulness of his wife and her brother. He
told us that one of the chiefs of the clan we had visited was at the fort.
Learning that we designed to visit his people on the coast, excited with
the utmost fear, he hastened down the river and reported many evil
things about us, intending thereby to instigate the Indians to prevent
us from going among them.”


Mr. Hines, can you vouch for the truth of this statement? I believe
sincerely you have told the truth, for you even attempt to excuse
the Indian for his fears, and have not the least suspicion of the sources
from which the Indian received his instruction and is made to believe
that you and Mr. Jason Lee had come with your medicine bag to destroy
them. Let us hear Mr. Hines’ excuse for the Indian’s fears, in
his own words. He says: “Mr. Lee had brought a fowling-piece with
him, and had in his possession a patent shot-pouch. This was the thing
that had alarmed the chief. One story he told was, that we had
brought medicine in a bag that Mr. Lee wore on his neck, for the purpose
of killing them all off; and that if we were permitted to come
among them the fatal bag would be opened and they would all be
destroyed.”


How did these Indians learn about the missionary medicine bag?
Our good friend, Guinea, Mr. Hines tells us, is from Montreal, and of
a good family,—a Frenchman. This trip, it seems, was made in 1840,
about the 26th day of October. Dr. Whitman had not yet gone to
the States, but the medicine-bag story is tried with the Indians on the[Pg 206]
Umpqua. Guinea has a little too much sense of moral responsibility
to allow his Indians to commence the slaughter of Lee and Hines, as
Dr. White had come with them and seen them safe at the fort, and had
returned to the settlement. The medicine man of the Methodist Mission
had escaped, and it was not best to commence on these preachers.
Madam Siwash Guinea must accompany them, to watch and explain
matters and protect them.


Mr. Hines says, page 100: “We had been informed by Mr. Guinea
that there would be great danger in our going among them alone, and
indeed he appeared to stand in the utmost fear of them, of their hostility
to the whites, and especially to the Americans.”


Can a reasonable man read this simple narrative with the light of
history, and facts piled on facts, with the stains of the blood of our
countrymen all over the country, and not trace the cause of these foul
murders to their true source? While none but American traders and
hunters were in the country, it was an easy matter to dispose of them,
but when the American missionary comes among the natives, another
element of opposition must be introduced; moral teachings must be
met by religious superstitions, to secure the victim, to advance the interests
of an unscrupulous trade. Let us take another statement from
Mr. Hines before we proceed with his political history. On page 106, in
speaking of the closing remarks of the chief at the mouth of the Umpqua,
he tells us, the chief “said he was very glad we had come to see them;
that their hearts toward us were like our hearts toward them; that he
wanted us to continue with them another day and tell them about God;
that they had heard about us, and had been told that we were a bad people.”
Who told these wild Indians this? Was it an American that had
been living among them and teaching them that his countrymen were
a bad people? “That they were glad to see us for themselves, and
were convinced that what they had heard was a lie; that they now believe
us to be good, and that they meant to be good also.”


Mr. Hines tells a story, as he received it from the Hudson’s Bay
Company gentlemen, to show that these Indians are very treacherous
and not to be relied upon, especially those on the coast. It relates to
a company of fur hunters composed of Smith, Sublet, and Jackson. At
page 110 of his book, he says: “In this division Smith was to take
the country extending from the Platte River by the way of Santa Fé
to California; then turn north along the Pacific Ocean as far as
the Columbia River, and thence back into the interior to join the other
partners of the company. The country was in the wildest state, but
few white men having ever passed through it. But, nothing daunted,
Smith and his companions marched through to California, and thence[Pg 207]
along the coast north as far as the Umpqua River, collecting in their
course all the valuable furs they could procure, until they had loaded
several pack animals with the precious burden [forty packs of furs]. On
arriving here, they encamped on the borders of the river near the place
where they intended to cross, but, on examination, found it would be
dangerous, if not impossible, to effect the passage of the river at that
place. Accordingly, Smith took one of his men [he had two] and proceeded
up the river on foot, for the purpose of finding a better place to
cross. In his absence, the Indians, instigated by one of the savage-looking
chiefs whom we saw at the mouth of the river, rushed upon
the party with their muskets [the same furnished by the Hudson’s Bay
Company for that purpose], bows and arrows, tomahawks, and scalping-knives,
and commenced the work of death.” Just as they were
expected to do with all intruders in this fur traders’ empire. “From
the apparent kindness of the Indians previously, the party had been
thrown entirely off their guard, and consequently were immediately
overpowered by their ferocious enemies, and but one of the twelve in
camp escaped from the cruel massacre. Scarcely knowing which way
he fled, this one fell in with Smith, who was on his return to the camp,
and who received from the survivor the shocking account of the murder
of eleven of his comrades. Smith seeing all was lost, resolved
upon attempting nothing further than to do his best to secure his own
personal safety, with that of his surviving companions. The Indians
had secured all the furs, horses, mules, baggage, and every thing the
company had. The three immediately crossed the river and made the
best of their way through a savage and inhospitable country toward
Vancouver, where, after traveling between two and three hundred
miles, and suffering the greatest deprivations, they finally arrived in
safety.”


Rev. Mr. Hines’ savage-looking chief was no less a personage than a
slave of a Frenchman by the name of Michel, or rather belonging to
Michel’s Umpqua wife. This slave had learned, from the statements
and talk he had heard at Vancouver, that in case the Indians killed
and robbed the Boston men, there would be no harm to them; that
neither the Hudson’s Bay Company nor the English or French would
take any notice of it. Hence, the Indians were taught to regard the
killing of a Boston man (American) as doing something that pleased
the Hudson’s Bay Company. Under this instruction it is said this
slave ran away from Vancouver, and went back to his people, and
was the cause of the massacre of Smith’s party. He is again present,
doing all he can to induce his people to rob and take the lives of
Lee and Hines. Mr. Guinea, then in charge of the fort, is aware of[Pg 208]
his instructions and his object. He dare not tell Lee and Hines of
their full danger, yet he knows all about it.


They were determined to visit the Indians and see for themselves.
Guinea’s Indian wife and her brother must go with them. This is considered
sufficient protection. The story of the Indian slave’s part in
the massacre of Smith’s party is related to us by Mrs. Smith, the wife
of S. H. Smith, an intelligent and much respected native woman, a
neighbor of ours for near twenty years, and by one of the men that
accompanied McKay to recover the property; corresponding exactly
to another event of the same kind that occurred in 1847, which will be
given in detail as stated by eye-witnesses under the solemnity of an
oath.


Mr. Hines, of course, believes the following statement, because the
gentlemen of the company told it to him; just as I did the first time I
heard it from them. It is said, Smith and companions, “rehearsing the
story of their wonderful escape and subsequent sufferings to the members
of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the utmost sympathy was excited
in their behalf, and a strong party was fitted out to go and rescue the
property from the savage robbers, and restore it to its surviving
owners. The vigor and perseverance of this party were equal to the
promptitude with which it was fitted out. They proceeded to the
scene of blood, and after committing the mangled bodies of Smith’s
murdered companions to the grave, compelled the Indians to
relinquish the property they had taken,” by giving them presents
of blankets and powder, and such things as the Indians wished, as
stated to us by a Frenchman, a servant of the company, who was
one of McKay’s party that went to get the furs. They found no
bodies to bury, and had no fight with the Indians about the property,
as stated by Mr. Smith also. But, as the Hudson’s Bay Company tells
the story through Mr. Hines, they “spread terror through the tribes.”
Was this the case in the Whitman massacre in 1847? the Samilkamean
massacre in 1857? the Frazer River murder of American citizens in
1858? No: Governor Douglas told the committee that asked him
for protection, or for arms, to protect themselves; that “if they [the
Americans] molested her Majesty’s subjects he would send a force to
punish them.” Mr. Hines says his Umpqua party “returned in
triumph to Vancouver.” And well they might, for they had made the
best season’s hunt they ever made, in getting those furs and the property
of Smith, which paid them well for the expedition, as there was
no market for Smith, except London, through the hypocritical kindness
of Mr. Simpson. By this time, Mr. Smith had learned all he wished
to of this company. He preferred giving them his furs at their own[Pg 209]
price to being under any further obligations to them, Mr. Sublet, Mr.
Smith’s partner, did not speak as though he felt under much obligation
to Mr. Simpson or the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1836, which was not
long after the transaction referred to.


I do not know how the company regard these statements of Mr. Hines,
yet I regard them as true so far as Mr. Hines is concerned, but
utterly false as regards the company. As old Toupin says Mr. Parker
told the Indians, “It is their fashion” of taking credit to themselves
for doing all they could against the Americans occupying the country
in any way.


According to the testimony given in the case of The Hudson’s Bay
Company v. United States, the amount of furs seized by the company
at that time was forty packs, worth at the time $1,000 each, besides
the animals and equipments belonging to the party, a large portion of
which was given to the Indians, to compensate them for their services
rendered to the company, in destroying Smith’s expedition and killing
his men, corresponding with transactions of recent date, as stated in an
article found in the San Francisco Bulletin:—


“Hudson’s Bay Company and the Indians.—A gentleman from
Victoria gives us the following facts concerning the Indian outrages on
the northern coast, and their allies, the Hudson’s Bay Company:
Captain D. Warren said to M. A. Foster and William McCurdy, that, on
returning to Victoria and reporting the circumstances of the attack of
the Indians upon his sloop, Thornton, to the first lieutenant of the
ship Zealous, he was the next day arrested and put under $2,000 bonds.
The Sparrowhawk was to leave last Wednesday, but had not yet gone
to inquire into the matter. It is known that the same Indians murdered
Captain Jack Knight and partner but a short time before.
The same crowd or band of Indians robbed the Nanaimo packet.
Since thus attacked, Captain Warren, the captain of the Ocean Queen,
informed them that a friendly Indian chief told him to leave; the Indians
were hostile; they were preparing for war with the neighboring
tribes.


“From a statement found in the Chronicle, of the 27th of June, we
learn that Captain Mowatt, of the Hudson’s Bay Company, is in charge
of Fort Rupert. We also learn that Captain Mowatt’s prejudices and
feelings are peculiarly hostile to all American fur traders, and not any
too friendly to those claiming to be English. The facts indicate a
strong Hudson’s Bay Company Indian war influence against American
or other traders in behalf of that company. It is evident from the statement
of the two gentlemen above named that her Majesty’s naval officers
are inclined, and more than probably instructed, to protect the Hud[Pg 210]son’s
Bay Company’s people in encouraging the Indian hostility and
murder of all outside venturers upon their trading localities, as they
are prompt to insinuate and affirm that the whites are the aggressors,
and to arrest them for punishment.”


It is difficult to understand why our American government is so
tolerant and generous to a foreign monopoly that has invariably sought
and accomplished the destruction of its fur trade on its western borders,
and used its entire influence against American institutions and
citizens; not hesitating to incite the Indians to the most inhuman and
brutal murders.




[Pg 211]


CHAPTER XXIX.


Missionaries leaving.—Hudson’s Bay Company’s Gold Exchange.—Population in
1842.—Whitman and Lovejoy start for the States.—The Red River emigration.—American
merchants.—Settlers not dependent on the Hudson’s Bay Company.—Milling
Company.—The Oregon Institute.—Dr. Elijah White.—Proceedings
and resolutions of a public meeting at Wallamet.—Correspondence with the
War Department.


Rev. A. B. Smith and wife, Cornelius Rogers, and W. H. Gray and
wife had left the mission of the American Board, on account of difficulties
they had become fully satisfied would ultimately destroy the mission
or drive it from the country. Mr. Spalding, it will be remembered,
was a man of peculiar temperament, ambitious and selfish. He could
not endure an associate of superior talent, or admit himself to be inferior
in understanding the native language. From the time the Jesuits
arrived (in 1838), some of his own pet Indians had turned Catholics
and commenced a quarrel with him. These facts seemed to annoy and
lead him to adopt a course opposed by Smith, Gray, and Rogers. Still
he found it pleased the Indians as a whole, and was assented to by the
balance of the mission. Smith and wife left for the Sandwich Islands;
Rogers for the Wallamet in 1841; Gray and wife in 1842.


During the exploration of the country by Commodore Wilkes’ exploring
squadron, Mr. Cornelius Rogers was found a very useful man. His
knowledge of Indian languages (which he was remarkably quick to
acquire) and of Indian character generally enabled him to become a
reliable and useful interpreter. The officers soon became aware of the
fact, and employed him at once to assist and interpret for them. He
was paid for his services in gold coin, which amounted to something
over five hundred dollars. Not wishing to carry his coin about, he
offered to deposit it with the Hudson’s Bay Company. “Certainly,
Mr. Rogers, we will receive your coin, and credit you upon our books
twenty per cent. less, as the coin is not so valuable to us as our goods,
at beaver prices.” Mr. R. allowed them to take his coin and credit
him with four hundred dollars in beaver currency. In a short time a
party of the squadron were to go by land to California. Mr. R. concluded
he would go with them, and that his coin would be more convenient
than beaver orders on the company. He therefore requested
them to return to him the coin. “Certainly, Mr. Rogers,” and handed[Pg 212]
him back four hundred dollars less twenty per cent.,—three hundred and
twenty dollars. “How is this?” says Mr. R.; “I supposed from the statement
you made on depositing this money with you, that that money
was a drug to you, and now you wish me to pay you twenty per cent. for
money I have left in your care, after deducting twenty per cent. for
leaving it with you. You may consider this a fair and an honorable
transaction; I do not.” He was told, “Such is our manner of doing
business,” and that was all the satisfaction he could get. He finally
left his money and drew his goods, at what was called beaver prices,
of the company.


Nothing further of note occurred in 1841, except the loss of the Peacock,
in which no lives were lost, and the extra efforts of the company
to show to the officers of the expedition their good deeds and kind treatment
to all Americans, and to prove to them that the whole country
was of little value to any one. “It would scarcely support the few
Indians, much less a large population of settlers.”


1842.—Our population, all told, in the beginning of this year, is twenty-one
Protestant ministers, three Roman or Jesuit priests, fifteen lay
members of churches, thirty-four white women, thirty-two white children,
and thirty-five American settlers—twenty-five of them with native
wives. Total, one hundred and thirty-seven Americans. At the close
of the year we had an emigration from the States of one hundred and
eleven persons,—some forty-two families,—with two lawyers, A. L.
Lovejoy and A. M. Hastings. The latter became the lawyer of Dr.
McLaughlin and relieved the settlement in the spring of 1843 of a number
of not very valuable settlers, by assisting them to get credit of the
Hudson’s Bay Company in procuring their outfits, giving their notes,
payable in California; white settlers who remained could get no credit
or supplies of the company, especially such as had asked protection of
the American government. A. L. Lovejoy started from Whitman’s
station to return to the States with Dr. Whitman. He reached Bent’s
Fort with him, but stopped for the winter, while Whitman proceeded
on to Washington in time to save the country from being given up to
British rule. For an account of that trip, which we give in another
chapter, we are indebted to the Honorable A. L. Lovejoy.


The Red River emigration, consisting of some forty families of English,
Scotch, and Canadian-French half-breeds, had been ordered from
the Red River, or Selkirk settlement, to locate in the Puget Sound district,
by the Hudson’s Bay Company’s governor, Simpson. This company
started across the plains with most of their property and families
in carts, in the spring of 1842, directed, protected, and guided by the
company, and expected to become settlers, subject to it, in Puget[Pg 213]
Sound. This was in fact a part of the original plan of the Puget Sound
Agricultural Company, and these families were brought on to aid in
securing and holding the country for the British government and the
use of the company,—a plan and arrangement exactly similar to that
adopted by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1811-12, to cut off the trade
of the French Northwest Fur Company, by establishing the Selkirk
settlement directly in the line of their trade.


This Red River colony was a part of the company’s scheme to control
and outnumber the American settlement of Oregon; it being connected
with the Puget Sound concern, and under the control of the
Hudson’s Bay Company,—which, by the decision of the commissioners,
has won the company $200,000 from our national treasury. A more
infamous claim could not well be trumped up, and the men who
awarded it should be held responsible, and handed down to posterity
as unjust rewarders of unscrupulous monopolies. Not for this alone,
but for paying to the parent monopoly the sum of $450,000, for their
malicious misrepresentations of the country, their murders, and their
perjury respecting their claims to it.


As soon as the Red River colony reached the country, they found
that the Hudson’s Bay Company on the west side of the Rocky Mountains
was a different institution from that of the Selkirk settlement;
consequently a large number of the more intelligent among them refused
to remain in the Puget Sound district, and found their way into
the Wallamet and Tualatin districts, and were received and treated as
Oregonians, or citizens of the provisional government. This had the
effect to embitter the feelings of the ruling spirits of the company, and
caused them to change their policy. They commenced fortifying Fort
Vancouver, and had a war-ship, the Modeste, stationed in the Columbia
River, while the fort was being prepared for defensive or offensive
measures. This only increased the anxiety and hastened the effort to
organize for self-defense on the part of the American settlers.


In the mean time, Hon. Caleb Cushing, of Newburyport, Massachusetts,
had sent to the country a ship with supplies. A. E. Wilson had
established himself, or was about to, at Wallamet Falls as a trader,
and some families were on their way by water from the States,—F. W.
Pettygrove, Peter Foster, and Peter H. Hatch. Pettygrove arrived
with a small stock of goods. The same ship brought a supply for the
Methodist Mission.


The settlers were not dependent upon the Hudson’s Bay Company
for supplies as much as has been asserted. I am certain that many of
them never received a dollar’s worth of the company’s goods, except it
might have been through the stores of Pettygrove, Wilson, or Aberne[Pg 214]thy.
I know many of them were willing and did pay higher prices to
their American merchants than they could get the same article for from
the company’s store, which was about this time established at Oregon
City. Soon after, a trading-post and warehouse were established at
Champoeg, and Mr. Roberts sent up with orders to kick, change, and
beat the half-bushel with a club in order to get more wheat at sixty
cents per imperial bushel in payment for all debts due the company
for the goods furnished to them at one hundred per cent. or more on
London prices.


During this year the Wallamet Milling Company was formed, and
commenced to build a saw-mill on the island above the falls. Dr. McLaughlin
also commenced active opposition to American enterprise.


The Oregon Institute was commenced this year, under the direction
of the Methodist missionaries. They carefully guarded against all outside
patronage or influence getting control of their institution, by requiring
a certain number of trustees to be members of their church in
good standing. It was during the discussions in the organizing of
that institution that the disposition on the part of that mission to control
not only the religious, but literary and political interests of the
settlement, was manifested. The leading members took strong ground,
yet hesitated when it was found they would be compelled to ask for
outside patronage. However, they were able to commence operations
with the Institute, and succeeded in getting up a building deemed
suitable by the building committee.


Dr. Elijah White returned to the country, as he supposed and frequently
asserted, with unlimited discretionary powers from the President
of the United States to arrange all matters between the Hudson’s
Bay Company, Indians, and settlers, and “although his commission
did not specify in so many words, yet, in short, he was the governing
power of the United States west of the Rocky Mountains.” He entered
at once upon the duties of his office, and such a muss as he kicked up
all over the country it would require the pens of a Squibob and a Junius
combined to describe. Rev. Mr. Hines has given to the world many
useful notices of this notorious blockhead, and from his descriptions of
his proceedings one would infer that he was a most important character
in promoting the peace and harmony of the settlement and keeping the
Indians quiet. I have always been at a loss to understand Mr. Hines,
whether he is speaking of Dr. White’s proceedings in sober earnest or
serious burlesque. Either he was woefully ignorant of the character
of Dr. White, or he was cajoled and flattered and made to believe the
doctor possessed power and influence at Washington that no document
he could show gave any evidence of. Be that as it may, Dr. White[Pg 215]
arrived in the fall of 1842, in advance of the emigration. He pretended
to have all power necessary for all cases, civil and criminal. He
appointed temporary magistrates to try all cases as they might occur;
and such as related to Indians and whites, or half-breeds and whites,
he tried himself, and gave decisions to suit his own ideas of justice.
Usually, in the case of two settlers, where he had appointed a justice to
try the case, he would argue the case for one of the parties, and generally
win it for his client or favorite. We attended two of the doctor’s trials,
one in Tualatin Plains, the other at the saw-mill near Salem. In both
of these cases the conclusion of those not interested was, that if such
was the justice to which we as settlers were reduced, our own energy
and arms must protect us.


At the meeting called to receive him, a committee, being appointed,
retired, and, after a short absence, reported the following resolutions:—


Resolved, That we, the citizens of the Wallamet Valley, are exceedingly
happy in the consideration that the government of the United
States have manifested their intentions through their agent, Dr. E.
White, of extending their jurisdiction and protection over this country.


Resolved, That, in view of the claims which the aborigines of this
country have upon the sympathies of the white man, we are gratified
at the appointment of an agent by the United States government to
regulate and guard their interests.


Resolved, That we highly approve of the appointment of Dr. E. White
to the above office, and that we will cordially co-operate with him in
carrying out the measures of government in reference to this country.


Resolved, That we feel grateful to the United States government for
their intended liberality toward the settlers of this country, and for
their intention to support education and literature among us.


Resolved, That it will give us the highest pleasure to be brought, so
soon as it maybe practicable, under the jurisdiction of our mother
country.


On motion, it was


Resolved, That the report of the committee be adopted.


Resolved unanimously, That the doings of this meeting be transmitted
to the government of the United States by Dr. E. White, in
order that our views and wishes in relation to this country may be
known.


The following communication shows the shrewdness of Dr. White,
and the influence he was enabled to hold over Mr. Hines, who seems to
have ignored all the doctor’s conduct while a missionary, and considers
him a suitable person to deal with the complicated relations then culminating
on our western coast. It is given entire, to place Mr. Hines[Pg 216]
in his true character in the history of the country, though Dr. White
does not deign to mention his name in his report to the department.
We also give an extract from the report of the Commissioners of Indian
Affairs, November 28, 1843, as found on fifth and sixth pages of Dr.
White’s report, Mr. Hines’ letter is as follows:—



Wallamet, April 3, 1843.


To the Honorable Secretary of War:



Sir,—I have the honor of addressing you a brief communication
expressive of my views of the course pursued by Dr. E. White, sub-agent
of Indian Affairs west of the Rocky Mountains.


I am not extensively acquainted with what properly belongs to the
business of an Indian agent, but so far as I understand the subject, this
agency requires the performance of duties which are of an onerous and
complicated character.


The country is quite extensive, and an intercourse is carried on
between the whites and Indians in almost every part of it. The principal
settlements are on the Wallamet River and Taulatin Plains, but
there are whites at the mouth of the Columbia River, the Falls, and
among the Wallawalla, Cayuse, Nez Percé, and Snake Indians. Immediately
after the arrival of your agent in this country, he received
the most urgent calls from several of these places, if possible to come
immediately and enter into such measures as would secure both the
safety of the whites and welfare of the Indians.


He entered upon his business with diffidence, though with great
energy and decision, and his indefatigable efforts to promote the interests
of this country, with his untiring industry in the performance of
his duties, entitle him to the warmest respect of the members of this
infant and helpless colony, and to the confidence of the honorable
department which has committed to him so important a trust. Although
he has been with us but a short time in his official capacity, yet it is
generally believed that the measures he has adopted to regulate the
intercourse between the whites and Indians, particularly in the Cayuse,
Nez Percé, and Wallawalla tribes, are wisely calculated to secure the
protection of the former against the aggressions of the savages, and to
secure to the latter the blessings of harmony, peace, and civilization.


Some time in November last news reached us from these formidable
tribes that they were laying a plot for the destruction of this colony,
upon which your agent, with characteristic decision, determined to proceed
at once to the scene of this conspiracy, and, if possible, not only to
frustrate the present designs of the Indians, but to prevent any future
attempts of the same character.


[Pg 217]




This laborious journey was undertaken, and, accordingly, he set out
on this perilous enterprise in the dead of winter, being accompanied by
six men, and though the distance to be traveled by land and water was
little less than one thousand miles, and the whole journey was one of
excessive labor and much suffering, yet perseverance surmounted every
difficulty, and the undertaking was brought to a most happy issue. In
the fitting out and execution of such an expedition much expense must
necessarily be incurred, but I am fully of the opinion the funds appropriated
by your agent, for the purpose of accomplishing the object of
his appointment, have been judiciously applied.


Not knowing the views I entertained in reference to the propriety
of his course, Dr. White requested me to write to the honorable
Secretary of War, definitely expressing my opinion. Considering this
a sufficient apology for intruding myself upon your patience in this
communication, allow me, dear sir, to subscribe myself most respectfully.



Your humble servant,

Gustavus Hines,

Missionary to the Wallamet Settlement.










 




}





Department of War,

Office of Indian Affairs, Nov. 23, 1843.



I submit a report from the sub-agent west of the Rocky Mountains,
received on the 9th of August last. It furnishes some deeply-interesting
and curious details respecting certain of the Indian tribes in that
remote part of our Territories. The Nez Percés are represented to be
“more noble, industrious, sensible, and better disposed toward the
whites,” than the others. Their conduct on the occasion of an important
meeting between Dr. White and their leading men impresses one
most agreeably. The school established for their benefit is very
numerously attended, while it is gratifying to learn that this is not the
only establishment for Indian instruction which has been made and
conducted with success.


There will also be found in this paper some particulars as to the soil,
water-courses, etc, of the Territory of Oregon, which may be interesting
at this time, when public attention is so much directed to the
region beyond the Rocky Mountains.



Respectfully submitted,

T. Hartley Crawford.


Hon. J. M. Porter, Secretary of War.





[Pg 218]


CHAPTER XXX.


Dispatch of Dr. White to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.—He praises the Hudson’s
Bay Company.—His account of the Indians.—Indian outrages.—Dr. White’s expedition
to the Nez Percés.—Indian council.—Speeches.—Electing a chief.—Laws of
the Nez Percés.—Visit to the Cayuses.—Doings of the missionaries.—Drowning
of Mr. Rogers and family.—George Geere.—Volcanoes.—Petition against Governor
McLaughlin.



Oregon, April 1, 1843.



Sir,—On my arrival, I had the honor and happiness of addressing
you a brief communication, giving information of my safe arrival, and
that of our numerous party, to these distant shores.


At that time it was confidently expected that a more direct, certain,
and expeditious method would be presented to address you in a few
weeks; but that failing, none has offered till now.


I think I mentioned the kind and hospitable manner we were received
and entertained on the way by the gentlemen of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, and the cordial and most handsome reception I met with at
Fort Vancouver from Governor McLaughlin and his worthy associate
chief factor, James Douglas, Esq.; my appointment giving pleasure
rather than pain,—a satisfactory assurance that these worthy gentlemen
intend eventually to settle in this country, and prefer American
to English jurisdiction.


On my arrival in the colony, sixty miles south of Vancouver, being
in advance of the party, and coming unexpectedly to the citizens,
bearing the intelligence of the arrival of so large a re-enforcement, and
giving assurance of the good intentions of our government, the excitement
was general, and two days after we had the largest and happiest
public meeting ever convened in this infant colony.


I found the colony in peace and health, and rapidly increasing in
numbers, having more than doubled in population during the last two
years. English, French, and half-breeds seem, equally with our own
people, attached to the American cause; hence the bill of Mr. Linn,
proffering a section of land to every white man of the Territory, has the
double advantage of being popular and useful, increasing such attachment,
and manifestly acting as a strong incentive to all, of whatever
nation or party, to settle in this country.


My arrival was in good time, and probably saved much evil. I had[Pg 219]
but a short season of rest after so long, tedious, and toilsome a journey,
before information reached me of the very improper conduct of the
upper country Indians toward the missionaries sent by the American
Board of Commissioners, accompanied with a passport, and a desire for
my interposition in their behalf at once.


I allude to the only three tribes from which much is to be hoped, or
any thing to be feared, in this part of Oregon. These are the Wallawallas,
Cayuses, and Nez Percés, inhabiting a district of country on
the Columbia and its tributaries, commencing two hundred and forty
miles from its mouth, and stretching four hundred and eighty miles
into the interior. The Wallawallas, most contiguous to the colony,
number some three thousand, including the entire population. They
are in general poor, indolent, and sordid, but avaricious; and what few
have property, in horses and herds, are proud, haughty, and insolent.
The Cayuses, next easterly, are less numerous, but more formidable,
being brave, active, tempestuous, and warlike. Their country is well
watered, gently undulating, extremely healthy, and admirably adapted
to grazing, as Dr. Marcus Whitman, who resides in their midst, may
have informed you. They are comparatively rich in herds, independent
in manner, and not unfrequently boisterous, saucy, and troublesome
in language and behavior. The Nez Percés, still further in the interior,
number something less than three thousand; they inhabit a beautiful
grazing district not surpassed by any I have seen for verdure,
water privileges, climate, or health. The tribe forms, to some extent,
an honorable exception to the general Indian character, being more
noble, industrious, sensible, and better disposed toward the whites and
their improvements in the arts and sciences; and, though as brave as
Cæsar, the whites have nothing to dread at their hands, in case of their
dealing out to them what they conceive to be right and equitable. Of
late, these three tribes have become strongly united by reason of much
intermarriage. For the last twenty years they have been generally
well disposed toward the whites; but at the time Captain Bonneville
visited this district of country, he dealt more profusely in presents and
paid a higher price for furs than Mr. Pambrun, one of the traders of the
Hudson’s Bay Company, established at Wallawalla, who had long dealt
with them, and was previously a general favorite. On Mr. Bonneville’s
leaving, the chiefs assembled at the fort, and insisted on a change of
the tariff in their favor. Pambrun refusing, they seized him, stamped
violently upon his breast, beat him severely, and retained him prisoner,
in rather unenviable circumstances, till they gained, to a considerable
extent, their object. Since that time, they have been more consequential
in feeling, and shown less deference and respect to the whites. On[Pg 220]
the arrival of missionaries among them they have never failed to make,
at first, a most favorable impression, which has, in most instances, unfortunately,
led to too near an approach to familiarity, operating alike
prejudicial to both parties. The Rev. Messrs. Lee and Parker, who
made each but a short stay among them, left with like favorable impressions.
Their successors, Spalding, Whitman, Gray, and ladies,
with others who remained among them, were at last driven to the conclusion
that Indians as much resembled each other in character as complexion.
These worthy people, not well versed in Indian character, and
anxious to accomplish a great deal in a short time, resorted to various
expedients to induce them to leave off their wandering migratory habits,
and settle down contiguous to them in herding and agricultural
pursuits, so as to be able to send their numerous and healthy children
to school. In these efforts they were zealous and persevering, holding
out various inducements as so many stimulants to action, most of which
would have operated well in civilized life, but generally failed with
these Indians; and whatever was promised conditionally, whether the
condition was met or otherwise, there was no reprieve—the promised
articles must come; and sometimes, under circumstances sufficiently
trying, had these missionaries been less devoted, they would have
driven them from their post forever.


The Indians, having gained one and another victory, became more
and more insolent, till at last, some time previous to my arrival, they
were not only obtrusive and exceedingly annoying about and in the
missionaries’ houses, but seized one of the clergymen in his own house,[2]
without a shadow of provocation, further than that of treating a better
neighboring chief with more respect than they, and insulted him most
shamefully, there being no other white person within fifty miles, save
his sick and delicate lady. Soon after, they commenced on Dr. Whitman;
pulled his ears and hair, and threw off his hat three times in the
mud at his feet. A short time after, the chiefs assembled, broke into
the house, violently assailed his person with war clubs, and, with an ax,
broke down the door leading to his own private apartment. It is generally
thought, and possibly with truth, that, on this occasion, Dr. Whitman
would have been killed, had not a party of white men arrived in
sight just at this moment.[3] Never was such an outrage and insult more
[Pg 221]undeserving. He had built, for the express purpose of Indian accommodation,
a house of the same materials, and finished in like manner
with his own, of respectable size, and joined to his, and at all times,
night and day, accessible. In addition to this, they were admitted to
every room in his house but one. This being closed, had like to
have cost him his life. He had hardly left for the States last fall,
when, shocking to relate, at the hour of midnight, a large Indian chief
managed to get into the house, came to the door of Mrs. Whitman’s
bed-chamber, and had succeeded in getting it partly open before she
reached it. A white man, sleeping in an adjoining apartment, saved
her from violence and ruin. The villain escaped. There was but one
thing wrong in this matter on the part of Dr. Whitman, and that was
a great error,—leaving his excellent lady unprotected in the midst of
savages.[4] A few days after this they burned down the mission mill on
his premises, with all its appendages and considerable grain, damaging
them not less than twelve or fifteen hundred dollars. About the same
time, Mrs. Spalding was grossly insulted in her own house, and ordered
out of it, in the absence of her husband. Information reached him of
an Indian having stolen his horse near the same time; he hastened to
the spot to secure the animal; the rogue had crossed the river; but,
immediately returning, he presented his loaded gun, cocked, at the
breast of Mr. Spalding, and abused and menaced as far as possible without
shooting him.[5]


[2] Rev. A. B. Smith, who employed the Lawyer as his teacher in the Nez Percé language.
Ellis was the chief who claimed the land, and had been at the Red River
school. He was jealous of the Lawyer’s influence with the American missionaries, and
used his influence with the Hudson’s Bay Company to drive Mr. Smith away.


[3] We were present at Dr. Whitman’s at the time here referred to, and know that this
difficulty originated from Jesuitical teachings.


[4] There were good men left at the station; besides, the influence of Mr. McKinley
was thought to be sufficient protection from any violence from the Indians.


[5] This transaction is represented by Rev. Mr. Brouillet as being that Mr. Spalding
threatened the Indian with a gun,—being a mistake on the part of Rev. Mr. Brouillet.


In addition to this, some of our own party were robbed openly of
considerable property, and some twelve horses were stolen by night.
All this information, coming near the same time, was embarrassing,
especially as my instructions would not allow me to exceed, for office,
interpreter, and every purpose, $1,250 per annum. On the other hand,
their passport, signed by the Secretary of War, made it my imperative
duty to protect them, in their persons, at least, from outrage. I did not
long hesitate, but called upon Thomas McKay, long in the employment
of the Hudson’s Bay Company as explorer and leader of parties, who,
from his frank, generous disposition, together with his universal success
in Indian warfare, has obtained an extensive influence among the aborigines
of the country, and, placing the facts before him, he at once consented
to accompany me to this scene of discord and contention. We
took but six men with us, armed in the best manner, a sufficient number
to command respect and secure the object of our undertaking,—McKay
[Pg 222]assuring me, from his familiar acquaintance with these Indians, and
their thorough knowledge of the use of arms, that if hostile intentions
were entertained, it would require a larger party than we could raise
in this country to subdue them. Obtaining Cornelius Rogers as interpreter,
we set out on the 15th of November on our voyage of misery (as
McKay justly denominated it), having a journey, by water and land,
of not less than nine hundred and fifty miles, principally over open
plains, covered with snow, and several times under the necessity of
spending the night without wood or fire, other than what was made by
a small growth of wild sage, hardly sufficient to boil the tea-kettle. The
gentlemen, as we called at Vancouver, did every thing in their power to
make the journey comfortable, but evidently felt anxious concerning
our safety. We reached the Dalles, some two hundred and twenty
miles from the Pacific, on the 24th, having been detained by wind, spent
several days with the Methodist Mission families, who welcomed us joyfully,
and made our stay agreeable and refreshing. Mrs. Dr. Whitman
was here, having found it improper and unsafe to remain where she had
been so lately grossly insulted. Her noble and intellectual mind and
spirit were much depressed, and her health suffering; but still entertaining
for the people or Indians of her charge the feelings of a mother
toward ungrateful children. Our visit encouraged her. We procured
horses and traveled by land to Wallawalla, 140 miles above, reaching
the Hudson’s Bay establishment on the 30th. Mr. McKinley, the gentleman
in charge, to whom the missionaries are indebted for many kind
offices in this isolated portion of earth, resolved to make it a common
cause, and stand or fall with us. We reached Wailatpu, the station
of Dr. Whitman, the day following, and were shocked and pained at
beholding the sad work of savage destruction upon this hitherto neat
and commodious little establishment. The Indians in the vicinity were
few and shy. I thought best to treat them with reserve, but made an
appointment to meet the chiefs and tribe on my return. Left the day
following for the station of Mr. Spalding among the Nez Percés, some
120 or 130 miles from Wailatpu; reached it on the 3d of December,
after a rather pleasant journey over a most verdant and delightful grazing
district, well watered, but badly timbered. Having sent a private
dispatch in advance, they had conveyed the intelligence to the Indians,
many of whom were collected. The chiefs met us with civility, gravity,
and dignified reserve, but the missionaries with joyful countenances
and glad hearts.


Seldom was a visit of an Indian agent more desired, nor could one
be more necessary and proper. As they were collecting, we had no
meeting for eight and forty hours; in the mean time, through my able[Pg 223]
interpreter and McKay, I managed to secure confidence and prepare
the way to a good understanding; visited and prescribed for their
sick, made a short call at each of the chiefs’ lodges, spent a season in
school, hearing them read, spell, and sing; at the same time examined
their printing and writing, and can hardly avoid here saying I was
happily surprised and greatly interested at seeing such numbers so far
advanced and so eagerly pursuing after knowledge. The next day I
visited their little plantations, rude, to be sure, but successfully carried
on, so far as raising the necessaries of life were concerned; and it was
most gratifying to witness their fondness and care for their little herds,
pigs, poultry, etc.


The hour arriving for the public interview, I was ushered into the
presence of the assembled chiefs, to the number of twenty-two, with
some lesser dignitaries, and a large number of the common people.
The gravity, fixed attention, and decorum of these sons of the forest
was calculated to make for them a most favorable impression. I stated
explicitly, but briefly as possible, the design of our great chief in sending
me to this country, and the present object of my visit; assured
them of the kind intentions of our government, and of the sad consequences
that would ensue to any white man, from this time, who should
invade their rights, by stealing, murder, selling them damaged for good
articles, or alcohol, of which they are not fond. Without threatening,
I gave them to understand how highly Mr. and Mrs. Spalding were
prized by the numerous whites, and with what pleasure the great chief
gave them a paper to encourage them to come here to teach them what
they were now so diligently employed in obtaining, in order that they
and their children might become good, wise, and happy.


After me, Mr. McKinley, the gentleman in charge of the Hudson’s
Bay establishment at Wallawalla, spoke concisely, but very properly;
alluded to his residence of some years, and of the good understanding
that had generally existed between them, and of the happiness he felt
that one of his brothers had come to stand and judge impartially between
him, them, and whites and Indians in general; declared openly
and frankly, that Boston, King George, and French, were all of one
heart in this matter, as they, the Cayuses and Wallawallas should be;
flattered them delicately in view of their (to him) unexpected advancement
in the arts and sciences, and resumed his seat, having made a
most favorable impression.


Next followed Mr. Rogers, the interpreter, who, years before, had
been employed successfully as linguist in this section of the country
by the American Board of Commissioners, and was ever a general
favorite with this people. He adverted, sensibly and touchingly, to[Pg 224]
past difficulties between whites and Indians east of the mountains,
and the sad consequences to every tribe who had resisted honorable
measures proposed by the more numerous whites; and having, as
he hoped, secured their confidence in my favor, exhorted them feelingly
to adopt such measures as should be thought proper for their
benefit.


Next, and lastly, arose Mr. McKay, and remarked, with a manner
peculiar to himself, and evidently with some emotion: “I appear
among you as one arisen from the long sleep of death. You know of
the violent death of my father on board the ship Tonquin, who was
one of the partners of the Astor company; I was but a youth; since
which time, till the last five years, I have been a wanderer through
these wilds, none of you, or any Indians of this country, having traveled
so constantly or extensively as I have, and yet I saw you or your
fathers once or more annually. I have mingled with you in bloody
wars and profound peace; I have stood in your midst, surrounded
by plenty, and suffered with you in seasons of scarcity; we have had
our days of wild and joyous sports, and nights of watching and deep
concern, till I vanished from among men, left the Hudson’s Bay Company,
silently retired to my plantation, and there confined myself.
There I was still, silent, and as one dead; the voice of my brother, at
last, aroused me; I spoke and looked; I mounted my horse—am here.
I am glad it is so. I came at the call of the great chief, the chief of
all the whites in the country, as well as all the Indians—the son of
the mighty chief whose children are more numerous than the stars
in the heavens or the leaves in the forest. Will you hear, and be
advised? You will. Your wonderful improvement in the arts and
sciences prove you are no fools. Surely you will hear; but if disposed
to close your ears and stop them, they will be torn open wide, and
you will be made to hear.” This speech from Mr. McKay, whose
mother is part Indian, though the wife of Governor McLaughlin, had
a singularly happy influence, and opened the way for expressions
on the other side, from which there had not hitherto been a sentence
uttered.


First arose Five Crows, a wealthy chief of forty-five, neatly attired
in English costume. He stepped gravely but modestly forward to the
table, remarking: “It does not become me to speak first; I am but a
youth, as yet, when compared with many of these, my fathers; but my
feelings urge me to arise and say what I am about to utter in a very
few words. I am glad the chief has come; I have listened to what
has been said; have great hopes that brighter days are before us,
because I see all the whites united in this matter; we have much[Pg 225]
wanted something; hardly knew what; been groping and feeling for
it in confusion and darkness. Here it is. Do we see it, and shall we
accept it?”


Soon the Bloody Chief (not less than ninety years old) arose, and
said: “I speak to-day; perhaps to-morrow I die. I am the oldest
chief of the tribe; was the high chief when your great brothers,
Lewis and Clarke, visited this country; they visited me, and honored
me with their friendship and counsel. I showed them my numerous
wounds received in bloody battle with the Snakes; they told me it
was not good, it was better to be at peace; gave me a flag of truce;
I held it up high; we met and talked, but never fought again. Clarke
pointed to this day, to you, and this occasion; we have long waited in
expectation; sent three of our sons to Red River school to prepare
for it; two of them sleep with their fathers; the other is here, and
can be ears, mouth, and pen for us. I can say no more; I am quickly
tired; my voice and limbs tremble. I am glad I live to see you and
this day, but I shall soon be still and quiet in death.”


The speech was affecting. Six more spoke, and the meeting adjourned
three hours. Met at the hour appointed. All the chiefs and
principal men being present, stated delicately the embarrassed relation
existing between whites and Indians in this upper country, by reason
of a want of proper organization, or the chiefs’ authority not being
properly regarded; alluding to some cases of improprieties of young
men, not sanctioned by the chiefs and old men; and where the chiefs
had been in the wrong, hoped it had principally arisen from imperfectly
understanding each other’s language, or some other excusable cause,
especially so far as they were concerned. Advised them, as they were
now to some extent prepared, to choose one high chief of the tribe,
and acknowledge him as such by universal consent; all the other subordinate
chiefs being of equal power, and so many helps to carry out
all his lawful requirements, which they were at once to have in writing,
in their own language, to regulate their intercourse with whites,
and, in most cases, with themselves. I advised that each chief have
five men as a body-guard, to execute all their lawful commands. They
desired to hear the laws. I proposed them clause by clause, leaving
them as free to reject as to accept. They were greatly pleased with
all proposed, but wished a heavier penalty to some, and suggested the
dog law, which was annexed. We then left them to choose the high
chief, assuring them if they did this unanimously by the following
day at ten, we would all dine together with the chief, on a fat ox, at
three, himself and myself at the head of the table; this pleased them
well, and they set about it in good cheer and high hopes; but this was[Pg 226]
a new and delicate task, and they soon saw and felt it; however, all
agreed that I must make the selection, and so reported two hours
after we left the council. Assuring them this would not answer, that
they must select their own chief, they seemed somewhat puzzled,
and wished to know if it would be proper to counsel with Messrs.
McKay and Rogers. On telling them that it was not improper, they
left, a little relieved, and worked poor Rogers and McKay severely for
many hours; but altogether at length figured it out, and in great
good humor, so reported at ten, appointing Ellis high chief.[6] He is
the one alluded to by the Bloody Chief, a sensible man of thirty-two,
reading, speaking, and writing the English language tolerably well; has
a fine small plantation, a few sheep, some neat stock, and no less than
eleven hundred head of horses. Then came on the feasting; our ox was
fat, and cooked and served up in a manner reminding me of the days
of yore; we ate beef, corn, and peas, to our fill, and in good cheer took
the pipe, when Rev. Mr. Spalding, Messrs. McKinley, Rogers, and
McKay, wished a song from our boatmen; it was no sooner given than
returned by the Indians, and repeated again, again, and again, in high
cheer. I thought it a good time, and required all having any claim
to bring, or grievances to allege, against Mr. Spalding, to meet me
and the high chief at evening, in the council-room, and requested Mr.
Spalding to do the same on the part of the Indians. We met at six,
and ended at eleven, having accomplished, in the happiest manner,
much anxious business. Being too well fed to be irritable or disposed
to quarrel, both parties were frank and open, seeming anxious
only to learn our opinion upon plain undisguised matters of fact, many
of the difficulties having arisen from an honest difference of sentiment
respecting certain measures.


[6] He had been educated by the Hudson’s Bay Company at Red River, and was
strongly attached to it.


Ellis, the chief, having conducted himself throughout in a manner
creditable to his head and heart, was quite as correct in his conclusions
and firm in his decisions as could have been expected. The next day we
had our last meeting, and one full of interest, in which they proposed
to me many grave and proper questions; and, as it was manifestly
desired, I advised in many matters, especially in reference to begging,
or even receiving presents without, in some way, returning an equivalent;
pointed out in strong language who beggars are among the
whites, and how regarded; and commended them for not once troubling
me, during my stay, with this disgusting practice; and as a token
of respect, now, at the close of our long and happy meeting, they
would please accept, in the name of my great chief, a present of fifty
[Pg 227]garden hoes, not for those in authority, or such as had no need of them,
but for the chiefs and Mr. Spalding to distribute among their industrious
poor. I likewise, as they were very needy, proposed and ordered
them some medicines, to be distributed as they should from time to
time be required. This being done, I exhorted them to be in obedience
to their chiefs, highly approving the choice they had made, assuring
them, as he and the other chiefs were responsible to me for their good
behavior, I should feel it my duty to see them sustained in all lawful
measures to promote peace and order. I then turned, and with good
effect desired all the chiefs to look upon the congregation as their own
children, and then pointed to Mr. Spalding and lady, and told the
chiefs, and all present, to look upon them as their father and mother,
and treat them in all respects as such; and should they happen to
differ in sentiment respecting any matter during my absence, be cautious
not to differ in feeling, but leave it till I should again return,
when the chief and myself would rectify it. Thus closed this mutually
happy and interesting meeting, and mounting our horses for home,
Mr. Spalding and the chiefs accompanied us for some four or five miles,
when we took leave of them in the pleasantest manner, not a single
circumstance having occurred to mar our peace or shake each other’s
confidence.


I shall here introduce a note, previously prepared, giving some further
information respecting this tribe, and appending a copy of their
laws. The Nez Percés have one governor or principal chief, twelve
subordinate chiefs of equal power, being the heads of the different villages
or clans, with their five officers to execute all their lawful orders,
which law they have printed in their own language, and read understandingly.
The chiefs are held responsible to the whites for the good
behavior of the tribe. They are a happy and orderly people, forming
an honorable exception to the general Indian character, being more industrious,
cleanly, sensible, dignified, and virtuous.


This organization was effected last fall, and operates well, and with
them, it is to be hoped, will succeed. A few days since Governor McLaughlin
favored me with a note addressed to him from the Rev. H. H.
Spalding, missionary to this tribe, stating as follows:—


“The Indians in this vicinity are remarkably quiet this winter, and
are highly pleased with the laws recommended by Dr. White, which
were unanimously adopted by the chiefs and people in council assembled.
The visit of Dr. White and assistants to this upper country will
evidently prove an incalculable blessing to this people. The school
now numbers two hundred and twenty-four in daily attendance, embracing
most of the chiefs and principal men of the nation.”




[Pg 228]Laws of the Nez Percés.


Article 1. Whoever willfully takes life shall be hung.


Art. 2. Whoever burns a dwelling-house shall be hung.


Art. 3. Whoever burns an out-building shall be imprisoned six
months, receive fifty lashes, and pay all damages.


Art. 4. Whoever carelessly burns a house, or any property, shall pay
damages.


Art. 5. If any one enter a dwelling, without permission of the occupant,
the chiefs shall punish him as they think proper. Public rooms
are excepted.


Art. 6. If any one steal he shall pay back twofold; and if it be the
value of a beaver skin or less, he shall receive twenty-five lashes; and
if the value is over a beaver skin he shall pay back twofold, and receive
fifty lashes.


Art. 7. If any one take a horse and ride it, without permission, or
take any article and use it, without liberty, he shall pay for the use of
it, and receive from twenty to fifty lashes, as the chief shall direct.


Art. 8. If any one enter a field, and injure the crops, or throw down
the fence, so that cattle or horses go in and do damage, he shall pay all
damages, and receive twenty-five lashes for every offense.


Art. 9. Those only may keep dogs who travel or live among the
game; if a dog kill a lamb, calf, or any domestic animal, the owner
shall pay the damages and kill the dog.


Art. 10. If an Indian raise a gun or other weapon against a white
man, it shall be reported to the chiefs, and they shall punish it. If a
white do the same to an Indian, it shall be reported to Dr. White, and
he shall punish or redress it.


Art. 11. If an Indian break these laws, he shall be punished by his
chiefs; if a white man break them, he shall be reported to the agent,
and punished at his instance.


After a severe journey of some four days, through the inclemency of
the weather, we reached Wailatpu, Dr. Whitman’s station, where we
had many most unpleasant matters to settle with the Cayuse tribe,—such
as personal abuse to Dr. Whitman and lady, burning the mill, etc.
Several, but not all, of the chiefs were present. Learning what the
Nez Percés had done gave them great concern and anxiety. Tawatowe,
the high chief, and Feather Cap were there, with some few more dignitaries,
but manifestly uneasy, being shy and cautious. I thought best
under the circumstances to be quiet, distant, and reserved, and let them
commence the conversation with my worthy and faithful friends, Rogers[Pg 229]
and McKay, who conducted it with characteristic firmness and candor.
They had not proceeded far before Feather Cap, for the first time in his
life, so far as we know, commenced weeping, and wished to see me; said
his heart was sick, and he could not live long as he now felt. Tawatowe,
who was no way implicated personally in the difficulties, and a correct
man, continued for some time firm and steady to his purpose; said the
whites were much more to blame than the Indians; that three-fourths
of them, though they taught the purest doctrines, practiced the greatest
abominations,—alluding to the base conduct of many in the Rocky
Mountains, where they meet them on their buffalo hunts during the
summer season, and witness the greatest extravagances. They were
shown the inapplicability of such instances to the present cases of difficulty.
He, too, at last, was much subdued; wished to see me; was
admitted; made a sensible speech in his own favor; said he was constituted,
eight years before, high chief; entered upon its duties with
spirit and courage, determined to reduce his people to order. He
flogged the young men and reproved the middle-aged, till, having none
to sustain him, his popularity had so declined, that, except in seasons of
difficulty brought about by their improprieties, “I am left alone to
say my prayers and go to bed, to weep over the follies and wickedness
of my people.” Here his voice trembled, and he wept freely; acknowledged
it as his opinion that the mill was burnt purposely by
some disaffected persons toward Dr. Whitman. I spoke kindly and
somewhat encouragingly to these chiefs; assured them the guilty only
were to be regarded as such; and that candor was commendable, and
would be honored by all the good; assured them I credited all they
said, and deplored the state of their nation, which was in perfect anarchy
and confusion; told them I could say but little to them now, as
their chiefs were mostly abroad; but must say the shocking conduct
of one of the chiefs toward Mrs. Whitman greatly afflicted me; and
that, with the destruction of the mill, and their abominable conduct
toward Dr. Whitman, if not speedily settled, would lead to the worst
of consequences to their tribe. I made an engagement, to meet them
and all the tribe on the 10th of the ensuing April, to adjust differences
and come to a better understanding, they earnestly wishing to adopt
such laws as the Nez Percés had done. We should probably have
accomplished a satisfactory settlement, had not several of the influential
chiefs been too far away to get information of the meeting. We
reached Wascopum on December 25, the Indians being in great excitement,
having different views and impressions respecting the nature of
the approaching visit. We spent four days with them, holding meetings
daily, instructing them in the nature of government, civil relations,[Pg 230]
domestic duties, etc. Succeeded, in like happy manner, with them as
with the Nez Percés, they unanimously adopting the same code of laws.


Late information from one of their missionaries you will see in the
following note from Mr. H. B. Brewer:—


“The Indians of this place intend to carry out the regulations you
left them to the letter. They have been quite engaged in cutting logs
for houses, and live in expectation of better dwellings by and by.
For the least transgression of the laws, they are punished by their
chiefs immediately. The clean faces of some, and the tidy dresses of
others, show the good effects of your visit.”


And here allow me to say, except at Wascopum, the missionaries of
this upper country are too few in number at their respective stations,
and in too defenseless a state for their own safety, or the best
good of the Indians, the latter taking advantage of these circumstances,
to the no small annoyance, and, in some instances, greatly
endangering the personal safety, of the former. You will see its bearings
upon this infant colony, and doubtless give such information or
instructions to the American Board of Commissioners, or myself, as
will cause a correction of this evil. It has already occasioned some
difficulty and much cost. I have insisted upon an increase of numbers
at Mr. Spalding’s mission, which has accordingly been re-enforced by
Mr. Littlejohn and lady, rendering that station measurably secure;
but not so at Wailatpu, or some of the Catholic missions, where some of
them lost a considerable amount in herds during last winter, and, I am
told, were obliged to abandon their posts, their lives being endangered.
This was in the interior, near the Blackfoot country. You will
observe, from the reports of the different missions, which, so far as I
am otherwise informed, are correct, that they are doing some positive
good in the country, not only by diffusing the light of science abroad
among us, but also by giving employment to many, and, by their
drafts upon the different Boards and others, creating a circulating
medium in this country; but, though they make comparatively slow
progress in the way of reform among the aborigines of this country,
their pious and correct example has a most restraining influence upon
both whites and Indians, and in this way they prevent much evil.


They have in successful operation six schools. Rev. Mr. and Mrs.
Spalding (whose zeal and untiring industry for the benefit of the
people of their charge entitle them to our best considerations) have a
school of some two hundred and twenty-four, in constant attendance,
most successfully carried forward, which promises to be of great usefulness
to both sexes and all ages. Rev. Messrs. Walker and Eells I
have not been at leisure to visit, but learn they have two small schools[Pg 231]
in operation; the one at Wailatpu, Dr. Whitman’s station, is now
recommenced with promise of usefulness.


The Rev. Mr. Blanchet and associates, though zealous Catholics, are
peaceable, industrious, indefatigable, and successful in promoting religious
knowledge among the Canadian population and aborigines of this
country. Their enterprise in the erection of mills and other public
works is very commendable, and the general industry, good order, and
correct habits of that portion of the population under their charge is
sufficient proof that their influence over their people has been exerted
for good.[7] The Rev. Mr. Lee and associates, from their well-conducted
operations at the Dalles; upon the Columbia, and a school of some thirty
scholars successfully carried forward upon the Wallamet, are doing but
little for the Indians; nor could great efforts produce much good among
the scattered remnants of the broken tribes of this lower district, who
are fast disappearing before the ravages of the most loathsome diseases.
Their principal hopes of success in this country are among the whites,
where they are endeavoring to lay deep and broad the foundations of
science. The literary institution referred to by Mr. Lee is situated upon
a beautiful rising ground, a healthy and eligible location. Could a donation
of five thousand dollars be bestowed upon the institution, it would
greatly encourage its friends. The donations made by individuals of
this country have been most liberal, several giving one-third of all they
possessed. There is a small school established at Tualatin Plains by
Rev. Mr. Clark and lady. There is also a school at the Catholic Mission,
upon the Wallamet, and also one upon their station at Cowlitz.
For further information I will refer you to the reports made, at my
request, by the several missions, and accompanying these dispatches.


[7] This statement about Rev. Mr. Blanchet and associates, “their enterprise in erecting
mills end other public Works,” shows how easy it was for the agent to belittle
his own countrymen’s labors, and attribute to others what they never attempted to do,
and in the next paragraph say they “are doing but little for the Indians;” while the
truth is, and was at the time, that Mr. Lee and his mission were the only persons in the
Wallamet Valley doing any thing to improve the condition of the Indians, of which
their Indian school, now Wallamet University, is a permanent monument, which Dr.
White ignores in this report.




I must close by praying that measures may be speedily entered into
to take possession of this country, if such steps have not already been
taken. I left home before the close of the session of Congress, and by
reason do not know what disposition was made of Hon. Mr. Linn’s bill.
As a reason for this praying, I would here say, the time was when the
gentlemen of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the missions wielded the
[Pg 232]entire influence over this small population; but as they have been re-enforced
latterly from whale ships, the Rocky Mountains, and the
Southwestern States, these hitherto salutary restraints and influences
are giving way, and being measurably lost.


At present I have considerable influence, but can not long expect to
retain it, especially in the faithful discharge of my duty. As a reason for
coming to such a conclusion, I had but just arrived from the interior,
when I received an urgent call to visit the mouth of the Columbia. I left
at once, in company with Nathaniel Crocker, Esq., Mr. Rogers (my interpreter),
his lady, and her young sister (the females going only to the falls),
with a crew of Indians, on our ill-fated expedition. We reached the falls
at sunset, February 1, and, by reason of the water being higher than usual,
in passing around a jutting or projecting rock, the canoe came up suddenly
against a log constituting the landing, at which instant I stepped
off, and in a moment the canoe was swept away, with all its precious
cargo, over the falls of thirty-eight feet, three rods below. The shock
was dreadful to this infant colony, and the loss was dreadful and irreparable
to me, Mr. Rogers being more important to me than any one in
the country; nor was there a more respectable or useful man in the
colony. Nathaniel Crocker came in with me last fall from Tompkins
County; he was much pleased with the country and its prospects, and
the citizens were rejoiced at the arrival of such a man in this country;
he was every way capacitated for usefulness. None of the bodies of
the four whites or two Indians have been as yet found.




On arriving at the mouth of the Columbia, I found a sailor by the
name of George Geere, who had most evidently and maliciously labored
to instigate the Indians to take the life of one of the mission gentlemen,
by the offer of five blankets. Complaint being made, and having no
better means, I prevailed upon Governor McLaughlin to allow him to
accompany their express across the mountains to the States. I would
here say, as the scamp was nearly a fool as well as villain, I allowed him
to go without sending evidence against him, on condition of his going
voluntarily, and never returning.


I here likewise found a rash, venturesome character, about starting
off on a trapping and trading excursion among a somewhat numerous
band of Indians, and nowise well disposed toward the whites. As he
saw and felt no danger, arguments were of no avail, and threats only
prevented.


Sir, shall men be allowed to go wherever they may please, however
remote from the colony, and settle, under circumstances that endanger
not only their own personal safety, but the peace and safety of the[Pg 233]
whole white population? Please give me specific instructions respecting
this matter.




I have eight prisoners on hand at present, for various crimes, principally
stealing horses, grain, etc.; and crimes are multiplying with numbers
among the whites, and with scarcity of game among the Indians.




No intelligence from abroad has reached us this winter. Mount St.
Helen, one of these snow-capped volcanic mountains, some 16,000 feet
above the level of the sea, and eighty miles northwest of Vancouver,
broke out upon the 20th of November last, presenting a scene the most
awful and sublime imaginable, scattering smoke and ashes several
hundred miles distance.


A petition started from this country to-day, making bitter complaints
against the Hudson’s Bay Company and Governor McLaughlin.
On reference to it (as a copy was denied), I shall only say, had any gentleman
disconnected with the Hudson’s Bay Company been at half the
pains and expense to establish a claim on the Wallamet Falls, very few
would have raised an opposition. His half-bushel measure I know to
be exact, according to the English imperial standard. The gentlemen
of this company have been fathers and fosterers of the colony, ever
encouraging peace, industry, and good order, and have sustained a
character for hospitality and integrity too well established to be easily
shaken.


I am, sir, sincerely and most respectfully, your humble and obedient
servant,



Elijah White,

Sub-Agent Indian Affairs, W. R. M.



T. Hartley Crawford, Esq.,

Commissioner Indian Affairs.




[Pg 234]


CHAPTER XXXI.


Letter of H. H. Spalding to Dr. White.—Account of his mission among the Nez
Percés.—Schools.—Cultivation.—Industrial arts.—Moral character.—Arable land.—Letter
of Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of War.


My Dear Brother,—The kind letter which our mission had the
honor of receiving from yourself, making inquiries relative to its numbers,
the character of the Indian tribes among whom its several stations
are located, the country, etc., is now before me.


The questions referring to Indian character are very important, and
to answer them demands a more extended knowledge of character and
habits, from personal daily observation, than the short residence of six
years can afford, and more time and attention than I can possibly command,
amidst the numerous cares and labors of the station. I less regret
this, as the latter will receive the attention of my better-informed and
worthy associates of the other stations.


Concerning many of the questions, I can only give my own half-formed
opinions, from limited observations which have not extended
far beyond the people of my immediate charge.


Our mission is under the patronage of the American Board, and was
commenced in the fall of 1836, by Marcus Whitman, M. D., and myself,
with our wives and Mr. Gray. Dr. Whitman was located at Wailatpu,
among the Cayuse Indians, twenty-five miles east of Fort Wallawalla, a
trading-post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, which stands nine miles
below the junction of Lewis and Clarke rivers, three hundred from the
Pacific, and about two hundred from Fort Vancouver. I was located at
this place, on the Clearwater, or Koos-koos-ky River, twelve miles from
its junction with the Lewis River, one hundred and twenty miles east
of Wailatpu. Mr. Gray left the same winter, and returned to the
States. In the fall of 1838, Mr. Gray returned to this country, accompanied
by Mrs. Gray, Messrs. Walker, Eells, and Smith, and their
wives, and Mr. Rogers. The next season, two new stations were commenced,
one by Messrs. Walker and Eells at Cimakain, near Spokan River,
among the Spokan Indians, one hundred and thirty-five miles northwest
of this station, and sixty-five miles south of Fort Colville, on the
Columbia River, three hundred miles above Fort Wallawalla; the second
by Mr. Smith, among the Nez Percés, sixty miles above this station.[Pg 235]
There are now connected with this mission the Rev. Messrs. Walker
and Eells, Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Eells; at Cimakain, myself, and Mrs.
Spalding at this station. Dr. Whitman is now on a visit to the States,
and Mrs. Whitman on a visit to the Dalles, a station of our Methodist
brethren. But two natives have as yet been admitted into the church.
Some ten or twelve others give pleasing evidence of having been born
again.


Concerning the schools and congregations on the Sabbath, I will
speak only of this station. The congregation on the Sabbath varies at
different seasons of the year, and must continue to do so until the people
find a substitute in the fruits of the earth and herds for their roots,
game, and fish, which necessarily require much wandering. I am
happy to say that this people are very generally turning their attention,
with much apparent eagerness, to cultivating the soil, and raising
hogs, cattle, and sheep, and find a much more abundant and agreeable
source of subsistence in the hoe than in their bows and sticks for
digging roots.


For a few weeks in the fall, after the people return from their buffalo
hunt, and then again, in the spring, the congregation numbers from one
to two thousand. Through the winter it numbers from two to eight
hundred. From July to the 1st of October, it varies from two to five
hundred. The congregation, as also the school, increases every winter,
as the quantity of provision raised in this vicinity is increased.


Preparatory to schools and a permanent congregation, my earliest
attention, on arriving in this country, was turned toward schools, as
promising the most permanent good to the nation, in connection with
the written word of God and the preached gospel. But to speak of
schools then was like speaking of the church bell, when as yet the
helve is not put in the first ax by which the timber is to be felled, or
the first stone laid in the dam which is to collect the water from whence
the lumber in the edifice in which the bell is to give forth its sounds.
Suffice it to say, through the blessing of God, we have had an increasingly
large school, for two winters past, with comparatively favorable
means of instruction.


But the steps by which we have been brought to the present elevation,
if I may so speak, though we are yet exceedingly low, begin far,
far back among the days of nothing, and little to do with.


Besides eating my own bread by the sweat of my brow, there were
the wandering children of a necessarily wandering people to collect
and bring permanently within the reach of the school. Over this
department of labor hung the darkest cloud, as the Indian is noted
for despising manual labor; but I would acknowledge, with humble[Pg 236]
gratitude, the interposition of that hand which holds the hearts of all
men. The hoe soon brought hope, light, and satisfaction, the fruits of
which are yearly becoming much more than a substitute for their former
precarious game and roots, and are much preferred by the people,
who are coming in from the mountains and plains, and calling for hoes,
plows, and seeds, much faster than they can be furnished, and collecting
around the station in increasing numbers, to cultivate their little
farms; so furnishing a permanent school and congregation on the Sabbath,
from four to eight months, and, as the farms are enlarged,
giving food and employment for the year. I trust the school and congregation
will be permanent through the year. It was no small tax
on my time to give the first lessons on agriculture. That the men of
the nation (the first chiefs not excepted) rose up to labor when a few
hoes and seeds were offered them, I can attribute to nothing but the
unseen hand of the God of missions. That their habits are really
changed is acknowledged by themselves. The men say, whereas they
once did not labor with their hands, now they do; and often tell me in
jesting that I have converted them into a nation of women. They are
a very industrious people, and, from very small beginnings, they now
cultivate their lands with much skill, and to good advantage. Doubtless
many more would cultivate, but for the want of means. Your
kind donation of fifty hoes, in behalf of the government, will be most
timely; and should you be able to send up the plows you kindly proposed,
they will, without doubt, be purchased immediately, and put to
the best use.


But to return to the school. It now numbers two hundred and
twenty-five in daily attendance, half of which are adults. Nearly all
the principal men and chiefs in this vicinity, with one chief from a
neighboring tribe, are members of the school. A new impulse was
given to the school by the warm interest yourself and Mr. McKay took
in it while you were here. They are as industrious in school as they
are on their farms. Their improvement is astonishing, considering their
crowded condition, and only Mrs. Spalding, with her delicate constitution
and her family cares, for their teacher.


About one hundred are printing their own books with a pen. This
keeps up a deep interest, as they daily have new lessons to print, and
what they print must be committed to memory as soon as possible.


A good number are now so far advanced in reading and printing as
to render much assistance in teaching. Their books are taken home at
nights, and every lodge becomes a schoolroom.


Their lessons are scripture lessons; no others (except the laws) seem
to interest them. I send you a specimen of the books they print in[Pg 237]
school. It was printed by ten select adults, yet it is a fair specimen of
a great number in the school.


The laws which you so happily prepared, and which were unanimously
adopted by the people, I have printed in the form of a small
school-book. A great number of the school now read them fluently.
I send you a few copies of the laws, with no apologies for the imperfect
manner in which they are executed. Without doubt, a school of nearly
the same number could be collected at Kimiah, the station above this,
vacated by Mr. Smith, the present residence of Ellis, the principal chief.


Number who cultivate.—Last season about one hundred and forty
cultivated from one-fourth of an acre to four or five acres each. About
half this number cultivate in the valley. One chief raised one hundred
and seventy-six bushels of peas last season, one hundred of corn, and
four hundred of potatoes. Another, one hundred and fifty of peas, one
hundred and sixty of corn, a large quantity of potatoes, vegetables, etc.
Ellis, I believe, raised more than either of the above-mentioned. Some
forty other individuals raised from twenty to one hundred bushels of
grain. Eight individuals are now furnished with plows. Thirty-two
head of cattle are possessed by thirteen individuals; ten sheep by four;
some forty hogs.


Arts and sciences.—Mrs. Spalding has instructed ten females in knitting,
a majority of the female department in the schools in sewing, six
in carding and spinning, and three in weaving. Should our worthy
brother and sister, Mr. and Mrs. Littlejohn, join us soon, as is now expected,
I trust, by the blessing of God, we shall see greater things than
we have yet seen. From what I have seen in the field, the school, the
spinning and weaving room, in the prayer-room, and Sabbath congregation,
I am fully of the opinion that this people are susceptible of high
moral and civil improvement.


Moral character of the people.—On this point there is a great diversity
of opinion. One writer styles them more a nation of saints than
of savages; and if their refusing to move camp for game, at his suggestion,
on a certain day, reminded him that the Sabbath extended as
far west as the Rocky Mountains, he might well consider them such.
Another styles them supremely selfish, which is nearer the truth; for,
without doubt, they are the descendants of Adam. What I have above
stated is evidently a part of the bright side of their character. But
there is also a dark side, in which I have sometimes taken a part. I
must, however, confess that when I attempt to name it, and hold it up
as a marked exception to a nation in similar circumstances, without the
restraint of wholesome laws, and strangers to the heaven-born fruits of
enlightened and well-regulated society, I am not able to do it. Faults[Pg 238]
they have, and very great ones, yet few of them seemed disposed
to break the Sabbath by traveling and other secular business. A
very few indulge in something like profane swearing. Very few are
superstitiously attached to their medicine men, who are, without doubt,
sorcerers, and are supposed to be leagued with a supernatural being
(Waikin), who shows himself sometimes in the gray bear, the wolf,
the swan, goose, wind, clouds, etc.


Lying is very common; thieving comparatively rare; polygamy formerly
common, but now rare; much gambling among the young men;
quarreling and fighting quite rare; habit of taking back property after
it is sold is a practice quite common, and very evil in its tendency.
All these evils, I conceive, can be traced to the want of wholesome
laws and well-regulated society. There are two traits in the character
of this people I wish to notice. One I think I can account for; the
other I can not. It is often said the Indian is a noble-minded being,
never forgetting a kindness. So far as my experience has gone with
this people, the above is most emphatically true, but in quite a different
sense from the idea there conveyed. It is true they never forget a
kindness, but after make it an occasion to ask another; and if refused,
return insults according to the favors received. My experience has
taught me that, if I would keep the friendship of an Indian, and do him
good, I must show him no more favor in the way of property than
what he returns some kind of an equivalent for; most of our trials have
arisen from this source. I am, however, happy to feel that there is a
manifest improvement as the people become more instructed, and we
become more acquainted with their habits. This offensive trait in the
Indian character I believe, in part, should be charged to the white man.
It has been the universal practice of all white men to give tobacco, to
name no other article, to Indians when they ask for it. Hence two very
natural ideas: one is, that the white man is in debt to them; the other is,
that in proportion as a white man is a good man he will discharge this
debt by giving bountifully of his provisions and goods. This trait in
Indian character is capable of being turned to the disadvantage of
traders, travelers, and missionaries, by prejudiced white men.


The last trait, which I can not account for, is an apparent disregard
for the rights of white men. Although their eagerness to receive instruction
in school on the Sabbath and on the farm is without a parallel
in my knowledge, still, should a reckless fellow from their own number,
or even a stranger, make an attack on my life or property, I have no
evidence to suppose but a vast majority of them would look on
with indifference and see our dwelling burnt to the ground and our
heads severed from our bodies. I can not reconcile this seeming want[Pg 239]
of gratitude with their many encouraging characteristics. But to conclude
this subject, should our unprofitable lives, through a kind Providence,
be spared a few years, by the blessing of the God of missions,
we expect to see this people Christianized to a great extent, civilized,
and happy, with much of science and the word of God, and many of
the comforts of life; but not without many days of hard labor, and
sore trials of disappointed hopes, and nameless perplexities.


The number of this people is variously estimated from two thousand
to four thousand. I can not give a correct estimate.


At this station there is a dwelling-house, a schoolhouse, storehouse,
flour and saw mills (all of a rough kind), fifteen acres of land under
improvement, twenty-four head of cattle, thirty-six horses, sixty-seven
sheep. Rev. Messrs. Walker and Eells, I hope, will report of Wailatpu;
but should they fail, I will say, as near as I can recollect, about fifty
acres of land are cultivated by some seventy individuals; a much greater
number of cattle and hogs than among this people. Belonging to the
station are thirty-four head of cattle, eleven horses, some forty hogs;
one dwelling-house of adobes (well finished), a blacksmith’s shop, flour-mill
(lately destroyed by fire), and some forty acres of land cultivated.


Arable land.—The arable land in this upper country is confined almost
entirely to the small streams, although further observation may
prove that many of the extensive rolling prairies are capable of producing
wheat. They can become inhabited only by cultivating timber;
but the rich growth of buffalo grass upon them will ever furnish an inexhaustible
supply for innumerable herds of cattle and sheep. I know
of no country in the world so well adapted to the herding system.
Cattle, sheep, and horses are invariably healthy, and produce rapidly;
sheep usually twice a year. The herding system adopted, the country
at first put under regulations adapted to the scarcity of habitable places
(say that no settlers shall be allowed to take up over twenty acres of
land on the streams), and the country without doubt will sustain a
great population. I am happy to feel assured that the United States
government have no other thoughts than to regard the rights and
wants of the Indian tribes in this country.


And while the agency of Indian affairs in this country remains in the
hands of the present agent, I have the fullest confidence to believe that
the reasonable expectations in reference to the intercourse between
whites and Indians will be fully realized by every philanthropist and every
Christian. But as the Indian population is sparse, after they are
abundantly supplied, there will be remaining country sufficient for an
extensive white population.


The thought of removing these tribes, that the country may come[Pg 240]
wholly in possession of the whites, can never for a moment enter the
mind of a friend of the red man, for two reasons, to name no other:
First, there are but two countries to which they can be removed, the
grave and the Blackfoot, between which there is no choice; second, the
countless millions of salmon which swarm the Columbia and its tributaries,
and furnish a very great proportion of the sustenance of the
tribes who dwell upon these numerous waters, and a substitute for
which can nowhere be found east or west of the Rocky Mountains, but
in herds or cultivating their own land.——


Your humble servant,

H. H. Spalding.


Dr. White,

Agent for Indian Affairs west of the Rocky Mountains.






 




}





Department of War,

Office of Indian Affairs, Nov. 25, 1844.



Communications have been received from Dr. Elijah White, sub-agent
for the Indians in Oregon Territory, dated, severally, November
15, 1843, and March 18, 1844.——They contain much of interest
in considerable detail. The establishment of white settlements
from the United States, in that remote region, seems to be attended
with the circumstances that have always arisen out of the conversion of
an American wilderness into a cultivated and improved region, modified
by the great advance of the present time in morals, and benevolent
and religious institutions. It is very remarkable that there should be so
soon several well-supported, well-attended, and well-conducted schools
in Oregon. The Nez Percé tribe of Indians have adopted a few simple
and plain laws of their code, which will teach them self-restraint, and is
the beginning of government on their part.


It is painful, however, to know that a distillery for the manufacture
of whisky was erected and in operation west of the Rocky Mountains,
which, however, the sub-agent, sustained by the resident whites, broke
up and destroyed. There was, in February last, an affray between a
very boisterous and desperate Indian and his party and a portion of
the settlers, which ended in the death of several of the combatants.
This unfortunate affair was adjusted, as it is hoped, satisfactorily and
permanently, by the sub-agent, though he seems to apprehend an early
outbreak. I trust he is mistaken.



Respectfully submitted,

T. Hartley Crawford.




Hon. William Wilkins,

Secretary of War.




[Pg 241]


CHAPTER XXXII.


Dr. E. White’s letter to the Secretary of War.—Excitement among the Indians.—Visit
to Nez Percés, Cayuses, and Wallawallas.—Destitution and degradation of the
Coast Indians.—Dr. White eulogizes Governor McLaughlin and the Hudson’s Bay
Company.—Schools and missions.—Mr. Jesse Applegate.—Dr. White’s second
letter.—Letters of Peter H. Hatch and W. H. Wilson.—Seizure of a distillery.—Search
for liquor.—Letter of James D. Saules.—Fight with Indians.—Death of
Cockstock.—Description and character of him.—The Molallos and Klamaths.—Agreement
with the Dalles Indians.—Presents to Cockstock’s widow.—Dr. White’s
third letter.—Letter of Rev. G. Hines to Dr. White.—Letter of W. Medill.




 




}





Wallamet Valley, Oregon,

November 15, 1843.



Honored Sir,—Since my arrival, I have had the honor of addressing
you some three or four communications, the last of which left early
in April, conveyed by the Hudson’s Bay Company’s express over the
Rocky Mountains, via Canada, which I hope and judge was duly
received.


Immediately after this, I received several communications from missionaries
of the interior, some from the Methodists and others from
those sent out by the American Board, representing the Indians of the
interior as in a state of great excitement, and under much apprehension
from the circumstance that such numbers of whites were coming in, as
they were informed, to take possession of their lands and country.
The excitement soon became general, both among whites and Indians,
in this lower as well upper district; and such were the constantly floating
groundless reports, that much uneasiness was felt, and some of our citizens
were under such a state of apprehension as to abandon their
houses, and place themselves more immediately within the precincts of
the colony. As in all such cases, a variety of opinions was entertained
and expressed,—some pleading for me, at the expense of the general
government, to throw up a strong fortification in the center of the colony,
and furnish the settlers with guns and ammunition, so that we
might be prepared for extremities. Others thought it more advisable
for me to go at once with an armed force of considerable strength to
the heart and center of the conspiracy, as it was represented, and if
words would not answer, make powder and balls do it. A third party
entertained other views, and few were really agreed on any one
measure.


[Pg 242]As may be imagined, I felt the awkwardness of my position; but,
without stopping to consult an agitated populace, selected a sensible
clergyman and a single attendant, with my interpreter, and so managed
as to throw myself immediately into their midst unobserved.
The measure had the desired effect,—though, as in my report I will
more fully inform you, it had like to have cost me my life.


The Indians flocked around me, and inquired after my party, and
could not be persuaded for some time, but that I had a large party
concealed somewhere near, and only waited to get them convened, to
open a fire upon and cut them all off at a blow. On convincing them
of my defenseless condition and pacific intentions, they were quite
astounded and much affected, assuring me they had been under strong
apprehensions, having learned I was soon to visit them with a large
armed party, with hostile intentions, and I actually found them suffering
more from fears of war from the whites, than the whites from the
Indians; each party resolving, however, to remain at home, and there
fight to the last, though, fortunately, some three or four hundred
miles apart.[8]


[8] Who were the instigators of these alarms among the Indians?


The day following, we left these Wallawallas and Cayuses, to pay a
visit to the Nez Percés, promising to call on our return, and enter into a
treaty of amity, if we could agree on the terms, and wished them to
give general notice to all concerned of both tribes.


In two days we were at Mr. Spalding’s station. The Nez Percés
came together in greater numbers than on any former occasion for
years, and all the circumstances combining to favor it, received us
most cordially. Their improvement during the winter in reading,
writing, etc., was considerable, and the enlargement of their plantations,
with the increased variety and quantities of the various kinds of
grains and products now vigorously shooting forth, connected with the
better state of cultivation and their universally good fences, were certainly
most encouraging.


Spending some three days with this interesting tribe, and their
missionaries, in the pleasantest manner, they accepted my invitation to
visit with me the Cayuses and Wallawallas, and assist by their influence
to bring them into the same regulation they had previously
adopted, and with which all were so well pleased.


Mr. Spalding, and Ellis, the high chief, with every other chief and
brave of importance, and some four or five hundred of the men and
their women, accompanied us to Wailatpu, Doctor Whitman’s station,
a distance of a hundred and twenty miles, where we met the Cayuses
and Wallawallas in mass, and spent some five or six days in getting
[Pg 243]matters adjusted and principles settled, so as to receive the Cayuses
into the civil compact; which being done, and the high chief elected,
much to the satisfaction of both whites and Indians, I ordered two fat
oxen to be killed, and wheat, salt, etc., distributed accordingly.——


This was the first feast at which the Indian women of this country
were ever permitted to be present, but probably will not be the last;
for, after some explanation of my reasons, the chiefs were highly
pleased with it; and I believe more was done at that feast to elevate
and bring forward their poor oppressed women than could have been
done in years by private instruction.


The feast broke up in the happiest manner, after Five Crows, the
Cayuse chief, Ellis, and the old war chief of whom I made particular
mention in my last report as being so well acquainted with Clarke and
a few others, had made their speeches, and we had smoked the pipe of
peace, which was done by all in great good humor.


From this we proceeded to the Dalles on the Columbia River, where
I spent two months in instructing the Indians of different tribes, who
either came in mass, or sent embassadors to treat with me, or, as they
denominate it, take my laws, which are thus far found to operate
well, giving them greater security among themselves, and helping
much to regulate their intercourse with the whites. Being exceedingly
anxious to bring about an improvement and reformation among this
people, I begged money and procured articles of clothing to the
amount of a few hundred dollars, not to be given, but to be sold out to
the industrious women, for mats, baskets, and their various articles of
manufacture, in order to get them clothed comfortably to appear at
church; enlisted the cheerful co-operation of the mission ladies in
instructing them how to sew and make up their dresses; and had the
happiness to see some twenty of these neatly clad at divine service, and
a somewhat large number out in the happiest mood to a feast I ordered
them, at which the mission ladies and gentlemen were present.


During these two months I labored hard, visiting many of their sick
daily; and by the most prompt and kind attention, and sympathizing
with them in their affliction, encouraging the industrious and virtuous,
and frowning in language and looks upon the vicious, I am satisfied
good was done. They gave evidence of attachment; and my influence
was manifestly increased, as well as the laws more thoroughly understood,
by reason of my remaining so long among them.


During my up-country excursion, the whites of the colony convened,
and formed a code of laws to regulate intercourse between themselves
during the absence of law from our mother country, adopting in
almost all respects the Iowa code. In this I was consulted, and[Pg 244]
encouraged the measure, as it was so manifestly necessary for the collection
of debts, securing rights in claims, and the regulation of general
intercourse among the whites.


Thus far, these laws have been of some force and importance, answering
well in cases of trespass and the collection of debts; but it is doubtful
how they would succeed in criminal affairs, especially if there should
happen to be a division of sentiment in the public mind.


The Indians of this lower country, as was to be expected, give considerable
trouble, and are most vexatious subjects to deal with. In
mind, the weakest and most depraved of their race, and physically,
thoroughly contaminated with the scrofula and a still more loathsome
disease entailed by the whites; robbed of their game and former means
of covering; lost to the use of the bow and arrow; laughed at, scoffed,
and contemned by the whites, and a hiss and by-word to the surrounding
tribes, they are too dejected and depressed to feel the least
pleasure in their former amusements, and wander about seeking generally
a scanty pittance by begging and pilfering, but the more ambitious
and desperate among them stealing, and in some instances plundering
on a large scale. Were it not that greater forbearance is exercised
toward them than whites generally exercise, bloodshed, anarchy, and
confusion would reign predominant among us. But thus far, it is but
just to say, the Indians have been, in almost every instance, the aggressors;
and though none of us now apprehend an Indian war or invasion,
it appears to me morally impossible that general quiet can long be
secure, unless government takes almost immediate measures to relieve
the anxieties and better the condition of these poor savages and other
Indians of this country. I am doing what I can, and by reason of my
profession, with lending them all the assistance possible in sickness,
and sympathizing with them in their numerous afflictions, and occasionally
feeding, feasting, and giving them little tokens of kind regard, have
as yet considerable influence over them, but have to punish some, and
occasion the chiefs to punish more, which creates me enemies, and must
eventuate in lessening my influence among them, unless the means are
put in my hands to sustain and encourage the chiefs and well-disposed
among them. Good words, kind looks, and medicine have some power;
but, honored and very dear sir, you and I know they do not tell with
Indians like blankets and present articles, to meet their tastes, wants, and
necessities. Sir, I know how deeply anxious you are to benefit and save
what can be of the withering Indian tribes, in which God knows how
fully and heartily I am with you, and earnestly pray you, and through
you our general government, to take immediate measures to satisfy the
minds, and, so far as possible, render to these Indians an equivalent for[Pg 245]
their once numerous herds of deer, elk, buffalo, beaver, and otter, nearly
as tame as our domestic animals, previously to the whites and their fire-arms
coming among them, and of which they are now stripped, and for
which they suffer. But, if nothing can be done for them upon this score,
pray save them from being forcibly ejected from the lands and graves
of their fathers, of which they begin to entertain serious fears. Many
are becoming considerably enlightened on the subject of the white man’s
policy, and begin to quake in view of their future doom; and come to
me from time to time, anxiously inquiring what they are to receive for
such a one coming and cutting off all their most valuable timber, and
floating it to the falls of the Wallamet, and getting large sums for it;
some praying the removal of licentious whites from among them;
others requiring pay for their old homestead, or a removal of the intruders.
So, sir, you see already I have my hands, head, and heart full;
and if as yet I have succeeded in giving satisfaction,—as many hundreds
that neither know nor care for me, nor regard in the least the rights of
the Indians, are now flocking in,—something more must be done, and
that speedily, or a storm ensues.


I remove all licentious offenders from among them, especially if
located at a distance from the colony, and encourage the community to
keep within reasonable bounds, and settle as compactly as the general
interest and duty to themselves will admit.


The large immigrating party have now arrived, most of them with
their herds, having left the wagons at Wallawalla and the Dalles, which
they intend to bring by land or water to the Wallamet in the spring.
Whether they succeed in getting them through by land the last sixty
miles is doubtful, the road not having been as yet well explored. They
are greatly pleased with the country and its prospects. Mr. Applegate,
who has been so much in government employ, and surveyed such portions
of Missouri, says of this valley, it is a country of the greatest
beauty and the finest soil he has seen.


The settlers are actively and vigorously employed, and the colony in
a most prosperous state, crops of every kind having been unusually good
this season. The little unhappy difference between the American settlers
and the Hudson’s Bay Company, arising from the last spring’s
petition to our government, has been healed, and we have general
quiet,—both parties conducting themselves very properly toward each
other at present. And here allow me to say, the seasonable services in
which hundreds of dollars were gratuitously expended in assisting such
numbers of our poor emigrant citizens down the Columbia to the Wallamet,
entitle Governor McLaughlin, saying nothing of his previous
fatherly and fostering care of this colony, to the honorable considera[Pg 246]tion
of the members of our government. And I hope, as he is desirous
to settle with his family in this country, and has made a claim at the
falls of the Wallamet, his claim will be honored in such a manner as to
make him conscious that we, as a nation, are not insensible to his
numerous acts of benevolence and hospitality toward our countrymen.
Sir, in the midst of slander, envy, jealousy, and, in too many instances,
of the blackest ingratitude, his unceasing, never-tiring hospitality
affects me, and makes him appear in a widely different light than too
many would have him and his worthy associates appear before the
world.


The last year’s report, in which was incorporated Mr. Linn’s Oregon
speech and Captain Spalding’s statements of hundreds of unoffending
Indians being shot down annually by men under his control, afflicts the
gentlemen of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and is utterly without foundation,—no
company or gentlemen ever having conducted themselves
more judiciously among Indians than they uniformly have done in this
country; and I am of the governor’s opinion, who declares, openly, there
have not been ten Indians killed by whites in this whole region west
of Fort Hall, for the last twenty years, nor do I know of that number,
and two of those were killed by our citizens. What were destroyed by
the Hudson’s Bay Company suffered for willful murder, none pretending
a doubt of the propriety of the course adopted.[9]


[9] This statement of Dr. White’s shows his disposition to misrepresent his own countrymen,
to favor the Hudson’s Bay Company and the foreign subjects who were disposed
to flatter his vanity.


There are now four schools kept in the colony, of which I shall speak
more fully in my annual report: one at the Tualatin Plains, under the
direction and auspices of the Rev. Mr. Clark, a self-supporting missionary;
a second (French and English) school is in successful operation
by Mr. Blanchet, Roman Catholic missionary to this colony; a third is
well sustained by the citizens, and kept at the falls of the Wallamet; a
fourth (boarding and manual labor) sustained by the Methodist Board
of Missions, for the benefit of Indian youth, of which Mr. Lee will speak
particularly. The location is healthy, eligible, and beautiful, and the
noble edifice does honor to the benevolent cause and agents that founded
it. And while here, allow me to say, Mr. Jesse Applegate, from Missouri,
is now surveying the mission claim, a plat of which will be presented
to the consideration of the members of our government, for
acceptance or otherwise, of which I have but little to say, as I entertain
no doubt but Mr. Lee’s representation will be most faithful. Should
the ground of his claim be predicated upon the much effected for the
benefit of the Indians, I am not with him; for, with all that has been
[Pg 247]expended, without doubting the correctness of the intention, it is most
manifest to every observer that the Indians of this lower country, as a
whole, have been very little benefited. They were too far gone with
scrofula and venereal. But should he insist, as a reason of his claim,
the benefit arising to the colony and country, I am with him heartily;
and notwithstanding the claim is a valuable one, this country has been
increased more by the mission operations than twice its amount in
finance; besides, much has been done in advancing civilization, temperance,
literature, and good morals, saying nothing of the evils that
must have arisen in this lawless country in the absence of all moral
restraint. Mr. Lee was among the first pioneers to this distant land,
has struggled in its cares, toils, and trials, has risen with its rise; and
it is but just to say, he and his associates are exerting a considerable
and most salutary influence all abroad among us. I hope his reception
will be such that he will return from Washington cheered and encouraged
to pursue his benevolent operations in this country. The Catholic
and the different Protestant missions have been prosperous during
the last year, and are as generally acceptable to the whites as could,
from their different pursuits, have been expected.——


Great expectations are entertained, from the fact that Mr. Linn’s bill
has passed the Senate; and as it has been so long before the public, and
favorably entertained at Washington, should it at last fail of passing
the Lower House, suffer me to predict, in view of what so many have
been induced to undergo, in person and property, to get to this distant
country, it will create a disaffection so strong as to end only in open
rebellion; whereas, should it pass into a law, it will be regarded as
most liberal and handsome, and will be appreciated by most, if not all,
in Oregon.


As to the claim for the Oregon Institute, I need say nothing, having
said enough in my last report; but, as that may have failed in
reaching, I would just remark, that the location is a healthy one,
and the site fine, with prospect charmingly varied, extensive, and
beautiful.


I leave this subject with Mr. Lee and the members of our liberal
government, not doubting but that all will be done for this Institute, and
otherwise, that can be, and as soon as practicable, to lay deep and broad
the foundation of science and literature in this Country.——



Respectfully yours,

Elijah White,

Sub-Agent Indian Affairs, W. R. M.




Hon. J. M. Porter,

Secretary of War.


[Pg 248]





Wallamet, March 18, 1844.



Sir,—On the evening of the 1st February, the two following
letters came to me, finding me in the upper settlement of the Wallamet,
distance forty miles:—





“Wallamet Falls, January 29, 1844.



“Dear Sir,—The undersigned would take this occasion to inform
you that there have been of late in this place some few cases of intoxication
from the effects of ardent spirits. It is currently reported that it
is distilled in this place, and the undersigned have good reason to credit
such reports. While, therefore, the undersigned will not trouble you,
sir, with a detailed exposition of the facts, they must be permitted to
express their deliberate conviction that that which has inflicted so
much injury upon the morals, the peace, and the happiness of the world,
ought not to be permitted to be manufactured in this country under
any circumstances. And your attention is respectfully invited to this
subject.



“We have the honor to be, dear sir,

“Peter H. Hatch, President.

“A. L. Lovejoy, Vice-President.

“A. F. Waller, Secretary.


“Dr. E. White,

“Sub-Agent for Indian Affairs, Oregon Territory.”






“Wallamet Falls, January 26, 1844.



“Dear Sir,—I do not know but you have been written to already
on the subject which is the cause of no inconsiderable excitement at
this place, viz., the manufacture and use of that most degrading, withering,
and damning of all the curses that have ever visited our race
since the fall of Adam. As much as we regret it, deplore it, and
anathematize the men who make it, it is nevertheless made, and men,
or rather biped brutes, get drunk. Now, we believe if there is any thing
that calls your attention in your official capacity, or any thing in which
you would be most cordially supported by the good sense and prompt
action of the better part of the community, it is the present case. We
do not wish to dictate, but hope for the best, begging pardon for
intrusions.



“I am, dear sir, yours truly,

“W. H. Wilson.


“Elijah White, Esq.,

“Sub-Agent Oregon Territory.”




I accordingly left at sunrise on the following morning, and reached
the falls at sunset. Without delay, I secured the criminal and his[Pg 249]
distillery, broke his apparatus, and buried it in the Wallamet River.
I put the aggressor under bonds, in the strongest penalty the nature of
the case would admit,—$300,—few being willing to be his bondsmen
even for this amount.


Mr. Pettygrove, a merchant, of good habits and character, being
accused of keeping and selling wine and brandy, I searched, and found,
as he had acknowledged, half a gallon of brandy and part of a barrel
of port wine, which has been used, and occasionally parted with, only
for medicinal purposes; and, to avoid all appearance of partiality, I
required the delivery of the brandy and wine on the delivery of the
inclosed bond, which was most cheerfully and cordially given,—amount
$1,000. I searched every suspicious place thoroughly, aided by the
citizens, but found no ardent spirits or wine in the colony. Since this
period, no attempts have been made to make, introduce, or vend
liquors; and the great majority of the colonists come warmly to my
support in this matter, proffering their aid to keep this bane from our
community.


On the evening of February 20, I received the following communication,
accompanied by corroboratory statements from Mr. Foster, of
Oregon City:—





“Wallamet Falls, February 16, 1844.



“Sir,—I beg leave to inform you that there is an Indian about this
place, of the name of Cockstock, who is in the habit of making continual
threats against the settlers in this neighborhood, and who has
also murdered several Indians lately. He has conducted himself lately
in so outrageous a manner, that Mr. Winslow Anderson has considered
himself in personal danger, and on that account has left his place, and
come to reside at the falls of the Wallamet; and were I in circumstances
that I could possibly remove from my place, I would certainly
remove also, but am so situated that it is not possible for me to do so.
I beg, therefore, that you, sir, will take into consideration the propriety
of ridding the country of a villain, against the depredations of whom
none can be safe, as it is impossible to guard against the lurking attacks
of the midnight murderer. I have, therefore, taken the liberty
of informing you that I shall be in expectation of a decided answer
from you on or before the 10th of March next; after that date, I shall
consider myself justified in acting as I shall see fit, on any repetition of
the threats made by the before-mentioned Indian or his party.



“I am, etc., with respect,

“James D. Saules.


“Dr. E. White, Superintendent, etc.”



[Pg 250]As I well knew all the individuals concerned, I resolved to repair
immediately to the spot, and, if possible, secure the Indian without
bloodshed, as he was connected with some of the most formidable tribes
in this part of the Territory, though a very dangerous and violent
character. Accordingly I started, and reaching the falls on the following
evening, collected a party to repair to the spot and secure him
while asleep, knowing that he would not submit to be taken a prisoner
without resistance. The evening was stormy, and the distance some
eight miles, through thick wood and fallen timber, with two bad
streams to cross. Being on foot, my party declined the attempt till
morning,—a circumstance I much regretted; yet, having no military
force, I was compelled to yield. In the morning I headed the party of
ten men to take this Indian, who had only five adherents, in hopes to
surprise and secure him without fighting,—enjoining my men, from
many considerations, not to fire unless ordered to do so in self-defense.
Unfortunately, two horses had just been stolen and a house plundered,
and the Indians absconded, leaving no doubt on our minds of their being
the thieves, as, after tracking them two or three miles into the forest,
they had split off in such a manner as to elude pursuit, and we were
forced to return to town unsuccessful, as further pursuit was little more
rational than chasing an eagle amidst the mountains. Cockstock had
sworn vengeance against several of my party, and they thirsted for his
blood. Having no other means of securing him, I offered $100 reward
to any who would deliver him safely into my hands, as I wished to
convey him for trial to the authorities constituted among the Nez
Percés and Cayuses, not doubting that they would feel honored in
inflicting a just sentence upon him, and the colony thereby be saved
from an Indian war, so much to be dreaded in our present weak and
defenseless condition.


Some six days subsequent, Cockstock and his party, six in all, came
into town at midday, rode from house to house, showing his loaded
pistols, and not allowing any one, by artifice or flattery, to get them
out of his bosom or hand. He and his party were horridly painted, and
rode about the town, setting, as the citizens, and especially his enemies,
construed it, the whole town at defiance. The citizens endured it for
several hours, but with great impatience, when at length he crossed the
river, and entered the Indian village opposite, and, as the chief states,
labored for some time to induce them to join him and burn down the
town that night, destroying as many of the whites as possible. Failing
in this (if serious or correct in statement, which is much doubted by
some, as the chief and whole Indian village were inimical to him, and
doubtless wished, as he was a “brave,” to make the whites the instru[Pg 251]ment
of his destruction), he obtained an interpreter, and recrossed the
river, as other Indians state, for the purpose of calling the whites to an
explanation for pursuing him with hostile intentions. By this time, the
excitement had become intense with all classes and both sexes among the
whites, and, as was to be expected, they ran in confusion and disorder
toward the point where the Indians were landing,—some to take him
alive and get the reward; others to shoot him at any risk to themselves,
the wealthiest men in town promising to stand by them to the amount
of $1,000 each. With these different views, and no concert of action,
and many running merely to witness the affray, the Indians were met
at the landing, and a firing commenced simultaneously on both sides,
each party accusing the other of firing first. In the midst of a hot
firing on both sides, Mr. George W. Le Breton, a respectable young
man, rushed unarmed upon Cockstock, after the discharge of one or
more of his pistols, and received a heavy discharge in the palm of his
right hand, lodging one ball in his elbow and another in his arm, two
inches above the elbow-joint. A scuffle ensued, in which he fell with
the Indian, crying out instantly, “He is killing me with his knife.” At
this moment a mulatto man ran up, named Winslow Anderson, and
dispatched Cockstock, by mashing his skull with the barrel of his rifle,
using it as a soldier would a bayonet. In the mean time the other
Indians were firing among the whites in every direction, with guns,
pistols, and poisoned arrows, yelling fearfully, and many narrowly
escaped. Two men, who were quietly at work near by, were wounded
with arrows (Mr. Wilson slightly in the hip, and Mr. Rogers in the
muscle of the arm), but neither, as was supposed, dangerously. The
five Indians having shot their guns and arrows, retired toward the
bluff east of the town, lodged themselves in the rocks, and again commenced
firing upon the citizens indiscriminately. Attention was soon
directed that way, and fire-arms having been brought, the Indians were
soon routed, killing one of their horses, and wounding one of them, thus
ending the affray.


Mr. Le Breton (the surgeon being absent from town) was removed
immediately to Vancouver, where he received every attention; but the
canoe having been ten hours on the passage, the poison had diffused
itself all abroad into his system, and proved mortal in less than three
days from the moment of the horrid disaster. Mr. Rogers lived but
one day longer, though but slightly wounded with an arrow in the
muscles of his arm. Mr. Wilson has suffered comparatively little, but
is not considered in a safe condition.


This unhappy affray has created a general sensation throughout the
colony, and all abroad among the Indians of this lower district. Now,[Pg 252]
while I am penning these lines, I am completely surrounded by at least
seventy armed Indians, just down from the Dalles of the Columbia,
many of them the professed relatives of the deceased, on the way to the
falls of the Wallamet, to demand an explanation, or, in other words, to
extort a present for the loss of their brother.


They appear well affected toward me; remarkably so, though armed
to the teeth, and painted horridly. I am every moment expecting my
interpreter, when I shall probably learn particulars respecting their
intentions. In the mean time, I will give a few particulars respecting
this deceased Indian’s previous course, which led to the disaster, showing
how much we need authorities and discipline in this country.


As it is said, a negro hired Cockstock for a given time, to be paid in
a certain horse. Before the time expired, the negro sold the horse and
land claim to another negro, the Indian finishing his time with the purchaser,
according to agreement. Learning, however, to his chagrin and
mortification, that the horse had changed owners, and believing it a
conspiracy against his rights, he resolved to take the horse forcibly;
did so, and this led to a year’s contention, many threats, some wounds,
and at last to the three deaths, and may possibly lead to all the horrors
of savage warfare in our hitherto quiet neighborhood. It was this
identical Cockstock that occasioned much of the excitement last spring
among the whites of the colony, actually driving several from their
homes to the more central parts of the settlement for protection.


I saw and had an interview with the Indians in June following, and
settled all differences, to appearances, satisfactorily; but, four months
subsequently, having occasioned the authorities constituted among the
Indians to flog one of his connections for violently entering the house
of the Rev. H. K. W. Perkins, seizing his person, and attempting to tie,
with a view to flog him, he took fire afresh, and in November last came
with a slave to my house, with the avowed object of shooting me down
at once; but finding me absent, after a close search in every part of the
house, he commenced smashing the windows, lights, sash, and all, of my
house and office, with the breech of his gun; and it is but just to say he
did his work most effectually, not leaving a sound window in either. He
next started hotly in pursuit of my steward, who was most actively
retreating, but was soon overtaken and seized by the shoulder; his
garment giving way saved the frightened young man from further
violence.


I returned late in the evening,—this having occurred at three P. M.,—when
the villains were too far away to be overtaken, though I pursued
them with the best men of the colony during the whole night, and as
long after as we could trace them. This was regarded as a great out[Pg 253]rage,
and created a strong sensation throughout the community: especially
as none knew where to trace it until within a few weeks past.
Some four weeks subsequently, fifteen Indians came riding into the
neighborhood in open day, painted and well armed. I was the first,
with one exception, that observed them, and learned that they were
Molallas and Klamaths, and felt confident they were on an errand of
mischief, being well informed of their marauding and desperate habits.
As this is quite out of their province, the proper homes of the Klamaths
being at least three hundred miles to the south, and the Molallas, with
whom they intermarry, having their lodges in the Cascade Mountains,
a distance of from forty to eighty miles, I resolved at once to turn their
visit to account; sent my steward to Chief Caleb’s lodge, where all
had arrived, he being a Callapooya, and with his band having previously
entered with me into the civil compact, and gave him a cordial
invitation to call on me, with the chiefs of his district, in the morning,
as I wished to see them and had some interesting and pleasing news
to convey to them. The chiefs called in the morning, none, however,
appearing so pleased and happy as Caleb. Of this I took no notice,
but entered into cheerful conversation with Caleb for a few moments,
and then rose up and invited them to walk out and see my plantation
and herds.


When we reached the cattle, I, as by accident, or incidentally, asked
Caleb if he was prepared to give a feast to his distant friends who had
so lately and unexpectedly called upon him. Answering in the negative,
I told him to shoot down at once a fat young ox that was passing
before us, and, while some were dressing it, others to come to the house
and get some flour, peas, salt, etc., and go immediately back and feast
his friends, lest they form a very unfavorable opinion of us here. I
need not say that the summons was promptly obeyed, and Caleb the
happiest man in the world. Now the rigid muscles of the stranger
chiefs began to relax; in short, all distrust was soon lost, and, as they
were about leaving for Caleb’s camp, they found themselves constrained
to inform me that they came over with very different feelings from
what they were now leaving us with, and were very glad they had
listened to Caleb’s advice, and called upon me. Professing to be very
much engaged at the moment, I told them to go and dine, and at
evening, or early the following morning, I would come with my friend,
Mr. Applegate, and make them a call.


They feasted to the full, and I found them in fine humor, and in a
better condition to smoke than fight. After some casual conversation I
asked them how they would like to enter into the civil compact; and,
while they were discussing the subject, this Indian (Cockstock) came[Pg 254]
first into my presence, well armed, and appeared cold and distant,
though I had no suspicion of his being the character who had so lately
broken to pieces the windows in my house and office.


They had no scruples in saying they were entirely willing, and should
be pleased on their part to enter upon the same terms, but did not
know how it might be regarded by the residue of their respective tribes.
They engaged to meet me on the 15th March, with the residue of their
people, and use their influence to bring about so desirable an object.
The party left the same day, apparently in a cheerful mood, passed
over the prairie singing, talking, and laughing merrily. As a part,
however, were passing their horses over a difficult stream, the other
part fell upon and massacred them in a most shocking manner, this
villainous Cockstock acting a conspicuous part in the bloody affray.


I repaired to the spot without delay, as the whites were much
excited, and wished to pursue and hang every one of them. I learned
there had been unsettled feuds of long standing, and that in like manner,
ten months previously, these unfortunate wretches had shot down
a fellow-traveler. On conveying this information to the citizens, all
I believe were satisfied to stay at home, and remain quiet for the
present.


Thus much for this Indian affair, which, my interpreter having
arrived, I have settled to-day with the Dalles Indians most satisfactorily.
As was to be expected, they wished presents for the death of
their brother. I prevailed on all to be seated, and then explained the
whole case slowly and clearly to their understanding. I told them we
had lost two valuable innocent men, and they but one; and should our
people learn that I had given them presents, without their giving me
two blankets for one, they must expect nothing but the hottest displeasure
from the whites. After much deliberation among themselves,
they, with one voice, concluded to leave the whole matter to my discretion.


I at once decided to give the poor Indian widow two blankets, a
dress, and handkerchief, believing the moral influence to be better than
to make presents to the chief or tribe, and to receive nothing at their
hands. To this proposition they most cheerfully consented, and have
now left, having asked for and obtained from me a written certificate,
stating that the matter had been amicably adjusted. It is to be hoped
that it will here end, though that is by no means certain, as at present
there are so many sources of uneasiness and discontent between the
parties.


As I said before, I believe it morally impossible for us to remain at
peace in Oregon, for any considerable time, without the protection of[Pg 255]
vigorous civil or military law. For myself, I am most awkwardly situated;
so much so, indeed, that I had seriously anticipated leaving this
spring; but the late successful contest against the introduction of
ardent spirits, in connection with the excitement by reason of the unhappy
disaster at the falls of the Wallamet, together with the fact of
too many of our people being so extremely excitable on Indian and
other affairs relating to the peace and interest of the colony and country,
I have concluded to remain for the present, in hopes of being soon
in some way relieved. I hope the draft that I have this day drawn in
favor of John McLaughlin will be honored, as otherwise I may be
thrown at once into the greatest difficulties, having no other house in
this country where I can draw such articles as I require for necessary
presents to Indians, to defray traveling expenses, etc.


I have the honor to remain, with highest respect, your obedient
humble servant,



E. White,

Sub-Agent Indian Affairs.



Hon. J. M. Porter,

Secretary of War.






Wallamet, March 22, 1844.



Honored Sir,—The within accounts, as per voucher No. 1, drawn
on the Hudson’s Bay House at Vancouver, are in part pay for interpreters
and necessary assistants in guarding and conducting me from point
to point, in my late unavoidable excursions during the excitement of
the fall of 1842 and spring of 1843, and other necessary voyages since,
together with the presents in hoes, medicines, and clothes, to enable
me to secure and hold a sufficient influence over the aborigines to prevent
threatened invasions and serious evils to the colony and country.


Those upon Mr. Abernethy and Mr. A. E. Wilson are for like purposes;
drafts upon these houses being my principal means of paying
expenses in this country.


As I hire only when requisite, and dismiss at once when no longer
necessary, my interpreter’s bills, including clerks and all assistants for
the different tribes, do not exceed $300 per annum up to the present
time; notwithstanding, at one time, for sixty days, I was under the
necessity of hiring two men at the rate of three dollars per day each.


Traveling expenses in 1842, three hundred and eighty dollars ($380).
In 1843, three hundred and ninety-six dollars and fifty cents ($396.50).
In presents for the two years and two months, two hundred and ninety
dollars and seventy-five cents ($290.75); in medicines, hoes, and sundry
useful articles, to encourage them and strengthen my influence[Pg 256]
among them, this being my only way to succeed to any considerable
extent. Presents become the more indispensable from the fact of the
long-continued and constant liberality of the Hudson’s Bay Company
toward the Indians of this country.


Had all remained in as quiet a state as when the colony was small,
and no jealousies awakened, most of those small expenses might have
been avoided, but, unless a military post be at once established, or
more means put into my hands to meet their increasing wants, my
expense will be increased, and trouble multiply; but at this moment,
were one thousand dollars placed in my hands to lay out judiciously
in medicines, hoes, plows, blankets, and men, women, and children’s
clothes, to distribute annually, more security would be effected, and
good done to the aborigines, than in ten times that amount expended
in establishing and keeping up a military post,—such is their desire
and thirst after the means to promote civilization.


As this voyaging is most destructive to my wardrobe, saying nothing
of the perils and hardships to which it exposes me, shall I be allowed
the sum usually allowed military officers, which Esquire Gilpin informs
me is ten dollars per each hundred miles? I will place it down and
leave it to your honorable consideration, not doubting, sir, but you
will do what is proper and right in the premises. I shall charge only
for such traveling as was unavoidable in the execution of my official
business. With highest respect, I am, dear sir,


Your humble and obedient servant,


Elijah White,

Sub-Agent Indian Affairs, W. R. M.




Hon. J. M. Porter,

Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.






Wallamet, Nov. 23, 1843.



My Dear Sir,—As, in the order of Divine Providence, it appears
to be my duty to leave this country in a few days to return to the
United States, and, as I have had the pleasure of an acquaintance with
all the important transactions in which you have been engaged, in
your official capacity, since your arrival in this country in the fall of
1842, I consider it a duty which I owe to yourself, to bear my unequivocal
testimony in favor of the course which you have generally pursued.
Not pretending to understand what properly belongs to the office
of an Indian agent, I flatter myself that I am capable of judging in
reference to those matters which are calculated to effect the elevation[Pg 257]
and prosperity of the Indians, and the peace and security of those
whites who settle in the Indian country. As I can not speak particularly
concerning all your official acts in the country, permit me to refer
to one expedition, which I consider to have been the most important
of any in which you have been engaged, and in which I had the pleasure
of being associated with you. I mean that long and excessively
toilsome journey which you performed into the interior of this country
early last spring. The causes which prompted you to engage in the
enterprise, in my humble opinion, were the most justifiable. The
whites in the country had been thrown into a panic by information received
from the missionaries in the interior, that the Indians were forming
a plan to effect the destruction of the white population. It was
everywhere observed that our Indian agent should immediately repair
to the infected region, and endeavor to quell the tumult, “for (it was
repeatedly remarked) it was better for one man to expose his life than
for the whole settlement to suffer.” Without delay the exposure was
made. And though life was not taken, yet, in accomplishing the
object, you were compelled to pass through much difficulty, excessive
labor, and great danger. The plans proposed to quiet the Indians,
whom you found in a state of great excitement, were doubtless conceived
in wisdom, and produced the desired effect. The expenses incurred
were no more than were absolutely necessary. And I doubt
not, if the results of the expedition are correctly represented, that our
enlightened government will make an appropriation to cover all the
expenses which accrued in consequence of the undertaking.


With my most hearty and best wishes for your continued peace and
prosperity, permit me to subscribe myself, yours, with feelings of unaltered
friendship.



Gustavus Hines,

Missionary of the M. E. Church.




Dr. Elijah White,

Sub-Agent of Indian Affairs west of Rocky Mountains.







 




}





Department of War,

Office of Indian Affairs, Nov. 24, 1845.






Two interesting and very instructive reports have been received
from the sub-agent west of the Rocky Mountains. They present that
country in a new and important light to the consideration of the
public.


The advancement in civilization by the numerous tribes of Indians
in that remote and hitherto neglected portion of our territory, with so[Pg 258]
few advantages, is a matter of surprise. Indeed, the red men of that
region would almost seem to be of a different order from those with
whom we have been in more familiar intercourse. A few years since
the face of a white man was almost unknown to them; now, through
the benevolent policy of the various Christian churches, and the indefatigable
exertions of the missionaries in their employ, they have
prescribed and well adapted rules for their government, which are
observed and respected to a degree worthy the most intelligent
whites.


Numerous schools have grown up in their midst, at which their children
are acquiring the most important and useful information. They
have already advanced to a degree of civilization that promises the
most beneficial results to them and their brethren on this side of the
mountains, with whom they may, and no doubt will at some future
period, be brought into intercourse. They are turning their attention
to agricultural pursuits, and with but few of the necessary utensils
in their possession, already produce sufficient in some places to meet
their every want.


Among some of the tribes, hunting has been almost entirely abandoned,
many individuals looking wholly to the soil for support. The
lands are represented as extremely fertile, and the climate healthy,
agreeable, and uniform.


Under these circumstances, so promising in their consequences, and
grateful to the feelings of the philanthropist, it would seem to be the
duty of the government of the United States to encourage their advancement,
and still further aid their progress in the path of civilization.
I therefore respectfully recommend the establishment among
them of a full agency, with power to the President to make it an acting
superintendency; and to appoint one or more sub-agents, whenever, in
his judgment, the same may become necessary and proper.


All which is respectfully submitted.



W. Medill.





Hon. Wm. L. Marcy,

Secretary of War.





The reader will observe the clear statement of the United States
Indian policy in the above communication. That schools, farming, and
civilization are prominent. That the Indians, as the whole of this report
indicates, are rapidly improving under the instructions of the missionaries
in the interior,—Spalding and Whitman in particular. That
Dr. White, in this report, as contained in the previous chapter, attempts
to include Blanchet and associates as erecting mills, etc., for the benefit[Pg 259]
of the Indians, while Spalding’s and Whitman’s stations were the only
places where mills had been erected.


These facts brought so prominently before the British and foreign
mind their sectarian and commercial jealousies; and national pride was
so excited that it knew no bounds and could not be satisfied short of
the effort that was made in 1847-8. Subsequent Indian wars were but
the spasmodic and dying action of the spirit that instigated the first.


It will also be observed that this report brings out the bold efforts
of our foreign emissaries to excite the Indians in the settlement, and
to disturb and divide the American population on the question of an
organization.




[Pg 260]


CHAPTER XXXIII.


First council to organize a provisional government.—Library founded.—Origin of the
Wolf Association.—The Methodist Mission influence.—Dr. White exhibits his
credentials.—First “wolf meeting.”—Proceedings of the second “wolf meeting.”—Officers.—Resolutions.—Bounties
to be paid.—Resolution to appoint a committee
of twelve for the civil and military protection of the settlement.—Names of the
members of the committee.


A consultation was held at the house of Gray to consider the expediency
of organizing a provisional government. In it the whole condition
of the settlement, the missions, and Hudson’s Bay Company, were
carefully looked at, and all the influences combined against the organization
of a settlers’ government were fully canvassed. The conclusion
was that no direct effort could succeed, as it had already been tried and
failed, from the combined influence of the Hudson’s Bay Company and
the Roman Catholic and Methodist missions. To the writer, who up
to this time had not fully understood all the causes of the failure, it was
doubtful. Two plans were suggested; one, at least, might succeed. The
first was to get up a circulating library, and by that means draw attention
and discussion to subjects of interest to the settlement, and secure
the influence of the Methodist Mission, as education was a subject
they had commenced. We found no difficulty in the library movement
from them, only they seemed anxious to keep from the library a certain
class of light reading, which they appeared tenacious about. This was
not a vital point with the original movers, so they yielded it. The
library prospered finely; one hundred shares were taken at five dollars
a share; three hundred volumes of old books collected and placed in
this institution, which was called the “Multnomah Circulating Library;”
one hundred dollars were sent to New York for new books which
arrived the following year. Now for the main effort to secure another
position.


It will be remembered that in the winter of 1836-7 the Wallamet
Cattle Company was formed. All the settlers that could raise the
funds entered heartily into the project, and such as had no means to
advance money for stock at the time had succeeded in buying from
those that would sell. Besides, part of the estate of Ewing Young had
been sold and distributed, and the Hudson’s Bay Company had also
organized the Puget Sound Company, and had begun to distribute[Pg 261]
cattle; hence almost every settler, the missions, the Hudson’s Bay
Company, and some Indians were owning cattle.


The wolves, bears, and panthers were very destructive to the cattle
of all alike. Here was an object of sufficient interest to all, to bring a
united action, and collect a large number of the settlers. Accordingly,
a notice was given, requesting all interested in adopting some united
action to get rid of the wild beasts, that were destroying our domestic
animals, to meet at the house of W. H. Gray, on the 2d of February,
1843. This was the first move to the provisional government. While
this was being done in the valley, at Wallamet Falls, since Oregon
City, the question of a provisional government was up before a lyceum
held at that place and debated warmly for several evenings, and finally
voted down. Dr. John McLaughlin took the side of an independent
government. Mr. Abernethy, afterward governor, moved that, in case
our government did not extend its jurisdiction over the country in four
years, that then the meeting would be in favor of an independent government.
This idea was favored by Dr. White, upon condition that
the settlers would vote generally to elect him as their governor, as from
the fact that he held the office of sub-Indian agent by the appointment
of the President, he could officiate as governor, and it would be no additional
expense to the settlers. This was a plausible argument, and
had Dr. White been a man of moral principle and capable of understanding
his duties in the office he held, the settlers would without a
doubt have adopted his suggestions; but, unfortunately for him, they
had lost all confidence in his executive and judicial ability, as also in
his ability to deal with Indians. Besides, the leading members of the
Methodist Mission were opposed to him on account of his shameful
course while one of their number, though Mr. Hines seems to have held
to his skirts during the greater portion of the time he was creating all
the disturbance he was capable of among the Indians, and being the
dupe of the Hudson’s Bay Company.


These facts were all known to the getters-up of the “Wolf Organization,”
as it was called. In fact, Le Breton had participated in the
discussions at the Wallamet Falls, and reported them to those of us in
the valley. Our idea was, to get an object before the people upon
which all could unite, and as we advanced, secure the main object,—self-preservation,
both for property and person.


The “wolf meeting” was fully attended, and all took a lively interest
in it, for there was not a man in the settlement that had not been a
loser from wild animals. There was a little suspicion in this first meeting
that more than protection for animals was meant.


Dr. Ira L. Babcock, who was elected our chairman, and who, we[Pg 262]
supposed, would be the first to suspect the main object, seemed to
discard the idea as foolish and ridiculous, as he thought “we had all
the protection for our persons that we needed in the arrangements
already entered into, and the object for which the meeting was called
was a good and laudable one; we were all interested in it; we had all
lost more or less from the ravages of wild animals, and it became
necessary to have a united effort to get rid of them and protect our
property.” This was the very point we wished to hold the doctor to.
He had expressed the idea exactly, and placed it in a clear light. As
settlers, we had nothing to do but submit to the rule of the Hudson’s
Bay Company, the missions, and Dr. White, and do all we could to
protect their cattle and herds.


The Oregon archives show that there were persons present who were
prepared for the occasion. The remarks of our chairman were appropriate,
for it was self-evident that our domestic animals needed protection;
we could not spend all our time to guard them, hence a united
effort would accomplish in a short time, and at comparatively little
expense to all, what would otherwise be impossible, scattered as our
settlements were, with our domestic animals exposed to the ravages of
wild animals known to be numerous all over the country. It was moved
that a committee of six be appointed to notify a general meeting, and
prepare a plan, and report the matter for the action of the settlers.


The chairman was called upon to appoint a committee to call a public
meeting. Gray, Beers, and Wilson, already known to the reader,
and Gervais and Lucie, Canadian-Frenchmen, who came to the country
with Wilson G. Hunt’s party, and Barnaby, a French Rocky Mountain
hunter, were appointed.


These three men were the most intelligent and influential French
settlers that were then in the country, having considerable influence
with the Canadian-French settlers, and generally favored American
settlement and enterprise.


The preparation for the general meeting, which was moved by Alanson
Beers to be called at the house of Mr. Joseph Gervais on the first
Monday in March next, at ten o’clock A. M., devolved on Gray, Beers,
and Wilson. The giving of the notices, which Le Breton with his
ready pen soon prepared, devolved on Gervais, Barnaby, and Lucie.
Up to this time, no intimation of the proposed civil government had
been given to any member of the missions, or the Hudson’s Bay Company.
All was moving on harmoniously, and all were interested in
caring for and protecting our domestic animals. The “wolf meeting,”
and what was to be done, was the subject of general interest. Le
Breton and Smith were busy in finding out the men who could be re[Pg 263]lied
upon, and the men that would oppose the one great object we had
determined to accomplish, so that on the first Monday in March, 1843,
the settlement, except the clergy, were all present. If my memory
serves me, there was not in that meeting a single reverend gentleman
of any denomination. James A. O’Neil, who came to the country with
Captain Wyeth in 1834, and had remained in it, presided at this
meeting. He was informed of the main object, and requested to hurry
through the “wolf meeting” business as soon as possible.


It will be seen that we had placed before the settlement, the Hudson’s
Bay Company, and both missions, an object they were deeply interested
in. The clergy were just then all asleep, and so were the company,
for while they were all willing that we should pay our money,
spend our time, and hunt wild animals to protect their by far the
largest portion of property exposed, they did not suspect we were
looking to a far more important object—our personal liberty; hence the
settlers’ “wolf meeting” did not call for their attention, but they all
gave it an encouraging word, and promised to contribute to its funds,
which they did, till they saw the real object, when they dropped it
without ceremony, or at least saw too late that their power was gone.


The Methodist Mission influence was the most difficult to deal with.
We were fully aware of their large pretensions to land, and of the consummate
duplicity of White, in dealing with all parties. White, to
secure the approval of the Methodist Mission, encouraged their large
pretensions to mission lands, and also spoke favorably of the Jesuit
influence among the Indians; while, if he had had two grains of common
sense and common honesty, he could have seen their influence was
tending to destroy all of his, as well as all American influence in the
country. Still his supremely selfish ideas of self-honor and official dignity
led him to pursue a course disgusting to all parties.


During the time between the first and second “wolf meetings,” White
was called upon in a public manner to exhibit his authority from the
President, which he was foolish enough to do. It was seen at once
that he was in the country only as a spy upon the actions of the Hudson’s
Bay Company, while he assumed to make treaties with Indians,
and govern the country, and make pledges and promises, which no one
believed the government would ever attempt to fulfill.


As a matter of history and curiosity, the proceedings of the “wolf
meetings” are copied from the Oregon archives, which Mr. Hines, it
seems, did not even know had an existence, showing, by his own statements,
that he was so completely mixed up in his ideas of the
origin of the provisional government, that though he is generally correct
in his statements, yet he failed to distinguish the point of conception[Pg 264]
and birth of the oldest State on the Pacific, for I contend that justice to
our effort and a proper understanding of our rights should have admitted
us as a State instead of subjecting us to a Territorial annoyance,
under such demagogues as were sent among us up to the time we
became a State.


Proceedings of a Meeting held at the Oregon Institute, February 2, 1843.


A public meeting of a number of the citizens of this colony was called
at the house of W. H. Gray, in order to take into consideration the
propriety of adopting some measures for the protection of our herds,
etc., in this country.


On motion, Dr. I. L. Babcock was called to the chair, who proceeded
to state the objects of the meeting, and the necessity of acting.


Mr. W. H. Gray moved, and Mr. Torn seconded the motion, “that
a committee of six be appointed to notify a general meeting, and report
business, etc.,” which motion was carried, and Messrs. Gray, Beers, Gervais,
Wilson, Barnaby, and Lucie, were appointed said committee.


Mr. Beers moved “that a general meeting be called at the house of
Mr. Joseph Gervais, on the first Monday in March next, at ten o’clock,
A. M.,” which motion was carried.




W. H. Wilson, Secretary.

I. L. Babcock, Chairman.



Journal of a Meeting at the house of J. Gervais, first Monday in
March, 1843.


In pursuance of a resolution of a previous meeting, the citizens of
Wallamet Valley met, and, the meeting being called to order, Mr.
James O’Neil was chosen chairman. Mr. Martin was chosen as secretary,
but declining to serve, Mr. Le Breton was chosen.


The minutes of the former meeting were read.


The committee appointed to notify a general meeting and report
business, made the following report, to wit:—


“Your committee beg leave to report as follows: It being admitted
by all that bears, wolves, panthers, etc., are destructive to the useful
animals owned by the settlers of this colony, your committee would
submit the following resolutions, as the sense of this meeting, by which
the community may be governed in carrying on a defensive and
destructive war against all such animals.


“Resolved, 1st. That we deem it expedient for this community to
take immediate measures for the destruction of all wolves, panthers,
and bears, and such other animals as are known to be destructive to
cattle, horses, sheep, and hogs.


“2d. That a treasurer be appointed, who shall receive all funds, and[Pg 265]
dispense the same, in accordance with drafts drawn on him by the
committee appointed to receive the evidences of the destruction of the
above-named animals; and that he report the state of the treasury, by
posting up public notices, once in three months, in the vicinity of each
of the committee.


“3d. That a standing committee of eight be appointed, whose duty
it shall be, together with the treasurer, to receive the proofs, or evidences,
of the animals for which a bounty is claimed having been
killed in the Wallamet Valley.


“4th. That a bounty of fifty cents be paid for the destruction of a
small wolf; three dollars for a large wolf; one dollar and fifty cents for
a lynx; two dollars for a bear; and five dollars for a panther.


“5th. That no bounty be paid unless the individual claiming said
bounty give satisfactory evidence, or present the skin of the head with
the ears of all animals for which he claims a bounty.


“6th. That the committee and treasurer form a Board of advice to
call public meetings, whenever they may deem it expedient, to promote
and encourage all persons to use their vigilance in destroying all the
animals named in the fourth resolution.


“7th. That the bounties specified in the fourth resolution be limited
to whites and their descendants.


“8th. That the proceedings of this meeting be signed by the chairman
and secretary, and a copy thereof be presented to the recorder of
this colony.”


On motion, the report was accepted.


It was then moved and seconded that the report be laid on the table,
which was carried.


It was moved and seconded that the first resolution in the report of
the committee be adopted, which was carried.


It was moved and seconded the a sum be raised by contribution for
the protection of our animals, which was carried.


It was moved and seconded that the third resolution, as amended, be
adopted, which was carried.


It was moved and seconded that two collectors be appointed to
receive all subscriptions, retaining five per cent. for collecting the same,
and pay the amount over to the treasurer, taking his receipt for the
same, which was carried.


On motion, the fifth resolution was adopted.


On motion, it was resolved “that no one receive a bounty (except
Indians) unless he pay a subscription of five dollars.”


On motion, the seventh resolution was adopted.


On motion, the eighth and ninth resolutions were adopted.


[Pg 266]It was moved and seconded that the Indians receive one-half as
much as the whites.


It was moved and seconded that all claims for bounties be presented
within ten days from the time of becoming entitled to said bounties,
and, if there should be any doubts, the individual claiming a bounty
shall give his oath to the various circumstances; which was carried.


On motion, W. H. Gray was chosen treasurer.


It was moved that Messrs. McRoy, Gervais, Martin, S. Smith,
Dougherty, O’Neil, Shortess, and Lucie be the standing committee;
which motion was carried.


It was moved that G. W. Le Breton and Mr. Bridgers be the collectors.
Carried.


On motion, the following resolutions were adopted:—


“Resolved, That no money be paid to any white, or his descendants,
previous to the time of his subscription.


“Resolved, That the bounty of a minor child be paid to a parent
or guardian.


“Resolved, That the draft for receiving subscriptions be drawn by
Mr. Gray and Mr. Le Breton.


“Resolved, That drafts on Fort Vancouver, the Mission, and the
Milling Company be received on subscriptions, as payment.”




As a kind Providence would have it, the “wolf meeting” at Mr.
Gervais’ house on the Wallamet River was one of the most harmonious
meetings I ever attended. Every one seemed to feel that a unanimous
war had been declared against the despoilers of our domestic animals
that were dependent upon us for protection.


It was stated by one speaker “that no one would question for a moment
that this was right. This was just and natural protection for our
property in animals liable to be destroyed by wolves, bears, and panthers.
How is it, fellow-citizens, with you and me, and our children
and wives? Have we any organization upon which we can rely for
mutual protection? Is there any power or influence in the country
sufficient to protect us and all we hold dear on earth from the worse
than wild beasts that threaten and occasionally destroy our cattle?
Who in our midst is authorized at this moment to call us together to
protect our own, and the lives of our families? True, the alarm may
be given, as in a recent case, and we may run who feel alarmed, and
shoot off our guns, while our enemy may be robbing our property,
ravishing our wives, and burning the houses over our defenseless
families. Common sense, prudence, and justice to ourselves demand
that we act consistent with the principles we have commenced. We[Pg 267]
have mutually and unitedly agreed to defend and protect our cattle
and domestic animals; now, fellow-citizens, I submit and move the
adoption of the two following resolutions, that we may have protection
for our persons and lives as well as our cattle and herds:—


“Resolved, That a committee be appointed to take into consideration
the propriety of taking measures for the civil and military protection
of this colony.


“Resolved, That said committee consist of twelve persons.”


There was not a dissenting vote in that meeting. Drs. Babcock
and White were not present, but prudence and policy gave them both
a place upon the proposed committee of twelve, while we knew the
feelings of the balance of the committee.


Messrs. Dr. Babcock, Dr. White, O’Neil, Shortess, Newell, Lucie,
Gervais, Hubbard, McRoy, Gray, Smith, and Gay were appointed
said committee.




[Pg 268]


CHAPTER XXXIV.


First meeting of the committee of twelve.—All invited to participate.—The Rev. J. Lee
and Mr. Abernethy ridicule the organization.—Mr. Lee tells a story.—Letter from
Governor Abernethy.—The main question at issue.—Drowning of Cornelius Rogers
and party.—Conduct of Dr. White.—Methodist Mission.—Catholic boasts of conversions.


By mutual understanding the committee of twelve first met at Wallamet
Falls, about the middle of March, 1843. My impression is that
Dr. Babcock was not present with the committee, and that Dr. White
was chosen temporary chairman. G. W. Le Breton was secretary of
the committee. A motion was made and carried to invite the citizens
of the village to participate in the deliberations of the committee. Rev.
Jason Lee, Rev. Mr. Waller, Mr. Abernethy, R. Moore, in fact, nearly
all the prominent men of the place, were present, and participated in
the discussions.


We found Rev. Jason Lee and Mr. Abernethy disposed to ridicule the
proposed organization as foolish and unnecessary. Rev. Jason Lee in
his argument illustrated the folly of the effort, by telling us of a company
of militia gotten up somewhere in Canada. He said “the requisite
notice had been given, and all the people liable to military duty
were present on the day to elect the officers required for the company.
When they had elected all their officers, there was one private soldier
left. ‘Well,’ says the soldier, ‘you may march me, you may drill me,
you may face me to the right, or to the left, or about face, just as much
as you please, but for mercy’s sake don’t divide me up into platoons.’”


Mr. Abernethy made a little attempt to ridicule the proposed organization,
in moving to amend the resolution recommending three justices
of the peace and three constables. We are now in receipt of an explanation
from the governor in reference to the question of an independent
government, as debated at the Lyceum, which we give verbatim, as it
places the governor with his own explanation on that question, and I
think gives us the correct statement of the case, and shows his policy,
which was, to defeat not only the proposition for an independent government,
but any effort for a provisional one, for at least four years,—which
were not only the views of Mr. Abernethy, but those of Messrs.
Lee, Leslie, Babcock, and Hines:—


[Pg 269]



Portland, March 11, 1866.



Dear Sir,—Allow me to correct one statement in your History of
Oregon in the Gazette of 5th March. You speak of a debate in a
Lyceum, and say: “Mr. Abernethy moved that in case our government
did not extend its jurisdiction over the country in four years, that then
the meeting would be in favor of an independent government.” The
facts are these: We had weekly meetings for discussion. Mr. Hastings,
Dr. McLaughlin’s lawyer, offered a resolution, “That it is expedient for
the settlers on this coast to establish an independent government.”
This subject was warmly discussed, Mr. Abernethy being, with a few
others, opposed to it. At the close of the discussion the vote was taken
and decided in favor of an independent government. Mr. Abernethy
then offered the following: “Resolved, That if the United States extends
its jurisdiction over this country within four years, it will not be expedient
to form an independent government,” as the subject for the next
discussion. This was warmly discussed, many who voted for the first
resolution saying if the United States government is extended over
us, it is all we want, and voted in the affirmative. The resolution was
carried, and destroyed the effect of the first resolution.


You will see by this you have the thing all wrong.



Yours truly,

Geo. Abernethy.



P. S.—Dr. White, I think, was present; am not certain. This independent
government move was a prominent scheme of Dr. McLaughlin.


The main question at issue before the committee at the Falls meeting
was the office of governor. Dr. Bailey was in the Sandwich Islands;
nothing was to be feared from him; but Dr. White was, to say the least,
an impudent candidate. I have been informed that Dr. Bailey, an
Englishman, came to that meeting February 18, 1841, with all his
French voters trained to vote for himself for governor, and that he
nominated himself, in opposition to Mr. Hines and Dr. Babcock, for that
office, and conducted himself in such a manner that it disgusted some,
and was the means of breaking up the proposed civil government, as
what Americans there were then in the country found they would be
outnumbered by the French and English (which was unquestionably
the fact), and thus they would be completely at the disposal of English
rule.


Such being the case, much credit is due to the men who defeated
that effort, and I see no reason why Mr. Hines, in his account,
and as an actor in those meetings, should attempt to give a
different impression, and say that “the officers of the squadron were
consulted, and were found to be decidedly opposed to the scheme.”[Pg 270]
(Page 421 of his book.) This fact alone, and I have it from an actor and
an eye-witness in the meeting referred to, is, to say the least, strange
and unaccountable on the part of Mr. Hines. He either feared the influence
of Bailey, or the truth, which he withheld in the case, and leaves
a wrong impression upon the minds of his readers.


From the sickening, fawning, and contemptible course of Dr. White,
the committee at the Falls meeting were induced to yield the point of
an organization without an executive head, and by that means got a
unanimous vote to call a public meeting to organize a provisional government
at Champoeg, on the 2d of May, 1843. This was effort number
one of February and June, 1841, over again. Those of us who commenced
this move did not feel that we had gained much, still we hoped
for the best and prepared for the worst as well as the meeting at Champoeg
on the 2d of May, 1843.


We will let the provisional government rest till the 2d of May, 1843,
while we take a look over the whole country, and at the actors in it, first
stopping to drop a tear at the grave of our friends as we proceed. On the
2d of February our best and most esteemed friend, Cornelius Rogers,
with whom we had spent years of the kindest confidence and friendship,
left our house for Oregon City, as his future residence and home,
with his young wife, the eldest daughter of Rev. David Leslie, and her
youngest sister. They took passage down the river with W. W. Raymond,
a man who came to the country with the re-enforcement of the
mission of 1839-40. He was at that time a member of the Methodist
Mission, in good standing. Dr. Elijah White and Esquire Crocker, of
Lansingville, Tompkins County, New York, were also in the canoe, one
of the largest of Chinook manufacturing. They arrived all safe at Canemah.
It was let down stern first by a line, around a point of rocks
just above the falls on the Oregon City side, since blasted away for a
canal and boat channel. In the eddy formed by the point of rock a
large tree had lodged, forming a convenient landing, and occupying a
large portion of the eddy water, so that it was necessary for the canoe
to remain close to the log for safety from the swift current. There
were two Indians to guide the canoe into this landing, one in the bow
and one in the stern. The one in the stern escaped by jumping from
the canoe and catching upon a piece of drift-wood on a rock just above
the fall. White, as the canoe came alongside of the log upon which all
were to land, being near the bow of the canoe, and not thinking, or perhaps
caring, for any one but himself, jumped upon the side of the canoe,
and with a spring, upon the log, before there was time for any one to
secure the bow of the canoe, to prevent it from swinging into the current.
The force of White’s spring upon the canoe to reach the log[Pg 271]
threw it into the current, which was too strong for Raymond and his
Indians to hold, and in a moment it darted into the middle of the channel,
and the next moment was plunged broadside over the falls, some
twenty-five feet perpendicular. The force of the current threw the canoe
to the bottom of the fall, right side up, but the under-swell threw it back
to the sheet of falling water, which filled and upset the canoe in an
instant. All that went over were lost. Raymond, who had attempted
to hold the canoe, came over the point of rocks (a difficult place) and
found White upon the log, and that he had made no effort to relieve the
drowning party.


Mr. Hines, I see, gives a more favorable account of this transaction for
White. I think this the nearest correct, as Raymond gave the alarm, and
a boat was launched, and reached within ten feet of Mr. Rogers before he
sank to rise no more. His and Esquire Crocker’s bodies were found and
interred. Those of Mrs. Rogers and her sister were never found. Rev.
G. Hines, W. H. Gray, and Robert Shortess, were appointed by Judge
Babcock to appraise the estate of Mr. Rogers, which was found to be
worth about $800, clear of all liabilities. His heirs at law resided in
Utica, New York. Rev. Harvey Clark was appointed administrator,
discharging that duty faithfully, and I think without compensation.
None of the appraisers received a dime for their services. There followed
this affliction a severe storm, and an unusually high flood in the
Wallamet River. The appraisers were detained several days on
account of it, but finally reached their homes in safety.


The Methodist Mission had extended their stations to Fort Nasqualla
on Puget Sound and Clatsop Plains, and made an effort to
establish a mission station on the Umpqua River. At this last-named
place the Indians had been prepared by the instructions they had
received through the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Jesuit priests to
destroy Lee and Hines, and commence the slaughter of the settlement.
(See Hines’ account of the trip, pages 100 to 110 inclusive, made
in 1842.)


Messrs. Frost and Cowan had become disgusted with their missionary
calling, and Rev. Dr. Richmond had also found his Nasqualla
location not a suitable one, or at least, he by some means had become
convinced that he could not benefit the Indians about the fort, and
made up his mind to leave.


It will be remembered that Vicar-General Brouillet, of Wallawalla, in
his attempt to prove that the “Catholic stations and stationary priests”
were early in the country, says “almost every Indian tribe possessed
some Catholic members” as early as 1840, and that Mr. Demerse’s labors
among the Cayuses in 1840 “had made there a mission so fruitful that[Pg 272]
the Protestant missionaries had got alarmed and feared that all their
disciples would abandon them if he continued his mission among them.”
(Page 87 of “Protestantism in Oregon,” by Brouillet.) Neither Hines,
Richmond, nor Smith could understand why it was that the Indians
upon this coast and throughout the country were so different from the
accounts they had heard and read of them up to 1840. In June, 1853,
had either of those gentlemen picked up the New York Freeman’s
Journal, they would have seen the statement that, as early as 1840,
“almost every Indian tribe [on this coast] possessed some Catholic
members.” A little further along they would have been startled with
the announcement, that these Jesuit missions had become “so fruitful
that the Protestant missionaries had got alarmed and feared that all
their disciples would abandon them.” This was but the work of two
years,—from 1838, late in the fall, to 1840. This was, without doubt,
a great triumph, and well does this Jesuit blow his trumpet; and well
he may, for he had the active aid of an unscrupulous monopoly who
are said to be attempting the same thing with just such implements
upon their own countrymen in British Columbia. Why, I ask, have
states and countries in Europe found it necessary to suppress that order
of the Roman Church? And why is England, to-day, hesitating to
give this church in particular the same confidence she does to all
others?




[Pg 273]


CHAPTER XXXV.


Meetings to oppose organization.—Address of the French-Canadians.—Criticisms on it
by the author.—The Jesuits.—Jesuit oath.—Article from the Cincinnati Beacon.


Between the meeting of the committee of twelve at Wallamet
Falls, about the 16th of March, and the called meeting by that committee
on the 2d of May, the priests and the Hudson’s Bay Company
were not idle. They held two distinct meetings, one at the falls and
one at Vancouver, and two in the French Prairie at the Catholic church.
At all of these meetings the course to be pursued by the company and
the Catholic and French settlers was discussed and decided. The result
of these meetings and discussions can be found on the 12th and 13th
pages of the Oregon archives. The names of the signers should have
been given. This document seems to be dated the 4th of March, 1843.
The meeting at Gervais’ was on the first Monday of March. So this
document seems to have been prepared by our Jesuit Blanchet, just
about the time the “wolf meeting” was convening, and in anticipation
of the move for a provisional government. I am certain it was
not before any public meeting of the settlers, and that it was handed
in to the committee of three appointed by the Legislative Committee to
revise and arrange the laws for the meeting on the 5th of July, 1843.


G. W. Le Breton, clerk of the Legislative Committee, handed it in,
when it was examined by the committee of three, and handed back to
him with the remark “it was well enough to keep it with the public
papers, as it would show the influences operating, and who were
opposed to our organization, and the reasons they had for their opposition.
At the meeting of May 2, all the signers of that document were
present with their priests at their head, and voted to a man against the
proposed organization.


“Address of the Canadian citizens of Oregon to the meeting at
Champoeg, March 4, 1843,” It will be seen it should have been dated
May 2. This mistake simply shows that it was prepared March 4,
1843, in anticipation of the action of the meeting to be held May 2,
1843.


The address above referred to is here submitted as a matter of history,
and is as follows:—


“We, the Canadian citizens of Wallamet, considering with interest[Pg 274]
and reflection the subject which unites the people at the present meeting,
present to the American citizens, and particularly to the gentlemen
who called said meeting, the unanimous expression of our sentiments
of cordiality, and desire of union and inexhaustible peace between all
the people, in view of our duty and the interest of the new colony,
and declare—


“1st. That we wish for laws, or regulations, for the welfare of our
persons, and the security of our property and labors.


“2d. That we do not intend to rebel against the measures of that
kind taken last year, by a party of the people; although we do not
approve of certain regulations, nor certain modes of laws, let those
magistrates finish their time.


“3d. That we will not address a new petition to the government of
the United States, because we have our reasons, till the line be decided,
and the frontiers of the States fixed.


“4th. That we are opposed to the regulations anticipated, and exposed
to consequences for the quantity, direction, etc., of lands, and
whatsoever expense for the same lands, because we have no direct
guaranty from the government to come, and, perhaps, to-morrow, all
those measures may be broken.


“5th. That we do not wish a provisional mode of government, too
self-interested, and full of degrees, useless to our power, and overloading
the colony instead of improving it; besides, men of laws and
science are too scarce, and have too much to do in such a new country.


“6th. That we wish either the mode of senate or council to judge the
difficulties, punish the crimes (except capital penalties), and make the
regulations suitable for the people.


“7th. That the same council be elected and composed of members
from all parts of the country, and should act in body, on the plan of
civilized countries in parliament, or as a jury, and to be represented,
for example, by the president of said council, and another member, as
a judge of peace, in each county, allowing the principle of recalling to
the whole senate.


“8th. That the members should be influenced to interest themselves
to their own welfare, and that of the public, by the love of doing good,
rather than by the hope of gain, in order to take off from the esteem of
the people all suspicions of interest in the persons of their representatives.


“9th. That they must avoid every law loading and inexpedient to
the people, especially to the new arrivals. Unnecessary taxes, and
whatever records are of that kind, we do not want them.


“10th. That the militia is useless at present, and rather a danger of[Pg 275]
bad suspicion to the Indians and a delay for the necessary labors; at
the same time, it is a load; we do not want it, either, at present.


“11th. That we consider the country free, at present, to all nations,
till government shall have decided; open to every individual wishing
to settle, without any distinction of origin, and without asking him
any thing, either to become an English, Spanish, or American citizen.


“12th. So we, English subjects, proclaim to be free, as well as those
who came from France, California, United States, or even natives of
this country; and we desire unison with all the respectable citizens who
wish to settle in this country; or we ask to be recognized as free among
ourselves, to make such regulations as appear suitable to our wants,
save the general interest of having justice from all strangers who might
injure us, and that our reasonable customs and pretensions be respected.


“13th. That we are willing to submit to any lawful government
when it comes.


“14th. That we do not forgot that we must make laws only for necessary
circumstances. The more laws there are, the more opportunities
for roguery for those who make a practice of it; and, perhaps, the more
alterations there will be some day.


“15th. That we do not forget in a trial that before all fraud on fulfilling
of some points of the law, the ordinary proofs of the certainty of
the fact ought to be duly weighed, so that justice may be done, and no
shame given for fraud.


“16th. In a new country the more men employed and paid by the
public, the less remains of industry.


“17th. That no one can be more desirous than we are for the prosperity,
ameliorations, and general peace of the country, and especially
for the guaranty of our rights and liberties; and such is the wish we
make for all those who are, or may become, our fellow-countrymen,
etc., for long years of peace.”


Then follow our names and persons.


Which, if our memory is correct, were not given or signed to the
original document, for, if they had been, the document would have been
noticed in the legislative proceedings, and some action taken upon it.
It was considered by the revising committee, as an expression of the
feelings of the subjects named in the twelfth paragraph, and that while
they were opposed to the proposed organization they would act as per
thirteenth paragraph. The second paragraph indicates an approval
of previous political action. The third, their opposition to a connection
with the United States. The fourth, their decided opposition to the
proposed government. The fifth is a reason, and shows that they had
no confidence in the ability of the people to make laws for themselves.[Pg 276]
The sixth indicates a preference for the Hudson’s Bay Company’s mode
of government. The seventh shows a leaning to republican ideas of
government. The eighth to the government of the country by the
clergymen in it. The ninth, opposition to taxes which the French, or
the class represented in that protest, continually manifested in refusing
to pay until compelled by legal or superior force. The tenth shows
that they considered themselves safe from Indian hostility, and were
only anxious to expose the weakness of the settlement by avoiding a
show of military strength. The eleventh affirms the freedom of the
country to all, and their right to occupy it without interference. The
fourteenth, a childish reason against restraint. The fifteenth is considerably
mixed; it is advisory. We admit that the object of it is
beyond our comprehension. The sixteenth looks to one man, or clerical
rule. The seventeenth shows the ecclesiastical origin of the document,
and a suspicion that in the future their conduct may be such that they
may require a “guaranty” of their rights and liberties.


We have an article, published in the Cincinnati Beacon, August,
1843, giving the oath taken by the Jesuits, and a short account of their
objects and proceedings, which, as they had been introduced into
Oregon by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1838, and commenced their
operations as in the above document, we will copy the article entire, as
we shall have occasion to speak of the part taken by them in the settlement
of this country:—


“The order of Jesuits was established by Loyola in 1535, having for
its object the re-establishment of the pope’s sway over the civil powers
of the earth.


“At that time it was found that a mighty effort was needed to regain
to the pope what he had just lost by the Reformation, and this order
was established for that object. Members of that society may be of any
profession or of no profession, as they choose, and as best suits the
object. They may prosecute their own business as merchants in foreign
countries, or serve in the meanest capacity, provided they can by stealth
exercise some destructive influence on any or every form of government
except that under the ’sacred confirmation of the pope.’


“A dispensation is granted them, i. e., permission to lay aside all professions
of regard to the Papal cause, and make outward professions to
any religion or government they choose, if by so doing they can better
‘do their utmost to EXTIRPATE the heretical Protestant doctrine, and
destroy all its pretended powers, REGAL or otherwise.’


“Of course they were soon found in all the political intrigues which
so long distracted Europe. This is a prominent fact on the page of
history. One after another of the European powers became aware of[Pg 277]
this, and each, especially of the Protestant powers, when their intrigues
could no longer be endured, banished the Jesuits as seen above. We
may add Oregon as another special field of their operations since 1838.


“The Jesuits are the most active and efficient agents of Popery in
propagating the Catholic religion in foreign countries. In the following
oath we notice:—


“1. An acknowledgment that Protestant governments are illegal,
without the ’sacred confirmation’ of the pope, and may safely be
destroyed.


“2. A renunciation of ‘any allegiance as due to any heretical’ state,
named Protestants.


“3. A solemn pledge to do their utmost to ‘destroy all their pretended
powers, regal or otherwise.’


“Comment on the relations which these agents of the pope sustain
to our Protestant government is needless.


“The Oath of Secrecy of the Jesuits.


“‘I, A. B., now in the presence of Almighty God, the blessed Virgin
Mary, the blessed Michael the Archangel, the blessed St. John Baptist,
the holy apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, and the saints and sacred
hosts of heaven, and of you my ghostly father, do declare from my
heart, without mental reservation, that his holiness the Pope Urban is
Christ’s vicar-general, and is the true and only head of the Catholic or
Universal Church throughout the earth; and that, by the virtue of the
keys of binding and loosing given to his holiness by my Saviour Jesus
Christ, he hath power to depose heretical kings, princes, states, commonwealths,
and governments, all being illegal without his sacred confirmation,
and that they may safely be destroyed; therefore, to the utmost
of my power, I shall and will defend this doctrine, and his holiness’
rights and customs, against all usurpers of the heretical (or Protestant)
authority whatsoever; especially against the now pretended
authority and Church of England, and all adherents, in regard that they
and she be usurpal and heretical, opposing the sacred mother church
of Rome. I do renounce and disown any allegiance as due to any
heretical king, prince, or state, named Protestant, or obedience to any
of their inferior magistrates or officers. I do further declare, that the
doctrine of the Church of England, of the Calvinists, Huguenots, and
of others of the name of Protestant, to be damnable, and they themselves
are damned, and to be damned, that will not forsake the same;
I do further declare, that I will help, assist, and advise all or any of
his holiness’ agents in any place wherever I shall be, in England, Scotland,
and Ireland, or in any other territory or kingdom I shall come to,[Pg 278]
and do my utmost to extirpate the heretical Protestant doctrine, and
to destroy all its pretended powers, regal or otherwise. I do further
promise and declare, that notwithstanding I am dispensed with, to assume
any religion heretical, for the propagating of the mother church’s
interests, to keep secret and private all her agents’ counsels from time
to time, as they intrust me, and not to divulge, directly or indirectly,
by word, writing, or circumstance whatsoever; but to execute all that
shall be proposed, given in charge, or discovered unto me, by you, my
ghostly father, or any of this sacred convent. All which I, A. B., do
swear, by the blessed Trinity, and blessed Sacrament, which I am now
to receive, to perform, and on my part to keep inviolably: and do call
all the heavenly and glorious host of heaven to witness these my real
intentions, to keep this my oath. In testimony hereof, I take this most
holy and blessed sacrament of the Eucharist; and witness the same
further with my hand and seal, in the face of this holy convent, this
day of Anno Domini, etc.’


“The Jesuits were banished from England in 1606. They were expelled
from France, A. D. 1764; from Spain and Sicily, A. D. 1767; from
Portugal, A. D. 1789; and totally suppressed by Pope Clement XIV.,
A. D. 1773. Everywhere they were prosecuted and repelled as injurious
to youth, and dangerous to all existing forms of government. The
present pope has revived the order, and now we find the Jesuits
secretly and openly engaged again in their pernicious and wicked
devices to re-establish his power in the United States, and in the
Canadas.”


[Pg 279]




CHAPTER XXXVI.


The meeting at Champoeg.—Tactics of the Jesuit party.—Counter-tactics of the Americans.—A
division and its result.—Public record.—Opposition to clergymen as
legislators.—Mr. Hines as an historian.—His errors.—Importance of Mr. Hines’
history.—Extract.—Difficulty among the Indians.—Cause of the difficulty.


The 2d of May, the day fixed by the committee of twelve to organize
a settlers’ government, was close at hand. The Indians had all
learned that the “Bostons” were going to have a big meeting, and they
also knew that the English and French were going to meet with them,
to oppose what the “Bostons” were going to do. The Hudson’s Bay
Company had drilled and trained their voters for the occasion, under
the Rev. F. N. Blanchet and his priests, and they were promptly on the
ground in the open field near a small house, and, to the amusement of
every American present, trained to vote “No” to every motion put; no
matter, if to carry their point they should have voted “Yes,” it was
“No.” Le Breton had informed the committee, and the Americans
generally, that this would be the course pursued, according to instructions,
hence our motions were made to test their knowledge of what
they were doing, and we found just what we expected was the case.
The priest was not prepared for our manner of meeting them, and, as
the record shows, “considerable confusion was existing in consequence.”
By this time we had counted votes. Says Le Breton, “We can risk it;
let us divide and count.” “I second that motion,” says Gray. “Who’s
for a divide?” sang out old Joe Meek, as he stepped out; “all for the
report of the committee and an organization, follow me.” This was so
sudden and unexpected that the priest and his voters did not know
what to do, but every American was soon in line. Le Breton and
Gray passed the line and counted fifty-two Americans, and but fifty
French and Hudson’s Bay Company men. They announced the count—“fifty-two
for, and fifty against.” “Three cheers for our side,” sang
out old Joe Meek. Not one of those old veteran mountain voices were
lacking in that shout for liberty. They were given with a will, and in
a few seconds the chairman, Judge I. L. Babcock, called the meeting to
order, when the priest and his band slunk away into the corners of the
fences, and in a short time mounted their horses and left.


The minutes of the meeting are as follows:—


[Pg 280]“At a public meeting of the inhabitants of the Wallamet settlements,
held in accordance with the call of the committee, chosen at a former
meeting, for the purpose of taking steps to organize themselves into a
civil community, and provide themselves with the protection secured
by the enforcement of law and order, Dr. I. L. Babcock was chosen
Chairman, and Messrs. Gray, Le Breton, and Wilson, secretaries.


“The committee made their report, which was read, and a motion
was made that it be accepted, which was lost.


“Considerable confusion existing in consequence, it was moved by Mr.
Le Breton, and seconded by Mr. Gray, that the meeting divide, preparatory
to being counted; those in favor of the objects of this meeting
taking the right, and those of a contrary mind taking the left
which being carried by acclamation, and a majority being found in
favor of organization, the greater part of the dissenters withdrew.


“It was then moved and carried, that the report of the committee be
taken up and disposed of article by article.


“A motion was made and carried, that a supreme judge, with probate
powers, be chosen to officiate in this community.


“Moved and carried, that a clerk of the court, or recorder, be chosen.


“Moved and carried, that a sheriff be chosen.


“Moved and carried, that three magistrates be chosen.


“Moved and carried, that three constables be chosen.


“Moved and carried, that a committee of nine persons be chosen, for
the purpose of drafting a code of laws for the government of this community,
to be presented to a public meeting to be hereafter called by
them, for their acceptance.


“A motion was made and carried, that a treasurer be chosen.


“Moved and carried, that a major and three captains be chosen.


“Moved and carried, that we now proceed to choose the persons to
fill the various offices by ballot.


“A. E. Wilson was chosen to act as supreme judge, with probate
powers; G. W. Le Breton was chosen to act as clerk of court, and
recorder; J. L. Meek was chosen to fill the office of sheriff; W. H.
Wilson was chosen treasurer.


“Moved and carried, that the remainder of the officers be chosen by
hand ballot, and nomination from the floor.


“Messrs. Hill, Shortess, Newell, Beers, Hubbard, Gray, O’Neil, Moore,
and Dougherty, were chosen to act as Legislative Committee; Messrs.
Burns, Judson, and A. B. Smith were chosen to act as magistrates;
Messrs. Ebbets, Bridgers, and Lewis, were chosen to act as constables;
Mr. John Howard was chosen major; Messrs. Wm. McCarty, C. McRoy,
and S. Smith were chosen captains.


[Pg 281]“Moved and carried, that the Legislative Committee make their
report on the 5th day of July next, at Champoeg.


“Moved and carried, that the services of the Legislative Committee
be paid for at $1.25 per day, and that the money be raised by subscription.


“Moved and carried, that the major and captains be instructed to
enlist men to form companies of mounted riflemen.


“Moved and carried, that an additional constable and magistrate be
chosen.


“Mr. Compo was chosen as an additional magistrate. Mr. Matthew
was chosen as an additional constable.


“Moved and carried, that the Legislative Committee shall not sit
over six days.


“The meeting was then adjourned.


“The question having arisen with regard to what time the newly-appointed
officers should commence their duties, the meeting was again
called to order, when it was moved and carried, that the old officers
act till the laws are made and accepted, or until the next public
meeting.



“Attest,

“G. W. Le Breton.”





It will be remembered by those present, that in the appointment of
the members of the Legislative Committee, Rev. J. S. Griffin was named
as one of the committee. I am not positive that Mr. Griffin was present,
but I remember that his nomination was opposed, or any clergyman of
any denomination having any thing to do with making laws for the settlers.
It was stated as a reason, that their duties and calling were not
such as qualified them to enact laws adapted to a promiscuous community;
they, as a matter of conscience and duty to what they, as a general
thing, considered higher laws, disqualified themselves to enter the halls
of legislation as law-makers. Besides, the settlers had once placed it
in their hands and requested them to aid in the enactment of suitable
laws for the government and protection of the settlement. This
request they had neglected and refused to comply with, and we had
before us the example and influence of one who had openly opposed
our effort. In placing upon this committee a reverend gentleman from
one denomination, we, as a matter of courtesy, must do the same to
another, and, as in the former case, we would be liable to be defeated.
Mr. Griffin did not receive a single vote, without it was that of the
Rev. Mr. Kone, from Clatsop, who, I think, was present.


We will now leave the Legislative Committee to do their business, as[Pg 282]
per instructions, and see what our very officious Indian agent and his
friend, Rev. Mr. Hines, are about.


During the fall of 1842 and winter and spring of 1843, “our plot
thickens.” We must go back a little, and notice, among other things, that
as soon as Uncle Samuel’s exploring squadron had looked at Oregon a
little and Dr. McLaughlin’s good liquors more (when the infirmities of
the stomach required something stronger than water), and had found
occasion to express great praise of the kind treatment and generosity
of the Hudson’s Bay Company, they also found it convenient to sanction
the opposition to a temporary government for the settlement,—at
least, Mr. Hines tells us they opposed it,—and leave the company to
continue their kicking and changing the bushel, calling in their cattle
and pay for all lost, and enter vigorously upon a settled system of
opposition to all American settlements in the country. Their Jesuit
missions were doing them good service in the interior. Their clerks
and interpreters were ready to do their part. The puff-ball of folly
and ignorance, in the shape of a sub-Indian agent, had been among the
Indians, who were made to believe from his foolish statements,—confirmed
or made worse by such old liars as Toupin, as in the case of
Parker,—that the great parent was going to make them wise and rich,
and give them all they wanted, if they would adopt his advice, and do
as he wished them. All things combined aroused Mr. Hines to the
solemn conclusion that it was his duty to volunteer and go with our
sub-Indian agent, and assist him in pacifying the Indians. I suppose
he must have gone in the capacity of prime minister or secretary of
state. He says, page 146: “In the evening of the 17th, Dr. White
arrived at my house, bringing intelligence from the falls.” Le Breton
returned the next day, and reported that Anderson’s horse was stolen
by an Indian,—the same that had stolen one from Mr. Hines two years
before. Hines had the courage to go and get his horse, but Anderson,
who was a Swede, had not. This transaction, it will be remembered,
was on April 17, a month after the organizing committee of twelve had
been appointed at Gervais’. White and Hines are in council at Hines’
house. The visit to the interior tribes is before the council. White
had been up among the Nez Percés and Cayuses in the fall of 1842, and
with the aid of McKay (who was the most reliable half-native servant
the company ever had), the Indians were induced to form a combination,
exactly such a one as Frank Ermatinger, in 1838, told the writer
the company would form, with the aid of their half-breed servants, to
resist the occupancy of the country by the American government.
Mr. Hines’ stupidity led him to believe this was the policy of White,
and not that of the company. He says, at the bottom of page 142:


[Pg 283]


“It had been the policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company to destroy the
chieftainship, cut the different tribes into small clans, and divide their
interests as far as possible, so as to weaken them, and render them
incapable of injuring the whites, thus preventing them from acting
in concert.” At the time this policy was adopted by the company
there were no whites in the country but themselves. Mr. Hines believes
that the American settlement was to be benefited by this shrewd
policy of the company, and attributes to Dr. White the opposite
policy. He says, page 143, that “the sub-agent adopted a different
policy.”


How natural and how easy for his reverence to fall into this error,
and to say, on page 142, “Thomas McKay contributed much to allay
the excitement among them, and, in connection with the sub-agent, induced
the natives to adopt a code of laws and appoint a head chief, and
inferior chiefs, sufficient to carry the laws into execution.” Not the
least suspicion of McKay’s instructions and the Hudson’s Bay Company’s
arrangements and consent in the matter, and that the sub-agent
was the very man the company was making use of to get their own
trained and educated Indian (Ellis) at the head of the Nez Percé tribe,
to accomplish the object they had in view. Mr. Hines has given us a
good history, for which we thank him in behalf of truth, and also for
the assistance it has given us in showing to the world the damning
policy, the accursed influences brought to bear against the little band
of patriots that had the courage to contend against such fearful combinations
of avarice, stupidity, superstition, and savagism; and here
allow me to say, is the reason that Whitman, Harvey Clark, Shortess,
Smith, Cornelius Rogers, J. L. Meek, Couch, and fifty others, had no
confidence in White or his advisers and friends.


Le Breton acted well his part; the company knew him better than
Mr. Hines did; his death was a victory, as they supposed, to them, but
the effort moved on. The act of a few Indians, in going to St. Louis in
1832, for religious knowledge, brought Mr. Hines to the country with
others more capable of meeting the combined influences of avarice, stupidity,
bigotry, and superstition.


And although many things have combined to keep them from any
pecuniary reward, still facts, and the history of the country they have
saved as the golden gem of our great Republic, will seek to know who
it was whose efforts could successfully contend with such influences as
were then held by the company, the Jesuit priests, Dr. White, and the
Methodist Mission. We now know why our little settlement wept and
mourned the death of Rogers, Le Breton, and Whitman, as they were
substantial pillars in our temple of liberty on this coast. Does a simple[Pg 284]
slab mark the place of their rest? Their surviving associates are not
able to answer in the affirmative.


It will be borne in mind that while Dr. Whitman was on his way to
Washington, Dr. White and Thomas McKay visited the Indians in the
interior, in October, 1842,—about one month after Dr. Whitman had
left for the States. Mr. Spalding was really more stupid than Mr.
Hines in all matters of policy and deep-laid plans to accomplish any
object. His courage was strong in ignorance of danger. Mr. Hines
had personal courage, but his self-esteem was unbounded. Dr. White
was shrewd enough to make use of both. Mr. Spalding was taken with
Dr. White’s smooth milk-and-water false statements about his office,
powers, and duties. He was led to believe that White had all the
powers he professed to have, and lent his influence to McKay to organize
and combine the Indian tribes, supposing all the while he was doing
it for Dr. White and the American cause.


Messrs. Hines and Spalding were alike in this particular. The reader
will not forget that I am speaking of men and their actions, and the
influence they had at a certain time, and the effect of those actions
upon the Indians and the religious, political, and general interests of
the country. Personally, I have no malice against a single man of
whom I write; many of them I know are dead, and at the proper time
I will give you as faithful an account of their good deeds as I now do
of their errors. Besides, I hope the children and friends of all of whom
I write, will see and feel the virtue there is in doing right at all times,
and, as we are told, “try the spirits,” or persons, “to know whether
they are good or evil.”


A large portion of the ninth chapter of Mr. Hines’ book is too important
in illustrating truth to be omitted in a history such as we are
giving. The reader will understand the observations we have to make,
bearing in mind that all these facts have an important bearing on a
transaction that occurred four years later. He says:—


“April 14. This settlement has been thrown into a panic by intelligence
which has just been received from the upper country, concerning
the hostile intentions of the Cayuse, Nez Percé, and Wallawalla Indians.
It appears that they have again threatened the destruction of
the whites. Some time in October last, Indian report said that these
tribes were coming down to kill off the ‘Boston’ people, meaning those
from the United States. This intelligence produced considerable excitement
at the time, and induced the sub-agent of Indian affairs to go
directly to the upper country and ascertain the truth of the report, and,
if possible, settle all matters of difficulty. On arriving among the Indians,
he ascertained that the report was not without foundation, but[Pg 285]
entered into such arrangements with them as appeared to give satisfaction.
Thomas McKay contributed much to allay the excitement
among them, and, in connection with the sub-agent, induced the Nez
Percés to adopt a code of laws, and appoint a head chief and inferior
chiefs, sufficient to carry the laws into execution.


“It had been the policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company to destroy
the chieftainship, cut the different tribes into smaller clans, and divide
their interests as far as possible, so as to weaken them, and render
them incapable of injuring the whites, by preventing them from acting
in concert. But the sub-agent adopted a different policy. The
individual appointed to the high chieftainship over the Nez Percés
was one Ellis, as he was called by the English, who, having spent
several years in the settlement on Red River, east of the mountains,
had, with a smattering of the English language, acquired a high sense
of his own importance; and, consequently, after he was appointed
chief, pursued a very haughty and overbearing course. The fulfillment
of the laws which the agent recommended for their adoption was
required by Ellis with the utmost rigor. Individuals were severely
punished for crimes which, from time immemorial, had been committed
by the people with impunity. This occasioned suspicions in the minds
of the Indians generally that the whites designed the ultimate subjugation
of their tribes. They saw in the laws they had adopted, a
deep-laid scheme of the whites to destroy them, and take possession
of their country. The arrival of a large party of emigrants about
this time, and the sudden departure of Dr. Whitman to the United
States, with the avowed intention of bringing back with him as many
as he could enlist for Oregon, served to hasten them to the above conclusion.
That a great excitement existed among the Indians in the
interior, and that they designed to make war upon the settlement,
was only known to the whites through the medium of vague report,
until a letter was received from H. K. W. Perkins, at the Dalles, in
which he informed us that the Wascopum and Wallawalla Indians
had communicated to him in substance the following information:
That the Indians are very much exasperated against the whites, in consequence
of so many of the latter coming into the country, to destroy
their game and take away their lands; that the Nez Percés dispatched
one of their chiefs last winter on snow-shoes, to visit the Indians in
the buffalo country east of Fort Hall, for the purpose of exciting them
to cut off the party that it is expected Dr. Whitman will bring back
with him to settle the Nez Percé country; that the Indians are endeavoring
to form a general coalition for the purpose of destroying
all the ‘Boston’ people; that it is not good to kill a part of them, and[Pg 286]
leave the rest, but that every one of them must be destroyed. This
information produced a great excitement throughout the community,
and almost every man had a plan of his own by which to avert the
impending storm. In the estimation of some, the Indians were to be
upon us immediately, and it was unsafe to retire at night, for fear the
settlement would be attacked before morning. The plan of the agent
was to induce men to pledge themselves, under the forfeiture of one
hundred dollars in case of delinquency, to keep constantly on hand and
ready for use either a good musket or rifle, and one hundred charges
of ammunition, and to hold themselves in readiness to go at the call
of the agent to any part of the country, not to exceed two days’ travel
for the purpose of defending the settlement, and repelling any savage
invaders. This plan pleased some of the people, and they put down
their names; but many were much dissatisfied with it; and as we had
no authority, no law, no order, for the time being, in the country, it
was impossible to tell what would be the result, if the Indians should
attempt to carry their threats into execution.”


We have before us, in these quotations, the facts of the change of
policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the combining of the Nez
Percé tribe, the supposed ground of complaint against the Americans,
and the failure of the sub-Indian agent to get the settlers to adopt
his plan for protecting the settlement against the Indians. We will
now give the reasons the company had for adopting the dividing and
cutting-up policy among the Indians.


The reader is requested to observe Mr. Hines’ description of Ellis,
Dr. White’s Indian chief. It was this same Indian that drove the Rev.
A. B. Smith in 1840 from his land, as stated by old Toupin on 15th
page of Brouillet’s history of the Whitman massacre. Up to this time
he was not considered an important character by the company, on
account of his self-importance and insolence. In this respect he resembled
Tawatowe, of the Cayuses, who, when he had been promoted to
the head chieftainship of that tribe, became insolent, and going so far as
to get possession of Fort Wallawalla, had tied Mr. P. C. Pambrun, and
kept him tied till he agreed to give the Indians better prices for their
horses and furs. As soon as they had liberated him, Mr. Pambrun
made a few trades with them and treated them kindly, and induced
them to leave the fort. He sent at once to Vancouver and increased
the number of his men, and told the chiefs that had had him tied, that
he no longer regarded them as chiefs, and at once commenced to
destroy their influence by refusing to give them the accustomed
presents, and gave them to lesser chiefs, and in that way divided them
up and broke their power as principal chiefs.


[Pg 287]While the American fur trader, Captain Wyeth, was in the country,
the company had increased their tariff, and paid the Indians more for
their horses and furs, but as soon as he had been driven from the
country, they reduced it to their own prices. The Indians did not
understand why the company gave them so much less than the
Americans, or Bostons, did for the same things.


The principal chiefs of the Nez Percés and Cayuses were together in
the attempt to get better pay for the property they sold to the company,
whose policy was to keep all the principal men down, and divide
their power and influence, and prevent any large combinations among
the tribes,—thus making it easy to control them. This statement of
facts and policy I had from Mr. Pambrun and Mr. Ermatinger, both of
the Hudson’s Bay Company.


Mr. Hines, on page 143, in speaking about the laws adopted by
the Indians, seems altogether to ignore the fact that a desperate effort
was then being made by the Hudson’s Bay Company, as the conduct of
the Indians plainly indicated, to drive all Americans from the country.
The unreasonable punishments inflicted, and all other odious inferences,
were the legitimate instruments to accomplish a specific object. The
same was the case in the inferences drawn about Dr. Whitman’s visit
to the States. While Governor Simpson sends on his Red River settlers,
and goes to Washington to secure the country to the British
crown, Dr. Whitman and his mission become the special objects of misrepresentation
and hate among the Indians. His mill and all his grain
are burned, while a large immigration of British subjects and the Jesuit
missionaries are received with open arms. Dr. Whitman and the American
settlement must be stopped at all hazards. An Indian is sent on
snow-shoes to the Buffalo Indians east of Fort Hall, for the purpose of
exciting them to cut off the party that is expected with Dr. Whitman.


The American government, according to Dr. White, is about to
take possession of the country, and had sent him out as its first governor.
He, to conciliate the Indians, adopts all the suggestions of the
Hudson’s Bay Company, and succeeds to his entire satisfaction, with
the aid of Mr. McKay. While he can do nothing to unite the settlers
for their own defense, the divide-and-weaken policy of the company is
changed from Indians to the American settlers. White and Hines are
equally useful to the company in doing the one, as they had been successful
in the other. That the transaction related by Mr. Hines on his
145th page, under date of April 17, may be better understood, we
will, in the next chapter, give a copy of the petition referred to. This
document is mostly the work of Robert Shortess, and was signed by
nearly every American in the country who had an opportunity.




[Pg 288]


CHAPTER XXXVII.


Whitman’s visit to Washington.—A priest’s boast.—A taunt, and Whitman’s reply.—Arrival
in Washington.—Interview with Secretary Webster.—With President
Tyler.—His return.—Successful passage of the Rocky Mountains with two hundred
wagons.—His mill burned during his absence.


In September, 1842, Dr. Whitman was called to visit a patient at old
Fort Wallawalla. While there, a number of boats of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, with several chief traders and Jesuit priests, on their way to
the interior of the country, arrived. While at dinner, the overland express
from Canada arrived, bringing news that the emigration from the
Red River settlement was at Colville. This news excited unusual joy
among the guests. One of them—a young priest—sang out: “Hurrah
for Oregon, America is too late; we have got the country.” “Now the
Americans may whistle; the country is ours!” said another.


Whitman learned that the company had arranged for these Red
River English settlers to come on to settle in Oregon, and at the same
time Governor Simpson was to go to Washington and secure the settlement
of the question as to the boundaries on the ground of the most
numerous and permanent settlement in the country.


The Doctor was taunted with the idea that no power could prevent
this result, as no information could reach Washington in time to prevent
it. “It shall be prevented,” said the Doctor, “if I have to go to
Washington myself.” “But you can not go there to do it,” was the
taunting reply of the Briton. “I will see,” was the Doctor’s reply.
The reader is sufficiently acquainted with the history of this man’s toil
and labor in bringing his first wagon through to Fort Boise, to understand
what he meant when he said, “I will see.” Two hours after this
conversation at the fort, he dismounted from his horse at his door at
Wailatpu. I saw in a moment that he was fixed on some important
object or errand. He soon explained that a special effort must be made
to save the country from becoming British territory.


Every thing was in the best of order about the station, and there
seemed to be no important reason why he should not go. A. L. Lovejoy,
Esq., had a few days before arrived with the immigration. It was
proposed that he should accompany the Doctor, which he consented to
do, and in twenty-four hours’ time they were well mounted and on
their way to the States. They reached Fort Hall all safe; kept south[Pg 289]
into Taos, and thence to Bent’s Fort, on the Arkansas River, when Mr.
Lovejoy became exhausted from toil and exposure, and stopped for the
winter, while the Doctor continued on and reached Washington.


Thus far in this narrative I give Dr. Whitman’s, Mr. Lovejoy’s, and
my own knowledge. I find an article in the Pacific of November 9,
from Mr. Spalding, which gives us the result:—


“On reaching the settlements, Dr. Whitman found that many of the
now old Oregonians—Waldo, Applegate, Hamtree, Keizer, and others—who
had once made calculations to come to Oregon, had abandoned
the idea because of the representations from Washington that every
attempt to take wagons and ox-teams through the Rocky and Blue
Mountains to the Columbia had failed. Dr. Whitman saw at once
what the stopping of wagons at Fort Hall every year meant. The
representations purported to come from Secretary Webster, but were
from Governor Simpson, who, magnifying the statements of his chief
trader, Grant, at Fort Hall, declared the Americans must be going
mad, from their repeated fruitless attempts to take wagons and teams
through the impassable regions to the Columbia, and that the women
and children of those wild fanatics had been saved from a terrible
death only by the repeated and philanthropic labors of Mr. Grant, at
Fort Hall, in furnishing them with horses. The Doctor told these men,
as he met them, that his only object in crossing the mountains in the
dead of winter, at the risk of his life, and through untold sufferings,
was to take back an American emigration that summer through the
mountains to the Columbia, with their wagons and their teams. The
route was practicable. We had taken our wagon, our cattle, and our
families through, seven years before. They had nothing to fear; but
to be ready on his return. The stopping of wagons at Fort Hall was a
Hudson’s Bay Company scheme to prevent the settling of the country
by the Americans, till they could settle it with their own subjects from
the Selkirk settlement. This news spread like wildfire through Missouri.
The Doctor pushed on to Washington and immediately sought
an interview with Secretary Webster,—both being from the same State,—and
stated to him the object of his crossing the mountains, and laid
before him the great importance of Oregon to the United States. But
Mr. Webster lived too near Cape Cod to see things in the same light with
his fellow-Statesman who had transferred his worldly interests to the
Pacific coast. He awarded sincerity to the missionary, but could not
admit for a moment that the short residence of six years could give
the Doctor the knowledge of the country possessed by Governor Simpson,
who had almost grown up in the country, and had traveled every
part of it, and represents it as one unbroken waste of sand deserts and[Pg 290]
impassable mountains, fit only for the beaver, the gray bear, and the
savage. Besides, he had about traded it off with Governor Simpson, to
go into the Ashburton treaty, for a cod-fishery on Newfoundland.


“The Doctor next sought an interview with President Tyler, who at
once appreciated his solicitude and his timely representations of Oregon,
and especially his disinterested though hazardous undertaking to
cross the Rocky Mountains in the winter to take back a caravan of
wagons. He said that, although the Doctor’s representations of the
character of the country, and the possibility of reaching it by a wagon
route, were in direct contradiction to those of Governor Simpson, his
frozen limbs were sufficient proof of his sincerity, and his missionary
character was sufficient guaranty for his honesty, and he would therefore,
as President, rest upon these and act accordingly; would detail
Fremont with a military force to escort the Doctor’s caravan through
the mountains; and no more action should be had toward trading off
Oregon till he could hear the result of the expedition. If the Doctor
could establish a wagon route through the mountains to the Columbia
River, pronounced impossible by Governors Simpson and Ashburton,
he would use his influence to hold on to Oregon. The great desire of
the Doctor’s American soul, and Christian withal, that is, the pledge
of the President that the swapping of Oregon with England for a cod-fishery
should stop for the present, was attained, although at the risk
of life, and through great sufferings, and unsolicited, and without the
promise or expectation of a dollar’s reward from any source. And
now, God giving him life and strength, he would do the rest; that is,
connect the Missouri and Columbia rivers with a wagon-track so deep
and plain that neither national envy nor sectional fanaticism would ever
blot it out[10]. And when the 5th of September, 1843, saw the rear of the
Doctor’s caravan of nearly two hundred wagons, with which he started
from Missouri last of April, emerge from the western shades of the Blue
Mountains upon the plains of the Columbia, the greatest work ever
accomplished by one man for Oregon was finished. And through that
great emigration during that whole summer, the Doctor was their
everywhere-present angel of mercy, ministering to the sick, helping the
[Pg 291]weary, encouraging the wavering, cheering the mothers, mending
wagons, setting broken bones, hunting stray oxen, climbing precipices;
now in the rear, now at the front; in the rivers, looking out fords
through the quicksands; in the deserts, looking out for water; in the
dark mountains, looking out passes; at noontide or midnight, as though
those thousands were his own children, and those wagons and flocks
were his own property. Although he asked not, nor expected, a dollar
as a reward from any source, he felt himself abundantly rewarded
when he saw the desire of his heart accomplished, the great wagon
route over the mountains established, and Oregon in a fair way to be
occupied with American settlements and American commerce. And
especially he felt himself doubly paid, when, at the end of his successful
expedition, and standing alive at his home again on the banks of
the Wallawalla, these hundreds of his fellow summer pilgrims, way-worn
and sunbrowned, took him by the hand and thanked him with
tears for what he had done.


[10] They reached Fort Hall in safety, but there, in the absence of Dr. Whitman from
their camp, they were told by Captain Grant, in the interest of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
as others had been told before, that it was idle for wagons to attempt to reach
the Columbia. For a time there was a heaviness of spirit among those families, which,
like the Israelites of old, had penetrated the depths of the “great and terrible wilderness.”
But Dr. Whitman, on ascertaining what had happened, reassured them by his
bold and manly words, saying to them, “My countrymen! you have trusted me thus
far; believe me now, and I will take your wagons to Columbia River;” and he did so,
and Oregon was saved by his patriotism to the Union.


“During the Doctor’s absence, his flour mill, with a quantity of grain,
had been burned, and, consequently, he found but a small supply at
his station on his return, raised by Mr. Geiger, a young man. But what
he had in the way of grain, garden vegetables, and cattle, he gladly
furnished the needy immigrants at the very low figure of the Wallamet
prices, which was six hundred per cent. lower than what they had been
compelled to pay at Forts Hall and Boise, and one half lower than
they are to-day in the same country. And this was his practice every
year till himself and wife and fourteen immigrants were murdered in the
fall of 1847, because, as Vicar-General Brouillet says, ‘they were
American citizens’, and not, as I am bold to say and can prove, because
he was a physician. Shame on the American that will intimate such
a thing! This vicar-general of the Papal hosts on this coast does not
thank you for such an excuse. He tells you plainly it was to break up
the American settlements on this coast.


“Often the good Doctor would let every bushel of his grain go to the
passing immigrants in the fall, and then would have to depend upon me
for breadstuffs for the winter and the whole year till next harvest, for
his own large family and the scores of immigrants who every year were
obliged to stop at his station on account of sickness or give-out teams.
Although the Doctor had done so much for his country, it seems his
blood was necessary to arouse the government to take formal possession
of this coast, as it was his death by savages that sent the
devoted J. L. Meek over the mountains to Washington, in the spring
of 1848, to beg the government, in behalf of the citizens of this coast,
to send us help, and to extend its jurisdiction over us.”




[Pg 292]


CHAPTER XXXVIII.


Petition of the citizens of Oregon in 1843.—Complaints against the Hudson’s Bay
Company.—The Milling Company.—Kicking the half-bushel.—Land claims of Dr.
McLaughlin.—Names of the signers.—Reasons for not signing.—Notice, deed, and
bond of John McLaughlin.—Claim of Alvin F. Waller.


Petition of Citizens of Oregon in 1843.


To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled:—


We, the undersigned, settlers south of the Columbia River, beg
leave respectfully to represent to your honorable body:


As has been before represented to your honorable body, we consider
ourselves citizens of the United States, and acknowledge the right of
the United States to extend its jurisdiction over us; and the object of
the present memorial is to ask that the protection of the United States
may be extended to us as soon as possible. Hitherto, our numbers
have been small, and the few difficulties that arose in the settlement
were speedily and satisfactorily settled. But, as our settlement
increases in numbers, so our difficulties increase in number and importance;
and, unless we can have laws to govern us that will be respected
and obeyed, our situation will be a deplorable one. Where the highest
court of appeal is the rifle, safety in life and property can not be
depended on.


The state of the country, its climate, resources, soil, productions,
etc., has already been laid before your honorable body, in Captain
Wyeth’s memoir, and in former memorials from the inhabitants of this
place.


Laws are made to protect the weak against the mighty, and we feel
the necessity of them in the steps that are constantly taken by the
Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company, in their opposition to the improvement
and enterprise of American citizens. You have been apprised
already of their opposition to Captain Wyeth, Bonneville, and others;
and we find that the same spirit dwells with them at the present day.
Some years ago, when the Hudson’s Bay Company owned all the cattle
in Oregon, they would not sell on any conditions; but they would lend
their cows to the settler—he returning to the company the cows
loaned, with all the increase; and in case of the death of a cow, he[Pg 293]
then had the privilege of paying for it. But after the settlers, at great
risk and expense, went to California and purchased for themselves, and
there was a fair prospect of the settlement being supplied, then the
Hudson’s Bay Company were willing to sell, and at lower rates than
the settlers could sell.


In the year 1842, feeling the necessity of having mills erected that
could supply the settlement with flour and lumber, a number of the
inhabitants formed themselves into a joint-stock company, for the purpose
of supplying the growing wants of the community. Many of
the farmers were obliged to leave their farms on the Wallamet, and go
six miles above Vancouver, on the Columbia River, making the whole
distance about sixty miles, to get their wheat ground, at a great loss
of time and expense. The company was formed and proceeded to
select a site. They selected an island at the falls of the Wallamet,
and concluded to commence their operations. After commencing, they
were informed by Dr. McLaughlin, who is at the head of the Hudson’s
Bay Company’s affairs west of the Rocky Mountains, that the land
was his, and that he (although a chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay
Company) claimed all the land on the east side of the Wallamet,
embracing the falls down to the Clackamas River, a distance of about
two miles. He had no idea, we presume, that the company would
succeed. However, he erected a shed on the island, after the stuff was
on the island to build a house, and then gave them permission to
build under certain restrictions. They took the paper he wrote
them, containing his conditions, but did not obligate themselves to
comply with the conditions, as they did not think his claim just or
reasonable.


Many projects had been started by the inhabitants, but, for want of
means and encouragement, failed. This fate was predicted for the
Milling Company. But, after much labor and difficulty, they
succeeded in getting a saw-mill erected, and ready to run, and entered
into a contract to have a grist-mill erected forthwith. And now, as
they have succeeded, where is the Hudson’s Bay Company? Dr.
McLaughlin employs hands to get out a frame for a saw-mill, and erect
it at Wallamet Falls; and we find, as soon as the frame is up, the gearing,
which has been made at Vancouver, is brought up in boats; and
that which cost a feeble company of American citizens months of toil
and embarrassment is accomplished by the chief factor of the Hudson’s
Bay Company in a few weeks. He has men and means, and it is said
by him that in two weeks his mill will be sawing. And what will be
the consequence? Why, if the Milling Company sell for $15 per
thousand, he can sell for $12; if they reduce the price to $10, he can[Pg 294]
come to $8, or $5, or $2 per thousand. He says he will have a grist-mill
started as soon as he gets the saw-mill in operation.


All the wheat in Oregon they are anxious to get, as they ship it to
the Russians on the northwest coast. In the first place they measured
the wheat in a half-bushel, called by them imperial measure, much
larger than the standard measure of the United States; this not
answering, they next proceeded to kick the half-bushel with the foot to
settle the wheat; then they brought up a measure larger than the
former one; and now they fill this measure, then strike it three times
with a stout club, and then fill up, and call it fair measure. Against
such proceedings we need law that will be respected and obeyed.


About twelve or fourteen years ago, the Hudson’s Bay Company
blasted a canal a few feet to conduct water to a mill they were going
to build, the timber for which is now lying at the falls rotting. They,
however, abandoned the thing altogether, and built their mills on the
Columbia, about six miles above Vancouver, on the north side of the
river.


In the year 1837, agreeably to orders left by Mr. Slacum, a house
was erected at the falls, to secure the claim for him.


In 1840, the Methodist Mission erected buildings at the falls, and
stationed two families there, and made a claim to sufficient land for
their buildings, not interfering with any others who might wish to
build. A short time previous to this, Dr. McLaughlin had a storehouse
erected for the company, not occupied, however, further than to store
wheat and other articles in, and as a trading-house during the salmon
season.


After this, in 1841, a shanty was erected, and a man kept at the falls,
whose business it was to trade with the Indians for furs and salmon,
and look out for the doctor’s claim, he said, and to forbid persons
building at the falls, as some had built, and others were about building.
This man was, and still is, a servant of the Hudson’s Bay Company.


During the years 1841 and 1842, several families settled at the falls,
when Dr. McLaughlin, who still resides at Fort Vancouver, comes on
the ground, and says the land is his, and any person building without
his permission is held as a trespasser. Without reference to any person’s
right or claim, he employs a surveyor to run out the plat; and as
a bill was before the Senate of the United States to grant to every
white male inhabitant a mile square, he has a mile run out to suit his
views, and lays out a town plat at the falls, and calls it Oregon City.
Although some, for peace’s sake, asked him for the lots they had already
in possession, and which he appeared very willing to grant, the doctor
now felt himself secure, and posted up the annexed paper (marked A),[Pg 295]
which is the original; and all who had lots were required to pay Mr.
Hastings five dollars for a deed of land which they knew very well the
grantor did not own, but that Congress will pass a special act granting
to each man his lot and improvements. Those that applied received
(if they had a house on the lot) a deed, a copy of which is annexed
(marked B); if they had no house, a bond was given for five dollars,
a copy of which is annexed (marked C). To those that applied and
paid their five dollars all was right with the doctor; while those who
considered his title to the land not good, and that therefore he had no
right to direct who should build and who should not, had their lots
sold to others. In one case the purchaser came to the original claimant
and ordered him to stop digging the ground which he was preparing
for a garden, and commanded him to remove his fences, as he had Dr.
McLaughlin’s bond in his pocket for the lots; and if he did not move
the fence he would, and take forcible possession. Those who desired
to have no difficulty, and did not apply for a deed, have lost their lots,
the doctor’s promise, and all. And Mr. Hastings (the doctor’s agent)
is now offering for sale the lots on which part of the mission buildings
stand; and if he succeeds in finding a purchaser, they must either contend
or lose their buildings.


Dr. McLaughlin has held claims in other places south of the Columbia
River: at the Tualatin Plains and Clackamas Plains he had huts
erected, to prevent others from building; and such is the power of Dr.
McLaughlin, that many persons are actually afraid to make their situation
known, thinking, if he hears of it, he will stop their supplies. Letters
were received here from Messrs. Ladd & Co., of the Sandwich
Islands, in answer to a letter written by the late Mr. Ewing Young, for
a few supplies, that orders were received forbidding the company’s vessels
carrying any goods for the settlers of Oregon. Every means will
be made use of by them to break down every thing that will draw
trade to this country, or enable persons to get goods at any other place
than their store.


One other item, and we are done. When the United States government
officers of distinction arrive, Vancouver is thrown open, and every
facility afforded them. They were even more condescending to the
settlers during the time the exploring squadron was in the Columbia;
nothing was left undone to give the officers a high opinion of the Honorable
Hudson’s Bay Company. Our Indian agent is entirely dependent
on them for supplies and funds to carry on his operations.


And now your memorialists pray your honorable body that immediate
action of Congress be taken in regard to this country, and good
and wholesome laws be enacted for our Territory, as may, in your wis[Pg 296]dom,
be thought best for the good of the American citizens residing
here.


And your memorialists will ever pray.


Robert Shortess, A. E. Wilson⚹, W. C. Remick⚹, Jeffrey Brown, E. N.
Coombs, Reuben Lewis, George Davis, V. Bennett, J. Rekener, T.
J. Hubbard, James A. O’Neil, Jer. Horregon, William McCarty,
Charles Compo, John Howard⚹, R. Williams, G. Brown, John Turner⚹,
Theodore Pancott, A. F. Waller, J. R. Robb, J. L. Morrison,
M. Crawford, John Anderson, James M. Bates, L. H. Judson, Joel
Turnham⚹, Richard H. Ekin, H. Campbell⚹, James Force, W. H.
Wilson⚹, Felix Hathaway⚹, J. Lawson, Thomas J. Shadden⚹, Joseph
Gibbs, S. Lewis, Jr., Charles Roy, William Brown, S. Davis, Joseph
Yatten, John Hopstatter⚹, G. W. Bellomy⚹, William Brown, A.
Beers, J. L. Parish, William H. Gray, A. D. Smith⚹, J. C. Bridgers⚹,
Aaron Cook, A. Copeland, S. W. Moss, Gustavus Hines, George W.
Le Breton⚹, Daniel Girtman, C. T. Arrendrill, A. Touner, David
Carter⚹, J. J. Campbell⚹, W. Johnson⚹, John Edmunds, W. Hauxhurst,
W. A. Pfieffer, J. Holman, H. B. Brewer, William C. Sutton.
Sixty-five in all.


It is understood that the persons whose names are marked with an asterisk (⚹) are
now dead; the balance are supposed to be still living.


The foregoing are all the names which appear to the petition printed
as Senate document 105, and presented to the Senate at the first session
of the twenty-eighth Congress.



W. J. McDonald,

Principal Clerk of Sec’y Senate.


Washington, D. C., Jan. 5, 1866.



Mr. George Abernethy declined to sign this petition through fear of
injuring the Methodist Mission in its secular or business relations with
the Hudson’s Bay Company.


Hugh Burns would not sign it because he did not wish Congress to
be asked to confirm his title to lots and improvements.


Jason Lee, though he thought it right to petition Congress for
protection, yet on account of his position as superintendent of the
Methodist Mission, and the influence of the company against them
should he sign it, thought it best not to give his name.


Dr. I. L. Babcock refused, because, by signing, he would lose his
influence with the company.


Walter Pomeroy, ditto.


Dr. Bailey did not wish any protection from the Congress of the
United States.


[Pg 297]Rev. H. K. W. Perkins was ashamed of the petition. “What does
Congress care about measuring wheat? or a contest between two
milling companies?”


George Gay did not care any thing about it. Congress might do as
it pleased; he did not want its protection.


The people in Tualatin Plains did not have an opportunity to sign or
refuse for want of time to circulate it in that section. The bearer of it,
William C. Sutton, was on his way to the States across the Rocky
Mountains. Through the influence of Dr. White, who had clandestinely
procured a copy of the petition and the names attached, and had
made an effort to prevent its reaching Mr. Sutton, it had been delayed,
but through the perseverance and promptness of Robert Shortess and
A. E. Wilson, it was sent by Davis and Johnson and some Indians in
an express canoe, and reached Mr. Sutton before he left the Cascades.
For this service to his country and the persevering efforts of Mr.
Shortess to maintain the rights of American citizens in it, he was early
placed under the ban of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and, it may be
added, the Methodist Mission; and reports prejudicial to him have been
freely and persistently kept before the public mind, as also against any
others that have taken an active part against the infamous and despotic
course of that company. This is to weaken their testimony, and to render
them powerless to prevent the present proposed robbing of our
national treasury. Instead of paying one dime to that company for
doing all they dared to do to prevent the settlement of Oregon by
Americans, a pension should be paid to Robert Shortess and many
others who dared to maintain the rights of the American people to this
western coast. Whitman periled every thing and lost his life to save
the country. Shortess has periled all, and worn himself out in struggling
under an influence that took the life of Dr. Whitman and many
others, for which this Hudson’s Bay Company are now to receive pay.


It is unnecessary for me to make a single remark in reference to this
petition. It is a history in itself of the times and events then occurring.
Mr. Hines refers to it as of little moment, and on page 150 says: “Not
being one of the authors, but merely a signer of the petition, I did not
come under the ban of the company; consequently, I obtained my outfit
for the expedition, though at first there were strong indications that
I would be refused.”


We would infer from this, that the Hudson’s Bay Company did not
regard it as a serious matter, but in the next line he tells us: “We
remained at the fort over night and a part of the next day, and, after a
close conversation with the gentlemen in command, were treated with
great courtesy.”


[Pg 298]This lets us into the whole mystery of the affair. The gentlemen in
charge of the fort had become satisfied that Mr. Hines in his visit among
the Indians would not interfere with their arrangements already made
with McKay and White; in fact, that Mr. Hines approved of Dr. White’s
policy of uniting the tribes in the interior to accomplish the one
great object of the company. The documents that follow are given to
show the fact stated in the petition, as also the high-handed measures
of the company and Dr. McLaughlin.


A.


Notice is hereby given to all whom it may concern, that those who
have obtained grants of lots in Oregon City, will be expected to call
upon L. W. Hastings, my authorized agent at Oregon City, and obtain
a bond for a deed or deeds, as the case may be. Those who hold
claims to any lot, and who comply with the above requisite, on or before
the first day of February next, will be entitled to their lot or lots;
otherwise, the lots upon which they hold a claim will thereafter be
subject to any disposition which the undersigned may think proper to
make of them.



John McLaughlin.

January 18, 1843.






Oregon City, March 27, 1843.



We, the undersigned, do hereby certify that the above notice of
John McLaughlin was posted up in the most public places in this town.




R. Shortess.

A. E. Wilson.



B.


Deed—John McLaughlin to Walter Pomeroy.


Know all men by these presents, that I, John McLaughlin, of Fort
Vancouver, in the Territory of Oregon, for and in consideration of the
sum of one dollar, to me in hand paid by Walter Pomeroy, of Oregon
City, of the Territory aforesaid, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged,
have this day, and do, by these presents, remit, release, and forever
quit claim unto the said Pomeroy, his heirs and assigns, all and
singular, the following piece, parcel, and lot of land, bounded and
described as follows, to wit: Commencing at the northeast corner, running
thence southerly sixty-six feet to a stake, thence easterly one
hundred feet to a stake at the place of beginning, being lot number four,
in block number three, in the town of Oregon City, in the Territory of[Pg 299]
Oregon, which will more fully appear from a reference to the map and
plan of said town:


To have and to hold the same, together with all and singular the privileges
and appurtenances thereunto in any wise appertaining or belonging
unto the said Pomeroy, his heirs, executors, administrators, or assigns,
forever.


And I, the said McLaughlin, for myself, do vouch and declare that I
am the true and proper claimant of and to the said premises and lot of
land, and that I have in myself full power, good right, and sufficient
authority to remit, release, and quit my claim in and to said lot and
premises, in manner and form aforesaid.


And I, the said McLaughlin, do hereby covenant and agree to warrant
and defend the said premises, together with the privileges and
appurtenances thereunto appertaining or belonging, to the said Pomeroy,
his heirs and assigns, against all lawful claims of all persons whomsoever,
the claims of the government only excepted.


In testimony whereof, I, the said McLaughlin, have hereunto set my
hand and affixed my seal, this the 2d of March, A. D. 1843.



John McLaughlin. [L. S.]

Per L. W. Hastings, his agent.





We, the undersigned, do hereby acknowledge that the above is a true
and correct copy of the original.




R. Shortess.

A. E. Wilson.




C.


Bond—John McLaughlin to Albert E. Wilson.


Know all men by these presents, that I, John McLaughlin, of Fort
Vancouver, in the Territory of Oregon, am held and firmly bound unto
Albert E. Wilson, of Oregon City, in the Territory aforesaid, in the
full sum of five hundred dollars, federal money; for the punctual payment
of which, well and truly to be made, I bind myself, my heirs,
executors or administrators, firmly by these presents.


In testimony whereof, I have hereunto below set my hand and
affixed my seal, this the 26th day of December, A. D. 1842.


Now, know ye, that the condition of the above obligation is such,
that whereas the said Wilson hath this day, and doth by these presents,
purchase of the said McLaughlin all and singular the following pieces,
parcels, tracts, and lots of land, namely: Lots Nos. four and five, in
block No. two, in the town of Oregon City, in the Territory of Oregon,[Pg 300]
as is more fully shown by the map and plan of said town, and hath, and
by these presents doth agree to build upon and improve each of the lots
within the term of one year from the date of these presents. In consideration
of which, the said McLaughlin hath, and doth by these
presents covenant and agree to make the said Wilson a good and
sufficient quit-claim deed for and to all and singular the above-mentioned
pieces, parcels, tracts, and lots of land, whenever he, the said
Wilson, shall have complied with the above conditions on his part.
Now, if the said McLaughlin shall well and truly make, or cause to be
made, the said deed to the said Wilson, upon the said Wilson’s complying
on his part with the above condition, then, and in such case, the
within obligation shall become entirely void and of no effect; otherwise
to be and remain of full force and virtue.



John McLaughlin. [L. S.]


Per L. W. Hastings, his agent.



We, the undersigned, do hereby acknowledge the above to be a true
and correct copy of the original.




R. Shortess.

A. E. Wilson.



Our history would not be complete without these documents. It will
be noticed in Mr. Pomeroy’s deed, as also all the other deeds given by
Dr. McLaughlin, that he “warrants and defends” against all lawful
claims of all persons whomsoever, the claims of the government only
excepted. He would not insert United States government, for he expected
the English would get the country. He asserts in his deeds, “And I,
the said McLaughlin, for myself, do vouch and declare that I am the
true and proper claimant of, and to the said premises and lot of land,
and that I have in myself full power and good right.”


Any one questioning his power and authority was made to feel it
in a manner more severe than that of any governor of a State or of the
President of the United States.


It was unfortunate that, at the time Dr. McLaughlin was making his
claim to the land and his improvements at Oregon City, it was not
known that he had, or would, sever his connection with the Hudson’s
Bay Company, and become an American citizen, as he afterward did.
It was his connection with, and apparent control over, the affairs of the
company, that created the strong American prejudice against him, and
deceived many as to his intentions, besides giving occasion for a
strong feeling in favor of Rev. Mr. Waller, who employed a Mr. John
Ricord to prepare a declaration setting forth his claim to that location,
as follows:—


[Pg 301]



“To the People of Oregon:




“Fellow-Citizens,—Having been retained professionally to establish
the claim of Mr. Alvin F. Waller to the tract of land on the east side
of the Wallamet River, sometimes called the Wallamet Falls settlement,
and sometimes Oregon City, I consider it a duty to my client
and to the public to state, briefly and concisely, the several circumstances
of his case, as they really exist, in order that his motives may
not be impugned, nor his intentions misunderstood and misrepresented.


“The public are already aware that my client commenced the occupancy
of this farm in the spring of A. D. 1840, when no one resided at
the falls, and that, in the course of that summer, he built his house,
moved his family into it, and cleared and fenced a good portion of the
land; from which, in the ensuing years A. D. 1841 and 1842, he raised
successive crops of corn, potatoes, and other vegetables usually cultivated
by farmers. That he remained thus occupying undisturbed, until
the month of December, A. D. 1842, about two years and six months,
when Dr. John McLaughlin caused his farm to be surveyed, for the
purpose of selling it in subdivisions to American citizens. It has since
been currently reported and quite generally believed that my client
had renounced his right in favor of Dr. McLaughlin. This I am authorized
to contradict, having perused the letter written by Mr. Waller,
which not only contains no renunciation, but, on the contrary, is replete
with modest and firm assertions of his rights in the premises; offering
at the same time to relinquish his claim if the doctor would comply
with certain very reasonable and just conditions. Upon this offer the
parties had come to no final conclusion until my arrival in the colony,
when Dr. McLaughlin attempted to employ me to establish his claim,
disregarding the rights of all other persons, which I declined doing.
Mr. Waller thereupon engaged me to submit the conditions a second
time to the doctor for his acceptance or rejection, which I did in the
following words:—


“‘1st. That your pre-emptive line be so run as to exclude the island
upon which a private company of citizens have already erected a grist-mill,
conceding to them as much water as may be necessary for the
use of said mills.


“‘2d. That Mr. Waller be secured in the ultimate title to the two
city lots now in his possession and other lots not exceeding in superficial
area five acres, to be chosen by him from among the unsold lots
of your present survey.


“‘3d. That the Rev. Mr. Lee, on behalf of the Methodist Episcopal
Mission, be, in like manner, secured in the lots claimed for the use of[Pg 302]
said mission.’ They consist of church and parsonage lots, and are
well known to the public.


“I received a letter from Dr. McLaughlin, dated November 10, 1843,
in answer to mine, in which he declines complying with the above conditions,
and thus puts an end to the offer of my client to relinquish his
right of pre-emption. Under these circumstances Mr. Waller has now
applied to the Supreme Court of the United States, which, under the
Constitution, has original jurisdiction of ‘all cases in law and equity,
arising under treaties,’ to grant him a commission for perpetuating the
testimony of the facts in his case, de bene esse, in order that whenever
Congress shall hereafter see fit to prescribe, by law, the conditions and
considerations, he may be enabled to demand of the United States a
patent; also praying the court to grant him such other relief in the
premises as may be consonant with equity and good conscience.


“The legality of Mr. A. F. Waller’s claim rests upon the following
grounds:—


“1st. He was a citizen of the United States, of full age, and possessed
of a family when he came to reside on the premises; 2d. He built a
house upon them and moved his family into it, thus becoming in fact
and in law a householder on the land; 3d. He cleared, fenced, and
cultivated a portion of it during two years and six months before he
was disturbed in his actual possession; and 4th. That he is not at this
moment continuing to cultivate his farm is not his fault, since it was
wrested from him.


“The illegality of Dr. McLaughlin’s claim rests upon the following
grounds:—


“1st. He was a British subject owing allegiance to a foreign power,
and has so continued to be ever since the spring of A. D. 1840. For
this reason alone he could not acquire pre-emption to lands in the
United States.


“2d. He is chief officer of a foreign corporative monopoly. For this
reason alone he could not acquire pre-emption to lands in the United
States.


“3d. He does not now, and never did, reside on the land in question;
but, on the contrary, he resides, and has always continued to reside, on
the north bank of the Columbia River, the section of country actually
in dispute between the two governments, about twenty miles from
the land claimed by Mr. Waller, and there he is obliged to remain so
long as he continues to be chief factor.


“4th. He is not in fact the claimant. The Hudson’s Bay Company,
a foreign corporation, is in fact the claimant, while Dr. McLaughlin
only lends his name; well knowing that a corporation, even though it[Pg 303]
be an American one, can not acquire a pre-emption. This is evinced by
the employment of men to be his agents, and to sell lots for him, who
are at the same time partners in, and receiving dividends and salaries
from, the company.


“5th. The pretensions of Dr. McLaughlin arose, if at all, two years
and six months after the actual settlement of Mr. Waller; and therefore
they are in direct violation of the treaty of A. D. 1827, converting the
mutual and joint occupation into an exclusive occupancy by British
subjects.


“6th. The treaty of joint occupation (1827) does not, and was never
intended, on the part of the United States, to confer any rights of citizenship
upon foreigners. The power to confer such rights is, by the
Constitution, reserved to Congress. And the right to acquire title by
pre-emption is peculiar to citizens.


“These, fellow-citizens, are the facts and some of the points of law in
my client’s case. Upon the same principle contended for by Dr. McLaughlin,
any of you may incur the risk of being ousted from your
farms in this colony, by the next rich foreigner who chooses to take a
fancy so to do, unless in the first instance you come unanimously forward
and resist these usurpations. It is not my client’s intention to
wrong any who have purchased lots of the doctor; and to guard against
the injury which might result to individuals in this respect, I have
carefully drawn up the form of a bond for a warrantee deed, which Mr.
Waller is at all times ready, without any further consideration, to execute
to any person who has, in good faith, bought of the doctor, prior
to the date of this notice, by being applied to at his residence. Mr.
Waller does not require one cent of money to be paid to him as a consideration
for his bonds—the trouble, expense, and outlays they have
already incurred, with a desire to save all such persons harmless from
pecuniary loss, is a good and sufficient consideration in law to bind
him in the proposed penalty of one thousand dollars. (See Cowan’s
Digest—Assumpsit, B).


“I am of opinion that Mr. Waller has rights in the premises, which
neither Dr. McLaughlin, nor even Congress, by any retrospective legislation,
can take away from him,—and therefore, fellow-citizens, in sincere
friendship, I would counsel you to lose no time in applying to him for
your new bonds.



“John Ricord,


“Counselor in the Supreme Court of the United States,

and attorney for Alvin F. Waller.




“Dated December 20, 1843.”




[Pg 304]


CHAPTER XXXIX.


Extracts from Mr. Hines’ history.—Attempt to capture an Indian horse-thief.—Dr.
McLaughlin refuses to sell supplies to the signers of the petition.—Excitement in
the settlement.—Interview with Dr. McLaughlin at Vancouver.


“April 14.—Information was brought to the settlement from the
Clackamas tribe of Indians, who live three miles below the falls of the
Wallamet, which served to increase the excitement occasioned by the
reports from the interior. It appears that an Indian of the Molalla
tribe, connected with the Clackamas Indians by marriage, stole a horse
from a man by the name of Anderson, and when asked by the latter if
he had stolen his horse and rode him off, answered, ‘Yes, I stole your
horse, and when I want another one I shall steal him also.’ To this
Anderson replied, ‘If you stole my horse you must pay me for him.’
‘Yes,’ said the Indian, ‘I will pay you for him, take that horse,’ pointing
to a very poor horse which stood near by, with one eye out, and a
very sore back. Anderson replied, ‘That is a very poor horse, and
mine is a good one; I shall not take him, and if you don’t bring him
back I will report you to Dr. White.’ ‘I am not afraid of Dr. White,’
said the Indian; ‘let him come if he wants to, and bring the Boston
people with him; he will find me prepared for him.’


“Anderson not being able to effect a settlement with the Indian,
immediately reported him to the agent, whereupon the latter wrote to
a man at the falls, by the name of Campbell, to take a sufficient number
of men armed with muskets, and go very early in the morning to
the Indian camp, and take the horse-thief a prisoner, and bring him to
the falls.


“Accordingly, Campbell procured five men, and went to the camp
as commanded, but found thirty or forty Indians painted in the most
hideous manner, and armed with muskets, bows and arrows, tomahawks
and scalping-knives, and determined at all events to protect the horse-thief,
and drive back those that should come to take him. Campbell
rushed on to take the rogue, but met with much resistance from superiority
of numbers; and finding that the enterprise, if urged forward,
would terminate in bloodshed, if not in the loss of all their lives,
sounded a retreat, and extricating himself from the Indians, returned
to the falls. He communicated the result of his attempt to Dr. White,[Pg 305]
and the doctor started off immediately in company with G. W. Le
Breton, resolved to capture the thief and bring the tribe to terms.”


This day’s proceedings are given as a specimen of the foolish conduct
of Dr. White and his friends.


“April 17.—The excitement still continues, former reports having
been confirmed, and all were engaged in repairing guns, and securing
ammunition. A report was in circulation that Dr. McLaughlin refused
to grant supplies for any consideration, to all those persons who subscribed
the memorial praying the Congress of the United States to extend
jurisdiction over Oregon. If this be so, the American population
(as nearly all signed the memorial) will not be able to obtain ammunition,
however necessary it may be, as there is none in the country except
what may by found within the stockades of Vancouver. I think,
however, that the report is false. Report says, furthermore, that the
Klikitat Indians are collecting together back of the Tualatin plains, but
for what purpose is not known. The people on the plains, consisting
of about thirty families, are quite alarmed. There is also a move
among the Calapooyas. Shoefon, one of the principal men of the tribe,
left this place a few days ago, and crossed the Wallamet River, declaring
that he would never return until he came with a band of men to
drive off the Boston people. He was very much offended because some
of his people were seized and flogged, through the influence of Dr.
White, for having stolen a horse from some of the missionaries, and
flour from the mission mill. His influence is not very extensive among
the Indians, or we might have much to fear.


“The colony is indeed in a most defenseless condition; two hundred
Indians, divided into four bands, might destroy the whole settlement
in one night.


“In the evening of the 17th, Dr. White arrived at my house, bringing
intelligence from the falls. He and Mr. Le Breton attempted to go
to the falls on horseback, but in trying to ford Haunchauke River, they
found the water so deep they were obliged to swim, and the doctor turned
his horse’s head and came out the side he went in; but Le Breton,
being the better mounted of the two, succeeded in gaining the opposite
shore; and having the doctor’s letters in his possession, continued on
to the falls. The doctor returned to the settlement. Le Breton returned
the following day, and brought information from the five men
who had attempted to take the Indian who had stolen Anderson’s horse,
that soon after their retreat the Indians became alarmed and broke up
in great haste; but, before they left, they informed Anderson that the
horse they had stolen from him was worn out and good for nothing,
and tying a good horse to a tree near Anderson’s house, they told him[Pg 306]
that he must take that and be satisfied. They then hurried away,
saying that they should not be seen in that region again. It was ascertained
that the Clackamas Indians had nothing to do with the stolen
horse; that it was a band of the Molallas, the very same rascals that
stole a horse from me two years before, and after having him in their
possession several weeks, brought him down within a few miles of my
house, where they encamped, and where I went with one man and took
him from the midst of more than fifty grim-looking savages.”


This shows at least that Mr. Hines had personal courage.


“On the 20th of April a letter was received in the settlement,
written by H. B. Brewer, at the Dalles, which brings the latest intelligence
from the infected region. This letter states that the Indians
in the interior talk much of war, and Mr. Brewer urges Dr. White to
come up without delay, and endeavor to allay the excitement. He
does not inform us that the Indians design any evil toward the whites,
but says that the war is to be between themselves, but that the Boston
people have much to fear. As the doctor, in his visit to the interior
last October, left an appointment to meet the Wallawalla Indians and
the Cayuses, in their own country, on the 10th of May, and believing
that a great share of the excitement originated in a misunderstanding
of the Indians, he came to the conclusion at all hazards to go among
them. At the solicitation of the agent, I determined to accompany him
on the expedition.


“The great complaint of the Indians was that the Boston people
designed to take away their lands, and reduce them to slavery. This
they had inferred from what Dr. White had told them in his previous
visit; and this misunderstanding of the Indians had not only produced
a great excitement among them, but had occasioned considerable
trouble betwixt them and the missionaries and other whites in the
upper country, as well as influencing them to threaten the destruction
of all the American people. Individuals had come down from Fort
Wallawalla to Vancouver, bringing information of the excited state
of things among the Indians, and giving out that it would be extremely
dangerous for Dr. White to go up to meet his engagements. Their
opinion was, that in all probability he and the party which he might
think proper to take with him would be cut off. But it was the
opinion of many judicious persons in the settlement, that the welfare
of the Indians, and the peace and security of the whites, demanded
that some persons qualified to negotiate with the Indians should proceed
immediately to the scene of disaffection, and if possible remove
the cause of the excitement by correcting the error under which the
Indians labored. Accordingly Dr. White engaged twelve men be[Pg 307]sides
myself, mostly French-Canadians who had had much experience
with Indians, to go with him; but a few days before the time fixed
upon to start had arrived, they all sent him word that they had
decided not to go. They were doubtless induced to pursue this course
through the influence of Dr. McLaughlin and the Catholic priests.”


Most likely, Mr. Hines, but you seem to be afraid to express a
decided opinion, even after they have accomplished their object.


“When the day arrived for starting, we found ourselves abandoned
by every person who had engaged to go, except Mr. G. W. Le Breton,
an American, one Indian boy, and one Kanaka. With the two latter
the doctor and myself left the Wallamet settlement on the 25th of
April, 1843, and proceeded on horseback to the Butte, where we found
Le Breton in waiting for us. He had provided a canoe and a few
pieces of pork and beef for our use on the voyage.


“Here we met a letter from Dr. John McLaughlin, at Vancouver,
discouraging us from our undertaking in view of the difficulties and
dangers attending such an expedition; but we had counted the cost,
and were not to be diverted from our purpose, though danger stared
us in the face. We supposed that if the Indians entertained any hostile
intentions against the whites in general, there could be no better
way to defeat their purposes than to go among them; convince them
that they had no grounds of fear; and that the whites, instead of
designing to bring them into subjection, were desirous of doing them
good. Prevented by one thing and another from setting sail, on the
night of the 27th we slept on a bank of sand at the Butte, and next
day proceeded in our little canoe down to Wallamet Falls, where we
continued until the 29th. Here we received another package from Dr.
McLaughlin, giving us information that Rev. Mr. Demerse, a Catholic
priest, had just come down from the upper country, bringing intelligence
that the Indians are only incensed against the Boston people;
that they have nothing against the French and King George people;
they are not mad at them, but are determined that the Boston people
shall not have their lands, and take away their liberties.


“On receiving this intelligence from Mr. Demerse, Dr. McLaughlin
advised the Frenchmen, who had engaged to go with Dr. White, to
have nothing to do with the quarrel, to remain quiet at home, and let
the Americans take care of themselves. He also expressed, in his letter,
the opinion that all the people should remain quiet, and in all
probability the excitement among the Indians would soon subside.


“Not seeing sufficient reason to change our course, on the morning of
the 28th we left our hospitable friends at the falls and continued our
course down the Wallamet toward Vancouver. At noon we had sailed[Pg 308]
twenty miles, and stopped for dinner within five miles of the mouth of
the Wallamet, on a low piece of ground, overgrown with luxuriant
grass, but which is always overflowed at the rise of the Columbia, or
about the first of June. Weighed anchor after dinner, and at four
o’clock, P. M., arrived at Vancouver. Called on Dr. McLaughlin for
goods, provisions, powder, balls, etc., for our accommodation on our
voyage up the Columbia, and, though he was greatly surprised that,
under the circumstances, we should think of going among those excited
Indians, yet he ordered his clerks to let us have whatever we wanted.
However, we found it rather squally at the fort, not so much on account
of our going among the Indians of the interior, as in consequence of a
certain memorial having been sent to the United States Congress, implicating
the conduct of Dr. McLaughlin and the Hudson’s Bay Company,
and bearing the signature of seventy Americans. I inquired of
the doctor if he had refused to grant supplies to those Americans who
had signed that document; he replied that he had not, but that the
authors of the memorial need expect no more favors from him. Not
being one of the authors, but merely a signer of the petition, I did not
come under the ban of the company; consequently I obtained my outfit
for the expedition, though at first there were strong indications that I
would be refused.


“We remained at the fort over night and a part of the next day, and
after a close conversation with the gentleman in command, were treated
with great courtesy.”




[Pg 309]


CHAPTER XL.


A combination of facts.—Settlers alive to their danger.—Mr. Hines’ disparagement of
the Methodist Mission.—Indians want pay for being whipped.—Indian honesty.—Mr.
Hines’ opinion of the Indians’ religion.—Mr. Geiger’s advice.—Dr. McLaughlin’s
answer to Yellow Serpent.—Baptiste Doreo.—Four conflicting influences.


We now have before us a combination of facts and statements that
no one living at the time they occurred will attempt to deny. Shortess
and others still live to vouch for the truth of what is written. If
Mr. Hines has shown the least partiality in his writings, it is strongly
in favor of influences that were operating against him and the
cause he advocated; while such men as Rogers, Le Breton, Wilson,
Whitman, and others still living, spoke and acted the American sentiment
of the country. Mr. Hines and Dr. White had received two
packages from Dr. McLaughlin advising them not to go to the interior,
and the Jesuit priest, Demerse, had come down bringing word that
the “quarrel” was not with the French and English, and that Dr. McLaughlin
advised his Frenchmen to remain at home and let the Americans
take care of themselves. Mr. Brewer is deceived as to the cause
of the war rumors about him, and seems solicitous only about the Indians.
With all these facts, as given by Mr. Hines, with his ability and
experience, we are at a loss to understand how it is that he could
take notes and publish, in 1851, statements as above quoted, and then
proceed with the account that follows, rather excusing Dr. McLaughlin
and the priests in the part they are taking in attempting to crush the
American settlement, and actually aiding the Hudson’s Bay Company
in combining and marshaling the savages to weaken and destroy his
countrymen!


The writer does not believe he intended to do any thing of the kind,
yet the influences brought to bear upon him were such that he became
an active instrument with Dr. White to accomplish the one great object
of the Hudson’s Bay Company and English government, and becomes
the apologist for a premeditated and deliberate murder of his countrymen.
The Whitman massacre he does not even mention.


The settlers were alive to their danger. They had no head, no organization,
no one to look to for supplies or protection. They knew
that the sub-agent of the United States government was the dupe of[Pg 310]
their worst enemy, and had betrayed them. They knew that it was
the policy and disposition of the missions to keep them under their
control.


We are fully aware of the fact that the leading clergymen of all the
missions attempt to deny the position above stated. But in the covenant
of Mr. Griffin with Mr. Munger, he admits that the articles of
compact and arrangement of the various missionary societies all affirm
the one principle, that laymen or members of their societies were subject
to the orders and dictation of the clergymen, not only in religious,
but all financial and secular matters,—hence the disposition and determination
on the part of these clerical gentlemen to govern the early
settlement of the country. The Hudson’s Bay Company system of
absolute government was favorable to this idea. The Jesuit priests,
who combined their influence with the company, all contributed to
oppress and keep down the settler. While the priests were active in
combining and preparing the Indians in middle Oregon to rob and destroy
the emigrant on his lonely, weary, toilsome way to this country,
their agents and principal clerks were equally active in shaping matters
in the various neighborhoods and settlements west of the Cascades.


On the 156th page of Mr. Hines’ book he gives us a short summary
of the labors of Revs. Daniel Lee, H. K. W. Perkins, and Mr. H. B.
Brewer: “They are laboring to establish a permanent mission at this
place [the Dalles] for the benefit of the Indians, but with doubtful success.”
That the Methodist Mission should be misled and become inefficient
is not to be wondered at when such men as Mr. Hines, holding
the position and assuming a controlling influence as he did, should express
himself in the language quoted above. The “doubtful success”
attending all the missionary labors of the Methodist Mission was unquestionably
attributable to the opinions of just such men, privately
and publicly expressed, with corresponding “doubtful” and divided
labors, while the ignorance of the religious supporters of the Roman
missions enabled them to deceive their neophytes and patrons, and keep
up their own missions and destroy those of the Protestants.


Soon after Mr. Hines and party arrived at the Dalles, some twenty
Indians assembled to have a talk with Dr. White, who had in his visit
in the fall of 1842 prevailed upon this band to organize an Indian
government by appointing one high chief and three subordinates to
see that all violators of his rules were punished by being flogged
for offenses that formerly were considered trifling and evidence of
native cunning and smartness. As was to be expected, some of the
Indians would resist and use their knives and weapons in their own
defense.


[Pg 311]There is an interesting incident related by Mr. Hines, in reference to
Indian character, on his 157th page:—


“The Indians want pay for being whipped, in compliance with Dr.
White’s laws, the same as they did for praying to please the missionaries,
during the great Indian revival of 1839. Those appointed by
Dr. White were desirous that his regulations should continue, because
they placed the people under their absolute control, and gave them the
power to regulate all their intercourse with the whites, and with the
other Indian tribes. But the other influential men who were not in
office desired to know of Dr. White of what benefit this whipping system
was going to be to them. They said they were willing it should
continue, provided they were to receive shirts and pants and blankets
as a reward for being whipped. They had been whipped a good many
times and had got nothing for it, and it had done them no good. If this
state of things was to continue, it was all cultus, good for nothing, and
they would throw it away. The doctor wished them to understand
that they need not expect pay for being flogged when they deserved it.
They laughed at the idea, and separated.”


Just here the writer will give one other incident, related of Yallop,
an Indian belonging to the same tribe, as stated by Rev. Mr. Condon,
of the Dalles:—


“Yallop was requested to remain at the house of Mr. Joslin during the
absence of the family, one cold day, and see that nothing was disturbed,
with the understanding that he was to go into the house and make
himself comfortable till the family returned. On coming home they
found the Indian outdoors under a tree, cold and nearly frozen. They
inquired the reason of his strange conduct, and wanted to know why
he did not stay in the house. Yallop said he went into the house and
found every thing so nice and comfortable that by and by the old Indian
came into him again and he wanted to steal all there was in the house,
and the only way he could get over that feeling was to go out under
the tree in the cold.”


Mr. Hines, in speaking of this same band, says, 158th page: “As a
matter of course, lying has much to do in their system of trade, and
he is the best fellow who can tell the biggest lie, make men believe it,
and practice the greatest deception. A few years ago a great religious
excitement prevailed among these Indians, and nearly the whole tribe,
consisting of a thousand, professed to be converted, were baptized, and
received into the Christian church; but they have nearly all relapsed
into their former state, with the exception that many of them still keep
up the outward form of religion.


“Their religion appears to be more of the head than of the heart,[Pg 312]
and though they are exceedingly vicious, yet doubtless they would
be much worse than they are, but for the”—(“doubtful success,” as Mr.
Hines affirms on his 156th page, while here he says)—“restraining influences
exerted by the missionaries.”


Mr. Hines has given us an interesting history of those early missionary
labors, but the greater portion of his book relates to himself,—to
his travels on shipboard, and at the Sandwich Islands, a trip to China
and back to New York, and his trip to the interior of Oregon.


He says: “The Cayuse Indians, among whom this mission is established,
had freely communicated to Mr. Geiger, whom they esteemed
as their friend, all they knew concerning it. When the Indians were
told that the Americans were designing to subjugate them and take
away their land, the young chiefs of the Cayuse tribe were in favor of
proceeding immediately to hostilities. They were for raising a large
war party and rushing directly down to the Wallamet settlement and
cutting off the inhabitants at a blow. They frequently remarked to Mr.
Geiger that they did not wish to go to war, but if the Americans came
to take away their lands and make slaves of them they would fight so
long as they had a drop of blood to shed. They said they had received
their information concerning the designs of the Americans from Baptiste
Doreo, who is a half-breed son of Madame Doreo,—the heroine of
Washington Irving’s ‘Astoria,’—understands the Nez Percé language
well, and had given the Cayuses the information that had alarmed
them. Mr. Geiger endeavored to induce them to prepare early in the
spring to cultivate the ground as they did the year before, but they
refused to do any thing, saying that Baptiste Doreo had told them that
it would be of no consequence; that the Americans would come in the
summer and kill them all off and destroy their plantations.


“After Doreo had told them this story, they sent a Wallawalla chief—Yellow
Serpent—to Vancouver, to learn from Dr. McLaughlin the
facts in the case.


“Yellow Serpent returned and told the Cayuses that Dr. McLaughlin
said he had nothing to do in a war with the Indians; that he did not
believe the Americans designed to attack them, and that if the Americans
did go to war with the Indians, the Hudson’s Bay Company
would not assist them. After they got this information from the
Emakus Myohut (big chief), the Indians became more calm. Many
of them went to cultivating the ground as formerly, and a large number
of little patches had been planted and sown before we arrived at
the station.”


Mr. Hines soon learned that the reports about war that had reached
the lower country were not without foundation. That the Indians still[Pg 313]
had confidence in Mr. Geiger, and that they did not wish to go to war.
The reader will observe the statement of the Indians after they had told
Mr. Geiger they would fight if forced to do so. “They,” the Indians,
“said they had received their information concerning the designs of
the Americans from Baptiste Doreo.” This half-breed is also an interpreter
of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and an important leader among
the half-breeds—next to Thomas McKay. After Doreo had told them
his story, the Indians were still unwilling to commence a war against
the Americans. They sent a messenger to Vancouver to consult Dr.
McLaughlin, just as those same Indians in 1841 went to Mr. McKinley,
then in charge of Fort Wallawalla, and wanted to know of him, if it
was not good for them to drive Dr. Whitman and Mr. Gray away from
that station because the Doctor refused to pay them for the land the
mission occupied? Mr. McKinley understood their object, and was
satisfied that there were outside influences that he did not approve of,
and told the Indians, “Yes, you are braves; there is a number of you,
and but two of them and two women and some little children; you can
go and kill them or drive them away; you go just as quick as you can
and do it; but if you do I will see that you are punished.” The Indians
understood Mr. McKinley. Whitman and Gray were not disturbed
after this.


Dr. John McLaughlin we believe to have been one of the noblest of
men while he lived, but, like Messrs. Hines, White, Burnett, Newell,
Spalding, and many others, influences were brought to bear upon him
that led him to adopt and pursue a doubtful if not a crooked course.
It was evident to any one conversant with the times of which we are
writing that there were at least four elements or influences operating in
the country, viz., the unasserted or quasi rights of the American
government; the coveted and actual occupancy of the country by the
English Hudson’s Bay Company and subjects, having the active civil
organization of that government; the occupancy of the country by the
American missions; and the coveted occupancy of the same by the
Roman Jesuit missions.


These four influences could not harmonize; there was no such thing as
a union and co-operation. The struggle was severe to hold and gain the
controlling influence over the natives of the country, and shape the settlements
to these conflicting views and national and sectarian feelings.
The American settler, gaining courage and following the example and
the track of the American missionaries with their wives, winds his way
over the mountains and through the desert and barren plains down the
Columbia River and through the Cascade Mountains,—weary, way-worn,
naked, and hungry. In one instance, with his rifle upon his[Pg 314]
shoulder, and his wife and three children mounted upon the back of
his last ox, he plods his weary way through Oregon City, and up the
Wallamet, to find his future home; and there the warm heart of the
early missionary and his family is ready to feed, clothe, and welcome
the wanderer to this distant part of our great national domain, in order
that he may aid in securing Oregon to its rightful inhabitants, and in
forming a fifth power that shall supersede and drive away all foreign
influences.


For a time the struggle with the four influences was severe and
doubtful; but men who had crossed the Rocky and Cascade mountains
with ox-teams, were not made to give up their country’s cause in the
hour of danger, though Britain and Rome, with their savage allies, joined
to subdue and drive them from it. With the British Hudson’s Bay
Company, Roman Jesuit missions, savage Indians, American missions,
and American settlers the struggle is continued.


[Pg 315]




CHAPTER XLI.


Governor Simpson and Dr. Whitman in Washington.—Interviews with Daniel Webster
and President Tyler.—His cold reception in Boston by the American Board.—Conducts
a large emigration safely across the Rocky Mountains into Oregon.—The
“Memorial Half-Century Volume.”—The Oregon mission ignored by the American
Board.—Dr. McLaughlin.—His connection with the Hudson’s Bay Company.—Catholic
Cayuses’ manner of praying.—Rev. C. Eells.—Letter from A. L. Lovejoy.—Description
of Whitman’s and Lovejoy’s winter journey from Oregon to Bent’s
Fort on the Arkansas River.


Governor Simpson, of the Hudson’s Bay Company, had reached
Washington and been introduced to Mr. Webster, then Secretary of
State, by the British Minister. All the influence a long-established
and powerful monopoly, backed by the grasping disposition of the
English government, can command, is brought to bear upon the question
of the northwestern boundary. The executive of the American
republic is about ready to give up the country, as of little value to the
nation.


Just at this time, in the dead of winter, an awkward, tall, spare-visaged,
vigorous, off-hand sort of a man, appeared at the Department in
his mountain traveling garb, consisting of a dark-colored blanket coat
and buckskin pants, showing that to keep himself from freezing to
death he had been compelled to lie down close to his camp-fire while in
the mountains, and on his way to Washington he had not stopped for a
moment, but pushed on with a vigor and energy peculiarly his own. It
is but justice to say of this man that his heart and soul were in the
object of the errand for which he had traversed the vast frozen and
desert regions of the Rocky Mountains, to accomplish which was to
defeat the plans of the company, as shown by the taunting reply of the
Briton, “that no power could make known to his government the purposes
of those who had laid their plans and were ready to grasp the
prize they sought.” While they were counting on wealth, power, influence,
and the undisputed possession of a vast and rich country, this old
pioneer missionary (layman though he was), having no thought of himself
or of his ridiculous appearance before the great Daniel Webster
and the President of a great nation, sought an interview with them and
stated his object, and the plans and purposes of the Hudson’s Bay Company
and the British government: that their representations of this[Pg 316]
country were false in every respect as regards its agricultural, mineral,
and commercial value to the nation; that it was only to secure the
country to themselves, that the false reports about it had been put in
circulation by their emissaries and agents; that a wagon road to the
Pacific was practicable; that he had, in 1836, in opposition to all their
false statements and influence to the contrary, taken a wagon to Boise;
and that, in addition, wagons and teams had, in 1841, been taken to the
Wallamet Valley, and that he expected, his life being spared, to pilot
an emigration to the country that would forever settle the question
beyond further dispute. He asserted that a road was practicable, and
the country was invaluable to the American people. Mr. Webster
coolly informed him that he had his mind made up; he was ready to
part with what was to him an unknown and unimportant portion of
our national domain, for the privilege of a small settlement in Maine
and the fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland.


There was but one other hope in this case. This old off-hand Oregon
missionary at once sought an interview with President Tyler. He
repeated his arguments and reasons, and asked for delay in the final
settlement of the boundary question, which, to those high in office, and,
we may add, total ignorance of all that related to this vast country,
was of small moment. But that Dr. Whitman (for the reader has
already guessed the name of our missionary) stood before the President
of the United States the only representative of Oregon and all her
future interests and greatness, a self-constituted, self-appointed, and
without a parallel self-periled representative, pleading simply for delay
in the settlement of so vast and important a question to his country,—that
he should be able to successfully contend with the combined
influences brought against him,—can only be attributed to that overruling
power which had decreed that the nation, whose interests he
represented, should be sustained.


Mr. Tyler, after listening to the Doctor’s statements with far more
candor and interest than Mr. Webster was disposed to do, informed him
that, notwithstanding they had received entirely different statements
from gentlemen of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the British minister,
then in Washington, yet he would trust to his personal representation
and estimate of the value of the country to the American people. He
said: “Dr. Whitman, in accordance with your representations and
agreeable to your request, this question shall be deferred. An escort
shall be furnished for the protection of the emigration you propose to
conduct to that distant country.”


It is with deep regret, not to say shame, that truth and justice compel
us to give in this connection any notice of this faithful and devoted[Pg 317]
missionary’s reception and treatment, on his arrival in Boston, derogatory
to the Board whom he had served so faithfully for seven years.
Instead of being received and treated as his labors justly entitled him to
be, he met the cold, calculating rebuke for unreasonable expense, and
for dangers incurred without order or instructions or permission from
the mission to come to the States. Most of his reverend associates
had, as the writer is credibly informed, disapproved of his visit to
Washington, being ignorant of the true cause of his sudden determination
to defeat, if possible, the British and Jesuitical designs upon the
country; hence, for economical and prudential reasons, the Board received
him coldly, and rebuked him for his presence before them, causing
a chill in his warm and generous heart, and a sense of unmerited
rebuke from those who should have been most willing to listen to all his
statements, and most cordial and ready to sustain him in his herculean
labors.


His request at Washington to save this richest jewel of our nation
from British rule is granted, while the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions is appealed to in vain for aid to save the
Indians and the country from becoming the boast of the Italian Jesuit,
and a prey to his degrading superstitions. The Doctor’s mission, with
all its accumulated influence, labors, and importance, is left to be swallowed
up and destroyed by the same influence that had divided and
destroyed that of the Methodist Mission.


Dr. Whitman disposed of his own little private property in the
States, and, with the aid of his brother and brother’s son, returned to
Missouri, joined the emigration of 1843, and, as he had intimated to
President Tyler, brought on an emigration outnumbering all the Hudson’s
Bay Company had brought to aid in securing the country to the
British crown, proving to the American people and the world, what
had long been asserted as impossible, that there was a practicable
wagon road to the Pacific Ocean on American soil. His care, influence,
aid, and attention to the emigration of 1843, I leave with those who
can speak from personal observation. Their gratitude and deep sympathy
for this self-devoted, faithful, and generous missionary led five
hundred of them with uplifted hand to say they were ready with their
own life-blood to avenge his death, and protect and defend the country.
But influences, such as we have been speaking of, came in, justice
was robbed of its right, and crime and murder permitted to go unpunished.


The cause in which Dr. Whitman enlisted, labored, and fell a victim,
is allowed to suffer and fall, and in a Memorial Volume of the American
Board, page 379, a false impression is given to the world, and a whole[Pg 318]
mission ignored. In this splendid, well-bound, and elegantly gotten up
“Memorial Half-Century Volume,” justly claiming much credit for the
fifty past years of its labors, this Board has ignored all its errors and
mistakes, and with one fell swoop of the pen consigned to oblivion, so
far as its great standard record is concerned, one whole mission and a
vast Indian population, as unworthy of a name or a notice in their
record, further than as “Rev. Samuel Parker’s exploring tour beyond
the Rocky Mountains, under the direction of the Board, in 1835, 1836,
and 1837, brought to light no field for a great and successful mission,
but it added much to the science of geography, and is remarkable as
having made known a practicable route for a railroad from the Mississippi
to the Pacific.” This shows a want of candor and also a disposition
to ignore all influences and causes of failure of one of their own
missions, and directs the attention of the reader to foreign objects,
leaving their missions to become an easy prey to avarice, the Indian
tribes to ignorance and superstition, and their missionaries to be despised
and superseded by Jesuits; giving their enemies the benefit of that
influence which they should have exerted to save their own missionary
cause. Such being the case, we are not to wonder at the cold reception
of Dr. Whitman, or the boundless influence and avarice of the men who
compassed the early destruction of that mission; and, failing to destroy
the American settlement, that they should now seek to rob our national
treasury as they sought to rob the nation of its rightful domain. After
being defeated by the American settlers in the organization of the provisional
government in 1843, by the provisional army of 1847-8, they
now come forward with the most barefaced effrontery and claim millions
of dollars for a few old rotten forts. They have fallen to the
lowest depths of crime to obtain compensation for improvements of no
real value.


As we said when speaking of the “combination of influences and no
harmony,” we believe Dr. John McLaughlin to have been one of the
best and noblest of men; yet the governing power of the Hudson’s Bay
Company would, if it were possible, have compelled him to starve
the immigrants, and sacrifice all the early settlers of the country.
Do you ask me how I know this? I answer, by the oaths of good and
true American citizens, and by my own personal knowledge. These
depositions or statements under oath but few of the readers of this
history will ever see. In this connection we will give part of one
deposition we listened to and penciled down from the mouth of the
witness, who was the legal counselor and confidential friend of Dr.
McLaughlin from the fall of 1846 till his death. This witness, in answer
to the inquiry as to what Dr. McLaughlin told him about the Hudson’s[Pg 319]
Bay Company’s encouraging the early settlement of Oregon, said Dr.
McLaughlin had not encouraged the American settlement of the country,
but from the fact that immigrants arrived poor and needy, they must
have suffered had he not furnished supplies on a credit; that he could
have wished that this had not been necessary, because he believed there
were those above him who strongly disapproved of his course in this
respect, affirming that it would lead to the permanent settlement of the
country by American citizens, and thus give to the United States government
an element of title to the country; the United States government
could not have a title to the country without such settlement,
and these persons, thus alluded to as being dissatisfied, would report
him to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s house in London; that he ascertained
finally that such complaints had been made, but that he still
continued to furnish the supplies, because, as a man of common humanity,
he could not do otherwise; and he resolved that he would continue
thus to do and take whatever consequences might result from it;
that the company’s managing and controlling office in London did
finally call him to an account for thus furnishing supplies as already
stated, and for reasons indicated; that he represented to them the
circumstances under which he had furnished these supplies, alleging that
as a man of common humanity it was not possible for him to do otherwise
than as he did; that he foresaw as clearly as they did that it
aided in the American settlement of the country, but that this he could
not help, and it was not for him but for God and government to look
after and take care of the consequences; that the Bible told him, “If
thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he is naked, clothe him;” that these
settlers were not even enemies; that in thus finding fault with him
they quarreled with heaven (the witness said, “I do not know as that
was the exact expression or word”) for doing what any one truly
worthy the name of a man could not hesitate to do, and that he immediately
concluded by indignantly saying, “Gentlemen, if such is your
order, I will serve you no longer,” and from that day Oregon secured
a warm and faithful friend in that old white-headed man, and he a base
and infamous enemy in those who claimed the title of the Honorable
Hudson’s Bay Company, who in 1860 are claiming all the credit and
pay for this old man’s generous and noble deeds.


The readers of our history will excuse this interruption in the order
of events, or rather the introduction of this testimony at this time in
our sketches, for we shall still have to speak of Dr. McLaughlin as the
head of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and continue him as a representative
of that influence, as also connected with the Roman Catholic
efforts in the country; for while we condemn and speak of base and[Pg 320]
infamous acts in all alike, we will not forget the good and the noble.
We have other items of testimony that reveal to us the deep-laid plans,
the vast influence used, and efforts made, to prevent the American settlement
of this country, which shall be brought to light as we proceed.


One other item we will now give as developed by the testimony above
referred to. Dr. McLaughlin informed his attorney “that he had proposed
to the company’s authority in London, that if they would allow
him to retain the profits upon the supplies and advances made as above
mentioned to the settlers, he would very cheerfully personally assume
the payment to the company of all the sums thus advanced, but
this the company declined to do.” The witness said: “My memory
is not very distinct, at least, not so much as it is as to the statement
above made, but my recollection is that he also informed me that the
company, although it refused to permit him to retain the profits above
mentioned, did hold him responsible for every dollar of the advances he
made, and I do know that he regarded and treated the debts thus
owing by American citizens as debts owing not to the Hudson’s Bay
Company, but to himself individually.”


Dr. McLaughlin charges ingratitude upon those who were able to,
and did not pay him, and were guilty of denouncing him as an aristocrat.
He was no aristocrat, but one of the kindest, most obliging, and
familiar men; yet his tall, erect, and noble frame, a head covered with
white hair, a long white beard, light complexion, rather spare but open
countenance, with a full light blue or gray eye, made the coward and
the mean man hate him, while the truly noble man would love him for
his generous and unbounded benevolence. Like Dr. Whitman, the influences
around him weighed heavily upon his soul; he keenly felt the
pain of ingratitude in others; he felt it from the Hudson’s Bay Company,
whom he had faithfully served, and from the persons he had
befriended. An attempt was made by a member of the company, who
had previously sworn to the justness of their infamous claims, to excite
the sectarian prejudice of the witness against Dr. McLaughlin on his
cross-examination, by handing to the company’s attorney the following
questions to be asked the witness:—


Ques.—“Do you not recollect that Dr. McLaughlin told you that Sir
George Simpson’s complaint against him was his allowing a credit of
ten thousand pounds sterling to Bishop Blanchet, of the Catholic mission,
without any security?”


Ans.—“This is the first time I have heard of that transaction.”


Ques.—“Do you not know from what Dr. McLaughlin told you, that
he gave large credits to the Catholic Mission while in charge of the
company’s business?”


[Pg 321]Ans.—“I do not.”


In reference to the last two questions and answers, in looking over
the items of account against our government, something over this
amount is stated as an item of claim for improvements and a Catholic
church building and two schoolhouses at Vancouver, as having been
made by the Hudson’s Bay Company for the Catholic missions and
the benefit of the company’s business, which are still standing and in
possession of the priests and nuns of that order. This matter should
be closely investigated. We have abundance of other evidence to
show the intimate and continued connection of the Jesuit missions with
the company, and we look upon this attempt to change the responsibility
of that connection from the company to Dr. McLaughlin’s
individual account, as among the basest of their transactions.
The Jesuitical Catholic concern was a child of their own, and one
they are still nursing in all their vast dominions. They made use of
Dr. McLaughlin as long as they could, and when they found he
was inclined to favor the American settlement of the country, he
fell under the displeasure of his superiors and was called to an
account.


These facts explain the careful and repeated injunctions, and positive
directions given to the early missionaries not to interfere with the
Hudson’s Bay Company’s trade, and by no means to encourage the settlement
of white men about their stations, compelling those white men
to become subject to, and connected with, the missions. They also explain
the reasons for the extreme caution exercised by the company over
the supplies granted to the American missions. They invariably limited
them to the smallest possible necessity, and by this means sought
to prevent the settlement of the country. It also explains fully the
complaint of Rev. Mr. Griffin in his effort for an independent mission,
and shows conclusively the continued effort of the company to check as
much as possible the progress of the settlement, as also the desperate
effort they made in 1847 to destroy the missions and all American settlements;
and more than this, it explains the continued wars with all
the Indians who have ever been under the influence of the company,
or their pet child, the Jesuit missions.


The Hudson’s Bay Company had no fault to find with Dr. McLaughlin,
except in his refusing to carry out their base designs upon the
American settlers and for the assistance he rendered upon his own
responsibility to the naked and starving immigrants that Grant, at Fort
Hall, with the Indians along the route, had combined to deceive and
rob, while on the way to the country. This old, white-headed man,
who had served them for forty years, was compelled, in maintaining his[Pg 322]
honor as a man possessing one noble feeling of humanity, to leave their
service.


What think you, kind reader, of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s kindness
and generosity to the American settler, when this same company
held this old faithful servant of theirs individually responsible for every
dollar, principal and profits, of the supplies his generous heart, claiming
to be humane, was induced to advance to the early settler in the hour
of his greatest need?


Will you vote and pay a tax to pay claims of such a company, when
one of the managing partners is still base enough to say, “It was a
neglect of the company’s agent, after Dr. McLaughlin’s decease, that
they did not present their accounts for payment to the doctor’s heirs
or administrator before the year’s notice was up. It was now too late,
and it was lost to the company unless they could get it allowed by the
United States government?”


We justly deprecate piracy, slavery, highway robbery, and Indian
massacres. In what light shall we hold a company and government,
who have pursued a course directly and indirectly calculated to produce
all these, and with the uplifted hand say they are entitled to pay
for such conduct?


But we must still refer to Dr. McLaughlin as representing the Hudson’s
Bay Company, as we proceed with our history of events, agencies,
men, and things occurring in 1843.


Dr. Whitman is on his way back to Oregon with eight hundred and
seventy-five persons, with all their equipments and cattle. Simpson is
foiled and disappointed at Washington. Hines and Dr. White are
among the Upper Columbia Indians. Dr. McLaughlin and the French-Canadians
and priests are in commotion about the effort to organize
the settlement into a provisional government, and the influence the
Americans appear to be gaining over the Indians. Piopiomoxmox
(Yellow Serpent) has returned and reported to the Cayuses the result
of his visit to Dr. McLaughlin, and the determination of the company
that, in case of a war with the Americans, “they would not aid the
Americans, but let them take care of themselves.” The old Indian
chiefs had advised the young men to wait and see what the future
designs of the Americans were; while the Jesuits had been careful to
impress upon the savage mind their peculiar sectarian notions and prejudices,
as illustrated by the religious instructions given by the priests
to the Cayuses.


The Rev. H. K. W. Perkins called at Young Chief’s (Tawatowe)
lodge, and was informed on entering, that they had not yet had their
morning prayer. The chief caused a bell to be rung, at the sound of[Pg 323]
which all his band came together for devotion. Tawatowe then said to
Mr. Perkins: “We are Catholics, and our worship is different from
yours.” He then fell upon his knees, all the rest kneeling and facing him.
The chief had a long string of beads on his neck to which was attached
a brass cross. After all were knelt, they devoutly crossed themselves,
and commenced their prayer as follows: “We are poor, we are poor,”
repeating it ten times, and then closing with “Good Father, good Son,
good Spirit,” and then the chief would slip a bead on the string. This
was continued until all the beads were removed from one part of the
string to the other. When this mock devotion closed, Tawatowe said:
“This is the way in which the priest taught us to worship God;” but
Elijah (a boy that had been educated at the Methodist Indian school)
said that “Tawatowe and his band prayed from the head, but we
[meaning his own Wallawalla tribe] pray from the heart.”


Since writing the above, we have found in the Missionary Herald of
December, 1866, page 371, a letter from Rev. C. Eells, formerly of the
Spokan Mission. In speaking of Dr. Whitman’s visit to the States, he
says: “Mr. Walker and myself were decidedly opposed, and we yielded
only when it became evident that he would go, even if he became disconnected
with the mission in order to do so. According to the understanding
of the members of the mission, the single object of Dr. Whitman
in attempting to cross the continent in the winter of 1842-43, amid
mighty perils and sufferings, was to make a desperate effort to save
this country to the United States.”


We are not much surprised at Mr. Eells’ ignorance of influences
operating in this country. His fears and caution have made him unreasonably
timid. He is always so fearful that he will do or say something
wrong, that the saving of this country to our government, and an
attempt on the part of his associates to counteract Roman Catholic superstitions
and maintain the influence of the Protestant religion on our
western coast, are opposed by him and his equally timid associate. He
has not the frankness or courage to state the whole truth in the case, as
developed in Mr. Treat’s remarks, who, after giving Mr. Eells’ letter,
says: “It was not simply an American question, however;” it was at the
same time a Protestant question. He [Dr. Whitman] was fully alive
to the efforts which the Roman Catholics were making to gain the mastery
on the Pacific coast, and he was firmly persuaded that they were
working in the interests of the Hudson’s Bay Company, with a view to
this very end. The danger from this quarter [which Messrs. Eells and
Walker could never see, or, if they did, were too timid to speak or
act] had made a profound impression upon his mind. Under date of
April 1, 1847, he said: “In the autumn of 1842, I pointed out to our[Pg 324]
mission the arrangements of the Papists to settle in our vicinity, and
that it only required that those arrangements should be completed to
close our operations.”


It is in reference to the facts above quoted from Dr. Whitman’s letter—made
in our presence to those timid associates—that we say they
were cowards in not speaking and acting as they should have done at
that time, and since his death.


The following letter from General A. L. Lovejoy gives further
proof of Dr. Whitman’s efforts to save Oregon to his country:—



Portland, Oregon, November 6, 1869.


William H. Gray, Esq.:



My Dear Sir,—Your note of the 27th ult., making inquiries touching
the journey of the late Dr. Marcus Whitman to the United States from
this coast in the winter of 1842 and ’43, and his reception at Washington,
and by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,
etc., has but just come to hand, owing to my being absent from
home.


True, I was the traveling companion of the Doctor in that arduous
and trying journey, but at this late hour it will be almost impossible
for me to give many of the thrilling scenes and hairbreadth escapes
that we went through, traveling as we did, almost the entire route,
through a hostile Indian country, as well as suffering much from the
intense cold and snows that we had to encounter in passing over the
Rocky Mountains in midwinter.


Previous to our leaving Wailatpu, I often had conversations with
the Doctor touching the prospects of this coast. The Doctor was alive
to its interests, and manifested a very warm desire to have this country
properly represented at Washington, and, after some arrangements, we
left Wailatpu, October 3, 1842, overland, for the Eastern States.


We traveled rapidly, and reached Fort Hall in eleven days, and
remained only a day or two and made some few purchases; took a
guide and left for Fort Wintee, as the Doctor changed from a direct
route to one more southern through the Spanish country, via Taos and
Santa Fé. On our way from Fort Hall to Fort Wintee we met with
terribly severe weather; the snows greatly retarded our progress, and
blinded the trail, so much so that we lost much time. After reaching
Fort Wintee and making some suitable purchases for our trip, we took a
new guide and started on our journey for Fort Macumpagra, situate on
the waters of Grand River, in the Spanish country.


Here again our stay was very short. We simply made some few
purchases, took a new guide, and left for Taos. After being out some four[Pg 325]
or five days, as we were passing over high table-lands, we encountered a
most terrific snow-storm, which forced us to seek shelter at once. A
deep ravine being near by, we rapidly made for it, but the snow fell so
rapidly, and the wind blew with such violence, that it was almost impossible
to reach it. After reaching the ravine, and cutting some cotton-wood
trees for our animals, we attempted some arrangements for
camp as best we could under the circumstances, and remained snowed
in for some three or four days, when the storm subsided, and it cleared
off intensely cold. It was with much difficulty that we made our way
up upon the high lands; the snow was so deep and the wind so piercing
and cold, that we felt compelled to return to camp and wait a few days
for a change of weather.


Our next effort was more successful, and after spending several
days wandering round in the snow, without making much headway,
and greatly fatiguing our animals, to little or no purpose, our guide
informed us that the deep snows had so changed the face of the
country, that he was completely lost, and could take us no further.


This was a terrible blow to the Doctor. He was determined not to
give it up without another effort. And we at once agreed that the
Doctor should take the guide and make his way back to the fort, and
procure a new guide, and that I should remain in camp with the animals
until his return, which was on the seventh day, with a new guide.


We were soon under way, on our route, traveling through the snows
at rather a snail’s pace. Nothing occurred of much importance, other
than hard and slow traveling until we reached, as our guide informed
us, the Grand River, which was frozen, on either side, about one-third
across. The current was so very rapid, that the center of the stream
remained open, although the weather was intensely cold.


This stream was some one hundred and fifty, or two hundred yards
wide, and looked upon by our guide as very dangerous to cross in its
present condition. But the Doctor, nothing daunted, was the first to
take the water. He mounted his horse, and the guide and myself
pushed them off the ice into the boiling, foaming stream. Away
they went completely under water—horse and all; but directly came
up, and after buffeting the waves and foaming current, he made to
the ice on the opposite side, a long way down the stream—leaped
from his horse upon the ice, and soon had his noble animal by his
side. The guide and myself forced in the pack animals; followed
the doctor’s example, and were soon drying our frozen clothes by a
comfortable fire.


With our new guide, traveling slowly on, we reached Taos in about
thirty days. We suffered considerably from cold and scarcity of pro[Pg 326]visions,
and for food were compelled to use the flesh of mules, dogs,
and such other animals as came in our reach.


We remained at Taos some twelve or fifteen days, when we changed
off our animals, and made such purchases as our journey required, and
left for Bent’s Fort, on the headwaters of the Arkansas River, where
we arrived about the third day of January, 1843.


The Doctor left here on the 7th, at which time we parted, and I did
not meet him again until some time in the month of July, above Fort
Laramie, on his way to Oregon with a train of emigrants.


The Doctor often expressed himself to me about the remainder of his
journey, and the manner in which he was received at Washington and
by the Board of Missions at Boston.


The Doctor had several interviews with President Tyler, Secretary
Webster, and many members of Congress, touching the interests of
Oregon. He urged the immediate termination of the treaty with
Great Britain relative to this country, and the extension of the laws
of the United States, and to provide liberal inducements to emigrants
to come to this coast.


He felt much chagrined at the lack of interest, and the great want
of knowledge concerning Oregon, and the wants of this country,
though he was very cordially and kindly received, and many seemed
anxious to obtain every information which he could give them; and I
have no doubt, the Doctor’s interviews resulted greatly to the benefit of
Oregon and the entire coast.


But his reception at Boston was not so cordial. The Board censured
him for leaving his post, for the waste of time and the great expense
attending so long a journey across the continent at that season of the
year.


The Doctor returned to the frontier settlements, urging the citizens
to emigrate to the Pacific coast. After his exertions in this behalf,
he left for Independence, Missouri, and started for Oregon with a large
emigrant train some time in the month of May. With his energy and
knowledge of the country, he rendered them very great assistance,
and continued to do so, till he reached his home about the first of
October (one year from the time he left), to find the home of his choice
sadly neglected, and the flouring mill burned to the ground.


The Indians were very hostile about the Doctor’s leaving at the time
he did, and I have no doubt, that during his absence, the thistles of his
destruction—the seeds of that awful massacre of himself, Mrs. Whitman,
and many others—were then sown by those haughty and savage
Cayuses, although it did not take place till four years afterward.


As to your fourth inquiry relative to the Cayuse war. It is a long[Pg 327]
time since these events took place; and most of them are on record,
and have passed into the history of the country; so that I would not
like to make many statements from memory, although I was an adjutant-general,
and was also one of the commissioners to raise means to
equip the first company, which was dispatched to the Dalles the day
after the sad news of the massacre reached Oregon City.


There being no supplies at Oregon City suitable to fit out this company,
the commissioners proceeded at once to Fort Vancouver to
procure supplies for an outfit. The Hudson’s Bay Company refused to
let us have any thing on account of the government; but would on
our joint and several note, to the amount of $1,000, which was cheerfully
given, and the outfit was obtained, and the company was pushed
on to its destination, and reached the Dalles in time to prevent further
bloodshed at that place by the red devils.



Yours, with great respect,

A. L. Lovejoy.


W. H. Gray, Esq., Astoria, Oregon.





[Pg 328]


CHAPTER XLII.


Assembly of the Nez Percés, Cayuses, and Wallawallas.—Mock fight.—Council with
the Indians.—Speeches by Yellow Serpent, Tilokaikt, the Prince, and Illutin.—The
secret of the whole difficulty.—John, the Kanaka.—A cow for a horse.—Killing
of a medicine woman.


We will return to Rev. Mr. Hines’ narrative of his trip among the
Cayuses, May 22, 1843.


“As the Indians refused to come together unless Ellis and his men
came down to meet us, we informed them that we would go up and see
Ellis in his own country; but being suspicious that we intended to prevent
his coming down, they were much opposed to our going. Explaining
to the chiefs the object of our visit, they seemed to be satisfied.”


We have, in this short statement of Mr. Hines, an important fact.
The Cayuse Indians had been instructed what to do; they were not to be
diverted by any arrangements of the sub-agent. Notwithstanding, the
agent and Mr. Hines had learned that Ellis was coming with several
hundred warriors, they knew not for what purpose, some saying to
make war upon the Cayuses, and they had determined to prevent the
meeting of the two tribes if possible. During their absence the Cayuses
all collected not far from Dr. Whitman’s, and were waiting the
arrival of the Nez Percés. On the 22d of May the Nez Percés, some
six hundred strong, with a thousand horses, arrived on the plain. Some
three hundred of the Cayuses and Wallawallas uniting formed a grand
Indian cavalcade on the plain in front of Dr. Whitman’s house, when
a grand display of Indian horsemanship commenced, such as advancing
in mock fantastic fight, with discharges of blank cartridges, wheeling
and running in all directions, till the Indians had nearly worked themselves
into a real fight and a great excitement. Ellis said that he
thought the Cayuses were determined to have a fight in earnest.


Tawatowe, the Catholic chief, as he approached them appeared quite
angry and disposed to quarrel. Seeing the excitement increasing, and
fearing that it might end seriously unless the attention of the Indians
could be drawn to some other subject, Mr. Spalding, who was present,
gave notice that all would repair to Dr. Whitman’s house for tallapooso
(worship). But Tawatowe came forward in a very boisterous
manner and inquired what we had made all this disturbance for. The[Pg 329]
American party, followed by several hundred Indians, repaired to the
station and engaged in religious exercises, when the excitement subsided
for the night.


On May 23, the chiefs and principal men of the three tribes
assembled at the station to hear what the self-constituted United States
Indian commissioner and his secretary of state had to say.


“They were called to order by Tawatowe, who by this time had got
over his excitement, and then was placed before them the object of
our visit. They were told that much had been said about war, and
we had come to assure them that they had nothing to fear from that
quarter.” If Dr. White was no more explicit in setting forth the object
of this visit to the Indians than Mr. Hines is in giving the account of
it, there certainly was room for a misunderstanding between him and
the Indians. He said “the President of the United States had not
sent him [Dr. White] to make war upon them, but to enter into
arrangements with them to regulate their intercourse with the white
people. We were not there to catch them in a trap, as a man would
a beaver, but to do them good; and if they would lay aside their
former practices and prejudices, stop their quarrels, cultivate their
lands, and receive good laws, they might become a great and happy
people; that in order to do this they must all be united.” Exactly
what the Hudson’s Bay Company wished to have done to aid them in
crushing the American settlement and preventing further American
emigration to the country.


As a reason for their being united, Mr. Hines says, 178-9th pages:


“They were told they were few in comparison to the whites, and if
they were not all of one heart they would be able to accomplish
nothing. The chiefs should set the example and love each other, and
not get proud and haughty, but consider the people as their brothers
and their children, and labor to do them good, that the people should
be obedient, and in their morning and evening prayers they should
remember their chiefs.


“Ellis remarked that it would not be proper for the Nez Percé
chiefs to speak until the Cayuse people should receive the laws. The
Cayuse chiefs replied: ‘If you want us to receive the laws, bring them
forward and let us see them, as we can not take them unless we know
what they are.’


“A speech was then delivered to the young men to impress them
favorably with regard to the laws. They were told that they would
soon take the places of the old men, and they should be willing to act
for the good of the people; that they should not go here and there
and spread false reports about war; and that this had been the[Pg 330]
cause of all the difficulty and excitement that had prevailed among
them during the past winter.”


With the information which Mr. Hines has already given us in the
first part of his ninth chapter, we would suppose he would avoid this
apparently incorrect statement to the Indians of the cause of the
difficulties then existing. He and Dr. White appear to have acted
under the same influence with Dr. McLaughlin, and to have carried all
their acts and counsels to the one object, which was to combine the
Indians, and divide and destroy the settlement. He tells us, in continuation
of the proceedings of this council, that “the laws were then
read, first in English, and then in Nez Percé.”


“Yellow Serpent then rose and said: ‘I have a message to you.
Where are these laws from? I would that you might say they were
from God. But I think they are from the earth, because, from what I
know of white men [a term claimed by Brouillet as belonging to the
Hudson’s Bay Company and Frenchmen], they do not honor these laws.’
In answer to this, the people were informed that the laws were recognized
by God, and imposed on men in all civilized countries. Yellow
Serpent was pleased with the explanation, and said that it was according
to the instructions he had received from others, and he was glad to
learn that it was so, because many of his people had been angry with him
when he had whipped them for crime, and had told him that God would
send him to hell for it, and he was glad to know that it was pleasing to
God.


“Tilokaikt, a Cayuse chief, rose and said: ‘What do you read the
laws for before we take them? We do not take the laws because
Tawatowe says so. He is a Catholic, and as a people we do not follow
his worship.’ Dr. White replied that this did not make any difference
about the law; that the people in the States had different modes of
worship, yet all had one law.


“A chief, called the Prince, arose and said: ‘I understand you gave
us liberty to examine every law,—all the words and lines,—and as questions
are asked about it, we should get a better understanding of it.
The people of this country have but one mind about it. I have something
to say, but perhaps the people will dispute me. As a body, we
have not had an opportunity to consult, therefore you come to us as in a
wind, and speak to us as to the air, as we have no point, and we can
not speak because we have no point before us. The business before us
is whole like a body; we have not dissected it. And perhaps you will
say it is out of place for me to speak, because I am not a great chief.
Once I had influence, but now I have but little.’”


This was one of the principal chiefs of the tribe that assisted in tak[Pg 331]ing
Fort Wallawalla and tying Mr. Pambrun to compel him to give
more goods for horses and furs. “He was about to sit down, but was
told to go on. He then said: ‘When the whites first came among
us, we had no cattle; they have given us none; what we have now
got we have obtained by an exchange of property. A long time
ago Lewis and Clarke came to this country, and I want to know what
they said about us. Did they say they found friends or enemies here?’
Being told that they spoke well of the Indians, the Prince said: ‘That
is a reason why the whites should unite with us, and all become
one people. Those who have been here before you have left
us no memorial of their kindness, by giving us presents. We speak
by way of favor; if you have any benefit to bestow, we will then
speak more freely. One thing that we can speak about is cattle,
and the reason why we can not speak out now is because we have not
the thing before us. My people are poor and blind, and we must have
something tangible. Other chiefs have bewildered me since they came;
yet I am from an honorable stock. Promises which have been made to
me and my fathers have not been fulfilled, and I am made miserable;
but it will not answer for me to speak out, for my people do not consider
me as their chief.’ [This was just what Mr. Pambrun, of the
Hudson’s Bay Company, had done to this Indian chief to break his
power and destroy his influence with his tribe and his people. But let
us hear him through.] ‘One thing more; you have reminded me of what
was promised me some time ago, and I am inclined to follow on and
see, though I have been giving my beaver to the whites and have received
many promises, and have always been disappointed; I want to
know what you are going to do?’


“Illutin, or Big Belly, then arose and said that the old men were
wearied with the wickedness of the young men; that if he was alone
he could say ‘Yes’ at once to the laws, and that the reason why the
young men did not feel as he felt, was because they had stolen property
in their hands, and the laws condemned stealing. But he assured them
that the laws were calculated to do them good and not evil.


“But this did not satisfy the Prince. He desired that the good
which it was proposed to do them by adopting the laws might be put
in a tangible form before them.


“He said that it had been a long time since the country had been
discovered by whites, and that ever since that time people had been
coming along promising to do them good; but they had all passed by
and left no blessing behind them.”


This chief said that “the Hudson’s Bay Company had persuaded
them to continue with them, and not go after the Americans; that if[Pg 332]
the Americans designed to do them good, why did they not bring
goods with them to leave with the Indians? that they were fools to
listen to what Suapies (Americans) had to say; that they would only
talk, but the company would both talk and give them presents.”


This Indian, as his speech shows, was shrewd, and thought he was
certain to obtain his object, either from the Hudson’s Bay Company
or the Americans. He had been humbled by the company, and an
offer to buy him back had been made. He bid for a higher price with
the Americans. In doing so, he naturally exposed the secret influence
of the company, which is given in this book of Mr. Hines’, as a matter
of course, and he passes along without note or comment upon what he
saw, and heard.


“In reply to the last Indian speech, Dr. White told the Indians
that he did not come to them as a missionary or as a trader.”


To Ellis and Lawyer, who called on them in the evening to have a
talk, “they said they expected pay for being chiefs, and wanted to
know how much salary Dr. White was going to give them. Ellis said
he had counted the months he had been in office, and thought that
enough was due him to make him rich. They left at a late hour without
receiving any satisfaction. In the council, efforts were made to
induce the Nez Percés to unite under one chief in the fall of 1842.
Thomas McKay had promised these chiefs large salaries and many
presents that Dr. White and his government would give them as an
inducement to form a union, knowing that White had not the ability
or means to make good his promises to them, and in this way any influence
as an agent of the American government he might have would
be lost in this tribe.


“Ellis was a Hudson’s Bay Indian, educated at the Red River settlement.
They left this private interview with White without any satisfaction,
showing that the policy of the company was producing its
legitimate effect upon Ellis’s mind. The Lawyer, however, understood
the matter in its true light. He explained to us the whole transaction,
and the promises of McKay from the company. He thought Dr.
White was foolish to let McKay talk so much for him and the American
government.


“Some hundreds again assembled the next day (May 24) to renew
the business relative to laws; but the first thing investigated was the
shooting of John, the Kanaka, by the Indian. John had gone to a
lodge the day before, and in a dispute in a trade he had dared the Indian
to shoot him. The Indian had seized his gun and fired it at John’s
head, making considerable of a hole in the scalp, but none in the skull.
The Indian fled, but was brought back and found guilty and kept till[Pg 333]
the laws were adopted for sentence and punishment, and finally punished
with forty lashes on the bare back.


“The Indians continued to speak in reference to the laws. Their
speeches were grave, energetic, mighty, and eloquent, and generally in
favor of receiving the laws. After all had spoken it was signified that
they were ready to vote whether they would take the laws or not, and
the vote was unanimous in the affirmative. Having adopted the laws,
it was now necessary to elect their chief, according to the provisions of
the laws, and Tawatowe was nominated to the highest chieftainship.
Some were opposed; a majority were in favor, and while the question
was pending [this Indian had not consulted his priest, or he would
have declined at once on this first proposition to elect him chief],
Tawatowe arose and said, ‘My friends, I rise to speak to you, and I want
you all to listen.’ He then adverted to his past history, and told them
how much he had suffered in consequence of their divisions and quarrels.
Tawatowe joined his influence with the Prince to get more pay
from the Hudson’s Bay Company for horses and furs, hence his tribe
were encouraged to quarrel with and disrespect him. When we first
arrived in the country he was seldom invited to the fort, and received
no presents from the company. He inquired of his people if they
would lay aside all their past difficulties and come up and support him
if he would accept of the chieftainship.


“It was now time to close for the day, and the vote being put,
Tawatowe was declared duly elected to the high chieftainship of the
Cayuse tribe.


“Dr. White bought of Mrs. Whitman a fat ox and presented it to
the Indians. Mrs. W. gave them a fat hog, which they butchered and
feasted upon at night.


“May 25.—A number of the chiefs came early in the morning at
Mr. Hines’ request, to settle a difficulty concerning some horses which
they gave to Rev. Jason Lee when he first came to Oregon in 1834,
Mr. Lee having requested Mr. Hines to come to some arrangement
with them if possible. After a long talk we succeeded in settling with
them by proposing to give them a cow for each horse that they had
given to Mr. Lee. We found that the Indians always expected to be
well paid for a present.”


The Jesuit missionaries and the Hudson’s Bay Company had represented
to the Indians that Mr. Lee’s receiving their horses and not
making them any presents was the same as stealing from them, and in
this way the American missionary was regarded as having stolen the
Indians’ horses. In the conversations and talks the Indians had with
Dr. Whitman about the land the mission occupied, the horses given to[Pg 334]
Mr. Lee were generally mentioned. Dr. Whitman was anxious that
some arrangement should be made to settle that matter as soon as he
learned the facts in the case. The Indians, as per arrangement with
Mr. Hines, did receive a cow for each horse given, and thus the matter
was satisfactorily settled.


The Indians having again assembled, Tawatowe came forward and
said that he had made up his mind that he could not accept of the
chieftainship, in consequence of the difference of his religion from that
of most of his people.


Here is Jesuitism and Hudson’s Bay, combined with ignorance
and religious bigotry, and shows the influence then operating upon the
savage mind. This Indian declared a reason why he could not accept
the chieftainship, which, four years later, would have fixed at once a
crime upon that sect, without a shadow of doubt in their favor. As it
was, the plan was deeper, and a Protestant Indian, or one that favored
the Protestant cause and American missions, a younger brother of
Tawatowe is selected. Tawatowe resigned, and his brother Five Crows
is elected the American head chief of the Cayuse tribe, with the approval
of the sub-agent of the United States. Bear these facts in mind
as we proceed, that you may fully understand the deep-laid plots of
the foreign influence then operating in the country to secure the whole
or a large portion of it for themselves and their own government.


In connection with this we will give one other incident as related by
Mr. Hines on his tour among the Indians; to show the shrewdness, as
also the long premeditated baseness of the Hudson’s Bay Company in
their efforts to get rid of all American missionaries and settlers, and to
bring on a war with the Indians. Mr. Hines and party returned to the
Dalles, and from there Mr. Hines embarked on one of the Hudson’s
Bay Company’s boats with Mr. Ogden for Vancouver. A short distance
below the Dalles they were driven ashore by a wind storm.
While there, Mr. Ogden told the following story of the killing of a
medicine woman, or doctress:—


“Mr. Ogden related some of his wonderful adventures among the
Indians, with whom he had resided more than thirty years. He was
an eye-witness to a remarkable circumstance that transpired at the
Dalles during one of his voyages up the Columbia.


“He arrived at the Dalles on the Sabbath day, and seeing a congregation
of some three hundred Indians assembled not far from the river,
he drew near to ascertain the cause, and found the Rev. H. K. W.
Perkins dispensing to them the word of reconciliation through a crucified
Redeemer. There was in the outskirts of the congregation an
Indian woman who had been for many years a doctress in the tribe,[Pg 335]
and who had just expended all her skill upon a patient, the only son
of a man whose wigwam was not far distant, and for whose recovery
she had become responsible by consenting to become his
physician. All her efforts to remove the disease were unavailing; the
father was doomed to see his son expire. Believing that the doctress
had the power of preserving life or inflicting death according to her
will, and that instead of curing she had killed his boy, he resolved upon
the most summary revenge. Leaving his dead son in the lodge, he
broke into the congregation with a large butcher-knife in his hand, and,
rushing upon the now terrified doctress, seized her by the hair, and
with one blow across her throat laid her dead at his feet.”


This story is a very plausible one, as much so as the one Mr.
Hines tells us on the 110th page of his book, about Smith, Sublet, and
Dripse’s partner. There is an object in telling this story at this time
to Mr. Hines, as much so as there was in a letter written by James
Douglas, Esq., to S. N. Castle, Esq., and published in the March number
of the Friend, at Honolulu, Sandwich Islands, which we will give
in due time.


The reader will observe in these sketches that our effort has been to
speak of all the principal events and prominent and prospective influences
in our early history, as in the year in which they occurred. In
attending to other duties we have not been able to keep as close to
dates and chronological order as we could wish; still, with patience and
perseverance we can restore the “lost history” of our early settlement
upon this coast, so that the future historian can have the material before
him for an interesting chapter in the history of our country.


We have, in addition to personal and public duties, to wade through
an immense amount of what is called Oregon history, to gather up
dates and events that have been given to the public at different times,
without order, or apparent object, only to write a book on Oregon.
We have no hesitancy in saying that Rev. G. Hines has given to the
public the fullest and best book, and yet there is but a single chapter
that is useful to the historian.


Rev. Samuel Parker has many scientific and useful statements and
observations, but all come in before our civil history began to develop
itself.




[Pg 336]


CHAPTER XLIII.


The Legislative Committee of nine.—Hon. Robert Moore, chairman.—Description
of the members.—Minutes of their proceedings.—Dr. R. Newell, his character.—Two
specimens of his speeches.—The dark clouds.


In 1843 the people of Oregon showed signs of life, and sprang into
existence as an American Territory with their provisional government,
which we have allowed to be silently forming in the Wallamet Valley,
while we have traced the operations of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
and Dr. Whitman to Washington; and also Dr. White and Mr. Hines
among the Indians, all over the country. This will enable the reader
to understand the strong influences operating against the American
settlement; and if he will go with us, we will introduce him to the first
Legislative Committee of nine, and tell him just what we know of their
proceedings all through their deliberations.


The record shows no instruction from the settlers, as to when or
where the committee should meet to prepare the laws, to report at
Champoeg, only, that they were limited to six days, and to be allowed
$1.25 per day, and that the money be raised by subscription. Every
member at once subscribed to the full amount of his own per diem pay,
and in addition to this, Mr. Alanson Beers, Rev. J. L. Parish, and Dr.
Babcock subscribed the full amount of the board of the whole nine, and
the Methodist Mission furnished without charge the use of their granary
at the old mission, as the first council chamber on this western coast.
The building was a frame some sixteen by thirty feet, one and a half
stories high, boards upright, with one square room in front, and the
balance used for a granary, from which it derived its name; the upper
part was for storing and sleeping use. The square room was used for
schoolhouse and church, and now, for a legislative hall.


We will enter this hall and introduce you to an old gray-headed
man with a fair complexion, bald head, light eye, full face, frequent
spasmodic nodding forward of the head, and a large amount of self-importance,
not very large intellectual developments, with a superabundance
of flesh, sitting by a square-legged table or stand, in a chair
with square posts, and strips of rawhide for bottom; dressed in fustian
pants, large blue vest, and striped shirt, and a common brown coat,
who, on motion of Mr. Hill, was chosen Speaker of the House, and hereafter
will be known in our history as Hon. Robert Moore, Esq.


[Pg 337]The first difficulty the committee found was to organize a government
without an executive. They could organize a legislative body, and
appoint all the committees and officers and draft all the laws necessary,
but the folly and absurdity of the effort without an executive, was so
apparent, that the first thing decided upon, was, Shall we have an executive
head, called a governor, or a committee with executive powers!
This was a difficult question, under all the votings and the discussions
that had taken place. The committee were fully aware of all the opposition
they must contend with. The judgeship had passed by vote
of the people at Champoeg from a member of the Methodist Mission to
Mr. A. E. Wilson, an intelligent, unassuming, and excellent young man,
who came to the country in the employ of Mr. Cushing, and had
become a settler.


The committee were well assured that they could eventually secure
the Methodist Mission influence, yet at this time it was extremely
doubtful, and they feared that it would, as in the previous effort of 1841,
go against them, with that of the Catholic Mission and the Hudson’s
Bay Company. An executive committee consisting of three men would
form a council that could act in any emergency, and at the same time
enable the Methodist Mission to be represented by one of their members
in the Executive Council.


Alanson Beers was a good, honest, faithful, and intelligent Christian
man, acting with heart and soul with the interests of the settlement
and the American cause. The settlers could rely upon him.


David Hill was a resident of Hillsborough, Tualatin Plains, and was
known to be decidedly opposed to the company, and not any too favorable
to the Catholic and Methodist missions. He could be relied upon
so far as the outside settlers were concerned, and Robert Newell could
represent the Rocky Mountain men and such of the Canadian-French
Hudson’s Bay Company, and Roman Catholics as were disposed to join
our organization. It was in consequence of his contending so strongly
for the Hudson’s Bay Company’s rights, interests, and privileges, at
Champoeg, on the 5th of July, that he was dropped, and Joseph Gale
(who was one of the Ewing Young party to bring cattle from California
to the Wallamet settlement) elected in his place.


With the understanding as above indicated, the Legislative Committee,
consisting of Hon. Robert Moore, David Hill, Robert Shortess, Alanson
Beers, W. H. Gray, Thomas J. Hubbard, James A. O’Neil, Robert
Newell, and William Dougherty, with the uplifted hand solemnly declared
before God that they would faithfully perform the duties assigned
them by the people of this settlement, at Champoeg, on the 2d day of
May, A. D. 1843, so far as they understood the duties thus assigned[Pg 338]
them. W. H. Gray then by request administered an oath to the
Speaker elect, that he would faithfully and impartially discharge the
duties of his office as presiding officer of the present appointed Legislative
Committee of the people of Oregon, so help you God; to which
Beers said, Amen. The question arose as to the appointment of a clerk
for the committee, when the members agreed, if necessary, to pay his
expenses per diem, if no other means were provided.


George W. Le Breton, a young man of active mind, ready with the
pen, useful and agreeable, and practical in his conversation, having
come to the country as an adventurer in a vessel with Captain Couch,
was chosen secretary and duly qualified by the Speaker. The records of
the proceedings, as published, seem to have left out the preliminary part
of this Legislative Committee’s proceedings. This is owing to the fact
that the compiler had no personal knowledge of them, and perhaps
sought information from those as ignorant of the facts as himself; hence
the meager and unsatisfactory document given to the country. Most, or
all of the proceedings thus far mentioned were with closed doors, as
will be seen by the record published. It was not deemed important by
Messrs. Newell, O’Neil, and Hubbard, to have any record of our daily
proceedings, only the result or report. Messrs. Shortess, Beers, Gray,
Dougherty, and Hill thought it best to keep a record, which was commenced.


“Wallamet, May 15, 1843.—The Legislative Committee met, and
after the preliminary discussions above alluded to, came to order by
electing Robert Moore, Esq., chairman, and G. W. Le Breton, secretary.


“On motion of W. H. Gray, a committee of three was appointed
by the chairman to prepare rules and business for the house. This committee
(Messrs. Gray, Shortess, and Newell), at once, in a hasty manner,
prepared eight rules, and suggested the business proposed for the committee
as a whole to perform. The rules were taken up and adopted
with scarcely a single objection. Up to this time no one except members
of the committee had been allowed a place in the house as spectators.


“On motion, it was decided that the committee sit with open doors.
O’Neil, Hubbard, and Dougherty favored the closed-door sessions, as
they did not want to expose their ignorance of making laws. Newell
thought we had better make as little display as possible, for it would
all be known, and we might be ashamed of what we had done.


“Shortess, Hill, Gray, and Beers were willing that all our efforts to
make laws for ourselves should be fully known, and were ready to receive
instructions and advice from any source. The deliberations of the[Pg 339]
committee, they were confident, would not prevent opposition or aid
the opposers of our proposed organization.


“On motion, a judiciary committee was appointed by the Speaker or
chairman, consisting of Messrs. Beers, Hubbard, and Shortess.


“On motion, a committee of ways and means was appointed, consisting
of Messrs. Shortess, O’Neil, and Dougherty.”


The minutes at this stage show that there was a doubt as to the disposition
of the Speaker, Mr. Moore, to place the best men as chairmen
of the several committees. Mr. Moore had peculiar notions of his own
about land claims, and had placed upon the committee, I think, Robert
Newell, as favoring his and Dr. McLaughlin’s pretensions to the entire
water privileges at Wallamet Falls, which resulted in the appointment
as above stated. The record seems to convey the idea that the first
appointment was conferred by vote. This was not the case. It was
the final action that was repeated and entered.


“On motion, a committee, consisting of Hubbard, Newell, and Gray,
was appointed on military affairs.”


We have not the original documents to refer to, but are of the impression
that considerable correction was made in the first day’s journal,
and that more should have been made at the time. There was a
little feeling on the part of the Speaker and the writer as to the necessity
of an extended minute, and a disposition on the part of Mr. Le
Breton to do as little writing as possible, not for want of time and material,
but, from the deep interest he took in the discussions, he seemed to
forget his work. I am not prepared to think the compiler has abridged
the minutes, yet such may be the fact.


“On motion, Messrs. Shortess, Dougherty, and Hill were appointed
a committee on private land claims.


“On motion, Messrs. Gray, Dougherty, and Beers were appointed a
committee on districting the Territory into not to exceed five districts.”


This committee, it seems by the motion, was to be appointed by the
chairman or Speaker.


“Adjourned to 8 o’clock, A. M., May 17, 1843.


“The house was called to order by the chairman, and Mr. Gray appointed
secretary, pro tem. The session was then opened with prayer
by A. Beers. The minutes of yesterday’s session were then read, corrected,
and accepted.”


The house then adjourned for one hour and a half to prepare business,
at the expiration of which time they were called to order by the
chairman.


The judiciary committee reported progress. The military committee
reported in part; also committee on districts.


[Pg 340]


“Reports accepted.


“It was moved that there be a standing committee on finance, which
was lost, as the vote at Champoeg had directed that the finance of the
government should be by subscription and voluntary contribution.


“Adjourned to 1.30 P. M.


“House called to order by Speaker.


“On motion, house went into committee of the whole upon reports
of committees, Gray in the chair. It was soon found that the business
before the committee of the whole was not in a shape to be properly
acted upon, and that by an open and informal meeting of the members,
it could be brought into shape for action, or rather that the several
members of the different committees had not had a full expression
upon the reports that were before them, and these expressions could
be shortened by separate committee consultation and agreement among
the members of the several committees; hence an adjournment of one
hour was agreed upon.


“At the close of the hour the house met and agreed, went into committee
of the whole as to the number of districts. The report of the
committee accepted, as amended in committee of the whole.”


The question arises here why did not this committee on districts,
and the whole Legislative Committee, specify all north of the Columbia
River?


It will be remembered that the Hudson’s Bay Company, with all
the influence and votes they, with the priests, could collect, had met the
settlers at Champoeg on the 2d of May previous, and opposed the
entire organization; and the French priest had sent to the Legislative
Committee a protest against any organization; at least the districting
committee was aware that such would be the case, as the protest
already given was in the hands of Le Breton, the secretary of the committee,
and of the whole house. In specifying the districts beyond the
limits named, or north of the Columbia, the additional votes and
personal influence of the company would be thrown against
us. The district committee contended that that influence and vote
would defeat us, and make us an English or Hudson’s Bay Company
settlement. We could, without the interference of the company,
manage our own affairs with such of the French settlers as chose to
remain and vote with us. Such as did not like our laws could have a
place to which they could continue their allegiance. Besides, we were
confident we should receive a large immigration in the fall, and in that
case we could extend our settlements and districts and laws to that
section of the country.


Another prominent, and perhaps the most prominent reason of all[Pg 341]
was, we were afraid to attempt to enforce any laws we might wish to
adopt, or think necessary among ourselves, upon the servants of the
company. We did not acknowledge their right to enforce any
English laws over us, and we, as the writer thought then, and still
thinks, wisely concluded if they would not openly interfere with
us, we would not openly interfere with them, till we were strong
enough to outnumber and control them, as will hereafter be clearly
demonstrated.


The journal of the proceedings of that committee shows that there
were frequent short adjournments. These moments were all occupied
in discussing and agreeing upon some report that was soon to be
acted upon, and in coming to a unanimous vote as to the final result;
there was but one thought and but one object with the majority of
the members of the Legislative Committee.


That thought and object was, to establish the provisional government
they had undertaken to organize. They felt that union in their action
was absolutely necessary, as the opposing elements were so strong, that
without it we must fail, and subject ourselves and the settlement to
the worst possible tyranny and humiliation from Dr. White and the
Hudson’s Bay Company.


After the second recess, during the second day, the report of the
military committee was before the house and instructions asked. Newell
was opposed to any military arrangements at all. Hubbard was
undecided. Gray insisted on carrying out the instructions and ideas
of the meeting of the 2d of May in regard to military officers that had
been appointed at that meeting, and in preparing rules to govern them
in organizing and drilling the men. He was unwilling to leave the
military power without any responsibility to any one but themselves;
hence instruction was asked, and given, to proceed as indicated in the
meeting at Champoeg, and prepare a military law, to be included in
the articles of organic compact.


“May 18, 1843.—House met pursuant to adjournment. Session was
opened by prayer. Minutes of yesterday’s session read, corrected, and
accepted.


“Robert Newell moved, and was seconded, that a committee be
appointed to prepare a paper for the signature of all persons wishing
an organization.”


The reader is already informed of the appearance of the French
protest, and that it was in the possession of Le Breton. It is possible
that Newell may have received it from the French priest. The writer
has never been able to learn the exact facts in the case. At all events
Newell’s resolution shows, that however willing and ready he was to[Pg 342]
commence the organization of an American government with his
adopted countrymen, he is now in doubt as to the propriety of the
step he, with others, had undertaken.


He presents a resolution to get up a committee to prepare a paper
to circulate among the people, to find out who were in favor of the
organization we were then attempting to bring into shape, under the
instructions already received.


Perhaps the reader will understand Mr. Newell better if he is more
fully informed as to his real genealogy, as there has always been a little
doubt whether he belonged to the American or British nation. From
the best information we could get about him, he was formerly from
Cincinnati, Ohio, and the Rocky Mountains. From the earliest history
we have of him, he has claimed to be an American, and represented the
interests of a foreign monopoly, under a religious belief that he was
conscientiously right in so doing. By keeping himself talking strong
American sentiments to Americans, and acting strongly anti-American
while in the mountains and in the settlement, he succeeded in obtaining
and holding positions to benefit the trade of the Hudson’s Bay Company;
also a place in the Legislative Committee, and in the settler’s
government, to shield and protect those who were seeking the destruction
of all American trade and influence in the country. He was a
man of quite ordinary ability, yet smooth and insinuating in his manners,
with a great abundance of plausible stories, to make a stranger
believe he was learned in a profession. His real sentiments could
never be learned except by his vote; his thoughts only read by his
acts, which always tended to complicate and confuse legislation. This
probably arose from a disposition to seek popularity and places he was
incompetent to fill; as, also, from the title he assumed in early life, it
naturally made him a hypocrite in action as well as profession. He had
not the moral principle requisite to make known the truth, and to
assume his proper position and be regarded as a plain man without a
title. As plain Bob Newell he could be respected for his natural and
genial talent. As Dr. Newell he assumes an air to correspond with
the title, and shows the hypocrisy of his life. He was at this time, and
has continued to be, a faithful representative of the Hudson’s Bay
Company and Jesuit interests in the country, for which service they
should enter his name upon their calendar of saints. As a public man,
we are not aware that he ever originated a single act or law; but as
representing a clique, or the interests of his masters, he has always been
ready to do his utmost in every possible way. At the time we were
called to vote upon Mr. Newell’s first resolution, his position was fully
known to but few, yet enough was understood of his duplicity to reject[Pg 343]
his proposition at once, and the house proceeded to amend its rules
and add a ninth to those already adopted.


The report of the military committee was recommitted with instructions
for further notion. Mr. Hubbard was considerably under the influence
of Newell, and in consequence of this fact the military rules or
laws were remodeled in committee of the whole. Newell and Hubbard
were disposed to defeat it altogether as unnecessary, as intimated in
the tenth proposition in the French priest’s address. In fact, Mr.
Newell acted all through the proceedings of the Legislative Committee
upon the ideas contained in that address, and opposed all measures
looking beyond the suggestions contained in it.


At this point, the judiciary committee, consisting of Beers, Hubbard,
and Shortess, reported in part on the executive power, and opened the
eyes of Dr. Newell to the awful responsibility and to a full realization
of the fact that a majority of the committee were in favor of an organization,
and a real, actual American government. He took the floor
and commenced: “Wall, reelly now, Mr. Chairman, this ’ere report is
a stumper, I see from the report of this ’ere committee that you are
going on a little too fast. I think you had better find out if we can
carry this thing through before we go too far. We have a good many
people that don’t know what we are about, and I think we had better
adjourn before we go too far.”


In the midst of this speech, which was a repetition of the reasons for
getting up the paper to find out who were favorable to our proposed
government, the house was so uncourteous as to adjourn and leave the
balance of Dr. Newell’s speech unrepeated. Suffice it to say, that in
those short adjournments as noted in the Oregon archives, nearly or
quite all the little differences of opinion were quickly explained and
understood by a majority of the members. The exact subjects that
were before them at the several meetings we have no documents to indicate,
and we can only be governed by such documents as we have, to
wit, the record and our own memory.


Newell was the only prominent opposer of the report of the judiciary
committee, which was prepared by Robert Shortess, to whose memory
we are indebted for a remarkable speech of Hon. Mr. Robert Newell
on that occasion. Mr. Shortess says the discussion was on the question
of who should be deemed voters. Most of the committee were in favor
of universal suffrage, and, as Dr. Newell had a native wife, naturally
supposed he would be quite as liberal as those who had full white families;
but the doctor gave us one of his “stumpers,” or, as he calls it,
“big fir-tree speeches,” by saying: “Wall, now, Mr. Speaker, I think
we have got quite high enough among the dark clouds; I do not believe[Pg 344]
we ought to go any higher. It is well enough to admit the English,
the French, the Spanish, and the half-breeds, but the Indian and the
negro is a little too dark for me. I think we had better stop at the
half-breeds. I am in favor of limiting the right to vote to them, and
going no further into the dark clouds to admit the negro.”


We confess that till Mr. Shortess reminded us of this speech, and the
manner of its delivery, it had escaped our memory, and that, without
it, Mr. Newell could scarcely receive his proper position in the history
of our early struggle for American liberty upon this coast. His position
and the patronage he received from the Hudson’s Bay Company were
sufficient for him to work effectually in their interests through all our
struggle.


“At the evening session of May 18, the committee on ways and
means were instructed to prepare a subscription for presenting at the
general meeting, to procure funds to defray the expenses of the government,
after spending a short time in committee of the whole.


“Adjourned till next day.


“May 19, 1843.—House met pursuant to adjournment. Opened with
prayer. Moved that the minutes of the 18th be accepted. Taking the
whole subject of the organization into consideration, Gray presented
the following resolution that a committee of three be appointed to prepare
and arrange all the business that has been done, or may be done
hereafter at this session, revising statutes of Iowa, etc., report at
the next session of the committee, and request the clerk to copy the
same.


“Resolution adopted.


“Messrs. Gray, Beers, and O’Neil were appointed; these three living
within fifteen miles of each other, it was thought could meet and superintend
and revise the whole proceedings, and get them in shape for
the public meeting.


“Committee of ways and means reported a subscription, which was
accepted, and the military committee reported in part, which was
accepted.


“Adjourned to 2 P. M.


“At 2 P. M. house met. The judiciary committee reported in full.
Report accepted.”


On the 20th page of the archives, and in reference to the proviso in
the fourth article of the organic law, the record does not give us the
fact. The proviso referred to was prepared but not included in the
original act, as reported and read at Champoeg, but was adopted at
Champoeg. The report was duly referred to the revising committee,
and the proviso left in the hands of Le Breton to be withheld or pre[Pg 345]sented,
as the occasion might require, in the final action of the people.
The large pretensions to lands by the Methodist and Catholic missions
were fully understood by the entire committee. They wished to
curtail them as much as possible, and were fully aware that any direct
action to this end would bring the whole influence of both missions
against them.




[Pg 346]


CHAPTER XLIV.


Fourth of July, 1843.—Oration by Mr. Hines.—Meeting of July 5.—Debate on the
land law.—How the Jesuits and the Hudson’s Bay Company secured their land
claims.—Speech of the Rev. G. Hines against the proposed Executive Committee.—The
committee supported by O’Neil, Shortess, and Lee.—W. H. Gray closes the
debate.—The report of the committee adopted.—Committee appointed to report to
Congress, another to make a Digest of Territorial laws, and a third to prepare and
administer an oath of office.


On the 4th of July our national anniversary was observed, and an
oration was delivered by the Rev. G. Hines. The committee favored
the selection of Mr. Hines as orator, that they might gain his views,
and be ready to meet him on the main questions that would be brought
up on the fifth. In this, however, we failed, as he dwelt principally
upon the subjects of temperance, the glorious deeds of our forefathers
on the other side of the Rocky Mountains, and the influences and blessings
of the day. No Englishman, or foreigner, could have taken any
exceptions to his sentiments or language. On the 5th, Dr. Babcock,
chairman of the meeting of May 2, being absent, the meeting was
called to order by G. W. Le Breton, one of the secretaries of the May
meeting. On motion, the Rev. Gustavus Hines was elected president
of the convention by acclamation. R. Moore, Esq., chairman of the
Legislative Committee, presented his report, which was read by Secretary
Le Breton, and on motion accepted. Rev. L. H. Judson moved
that the report of the committee on ways and means be accepted.
This motion brought the land law up for discussion. The Legislative
Committee as a whole reported that law entire, to the proviso in the
fourth article. Upon the first part of that article a discussion arose between
Mr. Newell and the members of the Methodist Mission, as to the
right of any single individual to hold a claim of 640 acres upon a city
or town site, or extensive water privilege. Mr. Moore agreed with Mr.
Newell on that question, as he claimed one side of the Wallamet River
at the falls, and Dr. McLaughlin the other. The Methodist Mission
also claimed a right to the east side of the Wallamet, and the Milling
Company claimed the island, upon which they were erecting mills. Mr.
Newell opposed the fourth article, to favor Dr. McLaughlin; the Methodist
Mission and Milling Company favored the article on the ground
that it secured them in their rights, and prevented a monopoly of that[Pg 347]
water-power by any single individual. Rev. Jason Lee was anxious to
secure the rights and claims of the Methodist Mission. So far as the
water privilege and town sites were concerned, there were no fears on
the part of the committee, but in reference to the large claims of the
Methodist Mission, there were fears that Mr. Lee and Mr. Hines would
oppose our whole effort, and combine the influence of their mission
against the organization. To satisfy Rev. Jason Lee, Le Breton presented
the proviso as contained in the fourth article, which removed his
objection. The committee were well assured that the Jesuit missions
would claim the same right to land, and in this way, the one mission
would he induced to give up to curtail the other. This occurred as
anticipated, only the Methodist Mission held on to their claims, and
attempted to maintain them publicly, while the Jesuits did the same
thing silently, and by having their lands recorded in the supposed
names of their members, or priests, the same as the Hudson’s Bay
Company recorded all their improvements and forts in the names of
their different servants, so as to hold them for the company; the
company and the Jesuits having, as they supposed, secured their own
claims to land in the name of their respective servants, joined with the
new immigrants, in condemning the large pretensions of the Methodist
Mission, and in this way prejudiced the minds of the settlers
against it for doing, openly, just what they had done in the names of
their servants, secretly.


On the final vote there were but few dissenting voices, except upon
the adoption of the proviso. It may be asked why the land law was
brought up first. The minutes as recorded on the twenty-third and
twenty-fourth pages of the Oregon archives, show that Mr. Judson
moved the adoption of the report of the committee on ways and means.
This was all the minute that was made, as the business and discussion
progressed. The report on the land law was deemed, by the committee,
to be of the first importance, as all were personally interested
in the law about land claims; and upon the discussion of that report,
they could learn the result of the whole effort, and the feelings of
the people as to the permanence of the proposed government. The
notice of the report of the committee on ways and means, on page 24,
and of the proviso, is entered, to show that the amendments alluded
to were made. We are of the opinion, that had Mr. Le Breton lived
to copy those minutes, he would have so changed them. He says
such amendment and proviso were adopted. To this fact we have
affirmed under oath as being a part of the provisional law adopted at
that meeting. This brings us to the first clause of the organic law,
as adopted by the people in mass convention.


[Pg 348]The preamble and first article were adopted on motion of Joseph
McLaughlin, the second son of Dr. John McLaughlin, who took an
active part in favoring the organization, against the wishes and influence
of his family.


The second article was read, and, on motion of L. H. Judson, was
adopted.


The third, on motion of C. McRoy, and the fourth, on motion of
Joseph Holman, were also adopted.


On motion to adopt the fifth article, “on the executive power,” it
was plain to be seen that the Rev. Mr. Hines was swelling and becoming
uneasy, in proportion as the Rev. Jason Lee appeared to be satisfied
with the proceedings. He hesitated to put the motion, called Robert
Moore, the chairman of the Legislative Committee, to the chair, and
commenced:—


“Mr. President, gentlemen, and fellow-citizens,—The Legislative
Committee which you appointed to prepare certain laws, and perform
a certain duty, have assumed to present for your approval something
they had no right, in all the instructions given them, to present. They
have commenced a course which, if not checked, will lead to the worst
possible form of despotism. Grant them the privilege which they now
ask, of imposing upon this settlement, upon you and me and our families,
this hydra-headed monster in the shape of an Executive Committee,
and we have but the repetition of the Roman Triumvirate—the
Cæsars upon the throne. We may be told by them, in excuse for the
violation of plain and positive instructions, that they found it difficult
to proceed with the organizing of a temporary government without an
executive; and here they have brought before you this monstrosity—this
black bear—this hydra-headed monster, in the shape of an Executive
Committee; and ask you to adopt it, as necessary to preserve your
civil liberties and rights.


“Gentlemen and fellow-citizens,—You have but to look to past history,
to warn you of the dangers of so palpable a violation of instructions
on the part of public servants. You instructed them to do a
certain work, to prepare certain laws. If they could not do as instructed,
let them resign and go home. So far as they performed the
duties assigned them, we can approve of their acts; but when they
attempt to force upon us what we have not asked of them, but said to
them we do not want this monstrosity with three heads, yet they persist
in saying we do; and have gone on and made their laws to correspond
with this absurd and outrageous thing they call Executive
Committee. Is it wise, is it reasonable, that we should submit to it?
What assurance have we that the next Legislative Committee, or body[Pg 349]
we may appoint, following the example set by this one, will not give
us a king or emperor, and tell us it is necessary to complete our organization?”


Many of the persons present at Champoeg on the 5th of July, 1843,
will recollect this speech, and the strong and emphatic manner in which
it was delivered. Why Mr. Hines did not move to strike out the executive
clause has always been a mystery to us. When he had resumed
his seat as president of the convention, Mr. O’Neil made a few remarks,
explaining the position of the committee. Mr. Shortess followed, denying
the assumption of power attributed to the committee, or a disposition
to go beyond their instructions, and urged the necessity of a head
or some controlling influence somewhere. Could we rely upon Captains
McCarty, or McKay, or Smith to call out their companies; or Major
Howard? Should the military control the civil power? “The thing is
absurd,” said Shortess. Rev. Jason Lee could not see the proposed
executive head of the proposed provisional government in the light
Mr. Hines did. If it was thought necessary to have a government at
all, it was necessary to have a head, and an executive, or the laws
were of no effect.


It was arranged with the Legislative Committee, that Gray should
meet Hines on this question, and make the last speech in favor of the
executive department. Hence O’Neil and Shortess both spoke in favor
of it. Dr. Babcock was opposed, on account of its going beyond present
necessities, and looking too much like a permanent and independent
government; whereas we only wished to form a temporary one. He
thought with Mr. Hines, that the committee had gone beyond their instructions
in providing for this executive power, still he was willing to
abide the decision of the people. There was a little uncertainty us to
Mr. Lee’s final vote. Dr. Babcock was clearly against us. Mr. Hines
made but the one speech. From the course the debate had taken, Gray
had no fears as to the final result, and waited until it was evident that
no more opposing speeches would be made when he commenced:—


“Mr. President and fellow-citizens,—The speech which we have just
listened to, from our presiding officer, is in the main correct. It is true
that the Legislative Committee were not instructed to bring before you
an executive department in the laws and government you proposed to
form, when you appointed your committee to prepare those laws. It
is also true, that when that committee met, they found that they could
not advance one step in accomplishing the work you instructed them
to perform, without some supervising influence, or power, somewhere;
in short, without a head. Their instructions were against a governor.
They have provided an Executive Committee, in place of a single man[Pg 350]
for governor. This executive head is to act in the place of senate,
council, and governor. This provision is before you for your approval
or rejection. With this Executive Committee our organization is complete;
without it we have no head; no one to see that our laws are
executed, and no one to grant a reprieve or pardon in case a law should
be enforced against the life or property of any one, for the violation of
any law, no matter what the circumstances connected with that real or
supposed violation might be. The pardon and mercy part of our law
is in that ‘horrible hydra-headed monster’ that the gentleman spoke
about, and warned us against; and instead of its being as black as his
‘bear,’ it becomes light and mercy to the erring and the ignorant. As
to the example set by your committee for future despots to rob us of
our liberty, and place over us a king or an emperor, you and I have no
fears so long as we elect our own legislative bodies.


“Now, fellow-citizens, let us look calmly at our true situation. We
are two thousand five hundred miles from any point from which we
can receive the least assistance by land; and seventeen thousand miles
by water. A portion of our community are organized and ready to
protect themselves, and to defend all their rights and interests.
Another organization of a religious character is in our midst,—I should
say, two. They each have a head—an executive. How is it with us?
Who is our head in all that pertains to our civil liberty, rights, and
property? It is possible the gentleman may wish us to remain as unprotected,
as helpless and exposed to all the dangers that surround us
on every hand, as we have heretofore been. If he does, you, fellow-citizens,
I am sure, do not wish to add to his feebleness by destroying the
organization you have commenced, because he is afraid of what some
Cæsar did in Rome some centuries past. We are acting for ourselves
and those immediately dependent upon us for protection. In union
there is strength. I believe you are fully satisfied that your committee
have acted honestly, and, as they thought, for the good of all they
represented. If such is the case, you will approve of their acts, and
our organization will be complete as they have prepared it for this
meeting.”


On the question being taken, there were but two or three votes
against the executive, or fifth section. Mr. Lee informed the writer
that he saw plainly enough that the meeting was determined to have
a government of some kind, and that probably the Executive Committee
was the best at first. This point gained, the remainder was soon
disposed of.


The marriage fee was changed, in the seventeenth article, from three
dollars to one dollar.


[Pg 351]The resolution referred to as the nineteenth was: “Resolved, That
a committee of three be appointed to draw up a digest of all the laws
and proceedings of the people of this Territory, in relation to the present
provisional government, and the reasons for forming the same;
and forward said digest and report to the Congress of the United
States for their information.” Rev. Jason Lee, Rev. Gustavus Hines,
and Mr. C. M. Walker were chosen that committee, and instructed to
have access to all public documents, and to call upon any individual for
any information they might deem necessary in carrying out their instructions.


That committee, so far as performing their duty and carrying out the
wishes of the people were concerned, did the same as the reverend
Legislative Committee did in 1841; they neglected the thing altogether,
and paid no attention to the object of the resolution. Still, at
the present day, when the same reverend gentlemen are charged with
having done all they could against the early settlers’ government, they
attempt to repel the charge, and take great credit to themselves for
the perseverance of others in securing permanent laws and protection
for themselves and the settlements.


Messrs. Beers, Hill, and Gale, were chosen by ballot as the first Executive
Committee.


Hugh Burns, who had been chosen at the May meeting as justice of
the peace, had resigned, and Robert Moore was chosen to fill his
place.


The committee had prepared a full list of the laws of Iowa, to recommend
for the adoption of the people, which was presented and read,
some slight amendments made, and the list adopted.


The report of the Legislative Committee was adopted as a whole;
and on motion it was “Resolved, That the president of the convention
assisted by the Rev. Messrs. Lee, Clark, and Leslie, be a committee to
draft and administer an oath of office to the civil officers elected on
the 2d of May, 1843, and that said officers be required to subscribe to
the same; and administer the oath to the supreme judge, who shall
hereafter qualify all civil and military officers to be elected by the people.”
At this point, a question arose in the mind of the last-named
committee, whether they would proceed that night to administer the
proposed oath, or defer it till some other time. There were some
earnest and determined men in that convention, who were not to be
defeated at the last moment by the disposition of these reverend gentlemen
to delay the concluding ceremony of drafting and administering
the oath of office to the persons the people had chosen. To relieve
them of all doubt as to the wish of the convention (although it was[Pg 352]
then nearly dark), it was moved and carried, “that the committee to
qualify officers proceed to the performance of their duty, as far as practicable,
this evening.” Judge Wilson was not present.


Rev. Jason Lee noticed that Mr. Beers received the smallest number
of votes given for any member of the Executive Committee. This to
him, and probably to Messrs. Leslie and Hines, was unaccountable; but
not so to us, who understood the general feeling of opposition against
the rule of the missionaries and their large claims to land; as also the
secret prejudices excited against them by the Hudson’s Bay Company
and the Jesuits, who attributed the entire government movement to
them, while the organization was that of the settlers unaided by any
mission, except individual members of the Protestant missions. This
was probably the reason for the proposition to delay qualifying the
officers elected, and carrying out the decided wish of the convention.
This fact simply shows a reluctant assent to the organization by the
principal members of the missions. The French address showed the
feelings of the French and Catholics, while the Hudson’s Bay Company
stood entirely aloof from it, and expected to defeat the whole movement
by the influence of such men as the Rev. G. Hines, Dr. White,
Robert Newell, and the Indians.


We have two copies of the organic laws adopted by the people at
Champoeg; one published by Charles Saxton in 1846, and the other by
the compiler of the Oregon archives in 1853. That published by Mr.
Saxton corresponds nearer with our own recollections of the facts of
the case; hence we will copy them as given by him.




[Pg 353]


CHAPTER XLV.


Organic laws.—Resolutions.—Districts.—Militia law.—Land claims.—Certificate.


The Legislative Committee recommend that the following organic
laws be adopted:—


We, the people of Oregon Territory, for purposes of mutual protection,
and to secure peace and prosperity among ourselves, agree to
adopt the following laws and regulations, until such time as the
United States of America extend their jurisdiction over us:—


Section I.


Be it enacted by the free citizens of Oregon Territory, That the said
Territory, for the purposes of temporary government, be divided into
not less than three, nor more than five, districts; subject to be extended
to a greater number when an increase of population shall require.


For the purpose of fixing the principles of civil and religious liberty
as the basis of all laws and constitutions of government that may hereafter
be adopted, Be it enacted, That the following articles be considered
articles of compact among the free citizens of this Territory.


Article 1. No person demeaning himself in a peaceable or orderly
manner shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or
religious sentiments.


Art. 2. The inhabitants of said Territory shall always be entitled to
the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus and trial by jury, of a proportionate
representation in the Legislature, and of judicial proceeding
according to the course of common law. All persons shall be bailable,
unless for capital offenses, where the proof shall be evident, or the
presumption great. All fines shall be moderate, and no cruel or unnatural
punishments inflicted. No man shall be deprived of his liberty
but by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land; and should
the public exigences make it necessary, for the common preservation,
to take any person’s property, or to demand his particular services,
full compensation shall be made for the same. And in the just preservation
of rights and property, it is understood and declared that no
law ought ever to be made, or have force in said Territory, that shall
in any manner whatever interfere with, or affect, private contracts, or
engagements bona fide made and without fraud previously formed.


[Pg 354]Art. 3. Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good
government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of
education shall forever be encouraged.


Art. 4. The utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the
Indians, their lands and property shall never be taken from them without
their consent, and in their property, rights, and liberty, they shall
never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars, authorised
by the representatives of the people. But laws, founded in justice
and humanity, shall, from time to time, be made, for preventing
injustice being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship.


Art. 5. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in
said Territory, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes, whereof
the party shall have been duly convicted.


Section II.


Article 1. Be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the officers
elected on the 2d of May instant shall continue in office until the second
Tuesday of May, 1844, and until others are elected and qualified.


Art. 2. An election for civil and military officers shall be held annually
upon the second Tuesday in May in the several districts, at such
places as shall be designated by law.


Art. 3. Each officer heretofore elected, or that shall hereafter be
elected, shall, before entering upon the duties of his office, take an
oath or affirmation to support the laws of the Territory, and faithfully
discharge the duties of his office.


Art. 4. Every free male descendant of a white man, inhabitant of
this Territory, of the age of twenty-one years and upward, who shall
have been an inhabitant of this Territory at the time of its organization,
shall be entitled to vote at the election of officers, civil and
military, and be eligible to any office in the Territory; Provided, That all
persons of the description entitled to vote by the provision of this
section, who shall emigrate to this Territory after the organization,
shall be entitled to the rights of citizens after having resided six
months in the Territory.


Art. 5. The executive power shall be vested in a committee of three
persons, elected by the qualified voters at the annual election, who shall
have power to grant pardons and reprieves for offenses against the laws
of the Territory, to call out the military force of the Territory, to repel invasions
or suppress insurrections, to take care that the laws are faithfully
executed, and to recommend such laws as they may consider necessary
to the representatives of the people for their action. Two members of
the committee shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business.


[Pg 355]Art. 6. The legislative power shall be vested in a committee of
nine persons, to be elected by the qualified electors at the annual election;
giving to each district a representation in the ratio of its population,
excluding Indians; and the said members shall reside in the district
for which they shall be chosen.


Art. 7. The judicial power shall be vested in a Supreme Court, consisting
of the supreme judge and two justices of the peace; a Probate
Court and Justice Court. The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court shall be
both appellate and original; that of the Probate Court and Justice Court
as limited by law; Provided, That individual justices of the peace shall
not have jurisdiction of any matter or controversy when the title or
boundaries of land may be in dispute, or when the sum claimed exceeds
fifty dollars.


Art. 8. There shall be a Recorder, elected by the qualified electors at
the annual election, who shall keep a faithful record of the proceedings
of the Legislative Committee, Supreme and Probate courts; also record
all boundaries of land presented for that purpose, and brands used for
marking live stock; procure and keep a record of the same; and also
record wills, deeds, and other instruments of writing required by law
to be recorded. The Recorder shall receive the following fees, viz.: For
recording wills, deeds, and other instruments of writing, twelve cents
for every hundred words; and for every weight or measure sealed,
twenty-five cents. For granting other official papers and the seal,
twenty-five cents; for services as clerk of the Legislature, the same daily
pay as members of the Legislature; and for all other services required
of him by this act, the same fees as allowed for similar services by the
laws of Iowa.


Art. 9. There shall be a Treasurer, elected by the qualified electors of
the Territory, who shall, before entering upon the duties of his office,
give bonds to the Executive Committee in the sum of fifteen hundred
dollars, with two or more sufficient sureties, to be approved by the Executive
Committee of the Territory, conditioned for the faithful discharge
of the duty of his office. The Treasurer shall receive all moneys belonging
to the Territory that may be raised by contribution, or otherwise,
and shall procure suitable books in which he shall enter an account of
his receipts and disbursements.


Art. 10. The Treasurer shall in no case pay money out of the Treasury
but according to law, and shall annually report to the Legislative Committee
a true account of his receipts and disbursements, with necessary
vouchers for the same, and shall deliver to his successor in office all
books, moneys, accounts, or other property belonging to the Territory,
as soon as his successor shall become qualified.


[Pg 356]Art. 11. The Treasurer shall receive for his services the sum of five
per cent. upon all moneys received and paid out according to law, and
three per cent. upon all money in the Treasury when he goes out of
office, and two per cent. upon the disbursement of money in the Treasury
when he comes into office.


Art. 12. The laws of Iowa Territory shall be the laws of this Territory
in military and criminal cases, where not otherwise provided for;
and where no statute of Iowa Territory applies, the principle of common
law and equity shall govern.


Art. 13. The law of Iowa regulating weights and measures shall be
the law of this Territory; Provided, The Supreme Court shall perform
the duties required of the commissioners, and the recorder shall perform
the duties of the clerk of the county commissioners, as prescribed in
said laws of Iowa; and proved, that sixty pounds avoirdupois shall be
the standard weight of a bushel of wheat, whether the same be more
or less than two thousand one hundred and fifty and two-fifths cubic
inches.


Art. 14. The laws of Iowa respecting wills and administrators shall
be the laws of this Territory in all cases not otherwise provided for.


Art. 15. The laws of Iowa respecting vagrants is hereby adopted as
far as adapted to the circumstances of the citizens of Oregon.


Art. 16. The Supreme Court shall hold two sessions annually, upon
the third Tuesdays of April and September, the first session to be held
at Champoeg upon the third Tuesday of September, 1843, and the second
session at Tualatin Plains, upon the third Tuesday of April, 1844.
At the sessions of the Supreme Court the judge shall preside, assisted by
two justices; Provided, That no justice of the peace shall assist in trying
any case that has been brought before the court by appeal from his
judgment. The Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction in cases
of treason and felony, or breach of the peace, and in civil cases where
the sum claimed exceeds fifty dollars.


Art. 17. All male persons of the age of sixteen years and upward,
and all females of the age of fourteen years and upward, shall have
the right to marry. When either of the parties shall be under twenty-one
years of age, the consent of the parents, or guardians of such
minors, shall be necessary to the validity of such matrimonial engagement.
Every ordained minister of the gospel, of any religious denomination,
the supreme judge, and all justices of the peace, are hereby
authorized to solemnize marriage according to law, to have the same
recorded, and pay the recorder’s fee. The legal fee for marriage shall
be one dollar; and for recording, fifty cents.


Art. 18. All offices subsequently made shall be filled by election and[Pg 357]
ballot in the several districts upon the day appointed by law, and under
such regulations as the laws of Iowa provide.




1. Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed to draw up a
digest of the doings of this Territory with regard to an organization,
and transmit the same to the United States government for their information.


2. Resolved, That the laws of Iowa—as laid down in the “Statute Laws
of the Territory of Iowa, enacted at the first session of the Legislative
Assembly of said Territory, held at Burlington, A. D. 1838-9, published
by authority in Dubuque, Russell & Reeves, printers, 1839;” certified
to be a “correct copy,” by William B. Conway, secretary of Iowa Territory—be
adopted as the laws of this Territory.




The Legislative Committee recommend that the Territory be divided
into four districts, as follows:—


First District, to be called the Tualatin District, comprising all the
country south of the northern boundary line of the United States, west
of the Wallamet or Multnomah River, north of the Yamhill River, and
east of the Pacific Ocean.


Second District, to be called the Yamhill District, embracing all the
country west of the Wallamet or Multnomah River, and a supposed line
running north and south from said river, south of the Yamhill River, to
the parallel of forty-two degrees north latitude, or the boundary line
of the United States and California, and east of the Pacific Ocean.


Third District, to be called the Clackamas District, comprehending
all territory not included in the other three districts.


Fourth District, to be called the Champoeg District, and bounded on
the north by a supposed line drawn from the mouth of the Haunchauke
River, running due east to the Rocky Mountains, west by the Wallamet
or Multnomah River, and a supposed line running due south from said
river to the parallel of forty-two degrees north latitude, south by the
boundary line of the United States and California, and east by the
summit of the Rocky Mountains.


The Legislative Committee also recommend the above districts to be
designated by the name of “Oregon Territory.”


The Legislative Committee recommend that a subscription paper be
put in circulation to collect funds for defraying the expenses of the
government, as follows: We, the subscribers, hereby pledge ourselves
to pay annually to the treasurer of Oregon Territory the sum affixed
to our respective names, for defraying the expenses of government;
Provided, That in all cases each individual subscriber may, at any time,[Pg 358]
withdraw his name from said subscription upon paying up all arrearages,
and notifying the treasurer of the colony of such desire to withdraw.


Militia Law.


Article 1. The militia of this Territory shall be arranged into one
battalion, consisting of three or more companies of mounted riflemen.


Art. 2. That in case of the vacancy of the office of major by death
or otherwise, it shall be the duty of the Executive Committee to appoint
another whose duty it shall be to serve in the place of such removed
officer, until the annual election.


Art. 3. That when a portion of country is so distant, or so situated,
that in the opinion of the Executive Committee it would be inconvenient
for persons residing therein to belong to an organized company, they
shall be organized as a separate company under the command of a captain
appointed by themselves, and give due notice to the major of the
battalion, and be subject to the same laws and regulations as the other
companies of the battalion.


Art. 4. That all companies shall meet once in each year for company
inspection upon the last Tuesday in September, well mounted, with a
good rifle, or musket, and accouterments for company inspection and
military exercise.


Art. 5. It shall be the duty of the major to notify each captain of a
company to notify each member of his company of the day and place
of each annual meeting of his battalion and company at least six days
previous to such time of meeting.


Art. 6. It shall be the duty of each and every male inhabitant, over
the age of sixteen years and under sixty, that wishes to be considered a
citizen, to cause himself to be enrolled, by giving his name to the proper
officers of the militia, and serve under the same, except such as are hereafter
excepted.


Art. 7. That fines shall be laid upon all who fail to adhere to the
commands of the Executive Committee, and the same shall be expended
for ammunition and arms, without delay, and persons appointed to
take charge of the magazine wherever the Executive Committee shall
direct its location.


Art. 8. It shall be the duty of the Executive Committee to appoint a
surgeon to the battalion, who shall serve in his profession when so ordered
by the Executive Committee.


Art. 9. It shall be lawful for any commissioned officer in case of invasion,
or insurrection, to order out the militia under his command,
provided he has sufficient reason for so doing, and give immediate notice
thereof to the Executive Committee.


[Pg 359]Art. 10. The militia of this Territory shall, with the advice and consent
of the Executive Committee, be subject to the call of the authorized
agents of the United States government until she may send troops to
support the same.


Land Claims.


Article 1. Any person now holding or hereafter wishing to establish
a claim to land in this Territory, shall designate the extent of his claim
by natural boundaries, or by marks at the corners and upon the lines
of said claim, recorded in the office of the Territorial recorder, in a
book to be kept by him for that purpose, within twenty days from the
time of making said claim; Provided, That those who shall be already
in possession of land shall be allowed one year from the passage of this
act, to file a description of their claims in the recorder’s office.


Art. 2. All claimants shall, within six months from the time of
recording their claims, make permanent improvements upon the same,
by building or inclosing, and also become occupant upon said claims
within one year of the date of such record.


Art. 3. No individual shall be allowed to hold a claim of more than
one square mile, or 640 acres, in a square or oblong form, according to
the natural situation of the premises, nor shall any individual be able
to hold more than one claim at the same time. Any person complying
with the provisions of these ordinances shall be entitled to the same
process against trespass as in other cases provided by law.


Art. 4. No person shall be entitled to hold such a claim upon city
or town lots, extensive water privileges, or other situations necessary
for the transaction of mercantile or manufacturing operations; Provided,
That nothing in these laws shall be so construed as to affect any
claim of any mission of a religious character made prior to this time,
of extent not more than six miles square.


Approved by the people, as per minutes, Wallamet, July 5, 1843.


A true copy from original papers. Attest



George W. Le Breton,

Recorder.



Certificate.


This certifies that David Hill, Alanson Beers, and Joseph Gale were
chosen the Executive Committee of the Territory of Oregon, by the
people of said Territory, and have taken the oath for the faithful performance
of the duties of their office as required by law.



George W. Le Breton,

Recorder.


Wallamet, Oregon Territory, July 5, 1843.




[Pg 360]


CHAPTER XLVI.


Description of the State House.—Conduct of the French settlers.—Arrival of Dr. Whitman’s
party of immigrants.—Prosperity of the settlers.—Change in the policy of
the Hudson’s Bay Company.—Their exorbitant claims.


A primitive State House was built with posts set upright, one end
in the ground, grooved on two sides, and filled in with poles and split
timber, such as would be suitable for fence rails; with plates and poles
across the top. Rafters and horizontal poles held the cedar bark,
which was used instead of shingles for covering. It was twenty by
forty feet. At one end, some puncheons were put up for a platform for
the president; some poles and slabs were placed around for seats; three
planks one foot wide and about twelve feet long, placed upon a sort of
stake platform for a table, for the use of the Legislative Committee and
the clerks.


Perfect order and decorum prevailed throughout the proceedings.
The bolder and more independent portion of the French settlers participated
in this convention, and expressed themselves pleased with the
result. They looked to this organization to relieve them from British
tyranny; while by far the greater number of them kept aloof and
refused to have any thing to do with, or to submit to, the organization.


This arose from the advice they had received from the company, and
the instructions of the priests who were among them, as in the case of
Dr. White’s effort to get a few of them to go with him to the interior,
on the report of threatened Indian difficulties. The Hudson’s Bay
Company, as indicated in a communication to the Executive Committee,
felt themselves abundantly able to defend themselves and their political
rights.


This year, through the influence and representations by letters, reports,
and the personal efforts of that devoted friend to Oregon, Dr.
Marcus Whitman, an immigration of eight hundred and seventy-five
persons arrived in the fall, notwithstanding that deceitful servant of
the Hudson’s Bay Company, Grant, at Fort Hall, did all he could,
under the instructions of the company, to induce as many as possible to
go to California, by telling them all the frightful stories he and his men
could invent, of their danger, and the difficulties they must encounter
in getting through to the settlement on the Wallamet. This company[Pg 361]
brought with them thirteen hundred head of cattle. The immigration
of 1842 amounted to one hundred and thirty-seven men, women, and
children, a limited supply of cattle, and a number of wagons to Fort
Hall, where they were induced to abandon most of them, through the
false statements of the man in charge.


The immigration of 1843, under the guidance of Dr. Whitman,
brought most of their wagons, teams, and cattle through all safe. They
opened the road to the Columbia, and the trail through the Cascade
Mountains, which was only an obscure Indian trail quite difficult to
pass in 1842, on account of brush, logs, and fallen timber.


Our population, all told, now amounted to not far from twelve hundred.
Among the immigrants of 1842 and ’43 there were many excellent
families, and intelligent, industrious, noble-hearted young men;
with a full proportion of miserable scoundrels. Most of the families
soon found locations, and having some little means, with the assistance
they could obtain from the Methodist Mission, and such as was brought
by Captain Couch in the brig Maryland, and the barks Lausanne and
Toulon, by Captain Crosby, sent by Mr. Cushing of Newburyport, soon
commenced permanent improvements. The winter was mild and the
larger portion of them were prosperous and happy in their new homes.


The provisional government was formed and put in operation in
July previous to the arrival of the large immigration of 1843. Supplies
of flour, sugar, and tea had been sent from the settlement to meet such
as might be in want on their way into the Wallamet Valley.


From the time it was known that Dr. Whitman had safely arrived in
Washington, and the boundary line was not settled, the whole policy
of the Hudson’s Bay Company changed. Advances of outfits were
made to such men as Hastings and his party, Burnett, and other
prominent men. Employment was given to a select few, and every
encouragement and inducement held out to assist as many as could be
prevailed upon to go to California; while those who contemplated
making Oregon a permanent home were denied supplies or employment,
especially those who had asked the protection of the American
government. Those who proposed going to California could readily
get all the supplies they required of the company by giving their notes
payable in California.


It was well understood by most of them when they gave their notes
that they never expected to pay them. Two of them informed us that
they did not intend to pay if they went out of the country, as they understood
it as equivalent to hiring, or giving them their outfit to induce
them to leave.


This last remark applies particularly to the immigration of 1842, and[Pg 362]
the company that went to California with Mr. Hastings in the spring
of 1843. This policy continued up to 1847-8, when the company found
themselves, as they supposed, through the influence of their Jesuit missions
and Indian allies, prepared to fully maintain their licensed mercantile
privileges, but found themselves confronted by an army of five
hundred brave and determined men, and an organization sufficiently
strong and united to compel them to again change their policy, though
not their secret hatred of what they termed American intrusion upon
their imaginary rights in the country. In the seventeenth page of their
memorial, they assert, “And they had therein and thereupon a right of
trade which was virtually exclusive.——And such right of trade,
and the control, possession, and use of said Territory, for the purposes
thereof, independent of their foreign commerce and the sale of timber,
exceeding in total value the sum of two hundred thousand pounds
sterling ($973,333.33).” This statement is made in behalf of that
company as their profits in trade before and up to 1846, which, together
with the declaration of Dr. McLaughlin and Mr. Douglas, as found in
chapter fifty-four, addressed to our Executive Committee under date
March 11 and 12, 1845, is sufficient to indicate the true policy of the
company, which will be more fully developed as we proceed.




[Pg 363]


CHAPTER XLVII.


Actions speak louder than words.—Efforts of the Hudson’s Bay Company to discourage
immigration.—Account of the two Jesuits, F. N. Blanchet and P. J. De Smet.—Protestant
missionaries discouraged.—Important position of the Rev. G. Hines.—Recall
of the Rev. Jason Lee.—Efforts of the Hudson’s Bay Company to prevent
emigration to the Territory.—Statement of General Palmer.—Indian combinations.—The
Donner party.—Mr. McBean’s character.—Extent of Oregon at this time.


Reaching thoughts by actions. This the historian of the times has
a right to do; and by comparing the act and result, he can arrive with
almost mathematical certainty as to what the thought was that originated
the act, and produced the result. But we are not confined to this
mode of reasoning. We have their own, and the statements of those
favorable to them, to substantiate our conclusions.


1st. The inadvertent statement of F. Ermatinger, one of their chief
traders, in 1838, that in case the American government attempted to
take this country, the Hudson’s Bay Company would arm their eight
hundred half-breeds, and with the aid of the Indians, drive back any
force that could be sent across the continent to take it. Their navy could
defend the coast. The Jesuits could influence the Indians.


2d. The arrangements made to bring to the country the Red River
immigrants in 1842.


3d. The stationing of a ship of war at Vancouver to protect the
company.


4th. The building of bastions at Fort Vancouver, and strengthening
that post in 1845-6.


5th. The refusal of Mr. Douglas to furnish supplies to the provisional
troops, sent to punish the parties engaged in the Wailatpu massacre.


6th. The supplying of Indians, by Mr. Ogden, with a large amount
of war material, and his avowal not to have any thing to do with
American difficulties.


7th. The letters and correspondence of Sir James Douglas.


8th. The positive statements of William McBean.


9th. The statements of Vicar-General Brouillet.


10th. The correspondence and letters of Bishop Blanchet.


11th. The testimony they have produced in support of their claims.


12th. The designs of the British government as indicated by James
Edward Fitzgerald.


[Pg 364]13th. The sending of American immigrants from Fort Hall and
Oregon to California.


14th. The attempt to supply the Indians in the interior, by the aid
of Romish priests, with a large amount of ammunition.


15th. The implacable hatred implanted in the mind of the Indian
against Americans, through the influence of the Hudson’s Bay Company
and the Jesuit missionaries brought to the country for that
purpose.


16th. The strict rules of the company, and the continued effort to
enforce those rules to the destruction of life and property.


We now come to the thoughts which originated and caused the foregoing
acts.


These American missionaries have done more to defeat us, to settle
the country, and defer the establishment of the boundary line, than all
other efforts and causes combined. We must make another effort to
destroy their influence, and drive them and their settlements from the
country; and thus secure it to the British crown, for the use of the
company, at the risk of a war between the two countries.


It will be remembered that Messrs. Lee, Parker, Whitman, Spalding,
Gray, and other missionaries, had their passports from the Secretary
of War of the United States, giving them permission to travel through,
and settle as teachers in, the Indian country; and that all military
officers and agents of the government were instructed to facilitate their
efforts, and, if at any time it was necessary, afford them protection.
These passports had been duly presented to the Hudson’s Bay Company
at Vancouver, and had the effect to prevent a direct effort to
destroy or drive them from the country, as they had done to all who
preceded them.


Hence, an extra effort must be made to get rid of this American
missionary influence, and the settlements they were gathering around
them.


We will now proceed to give historical facts as connected with
results.


Two intelligent, jovial, yet bigoted priests had been brought to the
country by the company. They had traveled all through it, and had
actually discovered the pure silver and golden ores of the Rocky
Mountains, and carried specimens to St. Louis and to Europe. These
priests fully understood the licensed rights of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
and the efforts they were making to secure it to the British
crown. They were also assured that, in case the American Protestant
influence could be driven from it, the Papal would become the prevailing
religion, as in California and Mexico. They knew that the English[Pg 365]
Episcopal effort was an early and utter failure, and that no renewed
effort would be made in their behalf by the company, and that they
were then using their influence to drive the Wesleyan missionaries
from Moose Factory. Hence, they and their associates entered upon
their work with a zeal and energy only equaled by him who was their
first victim.


F. N. Blanchet visited Canada, New York, and Rome, and was made
Bishop of Oregon. His associate, P. J. De Smet, gathered his priests
and nuns, returned to the country, and entered vigorously upon their
missionary work, having the substantial aid of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, and the personal assistance of its members. Their churches,
nunneries, and schools sprung up as if by magic in French Prairie,
Oregon City, Vancouver, the Dalles, Umatilla, Pen d’Oreille, Colville,
and St. Marie. The Protestant missions in the country were greatly
annoyed by the unreasonable and threatening conduct of the Indians
about their stations. They were demanding unreasonable pay for the
lands upon which the stations were located, and paying but little or
no attention to their American teachers. The American missionaries
were becoming disheartened and discouraged, and were beginning to
abandon their stations. Rev. A. B. Smith, of the Nez Percé mission,
Dr. Richmond, from Nasqualla, Rev. Messrs. Kone and Frost, from
Clatsop, and Mr. Edwards had left the country. Rev. Daniel Lee,
Rev. H. K. W. Perkins, Mr. Brewer, and Dr. Babcock, had all become
dissatisfied, and thought they had found a plausible excuse for leaving.
A simple statement of a man in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay Company
had more influence with them than their missionary vows and
obligations to the churches that sent them out.


They were not satisfied with leaving themselves, but made charges
against the purest and best man of their number, simply because that,
while he was absent from Oregon in 1838-9, influences were brought
into the country by the company, with the intent to defeat them, and
destroy all Protestant missions,—applying the same policy to destroy
the harmony and usefulness of the American missions, that they
had used to destroy the power and influence of the Indian tribes;
which was to divide them up into factions, and get them to quarreling
among themselves, as in the case of Rev. J. S. Griffin and party.
This would destroy their influence, and help to break up their settlements.


The Rev. Mr. Hines, with all his wisdom, sound judgment, and
experience, became, unwittingly, an important instrument and apologist
in this deep-laid scheme to rid the country of Protestant missionaries
and American settlements. He was led to join his influence[Pg 366]
against his truest and best friend, who is called home and superseded,
and the mission stations abandoned and broken up.


Mr. Hines, on pages 236-7 of his book, says: “With regard to the
objections against Mr. Lee, arising from his not furnishing the Board
with the desirable report concerning the disbursement of the large
appropriations, it should be observed that no such charge of delinquency
appears against him, up to the time of the appointment of the
great re-enforcement.” Dr. White was known to be a bitter enemy of
Rev. Jason Lee, and a willing tool of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Mr. Hines, as his book, and the letters he wrote to Dr. White and the
Indian Department at Washington, show, was favorable to the proceedings
and policy of Dr. White and the Hudson’s Bay Company.


We understand, through Rev. Mr. Geary, that Mr. Hines attributed
to Mr. Lee’s advice expenditures for buildings that were the pet objects
of Mr. Hines himself; and thus Rev. J. Lee, to gratify the wish of
others, yielded his own convictions of right, and in this way became
an object of censure, which was the cause of his removal. The
“changes inconceivably great with respect to the Indians of Oregon,”
which, Rev. Mr. Hines says “took place betwixt the time the great
re-enforcement was called for, and the time of their arrival in the
Columbia River,” were brought to bear, and had their influence and
effect, upon him, in his Umpqua missionary trip, in his trip to the
interior, in his representations to his Missionary Board, in his opposition
to the provisional government, and had their influence upon his
missionary brethren. These men, Mr. Hines included, instead of
studying the true interests of the country,—their obvious duty to the
churches that sent them out, and the cause they represented,—were
flattered and cajoled by the artful members of a foreign monopoly, and
made to believe they had talents superior to the field in which they
were placed by the influence and advice of the superintendent, Mr.
Lee, forgetting the changes above intimated, and having no suspicions
that a secret foreign influence was working to bring about the utter
failure of their Indian missions; nor supposing that the brightest and
best talents would secure the most attention, and the surest effort to
render them dissatisfied.


The whole statement about Mr. Lee’s recall, and the reasons assigned,
appear to us to be unjust (though, perhaps, not intended) to the character
of Mr. Lee. It was after the great re-enforcement spoken of, that
the large expenditures referred to were made; hence, Mr. Hines’
excuse confirms the charge, and he only attempts to change the
responsibility to another; while Mr. Lee, like Dr. McLaughlin, is suffered
to fall by the influence of his professed friends.


[Pg 367]The Jesuit priests, co-laborers with the Hudson’s Bay Company,
did not hesitate to poison the minds of all who would listen to them
against the Protestant missionaries and all their efforts; neither did
they hesitate as to the means, so long as a certain object was to be
accomplished. Le Breton, Lee, and Whitman must fall by their
influence. The character of others must suffer by their malicious
slanders and false statements. See Brouillet, pages 20 and 21, in which
he attempts to show that Dr. Whitman and others were in the habit
of poisoning melons to prevent the Indians from stealing them, while
the fact is, the Doctor encouraged the Indians to come and get melons
to eat freely, in order to induce them to cultivate for themselves;
and we are certain that no one at the station at that time thought of
putting poison into melons.


As we said, we are reading thoughts by words and acts, so as to
arrive at a correct conclusion as to the thought that caused the act.


The American missionaries and settlements must be driven from the
country. To do this, the Indians that have heretofore been kept at
war among themselves, must now be united. Some changes must be
made; Grant, of the Hudson’s Bay Company, must occupy Fort Hall,
and do all he can to turn immigrants to California, and rob such as persist
in coming to Oregon.


General Palmer says in his journal, page 43: “While we remained
at this place (Fort Hall) great efforts were made to induce the immigration
to pursue the route to California. The most extravagant tales
were related respecting the dangers awaiting a trip to Oregon, and
the difficulties and trials to be surmounted. The perils of the way
were so magnified as to make us suppose the journey to Oregon almost
impossible. For instance, the two crossings of Snake River, and the
crossings of the Columbia and other smaller streams, were represented
as being attended with great danger. Also, that no company heretofore
attempting the passage of these streams, succeeded but with the
loss of men, from the violence and rapidity of the currents, as also that
they had never succeeded in getting more than fifteen or twenty head
of cattle into the Wallamet Valley.


“In addition to the above, it was asserted that three or four tribes
of Indians in the middle regions had combined for the purpose of
preventing our passage through their country. In case we escaped
destruction at the hands of the savages, that a more fearful enemy—famine—would
attend our march, as the distance was so great that
winter would overtake us before making the Cascade Mountains. On
the other hand, as an inducement to pursue the California route, we
were informed of the shortness of the route when compared with[Pg 368]
that to Oregon, as also of the many other superior advantages it possessed.”


It is not our intention to go into the history of California, but give
what strictly relates to Oregon and her people in those early times.
In the paragraph we have quoted from General Palmer’s journal, the
reader will see a fiendish, a damning policy; and if our language
has any severer terms to express evil motives and intentions, let him
use them, as belonging to the course pursued by that organization
yclept Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company, in attempting to prevent
the settlement of Oregon, and sending whole families to starve and
perish, and become cannibals in the mountains of California, rather
than tell the truth, and aid them in getting to Oregon; as will be seen
by the following extract from the Gold Hill (Nevada) News, concerning
the horrible sufferings of “The Donner Party:”—


“The world perhaps never produced a sadder and a truer story,
nor one which will be so long remembered by many whose fortunes
were cast on the Pacific slope in the early days of its settlement by
the Americans. We personally knew one of the families that perished
among the Donner party, and on reading the interesting letter in the
Union it awakened in our memory a little incident in connection with
this sad calamity, which happened in the State of Illinois twenty years
ago last April. At that time we were publisher of a newspaper in
Putnam County, Illinois. Oregon and California were beginning to
attract the attention of the Western people; and in the spring of 1846
a party of about fifty persons, farmers with their families, and young
men, was made up in that county destined for Oregon. When the day
of departure arrived, the whole party assembled in a village called
Magnolia to agree upon camp regulations, appointment of officers, etc.
As a journalist, we attended that meeting and published a full account
of its proceedings. Among the party was ‘Uncle Billy Graves’ and
his family, consisting of father, mother, two daughters, and a son, the
ages of the children ranging from fifteen to twenty years. Uncle
Billy Graves was a well-to-do farmer, with every thing comfortable
about him; and, having already reached the age of threescore, it was
a matter of surprise to many that he should sell his farm and start off
to make a new home in such a far-off and wild country as Oregon then
was. But the country in Illinois was getting too thickly settled for
the old man, and he longed for the wild adventures of the far west. He
pleaded and persuaded us to go with him, and to bring our office along,
as Oregon would some day be a great country, and we would have the
credit of having been the first to publish a newspaper in it. But circumstances
over which we had no control prevented us, although we[Pg 369]
certainly had the will and the wish just as Uncle Billy Graves advised.
We remained in Illinois, and the Graves family joined with the overland
party for Oregon. Letters written by the party during the summer
were published in our paper. The last one written by any of the
Graves family was dated at Fort Laramie, and this was the last heard
of the old farmer. He joined the Donner party, which separated from
the emigration to Oregon at Fort Hall, near the headwaters of the
Columbia, and wending his way westward toward California, before
its gold-fields were known in the world, he perished in the mountains,
and his good old wife perished with him. The son and daughters of
the Graves family were among the persons who were rescued by the
relief party of sailors and others who were sent out by the benevolent
Americans at Sutter’s Fort and San Francisco. A long letter written
by one of the Graves girls was published in our paper in the year 1847,
and which contained a full and sad account of the awful sufferings of
the party. We shall never forget the manuscript of the letter. It
was blotted all over with the tears which the poor girl shed while
describing the sufferings of her famishing parents, their death, and the
flesh of their dead bodies furnishing food for their starving children!
Horrible! horrible! Let the bleached bones and skulls of the Donner
party be gathered together and decently buried, for they once belonged
to good Christian people.”


The Indians also have become deeply interested in their schemes to
prevent the settlement of the country.


We are told by Mr. Hines, on page 143, that they sent one of their
chiefs on snow-shoes, in the winter of 1842-3, to excite or induce
the Buffalo Indians to join them to cut off the immigrants that were
expected to come to the country with Dr. Whitman.


Mr. McKinley, a professedly warm friend of Dr. Whitman, was
removed from having charge of Fort Nez Percés, and William McBean,
who (Mr. Roberts, an old clerk of the Hudson’s Bay Company, says)
“is one of the d——dest scoundrels that ever lived,” put in his place.


The reader will not forget that we are speaking of events and movements
in a country where an Indian in a canoe or on horseback or
snow-shoes was our swiftest messenger, and that its boundaries included
what is now the State of Oregon, the Territories of Washington, Idaho,
and Montana, besides Vancouver Island and British Columbia.


The Hudson’s Bay Company was a powerful and unscrupulous monopoly,
and the only representative of a vast empire on this western part
of our continent. To possess the whole, or a valuable part of it, was an
object worth using the influence they had spent years of labor and
thousands (not millions, as they claim) of dollars to secure.


[Pg 370]The time has now arrived when all is at stake. The American
missionary societies have accomplished what American commerce and
fur traders have failed to do. The trouble is now between a “squawtocracy
of British skin traders” and Italian and Belgian Jesuits on one
side, and American missionaries and settlements on the other. The traders
and Jesuits have nearly overcome the American missionary influence.
The settlements are organized. The old policy to get rid of all opposition
fur traders, destroy Indian influence, and break up missions, must
be tried, to prevent and destroy the settlements.


The thoughts expressed in this chapter have carried us in advance
of the date of culminating events; hence, we must return, in order
that we may bring them in the order of their occurrence.




[Pg 371]


CHAPTER XLVIII.


1844.—The settlements alarmed.—Indian attack.—Death of G. W. Le Breton.—Meeting
at Mr. La Chapelle’s.—Volunteer company formed.—The Modeste in the Columbia
River.—The Legislative Assembly.—Names of the members.—Peter H. Burnett.—Mr.
David Hill.—Oregon social standard.—M. M. McCarver.—“Old Brass Gun.”—A.
L. Lovejoy.—Daniel Waldo.—Thomas B. Keizer.—Black act.—Prohibitory
liquor law.


1844.—March 9th of this year found our settlements alive and in
great alarm. The Indians in the vicinity of Oregon City had made an
attack upon the town on the 4th instant, and three white men had been
wounded and one Indian killed. G. W. Le Breton was wounded while
attempting to take the Indian that commenced the attack, by a ball entering
and breaking his arm, from the effect of which he died some twelve
days after, and was buried at Vancouver, where he had been taken for
surgical treatment. The other two received slight flesh wounds,
although one proved fatal—probably made by a poisoned arrow. The
Indians commenced the fight in open day, and continued it till their
leader was taken by Le Breton, after his arm was broken.


The Indian was placed under guard, and, on attempting to make his
escape, was killed. Those who were with him, and took part in the
fight, fled into the thick wood back of the town, and escaped.


This account, which we have received from other sources, will be
seen to differ slightly from the one already given by Dr. White in his
letter to the Secretary of War.


A proclamation was issued by the Executive Committee, calling for
an organization of the military forces in the settlement. It appears,
from the record of those times, that but one company was organized in
Champoeg District. The proceedings of that meeting, as noted by the
writer, and signed by the secretary, gives the fullest account we have,
and properly belongs to the history of the times. The attempt to destroy
the people and town at Wallamet Falls was made on the 4th of
March; the news was conveyed to the old mission and Salem on the
5th; notices were immediately sent to the American population to meet
on the 9th, with arms, to organize for defensive or offensive measures.
In the mean time, each individual and family took such precautionary
measures as were thought advisable, keeping guard over their separate
and individual possessions. Most of the French or Hudson’s Bay Com[Pg 372]pany’s
servants showed no alarm on the occasion, and very few of them
turned out, or paid any attention to the military call, though the meeting
was at the house of a Frenchman.


The citizens of Champoeg having met on March 9, at the house of
Mr. La Chapelle, in accordance with the proclamation issued, the meeting
was called to order by one of the Executive Committee, and the
proclamation read.


Upon the suggestion of the executive, W. H. Wilson was chosen
chairman of this meeting, and T. D. Keizer, secretary.


The object of the meeting was briefly explained by one of the Executive
Committee, Hon. A. Beers, and the chairman. Information was
called for concerning the depredations committed at Wallamet Falls on
the 4th instant.


Mr. Beers presented an official letter from Hon. D. Hill, one of the
Executive Committee, which was read. Statements were made by Mr.
Garrison respecting accounts received from other sources, and a letter
was presented by the United States sub-Indian agent, from A. L. Lovejoy,
Esq., respecting the affair of the 4th, which was read.


Statements were made by Hon. A. Beers concerning the steps they
had taken, and the orders they had issued.


On motion, the United States sub-Indian agent was requested to give
his views and advice on the subject. He accordingly related his proceeding
in reference to the matter; said he was unprepared to give
advice, or suggest what was best to be done in the present case. He
was fully aware of the defenseless state of the colony and the dangers
to which it was exposed. He knew the character of the Indian that
was killed to be of the vilest kind, and that he had threatened and
attempted the lives of citizens before. The agent said he had made an
unsuccessful attempt to take him, and have him punished by the Cayuses,
to avoid the danger that might result from the whites punishing
him themselves. This renegade had attempted to induce the Indians at
the falls to burn the town; and, failing in this object, he returned
across the river. The citizens attempted peaceably to take him, but in
the affray three whites were wounded, and one Indian killed. The agent
thought a more efficient organization of the Territory necessary.


Some remarks were made by W. H. Gray, and a resolution offered as
follows:—


Resolved, That in view of the facts presented, we deem it expedient
to organize a volunteer company of mounted riflemen, to co-operate
with other companies, to bring to justice all the Indians engaged in the
affair of the 4th of March, and to protect our lives and property against
any attempt at future depredations.


[Pg 373]Carried unanimously. Whereupon W. H. Gray presented some articles
of compact as the basis of an organization of a volunteer company,
which, on motion, and with warm expressions of approbation from the
United States sub-Indian agent, were adopted, and immediately subscribed
to by nineteen volunteers.


The articles of compact allowed the company to elect a captain, lieutenant,
and ensign, as soon as twelve men should be enlisted, so the
company proceeded, by nomination, to elect their officers, to wit: For
captain, T. D. Keizer; first lieutenant, J. L. Morrison; for ensign, Mr.
Cason. The captain gave notice to the company of his acceptance of
the appointment, requesting them to meet at the Oregon Institute,
armed and equipped, on the 11th inst., for company drill.


On motion, the following resolution was adopted, viz.:—


Resolved, That this meeting recommend to our fellow-citizens of this
Territory, to organize volunteer companies in their respective districts
forthwith; and to rendezvous at the Oregon Institute, on Saturday, the
23d instant, at 12 M.


Moved, that the proceedings of this meeting be signed by the chairman
and secretary, and as much of them as is deemed proper be transmitted
to other districts. Carried.


On motion, adjourned.



W. H. Wilson, Chairman.

T. D. Keizer, Secretary.





It will be seen by Dr. White’s statement, that the Indian killed was
a renegade from the Cayuse or upper country Indians. He was doing
all he could to excite the Indians and get them to join in a general
combination to destroy the American settlements in the Wallamet Valley.
Dr. White, as he stated to the meeting, had now reached the utmost
limit of his authority and influence. He knew not what to do. He was
too big a coward to propose any bold measure, and too mean to be
trusted by the settlers; hence, if the reader will carefully study the
proceedings of this meeting, he will find a firm and steady influence, on
the part of the settlers, leading on through all the dangers and excitements
of the occasion. The proposed company was at once organized
and elected its officers. Gray accepted the office of first sergeant in
the company, which was soon filled up and drilled, and all were mounted
on good horses. This soon became known throughout the settlements,
and had the effect to frighten the Indians and keep them quiet, so that
no further disturbance was made in the settlements of the Wallamet.
It also had the effect to secure in the Columbia River the presence of
the Modeste, a war vessel of the English government, which became[Pg 374]
absolutely necessary (ironically speaking) to protect the property and
interests of the Hudson’s Bay Company from the threatened depredations
of the Indians about their posts at Vancouver, as they were represented
to be becoming far more hostile than formerly. The company
had found that, since the Americans began to settle in the country,
these Indians had become more dangerous and hostile to them; and as
their people were scattered more extensively over the Indian country,
it was absolutely necessary to have their principal depot more strongly
fortified and protected, not against Indians, for they, by the course
already pursued by that company, were fast melting away. Their
country had been “hunted up” and made destitute of fur-producing
animals by the advanced prices they had given in 1838-40, and now
starvation was their only portion, unless the American settlers
would share with them what they produced from the soil. This Indian
difficulty was only an attempt to bring on an Indian war in the Wallamet
to see how strong the settlements were, what means of protection
they possessed, and what their offensive measures were likely to be.


This opened the eyes of Sir James Douglas to the natural weakness
of Fort Vancouver. The Modeste was ordered to the river, and other
preparations were made to defend that establishment from an attack of
the American settlers. They found from the results of what occurred on
the 4th of March, that there was a real substantial power in the country,
and an influence of combination that they did not dream of; hence
they found themselves, with all their Indian combinations, the weaker
power.


We will now leave the Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company under the
protection of the guns of her Majesty’s ship Modeste, the fort being
repaired, bastions built, and all other protective and defensive measures
completed, while we look after the election and proceedings of the
Legislative Assembly of 1844.


The members elected from Tualatin District (since divided into
Washington, Multnomah, Columbia, Clatsop, and Tilamook counties)
were Peter H. Burnett, David Hill, M. M. McCarver, and Mr. Gilmore.


Clackamas District, including all of Washington Territory, Idaho,
Montana, and half of the eastern part of the State of Oregon, was
represented by A. L. Lovejoy. Champoeg District, including Marion,
Linn, Baker, Douglas, and Jackson counties, was represented by Daniel
Waldo, from Missouri, Thomas D. Keizer, from Arkansas, and Robert
Newell, from the Rocky Mountains.


Peter H. Burnett was a lawyer from Missouri, who came to Oregon
to seek his fortune, as well as a religion that would pay the best, and[Pg 375]
give him the most influence; which in the Legislative Committee was
sufficient to induce that body to pay no attention to any organic law
or principle laid down for the government of the settlements. In fact,
he asserted that there were no constitutional provisions laid down or
adopted by the people in general convention at Champoeg the year previous.
Mr. Burnett was unquestionably the most intelligent lawyer
then in the country. He was a very ambitious man—smooth, deceitful,
and insinuating in his manners.


On motion of Mr. Lovejoy (another lawyer), the several members
were excused from producing their credentials, and on motion of the
same gentleman, the house proceeded to elect a Speaker. M. M. McCarver
was duly elected.


The journal of the proceedings of this Legislative Committee shows
that no regard was paid to any previous laws, or constitutional
provisions.


David Hill, of Tualatin District, was from Ohio. He was a tall, slim
man, of sallow complexion, black hair, with strong prejudices, having
no regard for religion or morality. He left an interesting wife and
family in Ohio, and passed himself off in Oregon for a widower or
bachelor. He was favorable to all applications for divorces, and married
a second wife, as near as we could learn, before he obtained a
divorce (if he ever did) from his first wife. He early took an active
part in the provisional government, and was a decided opponent of
the Hudson’s Bay Company, as also of all missionary efforts in the
country. This rendered him popular among the settlers, and secured
his election as a representative for that district for several years,
although his education was quite limited. As a citizen he was generally
respected. Though intimately acquainted with two of his sons,
we could never learn that he was any thing but kind and affectionate
as a husband and father. The fact of his leaving a wife and young
family in Ohio, coming to Oregon, and remaining for years without
making any provision for them, is evidence of guilt in some one. The
friends of his wife and family spoke of them as being highly esteemed
by all who knew them. But it is of his public acts, as connected with
the history of Oregon, that we wish particularly to speak.


The social standard adopted by the people of Oregon was peculiarly
adapted to favor men of Mr. Hill’s morality, and aid them in rising
from the effect of any former misconduct they may have been guilty
of in any other country. This standard was, to receive as fellow-citizens
all who came among us; to ignore their former actions, and
give them a chance to start anew, and make a name and character in
the country.


[Pg 376]There must be something noble and generous in a people occupying
a new and wild country, as Oregon was in those days, that would lead
them to adopt a standard for common action and citizenship, so peculiarly
republican and in accordance with the most liberal and enlightened
Christianity. To this spirit of toleration and benevolence must
be attributed, under an all-wise Providence, the complete success and
stability of the first civil government formed on this coast. Hence, as
we have before said, we shall deal with men, morals, and politics as
they belonged to Oregon at the time of which we are writing.


M. M. McCarver, from having acted as commissary in the Black
Hawk war, in Iowa, was called General. This title secured to him
considerable influence, and many favors from the Hudson’s Bay Company.
General McCarver was a man of common education, making
large pretension to political knowledge, without much judgment or
understanding of political economy. He was an intolerable debater,
and acquired, among the lobby members of the Legislature, the name
of “Old Brass Gun.” In his political course, he strove hard for
popularity, and attempted to secure places of honor for personal promotion.
He was what would be considered a Simon Pure pro-slavery
Democrat. Like the silly moth in the fable, he fluttered around the
shadow of Dr. White, the sub-Indian agent, and assisted him in insulting
the Legislative Committee of 1845, and attempted to get his name
before the Congress of the United States as an important and influential
man, which was divulged and defeated by another member of the
same committee, though in a cowardly and dishonorable manner. We
are not aware that General McCarver ever originated any important
measure, or performed any extensive or important service in the
country. His political schemes were generally so supremely selfish
that they died still-born.


Mr. Gilmore, from the same district, was a substantial farmer. He
neither said or did much, and but little is known of him.


A. Lawrence Lovejoy, formerly from Massachusetts, was a man of
medium size, light complexion, light hair, rather impetuous and dogmatical
in his conversation. He crossed the mountains with the
immigration of 1842 to Dr. Whitman’s station; from that place he
attempted to return to the United States with Dr. Whitman. As
near as we can learn, he became utterly exhausted by the time they
reached Bent’s Fort on the Arkansas River, and was left there by the
Doctor. In the summer of 1843 he returned to Oregon and pursued
his profession of law. In Oregon he has always acted with the radical
Democratic party, rather doubtfully on the pro-slavery platform. He
was the first regular nominee for governor of Oregon. George Aber[Pg 377]nethy,
the secular agent of the Methodist Mission, was run as an
independent candidate, and, with the assistance of Peter H. Burnett,
Mr. Russell, and his friends, who bolted the general convention, was
elected governor, though at the time he was on a visit to the Sandwich
Islands. A large number of political friends still adhered to Mr. Lovejoy,
and made a second attempt to elect him governor. Mr. Abernethy
was again the opposing candidate. It appeared in the canvass
of that year, that the Hudson’s Bay Company generally voted for Mr.
Lovejoy; but the personal kindness of Mr. Abernethy to a priest
traveling up the Wallamet, induced him to tell his people to vote for
Mr. Abernethy, and by this vote he was elected, although a fair
majority of the votes of the American settlers was given for Mr.
Lovejoy. Mr. Lovejoy, like many of us, leaves but little usefulness or
philanthropy to record, that his talents and position should have led
him to aspire to. As a citizen and neighbor, he is kind and obliging,
as a lawyer not above mediocrity, and it is generally understood that he
makes no pretensions to religion.


Daniel Waldo, formerly of Missouri, was a plain, substantial farmer,
and the first man who ventured to experiment upon the hills, or upland
portions of Oregon. He had owned extensive tracts of land on the
banks of the Missouri, a large portion of which had been washed away
by the floods, which cause continual changes along the banks of that
river. In coming to Oregon, he had made up his mind to take the hills,
if there were any in the country. He did so, and has proved by his
experiment the value of a large portion of country that was before
considered worthless for cultivation. From the time Mr. Waldo
arrived in the country he became an enthusiastic admirer of Oregon.
Soon after he had located in the hills bearing his name, an old acquaintance
of his, and also of his brother in Missouri, came to Oregon
on a visit, and was about to return to the States. He paid Mr. Waldo
a visit, and after chatting awhile and looking over his farm, on which
we could not see a single rail, except a few he had in a corral, his
friend (Colonel Gilpin) said to him: “What shall I say for you, to your
brother in Missouri?” “Tell him,” said Waldo, “that I would not
give the bare idea of owning a section of land in Oregon for all I own
in Missouri [which was then two sections, 1,280 acres], and that I
would not give a section of land here for the whole State of Missouri.”
Such men gave a good report of Oregon, and it is to such that the
country is indebted for her stability and prosperity. Mr. Waldo’s experiment
has shown the capacity of the country for settlement to be
more than double what it was previously considered, and while some
of those who laughed at him and called him an enthusiast here had[Pg 378]
their farms, cattle, and houses swept away by floods, he has remained
in the hills uninjured and secure.


Thomas D. Keizer, from Arkansas. Of this man’s early history we
have learned but little. It seems that, for some cause, he and his
family were compelled to leave the State. Their story is that a gang
of counterfeiters was exposed by them, and in consequence of their
becoming informers they were surrounded by a mob and compelled to
leave. On first arriving in the country they were not scrupulous as to
the rights of their neighbors, or those of the Oregon Institute, or mission
claims. They found themselves comfortably housed in the first
buildings of the Oregon Institute, and occupied them till it suited
their pleasure to leave, and to find other quarters upon land claimed by
the mission. As was to be expected, Mr. Keizer was inclined to do
all he could to curtail the mission and Institute claims, he being the
gainer by curtailing the claims of others. As a politician, he considered
all little dirty tricks and slanders against an opponent justifiable.
In religion he professed to be a Methodist.


Robert Newell has been previously described.


Such being the composition of the Legislative Committee of Oregon
in 1844, it is not surprising that interests of classes and cliques should
find advocates, and that the absolute wants of the country should be
neglected. The whole time of the session seems to have been taken
up in the discussions of personal bills. The question of convention of
the people was before this session and was lost.


There was one inhuman act passed by this Legislative Committee,
which should stamp the names of its supporters with disgrace and
infamy. We find its inception recorded on the 25th of July, the sixth
day of the session.


On motion, the rules were suspended for the special purpose of
allowing Hon. P. H. Burnett to introduce a bill for the prevention
of slavery in Oregon, without giving previous notice; which was
received and read first time. It was read a second time next day in
the forenoon, and in the afternoon of the same day the bill to prevent
slavery in Oregon, and for other purposes, was read a third time, and
on the question, “Shall the bill pass?” the yeas and nays were demanded,
when the vote stood: yeas, Burnett, Gilmore, Keizer, Waldo,
Newell, and Mr. Speaker McCarver—6; nays, Lovejoy and Hill—2.


The principal provisions of this bill were, that in case a colored man
was brought to the country by any master of a vessel, he must give
bonds to take him away again or be fined, and in case the negro was
found, or came here from any quarter, the sheriff was to catch him
and flog him forty lashes at a time, till he left the country.


[Pg 379]These six Solons, who got up and carried through this measure, did
it for the good of the black man of course, as one of the first principles
laid down by the people the year previous in the organic law, and
unanimously carried, was: “That slavery, except for the punishment
of crime, whereof the parties shall have been previously convicted,
shall never be tolerated.”


The principles of Burnett’s bill made it a crime for a white man to
bring a negro to the country, and a crime for a negro to come voluntarily;
so that, in any case, if he were found in the country, he was
guilty of a crime, and punishment or slavery was his doom.


Mr. Burnett claimed great credit for getting up a prohibitory liquor
law, and made several speeches in favor of sustaining it, that being a
popular measure among a majority of the citizens.


At the adjourned session in December, we find the executive urging
the Legislative Committee to adopt measures to secure the permanent
interests and prosperity of the country, also to amend their act relative
to the corporal punishment of the blacks, and again urging the calling
of a convention of the people.




[Pg 380]


CHAPTER XLIX.


Message of the Executive Committee.—Observations on the message.—Generosity of
the Hudson’s Bay Company.—The Methodist Mission.—The Oregon Printing-press
Association.—George Abernethy, Esq.


To the Honorable the Legislative Committee of Oregon:


Gentlemen,—As the expectation of receiving some information from
the United States relative to the adjustment of the claims of that
government and of Great Britain upon this country, was the principal
cause of the adjournment of this assembly from June last to this day,
we feel it our duty to communicate such information as we have been
able to collect on the subject, and likewise to recommend the adoption
of further measures for the promotion and security of the interests of
Oregon.


The lines defining the limits of the separate claims of the United
States and Great Britain to this portion of the country had not been
agreed upon when our latest advices left the United States, and as far
as we can learn, the question now stands in the same position as before
the convention in London, in 1818. At that time, the United States
government proposed to draw the division line on the forty-ninth parallel
of north latitude from the Lake of the Woods to the Pacific
Ocean. To this Great Britain would only consent in part, that the
line should run on the forty-ninth parallel from the Lake of the Woods
to the dividing ridge of the Rocky Mountains; and it was finally
agreed upon, between the parties, that all the country lying west of the
Rocky Mountains, and on the Pacific Ocean, should, with its harbors,
bays, and rivers, remain open for ten years to the vessels, subjects, or
citizens of both countries. But it was at the same time expressly
understood, that the said agreement was not to be construed to
affect or prejudice the claims of either party, or any other power, to
any portion of said country. Before this agreement expired, another
convention was held in London, in 1827, by the two contracting powers,
by which the former treaty was extended, with the provision, that
when either of the parties thought fit, after the 20th of October, 1828,
to abrogate the convention, they were at liberty to do so, by giving
twelve months’ notice to the other contracting party; but nothing in
the treaty of 1827 was to be construed so as to affect, in any manner,[Pg 381]
the claims which either of the contracting parties, or any other power,
might have to any of the country lying west of the Rocky Mountains.


The subject has again been called up for investigation by the two
powers, and a negotiation was begun at Washington in the early part
of the present year, but was for the time being suspended on account
of a disagreement between the parties; and notice of the abrogation of
the convention of 1827 had not been given by either party when our
latest information left the United States. And we find that after all the
negotiations that have been carried on between the United States and
Great Britain relative to settling their claims to this country, from
October, 1818, up to May, 1844, a period of nearly twenty-six years,
the question remains in the following unsettled position, viz.:—


Neither of the parties in question claim exclusive right to the country
lying west of the Rocky Mountains, between the parallels of forty-two
degrees and fifty-four degrees forty minutes north latitude, and bordering
on the Pacific Ocean; but one claims as much right as the other,
and both claim the right of joint occupancy of the whole without prejudice
to the claims of any other state or power to any part of said
country.


We have submitted to you this information, gentlemen of the Assembly,
for two reasons:—


1st. To correct an error that occurred in our last communication to
this body relative to the claims of the United States and Great Britain
to this country.


2d. That you may bear in mind, while legislating for the people of
Oregon, the position in which this country stands with regard to those
claims.


We would advise that provision be made by this body for the framing
and adoption of a constitution for Oregon, previous to the next
annual election, which may serve as a more thorough guide to her
officers, and a more firm basis of her laws. It should be constructed in
such a manner as would best suit the local situation of the country, and
promote the general interests of the citizens, without interfering with
the real or pretended rights of the United States or Great Britain,
except when the protection of life and property actually require it.


We would suggest for your information that this government has
now in its possession notes given by different individuals residing in
the country, amounting to $3,734.26, most of which are already due.
These notes are a balance in favor of Ewing Young, of Oregon, deceased,
intestate, A. D. 1840, after all legal dues, debts, and damages are
paid, that have come to the knowledge of the administrator or Probate
Courts of Oregon up to this date. We would, therefore, advise that[Pg 382]
these claims should be collected and appropriated to the benefit of the
country, the government being at all times responsible for the payment
of them to those who may hereafter appear to have a legal right to the
same.


We would again call your attention to a measure recommended in
our last communication, to wit, the expediency of making provision for
the erection of a public jail in this country. Although the community
has suffered very little as yet for the want of such a building, and perhaps
another year might pass without its being occupied, which it is
hoped may be the case, yet we are assured that it is better policy to have
the building standing without a tenant than a tenant without the building.
And in order to promote industry and the peace and welfare of
the citizens of Oregon, this government must be prepared to discountenance
indolence, and check vice in the bud.


We would now recommend to your consideration the propriety of
making provision for filling public offices which now are or may become
vacant by resignation or otherwise, previous to the next annual election.


We would recommend that the act passed by this assembly in June
last, relative to blacks and mulattoes, be so amended as to exclude
corporal punishment, and require bonds for good behavior in its stead.


We consider it a highly important subject that the executive of this
government should have laws which may direct them in settling matters
relative to lands reserved by Indians, which have been, or may
hereafter be, settled upon by whites.


We would also recommend that provisions be made for the support
of lunatics and insane persons in Oregon.


With regard to the state of the treasury, we would refer you to the
treasurer’s report to this Assembly.


We are informed that the number of immigrants who have come to
this country from the United States during the present year amounts
to upward of seven hundred and fifty persons.


We would recommend that the act passed last June, defining the
northern boundaries of Tualatin and Clatsop counties, be so explained as
not to conflict with the act passed in this Assembly in June, 1843,
extending the limits of Oregon to fifty-four degrees forty minutes north
latitude.


And we would suggest, in conclusion, that to preserve the peace,
good order, and kind feeling, which have hitherto existed among the
inhabitants of this country, depends very much upon the calm and
deliberate judgment of this Assembly, and we sincerely hope that
Oregon, by the special aid of Divine Providence may set an unprecedented
example to the world of industry, morality, and virtue.


[Pg 383]And although we may now be unknown as a state or power, yet we
have the advantages, by the united efforts of our increasing population,
in a diligent attention to agriculture, arts, and literature, of attaining,
at no distant day, to as conspicuous an elevation as any State or power
on the continent of America.


But in order to carry this important measure, and arise to that distinguished
station, it becomes the duty of every citizen of this country
to take a deep interest in its present and future welfare.


As descendants of the United States and Great Britain, we should
honor and respect the countries which gave us birth; and, as citizens
of Oregon, we should, by a uniform course of proceeding, and a strict
observance of the rules of justice, equity, and republican principles,
without party distinction, use our best endeavors to cultivate the kind
feeling, not only of our native countries, but of all the powers or states
with whom we may have intercourse.



Signed,

Osborne Russell,

P. G. Stewart.

Executive Committee of Oregon.


Dated, Wallamet Falls, Dec. 16, 1844.





To the honor of the country, Peter H. Burnett’s negro-whipping law
was never enforced in a single instance, against a white or black man,
as no officer of the provisional government felt it incumbent upon himself
to attempt to enforce it.


The proposed constitutional revision was also strongly recommended
by the Executive Committee, and the Legislative Committee went
through the farce of calling a convention, and increased the number of
representatives, and called it a Legislature. In fact, the whole proceedings
seemed only to mix up and confuse the people; so much so,
that some doubted the existence of any legal authority in the country,
and the leading men of the immigration of 1843 denounced the organization
as a missionary arrangement to secure the most valuable farming
lands in the country.


The Hudson’s Bay Company, under the guidance of James Douglas
and P. S. Ogden, carried forward their plans and arrangements by
placing men at their posts along the line of the immigrant route, who
were doing all they could, by misrepresentation and falsehood, to deceive
and rob those who were journeying to this country.


But, says the sycophant, the early settlers of Oregon are greatly
indebted to the Hudson’s Bay Company for supplies of goods and provisions
sent to aid the starving immigrants. General Palmer tells us
(page 42) that flour at Fort Hall, when he came along, was twenty dol[Pg 384]lars
per one hundred pounds; cattle were from five to twelve dollars per
head. They could not be prevailed upon to receive any thing in
exchange for their goods or provisions, except cattle or money.


Two to four cows, or two yoke of oxen for a hundred pounds of flour
is great generosity, and renders the man who gives his last cow or ox
to the company, under great obligations; as much so as the early settlers
and the company’s servants were in taking care of their cattle for the
little milk they could get from them, the company claiming the cow
and increase, and pay for any animal lost. This was Hudson’s Bay
Company’s generosity to the early settlers!


They found that through the influence of Burnett, Newell, Pomeroy,
and a few other Americans, they could accomplish more than by direct
opposition, and therefore began to change their course, and manifest
approval of the provisional government; so much so, that Ermatinger,
a member of the company, was elected treasurer in 1845, in opposition
to P. Foster, who served in 1844.


During the summer of 1844, Rev. George Geary arrived in the country,
“clothed with discretionary power,” and had the destiny of missionaries,
laymen, property, and all, put into his hands. He superseded Mr. Lee.
Mr. Hines returned from the Sandwich Islands, and they proceeded at
once to dispose of the missionaries and property of the Methodist
Mission.


The stations at Clatsop, Nasqualla, and the Dalles were given up.
That at the Dalles was sold to the American Board, that on Clatsop to
Rev. J. L. Parish, while the station at Nasqualla was abandoned by
Rev. J. P. Richmond, who, with Rev. Messrs. Kone and Frost, had become
dissatisfied with their Indian missionary labors, and returned to
the States. Rev. Messrs. D. Lee and H. K. W. Perkins, Dr. Babcock,
and Mr. Brewer had all made up their minds to leave the country.


These missionaries, having enlisted in a cause surrounded, at the time
of their engagements, with all the romance of early missionary life in
the far west, as soon as they reached their field of labor, had found that
romance and real life among the Indians did not accord with the feelings
of their proud and supremely selfish hearts. They were not satisfied
with silently withdrawing from the country, and encouraging others
more capable and better adapted to the missionary work to come to it;
but they joined with Dr. White, a bitter enemy of Rev. J. Lee, and succeeded
in obtaining the latter gentleman’s removal from the superintendency,
and, through Rev. Messrs. Geary and Hines, the abandonment
of their Indian mission.


As an outside eye-witness of these transactions, we will state frankly
our impressions as to the general closing up of the Methodist missionary[Pg 385]
labors among the Indians. The special and general watchfulness of the
Hudson’s Bay Company, and their influence over the leading members
of the mission, and the effort they made to counteract the moral and
civil improvement of the Indians, was brought to bear both directly and
indirectly upon the superior and subordinate members, the same as it
had been upon the members of the missions of the American Board, and
caused a division in sentiment as to the usefulness and results of missionary
labor, and thus crippled their efforts, and caused many of them to
join with Dr. White, and complain of Superintendent Lee, as an excuse
to abandon the missionary work.


While these influences were working their intended results upon all
the American missionaries, the Jesuits, having explored the country,
under the patronage and by the assistance of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
were making extensive preparations to occupy it with their missionaries,
who were then being collected, and sent from Belgium and
Canada to Oregon, under the direction of that arch-Jesuit, P. J. De
Smet, and Bishop Blanchet.


By the time they arrived, the Methodist Indian missions were all
disposed of; thus enabling the Jesuits to fix their undivided attention
and combine their united influence against the missions of the American
Board, which all admitted were accomplishing a noble work among the
tribes of their charge.


As Mr. Fitzgerald says: “But the company not only get rid of missionaries
as soon as they can do so without dangerous unpopularity, but
they obstruct them in the performance of their duties while in the
country.” (See page 189 of his work.)


This opposition to the missionaries was not caused by the Indians,
but the personal opposition of the company, as proved by Sir J. Pelly’s
answer to the question, “Have you found a disposition on the part of
the natives to receive moral and religious instruction.” “Very great.
There were a couple of young lads sent from the Columbia District,
to whom the names of Pelly and Garry were given; these lads were
revered by the natives, when they returned, for the religious instructions
they were enabled to give.” (See page 195, of the work above
quoted.)


One Congregational and five Methodist ministers have left the country
with their families. Five Jesuit priests and as many nuns are coming
to it. Eight hundred emigrants are plodding their way over the
mountains and plains with ox-teams, to find a home in this country.
The sub-Indian agent has worked himself quiet. The Indians are
waiting orders, watching the immigration, and getting ready to strike
at the proper time.


[Pg 386]Mr. Lease had brought a band of five hundred head of California
cattle to the country and disposed of most of them to the Hudson’s
Bay Company.


The Oregon Printing-Press Association was formed, and about
eighty shares, at $10 each, were subscribed, and the money sent to
New York for press, type, and paper, by George Abernethy, Esq.,
who, after the provisional organization in 1843, became a valuable supporter
of all the best interests of the country. His integrity of character,
consistent piety, and unbounded generosity, but few will question.
From his position, and connection with the Methodist Mission, he has
suffered much pecuniary loss, from men who were ever ready to take
undue advantage of a confiding and generous disposition.


As a public officer he always held a negative position, the tendency
of which was to hold all in suspense, and wait for some future action,
or to be carried forward by events that might occur. He could not be
called a leader in any civil, religious, or political measure, yet he truly
represented, in his public capacity, the organization of which he was a
member. So far as he was capable, he held in abeyance all laws and
measures, to what he considered would be the policy of the United
States government at some future time. The natural result of this
position was, to accomplish nothing definitely. Hence we find in all
his public acts, this tender spirit, and want of decided action.


Mr. Hines started for the United States by way of China. The
property of the Methodist Mission was distributed, and the settlers
had increased; while the Hudson’s Bay Company were busily preparing
to defend their assumed rights by arming their forts and Indians
in a manner so as not to excite suspicion, or alarm the American settlements.




[Pg 387]


CHAPTER L.


Dr. White’s report.—Seizure and destruction of a distillery.—Homicide of Joel Turnham—State
of the Territory.—Trials of Dr. White.—The liquor law.—Revenue act.—Case
of the negro Saul.—The Indians kill an ox.—Other Indian difficulties.—Indian
expedition to California.—Death of the Indian Elijah.—State of the Territory.—Claim
of the Hudson’s Bay Company on the north bank of the Columbia.—Letter
of Peter H. Burnett.—The Nez Percés and Cayuses.—Extract from the report of
the United States Senate.


We give the following extracts from Dr. White’s Indian report and
proceedings in Oregon, that the reader may be informed as to what he
claimed to be his influence, and also the way he maneuvered with the
Indians and settlers; with his full account of the killing of the young
Indian Elijah in California.


The letters from the different missionaries show the condition of the
American missions at the time. Mr. Lee and the Jesuit missionaries
did not deem him the proper agent to report to. Notwithstanding, in
his report, given in a previous chapter, he attributes to the Jesuit missionaries
improvements wholly made by the Americans, not from ignorance
of the fact, but from personal prejudice.


It will be seen that the committee in Congress, to whom his report
and petition was referred, deemed it equitable and just on general
principles, and allowed it.



Wallamet, November 4, 1844.



Sir,—The Hudson’s Bay ship Columbia sailing in a few days, via
Sandwich Islands, for England, by the politeness of her owners I have
the honor of again addressing you, and certainly under circumstances
most favorable and gratifying.


Since my last, forwarded in March, aside from two or three incidents
of an unpleasant nature, the colony and country have been in a state
of unusual quietness, and the season has been one of great prosperity.


The legislative body, composed of nine members, met on the 24th of
May, at the falls at Wallamet, and closed their short but effective session
in nine days; having passed, in due form, twenty-five bills, most
of which were of importance to us in the regulation of our intercourse.
A few of these laws I transmit to you, and would here remark, the
taxes were in general cheerfully paid. The liquor bill is popular, and
the laws of Oregon are honored.


[Pg 388]




The Liquor act not coming in force under sixty days from its passage,
a few individuals (having clandestinely prepared, before its passage)
improved this favored moment to dispose of all they could with any
hopes of safety. Of this I was immediately notified, and hastened in
from the Tualatin Plains, all the mischief, “as heretofore,” being done
in and about the town at the falls of the Wallamet.


Liquor was in our midst, as was but too manifest from the noisy,
vulgar, obscene, and even diabolical expressions of those who had previously
ever conducted themselves in a quiet and orderly manner.


This was perplexing and exciting, as all professed ignorance; and
many opinions prevailed regarding the amount manufactured, and the
number interested, and especially regarding the seat of mischief or
point where distilled.


I resolved, at whatever danger or cost, to nip this in the bud, procured
the call of a public meeting at once, and had the happiness to receive
the following expression from all but one convened:—


“Resolved, That it be the sense of this meeting, that Dr. White, in
his official relation, take such assistance as he may require, and forthwith
search out and destroy all intoxicating liquor that may be found
in this vicinity or district of country.



“P. G. Stewart.

“Executive Chairman.



“John E. Long,

“Secretary.”



I started with ten volunteers early the ensuing morning, and found
the distillery in a deep, dense thicket, eleven miles from town, at three
o’clock, P. M. The boiler was a large-size potash kettle, and all the apparatus
well accorded. Two hogsheads and eight barrels of slush or
beer were standing ready for distillation, with a part of one barrel of
molasses. No liquor could be found, nor as yet had much been distilled.


Having resolved on my course, I left no time for reflection, but at
once upset the nearest cask, when the noble volunteers immediately
seconded my measures, making a river of beer in a moment; nor did
we stop till the kettle was raised, and elevated in triumph at the prow
of our boat, and every cask, with all the distilling apparatus, was
broken to pieces and utterly destroyed. We then returned, in high
cheer, to the town, where our presence and report gave general joy.


Two hours after my arrival, I received from James Connor, one of
the owners, a written challenge for a bloody combat; which ended
last week in his being indicted before the grand jury, fined $500, and
disfranchised for life.


[Pg 389]




Six weeks since, an unhappy affray occurred between one Joel Turnham,
late from Missouri, and Webley Hauxhurst, of Wallamet, and
serious threats passing from the former, a warrant was issued, and
Turnham, resisting with a deadly weapon, was shot down by the
officer; for which he comes before the grand jury to-morrow. Turnham
expired at once, being shot with three mortal wounds through the
neck and head, but with singular desperation fought and resisted to
the last.


So far as I understand the public expression, all unite in acquitting
the officer, who has ever been a harmless, quiet, good citizen; while
Turnham was regarded as a most desperate and dangerous character
all abroad, having left Missouri under circumstances most unfavorable
to his reputation and quiet here, where he has been particularly sour,
irritable, and quarrelsome; and was the more obnoxious as he was
reputed brave and generally too stout for his antagonist.


November 8.—Since penning the last, the grand jury have unanimously
declared no bill; and here allow me to say, having accompanied
Judge Babcock to four of the courts embraced in the circuit
of five counties, I have not seen in any country such uniform decorum
and quietness as has prevailed throughout at these courts. Much of
this mildness, sobriety, and good order, is doubtless attributable to the
absence of all intoxicating drinks.


The laws of this country, framed to meet present circumstances, are
taking deeper and stronger root continually. And some are already
suggesting, “notwithstanding our infancy,” whether, if longer left
without a mother’s protection, it will not be well to undertake to run
alone.


The resources of the country are rapidly developing, and the expectations
of the people are generally high; the mildness of the climate
and the strength of the soil greatly encourage the large immigration of
last year. For the last twelve months, mercury has ranged from 96 to
30; four-fifths of the time from 80 to 55; making an agreeable summer
and mild winter, grazing being good throughout; so much so
that the jaded and worn-down animals of the poor immigrants fatted
up greatly to their surprise, before spring, without feeding or the least
attention.


Crops of all kinds usually good, even to Indian corn, and cheerfulness
prevails throughout since harvesting. As statements have been
made in the States derogatory to our soil, allow me to say, it is
believed, with the same cultivation, no country produces better wheat,
oats, peas, barley, potatoes, or any crop save Indian corn, for which the
nights are generally too cool for a heavy growth. The wheat crops,[Pg 390]
being never injured by the frosts of winter or the rains of summer, as
in the States, are remarkably sure; nor as yet have our crops been
disturbed by flies or insects.


Wheat crops are heavy, as you will judge when I assure you, from
simply turning over the prairie in June, scattering the seed in October,
and then with no further trouble than passing the harrow over it, ten
acres upon my plantation grew five hundred and forty-one bushels and
a half. The river flats, containing much alluvial deposit, are very rich;
the plains beautiful and verdant, being admirably watered, but generally
sparsely timbered; the high lands well timbered and watered in
many parts, the soil tolerable, producing herbage for an abundance of
deer, elk, mountain sheep, etc. The entire Wallamet and Umpqua
valleys, capable of sustaining a population of several millions, it is generally
believed can not be excelled, as a whole, for richness of soil,
variety, grandeur, or beauty of scenery; nor, considering the latitude,
can be equaled in mildness, equability, and agreeableness of climate.


Since last writing, abundance of limestone has been found at the
mouth of the Columbia, and likewise in this valley, conveniently
obtained, and proves of an excellent quality. The Rev. Mr. De Smet
arrived here in August last, bringing, as a part of his cargo, six
priests and as many nuns, fine, hale-looking girls, very acceptable just
now, particularly as the Methodist Mission is breaking up, and the
half-breed Canadian daughters are rapidly multiplying.


Having no pilot or chart to depend upon, and his commander a
stranger, he sailed in through the south channel, greatly to the surprise
and alarm of all on shore, but without injury or difficulty, not
once touching, and reporting abundance of water for the heaviest
burden ships.


The sands are supposed to have changed and improved the channel;
but of this I know nothing, and am not a little skeptical. I am
induced to attribute their success more to the fine day and small
vessel than change of the sands in their favor since Captain Wilkes
left. Captain Couch, however, who has now been passing in and out
here for the last five years in the service of Mr. Cushing, of Newburyport,
pronounces it a better port to enter than theirs, and says, with
pilots, there will be little difficulty or danger.


Our exports are wheat, beaver, salmon, and lumber, for which, in
return, we obtain from the Sandwich Islands, sugar, molasses, tea,
coffee, and other commodities brought there from China, England,
and America.


We are much in want of a currency and market, American merchants
being as yet a slender reliance; and in view of the large immi[Pg 391]grating
parties of each year, we should be greatly distressed for
necessary articles of wearing apparel, but for the most commendable
spirit of accommodation on the part of the Hudson’s Bay Company.


Could some arrangement be entered into for us to supply the navy
of the Pacific with bread, beef, pork, fish, etc., we would thereby be
much improved in our condition. This might, and perhaps ought to
be done, in view of the encouragements held out for our people to
emigrate to this country. Should it not be convenient for our ships of
war to come to the Columbia for such supplies, they could be shipped
to the Sandwich Islands, if required. But more of this another time.


Having just taken the tour of the colony for the purpose of attending
the courts and visiting the schools, it affords me pleasure to say I
felt amply rewarded. I found throughout health, cheerfulness, and
prosperity, and, certainly, most surprising improvements for the short
time since the settlers commenced. The decorum of the courts I have
spoken of, and now have only to speak of the schools and Indians, and
I am done, fearing I have already wearied your patience. For the
want of means, the Methodist manual labor Indian school has lately
been broken up, and this is now occupied as a boarding-school for
white children of both sexes. The school is yet small, but well conducted,
and promises usefulness to the colony. The school at the falls
of the Wallamet and Tualatin Plains, and likewise the one under the
direction of Rev. Mr. Blanchet, Catholic clergyman, are all small,—numbering
from fifteen to thirty only,—but are all well kept and doing
good. I feel solicitous on this subject, and am saying and doing what
I can to encourage education, but, like all other new countries, the
people need and require their children much at home.


Since the unhappy affair last spring, the Indians have been unusually
quiet, and the summer has been spent without alarm. I sent my interpreter,
Mr. Lee, to the Wallawallas six weeks since, to make some
presents to the chiefs, as a safe conduct to the immigrants down to this
place, but having, as yet, nothing from him of interest, I addressed a
line to Mr. J. B. Littlejohn, who is just down from there, and received
the annexed reply; all other statements are corroborative:—





“Wallamet, November 1, 1844.



“Dear Sir,—It is with the utmost pleasure I undertake to give you
what information I am able to do. I have resided with the missionaries
of the American Board for two years past; I have known their hearts,
and am well acquainted with all they have done. Their influence among
the Indians is by no means small, or their efforts vain, as their condition
is very much improved, both in a spiritual and temporal point of
[Pg 392]view. And, dear sir, your efforts among and for them have been much
to their advantage, and at the same time not to the disadvantage of the
missionaries, but greatly to increase their usefulness among them. I
have no doubt you have labored with this motive in view. The Indians
are becoming civilized as fast or faster than any tribes concerning whom
I am informed. Their anxiety for cattle, hogs, and sheep is very great;
leading them to make most commendable efforts to obtain them, and
their efforts are by no means vain. They have purchased a good number
from those who are emigrating to this country, by exchanging their
horses for cattle. Thus, while their horses have been very useful to the
immigrants, they have greatly benefited themselves. They are enlarging
their farms yearly,—improving much in fencing, etc. Quite a number
of families are enabled to live from what they raise on their farms,
the milk of their cows, and their beef. There is perfect quietness existing
between them, and I have no doubt this state of things will continue
to exist. Many things that are interesting might be written, but
time does not allow me to say more at present.



“I am, dear sir, yours with the greatest respect,

“J. B. Littlejohn.”



Thus far the Indians have kept their treaties of amity with me astonishingly
well, and it is thought we have now as much to hope as fear
from them, if we succeed in keeping out liquor, which, by the grace of
God, not few of us are resolved to do, though we do not pass unopposed,
nor slightly opposed; and had it not been for that most salutary
liquor law, and the hearty co-operation of some of the friends of
temperance with your agent, liquor would have already made ruinous
havoc among us.


The Methodist Mission, though we have not agreed on all subjects,
has behaved very properly on this. And to it, in connection with the
Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company, will the colony be lastingly indebted
for its commendable efforts.


Since my first arrival, I have not received a line from the department
save my last year’s report. As my condition is peculiar, and not a little
embarrassing, I should feel greatly obliged for an expression and
further instruction from the department. I have had, as may well be
judged, much to contend with, in the midst of lawless Indians of so
many different tribes, and lawless whites of so many nations,—some
bred upon old whale-ships, others in the Rocky Mountains, and hundreds
on the frontiers of Missouri. I have at times waded in deep perplexing
difficulties, but am now greatly relieved by the colonial government,
which as yet is well administered. By reason of this I now have less[Pg 393]
to do, and sail in smoother seas, meeting with less opposition than
heretofore, my proper official relations toward the whites and Indians
being better understood.



I have the honor to be, etc.,

E. White,

Sub-Agent Indian Affairs, W. R. M.


Hon. J. M. Porter,

Secretary of War, Washington



An Act to prohibit the Manufacture and Sale of Ardent Spirits.


Whereas the people of Oregon, now occupying one of the most beautiful
and interesting portions of the globe, are placed in the most critical
and responsible position ever filled by men, owing, as they do, important
duties to themselves, to their country, to posterity, and to mankind,
as the founders of a new government and a young nation; and whereas
the introduction, distillation, or sale of ardent spirits, under the circumstances
in which we are placed, would bring withering ruin upon the
prosperity and prospects of this interesting and rising community, by
involving us in idle and dissolute habits, inviting hither swarms of the
dissipated inhabitants of other countries, checking immigration, destroying
the industry of the country, bringing upon us the swarms of savages
now in our midst, interrupting the orderly and peaceable administration
of justice, and, in a word, producing and perpetuating increasing and
untold miseries that no mind can rightly estimate; therefore,


Be it enacted by the Legislative Committee of Oregon as follows:—


Section 1. That if any person shall hereafter import or introduce any
ardent spirits into Oregon, with intent to sell, barter, or trade the same,
and shall offer the same for sale, barter, or trade, he shall be fined the
sum of fifty dollars for each and every such offense, which may be recovered
by indictment or by trial before a justice of the peace, without
the form of pleading.


Sec. 2. That if any person shall hereafter sell, barter, or trade any
ardent spirits of any kind whatever, directly or indirectly, to any person
within Oregon, he shall forfeit and pay the sum of twenty dollars for
each and every such sale, barter, or trade, to be recovered by indictment
in the Circuit Court, or before a justice of the peace, without the
form of pleading.


Sec. 3. That if any person shall hereafter establish or carry on any
manufactory or distillery of ardent spirits in Oregon, he shall be subject
to be indicted before the Circuit Court as for a nuisance; and if convicted,
he shall be fined the sum of one hundred dollars, and the court[Pg 394]
shall issue an order to the sheriff, directing him to seize and destroy the
distilling apparatus, which order the sheriff shall execute.


Sec. 4. That it shall be the duty of all sheriffs, judges, justices, constables,
and other officers, when they have reason to believe that this act
has been violated, to give notice thereof to some justice of the peace or
judge of a court, who shall immediately issue his warrant and cause the
offending party to be arrested, and, if such officer has jurisdiction to try
such case, shall proceed to try such offender without delay, and give
judgment accordingly; but, if such officer shall not have jurisdiction to
try the case, he shall, if the party be guilty, bind him over to appear
before the next Circuit Court of the proper county.


Sec. 5. That all sales, barters, or trades, made under color of gifts or
otherwise, with intent to evade this act, shall be deemed a violation of
the same, and all fines and penalties recovered under this act shall go
into the general treasury, and all officers receiving the same shall pay
over to the sheriff, whose duty it shall be to pay the same into the
treasury.


Sec. 6. That this act shall not be so construed as to prevent any practicing
physician from selling such liquors for medicine, not to exceed
one gallon at one time.


Sec. 7. That the clerk shall make out a copy of this act and put the
same up in Oregon City as early as practicable.


Sec. 8. That this act shall take effect within sixty days from and
after its passage.


Passed 24th June, 1844.M. M. McCarver, Speaker.

Attest: J. E. Long, Clerk.



An Act to provide for Ways and Means.


Be it enacted by the Legislative Committee of Oregon as follows:—


Section 1. That in order to raise a revenue for the purpose of defraying
the expenses of the government, there shall be levied and collected
a tax of one-eighth of one per cent. upon the following property, at a
fair valuation, to wit: All merchandise brought into this country for
sale; improvements in town lots; mills; pleasure-carriages; clocks;
watches; horses; mules; cattle and hogs.


Sec. 2. Every male citizen over the age of twenty-one years, being a
descendant of a white man, shall be subject to pay a poll-tax of fifty
cents.


Sec. 3. That it shall be the duty of the collector of revenue to require
of each and every merchant of Oregon to give him a statement of the
amount of all merchandise on hand, in writing, to be stated upon oath
or affirmation, which oath or affirmation the collector shall administer;[Pg 395]
and said collector shall collect and receipt for the tax upon such merchandise,
which receipt shall serve said merchant for a license for the
next year, commencing from the time given; and that, when a merchant
shall wish to renew his license, he shall give a similar statement
of all merchandise received by him for sale in the preceding twelve
months, and the collector shall only require him to pay tax upon the
amount of said imports.


Sec. 4. That any person refusing to pay tax, as in this act required,
shall have no benefit of the laws of Oregon, and shall be disqualified
from voting at any election in this country.


Sec. 5. That the sheriff shall serve as ex officio collector of the revenue,
for which he shall receive, as a compensation for his services, ten
per cent. upon all moneys collected as revenue.


Sec. 6. That the sheriff, before entering upon the duties of his office
as collector of the revenue, shall enter into bond, with two or more good
and sufficient securities, in a sum not less than five nor more than ten
thousand dollars, to be approved by the executive, which approval
shall be written upon the back of said bond, and the said collector’s
bond shall be filed in the office of the clerk of the court.


Sec. 7. That the collector shall pay over to the treasury, on the first
Monday in each and every month in the year, all moneys that may be
in his hands, and get the treasurer’s receipt therefor.


Sec. 8. That it shall be the duty of the tribunal transacting county
business to require the collector to settle with said court at each and
every regular term of the court in Clackamas County.


Sec. 9. The collector of the revenue shall make full payment into the
treasury on or before the first Monday in December in each year.


Sec. 10. The revenue of Oregon shall be collected in specie or available
orders on solvent merchants in Oregon.


Sec. 11. That all acts and parts of acts contrary to this act be, and
the same are hereby, repealed.


Sec. 12. This act to take effect from and after its passage.



M. M. McCarver, Speaker.


Attest: J. E. Long, Secretary.




Oregon Territory, Tualatin District, United States of America,
May 1, 1844.


Charles E. Pickett, plaintiff, in the name of Oregon Territory, threatening
to incense the Indians, against Saul, a man of color.


Complainant’s oath and warrant issued, directed to J. L. Meek,
sheriff, and summons for three witnesses, viz.: James Conner, William
Hill, and Mr. Bird.


[Pg 396]May 3.—Sheriff made his return with defendant and witnesses, and
jury of good and lawful men, viz., Philip Foster, W. C. Dement, J. W.
Nesmith, John McCaddan, C. Spencer, and S. W. Moss, being duly
sworn, returned a verdict of guilty of the charges alleged to him, and
signed their names, viz.: Philip Foster, J. W. Nesmith, William C.
Dement, John McCaddan, Chauncey Spencer, and S. W. Moss.


Two witnesses, viz., William Hill and Mr. Bird, of lawful age, being
duly sworn, did depose and say: that the threats in the deposition of
Charles E. Pickett were correct; and that the Indians had come in a
menacing manner; and that Saul said he would stand for the Indians’
rights; and that he (Saul) was armed and prepared to do so; and that
the Indians would burn and destroy his house and property. The
charges being of a higher character than the Oregon laws have cognizance
of, judgment is, that the United States sub-Indian agent, Dr.
Elijah White, is the proper officer to take cognizance of him; and he,
Saul, a man of color, be forthwith delivered into said agent’s hand;
which was forthwith done.



Robert Moore, Justice of the Peace.



The criminal was received and kept in custody for some weeks; but
having no prison-house or jail to lodge him in, and the captain absolutely
declining taking him on board his vessel, after the storm had
blown over I suffered and encouraged him to leave this place, and stop
with one of the mission families for the present, at the mouth of the
Columbia.


Though unsuccessful in getting employment as I had hoped, he remains
in that vicinity with his Indian wife and family, conducting, as
yet, in a quiet manner, but doubtless ought to be transported, together
with every other negro, being in our condition dangerous subjects.


Until we have some further means of protection, their immigration
ought to be prohibited. Can this be done?



E. White, Sub-Agent.





ss. 




}





Territory of Oregon,

District of Tualatin.




Charles E. Pickett, being duly sworn, says, that Saul (a man of
color), of said Territory, has threatened to incense the Indians against
his person and property, to destroy the same; and that he, the said
Charles E. Pickett, verily believes that, unless measures are taken to
prevent him, there are sufficient grounds to apprehend that he will
carry those threats into execution.


Sworn to and subscribed this 1st day of May, 1844, before me,



Robert Moore, J. P.


[Pg 397]We, the jury, find the prisoner guilty of the charges alleged against
him.




Philip Foster,

J. W. Nesmith,

Wm. C. Dement,

John McCaddan,

Chauncey Spencer,

S. W. Moss.







}





Oregon, Wallamet Valley,

April 4, 1845.


----Starting too late, and the winter rains setting in earlier than
usual, subjected the immigrants to incredible suffering and hardships,
especially from the Dalles of the Columbia down to the Wallamet
Valley; but our early and delightful spring is exerting a cheering and
most salutary influence upon their hitherto depressed spirits. They
have, bee-like, been hived up in Oregon City during the winter, and
are now swarming, to the entire satisfaction of the first occupants of
the hive, it not being wide and large enough for such an unexpected
increase. The last immigration, numbering about a thousand, are generally
pleased with the country, and are setting about their spring
work with becoming spirit and fortitude.


The Indians of this lower country, whose national honor and dignity
are laid in the dust, are looking upon the rapid growth and increased
strength of the whites with sorrowful countenances and sad hearts.
The present state of things between us and them is peculiar, critical,
unenviable, and dangerous, at least, so far as peace and property are
concerned.


For instance, in proof: Soon after I sent my last dispatches, the chief
of the Tualatin Plains, whose orderly conduct and that of his clan did
honor to the Nez Percé laws, and the engagement we had mutually
entered into, called on me, desiring my offices in procuring the mending
of his gun. This being done, he invited me to come and see him and
his people; said all was not right at his lodge; his tribe was divided,
and all was not right; his influence was waning, and some of his people
were becoming very bitter toward the Americans. Observing anxiety
and mental reservation, I endeavored to draw out the secret, reminding
him of the frequent communications he had brought me from the Rev.
Messrs. Clark and Griffin, bearing such satisfactory testimony to their
previous quiet, orderly, and proper conduct, etc., but all I could learn
was, “Things are not right with us, and we are miserable.”


The camass, their principal dependence for food, was cut off last[Pg 398]
season by reason of drought; and the deer are hunted so much by the
late hungry western immigrant riflemen, that they have become wild,
poor, and few in number. The chief left.


A few days after, I learned they had killed an ox and ate it, belonging
to a neighboring white man. The owner was excited, and applied
to one of the executive; a proclamation was issued, the military was
called out (if it be lawful to call it such), and ample preparations made
to avenge this national insult, and seek redress for this astounding loss.
The army collected upon the opposite bank of the river, about six miles
from the position occupied by the enemy, talked bravely, long, and
loud, but the river was a little too high to cross that day; appointed
another, the river being lower; none of the warriors appeared; nor
could the executive, or owner, simply for the want of a few gallons of
alcohol, obtain the necessary assistance to avenge the horrid wrong,
and perform a brilliant military exploit. The chief, in his embarrassment
and distress, came to me as usual for sympathy and succor. My
coldness and look of severity (for which Heaven forgive me!) keenly
afflicted him. After a deep sigh and painful pause, peculiar to a
wounded or injured Indian, he slowly rose, gently smiting his breast,
and said, “Dr. White, I am a true man, and carry an honest heart. Do
you remember my coming to get my gun mended last fall? Do you
remember my words, that all was not right with our people, and my inviting
you to come and see us? We had just before killed that old ox,
and were then eating it.” I inquired, “Had you any thing to do with
it personally?” “Yes, I helped to kill it, and, with my family, took
and ate one-half of the animal. You saw the condition of my gun;—our
provisions were out; I and others had hunted for two days,—our
hunger was great. We held a council; and, hoping for success, I
promised, on condition nothing was caught till the setting of another sun,
we would kill the first animal we met. I traveled far, and wearied myself
till evening; shot often but killed nothing;—we met this poor old
ox, which our people would scorn to kill or eat but in case of extreme
hunger;—my word was passed to my people; I could not go back from
my word; I helped to kill and butcher the ox, and joined in eating
him; and now my peace is gone. I am ashamed to see a white man’s
face; they look cold on me and shake the head;—I can not bear it—I
can not live so; I come to you to help me, for I am told they want to
kill me. I do not want such feelings to exist; nor do I want to be
hunted as a bear or wild beast, for slaughter. I stand here a wisher of
peace, willing to have you dictate the terms; but wish to have it remembered
that we were distressed with hunger.” “Suppose,” said I,
“the owner should require your rifle and four horses?” “You stand to[Pg 399]
judge between us, and I shall abide your decision.” “But you have
broken your engagement and forfeited confidence, and I fear it can not
be settled, and some think you have killed before.” “Dr. White, I am
a true man, and lie not. I, nor my people, can not be so accused justly;
this is injurious; none can meet my face and say it.” I wrote, through
him, to the owner, praying, as it was the first offense so far as we had
the least evidence, and especially in view of our critical situation and his
general good behavior, that he would fully indemnify himself; and
then, in view of what I knew of the condition of his gun, and the
probability that it was induced by hunger, to settle it; and requested
him to assure the chief that he was convinced from my letter and all
the circumstances, in connection with his past good conduct, that it
must have been brought about by hunger.


The advice was rejected, as the laws of the organization now had
cognizance of the offense, and he wished to see them faithfully enforced.
Public opinion became divided, and no judicial expression being made,
and the poor chief becoming excessively tired of being held by public
opinion in durance vile, came to see me a second time. I wrote again,
and learned it was settled by the chief and his people paying his rifle
and eight horses. If this be correct (as I fear it is), I abominate the
act and dread its prejudicial influence.


Week before last a hungry and mischievous lodge killed a cow. They
were pursued by a party of whites, overtaken, and, in attempting to
take them, the Indians fired upon the whites, killing one horse, and
wounded another. The fire was returned; one Indian killed, and a
second wounded. Thus ended this affair, which creates very little excitement
among whites or Indians.


The most painful circumstance that has occurred lately, transpired
last fall at California. The Cayuses, Wallawallas, and some of the
chiefs of the Spokans, entered upon the hazardous but grand and important
enterprise of going directly through the Indian country to California,
with a view of exchanging their beaver, deer, and elk skins, together
with their surplus horses, for neat stock. As they had to travel through
an extensive country inhabited by the savage and warlike Klamaths
and Shastas, where Smith, Turner, and so many other white parties had
been defeated, we are at a loss to conclude whether their valor is more
to be commended than the rashness of their stupendous enterprise to be
censured. They were well mounted and equipped; the chiefs clad in
English costume, and the residue attired in dressed skins, molded
according to their several tastes. The journey of seven or eight hundred
miles, after some fighting, watching, and much fatigue, was accomplished,
and their numbers not lessened.


[Pg 400]Taking their own statement, their reception was cordial, and the
impression made upon the whites by these distant and half-civilized
people, upon an errand so commendable, was most favorable. The
treating and salutations being over, the trade commenced in good
faith, and to mutual satisfaction. All moved on well, till, on an excursion
to procure elk and deer skins, they met a marauding band of
mountain freebooters; fought them, and, being victorious, took a prize
of twenty-two horses, all previously stolen from the whites.


On returning to the settlements, the Spaniards laid claim to the animals.
The chiefs remonstrated, and said, agreeably to their customs,
the horses were theirs. The Spaniards explained their laws, and showed
the animals not to be vented, i. e., bearing a transfer mark, and told the
Indians they must give them to the rightful owners, as all Americans
and others did. The Indians seemed grieved and rather incensed;
said in their country six nations of people were on terms of amity, and
that in case any one of these six nations stole a horse, the tribe was
responsible for the safe delivery of that animal to the rightful owner;
but in case the Blackfeet or other formidable enemy steal or capture,
the properly is supposed lost, without redemption; and as we have
captured these horses at the hazard of our lives, from your long openly
declared enemies, we think they ought in justice to be ours. The
Spaniards condescended to offer ten cows for the redemption of the
horses; the chief not replying, five more were added; he still remaining
moody and without replying, the negotiation unhappily broke off.
A day or two after, an American, seeing his mule among the number
captured, told the Indians it was his mule, and have it he would. “Will
you?” said a young chief by the name of Elijah Heading; and stepping
into the lodge, he immediately loaded his rifle, came out and observed
significantly, “Go now and take your mule.” The American, much
alarmed, remarked, “I hope you are not going to kill me.” “No! I
am going to shoot yonder eagle” (perched upon a neighboring oak).
Not liking the appearances, the man left without attempting to obtain
his mule. A day or two after, the Indians left their encampment and
walked down to the fort of Captain Sutter to church; and from the
best information we have obtained (all being ex parte), the following
appears to be near the truth: After service Elijah was invited into
another apartment, taking with him his uncle, a brave and sensible
chief of the age of five and forty; while there, in an unarmed and defenseless
condition, they commenced menacing him for things alleged
against the river Indians of this upper country, in which none of them
had any participation; called them indiscriminately dogs, thieves, etc.
This American then observed: “Yesterday you were going to kill me;[Pg 401]
now you must die”—drawing a pistol. Elijah, who had been five or
six years at the Methodist Mission, and had learned to read, write, and
speak English respectably, said, deliberately: “Let me pray a little,
first;” and kneeling down, at once commenced; and while invoking the
Divine mercy, was shot through the heart or vitals dead upon the spot.
Every measure, as the Indians say, was taken to cut them all off by the
Spaniards, who brought out the cannon, with other fire-arms, and hotly
pursued them, and tried to prevent their escape by checking and interrupting
their passage across the ferries, etc. But at length they all
arrived safely, after manifest suffering, leaving the herds they had paid
for in California.


They met three Americans on the way as they left the California
settlements and had them in their power, but instead of revenging the
death of Elijah, they mounted each on a horse of their own, and sent
them on, telling them to go to the fort and acquaint the people that
they could not kill innocent white people in their power and lodge.


Taking for truth an Indian report, this horrible affair creates considerable
excitement, and there is some danger of its disturbing the
friendly relation that has hitherto existed between us here, and all
those formidable tribes in the region of Wallawalla and Snake River.
They had no sooner arrived, than Ellis, my interpreter, the high chief
of the Nez Percés, was deputed to come down and learn our opinions
regarding the affair. They could not have sent a better agent, the
whites all giving him a handsome and cordial reception. From Wallawalla,
he accompanied Mr. Grant, the chief trader at Fort Hall, down
to Vancouver. He called on Dr. McLaughlin, whose great experience
and address were serviceable. He spoke touchingly of the violent death
of his own son upon the northwest coast, and left the impression that he
could not avoid sympathizing with the father and friends of the deceased
young chief. Mr. Douglas, too, an early friend, patron, and
favorite of Ellis, aided much in convincing him that all the good and
virtuous could not avoid the most painful regrets at so melancholy a
circumstance, which must have occurred by reason of the difference in
their customs or laws, imperfectly understanding each other, or from
some, as he would charitably hope, excusable circumstance.


Under the influence of this salutary language and interview, Ellis
arrived at my residence, in Wallamet, about the 1st instant, having, a
short time before, got a hasty communication, written in excitement,
from Dr. Whitman, who was under serious apprehensions that it might
be avenged upon some of the whites of the upper country. Be assured
I was happy to see this my most faithful friend and interpreter. Sir,
pardon me for saying—isolated as we are here, agitated as we have[Pg 402]
a thousand times been by faithless savages and still more faithless
whites, responsible, yet powerless and defenseless, in our unsettled state
of things—to meet with this honest man, this real friend, though an
Indian, gave me hearty pleasure.


His thorough education at Red River molded him into more of the
white man than Indian. His prudence and good management with his
tribe sanctioned the choice that had been made, and all the whites
spoke handsomely of his kind offices and obliging deportment, while
immigrating through his country. Being satisfied of the safety and
policy, I feasted him, and took at once unobserved measures to have him
invited to every respectable place abroad, where the ladies and gentlemen
received him so cordially, and feasted him so richly and delicately,
that he almost forgot the object of his embassy, and, I verily believe,
thought extremely highly of the whites of Wallamet, however ill he
might have thought of the conduct of the Californians.


Being anxious to make this visit useful to him and his people, as well
as pleasant, after spending a few days in visiting the schools, as well as
the principal inhabitants and places of interest, I showed him my little
library; told him to make himself at home; put on my farmer’s garb
and commenced working upon my plantation. He soon came out,
accompanied by a wealthy cousin, and begged for tools to assist me. I
loaned them, and found he was much at home in their use. He spent
with me a sufficient length of time to convince me of the truth reported
concerning his cheerfulness in labor, as well as his knowledge, application,
and assiduity in business. He spoke sensibly of the advantages
of industry, and the astonishing change that had been effected among his
people by the cultivation of the soil; assured me that every family or
lodge now raised an abundance for home consumption, besides having considerable
quantities to barter with the whites. He says he raised, himself,
the past season, six hundred bushels of peas, with a fine crop of wheat, potatoes,
beans, etc.; spoke properly of its moral and social effects. Wars
were no longer talked of, and the chase was nearly abandoned; the book
and the Bible consumed their leisure moments. Polygamy, once so common,
was now done away with, except in two solitary cases, and not a
lodge of his people but observed the Sabbath, and regularly attended
morning and evening devotion. This was only corroborative of what I
had previously heard from other sources. He spent ten days with me
in the most cheerful, agreeable, and profitable manner, and at the close
I felt myself the happier and better for the visit; nor did I marvel that
his influence was increasing and the prospects of his people brightening.


Pardon me, for, in thinking of his visit and dwelling upon his excellences,
I had like to have forgotten his agency. Learning from Dr.[Pg 403]
Whitman, who resides in their midst, how much they were all excited
by reason of the treacherous and violent death of this educated and
accomplished young chief, and perhaps more especially by the loss they
had sustained; and then, after suffering so many hardships and encountering
so many dangers, losing the whole,—I apprehended there might
be much difficulty in adjusting it, particularly as they lay much stress
upon the restless disaffected scamps late from Wallamet to California,
loading them with the vile epithets of “dogs,” “thieves,” etc., from
which they believed, or affected to, that the slanderous reports of our
citizens caused all their loss and disasters, and therefore held us responsible.
He assured me that the Cayuses, Wallawallas, Nez Percés, Spokans,
Ponderays, and Snakes were all on terms of amity, and that a
portion of the aggrieved party were for raising about two thousand
warriors of these formidable tribes and marching to California at once,
and, nobly revenging themselves on the inhabitants by capture and plunder,
enrich themselves upon the spoils; others, not indisposed to the
enterprise, wished first to learn how it would be regarded here, and
whether we would remain neutral in the affair. A third party were
for holding us responsible, as Elijah was killed by an American, and
the Americans incensed the Spaniards. Ellis reminded me at the same
time of the ill-success the chiefs met with in trading off their ten-dollar
drafts for herds with the immigrants; which drafts I had sent up by
Mr. Lee, my interpreter, to secure peace and safety while the immigrants
were passing through their country, the year before so many having
been pillaged and robbed of their effects, through the inattention of the
chiefs.


Sir, how this affair will end is difficult to conjecture; the general impression
is, that it will lend to the most disastrous consequences to the
Californians themselves, or to the colony of the Wallamet Valley. My
principal fear is, that it will result in so much jealousy, prejudice, and
disaffection, as to divert their minds from the pursuit of knowledge,
agriculture, and the means of civilization, which they have been for
such a length of time so laudably engaged in obtaining.


Should this be the case with these numerous, brave, and formidable
tribes, the results to them, and to us, would be indeed most calamitous.
To prevent such a result, I wrote, through Ellis, a long, cordial, and
rather sympathizing letter to the chiefs of these tribes, assuring them
that I should at once write to the governor of California, to Captain
Sutter, and to our great chiefs respecting this matter. With a view to
divert attention, and promote good feeling, I invited all the chiefs to
come down in the fall, before the arrival of the immigrants, in company
with Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding, and confer with me upon this[Pg 404]
subject; at the same time, as they had been so unfortunate, to bring
along their ten-dollar drafts, and exchange them with me for a cow and
calf each, out of my own herds. I likewise wrote them, that on condition
they would defer going to California till the spring of 1847, and
each chief assist me to the amount of two beaver skins, to get a good
manual labor literary institution established for the English education
of their sons and daughters (a subject they feel the deepest interest
in), I would use every measure to get the unhappy affair adjusted;
and, as a token of my regard for them, would, from my private funds,
give the chiefs five hundred dollars, to assist them in purchasing
young cows in California. I likewise proffered, as they are so eager
for it, to start the English school next fall, by giving them the services
of Mr. Lee, my interpreter, for four months, commencing in November
next.


Ellis more than properly appreciated my motives and proffers, and
said he was of the full belief the chiefs would accede to my proposition;
spoke of the importance of the English school, and of the strong and
general desire to obtain it. He left in high hopes of a continuance of
peace and onward prosperity to his people.


A few days later brought me into another excitement and difficulty
at Vancouver. Two young men, named in McLaughlin’s communication
to this government (a copy of which, marked A, together with a
reply, accompanies these dispatches), crossed the Columbia River, and,
unobserved, in the midst of a little thicket something over half a mile
from Fort Vancouver, felled some timber, threw up a few logs in the
shape of a hut, intending soon to finish it, put up a paper upon a contiguous
tree, stating that they had commenced and intended to establish a
claim agreeably with ——; here the note ended. Some one about the
establishment, observing the paper and commencement of the hut,
reported it to the governor, who sent down at once and had all the
timber removed from the vicinity, the tree felled, and that, with the
paper likewise, removed. They had hardly cleared the ground when
the claimants arrived with a surveyor, and commenced surveying off a
section of land, embracing the post first commenced upon. They were
inquired of, at the instance of Governor McLaughlin, as to their object
and intentions. They at once laid down the chain, dropped all business,
and walked up to the fort. Several respectable and influential American
citizens happened to be present on business, who, with myself,
were respectfully invited to hear the discussion.


Williamson, a modest and respectable young man, demeaned himself
with propriety; but Alderman, his associate, a boisterous, hare-brained
young fellow, caused me (as occasionally others do) to blush for Ameri[Pg 405]can
honor. His language was most severe, and, but for the sake of
the country’s quiet, could not have been endured; the governor and
Mr. Douglas displaying their usual calmness and forbearance. I heard
the discussion for two hours; and, becoming satisfied that no possible
good could grow out of it, remarked that with the cheerful consent of
both parties I would give my sense of the matter.


Each readily consenting, I thought best to come up on the blind
side of Alderman; treated his measures with less severity, and himself
with more consideration and respect, than he anticipated; then spoke
of Greenough’s construction of the treaty between the two governments
(which I happened to have with me); of the immense district of
country dependent upon this establishment for supplies in beef, pork,
etc., and as evidence that they had no more land contiguous than was
necessary for their purposes, spoke of the number of cattle and other
stock that had died of starvation during the last winter; dwelt upon
the importance of union and good feeling among all the whites, surrounded
as we were by savages, in our weak and defenseless condition,
and especially of the propriety of establishing correct precedents in
our unsettled state, regarding land claims; and, without advising particularly
either party, took my seat.


Williamson and Alderman soon manifested a desire for a private
interview, which resulted in a suspension of hostilities for the present,
and probably an abandonment of the claim.


Now, my dear sir, suffer me to write a few things concerning this
country, which seemed to me strongly to demand the speedy attention
of the members of our government. Take fifty men from the colony,
of the most intelligence, firmness, and prudence, and anarchy and confusion
follow. Suffer a free introduction of ardent spirits, and desolation,
horror, dismay, and bloodshed ensue. Never were a people more
illy prepared for self-government, nor more unfavorably circumstanced
to succeed,—aside from the single fact of the absence of all intoxicating
drinks.


Sir, too great a portion of our population comes from the western
suburbs of civilization, for one moment’s safety to us in our present condition.
I know not but I have as much patience as most men, but am
heartily tired of this state of things. Nor would I run the risk again,
by land and water, from whites and savages, for the safety and quietness
of the colony and country, for all the wealth of earth. I have not
shrunk from toil, danger, nor hardships, and though alone-handed and
unsustained, black-balled and traduced, astonishing to say, my measures
have yet succeeded. I think of the past with a clear conscience, yet at
present, at peace as we are, I look upon our critical condition with an[Pg 406]
anxious, aching heart, feeling that the members of our government err
exceedingly toward their citizens in Oregon.


As I have so often said of this lower country, with its beauty, excellence
of soil, and mildness of climate, it might be rendered the paradise
of earth; but, sir, every thing is jeoparded by the tardiness of our government
measures; not only the poor, injured natives, but the whites generally,
have become wearied to impatience in waiting for an expression
from our government, and disaffection, with a want of confidence, is
taking the place of previous warm feeling and strong attachment.


I regret this exceedingly, but feel it my duty to speak out in truth
and distinctness upon this important point. I have said and done
what I could to keep up confidence and hope; but already demagogues
are haranguing in favor of independence, and using the most disparaging
language regarding the measures of our government as a reason
for action. These are but the beginnings, and, though I am glad to
say such sentiments do not generally obtain, yet they are more favorably
listened to this year than last; their natural results and practical
tendency you will readily perceive.


Your annual report of 1843 reached me only a few days since, having
been broken open on the way, then put into the hands of Indians,
and forwarded to me through that channel. And while I have
to regret never having received any thing from your pen, be assured I
am not insensible to the honor done me, in speaking as you did of my
report, through yours of 1843 to the Secretary of War. I feel any
kind expression from home the more sensibly, from the torrent of opposition
I have been forced to meet and contend with here; but am happy
to observe that my influence is increasing, and my measures are being
better understood and appreciated.


Influence here is most important; I felt this strikingly a few weeks
since. Three among the most correct and sensible men of the colony
formed a co-partnership to enter largely upon the brewery business.
They had already taken some steps; and as the business promised to
be lucrative, the probabilities were against me in attempting to dissuade
them from their purpose. I visited them, labored calmly, honestly,
and faithfully, and felt the difference dealing or talking with
men of sense and principle, over many with whom I have to do in
Oregon.


The interview broke up most agreeably, not an unpleasant sentence
having passed; the gentlemen engaging to give me their decision very
soon. This was communicated to me two days after, in a delicate and
handsome manner, which was entirely to my wishes, the business being
altogether abandoned. This was most gratifying to me, as from such[Pg 407]
a quarter should beer be introduced, it would be impossible for us to
prevent the introduction of stronger drink into the colony and country,
which, of all others, is most illy prepared to receive it.


The colony, now numbering about four thousand, is in a most flourishing
state, and I am doubtful if any like number are more pleased or
better contented in our wide domain. The schools of the country during
the last winter have been well sustained; I have contributed to
each, as was necessary, from ten to fifteen dollars, to pay rents, etc.,
and to encourage them forward in their laudable struggle to educate
their rising families.


I attended the examination of the Methodist Institute school a few
weeks since, and was most agreeably impressed regarding the institution.


The pleasant deportment and improved manners of the young ladies
and gentlemen of the school, saying nothing of their astonishing advancement
in the different departments of literature, was a cause of the
highest gratification. I have nowhere attended an examination, taking
all things into the account, more creditable to the principal or institution.
I have called for a report, but am sorry it has not yet come to
hand.


The branches taught are rhetoric, grammar, geography, arithmetic,
reading, writing, and spelling. The most enlightened and best disposed
are using their influence to strengthen the organization, and perfect the
laws of the colony. Many are favorable to the adoption of a constitution,
by calling a convention for that purpose the present season.
This being the most enlightened sense, and meeting with little opposition,
I am of the opinion it will prevail. Should this be effected, the
constitution, accompanied with a petition, will probably be forwarded
by a delegate from this country to Washington City the coming winter.
As the friends of the constitution generally wish best to the country,
and desire to have every thing so conducted as not to embarrass, but to
meet with acceptance at home, I am solicited to be said delegate, and
represent the wants of Oregon. A circulating medium is greatly
needed; however, the enterprise and onward march of this people can
not easily be repressed. Through the auspices of the Hudson’s Bay
Company almost every man, requesting and needing it, is helped to
sufficient means to commence upon his section of land; and, certainly,
by far the greater number give evidence of well-placed confidence.
The prairies are dotted over with houses, and the fruitful fields are spreading
out widely all around us. Moral and religious influence, I regret
to say, is waning; yet it is gratifying to observe an increasing interest
upon the subject of schools and education; and I am happy to say[Pg 408]
we have now eleven schools this side the mountains, most of them
small, to be sure, but they are exerting a salutary and beneficial
influence.


Pardon the length and want of interest of my report. Did not duty
hold me here, or had I funds appropriated to travel abroad to explore
this delightful region of surrounding country, from what I learn of
vague reports I have little doubt but much interesting, curious, and
important information might be collected. But here I am, doomed to
sit, watch, and sometimes almost fight for peace between whites and
Indians—the question of right and wrong becoming more and more
complicated continually; while here, allow me to say, the settling these
difficulties necessarily costs me not a little. I believe most fully, in
making a settlement with an Indian or tribe, to have it a happy,
earnest, and hearty one; and, in order to effect this, they require a
present as a seal. And, sir, this is my principal means of usefulness
or influence over these poor, and, in many instances, injured natives.
Their seeming confidence and regard makes one the more patient and
cheerful in doing for them; nor can I complain, as so many east of the
mountains have been obliged to, of violated faith on the part of the
Indians. From all I can learn, on much of which little reliance is to
be placed, there appear to be about forty-two thousand Indians in the
Territory, allowing it to extend to 54° 40’ north latitude.


Mr. Lee’s (my interpreter) report accompanying this you will observe.
I would have accompanied him but for the season of the year, and the
prevalence of the dysentery, which is sweeping off the poor natives of
this lower country. This gave rise to Dr. Long’s bill, which, I hope, will
be honored, as it was a work of humanity as well as policy. I directed
it, as I could not possibly attend to those and these at the same time,
there being forty miles between us.


I hope, Providence permitting, to have the pleasure of seeing you
and the other gentlemen of the departments, at Washington, in a few
weeks, or months at longest, after this reaches, and of explaining my
accounts and reasons for expenditures.


I had not expected to draft on the department this spring; but there
were no other means of settling with Governor McLaughlin, for the
want of a circulating medium through which to operate.


Inclosed is a letter from Peter H. Burnett, Esq., which I proposed
forwarding in my last dispatches, but received too late for transmission.


With great respect, I am, dear sir, your most humble and obedient
servant,



Elijah White,

Sub-Agent Indian Affairs, W. R. M.




[Pg 409]


To the Citizens of Oregon:


Gentlemen,—We take the liberty of informing you that a person
named “Henry Williamson,” some time about the 15th of February,
this year, took the liberty of erecting on the premises of the Hudson’s
Bay Company a few logs, in the form of a hut, and wrote a notice upon
an adjoining tree that he had taken a section of land there. This was
done without our knowledge or consent, within a few hundred yards of
a house occupied by one of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s servants, and
within the limits of their improvements. As soon as we were informed
of that proceeding, we had the tree cut down and the logs removed, in
order to prevent any future difficulty with a person who had, in a manner
so unjustifiable, intruded on the Hudson’s Bay Company’s premises.


The Hudson’s Bay Company made their settlement at Fort Vancouver
under the authority of a license from the British government,
in conformity with the provisions of the treaty between Great Britain
and the United States of America, which gives them the right of occupying
as much land as they require for the operations of their business.


On the faith of that treaty, they have made a settlement on the
north bank of the Columbia River; they have opened roads and made
other improvements at a great outlay of capital; they have held unmolested
possession of their improvements for many years, unquestioned
by the public officers of either government, who have, since the existence
of their settlements, repeatedly visited it; they have carried on business
with manifest advantage to the country; they have given the protection
of their influence over the native tribes to every person who
required it, without distinction of nation or party; and they have
afforded every assistance in their power toward developing the resources
of the country and promoting the industry of its inhabitants.


The tract of land they occupy, on the north bank of the Columbia
River, is indispensable to them as a range for their flocks and herds, but
otherwise of little value, being in part inundated every summer by the
waters of the Columbia, and in part unimprovable forest land.


Occupying the said tract of land by the authority of law, and under
the protection of the British government, they can not submit to the
infringement of rights so acquired; and we, as their representatives, are
bound to use every means sanctioned by the law which governs us
against all trespassers on their premises, until otherwise directed by
orders emanating from the Hudson’s Bay Company.


Permit us to assure you, gentlemen, that it is our earnest wish to
maintain a good understanding, and to live on friendly terms with
every person in the country. We entertain the highest respect for the
provisional organization; and knowing the good it has effected, as[Pg 410]
well as the evil it has prevented, we wish it every success, and hope,
as we desire, to continue to live in the exercise and interchange of
good offices with the framers of that useful institution.


The advantages of peace and harmony, of the support and maintenance
of established rights, must be as evident to every member of
the community as the evils flowing from a state of lawless misrule.


With these considerations before us, we feel confident that every
person who desires the well-being of the country, who wishes to see it
prosperous and flourishing, will unite in putting down every course
which may have a tendency to disturb the public peace, and in promoting,
by every means in his power, the cause of justice, obedience
to the laws, and mutual accommodation.


With a fervent prayer to the Divine bestower of all good for the
happiness and prosperity of every individual in the country, we have
the honor to be, gentlemen, your obedient servants,



John McLaughlin.

James Douglas.






Vancouver, March 18, 1845.



Gentlemen,—I am sorry to inform you that Mr. Williamson is surveying
a piece of land occupied by the Hudson’s Bay Company, alongside
of this establishment, with a view of taking it as a claim; and as
he is an American citizen, I feel bound, as a matter of courtesy, to
make the same known to you, trusting that you will feel justified in
taking measures to have him removed from the Hudson’s Bay Company’s
premises, in order that the unanimity now happily subsisting
between the American citizens and British subjects residing in this
country may not be disturbed or interrupted. I beg to inclose you a
copy of an address to the citizens of Oregon, which will explain to you
our situation and the course we are bound to pursue in the event of
your declining to interfere.


I am, gentlemen, your obedient humble servant,



J. McLaughlin.


William Bailey,

Osborne Russell,

P. G. Stewart,

Executive Committee of Oregon.



[The above documents must be considered a full declaration of war
by the Hudson’s Bay Company, as all future operations of theirs were
merely preparatory to the final consummation and attack that was made
through the Cayuses. The answer of our Executive Committee[Pg 411]
acknowledged treaty rights that did not exist, as neither the sovereignty
of the soil, nor the boundary line, were settled, hence the joint
occupancy of both as per treaty was good.]





Oregon City, March 21, 1845.



Sir,—We beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letters,—one
dated 11th of March, and the other 12th of March,—accompanied
with an address to the citizens of Oregon.


We regret to hear that unwarranted liberties have been taken by
an American citizen upon the Hudson’s Bay Company’s premises, and
it affords us great pleasure to learn that the offender, after due reflection,
desisted from the insolent and rash measure.


As American citizens, we beg leave to offer you and your much
esteemed colleague our most grateful thanks for the kind and candid
manner in which you have treated this matter, as we are aware that an
infringement on the rights of the Hudson’s Bay Company in this
country, by an American citizen, is a breach of the laws of the United
States, by setting at naught her most solemn treaties with Great
Britain.


As representatives of the citizens of Oregon, we beg your acceptance
of our sincere acknowledgments of the obligations we are under
to yourself and your honorable associate for the high regard you have
manifested for the authorities of our provisional government, and the
special anxiety you have ever shown for our peace and prosperity;
and we assure you that we consider ourselves in duty bound to use
every exertion in our power to put down every cause of disturbance,
as well as to promote the amicable intercourse and kind feelings
hitherto existing between ourselves and the gentlemen of the Hudson’s
Bay Company, until the United States shall extend its jurisdiction
over us, and our authority ceases to exist.


We have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient servants,

Osborne Russell.

P. G. Stewart.


John McLaughlin, Esq.






Tualatin Plains, November 2, 1844.



Dear Sir,—Your communication of the 20th October, 1844, was
duly received, and a press of business has delayed my reply till now.


In relation to the subject of inquiry contained in your letter (being
the natural resources of Oregon), I can truly say that I entertain a
very high opinion of the great and decided advantages bestowed by
nature upon this most interesting and beautiful portion of our globe.


[Pg 412]Our facilities for commercial enterprise are most decided, as the
rapidly increasing commerce of the great Pacific lies at our very door.
The climate of this country is more equable, subject to fewer extremes
than any, perhaps, in the world. I have been here about one year,
and have found it most delightful, and I can truly say that it is the
most healthy country I have ever lived in. During the present year, I
have scarcely heard of a case of fever in the whole country. The
timber of Oregon is indeed most superior, and constitutes a large portion
of its wealth; and we have not only the tallest, finest timber in
the world, but we have everywhere water power to any desirable
extent, suitable for propelling all kinds of machinery.


The soil of this country is most excellent, and can be prepared and
cultivated with less labor than that of any other country. Wheat is
the great staple of the world, and as a wheat-growing country, this
ranks in the very first class. The crop is not only of the best quality,
but is always large, and there is no such occurrence as a failure of the
wheat crop. For potatoes, melons, turnips, and garden vegetables
generally, our soil is superior. Indian corn does not succeed well, and
in fact we have no use for it, as our cattle live all the year upon the
natural pastures of the country. Since I have been here, I have been
myself engaged in farming occupations, and I have been astonished at
the very small amount of labor required to cultivate a farm. Potatoes
are planted, and nothing more is done to them until they are ready for
digging, when they are not dug, but generally turned up with the
plow. Peas are sown broadcast, like wheat, and are neither staked
nor cultivated, and produce in great abundance. Plowing is done
here from the month of September until July, and wheat is sown from
October to May, and potatoes are planted in March, April, and May.
A team of two horses, with a very light, easy plow, can break prairie
land, but a team of two yoke of oxen is most generally used. I am
informed that timothy, clover, and blue grass all grow well in the soil
of Oregon. For pasturage this country is pre-eminent. Horses, cattle,
and sheep require neither feed nor shelter, and keep fat all the year
round. Hogs are raised here with partial feeding, and pork is generally
fattened upon wheat, and finer pork I never saw anywhere.


I omitted to mention in its appropriate place that our harvesting commences
about the 20th of July, and continues throughout the month of
August; and during the present year we had no rain from about the 1st
of July to the 15th of October, so that we had the finest weather for
saving our crops imaginable.


One thing that strikes the beholder of this country with greatest
force, is the unsurpassable beauty of its scenery. We have snow-clad[Pg 413]
mountains, beautiful valleys, pure, rapid streams running over pebbly
beds, with numerous cascades and waterfalls, and trees of superior
grandeur and beauty.


The government of Oregon has grown up from necessity; and perhaps
no new organization has been adopted and sustained with so much
unanimity and good order. Every circumstance has tended to strengthen
it. I attended the last term of the Circuit Courts in most of the counties,
and I found great respect shown to judicial authority everywhere,
and did not see a solitary drunken juryman, or witness, or spectator.
So much industry, good order, and sobriety, I have never observed in
any community. Our population seem to be exceedingly enterprising,
and is making rapid progress to comfort and wealth. As yet, we have
had no murders, no robberies, thefts, or felonies of any kind, except one
assault with intent to kill. Our grand juries have exhibited very laudable
assiduity in discharging their duties, and criminals here will meet
with certain and prompt punishment.


Nature has displayed here her most magnificent powers, and our
country has its full share of natural advantages. Our prospects are
most brilliant. If we can keep out intoxication, and we will do it, half
a century will not roll away before there will exist in Oregon one of the
most industrious, virtuous, free, and commercial nations in the world.


I have already protracted this communication beyond its appropriate
length, and will now close it by subscribing myself,



Yours, etc.,
 Peter H. Burnett.


Dr. E. White.






Wallamet, Oregon, April 4, 1845.


Sir,—I have the honor and happiness of informing you, and through
you, if it be your pleasure, the American public, that measures have
been taken by myself and the citizens in this colony, to open a wagon
route through from the upper part of this valley, the present season,
directly to Fort Hall, or Green River; the pilot returning and escorting
the immigrants through the much shorter, easier, and every way more
advantageous route. The immigrants will thereby be enabled to bring
with them their herds, wagons, and all their effects at once directly into
the heart of the Wallamet Valley; saving thereby an immense amount
of toil, hardship, and suffering, saying nothing of the necessary destruction
and increased danger of the other route.



Your humble and obedient servant,

E. White,

Sub-Agent Indian Affairs, W. R. M.


The messenger is leaving.




[Pg 414]



Oregon City, March 4, 1845.


Dr. E. White:


Sir,—In compliance with the request you made to me, that I should
notice and communicate to you whatever I might deem of interest during
my visit, in your employ, to the various Indian tribes east of the
Cascade Mountains, bearing to them presents with admonitions and
advice from you in order to secure the safety and peace of the immigrants
in their passage through their country, the following is submitted:—


1. The Nez Percés.—Your acquaintance with this promising people
renders it unnecessary for me to speak of their general character. I
would simply remark, that their anxieties to become a civilized and literary
nation have suffered no abatement since I left them in March last,
after passing the winter with them most pleasantly, as teacher, in the
employ of Rev. H. H. Spalding, missionary. Ellis, with most of the
chiefs, was absent, having gone to meet the immigrants, then in the
vicinity of Fort Boise, with a view to furnish them provisions, and
trade them horses for cattle. You are aware of their eagerness to obtain
domestic stock with all farming utensils, which I regard as one of the
most interesting facts connected with Indian affairs west of the Rocky
Mountains. Avarice is doubtless the ruling passion of most Indians,
and forms a capital upon which those engaged in Indian affairs may
operate for good or evil. With the Nez Percés, it has thus far been
turned to good account, effecting results as beneficial to the whites and
more salutary to the natives themselves, on this side the mountains, than
has been effected on the other side by military force. Such is the prevalence
of this “love of gain” among the Indians, that all efforts to
control them by motives held out to any other passion, must prove
ineffectual, at least, while we are unable to awe them by martial parade.


The individual difficulties existing between James, Timothy, and
others, in relation to their claims on the valley, about the Clearwater
Mission, are, for the time, put to rest, by the promise that you will visit
them soon, and have the matter properly adjusted. Their crops this
year have been abundant, and they have furnished the immigrants large
supplies of provisions, which, I am happy to say, were bartered in good
faith, and the trade conducted with much amity and good feeling on both
sides, while I have to regret that Ellis and his people were unable to
procure cattle to any extent worthy of notice. The presents were
received, and the advice heard with a most respectful attention.


2. The Cayuses are also manifesting a spirit of enterprise, highly
commendable. They too, have raised much grain and potatoes, and are[Pg 415]
trading freely with the immigrants. A number of their chiefs and principal
men were absent at the time, having gone, in company with a party
of Wallawallas, to California, with horses to trade for cattle. They
have since returned, and I sincerely regret to learn the failure of this,
their first expedition of the kind. The Spaniards and other whites
treated them badly; murdered one of the most promising young men
of the Wallawallas, and the party returned without effecting the object
of their trip. What influence this affair will have upon the conduct of
these two tribes in reference to the next immigration passing through
their countries, time alone must determine.


The lawless bands along the river, from Fort Wallawalla to the
Dalles, are still troublesome to the immigrants; and the immigrants are
still very imprudent in breaking off into small parties, just when they
should remain united. The Indians are tempted by the unguarded and
defenseless state of the immigrants, and avail themselves of the opportunity
to gratify their cupidity. Here allow me to suggest a thought.
These robbers furnish us a true miniature likeness of the whole Indian
population, whenever they fail to obtain such things as they wish in
exchange for such as they have to give. These are robbers now, because
they have nothing to give; all others will be robbers when, with
what they have to give, they can not procure what they wish. I am
satisfied of the correctness of this conclusion, from all that I have witnessed
of Indian character, even among the praiseworthy Nez Percés.
And should the government of the United States withhold her protection
from her subjects in Oregon, they will be under the necessity of
entering into treaty stipulations with the Indians, in violation of the
laws of the United States, as preferable to a resort to force of arms.
Hitherto, the immigrants have had no serious difficulty in passing through
the territory of these tribes; but that their passage is becoming more
and more a subject of interest to the Indians, is abundantly manifest.
They collect about the road from every part of the country, and have
looked on with amazement; but the novelty of the scene is fast losing
its power to hold in check their baser passions. The next immigration
will, in all probability, call forth developments of Indian character,
which have been almost denied an existence among these people. Indeed,
sir, had you not taken the precaution to conciliate their good
feelings and friendship toward the whites, just at the time they were
meeting each other, it is to be doubted whether there had not been
some serious difficulties. Individuals on both sides have been mutually
provoked and exasperated during the passage of each immigration, and
these cases are constantly multiplying. Much prudence is required on
the part of the whites, and, unfortunately, they have very little by the[Pg 416]
time they reach the Columbia Valley. Some of the late immigrants,
losing their horses, and very naturally supposing them stolen by the
Indians, went to the bands of horses owned by the Indians and took as
many as they wished.


You are too well acquainted with Indians to suppose that such a
course can be persisted in without producing serious results. I am
aware that this is looking at the dark side; but sir, perhaps it is wisdom
to look at that side when it is more than half turned toward us,
if, by looking, we can find some way to turn it back again. I look to
Ellis, and the speedy action of the general government of the United
States, as the brightest features in the prospect now before us. Your
knowledge of my situation and circumstances render any apology
unnecessary for this imperfect scroll.



I remain, your humble servant,

H. A. G. Lee.


Dr. E. White,

Sub-Agent Indian affairs, W. R. M.






Oregon Territory, July 8, 1845.


To the Hon. the Secretary of the War Department:



Dear Sir,—I beg leave, most respectfully, to submit a few thoughts
for your consideration, relative to the course pursued by Dr. E. White,
our late Indian sub-agent, now on the eve of leaving us. I would not
venture to intrude upon your time, but for the reason that I am aware
that Dr. White leaves with an anxious and laboring mind, in view of
the state of his finances, fearing, perhaps, a proper consideration might
not be given to the situation and circumstances in which he has been
placed in this isolated portion of our wide domain. I consider it but
justice to Dr. White, to say, having crossed the mountains with him,
that he exerted himself, and did much toward raising the first party
that were of a sufficient number to travel independent of the trading
companies to the mountains; thereby opening the way, and making
the first track to Oregon; and since his arrival, by his promptness,
decision, and firmness, we have been saved from the baneful influence
and degradation of ardent spirits here, in our infant colony; and by
his kind, conciliatory measures, active charity, and judicious conduct
among the Indians, he has done much for them, and probably, in
several instances, fended off the arrow of savage warfare.


The indefatigable perseverance, expense, and time Dr. White has
been at in ferreting out a road across the Cascade Mountains,[11] which
[Pg 417]will intersect the old wagon road in the vicinity of Fort Hall, cutting
off some two or three hundred miles of the worst portion of the road,
entirely avoiding the Columbia River, and the dangers incident to these
waters, by an inexperienced, worn-out, and fatigued immigration. By
this new route, the immigrants will find themselves greatly relieved, and
saved from immense trouble, as they will as readily reach the head
of the Wallamet settlement, as they would, by the old, reach Wallamet;
avoiding the difficulties and dangers of the Snake and Columbia rivers.


[11] The Cascade ridge of mountains was found to be high and difficult to pass; and it
is doubtful with me if the immigrants succeeded in crossing over with their wagons and
effects, into the valley of the Wallamet.


In conclusion, allow me to observe that the sacrifice one is obliged
to make in funds of this country, to render them specie, or available
drafts, is immense; and it is almost impossible to do it at all, to any
amount. Consequently, the doctor finds himself very much embarrassed
in his financial concerns, being obliged to draft on his government
for his entire expenditures in his official capacity.
Be pleased to accept, etc., my dear sir,



While I remain yours,

With due regard and great respect,

A. Lawrence Lovejoy.






Oregon, August 14, 1845.



The following resolution was introduced and adopted in the House
of Representatives of Oregon Territory, this day:—


Resolved, That this House recommend to the favorable consideration
of the government of the United States, the just claims of Dr. Elijah
White, sub-Indian agent, to remuneration for the heavy expense by
him incurred, in attempting to discover a southern pass through the
Cascade Mountains.



M. M. McCarver, Speaker.


Attest: J. E. Long, Clerk.






Washington City, Dec. 9, 1845.


Hon. W. Medill:



Dear Sir,—Allow me to say a word in behalf of my friend, Dr.
Elijah White, Indian agent in Oregon, who desires to arrange at the
department the accounts of his four years’ service in that Territory. Dr.
White, with whom I passed the winter of 1844 upon the Wallamet, has
had unnumbered difficulties surrounding him, and has performed his
duties with great delicacy and happy success. My conviction is, that
he has performed services in Oregon, both to whites and Indians, equal
to those of several agencies combined, on our western frontier, at a very[Pg 418]
inadequate compensation, and with very stinted means. All whom I
heard comment upon the administration of his office have accorded to
him great praise for ardor and industry; and those among whom he has
officially acted will be gratified to hear that he has met a generous
reception at the department.



Yours, with great respect,

William Gilpin.









}





War Department,
Office of Indian Affairs,
 Jan. 5, 1846.



Sir,—The Secretary of War is desirous that you should return to
your agency as early as practicable, and has authorized me to say that
the Department will allow to you the sum of three hundred dollars
($300) to defray your expenses there.


Instructions in relation to your duties will be given you when you
reach this city, or will be forwarded to you at such place as you may
designate. An immediate reply will be expected.



Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

W. Medill.


Dr. Elijah White, Lansingville, Tompkins Co., N. Y.





Since the above requirement I have been detained here waiting the
action of Congress upon the following bill, to release me from the
responsibilities of my government protested drafts, which, from the rapid
influx of white population to that distant Indian country, the necessities
of my position have compelled me to incur.


I am now out of employment, and on heavy expenses, and under obligation,
from important engagements, to leave for Oregon soon, in order
to reach my destination this fall.


Should the following report of the Senate committee prove satisfactory,
and all be persuaded that I have acted correctly, and expended no
more than the honor of our government and the necessities of my position
required, I will feel greatly obliged if Congress, “now so much relieved
from heavy national and public affairs,” will take up my bill and pass
it through informally, as these protested drafts crowd and embarrass me
much.


The Indian Department have reconsidered the case, and, as the report
of the committee will show, done for me what they felt authorized to
do; and I now most respectfully pray your honorable consideration to
the payment of the residue, that I may go back to the land of my adoption
unembarrassed, and happy in the consideration that our Congress[Pg 419]
will do right. And that any small presents, and other reasonable
expenses to conciliate Indians where our citizens are settling on their
unbought lands, will be cheerfully met.


Should any member desire an explanation, please drop me a note, and
I will call at the moment required. Only pray act, and let me be off;
for I thirst to be on the prairies of the far west, making my way to the
valley of the Wallamet.


The documents from the Legislature of Oregon arrived and defeated
the doctor.


The following extract is from the report of the Senate Committee on
Indian Affairs on the petition of Dr. White:—


“Your committee finds this first charge to be the amount actually and
necessarily expended by the petitioner, and believes it to be moderate
and equitable, and that it ought to be allowed.


“The second charge appears equally just, and to have been made in
compliance with the instructions of T. Hartley Crawford, superintendent
of Indian affairs, of February 9, 1842, and enforced by the resolution
of the Oregon Legislature, expressing the hope that Congress will reimburse
the expenses of the petitioner thereby incurred.


“The third charge is for moneys actually paid under the specified
heads by the petitioner, and for which drafts are now under protest,
being disallowed by the department. These accounts, your committee
finds, have been suspended by the department under a decision made
to restrict the petitioner to the amount allowed by law to sub-agents,
viz., $1,250 per annum in all. Your committee believes that these
amounts are equitably and justly asked, and should be granted by Congress,
although the committee approves of the decision of the department,
and thinks, in cases like the present, that such extra allowances
should be made only by Congress.


“Your committee has had a variety of testimony before it, showing
that the affairs of his position have compelled the petitioner to
transact and regulate Indian relations among ten large tribes, and many
more smaller ones, speaking different languages, and for the most part
warlike, excitable, and suspicious people. The Indian population, among
whom he has been the only official organ, amounts to twenty-five
thousand souls. The petitioner has been left to support himself by
his solitary energies and exertions, without the aid of troops, annuities,
or the awe which the power of the government exercises over
Indians to whom it is known. The prices of all articles (especially
provisions), and the wages of interpreters and assistants, and the means[Pg 420]
of traveling and transportation are very high, and difficult to be procured.


“Your committee believes that the petitioner would be left without
any compensation for four years of arduous, harassing, and vexatious
services, unless the relief for which he prays be extended to him by
Congress.


“The committee, therefore, reports the accompanying bill, and recommends
its passage, as sanctioned by the equity and justice of the
case, and according with the uniform policy and practice of the Congress
of the United States in similar cases.”


We wish to state that the reason for quoting Dr. White’s report so
extensively is from the facts embodied in it, wholly independent of his
self-lauding statement. Did we not know that Mr. Cornelius Rogers
and Mr. H. A. G. Lee were his advisers and interpreters, we would not
quote him as at all reliable in any of his Indian councils or proceedings.




[Pg 421]


CHAPTER LI.


1845.—Public meetings to elect delegates to convention.—Candidates for governor.—Members
elected to the Legislative Committee.—Oath of office.—Mr. Applegate’s
announcement.—Dr. McLaughlin’s amphibiousness.—Description of the members
of the Legislative Committee.—Business of the session.—Ermatinger’s election contested.—Mr.
Garrison’s resolutions.—Anti-slavery resolution.—Organic law revised.—Improvements
and condition of the country.


1845.—Public meetings had been held in most of the districts, and
nominations made for the Legislative Committee. Delegates were
elected to meet at Champoeg in convention, to nominate candidates for
governor, supreme judge, and Territorial recorder.


In this convention A. L. Lovejoy, George Abernethy, O. Russell, and
Dr. Bailey were candidates for governor. After several ballotings,
Mr. Lovejoy received a majority of the votes, and was declared the
regularly nominated candidate. Mr. Russell’s friends were dissatisfied,
and in the final vote at the June election, joined with Mr. Abernethy’s
friends and elected him, although he was absent from the country. This
left the old Executive Committee in power until after the meeting of
the Legislative Committee, and revision of the organic laws, which was
the first business the committee attended to, and submitted the amended
organic compact to the people for their approval.


The members elected were:—


From Clackamas County: H. A. G. Lee, W. H. Gray, H. Straight.


From Champoeg County: R. Newell, J. M. Garrison, M. G. Foisy,
and B. Lee.


From Yamhill County: Jesse Applegate and A. Hendricks.


From Tualatin County: M. M. McCarver, J. W. Smith, and David
Hill.


From Clatsop County: John McClure.


The oath administered to this Legislative Committee shows the feelings
of the mover (Mr. Applegate) toward the Hudson’s Bay Company.


Oath of Office.—“I do solemnly swear that I will support the
organic laws of the provisional government of Oregon, so far as the said
organic laws are consistent with my duties as a citizen of the United
States, or a subject of Great Britain, and faithfully demean myself in
office. So help me God.”


In starting from Missouri to come to this country in 1843, Mr. Apple[Pg 422]gate
announced to his traveling companions, as we have been credibly
informed, that he meant to drive the Hudson’s Bay Company from the
country. To reach the country independent of them, he had sold or
mortgaged his cattle to get supplies at Wallawalla. On arriving at
Vancouver, he found Dr. McLaughlin to be much of a gentleman, and
disposed to aid him in every way he could. The doctor advised him
to keep his cattle and gave him employment as a surveyor, and credit
for all he required. This kind treatment closed Mr. Applegate’s open
statements of opposition to the company, and secured his friendship
and his influence to keep his Missouri friends from doing violence to
them. He carried this kind feeling for them into the Legislative Committee.


At this point the amphibious disposition of Dr. McLaughlin (a term
applied to the doctor, by a member of the company, for his supposed
friendship to the American cause) began to develop itself; and in proportion
as he favored American interests he fell in the estimation of the
company and the English government.


The oath of office presented by Mr. Applegate, and supported by
Messrs. Newell, Foisy, McCarver, Garrison, Smith, and Hendricks,
shows that these men were favorable to a union with the company or
the English party in the country. This would have been right and
honorable, had there been a corresponding honorable confidence on
their part; but, as the sequel will show, this was not the case. They
were willing to favor our organization and give it a quasi support while
it served their purposes and afforded them an opportunity to work
for its final overthrow.


As a citizen, Mr. Applegate has been one of our best; as a politician,
he has acted on the old Whig platform, that, with him, has never been
revised. Though half the American continent has been changed since
he adopted it, yet his political creed is the same as that announced by
Hamilton in the Federalist. My first impression of him was, that he
was better versed in the principles of that party than in those of religion,
or the general interests of a new country. The fact that the Hudson’s
Bay Company, or rather Dr. McLaughlin, early secured his personal
friendship, was the cause of his losing caste among his Missouri
friends, and also among the larger portion of the settlers that the company
were not disposed to favor. In his legislative capacity he was
invaluable. His mind was clear and distinct, and he was generally correct
in his conclusions. Though not a good debater, yet his mathematical
calculations, and straight lines, always came close to the mark. He
was kind and obliging to a friend or favorite, but severe on his enemies.


Mr. Abijah Hendricks, from the same county, was a plain farmer,[Pg 423]
who followed the lead of Mr. Applegate, causing him to always count
two in any vote.


Mr. J. H. Smith, of Tualatin County, was also a plain farmer, and generally
voted with Mr. Hill.


Mr. M. G. Foisy, from Champoeg, a Frenchman, followed the lead of
Mr. Newell.


Mr. Barton Lee was of the independent Democratic pro-slavery
school, generally voting against mission interests, from personal prejudice,
and was equally ignorant of and prejudiced against the Hudson’s
Bay Company; following the lead of H. A. G. Lee.


J. M. Garrison was a perfect weathercock, and none could tell from
his speeches or actions what his vote would be.


H. Straight, of Clackamas County, was a man of strong prejudices
and but little legislative ability, pro-slavery in sentiment, and strongly
opposed to the company and mission influences. He generally voted
with Mr. Hill, of Tualatin District.


John McClure, of Clatsop County, a man of fine appearance and generally
respected for his age, but, as a politician, having no influence—merely
occupying a place. He was of the pro-slavery school—extremely
bitter and sarcastic in his conversation against all who fell under his
displeasure, yet liberal to personal friends, and kind to strangers; but
severe alike on the Hudson’s Bay Company and religious societies.
He was inclined in his own religious ideas to Romanism.


H. A. G. Lee was a young man of talent, firmness, and unimpeachable
character. He acted with caution, and generally right. He was not a
verbose, but a conclusive debater. In short, the words of a debate were
uttered by McCarver, and the conclusions and final action followed Lee,
who was always ready, with Applegate and Gray, to do his full share
of writing and labor.


As we have before stated, the first business of this Legislative Committee
was, to revise and prepare an organic law, which could be submitted
for the adoption of the people. The whole number of voters
was about eight hundred.


While this was being done by a special committee consisting of H.
A. G. Lee, Newell, Applegate, Smith, and McClure,—one from each
county represented,—another special committee, consisting of Gray, Applegate,
H. A. G. Lee, McClure, and D. Hill, were appointed to draft a
memorial and petition, to be forwarded to the Congress of the United
States, setting forth the condition, situation, relations, and wants of
this country. These two objects occupied the greater portion of the
time of this Legislative Committee, during their session of eleven
days.[Pg 424]


On the third day of the session, the question as to the legality of
allowing Francis Ermatinger to hold the office of treasurer came up,
and it was finally decided that there were not sufficient grounds for
contesting the election. Ermatinger was then a member of the Hudson’s
Bay Company, and so was Dr. McLaughlin. Hill and Straight
were the only two who voted against Ermatinger’s holding that office.
I have no doubt, from the feeling and influence just then operating
among the officers and servants of the company and English colonists
(which subsequent events have proved), that they were laboring to
divide the American influence, by coming in and appearing to act with
us. Ermatinger was popular among the Americans, and received the
entire French vote, and was declared duly elected by the Legislative
Committee.


On the fifth day of the session, J. M. Garrison (I think he was called
Rev. in those days) brought in a set of resolutions which speak for
themselves.


“On motion of Mr. Garrison—


“Resolved, That whereas the people of Oregon, assembled en masse,
did, on the 2d day of May, 1843, resolve that no tax should be levied
upon this people, confirming the same by the adoption of the report of
the committee of ways and means, adopted by the Legislative Committee
and referred to the people en masse, and by them enacted on the
5th day of July, 1843; therefore,


“Resolved, That this house has no right to levy a tax of any kind,
without the consent of the free voters of this Territory previously
obtained.


“Resolved, That all acts and parts of acts on that subject passed by
the Legislative Committee were contrary to the express resolution and
action of the people.”


These resolutions were referred to committee of the whole, where
they found a silent grave.


Dr. White by this time is coming up for a big splurge. Our young
friend H. A. G. Lee proposes to make him the bearer of our memorial
to Congress, by introducing a resolution, “That the clerk be required
to furnish to Dr. E. White a copy of the memorial to Congress, as soon
as it shall be properly signed, as per resolution of yesterday.”


This resolution elicited a little discussion, and a statement that Dr.
White was not to be trusted with any public document to the government,
as he would more than probably change, or so arrange those
documents as to secure his own personal ends, whatever they might be.
By those unacquainted with Dr. White this was considered strange
and unreasonable prejudice against him; so that on the final question[Pg 425]
there were but Gray, Hill, and Straight who voted against placing the
documents in his hands.


On the last day of this session Mr. Applegate introduced a test question
on the subject of slavery, precisely the same as that introduced by
Garrison four days previous.


“Resolved, That this government can recognize the right of one person
to the services of another only upon bona-fide contract made and
entered into, and equally binding on both parties.”


Yeas—Applegate, Gray, Smith, McCarver, Garrison, Hill, H. A. G.
Lee, Hendricks, and Foisy—10.


Nays—Straight, B. Lee, and McClure—3.


We must now adjourn our Legislative Committee a few days, and
see what is going on outside.


The organic laws of the people first adopted at Champoeg, July 5,
1843, had been revised, and unanimously adopted by the Legislative
Committee, and submitted for the vote of the people, July 26, 1845.


On page 431 of Mr. Hines’ book, he says: “In the spring of 1844 a new
Legislative Committee was elected, which embraced two or three lawyers,
who arrived in the country the previous fall. This committee
passed a vote recommending several important alterations in the organic
laws, which were found to be, in their practical operations, somewhat
defective. As the people had not yet surrendered their law-making
power into the hands of the Legislative Committee, it was necessary to
call an election to ascertain the will of the people in relation to the proposed
alterations and amendments. This election took place, and
resulted in the adoption of the organic laws, with the proposed alterations
and amendments, by an overwhelming majority. The principal
alterations thus effected relate to the three powers of government,—the
legislative, executive, and judicial. Instead of a committee of nine,
whose acts were to be confirmed or rejected by a subsequent vote of
the people, the legislative power was vested in a House of Representatives,
to consist of not less than thirteen nor more than sixty-one members,
possessing all the powers usual to such bodies. Instead of a
committee of three, the executive power was vested in one person, to be
elected by the qualified voters at the annual election, and possessing
the powers common to the governors of the different States.”


We are unable to understand Mr. Hines when he says, “As the people
had not yet surrendered their law-making power into the hands of the
Legislative Committee, it was necessary to call an election to ascertain
the will of the people.” This statement shows the ignorance of Mr.
Hines as regards the organic laws adopted by the people of Champoeg.
Mr. Saxton, who was in the country at the time, and took copies of[Pg 426]
those laws attested by Mr. Le Breton (which have already been given),
found an organic law with an executive, legislative, and judicial department,
the same as the committee of 1845, and all that was requisite was
to revise, select out, and define the powers and duties of the several
departments.


As a matter of policy, and to harmonize and consolidate, as much as
was possible, all the conflicting interests and influences in the country,
the presence of British subjects was admitted, their treaty rights were
acknowledged by our laws, and they were admitted to a voice and representation
in the provisional government.


The liberal course pursued by the Legislature of 1845 has fixed the
deep stain of ingratitude and infamy upon the British subjects who
participated in our organization, and received its benefits and protection,
till they had completed their arrangements for its destruction,
just as slavery grew under the fostering care of a liberal and generous
government, and then attempted to crush and destroy its protector.


From a review of Mr. Hines’ book, I find that he was on a tour from
Oregon to New York by way of China, during 1845 and 1846. This
will account for his want of information regarding the political events
that were taking place during that time; and also shows the views
he entertained on leaving the country.


Dr. McLaughlin had completed his saw-mill and flour-mill at Oregon
City. The Milling Company had also put up mills at that place which
were now in successful operation, and the country generally was in a
prosperous condition.


Dr. Whitman had much annoyance and difficulty with the Indians
on account of interference and tales told them by old Toupin, Doreo,
Gervais, the priests, and others who were jealous of his labors and
success among them.


He had purchased the Dalles station of the Methodist Mission, and
engaged Mr. Hinman to occupy it until other arrangements could be
made.


Mr. Spalding was engaged in improving his farm, also printing books
in the Nez Percé language on his small press, and translating and
printing portions of the Bible, for the use of the natives. He had a saw-mill
and grist-mill at his station; and about three hundred of his Indians,
and one hundred at Dr. Whitman’s, were cultivating patches of
ground.


Messrs. Walker and Eells were staying at Cimakain, ready to depart
any time, as stated by Mr. Brouillet. On page 9 of his narrative, he
says: “A missionary of the Spokans, writing to Dr. Whitman, as
early as 1839, has said: ‘The failure of this mission is so strongly[Pg 427]
impressed upon my mind, that I feel it necessary to have cane in hand,
and as much as one shoe on, ready for a move. I see nothing but the
power of God that can save us.’” Query.—Where did Rev. Vicar-General
Brouillet get this letter, and for what purpose did he preserve
it? Did he find it among Dr. Whitman’s papers, when he was hunting
them over to find the vial of poison to show the Indians as per deposition
in the case?


Brouillet continues: “These facts and statements prove clearly, I
think, that there existed among the Indians, long before the arrival of
the bishop of Wallawalla and his clergy, strong causes of dissatisfaction
against the Protestant missionaries and the Americans in general,
and that they formed a leaven that had been fermenting several years.”
This statement of Vicar-General Brouillet is unquestionably true, but,
unfortunately for him, he is standing on the outer line of the circle,
and has no personal knowledge of inside influences; hence he reasons
from effect and guesses at the cause. He is anxious to so arrange
cause and effect, as to remove suspicion of crime from a sect, and
thereby involves his friends and himself, and furnishes the strongest
proof of the complicity and guilt of both in the crime alleged against
them. The “leaven” that had been fermenting is just what we are
bringing to light.


The Hudson’s Bay Company were repairing and strengthening their
forts, under the plea that they wished some bastions from which they
could salute her Majesty’s ships on their arrival and departure from
the river; at the same time they were laboring to secure political
influence in the settlements, through their American dupes and tools.


While combining the Indian tribes, they were encouraging Jesuitical
religious teachers among them; and while preparing for self-defense,
they were dividing the settlement into parties and factions.


The Methodist Mission influence was but little, and mission credit
was worse than greenbacks in 1864. As to commerce, it was nearly or
quite under the control of the Hudson’s Bay Company, also the market
value of all produce in the country.




[Pg 428]


CHAPTER LII.


1845.—Second session of the Legislative Committee.—Mr. McCarver removed from the
office of Speaker.—Mr. Applegate’s resolutions.—Protest of Gray, Foisy, and
Straight.—A legislative incident.—Law against dueling.—Dr. White addresses the
Legislature.—Resolutions.—Dr. White denies the right of the settlers to organize
a provisional government.—McCarver signs documents without authority.—Resolutions
by the house on the subject.—Impertinent letter from Dr. White to the
house.—White cornered by President Polk.—Incidents in White’s temperance
movements.—Proposition to repeal all laws for the collection of debts.—The Currency
act.—Adjournment of the Legislature in August.—Meets again in December.—Proposal
to locate the capital.


The Legislative Committee, at their second session, August 5, 1845,
met under the revised and amended organic law, which had been
previously adopted by the people by a majority of two hundred and
three. There were between two and three hundred votes against the
revision or amendments. Many voted against it, on account of its
allowing the Hudson’s Bay Company’s English and French followers
an equal voice with the Americans and others, and on account of its
allowing the Legislature the power to regulate the introduction, manufacture,
and sale of liquors.


McCarver claimed that he was Speaker of the house, under the
organic law as revised. This caused some discussion and voting and
the introduction of a resolution requesting him to resign his position as
Speaker, which he declined to do. Gray moved that the vote electing
him Speaker of the house be reconsidered. McCarver then proceeded
to organize the house, to suit his views of matters, by appointing new
committees, and went forward as if no previous committees had been
appointed. When his appointments were all made, Gray inquired if,
in the opinion of Mr. Speaker McCarver, the house was properly
organized. He replied that it was. Gray then appealed to the house,
and was sustained, McCarver having denied his own position by
appointing new committees. On motion of Mr. Straight, Mr. McCarver
was removed from his office as Speaker, and Robert Newell elected
pro tem.


Applegate, for reasons never fully explained, introduced two resolutions,
which show either a short-sighted view of matters, or a foolish
policy on his part, to wit:[Pg 429]—


“Resolved, That the people of Oregon are not, in the opinion of this
house, morally or legally bound by any acts of the officers or agents
of the people not expressly authorized or sanctioned by the instrument
in virtue of which they had their official existence.


“Resolved, further, That this house can not assume, in behalf of
the people, the payment of any debt, or the refunding of any funds
borrowed, or otherwise unlawfully contracted or obtained, without first
obtaining the consent of the people.”


On motion, the vote referring said resolution to committee of the
whole was reconsidered, when the rules were suspended, the resolution
read a second time, and referred to committee of the whole.


On the fifth day of the session, the resolutions of Mr. Applegate
were called up, and Messrs. Applegate, Garrison, Hendricks, Hill, H.
Lee, B. Lee, McClure, and Smith voted for, and Foisy, Gray, Straight,
and McCarver against. Newell asked to be excused. These resolutions
had the effect, designed or not, to destroy the credit of the provisional
government.


On the sixth day of the session, Gray, Foisy, and Straight presented,
and, on motion, were allowed to enter, their protest against their adoption,
as follows:—


“Whereas, A resolution, with a preamble, containing a direct and
positive censure upon the proceedings of the Oregon government, was
introduced into this house by Jesse Applegate, asserting that this
house, and the people of Oregon, are not morally or legally bound for
any act of said government, to the payment of any debts contracted,
or unlawfully borrowed, except they had previously obtained the consent
of the people.


“And whereas, From the wording of said resolution, two constructions
may be placed upon it; the one amounting to a repudiation of all
debts heretofore contracted, or money borrowed; the other implying
a want of confidence in the agents and officers of this government;
therefore,


“We, the undersigned, decidedly and solemnly protest against the
adoption of any such resolutions or expressions by this house, as they
not only do no good, but tend to great evil, in destroying the confidence
of the people in the agents and officers of this government,
without sufficient cause.




“W. H. Gray.

“M. G. Foisy.

“H. Straight.


“Oregon City, Aug. 7, 1845.”



The effect of these resolutions was at once manifest. Measures were
taken to procure the launch of the Peacock (which had been left in[Pg 430]
the care of Dr. McLaughlin by Captain Wilkes), for a pilot-boat at
the mouth of the Columbia. The doctor informed the committee
that he was not authorized to give it in charge of any irresponsible
parties, without an order from as high authority as that from which
he had received it. Hence the launch was allowed to rot upon the
beach at Astoria; Mr. McClure, from that place, being one who
voted to repudiate responsibility on the part of the provisional government.


On the 11th of August, in the midst of business under the order of
the day, Mr. Applegate came in, apparently under considerable excitement,
and in quite an earnest manner asked that the rule be suspended,
to allow him to present a bill to prevent dueling. No immediate
or pressing reason was assigned, but from the earnest manner of Mr.
Applegate, and from what a number of the members knew, or pretended
to know, the rule was suspended, Mr. Applegate’s bill to prevent dueling
read first time; rule further suspended, his bill read by title second and
third time and passed, and on his further motion, a special messenger,
P. G. Stewart, Esq., was sent with it to the governor, for his approval
and signature; and in half an hour’s time from its introduction and
reading in the house it became a law in this vast country, bounded by
the Russian possessions on the north, the Rocky Mountains on the east,
California on the south, and the Pacific on the west.


Not long after this telegraphic law on dueling was passed, it was discovered
that a young man by the name of Holderness had considered
himself insulted and slandered by some report said to have originated
with Dr. White. Holderness was about to send him a challenge, or at
least there was a prospect that they might fight, if either of them had
the courage to do so. This law gave the doctor an honorable excuse
to decline the challenge, and have Holderness indicted and punished
for sending it. This matter was engineered through so handsomely
by Mr. Applegate, that Dr. White expressed himself highly gratified
and pleased.


On the next day, the 12th, Mr. Applegate was honored with an important
dispatch from Dr. White, which he presented in due form,
together with a resolution of thanks to Dr. White, and an order was
entered on the journal to have the doctor’s communication filed for
publication. This was not exactly what the doctor wanted, as the
sequel will show. He had found that Applegate had the talent and
influence requisite to carry through the resolutions necessary to accomplish
his purposes.


He, having spent a part of the summer in running about the Wallamet
Valley, made a trip over to the coast, and one into the Cascade[Pg 431]
Mountains; wrote a journal of these trips, and presented it to the
house through Mr. Applegate. After White’s journal was read,
Applegate presented a resolution, that the thanks of this house are due
to Dr. E. White and his party for their meritorious exertions to find
a passage through the Cascade Mountains, and that his account be
filed for publication. On motion, White was allowed to address the
house, which he did in his usual self-lauding, plausible manner, insinuating
the great labor and benefit he had done, in keeping the Indians
quiet and in exploring the country. His chaff and bombast secured
the co-operation of Robert Newell and Mr. Applegate. On the 14th,
Mr. Applegate informed the house that he had in his possession several
official documents, belonging to Dr. E. White, which he was requested
to lay before the house. The report and documents were received.


On motion of Mr. Applegate—


“Resolved, That, whereas the adoption of the amended organic law
by the people of Oregon was an act of necessity rather than choice,
and was intended to give to the people the protection which, of right,
should be extended to them by their government, and not as an act
of defiance or disregard of the authority or laws of the United States;
therefore,


“It is further resolved, 1st. That, in the opinion of this house, the
Congress of the United States, in establishing a Territorial government,
should legalize the acts of the people in this country, so far as they are
in accordance with the Constitution of the United States. 2d. That
Dr. Elijah White, sub-Indian agent of Oregon, be requested to furnish
a copy of the amended organic law to the Congress of the United States.
3d. That these resolutions be indorsed on said copy, with the vote of
this house adopting the same.”


On the adoption of the above, the vote was unanimous, which vote
was taken by yeas and nays; and, on motion, the house decided that
the members should not sign their names to said resolutions.


It will be seen by the statement of Applegate in the first part of this
resolution, or preamble, that he wished to deny an attempt to resist the
government of the United States on the part of the people and provisional
government; and the fact that Dr. White had allowed him to
examine his official papers, and present them to the Legislative Committee,
shows the manner he was working with Applegate to get documents,
resolutions, and papers from the Legislature into his hands; also
the desperate effort there was made to get a unanimous vote favoring
White as the bearer of those documents.


Dr. White had from the first denied the right of the settlers to organize
a provisional government unless they would elect him as their gov[Pg 432]ernor.
Applegate is caught in his trap, as we shall see, and from that
day he began to lose his influence, and soon found that he had committed
an egregious mistake, notwithstanding he had obtained a unanimous
vote, to place those documents in Dr. White’s hands. In order
to head off McCarver, the house had voted that the members should not
sign their names to the resolutions. McCarver could not withstand the
temptation to get his name as Speaker of the Oregon Legislature before
the Congress of the United States; so, as soon as the documents came
into White’s hands, he went to the clerk and attached his name as
Speaker of the house. Newell was not quite satisfied, or rather Dr.
White was not; so he got Newell to present a resolution, as follows:—


“Resolved, That this house recommend to the favorable consideration
of the Congress of the United States the just claims of Dr. E.
White, sub-Indian agent, for a remuneration for the heavy expenses by
him incurred, in attempting to discover a southern passage through the
Cascade Mountains.”


In the afternoon session the resolution of Mr. Newell was called up,
and, on its final passage, the yeas and nays were demanded, and were
as follows:—


Yeas—Messrs. Applegate, Foisy, Hendricks, H. Lee, McClure,
Newell, Straight, and the Speaker—8.


Nays—Messrs. Gray, Garrison, Hill, B. Lee, and Smith—5.


So the resolution was passed.


Dr. White waited for the passage of this resolution (keeping quiet
as to McCarver’s signing the others in violation of the order of the
house), and as soon as it was safely in his pocket, left for Vancouver,
on his way to the States.


White had no sooner gone, than it leaked out that McCarver had
signed the documents, and White had broken the seals, and destroyed
private letters intrusted to him to convey to the States, and had made
Garrison his confidant respecting breaking open and destroying the
letters. Here was a muss on hand such as none but White and McCarver
could “kick up.” Applegate was too much excited and insulted
by these men to say any thing; but he presented through B. Lee a
resolution as follows:—


“Resolved, That M. M. McCarver has been opposed to the organic
law, as adopted by the people of Oregon; and, contrary to the voice of
this house in regular session, clandestinely, and in a manner unworthy
the confidence reposed in him, placed his name to a copy of those laws
transmitted to the United States, thereby conveying a false impression;
and did, also, sign his name to two resolutions, contrary to a direct
vote of this house; therefore,


[Pg 433]


“It is further resolved, That we disapprove of the course he has
pursued, and feel ourselves under the humiliating necessity of signifying
the same to the United States government, by causing a copy of
this resolution to accompany those documents.”


Which was received, and referred to committee of the whole.


In the afternoon, Dr. J. E. Long, clerk of the house, A. L. Lovejoy,
Smith, and Hill were called before the house, and put on oath, to state
what they knew of the matter. Mr. Applegate was chairman. The
committee rose and reported that they had been engaged in investigating
the subject referred to in Mr. B. Lee’s resolution, but had not
adopted the resolution. McCarver had been allowed to explain his
course.


On motion of Mr. Applegate—


“Resolved, That, whereas a copy of the organic laws of Oregon,
together with some resolutions, intended to be sent to the United States,
have not been attested and dispatched according to the directions of
this house; therefore,


“Resolved, That the clerk dispatch for them a messenger, to Vancouver,
with authority to bring said documents back, and that he deliver
them to the secretary, and that the expenses incurred be paid by the
members of this house who voted for the resolution.”


On the adoption of which the yeas and nays were called, and were as
follows:—


Yeas—Messrs. Applegate, Gray, B. Lee, McClure, and Newell—5.


Nays—Messrs. Hill, Smith, and Straight—3.


So the resolution was adopted. Messrs. Foisy, Garrison, Hendricks,
and the Speaker were excused from voting.


On motion, the house went into committee of the whole, Mr. Applegate
in the chair.


The committee rose, and reported, that the resolution of B. Lee having
been under consideration, was laid upon the table.


It is but justice to state that the clerk of the house, J. E. Long,
favored Dr. White’s and Mr. McCarver’s course, and allowed McCarver
to sign the documents he well knew the house did not wish him to sign.
A majority of the house were inclined to believe that White had been
slandered; and had McCarver allowed the documents to go as per vote,
White’s designs, as stated by his opponents, would not have been
revealed; so the messenger was sent for the documents on account
of McCarver’s course.


August 16, 1845.—The House met pursuant to adjournment.


The rules were suspended to allow the introduction of resolutions,
when, on motion of Mr. McClure, it was


[Pg 434]


“Resolved, That, whereas the Speaker of this house has signed certain
documents, ordered to be sent to the United States by a vote of
this Legislature, from a mistaken sense of duty, and not from contumacy
or contempt for this house; therefore,


“Resolved, That M. M. McCarver, said Speaker, have leave of absence,
for the purpose of following Dr. E. White to Vancouver; and
this house enjoins that said Speaker erase his name from said documents,
to wit, the organic laws, and two resolutions in favor of Dr.
E. White.”


On motion of Mr. Applegate, it was


“Resolved, That it was not the intention of this house, in passing
resolutions in favor of Dr. E. White, to recommend him to the government
of the United States as a suitable person to fill any office in this
Territory; and,


“Be it further resolved, That the clerk of this house forward, by
some suitable person, an attested copy of this resolution, to the United
States government.”


The house appointed J. M. Garrison, Speaker, pro tem.


McCarver, being thus plainly invited, left the house, and found that
the clerk’s messenger had already gone for the documents. He returned
in the afternoon and induced Mr. Smith, from Tualatin, to present the
following resolution:—


“Resolved, That the vote requiring the Speaker to go in quest of Dr.
E. White, for the purpose of erasing his name from certain documents
in his possession to be by him conveyed to the United States, be reconsidered,
and the Speaker restored to the chair.”


On the 18th of August, the arrival of a letter from Dr. E. White was
announced, which was read, as follows:—





August 17, 1845.


To the Hon., etc.:



Gentlemen,—Being on my way, and having but a moment to reflect,
I have been at much of a loss which of your two resolutions most to
respect, or which to obey; but at length have become satisfied that the
first was taken most soberly, and, as it answers my purpose best, I
pledge myself to adhere strictly to that. Sincerely wishing you good
luck in legislating,



I am, dear sirs, very respectfully yours,

E. White.



On the 20th, on motion of Mr. Applegate, it was


“Resolved, That the secretary be requested to forward to the United
States government, through the American consul at the Sandwich
Islands, a copy of the articles of compact, as adopted by the people of[Pg 435]
Oregon Territory, on the last Saturday of July, A. D. 1845; and that the
same be signed by the governor, and attested by the secretary; also, all
resolutions adopted by this house relative to sending said documents by
E. White, late Indian agent of this Territory; also, a copy of the letter
of E. White, directed to this house.”


These documents and papers, with depositions respecting White’s
opening and destroying private letters, were prepared, duly signed, and
sent on to the Sandwich Islands by Captain Couch, of the Lausanne,
and reached Washington just in time for President Polk to refuse
White an important commission in New Mexico. The President, on
receiving the documents and learning of White’s course, asked an explanation,
which he at first declined to give, on account of an attempt,
as he alleged, of some low blackguards in Oregon to slander him. The
legislative documents were referred to, when he found he was cornered,
and left the President’s house without his appointment.


Thus ended, for a time, the official course of a base and unprincipled
man, who seemed only to live and move for selfish ends. His influence
as a missionary, and as an officer of the government, were alike vile and
unprincipled. He sought friends and partisans only to deceive and betray
them. Applegate, McCarver, Garrison, Lee, McClure, and Newell were
compelled to acknowledge his deception. In fact, no one but the Hudson’s
Bay Company could make any use of him, and with them he was
considered an irresponsible man, and only useful as a tool to combine
the Indians, and divide and destroy the influence of the settlement, as
he had done that of the Methodist Mission.


The history of Dr. White, as connected with Pacific City and Spiritualism,
and his secret agency under President Lincoln’s administration,
are of small moment when compared with the moral blight he fixed on
the cause of missions and religion, in his early relations in Oregon. All
who have ever attempted to associate with him, or assist him, have been
made to feel his immoral influence. He made great professions of sustaining
the temperance cause, while acting as Indian agent, and still
allowed the Hudson’s Bay Company to do as they pleased with their
liquors, without a single word of complaint or remonstrance to the
American government, while he pursued a high-handed and injudicious
course toward the American citizen in his efforts to prevent the introduction
or manufacture of liquors in the country. In his zeal, he hoarded
a vessel of which Captain J. H. Couch was master, and asserted his right
to search and seize all the liquors he had on board. Captain Couch,
knowing his rights and duties better than the Indian agent did his,
ordered his men to get ready a couple of swivels he had on board, ranging
them fore and aft along the vessel. He then said to Mr. Indian[Pg 436]
Agent. “If you are able to take my ship, you can search and seize her,
and not otherwise.” The doctor found he was dealing with the wrong
person, and left, to visit Mrs. Cooper, who had recently arrived in the
country from Sydney, New South Wales, with a supply of liquors. He
succeeded in getting a dram from “Old Mother Cooper,” as she was
called, and inquired if she had any more like it. The old woman had
by this time a suspicion of his object, and informed him that, if she had,
he could have no more.


Soon after, he learned that Dick McCary had put up a teapot distillery
somewhere near his own house. He then got a party of men
and went down and destroyed the whole concern, except the kettle,
which answered for a bell, upon which he beat and drummed on his way
back to Oregon City, and then took an adz and stove a hole in it, thus
destroying it. If this had been done on the ground, no exceptions would
have been taken to it; but White’s proceedings disgusted the friends of
temperance so much, that a few days after, when Newell presented a
communication from him to the Legislature, with a bill to prevent the
sale of liquor, it was defeated—5 for and 8 against.


The governor, having confidence in the morality and honesty of the
people, suggested in his message the repeal of all laws for the collection
of debts. He seemed to be of the opinion, that as they had lived and
prospered under the mission and Hudson’s Bay Company’s rule without
any such laws, the same rule would apply to a more numerous and civilized
community. He was sustained in his opinion by Applegate, Hendricks,
H. Lee, B. Lee, and Newell—5; Foisy, Gray, Garrison, Hill,
McCarver, McClure, Straight, and Smith—8, were of a different opinion.


This vote seemed to annoy Applegate, as he had taken an active part
in shaping the governor’s suggestions into a bill to prevent litigation,
and he seemed to insist upon the experiment being tried in a more extensive
manner in the government of Oregon. It is due to this legislative
body and to the governor to state, that none of them had ever had
any experience in law-making until they found themselves in a country
where there were no laws, and where the representatives were without
law-books (with the single exception of a copy of the statutes of Iowa)
to guide them. They had to originate, revise, and do as the majority
thought best, in all the laws presented. That they were adapted to the
time and the people then in the country there can be no question. This
shows the innate love of law and order in the American people, as also
a disposition to abide by and sustain right principles, though not immediately
in the presence of prisons and punishment.


Had there been no foreign influences in the country, it would, perhaps,
have been safe to risk the governor’s suggestion, and Applegate’s[Pg 437]
experiment. I arrive at this conclusion from my experience in four
times crossing the continent, and in visiting the early mining regions
of California, British Columbia, and Oregon. In all American caravans
and mines, the company and miners make their own laws. In
British mines, the government makes the laws, and the revenue officers
enforce them. So with the Hudson’s Bay Company and Roman missions:
the committee in London, and the pope in Rome, give their
subjects certain laws by which to be governed; and whenever those
laws come in conflict with the more liberal American idea of government,
there is opposition; for the disposition to oppress and the desire
to be free can never harmonize. With the one is organized wealth and
superstition, backed by irons, flogging, and ignorance. With the other
is liberty and the love of right, sustained by intelligence, honesty, and
virtue. No one acquainted with the early history of the people of
Oregon can fail to admire their virtue and stability, and the firmness
they displayed in maintaining their natural rights. We have already
explained the secret influences that were combined to hold them in a
state of half-savage and half-religious or ecclesiastical vassalage, till
some action should be taken by the United States government.


This state of things did not accord with the feelings of a great majority
of the people. They had ruled their own individual actions too
long to submit quietly to any religious or political power, in which
they had no voice. Hence they were ready for any mutual organization,
that was of their own choice and creation.


They adopted a system of currency suitable to the time and country.
This system became necessary, from the known disposition of the Hudson’s
Bay Company to oppress and force payment, in what did not then
exist in sufficient quantity to meet the wants of the settlement; besides,
they held the commercial power; and here again protection was required.
The two petitions to the Congress of the United States of
1840 and 1842 state their policy as to internal matters. The first
section of this currency law is:—


“Be it enacted by the House of Representatives of Oregon Territory:
1st. That, in addition to gold and silver, treasury drafts, approved
orders on solvent merchants, and good merchantable wheat at the
market price, delivered at such place as it is customary for people to
receive their wheat at, shall be a lawful tender for the payment of
taxes and judgments rendered in the courts of Oregon Territory, and
for the payment of all debts contracted in Oregon Territory, where no
special contracts have been made to the contrary.


“2d. The personal estate of every individual, company, body politic
or corporate, including his, her, or their goods or chattels, also town or[Pg 438]
city property, or improvements claimed and owned in virtue of occupancy,
secured and allowed by the treaty between Great Britain and
the United States, shall be subject to execution, to be taken and
sold according to the provisions of this act; excepting, that wearing-apparel
shall not be considered as any part of the estate of any defendant
or defendants in execution; and no land claim or improvement
upon a land claim, held according to the laws of this Territory, shall
be subject to execution; and no stay upon execution shall be permitted
or allowed, except by the consent of the party in whose favor the execution
has been issued, nor for any time other than the time agreed
upon by the parties.


“3d. Specifies that personal property shall be sold previous to town
lots.


“4th. Exempts (if a family) one Bible, one cow and calf, one horse,
or yoke of cattle, five sheep, five hogs, household and kitchen furniture
not to exceed in value thirty dollars, one stove fixed up in the house,
one bed for every two in the family, farming utensils not to exceed in
value fifty dollars, one month’s provisions for all the family, all mechanics’
necessary tools, and all the books of private libraries not to exceed
one hundred dollars’ worth.”


Who says we were not willing to give a poor family a good show to
start with in Oregon in 1845?


“5th. Fifteen days’ notice of any sale was to be given.


“6th. No property was to be sold for less than two-thirds its appraised
value.”


On the second section of this act, there was a long and animated discussion,
Newell and Garrison claiming that we had no right to subject
the property of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the Methodist and
other missions, to our laws; McCarver and Hill, that we ought to
exempt town sites and lots from execution. On its final passage, the
vote was Applegate, Foisy, Gray, Hendricks, McClure, Smith, Straight,
and H. Lee—8, for; Garrison, Hill, B. Lee, Newell, and McCarver—5,
against.


This body adjourned sine die on the 20th of August, 1845, and in
consequence of there being no provision made for a new election in the
amended organic compact, they were again called to meet on Tuesday,
December 2, 1845, in accordance with the organic law, to arrange and
fill up any deficiencies in the offices and laws.


Applegate had resigned. There were present, Foisy, Garrison,
Newell, and Barton Lee from Champoeg; Gray and Straight from
Clackamas; Hill and McCarver from Tualatin; and McClure from
Clatsop.


[Pg 439]There were absent, from Yamhill, Hendricks; from Tualatin, J. M.
Smith; and from Clackamas, H. A. G. Lee.


Newell, of Champoeg, was elected on the final vote as Speaker; Dr.
J. E. Long, clerk.


Jefferson’s Manual, which had for the first time strayed across the
Rocky Mountains, was presented to the house, and used to govern its
proceedings, so far as it was applicable. I think it must have come
into the Multnomah Circulating Library, in part payment for a share in
that institution. Gray moved its adoption to govern the proceedings
of the house, which was considered organized by the election of Speaker,
clerk, and sergeant-at-arms.


On the second day all the members were present except Applegate.
The governor was called upon to issue his warrant to fill the vacancy,
which he did. I think, however, that no election was held, as no representative
appeared to claim the seat.


An effort was made to locate the seat of government, but failed, on
account of Dr. McLaughlin not having put in his bid in time to have
it considered by the house; and a remonstrance was got up by Ermatinger
and the Hudson’s Bay Company’s influence, with sixty names
attached, against locating it at all.


This was in accordance with the short-sighted policy of Dr. McLaughlin,
aided by the influence secured over the people by such men as
Ermatinger, Long, Newell, and McCarver, who had become a resident
of Clackamas, while he represented Tualatin County.




[Pg 440]


CHAPTER LIII.


The liquor law.—Amended act of 1845.—Message of the governor on the same.—Repeal
of the prohibitory and passage of the license law.—Letter of James Douglas.—Reply
of Mr. Samuel Parker.—Dr. Tolmie’s resolution on the judiciary.—The
governor’s veto of the license law.—Immigration for Oregon and California in 1846.—Arrival
of the brig Henry.—The Oregon Printing Association.—The Spectator,
the first newspaper in Oregon.—W. G. T. Vault, first editor.—H. A. G. Lee, second
editor.—G. L. Curry, third editor.—Judge Wait, fourth editor.


The Liquor Law.—Peter H. Burnett framed a law on this subject,
which was revised by Newell in the summer of 1845, and lost on the
final vote. In December, 1845, Gray, from committee on ways and
means, reported a bill on ardent spirits, expressing the views, and
gaining the approval of a decided majority of the people. Governor
Abernethy, in his annual message the next year, expressed an opinion
that this law required some amendment, but, by combining the whole
liquor influence in the country, the law was repealed, and a license law
substituted, by a two-thirds vote over his veto; while, at the same time,
nearly two-thirds of the voters of the Territory voted to prohibit the
sale of liquor, instead of to regulate it, as expressed in the organic law.


The law, as reported by the committee of ways and means, was
passed December 6, 1845, by the following vote: Gray, Garrison, Hendricks,
H. Lee, B. Lee, McClure, and McCarver—7, for; Foisy, Hill,
Straight, and Newell—4, against.


On the 8th, the Monday following this vote (Hendricks and Barton
Lee having been treated and tampered with), on motion of B. Lee—


“Resolved, That the house now reconsider the vote on the final passage
of the bill on ardent spirits.”


Yeas—Hendricks, Hill, B. Lee, Smith, Straight, and Newell—6.


Nays—Foisy, Gray, Garrison, H. Lee, McCarver, and McClure—6.


So the motion to reconsider was lost, and the bill published in the
first newspaper ever published on this coast, as provided for in the bill
itself, which is as follows:—



Amended Act of 1845.



Section 2. That if any person shall hereafter sell, barter, give, or
trade any ardent spirits of any kind whatever, directly or indirectly, to
any person within the Territory of Oregon, he shall forfeit and pay the
sum of twenty dollars for each and every such sale, trade, barter, or[Pg 441]
gift, to be recovered by indictment in the County Court, or before a
justice of the peace, without the form of pleading.


Sec. 3. That if any person shall hereafter establish or carry on any
manufactory or distillery of ardent spirits in Oregon, he shall be subject
to indictment before the County Court, as for a nuisance, and if convicted,
he shall be fined the sum of one hundred dollars, and the court
shall issue an order to the sheriff, directing him to seize and destroy the
distilling apparatus, which order the sheriff shall execute.


Sec. 4. Whenever it shall come to the knowledge of any officer of this
government, or any private citizen, that any kind of spirituous liquors
are being distilled or manufactured in Oregon, they are hereby authorized
and required to proceed to the place where such illicit manufacture
is known to exist, and seize the distilling apparatus, and deliver the
same to the nearest district judge or justice of the peace, whose duty it
shall be immediately to issue his warrant and cause the house and
premises of the person against whom such warrant shall be issued to be
further searched, and in case any kind of spirituous liquors are found in
or about said premises, or any implements or apparatus that have the
appearance of having been used, or constructed for the purpose of manufacturing
any kind of spirituous liquors, the officer who shall have been
duly authorized to execute such warrant shall seize all such apparatus,
implements, and spirituous liquors, and deliver the same to the judge or
justice of the peace who issued the said warrant. Said officer shall also
arrest the person or persons in or about whose premises such apparatus,
implements, or spirituous liquors are found, and conduct him or them
to said judge or justice of the peace, whose duty it shall be to proceed
against such criminal or criminals, and dispose of the articles seized
according to law.


Sec. 5. All the fines or penalties recovered under this act shall go,
one-half to the informant and witnesses, and the other half to the officers
engaged in arresting and trying the criminal or criminals, and it
shall be the duty of all officers into whose hands such fines and penalties
may come, to pay over as directed in this section.


Sec. 6. This act shall not be so construed as to prevent any practicing
physician from selling such liquors for medicines, not to exceed
half a pint at one time.


Sec. 7. That it shall be the duty of the secretary to publish this act
in the first newspaper published in Oregon.




I, John E. Long, secretary of Oregon, do hereby certify that the
foregoing act on ardent spirits is truly and correctly revised by me.



John E. Long, Secretary.





[Pg 442]


It will be seen in the final vote, that Foisy at first voted against this
bill; but Hendricks and B. Lee changed their vote and Foisy changed
his; thus the liquor law remained as it was, and was published February
5, 1846, and remained in force till Saturday, December 19, 1846. On
December 4 of that year, the governor called the attention of the
Legislature to this law, in the following language:—


“The act passed at the last session of the Legislature, entitled ‘An
Act to prevent the introduction, sale, and distillation of ardent spirits in
Oregon,’ is one I should recommend for revision; there are several
points that are thought to be defective. The organic law provides
that the Legislature shall have power to pass laws to regulate the introduction,
manufacture, or sale of ardent spirits. It is held that the
power to prohibit the introduction, manufacture, or sale is not granted
by the organic law. Another objection is that the fines collected under
the act shall go, one-half to the informant and witnesses, and the other
half to the officers engaged in arresting and trying: in fact, making the
witnesses and judges interested in the case. The fourth section makes it
the duty of any officer, or any private citizen, to act whenever it shall
come to their knowledge that any kind of spirituous liquors are being
distilled or manufactured in Oregon. It would be much better if it
were made the duty of the sheriff of each county to act, whenever he
should be informed that any liquor was being made or sold in his county,
and authorize him to raise a sufficient posse to aid and assist him in enforcing
the law. We have, as a community, taken a high stand in the
cause of temperance; among our earliest efforts may be found the
abolishing of ardent spirits from our land, and to this, in a great measure,
may be attributed our peace and prosperity. No new country can
be pointed out where so much harmony prevailed in its first settlement
as in this: laws, we had none, yet all things went on quietly and prosperously.
I have no doubt if ardent spirits are kept within their proper
bounds, we shall continue prosperous.


“It is said by some we have no right to say what a man shall make
or what he shall not make; yet, we find, in all large cities, certain
manufactories are forbidden to be carried on within the limits of the
city, because they annoy the inhabitants, and hence are declared to be
public nuisances, and by law are compelled to be removed; and, if the
city increase and extend to the place where they are relocated, they
are removed again. Intoxicating drink is an enormous public injury
and private wrong; its effects, in every way, shape, and form, are evil,
and therefore should be restrained within proper limits by law. It deprives
the wife and children of the inebriate of the support and protection
they have a right to expect from him; it deprives the community[Pg 443]
of the labor which constitutes a nation’s wealth, for it is a well-known
fact that a nation’s wealth is made up of individual labor, and every
day, therefore, lost by the laborer, caused by the effects of alcoholic
drink, is a loss to the community at large. Persons who have become
habitually addicted to ardent spirits, hearing that we had excluded the
poison from our land, and, believing they never could be free if they remained
near its influence, have left their homes and crossed the Rocky Mountains
to escape the ruin that threatened them. Shall they be disappointed?
During the last year, persons taking advantage of the
defect in our law, have manufactured and sold ardent spirits. We have
seen the effects (although the manufacture was on a small scale) in the
midnight carousals among the Indians in our neighborhood, during their
fishing season, and while they had property to dispose of; and, let me
ask, what would be the consequences if the use of it should be general
in the country and among the different tribes of Indians in the Territory?
History may, hereafter, write the page in letters of blood! And
what are the consequences, as presented to us in the history of older
countries, of an indiscriminate use of ardent spirits? Almshouses, hospitals,
prisons, and the gallows. I would, therefore, recommend that
but one person, and that person a physician, be authorized to import
or manufacture a sufficient quantity to supply the wants of the community
for medicinal purposes; to dispose of no liquor except when he
knows it to be necessary, or on an order from a regular physician,
stating that the person applying stands in need of it for medicinal purposes;
and to physicians to be used in their practice; the person so empowered
to import, manufacture, and sell, to keep a record of the quantity
manufactured or imported; also, a record of the quantity sold, or
disposed of, and to whom, and name of physician on whose certificate
given. This would be attended with but little trouble, and might be
required to be given under oath. Many articles require alcohol to dissolve
them; this could be done by taking the article to the person appointed
and having the alcohol put into the ingredients in his presence.
Section fifth I would recommend to be altered, so that the fines should
go one-half to the informer, and the other half into the treasury.
I would recommend that the penalties be increased. If the indiscriminate
sale of liquor be admitted an evil, no good citizen can wish
to be engaged in it. Why should the majority suffer to benefit a few
individuals?


“I have said more on this subject than I should have done, did I not
fear an attempt will be made to break down the barriers raised by the
early settlers of this land. Much of our prosperity and happiness as a
community depends upon your action in this matter.”


[Pg 444]I am inclined to think that the governor was misinformed or mistaken
in the statement that liquor had been manufactured in the settlement
otherwise than by drugs and a composition called rot-gut, which there
were men in the country base enough to produce. Had the governor
been more energetic and taken the matter in hand, no manufacturing
of liquors would have been allowed. He seems to have thrown
himself back upon the faults of the law as an excuse for not seeing that
it was executed as it should have been, and as it was executed in other
places. Some of this drugged liquor was brought to Astoria by one
George Geere, of Dr. White notoriety, and the citizens of Clatsop Plains
being notified of the fact, came over prepared for a fight, and found
Geere, with his liquors, his pistols, and a seven-shooter rifle. They took
him and his pistols and rifle, also his two kegs, and several bottles of
liquor. The liquor they turned out on the ground,—took Geere before
Esquire Tibbetts, and gave him a jury trial before six men of his own
choice, who found him guilty. He was fined one hundred dollars and
costs of suit, which was all given, by unanimous consent, to the county.
When such a man as Governor Abernethy could excuse himself from
acting and enforcing a law, because he thought the distribution of the
fines imposed made the officers and witnesses interested persons, it is
not surprising that men of no principle should engage in destroying
their fellow-men. The fact is, that the men whom the people had honored
and trusted with their legal and executive duties were destitute of
the firmness requisite to the position they occupied, with some few honorable
exceptions. The people generally were in advance of their
leaders in sustaining good and wholesome laws, hence but few cases of
lawsuits or quarrels occurred.


We will now give what we conceive to be the cause of the failure of
the law.


By a reference to the organization of the house in December, 1845,
it will be seen that the Hudson’s Bay Company was represented by
Messrs. Dr. W. F. Tolmie, Chamberlain, McDonald, Newell, and Peers.
The liquor interest was represented by Messrs. Boon, Hall, Hembree,
Looney, Meek, Summers, Straight, T. Vault, Williams, and the Speaker.
Six of the last-named representatives should have been fined for violations
of the law on a small scale, and all of the first on a large scale, as
connected more or less with the Hudson’s Bay Company, and selling
and giving to their men and Indians.


While the Hudson’s Bay Company yielded a quasi assent to the
organization, and had their representatives in the Legislature, they were
using their influence to curtail the privileges of American citizens.
They were ready to vote against the manufacture and sale of liquors,[Pg 445]
while they were constantly bringing it to the country in their ships,
and distributing it to suit their trade.


The composition of the house was peculiarly American and antagonistic
to the Hudson’s Bay Company. Any measure that gave to the
company any advantage, such as it was urged the prohibitory law did,
could not stand. Hence the friends of prohibition had to yield the
point, on the ground of self-defense for national rights, and not from a
disposition to consider the law unjust or improper. In other words,
they licensed and sustained a great evil, to combat a privilege of equal
evil, claimed and used by a foreign monopoly in our midst.


When we take into account the facts as stated by the governor in his
message, the actual condition of the country, the temporary nature of
our government, and all the combinations that were forming at the time
the license law was passed, I think all will join with me in condemning
the course of the men who cursed the country with such a law. It is
asserted that the organic law provided that the Legislature should
regulate this traffic. Very true; which they did by placing it in the
hands of the practicing physician, where it belongs, and nowhere else.
But these wise Solons of 1846 came to the conclusion that three, two,
or one hundred dollars was ample pay to the country for the loss of
any man in it. That for three hundred dollars the whole country
might be filled with poisonous rot-gut, and for two hundred the
wholesale business might go on, while for one hundred the miserable
victims of the business could be turned loose to degrade themselves and
blight the hopes of kindred and friends. I can count a hundred victims
who have lost one hundred dollars’ worth of property for every dollar
received by the Territory, besides their own lives, in consequence of
this traffic. I can count five hundred families that have suffered poverty
and want, insult and abuse, purely chargeable to this regulating
law of these men.


We read in histories of the church, that the pope of Rome sold
indulgences to commit certain sins which by the common law would
be considered crimes, such as adultery, theft, and even murder. The
price of the indulgence was according to the crime to be committed.
This law proceeds upon the principle of the amount of profits in
the business, while its nature and effect upon the community is lost
sight of. Or, in other words, the government sells the indulgence
to commit the crime proposed by the manufacturer or wholesale and
retail dealer. While the former law admitted that liquor as a medicine
might be useful, and placed it in the hands of the practicing
physician, the license law puts each seller under a one thousand dollar
bond to keep a quiet house. They were ready to license hells all over[Pg 446]
the land, provided the keepers would bind themselves not to violate the
sanctity of the Sabbath. The morality and political economy of the
business is forced to be satisfied with the amount paid as per law
provided.


This act, as a matter of course, opened all the liquor shops of the
Hudson’s Bay Company and of all the unprincipled men in the country.
To give a better idea of this liquor question, a letter of James Douglas,
found in No. 10, volume 1, of the Oregon Spectator, June 11, 1846, is
given. Mr. Parker, in his stump speech, alluded to the liquor law, and
asserted that it was daily violated by the Hudson’s Bay Company. Mr.
Douglas attempts to refuse the charge and sustain the law. The
italics in the following letter are the author’s:—


“Mr. Editor,—In Mr. Parker’s address to the electors of Clackamas
County, delivered at the meeting lately held in Oregon City, as reported
in the Spectator of the 28th of May, I observe that he is pleased
to point out Mr. Douglas, a judge of the County Court, who, he understood,
was in the habit of selling ardent spirits. This may have suited
Mr. Parker’s purpose, while attempting to establish a position which
appears to be a favorite with him, ‘that the oath of office binds a man
to do just as he pleases!’ As it can not, however, be supposed that I
admire the mode of illustration he has chosen, and as I also happen to
entertain a very different opinion touching the force and propriety of
that oath, I hope it will not be considered a breach of courtesy on my
part, to offer, through the medium of your respectable paper, a direct
and unqualified denial of this charge of rum-selling, in the only sense
it is plainly meant to be received, and can be considered at all applicable
to the subject in question. As a particular favor, I ask Mr.
Parker to bring forward a single proof in support of the assertion he
has so wantonly advanced. I refer him to all his fellow-citizens. I ask
him to search the country from one extremity to another, and to put the
question to each individual member of the community with the absolute
certainty that not one person will be found who ever purchased ardent
spirits from Mr. Douglas. A stranger in the country, evidently unacquainted
with its early history, Mr. Parker may not have been informed
that the members of the Hudson’s Bay Company have for many years
past uniformly discouraged intemperance” (by a regular daily allowance
of liquor to their men, as we shall see Mr. Douglas says) “by every
means in their power, and have also made great and repeated pecuniary
sacrifices to prevent the sale of ardent spirits in the country: an article,
moreover, which forms no part of their trade, either with the white
man or the Indian.” (See Mr. Dunn’s book, in which it is asserted the[Pg 447]
company sells to Indians, and Fitzgerald, page 162). “Mr. Parker
does not indeed pretend to speak from his own personal experience of
the fact, but on the authority of others; and should any doubt still
linger in his mind with respect to the correctness of what I have just
said, he may perhaps have no objection to seek other means of arriving
at the truth; suppose, for instance, he was to try the experiment of
negotiating a purchase, I venture to predict he would soon be convinced
that Mr. Douglas is not in the habit of selling ardent spirits.


“But let us inquire a little further into this matter. What could
have induced a person of character to hazard an observation in public,
which, he must know, would, if false, be as openly exposed. Mr. Parker
must have had some grounds for his assertion; he may possibly have
heard, or he may have supposed that her Majesty’s ship Modeste was
daily receiving supplies at Fort Vancouver. If, with reference to these
supplies, he had told his hearers that her Majesty’s ship Modeste, now
stationed at Fort Vancouver, had, with other supplies for ship use from
the stores of the Hudson’s Bay Company, received several casks of
rum; or if, referring to the company’s own ships, he had stated
that a small allowance of spirits is daily served out to the crews
of the company’s vessels; and that other classes of the company’s servants,
according to long-accustomed usage, receive, on certain rare
occasions, a similar indulgence, he would have told the plain and simple
truth, and his statement would not this day have been called in question
by me.


“These acts, which I fully admit, and would on no account attempt
to conceal, can not by the fair rules of construction be considered as
infringing upon any law recognized by the compact which we have
agreed to support, in common with the other inhabitants of Oregon.
[The same argument is used to justify Mr. Ogden in furnishing powder
and arms to the Indians at the commencement of the Cayuse war.]


“The framers of these laws, with a decree of wisdom and foresight
which does them honor, never entertained the idea that a person, in
becoming a member of the compact, thereby relinquished his distinctive
national character.


“On the contrary, British subjects and citizens of the United States,
casting aside every shadow of illiberal prejudice, extended to each
other the right hand of good-fellowship, for the purpose of mutual
protection, to secure the peace and promote the prosperity of the country,
until protected by their respective governments. The compact was
formed and perfected upon that principle, and can rest with security
upon no other foundation.


“We are pledged, and do faithfully intend to support the organic[Pg 448]
laws. They do not bind us to violate pre-existing engagements with
our servants, nor to withhold from the officers of our government supplies
of whatsoever kind the company’s stores can provide. In the
high character of the latter we enjoy the fullest security against abuse
to the detriment of the country. With all other parties we have most
rigidly, and shall continue to enforce the prohibitory statutes of Oregon.
My wish in addressing you, Mr. Editor, is to set Mr. Parker right in
respect to this matter of rum-selling, and the people may rest assured
that if my wishes could influence the community, there would never
be a drunkard in Oregon.



“James Douglas.”



Mr. Parker’s answer, which, like the letter of Mr. Douglas, is addressed
to the Spectator, says:—


“Mr. Editor,—Our friend Mr. Douglas, in the Spectator of the 11th
instant, denies, in the most unqualified terms, the charge of rum-selling
at Vancouver, and challenges me to the proof of the assertion, by calling
individually on all of our fellow-citizens for testimony; and no
other alternative is left me but to proceed in accordance with his request;
he will, I am sure, pardon me if I seek this among the highest
authorities, and I will produce one at least whose veracity will not, I
am sure, be called in question by our friend.


“When I, in my speech, adverted to the fact that rum was sold at
Vancouver, contrary to law, the statement was based on the thousand-tongued
rumor, and I so qualified my remarks. But in Mr. Douglas’s
confession, found in the paper alluded to, the matter of doubt is settled,
and we are now furnished with the authority of no less a personage
than Mr. Douglas himself. Hear his testimony. ‘If,’ says he, ‘with
reference to these supplies, he had told his hearers that her Majesty’s
ship Modeste, now stationed at Fort Vancouver, had, with other supplies
for ship use from the stores of the Hudson’s Buy Company,
received several casks of rum; or if, referring to the company’s own
ships, he had stated that a small allowance of spirits is daily served
out to the crews of the company’s vessels; and that other classes of the
company’s servants, according to long-accustomed usage, receive, on
certain rare occasions, a similar indulgence, he would have told the
plain and simple truth,’ etc.


“These facts, Mr. Douglas, who has charge of the trading-post at
Vancouver, fully admits, and upon his testimony in the matter I place
the most implicit confidence. It was not my intention to charge our
friend with having kept a tippling-shop at Vancouver, and I wish to
correct such, if any there are, who may have come to such a conclusion;[Pg 449]
but I confess, I had not supposed that the law in relation to ardent
spirits (and which may be found in the first number of the Spectator)
had been so wantonly disregarded. We know, from personal observation,
that rum in considerable quantities had found its way among our
citizens from some quarter, and the disclosure here made furnishes a
key to the mystery, and we are now broadly told that casks of
this article have been furnished to her Majesty’s officers stationed in
Oregon, but that in their high character we enjoy the fullest security
against its abuse, etc.


“And now, my dear sir, having heard much of the hollow and ceremonious
professions and hypocritical grimaces of courts, and men in
high places, and disgusted with every thing that savors of aristocratical
or monarchical parade, and smitten with the love of republican
simplicity and honesty, I can not admit that rank or men in high
places are guaranteed against our laws, nor are they so framed as to
justify such a conclusion. Raised as I was under these simple institutions,
which tend to bring all on an equality, I can not perceive those
high guaranties or pledges which are said to emanate from rank or
station in high places in society. With us, men give pledges of honor
and character, alone from their moral conduct; and the bacchanalian
carousals (one was a most disgraceful drunken row kept up for several
days by the officers of the Modeste, in honor of the Queen’s birthday)
which came off in the Tualatin Plains on Vancouver rum, last winter
and spring, at the expense of the good morals of our farming community,
gave me abundant and additional evidence to admire our
simple and republican usages, while it serves as a moral worthy the consideration
of a prince, or the strongest appendage of nobility. Our
laws make no distinction in favor of the officers on board of her Majesty’s
ship Modeste, nor of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s servants. If
their ships visit our ports, our laws will protect them, and, according to
the usages of all nations, we expect them to submit to their provisions;
but should these officers, through the plenitude of their power, determine
to disregard our laws, it certainly could find no justification with
one filling the high judicial station which Mr. Douglas occupies. He
has sanctioned our law-making authority by accepting one of the highest
judicial offices under our organization. According to his own
confession, he has disregarded the law, not only by giving in
small quantities, but by selling ardent spirits by the cask; nor can he
find justification by dealing it out under pre-existing contracts to the
servants of the company. To admit that principle, dealers in this
article would only be required, when the prohibitory law was about
being passed, to contract for the supply of all their old customers, and[Pg 450]
thus defeat the object and intention of the law by a pre-existing contract.
And as for the argument of long-existing usages, that pays the
poorest tribute of all. Why, the very toper may plead his long indulgence
in the use of this article, with as much propriety. I should not
have noticed the subject again, but for my anxious desire that the
matter should be fairly placed before the public.



“Samuel Parker.”



These two laws, and the two communications we have given, place
the temperance question fully before the reader. The communication
of Mr. Douglas shows the position and feelings of the English and the
Hudson’s Bay Company in relation to our laws, as also the liberty they
claimed to violate them whenever it suited their interest or their
convenience. Mr. Douglas says, “with all other parties we have most
rigidly, and shall continue to enforce the prohibitory statutes of
Oregon.” It also shows another fact. “The Modeste, now stationed at
Fort Vancouver,” is our (the company’s) protection, and you must
not attempt to enforce a law upon English subjects, or English ships
that enter the rivers or ports of the country. To say that many of us
did not feel keenly this taunt, and almost despair of securing this vast
country from the rapacious mouth of the crouching lion, whose
drunken, beastly representatives were distributing their rum to every
family that would receive them, would not be true.


When their representatives entered our legislative councils, the most
stupid of its members understood their object. They wished to make
laws for Americans. Their own people needed no laws, and no other
government than such as was provided for them by the Hudson’s Bay
Company. The reader is already informed how those laws were
enforced.


Dr. Tolmie, who at the present time (1870) stands at the head of
the company in Vancouver Island and British Columbia, presented the
following resolution to the house on the sixth day of the session, showing
the true position of the English element:—


“Resolved, That the judiciary committee be discharged from further
duty, as the present Legislature deems it inexpedient to organize the
judiciary at the present time, in any manner different from the present
organization.”


By a reference to the journal of the house, we find Dr. Tolmie to
be a member of the judiciary committee. Four days after, we find
this same gentleman presenting another resolution:—


“That the Legislature deems it inexpedient, at the present time, to
legalize the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits.”


[Pg 451]Yeas—Chamberlain, McDonald, and Tolmie—3. Nays—Boon,
Hall, Hembree, Lounsdale, Looney, Meek, Newell, Peers, Summers,
Straight, T. Vault, Williams and the Speaker—13. Hudson’s Bay
Company men in italics; doubtful, in SMALL CAPITALS.


On the motion of Newell to lay the bill to regulate the manufacture
and sale of ardent spirits on the table, it stood: Yeas—Chamberlain,
Hall, Lounsdale, Looney, McDonald, Newell, and Tolmie—7. Nays—Boon,
Hembree, Meek, Summers, Straight, T. Vault, Williams, and the
Speaker—8. Peers absent.


On the final vote to carry this bill over the veto of the governor, we
find Hall, Lounsdale, and Looney changing their votes in favor of passing
the bill over the veto, which is as follows:—



Oregon City, Dec. 17, 1846.



Gentlemen,—I return to your honorable body the act entitled “An
Act to regulate the manufacture and sale of wine and distilled spirituous
liquors,” with my objections to the same.


Previous to our organization as a provisional government, public sentiment
kept liquor from being manufactured or sold in this Territory.
Heretofore, every act of the Legislature has been, as far as ardent spirits
were concerned, prohibitory in character. The act lying before me is
the first act that has in any manner attempted to legalize the manufacture
and sale of ardent spirits. At the session of the Legislature in
June, 1844, an act was passed entitled “An Act to prevent the introduction,
sale, and distillation of ardent spirits in Oregon,” and, as far as
my knowledge extends, the passage of that act gave satisfaction to the
great majority of the people throughout the Territory. At the session
of December, 1845, several amendments were proposed to the old law,
and passed. The new features given to the bill by those amendments
did not accord with the views of the people; the insertion of the words
“give” and “gift,” in the first and second sections of the bill, they
thought was taking away their rights, as it was considered that a man
had a right to give away his property if he chose. There were several
other objections to the bill, which I set forth to your honorable body
in my message. I would therefore recommend that the amendments
passed at the December session of 1845 be repealed; and that the law
passed on the 24th of June, 1844, with such alterations as will make it
agree with the organic law, if it does not agree with it, be again made
the law of the land. It is said by many that the Legislature has no
right to prohibit the introduction or sale of liquor, and this is probably
the strongest argument used in defense of your bill. But do you not
as effectually prohibit every person who has not the sum of one, two,[Pg 452]
three hundred dollars to pay for his license, as does the law now on
the statute-book? Are not your proposed fines and penalties as great
or greater than those of the old law? Where, then, is the benefit to
the people? There is no doubt in my mind, but that the law will be
evaded as easily, and as often, under the new law, as it was under the
old, and, in addition to this, there will be the legal manufacturers, importers,
and sellers, who will be able, under the sanction of law, to
scatter all the evils attendant upon the use of alcoholic drinks. We
are in an Indian country; men will be found who will supply them
with liquor as long as they have beaver, blankets, and horses to pay
for it. If a quantity should be introduced among the Wallawallas, and
other tribes in the upper country, who can foretell the consequences;
there we have families exposed out, off from the protection of the settlements,
and perhaps, at the first drunken frolic of the Indians in that
region, they may be cut off from the face of the earth. But we need
not go so far; we are exposed in every part of our frontier, and when
difficulties once commence, we can not tell where they will cease.


It has been proved before the House of Commons that one-half of the
insanity, two-thirds of the pauperism, and three-fourths of the crimes of
Great Britain may be directly traced to the use of alcoholic drink.
The testimony of our most eminent judges in the United States shows
that the same proportion of crime is attributable to ardent spirits in
that country. Statistics might be produced, showing the enormous evil
and expense of an indiscriminate use of liquor.


As to revenue, the small amount received for licenses, instead of being
a revenue, would be swallowed up in the expenses attending trials for
crimes, etc., caused by the crime of these licenses.


But, leaving all other countries out of view, let us consider our own
state. Surrounded by Indians, no military force to aid the executive
and other officers in the discharge of their duties, not a solitary prison
in the land, in which to confine offenders against the laws, and consequently
no way of enforcing the penalties of the law, I think these
things should call for calm and serious reflection, before passing your
final vote on this bill. My opinion is, the people are opposed to legalizing
the introduction and sale of liquor in this land. I may be mistaken,
and therefore should be in favor of the old law, or something
similar should be adopted, of referring the whole matter to the polls at
the next general election. If the people say “No liquor,” continue to
prohibit; if they say, through the ballot-box, “We wish liquor,” then
let it come free, the same as dry-goods, or any other article imported
or manufactured; but, until the people say they want it, I hope you
will use your influence to keep it out of the Territory.


[Pg 453]It is with regret that I return any bill unsigned, but I feel that we
both have duties to perform, and when we think duty points out the
way, I trust we may always be found willing to follow it.



Geo. Abernethy.


To the Hon. the Legislature of Oregon Territory.





On motion of Mr. Hall, the communication was laid on the table.


Afternoon Session.—At two o’clock the house met. A call of the
house was made, and the sergeant-at-arms dispatched for the absent
members, who, after a short absence, returned, and reported that the
absentees had been notified, and were now present. Thereupon, the
further call of the house was dispensed with.


The house then reconsidered the bill to regulate the manufacture
and sale of ardent spirits, and, after some deliberation, the question
being put upon the passage of the bill, it was decided affirmatively, by
the following vote:—


Yeas—Messrs. Boon, Hall, Hembree, Lounsdale, Looney, Meek,
Summers, Straight, T. Vault, Williams, and the Speaker—11.


Nays—Messrs. Chamberlain, McDonald, Newell, Peers, and Dr. W.
F. Tolmie—5.




At St. Josephs, Elizabethtown, Iowa Point, Council Bluffs, and the
Nishnabatona, were 271 wagons for Oregon and California. Allowing
five to the wagon gives us about 1,355 souls that crossed the Missouri
at these points. The quantity of loose stock was estimated at 5,000
head. From Independence, Missouri, for Oregon, 141 men, 71 women,
109 children, and 128 wagons. From Independence, for California, 98
men, 40 women, 57 children, 320 oxen, and 46 wagons. Total, 1,841
souls, as stated in Mr. Saxton’s pamphlet, 1846. The larger portion of
this immigration found their way into Oregon, notwithstanding the
Hudson’s Bay Company and Mr. Hastings did all they could to turn
them to California. A statement by Mr. S. K. Barlow shows that 141
wagons, 1,559 head of horses, mules, and horned cattle, and some 15
head of sheep passed on his road; seven more teams passed after this
report was made. Besides the number that came over the Mount Hood
or Barlow road, there were some persons, with wagons, who attempted
to come in on the Applegate route, and a number came down the
Columbia River.


This year, on the 21st of February, the brig Henry, Captain Kilborn,
started from Newburyport for Oregon, with eight passengers, including
women and children; also the Angelo, Captain Hastings, from Boston,
made the attempt, but failed. The brig Henry arrived late in 1846.


[Pg 454]On Thursday, February 5, 1846, the first newspaper published on the
Pacific coast was issued from the press of the Oregon Printing Association,
at Oregon City. The originators of the Printing-Press Association
were the same that started the Multnomah Circulating Library,
the Wolf Association, and the provisional government, in 1842-3.


Constitution of the Oregon Printing Association.


Preamble.—In order to promote science, temperance, morality, and
general intelligence,—to establish a printing-press to publish a monthly,
semi-monthly, or weekly paper in Oregon,—the undersigned do hereby
associate ourselves into a body, to be governed by such rules and regulations
as shall from time to time be adopted by a majority of the stockholders
of this compact, in a regularly called and properly notified
meeting.


Articles of Compact.


Article 1. This association shall be known by the name of the
“Oregon Printing Association,” and shall hold an annual meeting at
Oregon City, on the first Tuesday of December of each year.


Art. 2. Its officers shall be a president, vice-president, secretary,
treasurer, and a Board of three directors, who shall be elected annually
by ballot, and shall hold their offices until their successors are elected.


Art. 3. It shall be the duty of the president to preside at all the
meetings of the association, to sign all certificates of stock, and drafts
upon the treasurer for the payment of funds, and to preside at the meetings
of the Board of Directors.


Art. 4. It shall be the duty of the vice-president to perform the
duties of the president in case of his absence, by death, or by removal
from office.


Art. 5.——The secretary to attend, and keep a record of all
the meetings of the association, and of the Board of Directors, and to
publish the proceedings of the annual and special meetings of the association,
and such portions of the proceedings of the Board of Directors
as the Board shall direct from time to time; to give one month’s notice
of all special meetings of the association.


Art. 6. It shall be the duty of the treasurer to take charge of the
funds of the association, and keep an account of all moneys received and
disbursed, and pay out the same in accordance with drafts drawn on
him by the president, and signed as per third article of this compact; to
give such security to the president as shall be deemed sufficient by the
Board of Directors for the faithful performance of his trust; to report
the state of the treasury to the Board of Directors quarterly, and to pay
over to his successor in office all funds of the association.


[Pg 455]Art. 7.——The officers and Board of Directors to manage and
superintend, or procure a suitable person to do so, the entire printing
and publishing association; to employ all persons required in the printing
or editorial departments of the press; to publish a full statement of
their proceedings semi-annually; to draft and adopt such by-laws as
may be deemed proper for their government, provided no by-law
contravenes the spirit of these articles of compact; to declare a dividend
of any profits arising from the printing establishment as often as
they shall deem it expedient; to fill any vacancy that may occur in
their number; three of whom shall constitute a quorum, and be competent
to transact business.


Art. 8. The press owned by or in connection with this association
shall never be used by any party for the purpose of propagating sectarian
principles or doctrines, nor for the discussion of exclusive party
politics.


Art. 9. The stock of this association shall consist of shares, of ten
dollars each, payable in cash or its equivalent.


Art. 10. For every ten dollars paid to the treasurer of the association,
the payer thereof shall receive a certificate for the same, signed by
the president and countersigned by the secretary; and for every such
certificate, the holder thereof, or his agent, on presenting to the Board
of Directors satisfactory evidence that he is such, shall be entitled to
one vote in all the annual and special meetings of this association; shall
receive pro rata of all moneys that may accrue from the profits of the
printing establishment, and be allowed to transfer his stock to any one,
by certifying and indorsing his name upon the back of his certificate.


Art. 11. These articles, except the 8th, may be altered or amended at
any annual or special meeting of the association, provided that the proposed
amendment shall have been published in at least two numbers of
the paper published by order of the association.



Officers of the Association,



W. G. T. Vault, President.

J. W. Nesmith, Vice-President.

John P. Brooks, Secretary.

George Abernethy, Treasurer.




Directors.                




}






John H. Couch,

John E. Long,

R. Newell,


The first editor of this paper was W. G. T. Vault. A man more unfit
for the position could scarcely have been found in the country. He
professed to have been an editor of a paper in Arkansas, and blew[Pg 456]
and swelled like the toad in the fable, and whined like a puppy
when he gave his valedictory, in the fifth number of the Spectator. He
says: “We have among us a class of mongrels, neither American nor
anti-American, a kind of foreign, hypocritical go-betweens,—as we would
say in the States, fence men,—whose public declarations are, ‘All for the
good of the public, and not a cent for self.’ The political sentiments of the
conductors were at variance with his.” Mr. T. Vault was led to believe
that Mr. Newell was his only friend, from the fact that he was absent
from the meeting of the Board when his successor was appointed; and
complains of Dr. Long and J. W. Nesmith. Newell and Long acted
together. H. A. G. Lee, who succeeded T. Vault as editor, was far
better qualified for the position, though he did not suit this same
Board of Directors, as Newell was the maneuvering spirit. Lee was
too strongly American in his sentiments, and too intelligent to be a
dupe of the influence of which T. Vault complained.


Mr. Douglas declares the position of the English element in the tenth
number of the Spectator. Mr. S. Parker answers him in the eleventh
number; and Mr. Lee, in the fourteenth number, tenders his thanks to
the Board for relieving him. The fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth
numbers, each “run itself,” as the expression is.


On the eighteenth number, G. L. Curry, Esq., took charge, to the
twenty-sixth number, which completed the first volume of the paper. He
continued his editorial position till the twenty-fourth number of
the second volume, when he brought his duties to a close by publishing a
set of resolutions calculated to injure J. Q. Thornton, who had gone on
to Washington to have a history of the country published, and, as was
supposed, to secure the best federal appointments for himself and his
friends. One-half of the legislators believing that unfair and improper
means had been used by Mr. Thornton and his friends, the other half
not caring to vote against Mr. Thornton’s proceedings, being, perhaps,
his real friends, the resolutions were lost by a tie vote. Mr. Curry,
as editor of the Spectator, took sides against Mr. Thornton, and in favor
of the objectionable resolutions, and published them under an editorial
article, notwithstanding he had been requested, as he admits, not to
publish them.


Judge A. E. Wait succeeded Mr. Curry in the editorial department
of the paper, and, by a foolish, vacillating course, continued to hold his
position so as to please the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Roman
Catholic and Methodist influences in the country. The paper, by this
means, became of little value to its patrons and the country, and soon
getting involved in its financial affairs, it was sold and lost financially
to the original proprietors.




[Pg 457]


CHAPTER LIV.


The Whitman massacres.—Narratives of, by J. B. A. Brouillet and J. Ross Browne.—Extract
from the New York Evangelist.—Statements of Father Brouillet criticised.—Testimony
of John Kimzey.—Dr. Whitman at Umatilla.—Returns home.


We have before us two works purporting to give a true and
authentic account of the Whitman massacre,—the one prepared by a
Jesuit priest, J. B. A. Brouillet; the other by one J. Ross Browne,
special agent of the United States revenue department. As this part
of our history was written before that of J. Ross Browne (purporting
to be an official report to the 35th Congress, 1st session, House of
Representatives, Executive Document No. 38) came into our hands, it
is proper that we should give this report a passing notice.


Mr. Browne, upon the second page of his report, says: “In view of
the fact, however, that objections might be made to any testimony
coming from the citizens of the Territory, and believing also that it is
the duty of a public agent to present, as far as practicable, unprejudiced
statements, I did not permit myself to be governed by any representations
unsupported by reliable historical data.”


One would naturally conclude, from such a statement, that a candid,
unprejudiced, and truthful report would be given; but, to our astonishment,
we find that fifty-three of the sixty-six pages of this official
document are an exact copy of the Rev. J. B. A. Brouillet’s work,
thus indorsing, and placing in an official document, one of the most
maliciously false and unreliable accounts that a prejudiced and deeply
implicated sectarian could give, claiming such to be “reliable historical
data,”—thus showing both his prejudice and ignorance in the conclusion
he arrived at as to the causes of the Indian wars.


Had J. Ross Browne been willing to lay aside his unreasonable
sectarian prejudice, and listen to the positive testimony then in the
country, he could easily have learned who were the prime cause of all
the Indian wars in it; or, had he made himself familiar (as he flippantly
claims to have done) with the history of the English and American
people, the policy of the English political and sectarian powers,
and the commercial policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company, he would
have escaped the folly of placing in an official document such palpable
errors, and showing such willful ignorance of the subject he was commissioned
to investigate.


[Pg 458]He says, on page 2, “It was a war of destiny,—bound to take place
whenever the causes reached their culminating point.” The “destiny”
and culminating point of that war was fixed by the Hudson’s Bay
Company and the Jesuit priests, as also the second and third wars
with the Indians that followed, as we shall show by positive testimony
of witnesses who are unimpeachable.


Had J. Ross Browne carefully examined the tissue of statements
prepared by Father Brouillet, he could have found statements like this
on page 53 (38 of J. R. B.), “I knew that the Indians were angry with
all Americans;” page 54 (39 of J. R. B.), “All that I know is that
the Indians say the order to kill Americans has been sent in all directions.”


There was but one party in the country that could issue such an
order, which Brouillet well knew, and the testimony we shall give will
prove.


On his third page, he says: “The same primary causes existed in
every case,—encroachments of a superior upon an inferior race.” He
then refers to the agitation of the Oregon question in the Senate in
1840-41; to Mr. Thurston’s course as a delegate; the treaties with
the Indians, etc.,—showing conclusively the sources of his information,
and his ignorance of the causes he professed to give a truthful and
impartial account of,—barely alluding to the unwarranted assumptions
of the British Hudson’s Bay Company of an exclusive right to trade
with the Indians. In fact, the whole report appears to be a studied
effort to cover the prime causes of the difficulty, and of the Indian
wars he was commissioned to investigate and report upon.


It is not surprising that with the foreign emissaries then in the
country, and the stupid ignorance or malicious bigotry of the United
States agent, that such reports should be made; but that the government
should adopt, and act upon, or publish them, is indeed surprising;
unless, as the history of the late rebellion shows, it was the design of
those agents to involve the whole nation in an ultimate dismemberment,
and distinct, separate nationalities, under the auspices of African, Indian,
and religious slavery. We regret the necessity of prefacing a chapter
in this work with so severe a stricture upon a government official, yet
his report is so manifestly false and malicious, and without the evidence
of truth or candor toward the Protestant missionaries, to whom is due,
more than to any other influence, the settlement of the country by
the American people,—that, in justice to them, and the truth of history,
we can say no less, while we proceed with the account of the murder
of Dr. Whitman and those at his station.


The necessity and importance of an extended and particular account[Pg 459]
becomes still more important from the fact that the Roman Jesuits in
the country have succeeded in placing through such an agent their false
account of the massacre in a permanent government document,—thus
slandering not only the dead, but the living, whose duty it becomes to
refute such vile slanders by publishing the whole truth in the case.
Besides, the very Rev. J. B. A. Brouillet, in a second edition of his false
and absurd production, refers to this report of J. R. Browne as additional
official evidence of the truth of his own false statements, previously
made through such agents, and such men as Sir James Douglas,—compelling
us, in vindicating the truth of history, to place before the
reader more of the statements of parties implicated than was our original
design.


Since this work has been in press, we have an article in the New York
Evangelist of 6th of January, 1870, from the pen of Rev. Mr. Treat,
D. D., containing a brief statement of the Whitman massacre, and the
following as the result of the investigations as had in several religious
bodies in Oregon; the conclusion is as follows:—


“It so happens, however, that men who are more competent to adjudicate
the case have not hesitated to do so. The Congregational Association
of Oregon adopted a report in June last, which condemns the
‘prominent and absolute falsehoods’ of Father Brouillet’s pamphlet,
and expresses the belief, ‘from evidence, clear and sufficient to them,
that the Roman Catholic priests did themselves instigate violence to
the missions, resulting in massacre.’ Similar action was taken by the
Old School Presbytery, the Cumberland Presbytery, and the U. P.
Presbytery. The Methodist Conference, composed of more than seventy
preachers, and under the presidency of Bishop Kingsley, adopted a
comprehensive and able report, which was published at Portland, September
25, 1869, in which the massacre at Wailatpu is declared to have
been ‘wholly unprovoked by Dr. Whitman or any other member of
the mission,’ and to have arisen from the policy of the Hudson’s Bay
Company ‘to exclude American settlers,’ and the ‘efforts of Roman
priests directed against the establishment of Protestantism in the
country.’ It is believed that the other evangelical denominations in
Oregon have spoken with the same distinctness and the same confidence.


“Valuable testimony is borne to the character of the missionaries
who survived Dr. Whitman, and who have been residents of Oregon to
this day, as also to the fidelity and success of their labors, but there
is not space for it in the present article. Suffice it to say, that, while
the motives of Hon. J. Ross Browne, in appending Father Brouillet’s
pamphlet to his ‘Letter,’ and the reasons of the House of Representative
for publishing the same, are open to grave suspicion, facts and opinions[Pg 460]
have been elicited, which throw additional light upon the manifold
bearings and uses of the missionary enterprise.”


On page 40 of Rev. J. B. A. Brouillet’s “Protestantism in Oregon”
and page 33 of J. Ross Browne’s report, we find, under date of September
5, 1847, that “the Right Rev. Bishop Blanchet arrived at
old Fort Wallawalla (now called Wallula), where he was cordially
received by Mr. McBean, clerk in charge of said fort. He was accompanied
by the superior of Oblates and two other clergymen. He
had the intention of remaining but a few days at the fort, for he
knew that Tawatowe (or Young Chief), one of the Cayuse chiefs, had
a house which he had designed for the Catholic missionaries, and he
intended to go and occupy it without delay; but the absence of the
Young Chief, who was hunting buffalo, created a difficulty in regard
to the occupation of the house, and in consequence of it he had to wait
longer than he wished.”


The house here spoken of was erected during the summer of 1837,
before any Catholic missionaries were thought of, at least among the
Indians, or by the American missionaries, and it was late in the fall of
1838 that Revs. Blanchet and Demerse passed down the Columbia
River. These first missionaries of the Society of Jesus, wishing to do
Mr. P. C. Pambrun, then clerk of the post, a special favor, baptized
the infant son of the Young Chief, for whose benefit and occupation,
Mr. Pambrun said, the company had ordered that house to be built. If
it was designed for these priests, who was the designer?


Mr. Brouillet, in his narrative, says:—


“On the 23d of September, Dr. Whitman, on his way from the Dalles,
stopped at Fort Wallawalla. His countenance bore sufficient testimony
to the agitation of his heart. He soon showed by his words that he
was deeply wounded by the arrival of the bishop. ‘I know very well,’
said he, ‘for what purpose you have come.’ ‘All is known,’ replied the
bishop; ‘I come to labor for the conversion of the Indians, and even of
Americans, if they are willing to listen to me.’ The doctor then continued,
in the same tone, to speak of many things. He attributed the
coming of the bishop to the Young Chief’s influence! made a furious
charge against the Catholics, accusing them of having persecuted
Protestants and even of having shed their blood wherever they had
prevailed. He said he did not like Catholics ⚹ ⚹ ⚹ that he should
oppose the missionaries to the extent of his power. ⚹ ⚹ ⚹ He spoke
against the Catholic Ladder![12] and said that he would cover it with
blood, to show the persecution of Protestants by Catholics. He refused
[Pg 461]to sell provisions to the bishop, and protested he would not assist the
missionaries unless he saw them in starvation.”


[12] A picture explaining the principal points of Catholic faith.


It is barely possible that Dr. Whitman said all that this priest says
he did. In that case, did he forfeit his own and the lives of all that fell
with him? This narrative of Protestantism reveals a dark page in our
history,—one that should be thoroughly investigated as well as understood
by all.


On the 24th page, 33d of Ross Browne’s report, this priest says:—


“After such a manifestation of sentiment toward Catholics in general
and priests in particular, the bishop was not astonished in hearing some
hours after that Dr. Whitman, on leaving the fort, went to the lodge of
Piopiomoxmox (Yellow Serpent); that he had spoken a great deal
against the priests; that he had wished to prevail upon this chief to co-operate
with him, in order that by the aid of his influence with the
Cayuses, Des Chutes, and Dalles Indians, he might be enabled to excite
these nations against them, etc.”


That Dr. Whitman did as he is represented to have done no one acquainted
with him will believe for a moment. But Bishop Blanchet’s
letter to Governor Abernethy is evidence conclusive that he and his
priests had done exactly what they here say Dr. Whitman attempted
to do.


“During the months of October and November,” Brouillet says. “the
Doctor came to the fort several times to render his professional services
to Mrs. Maxwell and Mr. Thomas McKay; he was a little more reserved
than at the first interview, but it was always visible enough that the
sight of the bishop and his clergy was far from being agreeable to
him.”


It will be remembered that Mr. Brouillet is giving this narrative and
speaking of a man whose blood had been shod in the cause of “Protestantism
in Oregon,” as he calls the title of his work, which he is
writing to correct the impression that he and his associates were in
some way concerned in bringing it about. In his allusions and statements,
he seems to be anxious to prove that Dr. Whitman and all Protestants
and Americans in the country are guilty of the crime laid to the
influence of the priests, and by giving these statements expects everybody
will believe them to be wholly innocent. J. Ross Browne, in his
report, 3d page, agrees with this priest, and refers to supposed transactions
(that did not occur) in 1835. At that time there was not a band
or tribe of Indians west of the Rocky Mountains but was ready to give
land to any white man that would come and live in their country. This
land question, as stated by Brouillet and Ross Browne, or the “encroachments
of a superior upon an inferior race,” had no part in the[Pg 462]
matter. It was a foreign national question, as we have already shown,
and we now propose to quote these statements from his narrative, to
show the intimate connection there was between the Jesuit priests, the
Hudson’s Bay Company, the Indians, and the Whitman massacre.


According to Brouillet, the bishop and his priests remained at Fort
Wallawalla from the 5th of September till the 26th of October (fifty
days), enjoying the hospitality of Mr. McBean, and seeing Dr. Whitman
occasionally, till, on the 26th, the Young Chief arrived. “The bishop
wished to know of him if he wanted a priest for him and his young men,
telling him that he could only give him one for the whole nation, and
if the Cayuses wished to avail themselves of his services they would do
well to come to an understanding together concerning the location of the
mission. The chief told the bishop he wished a priest, and that he
could have his house and as much land as he wanted.” So far this
statement bears the natural impress of truth, but mark the words here
put into the chief’s mouth, “but as a means of reuniting the Cayuses
who had been heretofore divided, and in order to facilitate their religious
instruction, he suggested the idea of establishing the mission near Dr.
Whitman’s, at the camp of Tilokaikt.”


The previous history of this chief, as given by Revs. Hines, Perkins,
and Dr. White, all goes to prove that he never made such a suggestion,
and no one acquainted with Indian character will believe for a
moment that he did. But the suggestion was without doubt made to
him to impress upon his mind the importance of uniting with other
bands of his tribe to get rid of Dr. Whitman, as shown by this priest
in the council that was held on the 4th of November, by special request
of the bishop sent to Tilokaikt on the 29th October, purporting to be
by request of the Young Chief. The dates show, as per Brouillet, that
the Young Chief was with the bishop on the 26th; on the 29th the
bishop sent for Tilokaikt; and on the 4th of November the council was
held, “at the bishop’s request,” who opened the meeting in the fort. At
this meeting the proposition is said to have been made to the bishop to
give him Dr. Whitman’s station, first driving him away. Says T. McKay,
in his statement to acquit these priests, speaking of this meeting
on the 4th of November: “One of the chiefs told the bishop that they
would send the Doctor off very soon; they would give him his house if
he wished. The bishop answered that he would not take the Doctor’s
house, that he did not wish him to send the Doctor away, and that there
was room enough for two missions.” This was, as understood by the
Indians, “The bishop intends to have a place near Dr. Whitman’s, and
he wishes us to dispose of the Doctor in some way so that he can have
a place where all the Cayuses can be instructed together in his religion.”


[Pg 463]In accordance with the understanding had with the bishop and Cayuses
in this council on the 4th, this priest says (see p. 44 of Brouillet,
34 of J. R. Browne): “On the 8th of November I went by order of the
bishop to Wailatpu to look at the land which Tilokaikt had offered;
but he had changed his mind, and refused to show it to me, saying that
it was too small. He told me that he had no place to give me but that
of Dr. Whitman, whom he intended to send away. I declared to him
a second time the same as the bishop had done at the meeting, that I
would not have the place of Dr. Whitman. I then went immediately to
the camp of Young Chief, to notify him that I would take his house,
since I was unable to procure a place from Tilokaikt.” He further says
he returned to the fort on the 10th, and on the 11th, an associate, Rev.
Mr. Rousseau, left with his men to repair the house, which was ready
by the 26th, and on the 27th of November the bishop and his party
started for the house, said to have been designed for them (of which
there is no doubt). On their first arrival at Wallawalla, it would have
been the wiser course for them to have accepted of it, instead of attempting,
through the influence of the company, to get possession of
Dr. Whitman’s station, or the consent of the Indians, as they say they
did, to locate near the station. But we have positive proof of the
design of Mr. McBean, the agent of the company, and the bishop, as
given in the testimony of Mr. John Kimzey.


He says: “On my way to this country with my family last fall (1847),
I called at Fort Wallawalla to exchange my team and wagon for horses.
There were at the fort two Roman Catholic priests. During my stay of
about two days, Mr. McBean, in the presence of my wife, said, ‘The
fathers have offered to purchase Dr. Whitman’s station, but Dr. Whitman
has refused to sell.’ He said they had requested the Doctor to fix
his own price and they would meet it, but the Doctor had refused to sell
on any conditions, I asked him who he meant by the fathers? He
said ‘The holy fathers, the Catholic priests.’ He said the holy fathers
were about to commence a mission at the mouth of the Umatilla,—one
in the upper part of the Umatilla, one near Dr. Whitman’s station,
if they could not get hold of the station, one in several other places
which I can not name. They hired Mr. Marsh, whose tools I brought,
to do off a room for the priests at the fort. He said, ‘Dr. Whitman had
better leave the country or the Indians would kill him; we are determined
to have his station.’ He further said, ‘Mr. Spalding will also have to
leave this country soon.’ As I was about leaving, Mr. McBean said: ‘If
you could pass as an Englishman, the Indians would not injure you; if
they do disturb you, show them the horses and the marks, and they
will know my horses; show them by signs that you are from the fort,[Pg 464]
and they will let you pass.’ The Indians noticed the marks on the
horses and did not disturb me.



“John Kimzey.”


“Subscribed and sworn to before me, at my office in Tualatin Plains
[now Washington County], this 28th day of August, 1848.



“David T. Lenox, Justice of the Peace.”



This is fully confirmed by the oath of R. S. Wilcox, as having heard
the statement from Mr. Kimzey the night after he left the fort, in camp
at the mouth of the Umatilla, before the same justice of the peace. Mr.
Wilcox says Mr. Kimzey was much alarmed, and really believed that it
was the design of the priests’ party to kill Dr. Whitman and drive the
American missionaries out of the country. His reply was, “The Catholics
have not got that station yet.”


Had we not the best English testimony, Fitzgerald’s, and the statements
of P. J. De Smet and Hoikin in their letters to their missionary
society in Brussels, to show the connection of the Hudson’s Bay Company
with this transaction, the facts above stated would fasten the
conviction of a strong and outspoken determination to overthrow the
Protestant missions. It will be remembered that these threats and
efforts to get rid of Dr. Whitman were made before the appearance of
any sickness or measles among the Cayuses.


Mr. Brouillet, on the 84th page of his narrative, says, “But I affirm
that such a demand has never been made to Dr. Whitman by any one
of us.” We are not disposed to dispute Mr. Brouillet’s affirmation, be
it true or false. The truth is all we seek to know.


The reader will not be particularly interested in the long details of
statements made by this priest to show that they had no part in bringing
about the destruction of the Protestant missions and the Whitman
massacre. Mr. McBean and Sir James Douglas have written extensively,
together with P. H. Burnett, Esq., and this Rev. Vicar-General
Brouillet, to show that nobody is responsible for that crime but the
missionaries who were murdered and the Indians, while Rev. Messrs.
Griffin and Spalding have attempted to fasten the whole crime upon
the Roman priests alone. It appears from Mr. Spalding’s account that
he met Mr. Brouillet and the bishop at Wallawalla on the 26th of November,
and had a sectarian discussion with them, which he thought was
friendly, yet from the fact that this priest barely alludes to the visit,
and not a word of the discussion is mentioned, we infer that Mr. Spalding
had the best of the argument, and that he was entirely mistaken
as to the friendly manner in which they could conduct their missions[Pg 465]
in the same section of country. We will not attempt to reconcile the
conflicting statements of these missionary parties, but will collect the
most reliable facts and particulars of the tragic events in which these
parties and the whole country became so deeply involved,—a part of
them so strongly implicated.


That the massacre was expected to take place in a short time, and
that all the Americans at the station, and all in any way connected
with, or favoring, the Protestant missions and American settlements in
the country, were to be included in the ultimate overthrow of those
upper, or middle Oregon missions, there can be no doubt; as shown in
the quotations we have given from our English Hudson’s Bay Company’s
historian and Sir Edward Belcher, and the efforts of the company
to colonize the country with English subjects from Red River,
instead of encouraging them to come direct from England.


It appears from the dates and accounts we have, that Dr. Whitman
was sent for to visit Five Crow’s lodge on the Umatilla, not far from
the house to be occupied by the bishop and his priests; that Mr. Spalding
accompanied the doctor to visit some of the Protestant Indians
in that vicinity; that the same day (the 27th of November), the
bishop and his priests started from Wallawalla to go to their station and
occupy the house of Young Chief. They arrived at their places and
learned that Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding were in the neighborhood.
On the next day, Sunday, 28th, Dr. Whitman made a short call on
them, and hastened home to attend on the sick about his place. While
at the lodge of a French half-breed named Nicholas Finlay, the Indians
were holding a council, to decide and arrange the preliminaries of the
massacre, with Joe Lewis, a Canadian-Indian, and Joe Stanfield, a
Frenchman. Of this last-named man, Mr. Brouillet says: “As to Joseph
Stanfield, I admit that he was born and has been educated a Catholic.”
He lays great stress on the fact that this fellow had been tried and
acquitted. He says: “Why should we pretend now to be more enlightened
and wiser than the tribunals have been, and judge him more
severely than they have done.”


Dr. Whitman arrived at his station about twelve o’clock at night,
attended upon the sick, and retired. That night an Indian had died.
In the morning, the Doctor, as usual, had a coffin and a winding-sheet
prepared, and assisted the friends in burying their dead. He observed,
on returning to the house, that but two or three attended at the grave.
As he returned, great numbers of Indians were seen gathering about
the station; but an ox had been killed, and was being dressed, which
was supposed to be the cause, as the Indians on such occasions always
collected in great numbers, and often from a distance.




[Pg 466]


CHAPTER LV.


Occupations of the victims immediately before the massacre.—Description of the mission
buildings.—The Doctor called into the kitchen to be murdered.—Joe Lewis,
the leader in the massacre.—The scene outside.—The Doctor’s house plundered.—Mrs.
Whitman shot.—Brutalities to the dead and dying.—Escape of some and
murder of others.—Safety of the French Papists and the servants of the Hudson’s
Bay Company.—Fate of Joe Lewis.


Joseph Stanfield had brought in the ox from the plains, and it had
been shot by Francis Sager. Messrs. Kimball, Canfield, and Hoffman
were dressing it between the two houses; Mr. Sanders was in the school,
which he had just called in for the afternoon; Mr. Marsh was grinding
at the mill; Mr. Gillan was on his tailor’s bench in the large adobe
house, a short distance from the doctor’s; Mr. Hall was at work laying
a floor to a room adjoining the Doctor’s house; Mr. Rogers was in the
garden; Mr. Osborn and family were in the Indian room adjoining the
Doctor’s sitting-room; young Mr. Sales was lying sick in the family
of Mr. Canfield, who was living in the blacksmith shop; young Mr.
Bewley was sick in the Doctor’s house; John Sager was sitting in the
kitchen but partially recovered from the measles; the Doctor and Mrs.
Whitman, with their three sick children, and Mrs. Osborn and her sick
child, were in the dining or sitting room.


The mission buildings occupied a triangular space of ground fronting
the north in a straight line, about four hundred feet in length. The
Doctor’s house, standing on the west end, and fronting west, was
18 × 62 feet, adobe walls; library and bedroom on south end; dining
and sitting room in the middle, 18 × 24; Indian room on north end,
18 × 26; kitchen on the east side of the house, 18 × 26, fireplace in the
middle, and bedroom in rear; schoolroom joining on the east of the
kitchen, 18 × 30; blacksmith shop, 150 feet east; the house called the
mansion on the east end of the angle, 32 × 40 feet, one and a half stories;
the mill, made of wood, standing upon the old site, about four hundred
feet from either house. The east and south space of ground was protected
by the mill-pond and Wallawalla Creek—north front by a ditch
that discharged the waste water from the mill, and served to irrigate
the farm in front of the Doctor’s house, which overlooked the whole.
To the north and east is a high knoll, less than one-fourth of a mile distant;
and directly to the north, three-fourths of a mile distant, is Mill[Pg 467]
Creek. In a military or defensive question, the premises could be easily
protected from small-arms or cavalry.


While the Doctor was sitting with his family as above stated,
several Indians, who had come into the kitchen, came to the door
leading to the dining-room, and requested him to come into the
kitchen. He did so, taking his bible in his hand, in which he was reading,
and shut the door after him. Edward Sager sat down by his side
and asked for medicine. Tilokaikt commenced a conversation with
him, when Tamsaky, an Indian, called the Murderer, and the one
that told the bishop at Wallawalla he would give him the Doctor’s
station, came behind him, and, drawing a pipe tomahawk from
under his blanket, struck the Doctor on the back of his head. The first
blow stunned him and his head fell upon his breast, but the second
blow followed instantly upon the top of his head, and brought him
senseless but not lifeless to the floor.


John Sager, rising up, attempted to draw a pistol; the Indians before
him rushed to the door by which they had entered, crying out, “He
will shoot us;” but those behind seized his arms and threw him upon
the floor; at the same time he received shots from several short Hudson’s
Bay muskets, which had been concealed under their blankets. He
was cut and gashed terribly with knives, his throat was cut, and a
woolen tippet stuffed into it,—still he lingered. In the struggle, two
Indians were wounded, one in the foot, the other in the hand, by each
other.


Mrs. Whitman, as soon as the tumult commenced, overhearing and
judging the cause, began in agony to stamp upon the floor and wring
her hands, crying out, “Oh, the Indians! the Indians! That Joe (referring
to Joe Lewis) has done it all!” Mrs. Osborn stepped into the
Indian room with her child, and in a short time Mr. Osborn and family
were secreted under the floor.


Without coming into the other rooms, the Indians left the kitchen,
to aid in the dreadful destruction without. At this moment Mrs. Hays
ran in from the mansion-house, and, with her assistance, Mrs. Whitman
drew her dying husband into the dining-room, and placed his mangled,
bleeding head upon a pillow, and did all her frightful situation would
allow to stay the blood and revive him, but to no purpose. The
dreadful work was done. To every question that was put to him, he
would simply reply, “No,” in a low whisper. After receiving the first
blow, he was probably insensible.


About this time, Mr. Kimball ran into the room through the kitchen,
and rushed up-stairs with a broken arm hanging by his side. He was
immediately followed by Mr. Rogers, who, in addition to a wounded[Pg 468]
arm, was tomahawked in the side of the head and covered with blood.
He assisted Mrs. Whitman in making fast all the doors, and in removing
the sick children up-stairs.


Joe Lewis, a Roman Catholic Indian, is asserted, by those who have
traced his course, to have come from Canada with the party of priests and
French that crossed the plains in 1847, and by whom it is affirmed the
measles were brought into the immigrant trains that year. The priests’
party brought him to Boise, and there left him to find his way to Dr.
Whitman’s. He attempted to make arrangements with an immigrant
family to come to the Wallamet, but was afterward furnished with a
horse and supplies, and traveled with a Cayuse Indian. While at Boise,
making his arrangements with the immigrant family, he told them there
was going to be a great overturn at Dr. Whitman’s and in the Wallamet.
How or what the overturn was to be, the party did not learn, but
supposed it might be from immigration or some change in the government
of the country. He arrived at Dr. Whitman’s apparently destitute
of clothes and shoes. He made himself at home at once, as he could
speak English, French, and a little Nez Percé. He had been at the station
but a few days, before the Doctor and the two Sager boys learned that
he was making disturbance among the Indians. The Doctor finding
some immigrant families who wanted a teamster, furnished him with
shoes and a shirt, and got him to go with them. He was gone three
days, and the second night ran away from the man he had agreed to
go with, and returned about the station. He spent most of his time in
the lodge of Nicholas Finlay, the common resort of Stanfield and the
Indians engaged in the scenes we are relating; and was the leader in
the whole affair. He was seen several times approaching the windows
with a gun, but when Mrs. Whitman would ask, “Joe, what do you
want?” he would ran away.


The scene outside, by this time, had attained the summit of its fury.
The screams of the fleeing women and children, the groans and struggles
of the falling, dying victims, the roar of musketry, the whistling of
balls, the blows of the war-club, the smoke of powder, the furious riding
of naked, painted Indians, the unearthly yells of infuriated savages,
self-maddened, like tigers, by the smell of human blood,—the legitimate
fruits of Romish superstitions faithfully implanted in the savage mind.


Mrs. Whitman remained by the side of her husband, who was pale
and gasping in death. Two Americans were overpowered and cut down
by the crowd under her window, which drew her attention, and gave
an opportunity for an Indian, that had always been treated kindly by
her, to level his gun. His victim received the ball, through the window,
in her right breast, and fell, uttering a single groan. In a few moments[Pg 469]
she revived, rose and went to the settee, and kneeling in prayer was
heard to pray for their adopted children (the Sager family, who had lost
father and mother in crossing the plains, now again to be left orphans),
and for her aged father and mother in the States, that they might be
sustained under this terrible shock (made a thousand-fold more so by
the infamous account of it given by Sir James Douglas in his Sandwich
Islands letter), which the news of her fate must occasion. Soon after
this she was helped into the chamber, where were now collected Mrs.
Whitman, Mrs. Hays, Miss Bewley, Catharine Sager, Messrs. Kimball
and Rogers, and the three sick children.


They had scarcely gained this temporary retreat, when the crash of
windows and doors, and the deafening war-whoop, tore the last hope
from their fainting hearts. The rooms below were plundered of their
property,—the furniture dashed to pieces and cast out. Joe Lewis was
seen to be among the foremost to dash in the windows and bring out
the goods. Here a deed was perpetrated similar to that of the refined
and Christian Catholic people of Burgos, in Spain, when they murdered
and cut up their governor for attempting to obey the law and take an
invoice of church property.


The Cayuse Indian Tilokaikt went into the room where the Doctor
lay yet breathing, and with his hatchet deliberately chopped his face
terribly to pieces, but left him still alive. Some Indian, also, cut the
face of John Sager while he was yet alive.


About this time, Joe Lewis went into the schoolroom and sought
out the children, who were hid in the upper loft, and brought them into
the kitchen to be shot. As Francis passed by his mangled, gasping
brother, he stooped and took the woolen tippet from the gash in his
throat, when John attempted to speak, but immediately expired. Upon
this, Francis turned to his sister and said, “I shall soon follow my
brother.” The children were kept in this painful position for some
time. Eliza Spalding was among them, and understood every word
spoken by the Indians, who, having finished their terrible slaughter
without, were filling the room and the doorways, with their guns
pointed at the heads and hearts of the children, constantly yelling,
“Shall we shoot?” Eliza says her blood became cold, and she could
not stand, but leaned over upon the sink, covering her face with her
apron, that she might not see them shoot her. From this place they
were removed out of the door by the side of the Indian room, just
before Mrs. Whitman was brought out to be shot.


Immediately after breaking into the house, the Indians called to Mrs.
Whitman and Mr. Rogers to come down, and on receiving no answer,
Tamsaky (the Indian who was the most anxious to have the bishop[Pg 470]
and his priests take the Doctor’s place), started to go up-stairs, but
discovering the end of an old gun (placed there by Miss Bewley),
he desisted, and entered into conversation with those above. He
urged them to come down, assuring them that no one should hurt
them. Mrs. Whitman told him she was shot, and had not strength to
come down, besides she feared they would kill her. Tamsaky expressed
much sorrow on learning that Mrs. Whitman was wounded, and
promised that no one should be hurt if they would come down. Mrs.
Whitman replied, “If you are my friend, come up and see me.” He
objected, and said there were Americans hid in the chamber with arms
to kill him. Mr. Rogers, standing at the head of the stairs, assured him
there were none, and very soon he went up and remained some time,
apparently sympathizing with the sufferers, assuring them that he was
sorry for what had taken place, and urged Mrs. Whitman to come
down and be taken over to the other house where the families were,
intimating that the young men might destroy the house in the night.
About this time the cry was heard from Joe Lewis, “We will now burn.”


Mrs. Whitman was assisted down by Mr. Rogers and Mrs. Hays; on
reaching the lower room, becoming faint, she was laid upon a settee,
and taken through the kitchen over the dead body of young Sager,
and through a crowd of Indians. As the settee passed out of the door,
the word was given by the chief not to shoot the children. At this
moment Mr. Rogers discovered their treachery, and had only time to
drop the settee, raise his hands and exclaim, “O my God!” when a
volley of guns was fired from within and without the house, part at
Mrs. Whitman and part at himself. He fell upon his face, pierced
with many balls.


An Indian seized Francis Sager from among the children, and Joe
Lewis drew his pistol, and with the expression, “You bad boy,” shot
him. All manner of Indian brutality and insult were offered to the
mangled bodies while they lay groaning and dying, till night closed
upon the scene, and the Indians retired to Finlay’s and Tilokaikt’s
lodges to consult as to further outrage upon the still living and helpless
victims.


The Canadian-Indian, Joe Lewis, was as active in abusing the helpless
girls as he had been in selecting the children of the Hudson’s Bay
Company’s servants to be protected and sent away from such as were
to be abused and slaughtered.


Mr. Kimball, the three sick children, and Catharine Sager remained
in the chamber all night. Mr. Osborn lay under the floor of the Indian
room till the Indians retired. He then made his escape to the fort at
Wallawalla, with his family. The three men at the beef found themselves[Pg 471]
surrounded, and in the midst of a volley of balls from pistols and guns
pointed at them. All three were wounded, but neither fell. They fled
as best they could: Mr. Kimball to the house; Mr. Canfield to the
blacksmith shop, and thence to the mansion, where he hid himself, and
remained till night; then fled and reached Lapwai before Mr. Spalding
did. Mr. Hall wrenched a gun, which had missed fire, from an Indian’s
hand, and ran for the bushes; reached the fort next morning;
was put across the Columbia River by Mr. McBean’s order; and was
lost,—starved to death, or murdered by the Indians, we know not
which. Mr. Gillan was shot upon his bench. Mr. Marsh was shot at
the mill; ran a short distance toward the Doctor’s house and fell.
Mr. Saunders, hearing the guns, rushed to the door of the schoolroom,
where he was seized by several Indians, who threw him upon the
ground amid a shower of balls and tomahawks. Being a strong and
active man, he rose, though wounded, and ran some rods, but was
overtaken, surrounded, and cut down. Mr. Hoffman was cut down,
after fighting desperately with a knife, his body cut open, and his
heart and liver torn out.


In the midst of all this fury and savage shedding of blood, no children
or servants of the Hudson’s Bay Company, or Roman Catholics,
or such as professed friendship for that faith, were harmed in the
least. Finlay, a half-breed of the company’s, who had formerly kept
its horses, was stopping close to the station, assisting and counseling
with the Indians; Joe Lewis selected the two Manson boys and a
half-breed Spanish boy the Doctor had raised, and arranged to send
them to the fort. Whoever this Indian was, or wherever he was from,
he seems to have understood and acted fully and faithfully his part in
the “great overturn” that he said, while at Boise, was to take place
at that station and in the lower country. How he came to know there
was to be any change or overturn is yet a secret only to be guessed
at. Mr. McBean says he returned to Boise and Fort Hall; and Mr.
McDonald, that he killed the guide to a company of United States
troops in the mountains, and was himself shot.




[Pg 472]


CHAPTER LVI.


Comments on Vicar-General Brouillet’s arguments against the Whitman massacre being
the act of Catholics.—Joe Stanfield: Brouillet’s story in his favor.—Murders on
the second day.—Deposition of Daniel Young.—More murders.


Vicar-General Brouillet, in his narrative of “Protestantism in
Oregon,” says: “I could admit that Joseph Lewis, Joseph Stanfield,
and Nicholas Finlay, who may have been seen plundering” (as proved
on the trial of Stanfield), “were Catholics, without injuring in the
least the cause of Catholicism; because, as in good reasoning” (Roman
Catholic, of course), “it is never allowed to conclude from one particularity
to another particularity, nor to a generality; in like manner, from
the guilt of three Catholics it can not be reasonably concluded that other
Catholics are guilty, nor, a fortiori, that all Catholics are guilty and
Catholicism favorable to the guilt.”


No man, set of men, or sect, not interested in the result of a measure
or a crime, will ever use an argument like the one we have quoted from
this priest. Dr. Whitman and those about his station had been
slaughtered in the most brutal and cowardly manner, by a band of Indians
that this priest, his bishop, and associates, backed by the consent
and influence of the Hudson’s Bay Company, had brought about through
the direct influence of these three men: all of whom knew, and consulted
with the Indians as to the commission of the crime. And we
have the strongest reason to believe that this priest and his party were,
by their conversation, instructions, and direct teachings, adding their
influence and approval to that horrid transaction. Besides, when the
crime is committed, we find this same band of fur traders and priests
protecting, shielding, advising and assisting the murderers to the
utmost of their power and influence, both in the country and in their
foreign correspondence. If such facts do not implicate a party, we ask
what will? The very book from which we are quoting, containing 108
pages, has not a single sentence condemning the course or crime of these
men, but every page contains some statement condemning Spalding,
Whitman, or some American supposed to belong to, or in favor of, the
American settlements or missions.


But let us return to further particulars of this Whitman massacre.
We have gathered up the statements and facts on both sides of this[Pg 473]
question, and with our own knowledge, previous to and since its occurrence,
we write with assurance, if not with the best judgment in selecting
the facts and evidence to place the truth before the public.


We were in the midst of describing that horrible scene of savage
blood and carnage, when we stopped for a moment to inquire after the
character of three of the prominent actors, in fact, the leaders in the
tragedy.


Brouillet tells us (on page 89 of his narrative, page 56 of Ross
Browne) in extenuation of the guilt of Stanfield, that “the following
circumstance, if true, speaks very highly in his favor, and shows that if
he has at any time forgotten the good principles he had received in his
infancy, once, at least, those principles prompted him to an heroic
action. It was on the morning of the day that followed the massacre.
There were several Indians scattered in the neighborhood of the mission
buildings, but especially a crowd of Indian women was standing
near the door of the house in which all the white women and children
were living. Stanfield, being then at a short distance from the house,
Tilokaikt, the chief of the place, came up and asked him if he had something
in the house. ‘Yes,’ said Stanfield, ‘I have all my things there.’
‘Take them away,’ said the Indian to him. ‘Why should I take
them away? they are well there.’ ‘Take them off,’ he insisted, a second
time. ‘But I have not only my things there; I have also my wife
and children.’ ‘Yes,’ replied Tilokaikt, who appeared a little surprised,
‘you have a wife and children in the house! Will you take them off?’
‘No,’ replied Stanfield, ‘I will not take them away, and I will go and
stay myself in the house. I see that you have bad designs; you intend
to kill the women and children; well, you will kill me with them. Are
you not ashamed? Are you not satisfied with what you have done?
Do you want still to kill poor innocent creatures that have never done
you any harm?’ ‘I am ashamed,’ replied Tilokaikt, after a moment’s
hesitation. ‘It is true, those women and children do not deserve death;
they did not harm us; they shall not die.’ And, turning to the Indian
women who were standing near the door of the house waiting with a
visible impatience for the order to enter and slaughter the people inside,
he ordered them to go off. The Indian women then became
enraged, and, showing them the knives that they took from beneath
their blankets, they insulted him in many different ways, calling him a
coward, a woman who would consent to be governed by a Frenchman;
and they retired, apparently in great anger for not having been allowed
to imbrue their hands in the blood of new victims. The above circumstance
was related at Fort Wallawalla to Mr. Ogden, by Stanfield himself,
under great emotion, and in presence of the widows, none of whom[Pg 474]
contradicted him. An action of that nature, if it took place, would be,
of itself, sufficient to redeem a great many faults.”


We do not wish to question any good act this Frenchman may have
done; but the guilt of knowing that crime was to be committed, and
that the Americans were to be killed around him like the ox he had
brought to the slaughter, which he knew was to be the signal for its
commencement; and the manner he and his two associates conducted
themselves on the ground; the influence he had to stop the massacre at
any time, and his robbing the widows and orphans in the midst of the
slaughter;—these make up a complication of crime that none but the
vilest will attempt to excuse.


On the 30th of November, Mr. Kimball and Mr. Young, a young
man from the saw-mill, were killed. Mr. Kimball, in attempting to go
from his concealment in the chamber for water for himself and the sick
children, was shot by a young Indian, who claimed his eldest daughter
for a wife as his lawful pay for killing her father.


We will now give an original deposition which explains the killing
of Mr. Young, and also of two other young men, who escaped the first
and second, and became victims of the third more brutal slaughter.


Deposition of Mr. Daniel Young relative to the Wailatpu Massacre.


Question.—When, and in what manner, did you learn of the massacre?


Answer.—I was residing with my father’s family at Dr. Whitman’s
saw-mill, about twenty miles from Wailatpu, where we had gone
for the winter. My brother, a young man about twenty-four years of
age, and about two years older than myself, had gone down to the
station, the Tuesday before, with a load of lumber, and for provisions,
and was expecting to return about the last of the week. Joseph
Smith and family were also living at the saw-mill, except his oldest
daughter, who was at the station. His family was out of flour and
meat, and ours was now out of meat. On Saturday evening, he proposed
to me to go down the next day for provisions. I did not wish to
go down; told him if he wanted provisions he could go. He said if he
had a horse he would go. We offered him a horse. He still urged me to
go, as there was no one, he said, to stay with his family. I went down on
horseback on the Sabbath, being the next Sabbath after the massacre.
I did not go to the place till about an hour after dark, and learned
nothing of the massacre till after I had got into the house. In the room
where I expected to find my brother, I found them eating supper,
with several Indians in the room. At the table was Mrs. Hays, and
Joseph Stanfield, and Mrs. Hall, with the remnant of her family.[Pg 475]
About a couple of minutes after I went in, Joseph Stanfield left the table
and went out of the house (this was some time previous to the rest
leaving the table), and was gone for about three hours, I knew not
where; but after he returned, he said he had started to go to Nicholas
Finlay’s, a half-breed’s lodge, but had got lost. Nicholas had come in
about half an hour before Stanfield returned. In the mean time I had
learned from the Indian Beardy, through Eliza Spalding (his interpreter),
of the massacre. This was in short sentences and much confused.
Beardy said, however, that the Doctor was his friend, and he
did not know of it until a good many had been killed, and he was
sorry for what had taken place; he said the Indians said the Doctor
was poisoning them, and that was the reason they did it, but he (Beardy)
did not believe it. That he was there to protect the women and children,
and no more should be killed. During the evening I also learned of
the number that had been killed, and of those who had escaped from
the place; but it was not known what had become of them.


I was informed by Stanfield that my brother had met an Indian who
had told him to go back and stay for a week, but another Indian told
him he could safely go on for provisions, and that he would go with him.
He went on to within half a mile of the mission. The Indians were
said to have gone thus far with him. Stanfield said he there found
him dead, shot through the head near one eye, and there he buried him.
Stanfield said also that evening that the Doctor was poisoning the
Indians, which had caused the massacre; that Joe Lewis had heard
from an adjoining room one night the Doctor and Mrs. Whitman talking
of poisoning them, and that the Doctor had said it was best to
destroy them by degrees, but that Mrs. Whitman said it was best to
do it at once, and they would be rid of them, and have all their land
and horses as their own; and that he (Joe Lewis) had told the Indians
this before the massacre.


Stanfield also asked me if I had heard of his being married. I told
him I had heard from my brother that he was going to take Mrs.
Hays for a wife. He said: “We are married, but have not yet slept
together.” I said: “Yes, I understand, you pretend to be married.”
He said: “We are married; that is enough.” I thought it strange
why he was saved unless he was a Catholic, and during the evening
took an occasion, when I thought he would not suspect my object, to
ask Stanfield whether he was a Catholic? He said, “I pass for one.”


I slept with Stanfield that night; did not retire till late. Next
morning, Crockett Bewley, a young man about twenty-one or twenty-two,
I should think, who was sick at the time of the first massacre,
and whose clothes had been stolen (by Stanfield), came into the room[Pg 476]
wrapped in a blanket or a quilt. Bewley seemed to speak of the
Doctor’s poisoning the Indians as something commonly reported
among them as the cause of the massacre, but said he did not believe
any thing of it, but he believed Joe Lewis was one of the leaders, and
the Catholic priests were the cause of it. Stanfield replied, “You need
not believe any such thing, and you had better not let the Indians
hear you say that,” and spoke in a voice as though he was somewhat
angry. Soon after this, Bewley left the room; Stanfield turned to me
and said: “He had better be careful how he talks; if the Indians
get hold of it the Catholics may hear of it.” As soon as I could do it
without being suspected, I sought an opportunity to caution Bewley
about the danger I thought he was running in speaking thus in the
presence of Stanfield, and asked him if he did not know of Stanfield
being a Catholic? He said he did not. I told him he might have
known it from the fact of most French being Catholics. He replied he
did not know of the French being Catholics more than any other
people. I told him to be cautious hereafter how he spoke, and he said
he would.


Soon after the conversation with Bewley, I told Stanfield I must
return home; he said I must not, the Indian chiefs would be there after
a while and would tell me what I must do; said he did not think I
could get off till the next day.


We now commenced making a coffin for one of the Sager children
that had died the night before. Soon after, the chief Tilokaikt came.
He told me I could not go back till the next day, that he would then
send two Indians back with me. I told Stanfield, in the chief’s presence,
that I had told my folks I should be back on Monday if I came
at all. Stanfield told me in reply, that the chief says, “Then you may
go;” Stanfield also said, “The chief says tell them all to come down
and bring every thing down that is up there; we want them to come
down and take care of the families and tend the mill. Tell them, ‘Don’t
undertake to run away; if you do, you will be sure to be killed;’ not be
afraid, for they shall not be hurt.”


The chief had now done talking. Stanfield now told me to caution
them, our people, at the saw-mill, as to what they should say; if they
said any thing on the subject, “say that the Doctor was a bad man,
and was poisoning the Indians.” He had also before that told me the
same. I got a piece of meat and asked for some salt; but he said there
was none about the house; afterward I found this was not the case. I
then returned home, and informed our people as to what had taken place,
and my father’s first reply was, “The Catholics are at the bottom of it.”
Mr. Smith admitted it, but said, immediately, we must all become Cath[Pg 477]olics
for our safety, and before we left the saw-mill, and afterward, he
said he believed the Doctor was poisoning, and believed it from what
Joe Stanfield had told him before about the Doctor’s misusing the half-breeds
and children at his mission. The next day, Tuesday, we went
down to the mission, and arrived after dark; found the young men,
Bewley and Amos Sales, who were sick at the time of the first massacre,
were both killed, and their bodies were lying outside of the door near
the house where they lay during the night, and Stanfield said he could
not bury them until he got the permission of the Indians. The next
day we helped to bury them.


Here I would say that the two Indians the chief wished to send with
me, as he said, to see us safe down, as Stanfield interpreted to me at the
time, were the chief’s sons, and he wished me to wait because Edward,
Tilokaikt’s son, had gone to the Umatilla to the great chief, to see
what to do with the two young men who were sick. This, Stanfield
told me, was the business which Edward Tilokaikt had gone for, and
he would not get back so as to go with me that day. Three Indians, however,
arrived within an hour after I got to the saw-mill, viz., Clark
Tilokaikt, Stikas and one whose name I never knew, and came down
a part of the way with us next day. I learned from Mrs. Canfield and
her daughter, that this same Edward Tilokaikt, after he returned from
the Umatilla, gave the first blow with his whip, and broke and run out
of doors, when other Indians finished the slaughter of the sick men.
While at the station, Joseph Smith threatened me with the Indians if I
did not obey him. I felt our condition as bad and very dangerous from
the Indians, and feared that Smith would join them. He sometimes
talked of going on to the Umatilla to live with them. His daughter
was taken by the chief’s sons (first Clark, and in the second place, Edward)
for a wife. I told Mr. Smith, were I a father, I would never
suffer that, so long as I had power to use an arm; his reply was, “You
don’t know what you would do; I would not dare to say a word if they
should take my own wife.” I continued to regard our situation as
exceedingly dangerous till we got out of the country.


After we had arrived at Wallawalla, I said, in the presence of Mr.
McBean, that I supposed there were present some of the Indians who
had killed my brother, and if I knew them I would kill them yet.
Mr. McBean said, “Take care what you say, the very walls have ears.”
He was very anxious to get us safe to the Wallamet.


Q.—Would you suppose one who was acquainted at that place liable
to get lost in going that evening to Finlay’s lodge?


A.—I would not. It was in sight and a plain path to it, and was
not more than twenty-five yards off.


[Pg 478]Q.—When did you learn from your brother that Stanfield was going
to take Mrs. Hays as a wife?


A.—Some two or more weeks before the massacre, something was
said as to Mr. Hoffman taking Mrs. Hays. My brother says, “No, I
heard Joe Stanfield say that he was going to take her as a wife.”


Q.—Did your brother appear to believe that this was about to take
place?


A.—He did, and my brother talked about it,—made us believe it was
going to take place.


Q.—What opportunity had your brother to know about this, more
than yourself?


A.—He boarded at the station, and was some of the time teaming from
the saw-mill, and Mrs. Hays cooked for him and several others of the
Doctor’s hands, among whom was Stanfield.


Q.—Why did you think Stanfield was a Catholic, as a reason for his
being saved?


A.—Because I heard Dr. Whitman say at the mill, that the Catholics
were evidently trying to set the Indians upon him, but he thought
he could keep it down for another year, when he would be safe. I supposed
he expected safety from the government being extended over
the country.


Q.—How did Stanfield seem to know that the chief would be there
after a while, and would tell you what you might do as to going back
to the saw-mill?


A.—I did not know.


Q.—Why did you tell your people that you would be back on Monday,
if at all?


A.—Because we were in an Indian country, and I remembered what
I had heard the Doctor say at the Umatilla, and my brother had not
returned as expected.


Q.—Had you any means of knowing what “great chief,” at the
Umatilla, Tilokaikt spoke of, where his son Edward had gone to learn
what to do with the sick young men?


A.—I had not.


Q.—Did you know at that time that the bishop was said to be at
Umatilla?


A.—Yes.


Q.—Did you form in your own mind, at that time, any opinion as to
whom Edward had gone to consult?


A.—I thought the term “great chief” might have been put in to
deceive me, as Stanfield had told me, the evening before, that the Catholics
were going to establish a mission right away at that place, and that[Pg 479]
they would protect the women and children, and I thought it might be
the Catholics he was consulting, or it might be some great Indian chief.
This talk of establishing a station there continued for more than a week
after we got down to the station. After I found Bewley and Sales were
killed, I seemed to forget much until even after I had got down, and
even to the plains, when the facts again came more clearly to my recollection,
and I spoke of them freely to my parents and to others.



(Signed,)

Daniel Young.



Sworn and subscribed to, before me, this 20th day of January, A. D.
1849, in Tualatin Plains, Oregon Territory.



G. W. Coffinbury, Justice of the Peace.






[Pg 480]


CHAPTER LVII.


How the country was saved to the United States.—Article from the New York Evening
Post.—Ingratitude of the American Board.—Deposition of Elam Young.—Young
girls taken for Indian wives.—Statement of Miss Lorinda Bewley.—Sager, Bewley,
and Sales killed.


In taking up our morning Oregonian of November 16, 1866, our eye
lit upon the following article from the New York Evening Post, which
we feel assured the reader will not regret to find upon these pages, and
which will explain the desperate efforts made to secure this country to
the United States by Dr. Whitman, the details of whose death we are
now giving from the depositions of parties upon the ground, who were
eye-witnesses and fellow-sufferers at the fall of that good and noble
man whose labors and sacrifices his countrymen are at this late day
only beginning to appreciate. We ask in astonishment: Has the
American Board at last opened its ears, and allowed a statement of
that noble martyr’s efforts to save Oregon to his country to be made
upon its record? It has! it has! and here it is:—


“We presume it is not generally known to our citizens on the Pacific
coast, nor to many people in the Atlantic States, how near we came to
losing, through executive incompetence, our just title to the whole
immense region lying west of the Rocky Mountains. Neither has due
honor been accorded to the brave and patriotic man through whose
herculean exertions this great loss and sacrifice was prevented.


“The facts were briefly and freshly brought out during the recent
meeting at Pittsburg of the ‘American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions,’ in the course of an elaborate paper read by Mr.
Treat, one of the secretaries of the Board, on the ‘Incidental Results of
Missions.’


“In the year 1836 the American Board undertook to establish a mission
among the Indians beyond the Rocky Mountains. Two missionaries,
Rev. Mr. Spalding and Dr. Whitman, with their wives,—the
first white women who had ever made that perilous journey,—passed
over the mountains with incredible toil, to reach Oregon, the field of
their labor. After remaining there for a few years, Dr. Whitman began
to understand the object of the misrepresentations of the Hudson’s
Bay Company. He saw, contrary to the reiterated public statements
of that company—


[Pg 481]“1. That the land was rich in minerals.


“2. That emigrants could cross the Rocky Mountains in wagons, a
feat which they had constantly asserted to be impossible.


“3. That the Hudson’s Bay Company was planning to secure the
sole occupancy of the whole of that country, by obtaining a surrender
of the American title into the hands of the British government.


“Seeing these things, but not knowing how very near the British
scheme was to its accomplishment, Dr. Whitman resolved, at every
hazard, to prevent its consummation. He undertook, in 1842, to make
a journey on horseback to Washington, to lay the whole matter clearly
before our government by personal representations. Being a man of
great physical strength and an iron constitution, he accomplished the
long and perilous journey, and reached Washington in safety. The
remainder of the story we will relate in the language of the Boston
Congregationalist: Reaching Washington, he sought an interview
with President Tyler and Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, and
unfolded to them distinctly what was going on. Here he learned that a
treaty was almost ready to be signed, in which all this northwestern
territory was to be given up to England, and we were to have in compensation
greater facilities in catching fish. Dr. Whitman labored to
convince Mr. Webster that he was the victim of false representations
with regard to the character of the region, and told him that he intended
to return to Oregon with a train of emigrants. Mr. Webster, looking
him full in the eye, asked him if he would pledge himself to conduct
a train of emigrants there in wagons. He promised that he would.
Then, said Mr. Webster, this treaty shall be suppressed. Dr. Whitman,
in coming on, had fixed upon certain rallying-points where
emigrants might assemble to accompany him on his return. He found
nearly one thousand ready for the journey. After long travel, they
reached Fort Hall, a British military station, and the commandant
undertook to frighten the emigrants by telling them that it was not
possible for them to go through with wagons; but Dr. Whitman reassured
them, and led them through to the Columbia, and the days of
the supremacy of the Hudson’s Bay Company over Oregon were
numbered.”


Twenty-four years after that noble, devoted, faithful servant and
missionary of theirs had received a cold reproof, after enduring one of
the severest and most trying journeys of several thousand miles, his
Board at home, and unreasonably cautious associates in Oregon have
consented to acknowledge that they owe to him a debt of respect for
doing, without their consent or approval at the time, a noble, patriotic,
and unselfish act for his country.


[Pg 482]And how shall we regard the cold indifference they have manifested
to the present day, in regard to the infamous manner in which his life,
and the lives of his wife and countrymen were taken, and the continued
slanders heaped upon their names? Have they asked for, or even
attempted an explanation, or a refutation of those slanders? Their
half-century volume speaks a language not to be mistaken. Mr.
Spalding, his first and most zealous associate, attempted to bring the
facts before the world, but the caution of those who would whitewash
his (Dr. Whitman’s) sepulcher induced Mr. Spalding to give up in
despair,—a poor broken-down wreck, caused by the frightful ending
of his fellow-associates, and of his own missionary labors.


Is this severe, kind reader, upon the Board and a portion of Dr.
Whitman’s associates? We intend to tell the truth if it is, as we are
endeavoring to get the truth, the whole truth, and as few mistakes as
possible in these pages. Therefore we will copy another deposition
relative to this massacre.


Deposition of Mr. Elam Young.


I met Dr. Whitman on the Umatilla, about the 1st of October,
1847. He engaged me to build a mill for him at his mission. As the
lumber was not handy at the station, I moved up to the saw-mill to do
a part of the work there.


Some time in November, my son James, who was teaming for the
Doctor, went from the saw-mill with a load of lumber for the mission
station, and was to return with provisions for us. This was on Tuesday
after the murder. Shortly after he had gone away, Mr. Smith, who
was also at the saw-mill, appeared to be very uneasy; stated repeatedly
that he was sure something had happened to him; said he had a constant
foreboding of some evil; stated that Dr. Whitman was abusing
the children at the mission, as he had understood by Stanfield; frequently
spoke against Dr. Whitman. The next Sunday, beginning to
feel uneasy, I sent my second son Daniel down to the station, who
returned on Monday and brought the news of the massacre. It instantly
struck my mind that the Catholic priests had been the cause of the
whole of it. This conviction was caused by repeated conversations
with Dr. Whitman, together with my knowledge of the principles of
the Jesuits. Mr. Smith observed at the same time that we must all be
Jesuits for the time being. Soon after Daniel returned, three Indians
came up and told us we must go down to the station, which we accordingly
did the next day. When we got there it was after night; we
found that Crockett Bewley and Amos Sales had both been killed that
day. The women told us that they had told the Indians, before we[Pg 483]
came down, that we were English, and we must not contradict it.
The Indians soon began to question whether I was English. I told
them I was of English parents, but born in the United States.


A few days after we got there two young women were taken as
wives for the Indians, which I opposed, and was threatened by Mr. Smith,
who was very anxious that it should take place, and that other little
girls should be given up for wives. Was employed while there in
making coffins and grinding for the Indians.


While there, Miss Bewley was taken off to the Umatilla. Tried to
comfort her as much as I could, believing she would be safer there at the
Catholic station than where we were. First ten days we were constantly
told that the Catholics were coming there to establish a mission.
Heard that Mr. Ogden had come up to Wallawalla to rescue us from
the Indians. Went to grinding and preparing provisions for our journey.
Smith and Stanfield, who appeared to be very friendly with each
other, had the management of the teams and loading, took the best
teams and lightest loads, gave us the poorest teams and heaviest loads.
On the way to Wallawalla they drove off and left us. The hindmost
teams had to double in the bad places. Reached the fort perhaps
half an hour after Smith and Stanfield had; met Smith at the
gate, who says: “Well, you have got along?” “Yes.” “It is well you
did, for the Indians found out that you were not an Englishman, and
were determined to have your scalp.” I asked him, “How do you
know this?” to which he made no reply. Went into the fort and
met Mr. McBean and the priest; supposed they would all rejoice at
our escape, but their manner was very cold and distant. But Mr.
Ogden greeted us cordially. The next day the Indians came into the
fort in considerable numbers, and their actions were suspicious, and
Mr. McBean seemed to interest himself very much in our behalf, and
told us to be very quiet and to keep in our own rooms, and be careful
what we said, as the very walls had ears. [If this does not show the
sneaking dog, what does? Ogden is apparently all friendship, and
McBean is all caution to the captives.]


We arrived on Monday, and Mr. Spalding on Saturday after, and
the next day all took boat for the lower country.


Q.—Did your son give you any caution as to what to say when you
reached the station.


A.—He said Stanfield said we must say the Doctor poisoned the
Indians.


Q.—What did you learn about Mr. Rogers as having made a confession.


A.—Stanfield said that Mr. Rogers had made a confession that the[Pg 484]
Doctor had poisoned the Indians. I replied, “Who knows this?” He said
Mrs. Hays and Mrs. Hall heard it. I afterward asked Mrs. Hays if
she did hear it. She replied, “We must say so now.” I afterward, at
the station, told Stanfield he had better not mention that to Americans,
for there was not one from Maine to Georgia that would believe
it. He replied, “We must say so.” I told him I never would.


Q.—What conversation with the Doctor led you to believe the
Catholics were at the bottom of the whole of it?


A.—That some years before (1841) he had had difficulty with the
Indians, and he had found out satisfactorily where it came from, by
charging the Indians of having been made jealous of a certain man.
I do not recollect the name, but I think he said he was from Canada,
and the Indians acknowledged it. [The difficulty here spoken of was
about the horses given as a present to Rev. Jason Lee, on his way to
Wallamet. The Indians had been told by the company’s interpreter,
old Toupin, that he had as good as stolen their horses, as he made them
no presents in return, and they were encouraged to make that a cause
of difficulty with Dr. Whitman.] At that time they had knocked off
his hat, etc., but other Indians would obey him and pick it up, and so
long as they would obey, he was satisfied of his safety; but this had
long since passed off. [The writer was present, and saw the whole performance
here alluded to, the particulars of which are given elsewhere].
And they were never in a better state until of late, when a body of
priests and Jesuits had come in, and were constantly saying in their
ears that this sickness came on them by the Americans; that the
Americans were a very bad people, that the Good Being had sent on
them as a punishment.


Q.—Why did Mr. Smith appear anxious to have the young women
given to the Indians?


A.—I do not know, unless to appease them, and get their affection.


Q.—Did the Doctor appear to wish to remain, against the wish of a
majority of the Indians?


A.—I heard him say repeatedly, if the Indians wished him to leave
he would, but a large majority said he must not, and he thought the
times would soon change. I understood him to expect a change from
the extension of government.


Q.—Did your son Daniel say any thing, before you moved from the
saw-mill, of having cautioned C. Bewley for speaking unadvisedly
before Joe Stanfield?


A.—Yes, he gave that; that amounts to the same as he has given in
his statement.


[Pg 485]Q.—Did you have any fears, while at the station, that Mr. Smith was
liable, had the circumstances become more dangerous, to act with the
Indians?


A.—Certainly I did.


Q.—Did you get any reason why Bewley and Sales were killed?


A.—Though I did not get it directly from them, the Indian account
was, the great chief at the Umatilla said their disease would spread;
but I believe it was because Bewley had spoken before Stanfield unadvisedly.



(Signed,)
 Elam Young.



Sworn and subscribed to before me, this 20th day of January, 1849.



G. W. Coffinbury, Justice of the Peace.



What shall we say of these depositions, and the facts asserted under
the solemnity of an oath, the witnesses still living, with many others
confirming the one fact, that Roman priests and Hudson’s Bay men,
English and Frenchmen, were all safe and unharmed in an Indian—and
that American—territory, while American citizens were cut down by savage
hands without mercy? Can we regard the conduct of such men in
any other light than as enemies in peace? Without the aid of religious
bigotry and the appeal to God as sending judgments upon them, not
one of those simple-minded natives would ever have lifted a hand to
shed the blood of their teachers or of American citizens. We see how
faithful and persevering Joe Lewis, Finlay, and Stanfield were in their
part, while the bishop and his priests, and Sir James Douglas, at
Vancouver, were watching at a distance to misrepresent the conduct
of the dead, and excuse and justify their own instruments, as in Mr.
Douglas’s letters to Governor Abernethy and the Sandwich Islands;
and Vicar-General Brouillet’s narrative, with more recent proceedings,
which are given in another chapter.


We intended to give in this connection the account of this tragedy
as given by Vicar-General Brouillet, but it accords so nearly with that
given by Sir James Douglas in his Sandwich Islands letter to Mr. Castle,
that the impression is irresistibly forced upon the mind that the whole
account is prepared by one and the same person; hence we will not
encumber our pages with more than a liberal amount of extracts, sufficient
to show the full knowledge of the bishop and his priests of what
was expected to take place at the Whitman station, and the brutal and
inhuman part they took in forcing Miss Bewley into the arms of Five
Crows, after that Indian was humane enough to permit her to return
to the house of those, that Mr. Young, and all others who were igno[Pg 486]rant
of their vileness, might naturally suppose would be a place of
safety from such treatment. She that was Miss Bewley is now dead,
but she has left on record the statement of her wrongs. We give it a
permanent place in our history, not to persecute or slander the Jesuit
fraternity (for truth is no slander), but to warn Americans against
placing their daughters and sons under any such teachings or influences.


Statement of Miss Lorinda Bewley.


Q.—What time did the massacre commence?


A.—I think half-past one.


Q.—Who fled to the chamber?


A.—Mrs. Hall, Mrs. Hays, Mrs. Whitman, Mr. Kimball, Mr. Rogers,—the
three last wounded,—myself, Catharine Sager, thirteen years of age,
her sisters Elizabeth, Louisa, and Henrietta, the three half-breed girls,—Miss
Bridger, Mary Ann, and Helen,—last four very sick. After we got
into the chamber the Indians broke in the windows and doors, filled
the house and broke down the stair-door. Mr. Kimball advised to
attempt the appearance of defense at the stairway. Mrs. Whitman
and Mr. Rogers said, let all prepare for death. I found an old gun, and
it was held over the staircase by Mr. Rogers. They appeared cool
and deliberate in ordering all to prepare for death, when they were
breaking up the house. The appearance of the gun appeared to check
the Indians from coming up-stairs. A few words passed between Mr.
Rogers and one of the Indians. Mr. Rogers said, “The Indians wish
me to come down.” Mrs. Whitman objected at first; some words passed
between Mrs. Whitman and Mr. Rogers about his going down which I
do not recollect; finally Mrs. Whitman took his hand and said, “The
Lord bless you; go!” and he went nearly to the bottom of the stairs,
but his head was all the time above the stairs; he was not there longer
than two or three minutes. A few words passed between them, but I
did not understand the language. Mrs. Whitman said, “The Indians
say you have guns and want to kill us.” Mr. Rogers says, “No, you
wish to get us down to kill us.” This seemed to be all they talked
about. Mr. Rogers says to Mrs. Whitman, “Shall we let them come
up?” Mrs. Whitman says, “Let one, Tamsaky, come up.” Tamsaky
came up and shook hands with us all, and spoke and advised us all to
go down and go over to the other house, for the young men would burn
the house; he led the way down while the Indians were hallooing
wildly in the room below, but when we had got down, the Indians had
gone out and were very still. While we were up-stairs the Doctor’s
face had been cut awfully to pieces, but he was yet breathing. Mrs.[Pg 487]
Whitman saw him and said she wanted air; they led her to the settee
and she lay down. She appeared to think then, that we were going
to be spared, and told us to get all the things from the press we needed.
I put a blanket I had over her, and got a sheet for myself, and we put
a good many clothes from the press on the settee; Mrs. Hall and Mrs.
Hays got their arms full also. Mr. Rogers was going to take us over
to the other house, and then come back for the sick children. This
was Tamsaky’s advice, as he said the Indians were going to burn the
house. It was now getting dark. Mr. Rogers and Joe Lewis carried
out the settee, over the bodies of the Doctor and John Sager, which were
dreadfully mangled; they passed through the kitchen, and through the
outside door toward the end of the house occupied as the Indian room.
Here, to our surprise and terror, the Indians were collected, with their
guns ready; the children from the school were huddled in the corner
of the building. When the settee had gone about its length from
the door, Joe Lewis dropped the end he was holding and the guns were
immediately fired. Mr. Rogers had only time to raise his hands and
say, “O my God, save me,” and fell. I felt my fingers numb till next
morning, from a ball that passed so near as to sting them. Mrs.
Whitman received two balls when on the settee.


I could not see what was done at the same time on all sides of me.
On turning round I saw Francis Sager down bleeding and groaning.
The children said an Indian hauled him out from among them and
Joe Lewis shot him with a pistol. Mr Rogers fell down by my feet
and groaned loud. All three appeared in great agony, and groaned
very loud. The Indian women were carrying off things, and the
Indians were shouting terribly; the Indians also started and cut Mrs.
Whitman’s face with their whips and rolled her into the mud. [This
treatment of Mrs. Whitman will be explained in the statement of
Stikas, as given from Mr. McLane’s journal.] At this I attempted to
escape to the other house. One of the Indians from Mrs. Whitman
caught me,—I had run about two rods,—when I screamed and he shook
his tomahawk over my head, and I kept screaming, not knowing that
he wanted me to hush; then a great many others came round, and
pointed their guns and shook their hatchets. I finally discovered they
wanted me to be still, and when I was silent, one of them led me by
the hand over to the mansion.


Q.—Was Mr. Rogers wounded when he started into the house?


A.—Yes; shot through the arm and tomahawked in the head.


Q.—Did Mr. Rogers have any interview with the Indians after he
got in until the one on the stairs?


A.—No. As soon as he got in the house was locked, and none got[Pg 488]
in after that till we were all up-stairs, when they broke the doors and
windows.


Q.—Did the Indians have an interview with Mr. Rogers after the
one on the stairs, up to the time he was shot?


A.—No; the Indians were not in the room, except Tamsaky and Joe
Lewis, and we were all very still and Mr. Rogers was all the time in
my sight, except as I stepped to the bed for the sheet, and I was very
quick.


Q.—Did you hear it reported that Mr. Rogers said he overheard Dr.
and Mrs. Whitman and Mr. Spalding talking at night about poisoning
the Indians?


A.—No; but after being taken to Umatilla, one of the two Frenchmen
said that the Indians’ talk was that an Indian who understood
English overheard such conversation.


Q.—Did you consider Mr. Rogers and Mrs. Whitman were meeting
their fate like devoted Christians?


A.—Yes.


Q.—When did the priest arrive?


A.—Wednesday, while the bodies were being prepared for the
grave. The bodies were collected into the house on Tuesday evening.


Q.—Did the Indians bury a vial or bottle of the Doctor’s medicine?


A.—They said they did. Joe Stanfield made the box to bury it in,
and the Indians said they buried it.


Q.—Why did they bury it?


A.—They said the priests said it was poison. Stanfield and Nicholas
were their interpreters to us.


Q.—How did they obtain this vial?


A.—The Indians said the priests found it among the Doctor’s medicines,
and showed it to them, and told them if it broke it would poison
the whole nation.


Q.—Was there much stir among the Indians about this bottle?


A.—Yes, a great deal.


Q.—Why did the Indians kill your brother?


A.—Edward Tilokaikt returned from the Umatilla, and told us (after
they had killed him) the great chief told them their disease would
spread.


Q.—Did your brother make any effort to escape?


A.—He told me the night before he was killed that he was preparing
to make an effort to escape. I told him he must not, he was not able
to walk. He said he had that day agreed with Stanfield to get him a
horse, and assist him away. I said, “What will become of me?” He
said, “I know you have been greatly abused, and all I care for my life[Pg 489]
is to get away, and make an effort to save you; but I may be killed
before to-morrow at this time, but, if it is the Lord’s will, I am prepared
to die.” This was Monday, a week from the first massacre. About
three o’clock the next day my brother and Mr. Sales were killed, and I
have always thought that Joe Stanfield betrayed them.


Q.—Did the Indians threaten you all, and treat you with cruelty from
the first?


A.—They did.


Q.—Did they on Tuesday assemble and threaten your lives?


A.—Yes, and frequently threatened our lives afterward. (See statement
of Stanfield by Brouillet, in a previous chapter, confirming the
fact of his unbounded influence over the Indians.)


Q.—When were the young women first dragged out and brutally
treated?


A.—Saturday night after the first massacre, and continually after
that.


Q.—When were you taken to the Umatilla?


(Miss Bewley will answer this question after we have given Vicar-General
Brouillet an opportunity to state his part in this tragedy.)




[Pg 490]


CHAPTER LVIII.


Vicar-General Brouillet’s statement.—Statement of Istacus.—The priest finds the poison.—Statement
of William Geiger, Jr.—Conduct of Mr. McBean.—Influence of the
Jesuit missions.


We left Vicar-General Brouillet and Bishop Blanchet and his priests
on their way to their station on the Umatilla, where they arrived on
November 27. On the 28th, Brouillet says, page 47: “The next day
being Sunday, we were visited by Dr. Whitman, who remained but a
few minutes at the house, and appeared to be much agitated. Being
invited to dine, he refused, saying that he feared it would be too late,
as he had twenty-five miles to go, and wished to reach home before
night. On parting, he entreated me not to fail to visit him when I
would pass by his mission, which I very cordially promised to do.


"“On Monday, 29th, Mr. Spalding took supper with us, and appeared
quite gay. During the conversation, he happened to say that the
Doctor was unquiet; that the Indians were displeased with him on
account of the sickness, and that even he had been informed that the
Murderer (an Indian) intended to kill him; but he seemed not to believe
this, and suspected as little as we did what was taking place at the
mission of the Doctor.”


The reader will note and remember the statement which follows:
Brouillet says, on the 48th page of his narrative, the 36th of J. Ross
Browne’s report:—


“Before leaving Fort Wallawalla, it had been decided that, after
visiting the sick people of my own mission on the Umatilla, I should
visit those of Tilokaikt’s camp, for the purpose of baptizing the infants
and such dying adults as might desire this favor; and the Doctor and
Mr. Spalding having informed me that there were still many sick persons
at their mission, I was confirmed in this resolution, and made
preparations to go as soon as possible.


“After having finished baptizing the infants and adults of my mission,
I left on Tuesday, the 30th of November, late in the afternoon, for
Tilokaikt’s camp, where I arrived between seven and eight o’clock in
the evening. It is impossible to conceive my surprise and consternation
when, upon my arrival, I learned that the Indians the day before had
massacred the Doctor and his wife, with the greater part of the Ameri[Pg 491]cans
at the mission. I passed the night without scarcely closing my
eyes. Early the next morning I baptized three sick children, two of
whom died soon after, and then hastened to the scene of death, to offer
to the widows and orphans all the assistance in my power. I found five
or six women and over thirty children in a situation deplorable beyond
description. Some had just lost their husbands, and others their
fathers, whom they had seen massacred before their eyes, and were expecting
every moment to share the same fate. The sight of those
persons caused me to shed tears, which, however, I was obliged to conceal,
for I was the greater part of the day in the presence of the murderers,
and closely watched by them; and if I had shown too marked
an interest in behalf of the sufferers, it would only have endangered
their lives and mine; these, therefore, entreated me to be upon my
guard.”


The women that lived through that terrible scene inform us that this
priest was as familiar and friendly with the Indians as though nothing
serious had occurred. We have seen and conversed freely with four of
those unfortunate victims, and all affirm the same thing. Their impression
was, that there might be others he expected to be killed, and
he did not wish to be present when it was done. According to the
testimony in the case, Mr. Kimball and James Young were killed while
he was at or near the station. Brouillet continues, on the 49th page:—


“After the first few words that could be exchanged under the circumstances,
I inquired after the victims, and was told they were yet
unburied. Joseph Stanfield, a Frenchman, who was in the employ of
Dr. Whitman, and had been spared by the Indians, was engaged in
washing the corpses, but being alone, he was unable to bury them. I
resolved to go and assist him, so as to render to these unfortunate
victims the last service in my power to offer them. What a sight
did I then behold! Ten dead bodies lying here and there, covered
with blood, and bearing the marks of the most atrocious cruelty,—some
pierced with balls, others more or less gashed by the hatchet. Dr.
Whitman had received three gashes on the face. Three others had
their skulls crushed so that their brains were oozing out.


“I assure you, sir, that, during the time I was occupied in burying
the victims of this disaster, I was far from feeling safe, being obliged to
go here and there gathering up the dead bodies. In the midst of assassins,
whose hands were still stained with blood, and who, by their
manners, their countenances, and the arms which they still carried,
sufficiently announced that their thirst for blood was yet unsatiated.
Assuming as composed a manner as possible, I cast more than one
glance aside and behind at the knives, pistols, and guns, in order[Pg 492]
to assure myself whether there were not some of them directed toward
me.”


The above extract is from a letter addressed to Colonel Gilliam. The
cause of the priest’s alarm is explained in a statement found in the
journal of Mr. McLane, private secretary to Colonel Gilliam, while in
the Cayuse country, taken from the Indians’ statement in the winter of
1847-48. He was compelled to find the poison. Brouillet says:—


“The ravages which the sickness had made in their midst, together
with the conviction which a half-breed, named Joseph Lewis, had
succeeded in fixing upon their minds that Dr. Whitman had poisoned
them, were the only motives I could discover which could have
prompted them to this act of murder. This half-breed had imagined
a conversation between Dr. Whitman, his wife, and Mr. Spalding, in
which he made them say that it was necessary to hasten the death of
the Indians in order to get possession of their horses and lands. ‘If
you do not kill the Doctor,’ said he, ‘you will be dead in the spring.’”


Statement of Istacus, or Stikas.


In the first place, Joe Lewis told the Indians that the Doctor was
poisoning. Tamsaky went to Camaspelo and told him he wanted to
kill the Doctor, and wished him to help. He replied, pointing to his
child, that his child was sick, and that was as much as he could attend
to. Tamsaky then went to Tilokaikt, and he said he would have nothing
to do with it. But his son and young men wished to do it, and they
contended so long that at last he said: “If you are determined to do
so, go and kill him.” Afterward, the Indians presented a gun two
different times to Tamsaky, and told him to go and kill the Doctor. He
said he would not kill him.


When the priests came, they got to quarreling; the Catholic priests
told them that what the Doctor taught them would take them to the
devil, and the Doctor told them what the priests taught them would
take them to the devil. After the priests told them that, the Indians
said they believed it, for the Doctor did not cure them.


After the Doctor was killed, the priest told the Young Chief that it
was true that the Doctor had given them poison; before that, the Doctor
had given them medicine and they died. After the massacre, all the
Indians went to the priest’s house (an Indian lodge near Dr. Whitman’s
station), and I said that I was going to ask the priest himself whether
it was true or not, so that I could hear with my own ears. He (the
priest) told them that the priests were sent of God. They did not
know how to answer him. The Five Crows told me that the priest told
him the Doctor was poisoning them. I then believed it.


[Pg 493]They then went and killed the two sick men. I asked the Indians, if
he gave us poison, why did the Americans get sick?


[It is evident that this conversation took place at the camp of
Tilokaikt, where Mr. Brouillet says he spent the night of the 30th of
November.]


Afterward, they went to the Doctor’s place, and the priest was there
too, and they asked him where the poison was that the Doctor gave
them. After searching some time among the medicines, he found a
vial with something white in it, and told them, “Here it is.” I tell you
what I heard.


The priest then told them that Mrs. Whitman had a father in the
States that gave poison to the people there, and that he had given this to
her, to poison them all; then they all believed. I told them that I did
not believe that the Doctor was poisoning them; I said I expected they
brought the sickness with them from California, for many of them died
coming from that place. Joe Lewis told them to make a box, and
Beardy buried the vial in the square box, stating, if they did not, the
Americans would get it and poison them all.


The head man of the priests told them all these things, and the priest
took all the best books to his house.




The above is a true extract from the journal of Mr. McLane, private
secretary to Colonel Gilliam, the same as was read in my hearing
to Mungo, the interpreter for Colonel Gilliam, when these statements
were made, and he said it was true and correctly written.



(Signed,)
 L. H. Judson.



Sworn to and subscribed before me, this 25th day of November,
1848, Champoeg County, Oregon Territory.



Aaron Purdy, Justice of the Peace.





There are three important facts stated by this Indian which are confirmed
by other testimony.


First. That the priest was upon the ground, or in at the death.


Second. He was ready to overhaul the Doctor’s medicines and hunt
out some vial, and tell the Indians, “Here it is,—the medicine the
Doctor has been killing you with.”


Third. That he told them it was sent to the Doctor by Mrs. Whitman’s
father, who poisoned people in the States.


This explains the terrible and brutal treatment of Mrs. Whitman’s
body, even after death.


Brouillet says, “Joseph Lewis had succeeded in fixing upon their[Pg 494]
minds that Dr. Whitman had poisoned them,” but Istacus, one of the
first and most truthful Indians we became acquainted with in the
country, tells us that the Indians did not believe Joe Lewis till the
priest confirmed his statements, and this priest was required to show
them the poison.


It would not be strange, if, while he is compelled to hunt over the
medicines of Dr. Whitman, to find any that he could call poison, and
in exhibiting such evidence to the deluded murderers about him, that he
should feel himself in danger, yet his whole conduct belies such a statement,
for he well knew the ignorance of those about him as to any
medicine he might select and call poison.


This Indian’s statement also explains the killing of the two young
men, Sales and Bewley, and that as these priests “were sent of God,”
the disease of these young men would spread; in other words, their testimony
would convict the parties implicated.


We find in this same letter to Colonel Gilliam, other statements that
are important in the history we are giving. He says: “I knew that
the Indians were angry with all Americans, and more enraged against
Mr. Spalding than any other.” If this was the case, why did they not
kill him first? There is certainly some mistake in this statement of
Mr. Brouillet, or else the Indians were too hasty, which is probably
the case. The Indians were not quite as much “enraged” against Mr.
Spalding as his reverence, who claimed to know their feelings so well.


Again, on the 54th page (39th of Ross Browne), in answer to Mr.
Spalding’s wild, despairing cry, “But where shall I go?” he answers:
“I know not; you know the country better than I; all that I know is
that the Indians say the order to kill Americans has been sent in all
directions.”


How did this Rev. Father Brouillet know all this? We have yet to
learn that he ever gave a single American, except Mr. Spalding, any
information respecting their danger,—which he certainly could have
done with perfect safety, by sending any one or all of them a written
notice of the “order to kill Americans;” but instead of warning them
of their danger, he was present to show to the Indians a vial of Dr.
Whitman’s medicine and tell them it was the poison.


The long list of statements collected and given to the world as reliable
historical data, by this priest, and embodied in an official report by J.
Ross Browne, do but show the active part he, with his associate priests
and the Hudson’s Bay Company, took to destroy the American influence
and settlements then in the country.


Says the historian Bancroft: “It is the duty of faithful history to
trace events not only to their cause, but to their authors.”


[Pg 495]We will direct our attention for a short time to the proceedings of
Mr. McBean in charge of Fort Wallawalla (or Fort Nez Percés), in
council with the Indians. From the statement of Mr. Wm. Geiger, Jr.,
who was at Dr. Whitman’s station during the winter of 1846-7, teaching
school, we learn that the Indians showed some dissatisfaction, and
were called together by Dr. Whitman, to consult and decide what
they would do. The Doctor proposed to them that a majority of the
tribe should let him know definitely, and a vote was taken, and but
two or three were found to favor his leaving. During this council Mr.
Geiger and the Doctor learned that there had been conversation and
a council with the Indians at the fort, by Mr. McBean. That he had
informed them of the Mexican war between the United States and
Mexico, and of the prospect of a war between the United States and
England (King George men), and that he was anxious to know
which side the Cayuses would take in the event of such a war. This
question Mr. McBean kept constantly before the Indians whenever
they went to the fort. They would return to the station and say that
Mr. McBean had given them more news of the prospect of war between
the King George people and Americans, and that he wished to know
which side they would take. Tamsaky, Tilokaikt, and one other Indian
said they had told Mr. McBean that they would join the King George.
Some said they had told him their hearts favored the Americans; others
professed to be on the “back-bone,” i. e., hesitating. All matters and
causes of dissatisfaction between the Doctor’s mission and the Indians
were amicably settled. The Doctor and Mr. Geiger could not see why
Mr. McBean should beset the Indians on that subject, unless it was to
bring about what had been before, viz., to make allies of the Indians
in case of war.


On account of this dissatisfaction, the Doctor thought of leaving.
Mr. Geiger says, “I told them I thought it their duty to remain.
I thought the Indians as quiet as communities in general; in old places
there were more or less difficulties and excitements.”


In the communication signed by Mr. Geiger, he is asked, “What
was the cause of discouragement with the Doctor and Mr. Spalding at
that time?”


A.—“The influence of the Roman priests, exercised in talking to
the Indians, and through the French half-breed, Lehai, Tom Hill, a
Delaware Indian, and others.”


Q.—“What did the Indians mention was the instruction they received
from Roman Catholics?”


A.—“That the Protestants were leading them in wrong roads, i. e.,
even to hell. If they followed the Suapies (Americans) they would[Pg 496]
continue to die. If they followed the Catholics, it would be otherwise
with them; only now and then one would die of age. That they
would get presents,—would become rich in every thing.”


We have a statement made by Brouillet as to their influence among
the Indians on this coast, found on the 87th page of his narrative,
“Protestantism in Oregon” (55th of Ross Browne.) He says:—


“Messrs. Blanchet and Demerse, the first Catholic missionaries that
came to Oregon, had passed Wallawalla in 1838, where they had
stopped a few days, and had been visited by the Indians. In 1839, Mr.
Demerse had spent three weeks in teaching the Indians and baptizing
their children. In 1840, he had made there a mission so fruitful that
the Protestant missionaries had got alarmed, and feared that all their
disciples would abandon them if he continued his missions among them.
Father De Smet, after visiting the Flatheads in 1840, had come and
established a mission among them in 1841; and from that time down
to the arrival of the bishop, the Indians of Wallawalla and of the
Upper Columbia had never failed to be visited yearly, either by Mr.
Demerse or by some of the Jesuits, and those annual excursions had
procured every year new children to the church. Almost every Indian
tribe possessed some Catholic member.”


We can bear positive testimony as to the effect and influence of
those teachings up to 1842 among the Upper Columbia Indians; and
it is to illustrate the bearing and result of those teachings, continued
for a series of years upon the savage mind, and the influence of a
foreign monopoly in connection with such teachers, that we bring these
statements before the reader.


The vast influence wielded by this foreign fur and sectarian monopoly
was used to secure Oregon for their exclusive occupation. The testimony
of Rev. Messrs. Beaver and Barnley, and Sir Edward Belcher,
as given by Mr. Fitzgerald, and that of his Reverence Brouillet, as
found on the 56th page of his narrative, all affirm the close connection
of these two influences. Leaving out of the question the statement
of many others, we have that of this priest. He says:—


“Some days after an express reached us from the fort, informing us
that our lives were in danger from a portion of the Indians who could
not pardon me for having deprived them of their victim; and this was
the only reason which prevented me from fulfilling the promise which
I had made to the widows and orphans of returning to see them, and
obliged me to be contented with sending my interpreter” to the scene
of the murder, to bring Miss Bewley to be treated as the evidence in
the next chapter will show.




[Pg 497]


CHAPTER LIX.


Continuation of Miss Bewley’s evidence.—The priests refuse her protection.—Forcibly
taken from the bishop’s house by Five Crows.—Brouillet advises her to remain with
her Indian violator.—Indecent question by a priest.—Mr. Brouillet attempts to get
a statement from her.—Two questions.—Note from Mrs. Bewley.—Bishop Blanchet’s
letter to Governor Abernethy.—Comments on the Jesuits’ proceedings.—Grand
council at the bishop’s.—Policy in forcing Miss Bewley to Five Crows’
lodge.—Speeches by Camaspelo and Tilokaikt.—Killing of Elijah and the Nez
Percé chief commented on.—The true story told.—Dr. White’s report.—The grand
council again.—Review of Brouillet’s narrative.—Who were the real authors of
the massacre.


Miss Bewley’s Deposition Continued.


Q.—When were you taken to the Umatilla?


A.—Just at night, on Thursday the next week after the first massacre,
having shaken with the ague that day; slept out that night in
the snow-storm.


Q.—Whose horses came after you?


A.—Eliza Spalding said they belonged to her father; this led us to
suppose Mr. Spalding was killed.


Q.—When did you leave Umatilla?


A.—On Monday before the Wednesday on which we all went to
Wallawalla.


Q.—When did you reach Wallawalla?


A.—On Wednesday before the Saturday on which Mr. Spalding
and company arrived, and we all started the next day for the lower
country.


Q.—Where did you spend your time when at the Umatilla?


A.—Most of the time at the house of the bishop; but the Five
Crows (Brouillet’s Achekaia) most of the nights compelled me to go to
his lodge and be subject to him during the night. I obtained the
privilege of going to the bishop’s house before violation on the
Umatilla, and begged and cried to the bishop for protection either at
his house, or to be sent to Wallawalla. I told him I would do any work
by night and day for him if he would protect me. He said he would
do all he could. [The sequel shows that in this promise the bishop
meant to implicate and involve the Five Crows, should a war with the
American settlement grow out of the massacre.] Although I was taken[Pg 498]
to the lodge, I escaped violation the first four nights. There were the
bishop, three priests, and two Frenchmen at the bishop’s house. The
first night the Five Crows came, I refused to go, and he went away,
apparently mad, and the bishop told me I had better go, as he might
do us all an injury, and the bishop sent an Indian with me. He took
me to the Five Crows’ lodge. The Five Crows showed me the door,
and told me I might go back, and take my clothes, which I did.


Three nights after this, the Five Crows came for me again. The
bishop finally ordered me to go; my answer was, I had rather die.
After this, he still insisted on my going as the best thing I could do.
I was then in the bishop’s room; the three priests were there. I
found I could get no help, and had to go, as he told me, out of his
room. The Five Crows seized me by the arm and jerked me away to
his lodge.


Q.—How long were you at the Umatilla?


A.—Two weeks, and from Friday till Monday. I would return early
in the morning to the bishop’s house, and be violently taken away at
night. The Bishop provided kindly for me while at his house. On my
return one morning one of the young priests asked me, in a good deal
of glee, how I liked my companion. I felt that this would break my
heart, and cried much during the day. When the two Nez Percés
arrived with Mr. Spalding’s letter, they held a council in the bishop’s
room, and the bishop said they were trying to have things settled. He
said Mr. Spalding was trying to get the captives delivered up; I do
not recollect what day this was, but it was some days before we heard
that Mr. Ogden had arrived at Wallawalla. When the tall priest (Brouillet)
that was at the Doctor’s at the first was going to Wallawalla,
after hearing of Mr. Ogden’s arrival, he called me out of the door and told
me if I went to the lodge any more I must not come back to his house.
I asked him what I should do. He said I must insist or beg of the
Indian to let me stop at his house; if he would not let me, then I must
stay at his lodge. I did not feel well, and toward night I took advantage
of this and went to bed, determined I would die there before I
would be taken away. The Indian came, and, on my refusing to go,
hauled me from my bed and threw my bonnet and shawl at me, and
told me to go. I would not, and at a time when his eyes were off I
threw them under the table and he could not find them. I sat down,
determined not to go, and he pushed me nearly into the fire. The
Frenchmen were in the room, and the bishop and priests were passing
back and forth to their rooms. When the Indian was smoking, I went
to bed again, and when he was through smoking he dragged me from
my bed with more violence than the first time. I told the Frenchman[Pg 499]
to go into the bishop’s room and ask him what I should do; he came
out and told me that the bishop said it was best for me to go. I told
him the tall priest said, if I went I must not come back again to this
house; he said the priests dared not keep women about their house, but
if the Five Crows sent me back again, why come. I still would not go.
The Indian then pulled me away violently without bonnet or shawl.
Next morning I came back and was in much anguish and cried much.
The bishop asked me if I was in much trouble? I told him I was.
He said it was not my fault, that I could not help myself. That I must
pray to God and Mary. He asked me if I did not believe in God; I
told him I did.




We will not stop to comment on the simple narrative of this young
woman. No language of mine will more deeply impress the reader
with the debasing character of these “holy fathers, the Catholic priests,”
that served the Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company and mother church
so faithfully.


It appears that Miss Bewley arrived at the bishop’s on the 10th of
December. On the 58th page of Brouillet’s narrative (41st of Browne’s)
we find the following language:—


“On the 11th of December we had the affliction to hear that one of
the captives had been carried off from the Doctor’s house by the order
of Five Crows, and brought to him; and we learned that two others
had been violated at the Doctor’s house.”


How seriously these holy fathers were afflicted, Miss Bewley has told
us in language not to be misunderstood. Her statement continues:—




Last summer, when I was teaching school near Mr. Bass, the tall
priest, whose name I have learned was Brouillet, called on me, and told
me that Mr. Spalding was trying to ruin my character and his, and said
that Mr. Spalding had said that I had told him (Mr. S.) that the priests
had treated me as bad as the Indians ever had. I told him I had not
said so. He said he wanted to ask me some questions, and would send
the Doctor, who could speak better English; he wished me to write it;
I told him I would rather not do it. When at the Umatilla, the
Frenchmen told me that they were making arrangements to locate the
priests,—two at Mr. Spalding’s as soon as Mr. S. got away, and two at
the Dalles, and they were going to the Doctor’s next week to build a
house. This conversation was before Mr. Ogden arrived at Wallawalla.


Q.—Did Dr. Whitman wish to have Joe Lewis stop at his place?


A.—He let him stop at first only because he said he had no shoes nor
clothes and could not go on; but when a good many, on account of[Pg 500]
sickness, had no drivers, the Doctor furnished Joe with shoes and shirts,
and got him to drive a team. He was gone three days, and came back,
but the Doctor never liked it. I heard Mrs. Whitman and the Sager
boys say that Joe Lewis was making disturbance among the Indians.


Q.—Did you ever hear the Doctor express any fears about the Catholics?


A.—Only once; the Doctor said at the table: “Now I shall have
trouble; these priests are coming.” Mrs. Whitman asked: “Have the
Indians let them have land?” He said: “I think they have.” Mrs.
Whitman said: “It’s a wonder they do not come and kill us.” This
land was out of sight of the Doctor’s as you come this way (west of the
station). When the Frenchman was talking, at Umatilla, of going to
build a house there, he said it was a prettier station than the Doctor’s.



(Signed,)
 Lorinda Bewley.



Sworn to and subscribed before me, this 12th day of December, 1848.


G. Walling, Justice of the Peace,

Clackamas County, Oregon Territory.





We have another original statement of Miss Bewley’s, as taken by
Rev. J. S. Griffin, which we will give as a part properly belonging to
the above statement.



Oregon City, February 7, 1849.



Questions to Miss Lorinda Bewley, in further examination touching
the Wailatpu massacre:—


Q.—Did the Five Crows, when you were taken to his lodge from the
bishop’s house by an Indian, send you back with your things in apparent
anger, or did he appear at that time to pity you?


A.—I thought at the time that I had good evidence, from his manner
and behavior to me at the lodge in giving me up, that he was disposed
to pity me, and not to abuse me.


Q.—Did you anticipate that evening that he would demand you
afterward?


A.—No; I did not think he was disposed to.


Q.—What was this Five Crows’ English name?


A.—Hezekiah (Brouillet’s Achekaia).


Q.—Did you have evidence that it was necessary for Hezekiah to hold
you as a wife to save you from a general abuse by the Indians?


A.—I was overwhelmed with such evidence at Wailatpu, but saw
none of it at the Umatilla.


Q.—What was the order of conversation to you when the priest went
to Wallawalla, after hearing of Mr. Ogden’s arrival?


[Pg 501]A.—I besought him to do all he could at the fort to obtain my delivery
from bondage, and he said he would. A little after he called me
to step out of the door from the rest, and told me if I went with the
Indian I must not come back to his house any more, when I burst out
crying, and asked him what to do; he said I must insist or beg the
Indian to let me remain, or I must remain there. I begged him, as I
was alone there, he would do everything in his power to get Mr. Ogden
to take me away, whether he could obtain all the prisoners or not.


Q.—Did you know of the priests having baptized any at the time of
the burial at Wailatpu?


A.—I did not; but they were baptizing a great many at the Umatilla,
principally children; two the same day after I went there, and very
frequently afterward. On Christmas day they baptized many.


Q.—Was it understood among the Indians that the families at the
mill were English?


A.—Yes, sir; and Mr. Smith was an Englishman.


Q.—Did the report reach the Indians at Wailatpu before you went to
Umatilla, that the Indians were told at the Fort Wallawalla that they
must not kill any more Americans?


A.—Yes, sir. This seemed to be generally understood.


Q.—Was it made known to you captives what Edward Tilokaikt
was gone to the Umatilla for?


A.—It was made known to us, after a council, that Edward was to go
to the big chief at the Umatilla and see what was to be done with us,
and especially with the young women; and, after his return, he immediately
commenced the massacre of the sick young men, and the next
morning announced to us that the arrangement had been made for Hezekiah
to come and take his choice among the young women, and that
Edward and Clark Tilokaikt were then to take the other two. Hezekiah
was a chief [the one appointed by Dr. White in 1843], and regarded by
us, and I believe by others, as a single man. Edward and Clark were
only the sons of a chief. Hezekiah did not come for me himself, but
sent a man [Brouillet says, page 56 (Ross Browne, 40), the caution he
received from Mr. McBean “obliged me to be content with sending
my interpreter”] and a boy for the young woman that was a member
of Mrs. Whitman’s family. The contract between my mother and Mrs.
Whitman was, that I was to continue my studies with Mrs. Whitman,
and take part with her in the instruction and care of the children.


Q.—After Mr. Rogers entered the house wounded, and closed the
doors, did he have any conversation with Nicholas or the Manson boys?


A.—No. Neither of them came into the house.



Lorinda Bewley.


[Pg 502]Rev. J. S. Griffin says he is ready to testify to the fact that the above
is a true statement, as made by Miss Bewley, and it was his own oversight
at the time that her oath was not attached before a justice of the
peace.


There was no other person living at the time that could positively
state the facts as given by Miss Bewley; others have given their depositions,
which confirm her statements, and show them to be the simple,
unvarnished truth of the whole scene that passed before her, and her
treatment by those “holy fathers, the bishop and his priests.”


We are forced to confess, that, after studying and copying these old
documents and papers, we dare not trust ourselves to express an opinion,
lest the reader should say our feelings have overcome our better
judgment. Therefore we will simply ask a question or two, and let
each reader answer for himself.


What think you, kind reader, of the Hudson’s Bay Company and
Roman Catholic Jesuits, and priests and bishop in Oregon in 1847-8?


Did not Dr. Whitman, his wife, and all at his mission suffer, and many
of them die, to save Oregon as a part of the great American Republic?


We know that a few of the poor miserably deluded Indians belonging
to his mission have suffered an ignominious death by being hung like
dogs (a death, of all others, the most odious to them), and for what?
Simply because they were deceived by those who knew at the time they
were deceiving them; and who have since so managed as to deceive
the Christian world, and bring falsehood to cover their participation in
the transaction.


We would not have been so particular, nor copied documents so
extensively, had we not before us a narrative of 108 pages, written by
one of these “holy fathers,” Vicar-General Brouillet, purporting to
give the causes both remote and immediate of this horrible massacre;
giving it the title of “Protestantism in Oregon, account of the murder
of Dr. Whitman, and the ungrateful calumnies of H. H. Spalding,
Protestant missionary,” in which he searches back even before the
arrival of Dr. Whitman in the country, and cites Rev. Mr. Parker’s first
supposed or imaginary statements to the Indians as a cause of the
massacre, which we know to be false and unfounded from the six years’
early acquaintance we had with those Indians; and also from the personal
allusions he makes to transactions with which we were intimately
acquainted, and know to be false in fact and inference. These statements
of this priest and his associates, McBean and Sir James Douglas,
have induced us to extend the particulars of that massacre beyond our
original design in giving the history of Oregon. As he claims great
credit for himself and associates, Stanfield in particular, in burying[Pg 503]
the dead, and showing kindness to the widows and orphans, we will
give another item to show the character of the thief, liar, and accomplice
in that massacre, whom this priest is so ready in his narrative to
claim as a saint.


Mrs. Catharine Bewley says: “Dr. Prettyman said to me that Joe
Stanfield told him at his own house, when the sheriff had him in custody,
that ‘the morning of the day when young Bewley was killed, he had
gone into the room and had hid every thing in the room back of the
bed he was upon.’ This, the doctor thought, showed that he was the
cause of his being killed.”


Under date of Umatilla, December 21, 1847, Father Blanchet, bishop
of Wallawalla, writes to Governor Abernethy as follows:—


“As soon as I had been informed what had happened, I instantly
told the two chiefs near my house that I hoped the women and children
would be spared until they could be sent to the Wallamet. They answered:
‘We pity them,—they shall not be harmed; they shall be taken
care of, as before.’ I have since had the satisfaction to hear that they
have been true to their word, and that they have taken care of these
poor people.”


In Father Brouillet’s narrative, page 57 (Ross Browne, page 41), he
says: “On the 3d, the bishop called for the Young Chief and his
brother Five Crows, in order to express to them how deeply he had been
pained by the news of the horrible affair at Wailatpu, and to recommend
to their care the widows and orphans, as well as the men who had survived
the massacre. They protested to have given no consent to what
had happened at Wailatpu, and promised to do all in their power for
the survivors.


“On the 10th we received the painful intelligence that two other
young men, who, being sick, had been spared by the Indians at the time
of the first massacre, had since been torn from their beds and cruelly
butchered.”


The positive testimony in regard to these two young men is already
before the reader. If this bishop and priest do not act and narrate
falsely, we ask, What is falsehood?


After giving a description of the grand council held at the Catholic
mission house by Tawatowe, Tilokaikt, Achekaia, and Camaspelo,
Brouillet says, on page 67: “Before taking leave of the chiefs, the
bishop said to them all publicly, as he had also done several times
privately, that those who had taken American girls should give them
up immediately. And then all entreated Five Crows repeatedly to give
up the one whom he had taken, but to no purpose.” How does this
compare with Miss Bewley’s testimony?


[Pg 504]We must ask to be excused from at present commenting further upon
the notes and extracts from the statements of these several parties.
They are before you, reader, not as fiction or imagination; they are
transactions connected with the history we are writing. The statements
on the part of this bishop and his priests have been published
and extensively circulated, and have been believed, and have had far
too much influence in encouraging and sustaining them among their
deluded victims; besides mystifying, and causing a public sentiment
to be generally entertained derogatory to the Protestant and American
missionary influence in Oregon.


We have given an account of this bishop and his priests on the first
commencement of their missionary efforts among the Cayuse Indians,
and have followed them through their labors, and their legitimate results,
till we now come to the 16th of December, the day on which they
received a wild, incoherent—not to say injudicious and foolish—letter
from Rev. Mr. Spalding, which they gave, with a flourish of trumpets
and shout of triumph, on their arrival in Wallamet, to be published as
evidence of their extensive influence over the Indians, and to destroy the
influence of Mr. Spalding as a missionary. In this they have succeeded
but too well, and for which we should look closely into their proceedings
with the Indians.


Brouillet, on the 58th and 61st pages (41st and 43d of Browne), in
speaking of the Nez Percés who brought Mr. Spalding’s letter, says:—


“We had reason to be astonished at that confidence of those Indians,
as we had had as yet no opportunity of seeing any one of the Nez
Percés since our arrival in the country.


“The two Nez Percé chiefs advised the Cayuses to take measures for
avoiding a war with Americans. They requested the bishop to write
to Governor Abernethy, begging him not to send up an army, but rather
to come himself in the spring and make a treaty of peace with the Cayuses,
who promised that they would then release the captives of Wailatpu,—promising
besides to offer no injury to Americans until they
heard the news from Wallamet. The bishop told them that he was
glad of their proceeding, and was disposed to assist them to the extent
of his power, but that he could not write without knowing the opinion
of the Cayuses, and that as soon as he could learn this he would send an
express below. He then encouraged them to see all the chiefs about it.”


From the above and subsequent statements and transactions, we
have no reason to doubt the truth of the bishop’s remark, “that he
was glad of their proceeding.” There can be no question that he did
all he could to help the Indians, and to defeat the provisional troops
and government, as is proved by the evidence already given, and will[Pg 505]
be seen as we proceed. He tells the Indians that he could not write,
without knowing the opinion of the Cayuses; he must be satisfied that
they are all united, and when he has learned that fact, he can write with
more assurance and effect to the governor. He extends consolation
and encouragement to Camaspelo on the 18th, and two days after convenes
the council alluded to.


“Accordingly, on Monday, 20th December, 1847, at the Catholic
Mission, the Cayuses assembled in grand council held by Tawatowe (or
Young Chief), Tilokaikt, Achekaia (or Five Crows), and Camaspelo, all
the great chiefs of the Cayuses, in presence of many other great men
(second chiefs) of the nation.” This council was held just three
months and three days after. Brouillet says that Bishop Blanchet
met Dr. Whitman at Wallawalla, and said to him, “All is known. I
come to labor for the conversion of Indians, and even of Americans,
if they are willing to listen to me.” And we say, to crush and drive
the Protestant missions from the country, including their heretical
settlements.


We wish to give these foreign priests the full benefit of their own statements,
as we shall express fully our opinion of them; besides, we presume
that not one in a thousand will be able to understand the wonderful
workings of Jesuitism among the Indians and the people of our country,
without extensive quotations from their books.


The narrative continues: “About ten o’clock in the morning they all
entered the mission house. The bishop was present, together with
Messrs. Rousseau, Leclaire, and myself [Vicar-General Brouillet, the
writer of the narrative we are quoting from]. After a deep silence
of some minutes, the bishop explained to them the object of the meeting.
He began by expressing to them the pleasure he felt in seeing them
thus assembled for the purpose of deliberating on a most important
subject,—that of avoiding war, which is always a great evil. He told
them that in matters of importance they should always hold a council
and consult those who might be best able to give them good advice;
that in giving their advice separately, they were liable to be misunderstood,
and thereby expose themselves and their people to great misfortunes;
that he was persuaded that if the chiefs had deliberated together
they would not now have to deplore the horrible massacre of Wailatpu,
nor to fear its probable consequences.”


The reader can understand how sincere these “holy fathers” were
in saying “horrible massacre at Wailatpu,” when, instead of calling on
Dr. Whitman, as Brouillet says he “cordially promised to do,” he went
to an Indian lodge, learned of the massacre, and remained all night,
writing, the Indians say, this false and infamous account of the transac[Pg 506]tion,
to slander the dead and clear the guilty; and the next morning
baptized three of the Indian children before going to the assistance of
the widows and orphans.


The bishop told them “that two Nez Percé chiefs had asked him to
write to the great chief of Wallamet (Governor Abernethy) to obtain
peace, but that he could not do so without the consent of the Cayuses.”


It will be remembered that up to the arrival of Dr. White, in 1842, as
an official spy upon the proceedings of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
drawing the pay of a sub-Indian agent, the company had not allowed
any effort to combine the Indians; but on the arrival of Dr. White,
they at once made use of him, and also of the bishop and his priests, to
form just the combinations they wished to make use of, to strike at the
settlements at the proper time.


Tawatowe, or Young Chief, was, up to the time of the taking of Fort
Nez Percés, considered a head chief; but in consequence of the part he
had taken in that affair his power had been broken. His brother, Five
Crows, was advanced, and had become the favorite of Dr. Whitman,
as well as of Dr. White, and was looked upon as friendly to the mission
and the American cause. Miss Bewley’s being forced to become his wife
was a part of the scheme to involve him in the war then in contemplation,
and to bring about a union of the tribe under the very plausible
reason given by this “holy father,” and was one of the most important
measures to implicate that humane and Protestant Indian in the war
measures now in discussion before this grand Indian council at the house
of the bishop. The bishop says “that the propositions which those
chiefs wished to send were these: 1st. That Americans should not come
to make war; 2d. That they should send up two or three great men to
make a treaty of peace; 3d. That when these great men should arrive,
all the captives should be released; 4th. That they would offer no
offense to Americans before knowing the news from below.


“The bishop then desired them to speak and to say what they thought
of these propositions.


“Camaspelo spoke first. He said he was blind and ignorant, and had
despaired of the life and salvation of his nation, but that the words of
the bishop had opened his eyes, consoled and encouraged him; that he
had confidence, and that he approved the propositions.


“The chief Tilokaikt then rose to say that he was not a great
speaker, and that his talk would not be long. He then reviewed the
history of the nation since the arrival of the whites (French people or
Hudson’s Bay Company) in the country down to the present time. He
said that before they had been visited by white men the Indians were
always at war; that at the place where Fort Wallawalla now stood[Pg 507]
nothing but blood was continually seen; that they had been taught by
the whites that there was a God who forbids men to kill each other.”
“A jewel of gold in a swine’s snout.” This is the Indian that assisted
in killing Dr. Whitman, and engaged his attention while his companion
gave the first blow; and he afterward cut the Doctor’s face horribly
with a hatchet, while he was yet alive. But let us continue this “holy
father’s” lesson of peace and morality from the mouth of his converted
Indian, for we have every reason to believe he is now fully converted
to that faith, and has given us a specimen in the practice of the religion
he has just commenced to learn. He says, “that since this time they
had always lived in peace, and endeavored to persuade others to do the
same. He eulogized Mr. Pambrun; spoke of a Nez Percé chief who
had been killed when going to the States; afterward of the son of Yellow
Serpent, who had been killed by Americans in California; said that
they had forgotten all this. He spoke also of Dr. Whitman and
Mr. Spalding, and finished by saying that since they had forgotten all,
he hoped that the Americans would also forget what had been recently
done; that now they were even.”


This priest is careful to make his converted Indian tell a plausible
story, as also to eulogize Mr. Pambrun and the Hudson’s Bay Company,
and to state that two Indians had been killed while in company with,
or by Americans.


As to the killing of the Nez Percé chief (so called), we knew much
more of it than this priest or his Indian. The Nez Percé was killed in
open fight with the Sioux, at Ash Hollow, on the Platte River, after the
party had fought three hours, and killed fifteen and wounded eight of
the Sioux. He was no connection of this Cayuse tribe, and is only
referred to for effect. The bishop makes Tilokaikt tell a falsehood to
shield a crime in himself and associates.


The killing of Elijah, the son of Yellow Serpent, is equally false in the
statement of the fact, and relation of the circumstances. Dr. White,
sub-Indian agent, etc., was never known to tell the truth when a falsehood
would suit his plans and purposes better; as is evident in this
case, which is given that the reader may judge of its truth. Mr.
Brouillet comments upon Dr. White’s letter to the Department at
Washington, April 4, 1845, as follows: “After speaking of some difficulties
that occurred in California between the Cayuses and Wallawallas
on one part, and the Spaniards and Americans on the other, on
account of some stolen horses that the Cayuses and Wallawallas had
taken from hostile Indians by fighting them [this is altogether a mistake,
as the horses belonged to the Americans and Spaniards and they
had their Indians guarding them, and the party here referred to killed the[Pg 508]
guard and attempted the life of an American], Mr. White passes on
to relate a murder there, committed coolly by an American the fall
previous upon the person of Elijah, the son of Yellow Serpent, the
chief of the Wallawallas, in the following way: ‘The Indians had gone
to the fort of Captain Sutter to church, and, after service, Elijah was
invited into another apartment, taking with him his uncle, Young
Chief, of the Umatilla River, a brave and sensible chief of the age of
five and forty.’” This priest, on page 30 (J. Ross Browne, page 28),
makes Mr. McKinley say that in the fall of 1844, the Indians, a short
time after their return from California, met one day at Fort Wallawalla,
seven hundred in number, all armed, and decided to walk down
immediately upon the colony of the Wallamet, and that they could
be stopped only by the Young Chief, who, by his entreaties, decided
them to abandon their undertaking and to go home. We are led to
inquire, why did not these Indians, at this time, direct their attention
to the American missions in their midst, and take their revenge then,
instead of waiting three years, and then, as Brouillet says, making this
murder a cause of the massacre? McBean, and Bishop Blanchet and
his priests, were not then at the fort, nor among those Indians, to aid
them in avenging themselves on the innocent.


But let us finish the account of this horrid transaction on the part
of our countrymen, as repeated by Brouillet to excuse the Wailatpu
massacre.


He says the Young Chief went into the room with Elijah, and
“while there in an unarmed and defenseless condition, they commenced
menacing him for things alleged against the River Indians of this upper
country, in which none of them had any participation; called them
indiscriminately dogs, thieves, etc.” The truth is, that this party went
from the Cayuse country to California expressly to steal horses and
cattle. This same educated Indian boy was the leader of the party in
going to the fort. He and the Young Chief were both arrested, and
tried by a military court; the chief was acquitted, upon the evidence of
the American referred to, as he saved his life, while Elijah was for killing
him. Elijah was condemned, and shot, to prevent other similar
parties from disturbing the settlements and killing peaceable Indians in
California. This is the reason, as Mr. McKinley doubtless told Brouillet,
why the Young Chief used his influence to prevent any attempt at
retaliation.


The narrative continues: “This American then observed, ‘Yesterday
you were going to kill me; now you must die,’ and drawing a pistol—Elijah,
who had been five or six years at the Methodist Mission, and
had learned to read, write, and speak English respectably, said[Pg 509]
deliberately, ‘Let me pray a little first;’ and kneeling down, at once
commenced, and, when invoking the Divine mercy, was shot through
the heart or vitals, dead upon the spot. Taking for truth an Indian
report [which in this case suited this priest and Dr. White’s purposes
better than a true statement of the facts would], this horrible affair
created considerable excitement [which, he tells us in another place,
the Young Chief, who was present, was able to quell], and there is
some danger of its disturbing the friendly relations that hitherto existed
between us here and all those formidable tribes in the region of
Wallawalla and Snake River.”


This Indian story or tragedy is useful for three purposes. First, to
show Dr. White’s disposition to have his importance known to the
department at Washington. Second, to show the disposition of this
“holy father, the Catholic priest,” to quote a case of the kind, to justify
the Whitman massacre by the Indians, and deceive his readers
and the world as to the real cause of that transaction; thus aiding us
in bringing home the guilt of a crime where it belongs. Third, to
show how capable he is of misrepresenting and falsifying historical
facts, to excuse a foul murder of American citizens. He continues to
quote Dr. White as follows:—


“Learning from Dr. Whitman, who resides in their midst, how
much they were all excited by reason of the treacherous and violent
death of this educated and accomplished young chief, and, perhaps
more especially by the loss they had sustained, and then, after suffering
so many hardships and encountering so many dangers, losing the
whole, I apprehended there might be much difficulty in adjusting it, particularly
as they lay much stress upon the restless, disaffected scamps,
late from Wallamet to California, loading them with the vile epithets
of dogs, thieves, etc., from which they believed or affected to believe
that the slanderous reports of our citizens caused all their loss and
disasters, and therefore held us responsible. He, Ellis, the Nez Percé
chief, assured me that the Cayuses, Wallawallas, Nez Percés, Spokans,
Ponderays, and Snakes were all on terms of amity, and that a portion
of the aggrieved party were for raising a party of about two thousand
warriors of those formidable tribes, and march to California at once,[13]
and, nobly revenging themselves on the inhabitants by capture and
plunder, enrich themselves upon the spoils; while others, not indisposed
to the enterprise, wished first to learn how it would be regarded here,
and whether we would remain neutral in the affair. A third party
[Pg 510]were for holding us responsible, as Elijah was killed by an American,
and the Americans incensed the Spaniards.”[14]


[13] Brouillet, in his haste to bring Dr. White to prove his statements of the causes
of the Whitman massacre, has forgotten that he was assured by Mr. McKinley that
they intended to go to the Wallamet, instead of California.


[14] See the whole of Dr. White’s report, chapter 50, page 387 et seq.


The above extract is quoted by Brouillet for so base a purpose, that
it seems necessary, in order to correct the errors of Dr. White and
this priest, to give it in full. We have given the statement of Mr.
McKinley, as quoted by Brouillet, which shows the absurdity of this
whole document. If the Young Chief went into the room and saw
Elijah shot down in the brutal manner represented by Dr. White, he
certainly must have been a very remarkable and forgiving Indian if he
used his influence to prevent his tribe from seeking revenge; besides,
we find in the subsequent history, that even Elijah’s own father did not
seek to avenge his death, as stated by this priest on page 30 of this
narrative (28th of Ross Browne’s report).


He says: “And in the spring of 1847, the Wallawalla chief himself,
Yellow Serpent, started with a party of Wallawallas and Cayuses for
the purpose of attacking the Americans in California, whom they
thought unsuspicious. But having found them on their guard, and too
strong to be attacked without danger, he took their part against the
Spaniards, offered his services to them, and fought in their ranks.”


This, with the statement of Mr. McBean, as will be given in his
letter, shows that this very Rev. Father Brouillet knew nothing of
the subject he was writing about, and was ready to pick up any statement
that might be made, without any regard to its absurdity or
plausibility. I query whether there is a living man well acquainted
with Dr. White, who will state that he believes he would tell the truth,
officially or otherwise, when a falsehood would suit his purposes better;
and from a careful study of the statements and writings of this reverend
priest, we are forced to the same conclusion.


Rev. Mr. Brouillet has filled four pages and a half of his narrative
with the statements of William Craig, in answer to questions asked by
Hon. P. H. Burnett, all of which show that Mr. Craig knew nothing
of the massacre only as he was told, by two Indians, what some other
Indian said that some other Indian had said. We are not surprised
that Mr. Burnett gave up the contest with Mr. Spalding, after examining
such a witness as Mr. Craig, and finding that he knew so little
relative to the subject in question. Suppose Tom Hill and the Indian
messenger that brought the news to Mr. Spalding’s station told all
they heard of the matter, did that make their statements true? Or did
the repeating of these Indian statements by Mr. Craig make them true?
Rev. Father Brouillet has showed, in these four pages, a weakness we
[Pg 511]did not expect to find in a man with so many sacred titles to his name.
In fact, the greater part of his statements are from persons who make
them as coming second-hand from the Indians. He makes Mr. Craig
repent from the mouth of the Indian messenger the statement first published
in Sir James Douglas’s letter to the Sandwich Islands; and then
in conclusion says, on page 29:—


“Now I am satisfied that every impartial and unprejudiced person,
after reading attentively the above documents, will come with
me to the conclusion that the true causes, both remote and immediate,
of the whole evil must have been the following: 1st. The promise
made by Mr. Parker to the Cayuses and Nez Percés of paying for
their lands every year, and the want of fulfillment of that promise.”


Which promise Mr. Parker never made, and which the Hudson’s
Bay Company and these Roman priests made up to cause difficulty
with the Indians and American missions and settlements.


“2d. The death of the Nez Percé chief, killed on his way to the
United States, when he was in company with Mr. Gray, and in his service.”
This Mr. Gray knows to be false, both in statement and inference,
as already explained.


This priest says: “The conclusion is evident, from the circumstances
which preceded that death, and from the proceedings of the Nez Percés
against Mr. Spalding and all the people of his establishment on account
of it, and likewise from the general habit of the Indians in such cases.”


We will here state that we were two years at Mr. Spalding’s station,
on returning from the States, and saw the whole Nez Percé tribe, and
employed them for days and months, and worked with them, and explored
their country to select farms for them, and know that the Nez
Percés never, on any occasion, made the least disturbance about the
station, or in any other place, on account of the death of that Indian;
and we know that neither Mr. Spalding nor any of the people at his
place were ever confined in their houses for an hour on account of it;
and we further know that the statement made by Brouillet, as coming
from old Toupin, is false and malicious, and only shows the ignorance
and malice of this priest, who has made these false statements, as he
has those about the killing of Elijah, to cover his own guilt in the infamous
crime charged upon him and his associates.


“3d. The murder committed by an American in California on the
person of Elijah, the son of the Wallawalla chief, in 1844.” Answered
already.


This priest says of Yellow Serpent: “On his way coming back from
California he lost many of his people from sickness [to which Istacus
alludes in his reasons for not believing that Dr. Whitman was the cause[Pg 512]
of the Indians dying by poison], so that he and his young men, when
arrived at home in the fall, felt more ill-disposed than ever toward the
Americans.” This priest’s fourth reason embraces the tales told by Tom
Hill, Joe Lewis, Finlay, old Toupin, and Stanfield, which are all of the
same class, and have all been learned from the same reverend teachers,
and copied into Sir James Douglas’s letter, for the benefit of the American
Board, going by way of the Sandwich Islands.


His fifth reason, about the small-pox, as stated by Craig—the Doctor
and Gray’s poisoning melons—the Doctor being a physician, shows
that he is terribly pressed for a plausible reason for the crime he
attempts to excuse. His sixth reason—lack of sincerity. Here he quotes
Mr. Spalding’s letter, written soon after his return home, after being exposed
six days and nights to extreme fatigue, hunger, and cold,—his
mind racked with anxiety and fear in regard to himself and family,
and tortured with thoughts of the scene at Wailatpu; being ignorant
of any of the particulars of the massacre, and of the part the
bishop and his priests were taking in it, he wrote as to friends whom
he thought would feel for his situation. He also quotes a letter he
received through P. H. Burnett, signed J. Magone, who says: “I
recollect distinctly, however, that he (Mr. Spalding) was not in favor
of killing all the Cayuses, for he gave me names of some four or five
that he knew to be friendly, and another whom I marked as questionable.”
(Mr. S. had learned more of the particulars of the massacre.)
Does this letter prove that he was in favor of killing all the
Indians but the ones mentioned, or does it show his anxiety lest the
innocent should perish with the guilty, which led him to give those
names to Major Magone, an officer in the provisional army?


We have naturally left that deep, silent grand council of Indians,
presided over by his reverence, Bishop Blanchet, and directed our attention
to other important facts and statements relative to the subject
of this chapter.


We now have the touching appeal of Edward Tilokaikt, with whom
the reader has become acquainted in the depositions already given. He
is now brought before us in this grand council at the bishop’s house
(page 66 of Brouillet; page 44 Ross Browne).


“Edward, the son of Tilokaikt, then came forward, bearing in his
hand the Catholic Ladder stained with blood; he repeated the words
which Dr. Whitman had used when he showed it to them, one or two
weeks before he died: ‘You see this blood! it is to show you that
now, because you have the priests among you, the country is going to
be covered with blood! You will have nothing now but blood!’ He
then related what had passed, gave a touching picture of the afflicted[Pg 513]
families in seeing borne to the grave a father, a mother, a brother, or a
sister; spoke of a single member of a family who had been left to weep
alone over all the rest, who had disappeared. He stated how and for
what the murder had been committed, entered into the most minute
details, avoiding, however, to give any knowledge of the guilty, repeated
the words which Joseph Lewis said had passed between Dr.
Whitman, his wife, and Mr. Spalding, and finally spoke of the pretended
declaration of Mr. Rogers at the moment of his death: ‘that Dr.
Whitman had been poisoning the Indians.’”


Reader, need I tell you that the language and sentiment above quoted
as coming from Edward Tilokaikt, never entered his savage Indian
brain; that this speech is the carefully combined and studied production
of the author of the narrative we have quoted it from? It is given
in connection, repeated and combined with a little variation by every individual
who makes a statement favorable to those priests; and in
the whole list of statements this priest Brouillet and McBean are the
only two that could write or translate the Indian ideas into French or
English; so that at the time these Indian speeches were said to have
been made, and purport to have been translated by Brouillet, it is plain
to be seen that he tells his own story to suit the case in hand; and the
letter of Sir James Douglas to the Sandwich Islands shows this priest
to be the author of the statements contained therein. These Indian
assemblies or councils were held to more closely unite the tribe, and
give a coloring of truth to the malicious statements of Joe Lewis and
Edward Tilokaikt.


All these false statements were written out and sent to the Sandwich
Islands under date, Vancouver, 9th December, 1847, while Brouillet
says this Edward Tilokaikt repeated them as a reason for the massacre
on the 20th December, 1847, eleven days before they are said
to have been repeated by the Indians.


Many important facts can only be reached by carefully studying the
language of this priest, in connection with the evidence obtained from
the survivors, and their subsequent conduct, and the foreign correspondence
of the parties who were seeking the exclusive occupation of
our country.


From the statement that follows, it will be seen how careful this Jesuit
is to inform us that these propositions come from the Nez Percés.


He says, on page 65: “After having deliberated together, the chiefs
concluded by adding something to the propositions of the Nez Percés,
insisting principally upon the reasons which they pretended ought to
excuse their action, and requested the bishop to send to the governor in
their name the following manifesto.”


[Pg 514]Before copying this important document and the letter which accompanied
it to the governor of Oregon, we will place before our readers
the “preface” to the book in which we find it, that they may see the
full object of the author of that narrative in publishing it:—



“New York, June, 1853.



“The following interesting narrative was prepared by the very Rev.
Mr. Brouillet, vicar-general of Wallawalla, at the time of the excitement
consequent on the murder of Dr. Whitman by the Indians, and
in answer to Mr. Spalding, and other of Dr. Whitman’s former associates.
Although the immediate occasion has passed away, it is proper,
still, to put the facts of the case on record; and these pages, which
appeared recently in the columns of the New York Freeman’s Journal,
will form an interesting and authentic chapter in the history of
Protestant missions.



“J. A. McMasters.”



We will now turn to the 65th page of this false and malicious narrative,
and find a document carefully prepared, as stated by its author, in
grand council assembled under the eye of Bishop Blanchet, then
bishop of Wallawalla, by the very Rev. Mr. Brouillet, etc. By a
cursory glance at this narrative and document, it will be seen that it
is prepared as coming from the Indians for the express purpose of
blackening the character of Dr. Whitman, his wife, Mr. Spalding, and
Mr. Rogers, and of charging them with being the cause of their own
murder, and the murder of all who fell at Wailatpu by the hands of
their own Indians, the Cayuses. That it embodies all the foul slanders
against those missions that have been collected for a series of years,
and asserts them to be true, without a single deposition or statement
having been made before any court or justice of peace, known to the
laws then in the country. These statements, from preface to finis, go
upon the presumption that the title and professions of the men whose
names are attached are sufficient evidence of the truth of any statements
they may make, however unreasonable or false they may be. The
documents above referred to are as follows (J. R. Browne, page 45):—


“The principal chiefs of the Cayuses, in council assembled, state: That
a young Indian (Joseph Lewis) who understands English, and who
slept in Dr. Whitman’s room, heard the Doctor, his wife, and Mr. Spalding
express their desire of possessing the lands and animals of the
Indians; that he stated also that Mr. Spalding said to the Doctor,
‘Hurry giving medicines to the Indians, that they may soon die;’ that
the same Indian told the Cayuses, ‘If you do not kill the Doctor soon,
you will all be dead before spring;’ that they buried six Cayuses on[Pg 515]
Sunday, November 28, and three the next day; that Mr. Rogers, the
schoolmaster, stated to them before he died that the Doctor, his wife,
and Mr. Spalding poisoned the Indians; that for several years past they
had to deplore the death of their children; and that, according to these
reports, they were led to believe that the whites had undertaken to kill
them all; and that these were the motives which led them to kill the
Americans. The same chiefs ask at present—


“1st. That the Americans may not go to war with the Cayuses.


“2d. That they may forget the lately committed murders, as the
Cayuses will forget the murder of the son of the great chief of Wallawalla,
committed in California.


“3d. That two or three great men may come up to conclude peace.


“4th. That as soon as these great men have arrived and concluded
peace, they may take with them all the women and children.


“5th. They give assurance that they will not harm the Americans
before the arrival of these two or three great men.


“6th. They ask that Americans may not travel any more through
their country, as their young men might do them harm.



“(Signed,)
         “Tilokaikt.

“Camaspelo.

“Tawatowe.

“Achekaia.


“Place of Tawatowe, Umatilla, December 20, 1847.”




“The bishop accompanied this manifesto with a letter addressed to
the governor, which concluded in these terms: ‘It is sufficient to state
that all these speeches went to show, that since they had been instructed
by the whites they abhorred war, and that the tragedy of the 29th had
occurred from an anxious desire of self-preservation, and that it was
the reports made against the Doctor and others which led them to commit
this act. They desire to have the past forgotten and to live in peace
as before. Your excellency has to judge of the value of the documents
which I have been requested to forward to you. Nevertheless, without
having the least intention to influence one way or the other, I feel myself
obliged to tell you, that by going to war with the Cayuses, you will
likely have all the Indians of this country against you. Would it be
for the interest of a young colony to expose herself? That you will
have to decide with your council.’”


Reader, you now have before you a full statement of the most important
facts of the Whitman massacre, and of the part taken in it by
“the holy fathers, the Catholic priests,” as they were styled by Mr. McBean,
of Fort Nez Percés, to Mr. Kimzey and his wife.


[Pg 516]The part taken by Mr. McBean, Mr. Ogden, and Sir James Douglas,
will be given in another chapter.


The above manifesto is given as having been made on the 20th of
December, 1847. On the 23d, three days after, when this very Rev.
Mr. Brouillet mounted his horse to go to the fort, he told Miss Bewley
that “if she went to Five Crows’ lodge any more she must not come
back to his house.” Miss Bewley says: “The bishop told me I had
better go.⚹ ⚹ ⚹ The bishop sent an Indian with me; he took me to
Five Crows’ lodge.⚹ ⚹ ⚹ The bishop finally ordered me to go.⚹ ⚹ ⚹ I
found I could get no help.”


These are the solemn affirmations of this intelligent young American
lady, who was present at the bishop’s house when this manifesto was
prepared.


Were this Bishop Blanchet and his priests true and sincere in what
they said, and in the advice they say they gave to the Indians?


We have now traced what may be termed the missionary account of
this painful tragedy, as given by both parties. Our readers must judge
for themselves as to the guilt or innocence of all the parties involved,
and also of the application to our subject of the extensive extracts we
have given. We will now turn our attention to those whom we conceive
to be the prime movers, and, in consequence, the most deeply
implicated in this tragedy.


We have had occasion to allude to the intimate connection existing
between the Jesuit missions in Oregon and the Hudson’s Bay Company.
As early as 1836, that company brought a Protestant Episcopal
chaplain to Vancouver for political reasons, whom they soon dismissed
and attempted to disgrace, as unworthy of belief in any statement he
might make. Soon after, in the fall of 1838, two Roman priests arrived
at Vancouver and took charge of the religious and literary instructions
of the members of the company,—of their children and servants, and, as
far as possible, of all the Indians in the country; and while the company
professed friendship for the American missionaries, they were
active and vigilant to defeat all their efforts to enlighten and civilize
the Indians, enlisting sufficient American influence to distract and
divide the American people, so as to cover up their main object of
securing the country for British Territory. This will be seen by evidence
already quoted from our English authors, Mr. Fitzgerald and Sir
Edward Belcher, and the refusal of Sir James Douglas to aid the provisional
government, or furnish supplies for their troops, and the fact
that they did embrace every opportunity to supply the Indians with
guns, powder, and balls, and sought to combine the whole Indian power
and prejudice against the settlements.




[Pg 517]


CHAPTER LX.


The Hudson’s Bay Company’s and the priests’ part in the massacre.—McBean’s messenger.—Plot
divulged to Hinman, Ogden, and Douglas.—Douglas’s remark to
Hinman.—McBean’s letter.—His perversion of facts.—Comments.—Sir James
Douglas’s letter to Governor Abernethy.—His Sandwich Islands letter.—Its falsehood
and absurdity.—Mr. Hinman’s letter to Governor Abernethy.—The dates.—Assertion
of Robert Newell.—Hudson’s Bay Company v. United States.


We learn from Mr. McBean’s letter, given below, that his horse guard
and interpreter were at Dr. Whitman’s mission and saw the dead bodies;
and from Indians we learn that they were kept by the Rev. Mr.
Brouillet, and took his account of the massacre (which he spent most
of the night in preparing) to Mr. McBean. They also reported to him
that three parties of Indians were preparing and about to start, to destroy
the remaining Protestant missions and American settlements in
middle Oregon, including the station at the Dalles; that the women
and children were to be held as hostages, or captives for future disposal;
that letters and a statement were prepared by Mr. McBean, and
instructions given to his messenger that he might inform the Indians on
his way down to Vancouver of what had happened, but he must not give
any information to any American on the way, or at the Dalles. We
learn from the Hon. A. Hinman that this messenger went to him at the
Dalles station, and told him that he was sent by Mr. McBean to Vancouver
for men, to replace such as had died of sickness at Fort Nez Percés.
The messenger took dinner with Mr. Hinman, who went with him to
the Indian lodges, where the messenger told the Indians of the massacre.
Mr. Hinman procured a canoe and started with him to go to Vancouver.
They reached Cape Horn, some thirty miles above that place, and there,
while windbound, he informed Mr. Hinman of what had occurred,
making a full confession, that “the priests, Mr. McBean, and he were
bad in trying to deceive him and have his family and people killed by
the Indians;” told of his instructions, and of what was expected to be
done with all the Americans in the country, and that he was the bearer
of letters to Governor Ogden from Mr. McBean.


We will now go with this express to Vancouver. Says the Hon. A.
Hinman, who is still alive, and has made oath to the truth of his statements:
“We went first to Mr. Ogden’s room and informed him of the
massacre. He was shocked, and said: ‘Mr. Hinman, you can now see[Pg 518]
what opposition in religion will do.’ We then went to Mr. Douglas’s
room and informed him, and when Mr. Ogden was pacing the room, he
said: ‘Mr. Douglas, you see now what opposition in religion does.’
After a moment’s pause, Mr. Douglas replied, ‘There may be other
causes.’”


Reader, will you turn back and read over the chapter on the English
Hudson’s Bay Company’s effort to secure Oregon, and see if there has
not been a desperate effort made, since Dr. McLaughlin left that company,
to overcome his mistakes and his humane policy toward Americans.
Look also at the chapter on the English Hudson’s Bay Company’s
policy relative to Rupert’s Land and Oregon, and learn fully what
Mr. Ogden and Mr. (now Sir James) Douglas meant by these expressions
made to Mr. Hinman, who says: “Mr. Douglas turned to me, and
wished to know why I was not at home at so perilous a time. I told
him I had received no letter from Wallawalla, and did not learn of the
massacre till below the Cascades. At this he expressed surprise, and
said, ‘Mr. McBean ought by all means to have informed you of your
danger.’


“After this the express was opened, and Mr. Douglas read, and I listened
to the account as given by Mr. McBean, and also of his account
of three parties, which, Mr. McBean’s letter said, Indian report says are
fitting out, one to the saw-mill to kill the Americans at that place, and
one to Rev. Mr. Spalding’s station to cut off the Americans at that
place, and one also to the Dalles to cut off those at that station.


“I said to Mr. Douglas, ‘How is it possible that Mr. McBean could
have treated me in this way? How is it possible he did not inform
me?’ Mr. Douglas, after a little pause, said, ‘Mr. Hinman, we must
consider that the poor man was in circumstances of great perplexity, and
might not know what to do.’”


This was not the case, for Mr. McBean did give him positive instructions,
as we learn from Mr. Hinman’s statement. He says: “After
hearing this dreadful account from the Canadian, I asked him why he
did not inform me before I left my house. He said Mr. McBean told
him to say nothing about it to them at the Dalles!”


Soon after the messenger and Mr. Hinman left the Dalles, the Indians
went to the station and informed P. Whitman, the doctor’s nephew,
that his uncle and aunt, and all the Americans at that place, were
killed. This Indian report was not credited; they could not believe
that Mr. McBean would send a messenger, as he had done, and not
inform them of what had actually taken place.


The reader will remember the deposition of Mr. Kimzey in relation
to Mr. McBean’s statements about the “holy fathers, the Catholic[Pg 519]
priests,” and the subsequent instructions to him, to let the Indians know
he was from the fort.


We will now direct our attention to the mutilated letter of William
McBean, as furnished by Sir James Douglas to Governor Abernethy,
and published in the Oregon Spectator, December 10, 1849:—



“Fort Nez Percés, Nov. 30, 1847.


“To the Board of Managers:



“Gentlemen,—It is my painful duty to make you acquainted with
a horrible massacre which took place yesterday at Wailatpu, about
which I was first apprised, early this morning, by an American who had
escaped, of the name of Hall, and who reached this place half-naked
and covered with blood, as he started at the outset; the information I
received was not satisfactory. He, however, assured me that the Doctor
and another man were killed, but could not tell us the persons who did
it, and how it originated. I immediately determined on sending my
interpreter and one man to Dr. Whitman to find out the truth, and, if
possible, to rescue Mr. Manson’s two sons and any of the survivors. It
so happened that, before the interpreter had proceeded half-way, the
two boys were met on their way hither, escorted by Nicholas Finlay,
it having been previously settled among the Indians that these boys
should not be killed [Mr. McBean should have added, as per my instructions];
as also the American women and children [as per Joseph
Stanfield’s direction, as he had taken Mrs. Hays for a wife, and several
Indians were to have the young women at the station for wives].
Tilokaikt is the chief who recommended this measure. I presume that
you are well acquainted that fever and dysentery have been raging here
and in the vicinity, in consequence of which a great number of Indians
have been swept away, but more especially at the Doctor’s place, where
he had attended upon the Indians. About thirty souls of the Cayuse
tribe died, one after another, who evidently believed the Doctor poisoned
them, and in which opinion they were, unfortunately, confirmed by one
of the Doctor’s party. As far as I have been able to learn, this has
been the sole cause of the dreadful butchery. In order to satisfy any
doubt on that point, it is reported that they requested the Doctor to
administer medicine to three of their friends, two of whom were really
sick, but the third feigned sickness, and that the three were corpses the
next morning. After they were buried, and while the Doctor’s men
were employed slaughtering an ox, the Indians came one by one to his
house, with their arms concealed under their blankets, and, being all
assembled, commenced firing on those slaughtering the animal, and in
a moment the Doctor’s house was surrounded; the Doctor, and a young[Pg 520]
lad brought up by himself, were shot in the house. His lady, Mr.
Rogers, and the children had taken refuge in the garret, but were
dragged down and dispatched (excepting the children) outside, where
their bodies were left exposed.


“It is reported that it was not their intention to kill Mr. Rogers, in
consequence of an avowal to the following effect, which he is said to
have made, and which nothing but a desire to save his life could have
promoted him to do. He said, ‘I was one evening lying down, and
overheard the Doctor telling Rev. Mr. Spalding that it was best you
should all be poisoned at once, but that the latter told him it was best
to continue slowly and cautiously, and between this and spring not a
soul would remain, when they would take possession of your lands,
cattle, and horses.’


“These are only Indian reports, and no person can believe the Doctor
capable of such an action without being as ignorant and brutish as the
Indians themselves. One of the murderers, not having been made
acquainted with the above understanding, shot Mr. Rogers.”


This confession is made, as the reader will notice, and attributed to
Mr. Rogers, in order to give the coloring of truth to Joe Lewis’s statement.
There appears, as will be seen by comparing the statements of
Vicar-General Brouillet’s Indian council and this of McBean’s, a little
doubt which to make the author of that story. Sir James Douglas has
adopted McBean’s statement, as the most plausible, in his report, as it
is attributed to one of the Doctor’s own party.


The whole thing, as will be seen by the testimony of Miss Bewley, is
utterly false, and, as McBean has said, only Indian reports; and, we
will add, told to them by Stanfield, Joe Lewis, and Finlay, a Frenchman,
an Indian, and a half-breed, all under the influence, and probably
in the service, of the Hudson’s Bay Company and priests. And
McBean, Sir James Douglas, and Brouillet are more brutish than the
Indians, in putting such reports in circulation. If they had no confidence
in them, why did they repeat them, giving them the color of
truth? And why do they pretend to say “his life would have been
spared,” and it was only a mistake that he was shot? Bewley and
Sales were brutally murdered the eighth day after Rogers was, for
Bewley’s saying he did not believe the stories about poisoning Indians,
and that he believed the priests were the cause of it. If the Doctor,
and Mr. Spalding, and Mrs. Whitman were the only ones they thought
injuring them, why attempt to kill all the Americans at the station?
Why make the arrangements as extensive as Vicar-General Brouillet
tells Mr. Spalding they were (on page 51 of his narrative, 38 of Ross
Browne’s report): “I knew that the Indians were angry with all Ameri[Pg 521]cans,
and more enraged against Mr. Spalding than any other;”—on
54th page: “I know not; you know the country better than I do. All
that I know is, that the Indians say the order to kill Americans has
been sent in all directions.”


Without the history of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Northwest
Fur Company before us, we would be quite incapable of comprehending
the expressions and statements of this priest to Mr. Spalding.
Were we ignorant of that history, and without a knowledge of the
statements to which they have made oath in relation to their claims
against our government, we could not understand these letters of
McBean and Douglas.


We are also in possession of other facts, respecting the treatment of
their own countrymen who have unfortunately fallen under their displeasure,
which is here repeated upon Dr. Whitman and Mr. Rogers.


We would cut all these communications short, and make a general
statement, but we would be charged (as we have already been) with
“stringing together statements without facts;” besides, all these Hudson’s
Bay documents and statements have had a powerful influence to
destroy the characters of good men who are dead, and shield the vile
conduct of the guilty, who are still living.


So far as McBean was concerned, he obeyed orders as implicitly as
Grant of the Hudson’s Bay Company did, when he sent forty families,
in 1846, into the mountains of California, to perish in the snow with
cold and hunger. McBean must assist in blackening the character of
Whitman, Rogers, and Spalding, to protect that of the “holy fathers,
the Catholic priests.”


McBean in his letter further says: “It is well understood that eleven
lives were lost and three wounded. It is also rumored that they are to
make an attack upon the fort; let them come if they will not listen to
reason; though I have only five men at the establishment, I am prepared
to give them a warm reception; the gates are closed day and night, and
bastions in readiness. In company with Mr. Manson’s two sons was
sent a young half-breed lad brought up by Dr. Whitman; they are all
here, and have got over their fright.”


This portion of the letter is supposed, by Mr. Hinman, to have been
put in by Mr. Douglas in place of that which related to sending parties
to destroy Americans at other places; and to show to the world that
they were threatened by the Indians, as well as the Americans. The
same as Brouillet is careful to tell us that “he was afraid the Indians
would kill him,” and that the priests were not safe among them.


“The ringleaders in this horrible butchery are Tilokaikt, his son,
Big Belly, Tamsaky, Istacus [a true friend of the Americans, who was[Pg 522]
only a witness of the murders], Towmoulisk, etc. I understand from the
interpreter that they were making one common grave for the dead.
The houses were stripped of every thing in the shape of property; but
when they came to divide the spoils, they all fell out among themselves,
and all agreed to put back the property. I am happy to state the Wallawalla
chief had no hand in the whole business.”


If this is true, the killing of the Wallawalla chief’s son in California
could not have been one of the causes of the massacre, as alleged in the
narrative of the very Rev. Mr. Brouillet.


“They were all the Doctor’s own people,—the Cayuses.”


This we should expect, as it would enable those who wished to make
their own guilt appear innocence. The Doctor’s people alone were to
commence killing the Americans. It is asserted by good authority,
that a part of Mr. Spalding’s, and the Indians at the Dalles, were ready
to engage in the same business, from the same advice and orders.


“One American shot another, and took the Indians’ part to save his
own life.”


This statement by McBean is made, as will be seen, to give the impression
that there was a quarrel among the Americans, and that they
were ready to betray and shoot each other and take the part of the
Indians. The reader will recollect that this shooting refers to the Indian
Joe Lewis, in killing one of the Sager boys, and is explained particularly
by Sir James Douglas in his Sandwich Islands letter, for the
information of the American Board of Missions. This fact goes to show
that Sir James had received a more particular and carefully prepared
account than Mr. McBean had; while the one was a summary, the
other was the particulars so arranged as to implicate Dr. Whitman,
Mr. Spalding, Mr. Rogers, Mrs. Whitman, and another American, to
show that they were not only ready to poison the Indians, but to kill
and betray each other to save their own lives; thus showing the
intimate connection and complicity of Sir James with the very rev.
vicar-general, in giving countenance to this infamous slander, and
publishing it to the world over his own signature, and using all his
influence to shield and clear the instigators of the crime.


It can not be urged that Sir James received his particular information
at some other time, for his letters to Governor Abernethy and the
Sandwich Islands were dated, the one to the governor, December 7,
1847, in which he says, “A copy of Mr. McBean’s letter herewith will
give you all the particulars known to us of this indescribably painful
event;” and the one to the Islands, December 9, 1847, in which he
gives more particulars.


The impression is irresistibly fixed in the mind, that Mr. Brouillet[Pg 523]
spent most of the night, on arriving at Wailatpu (before the dead were
buried), in Tilokaikt’s lodge or camp, arranging and writing those statements
and particulars, so that Sir James Douglas could give his approval,
and that they would go to the American Board of Missions and
the friends of the murdered dead, with the sanction of his name,
implicating the dead as having brought about this horrible massacre.


Another reason for this impression is, that in all the public and
private correspondence between any of these parties, there is, and
always has been, the most intense anxiety shown to prevent the open
discussion of that transaction, as will be seen in the next paragraph in
McBean’s letter, and by the promptness with which Mr. Ogden reported
to Bishop Blanchet; Mr. Spalding’s injudicious remarks to Major
Magone on the trip down the river; the manner of Mr. Spalding’s very
unwise and imprudent letter to the bishop and his priests, was published
and commented upon by them; the promptness of Mr. Douglas to demand
an explanation of Colonel Gilliam’s supposed statement; the
refusal of the Hudson’s Bay Company to furnish supplies to the provisional
troops; and the fact that the company did supply 1,080 pounds
of powder, 1,800 pounds of balls and shot to the priests for the Indians,
with three cases containing thirty-six guns, all of which were seized by
Lieutenant Rogers at the Dalles, and should have been (but were not)
confiscated. We will now ask the attention of the reader to the remainder
of this (to the Hudson’s Bay Company and Romanists in general)
glorious news of the complete victory they had obtained over
Protestantism and its missions in Oregon.


Mr. McBean, or Sir James Douglas, we do not know which, says:
“Allow me to draw a veil over this dreadful affair which is too painful
to dwell upon, and which I have explained conformable to information
received and with sympathizing feelings.



“I remain, with much respect, gentlemen,

“Your most obedient humble servant,

“William McBean.”



We can scarcely retain the expressions of Whew! Horrible! etc., as
we give the balance of this important letter, copied and given to the
public of Oregon, under the eye of Sir James Douglas, with the—


“N. B.—I have just learned that the Cayuses are to be here to-morrow
to kill Serpent Jaune, the Wallawalla chief.



“W. McB.”



“Names of those who were killed: Dr. Whitman, Mrs. Whitman,
Mr. Rogers, Hoffman, Sanders, Osborn [not killed], Marsh, John and[Pg 524]
Francis Sager, Canfield [not killed], and a sailor, besides three that
were wounded more or less—Messrs. Hall, Kimball, and another whose
name I can not learn.



“W. McBean.”



Could the reader look at the exact original copy of that letter, and
of that as found in the Spectator of December 10, 1847, and hear the
expressions of sentiment and feeling among a portion of the people at
Oregon City; and listen to some of the private consultations, and hear
the opinions there expressed, he would be able to understand the impression
that this, with some other letters published at that time, made
upon the public mind.


There was in one little council of a number of the then representatives
of Oregon, a disposition to let that foul murder pass, without
making an effort to avenge those deaths, or punish the Indians. One
of that little council exclaimed with an oath, “Gentlemen, we must not
allow that murder to pass, without an effort to punish those concerned
in it; and for one, I know that Dr. Whitman did not bring it upon
himself. Our own existence in this country is involved in the action
we take in this matter. It becomes absolutely necessary that we take
measures to protect ourselves and punish the murderers.”



“Fort Vancouver, Dec. 7, 1847.


“George Abernethy, Esq.:



“Sir,—Having received intelligence last night (on the 4th), by special
express from Wallawalla, of the destruction of the missionary settlement
at Wailatpu by the Cayuse Indians of that place, we hasten to
communicate the particulars of that dreadful event, one of the most
atrocious which darkens the annals of Indian crime.


“Our lamented friend Dr. Whitman, his amiable and accomplished
lady, with nine other persons, have fallen victims to the fury of those
remorseless savages, who appear to have been instigated to the appalling
crime by a horrible suspicion which had taken possession of their
superstitious minds, in consequence of the number of deaths from
dysentery and measles, that Dr. Whitman was silently working the
destruction of their tribe, by administering poisonous drugs under the
semblance of salutary medicines.


“With a goodness of heart and benevolence truly his own, Dr.
Whitman had been laboring incessantly, since the appearance of the
measles and dysentery among his Indian converts, to relieve their sufferings,
and such has been the reward of his generous labors.


“A copy of Mr. McBean’s letter herewith will give you all the particulars
known to us of this indescribably painful event.


[Pg 525]“Mr. Ogden, with a strong party, will leave this place as soon as possible
for Wallawalla, to endeavor to prevent further evil, and we beg to
suggest to you the propriety of taking instant measures for the protection
of the Rev. Mr. Spalding, who, for the sake of his family, ought to
abandon the Clearwater Mission without delay, and retire to a place of
safety, as he can not remain at that isolated station without imminent
risk in the present excited and irritated state of the Indian population.



“I have the honor to be, sir,

“Your most obedient servant,

“James Douglas.”


We now give Sir James Douglas’s letter to the Sandwich Islands, as
found in the March number of the Friend:—



“Fort Vancouver, Dec. 9, 1847.


“S. N. Castle, Esq.:


“Sir,—It is with feelings indescribably painful that I hasten to communicate
to you, for the information of the Board of Missions, intelligence
of a disastrous event which lately occurred at the mission station
of Wailatpu. Our esteemed friend Dr. Whitman, his amiable and
accomplished lady, and nine men and youths in the mission employ,
were murdered on the 29th ultimo by the Cayuse Indians, with
circumstances of the most revolting cruelty. The lives of the women
and children, with the exception of the lamented lady already mentioned,
were spared. The mission being situated in the Cayuse country,
they had a peculiar interest in protecting it from harm, in gratitude
for past favors, and for the blessings of religious instruction so
assiduously dispensed to them and to their families; yet those very
people, the objects of so much solicitude, were alone concerned in
effecting the destruction of the establishment founded solely for their
benefit.


“The Cayuses are the most treacherous and untractable of all the
Indian tribes in this country [contradicted by Mr. Ogden], and had on
many former occasions alarmed the inmates of the mission by their
tumultuous proceedings and ferocious threats; but, unfortunately, these
evidences of a brutal disposition were disregarded by their admirable
pastor, and served only to arm him with a firmer resolution to do them
good. He hoped that time and instruction would produce a change of
mind,—a better state of feeling toward the mission,—and might have
lived to see his hopes realized [had not the Hudson’s Bay Company
and the Roman priests determined otherwise], had not the measles
and dysentery, following in the train of emigration from the United[Pg 526]
States, made fearful ravages this year in the upper country, many Indians
having been carried off through the violence of the disease, and others
through their own imprudence.


“The Cayuse Indians of Wailatpu being sufferers in the general
calamity, were incensed against Dr. Whitman, [by the tales of Joe
Lewis, Stanfield, and the very Rev. Mr. Brouillet, who afterward found
a vial of white powder and called it poison, and ordered the Indians to
bury it, as per evidence in the case] for not exerting his supposed
supernatural power in saving their lives. They carried this absurdity
beyond that point of folly.


“Their superstitious minds became possessed with the horrible
superstition that he was giving poison to the sick instead of wholesome
medicine, with the view of working the destruction of the tribe; their
former cruelty probably adding strength to their suspicions. Still
some of the more reflecting had confidence in Dr. Whitman’s integrity,
and it was agreed to test the effect of the medicine he had furnished on
three of their people, one of whom was said to be in perfect health.”


The absurdity of this statement is so palpable, and so perfectly improbable
in every respect, that, with all my study of Indian character, I
am unable to understand why this statement is repeated by any of the
parties concerned in bringing about that massacre. It can only be
believed by the most stupid, as it has not the plausibility of truth in it;
and Mr. Douglas showed a debasement of mind beyond comprehension
in quoting it to his friend. We quote this whole letter, that it may
be seen how low Sir James felt himself obliged to descend, to make
an absurdity appear reasonable. The idea is started by Brouillet,
increased by McBean, and completed by Douglas, who would give such
accounts to the public to make others equally false appear probable.
He continues:—


“They unfortunately died, and from that moment it was resolved to
destroy the mission.”


But we have positive testimony that the destruction of that mission,
with Mr. Spalding’s, was determined upon, and so stated by
McBean before an Indian was known to be sick in the tribe or at the
station. Mr. Douglas says:—


“It was immediately after burying the remains of these three persons,
that they repaired to the mission one after another, with their arms hid
under their blankets. The Doctor was at the school with the children,
the others were cutting up an ox which they had just killed. When
the Indians were numerous enough to effect their object, they fell upon
the poor victims, some with guns and others with hatchets, and their
blood was soon streaming on all sides.


[Pg 527]“Some of the Indians turned their attention toward the Doctor; he
received a pistol-shot in the breast from one, and a blow on the head
from another. He had still strength enough to reach a sofa, where he
threw himself down and expired. Mrs. Whitman was dragged from
the garret and mercilessly butchered at the door. Mr. Rogers was shot
after his life had been granted to him.


“The women and children were also going to be murdered, when a
voice was raised to ask for mercy in favor of those whom they thought
innocent, and their lives were spared.


“It is reported that a kind of deposition made by Mr. Rogers incensed
the fury of this savage mob. Mr. Rogers was seized, was made
to sit down, and then told that his life would be spared if he made a
full discovery of Dr. Whitman’s supposed treachery. That person then
told the Indians that the Doctor intended to poison them; that one
night, when Mr. Spalding was at Wailatpu, he heard them say that the
Indians ought to be poisoned, in order that the Americans might take
possession of their lands; that the Doctor wished to poison them all at
once, but Mr. Spalding advised him to do it gradually. Mr. Rogers,
after this deposition, was spared, but an Indian, who was not present,
having seen him, fired at and killed him.


“An American made a similar deposition, adding that Mrs. Whitman
was an accomplice, and she deserved death as well as her husband.


“It appears that he concluded by saying that he would take the side
of the Indians, and that he detested the Americans. An Indian then
put a pistol into his hand, and said to him, ‘If you tell the truth, you
must prove it by shooting that young American;’ and this wretched
apostate from his country fired upon the young man shown to him, and
laid him dead at his feet.


“It was upon the evidence of that American that Mrs. Whitman
was murdered, or she might have shared in the mercy extended to the
other females and children.


“Such are the details, as far as known, of that disastrous event,
and the causes which led to it.


“Mr. Rogers’ reported deposition, if correct, is unworthy of belief,
having been drawn from him by the fear of instant death. The other
American, who shed the blood of his own friend, must be a villain of
the darkest dye, and ought to suffer for his aggravated crime.”


There is no evidence that Sir James Douglas ever exerted the least
influence to arrest or punish one of those murderers; on the contrary,
there is evidence that the Hudson’s Bay Company assisted them and
facilitated their escape from justice, and supplied the Indians with arms
and ammunition to carry on the war that followed. Particulars of the[Pg 528]
whole truth, are given in another chapter. This letter of Sir James
Douglas continues:—


“On the 7th instant, Mr. Ogden proceeded toward Wallawalla with
a strong party of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s servants, to endeavor to
prevent further evil.


“Accompanying, you will receive a copy of a letter which I addressed
to Governor Abernethy immediately after the arrival of the melancholy
intelligence at this place.


“All that can be collected will be considered important by the friends
of Doctor and Mrs. Whitman in the United States, who will be anxious
to learn every particular concerning their tragic fate. It will be a satisfaction
for them to know that these eminent servants of God were
faithful in their lives, though we have to deplore the melancholy circumstances
which accompanied their departure from this world of trial.



“I am, sir, your obedient servant,

“James Douglas.”


We now have before us the statements of all the parties concerned
in the most inhuman and disgraceful tragedy that has darkened the
pages of our history. The crime itself was most inhuman and brutal,
but, being mixed with religious prejudice and sectarian hate, guided and
brought about by foreign commercial influences under the direction of
a British monopoly, it demands a national investigation.


That Sir James Douglas knew more of the inception and ultimate
designs of that transaction is evident from the prompt and careful
manner in which he answered Mr. Ogden’s remark, that it was brought
about from religious causes; he affirmed that “there might be other
causes;” and when he had read the dispatches, he said, “We must consider
the poor man was in great perplexity, and might not know what
to do.” These two expressions of Sir James Douglas to Mr. Ogden
and Mr. Hinman are the key that unlocks the whole mystery in this
desperate arrangement to hold this whole country for the exclusive
benefit of that monopoly.


As to the morality of the transaction, the great sympathy of Sir
James and his conclave of bishops and priests, the church assumes all.
The baptizing of three Indian children was of more importance to the
church than all the suffering widows and orphans at that missionary
settlement.


The particular account, as given by Sir James, was of more importance
than punishing the murderers, or even casting a suspicion, such
as Mr. Ogden, his associate, had done, upon his accomplices in crime.


These two letters show his duplicity, and the unblushing manner in[Pg 529]
which he gives one statement to Governor Abernethy, for Oregon, and
another for the Board of Missions, and how careful he is to state circumstances
and false impressions as to the facts he pretends to give with
so much sympathy and apparent interest in the fate of the murdered
dead.


There are but two other persons who have given us any information
of this tragedy, on the part of the priests and the Hudson’s Bay Company.
One of those was, at the time, in charge of Fort Nez Percés.
His account was sent to Sir James,—mutilated, and not as carefully prepared
for the people of Oregon as was this one for the great world
beyond. The other is prepared by the very Rev. Mr. Brouillet, vicar-general
of Wallawalla, and given to the world to form an “interesting
and authentic chapter in the history of Protestant missions,” and contains
all the imaginary circumstantial statements of the massacre, as
given over the name of James Douglas, and officially in the report of
J. Ross Browne, December 4, 1859.


If these statements had first appeared, as they now do, over the name
and by the authority or affirmation of the very Rev. Mr. Brouillet, etc.,
all the world, as J. Ross Browne did, would have adopted the idea of
Mr. Ogden, and said truly this was the result of opposition in religion.
But Sir James Douglas proves, by his own statements and letters, and
subsequent conduct all through the war that followed, that it was not
“opposition in religion alone.” It was a predetermined arrangement
of the “powerful company, the practical monopoly of the fur trade,”
which, in 1865, he affirmed this company held over the country in 1846.
The profits of that business were not to be lost to his powerful company
by any missionary settlement in it.


Are we correct in these conclusions? The statements are given by
the parties implicated. Were we to allow our personal feelings and sectarian
preferences to influence our conclusions, we would join in the general
conclusion of Mr. Ogden; but a full knowledge of the facts forces
us to believe the statement of Mr. Douglas as being the most correct;
nevertheless, we will not abate one iota of the scathing condemnation
justly due to the foreign sectarianism brought into the country to effect
the object of that corporation, nor of the scorn and infamy due to the
immediate controlling actors—Bishop Blanchet and his priests—under
the garb of religion.


We wish to keep as distinctly as possible before the mind the separate
part each party has performed in this great drama of which we
have been writing. As we have before said, there were four distinct
parties or influences in the country, and the Indian formed the fifth.
The Hudson’s Bay Company and the Roman priests combined and[Pg 530]
formed one; the missionaries with the settlers formed another; and the
Indian was between them. For a time, the American influence was the
most prominent,—say in 1843, 1844, and 1845. In 1846, Bishop Blanchet
was in Europe, making extensive preparations for missionary operations
in Oregon, corresponding in extent with those made by the Rev. Jason
Lee in 1839-40.


“On August 19, 1847, Bishop Blanchet arrived in the mouth of the
Columbia River, in the Morning Star, Captain Menes, five and a half
months from Brest, with five priests, three Jesuits, three lay brothers,
two deacons, and seven nuns.” In addition to these, we had, overland,
eight priests and two nuns that same year. These, with the priests
already in the country, gave us twenty-five of the Roman clerical order
and fifteen nuns. This was a powerful and extensive effort to recover
the lost foreign influence in the country. How well they succeeded is
now a matter of history, and will enable the reader to understand the
bold and defiant attitude of Mr. Douglas and his efficient co-laborers,
Bishop Blanchet and his priests, among the Indians.


The missionary settlement at Wailatpu was the most important point
in the whole upper country. The influence and position of those Indians
were such, that special efforts were required to commence and carry on
the destruction of all American settlements in the country.


We come now to the letter of Hon. A. Hinman, properly belonging
to this chapter.



Fort Vancouver, December 4, 1847.


Mr. George Abernethy:



Dear Sir,—A Frenchman, from Wallawalla, arrived at my place on
last Saturday, and informed me that he was on his way to Vancouver,
and wished me to assist in procuring him a canoe immediately. I was
very inquisitive to know if there was any difficulty above. He said
four Frenchmen had died recently, and he wished to get others to
occupy their places.


I immediately got him a canoe, and concluded to go in company with
him, in order to get some medicine for the Indians, as they were dying
off with measles and other diseases very fast. I was charged with indifference.
They said we were killing in not giving them medicines,
and I found if we were not exposing our lives, we were our peace, and
consequently I set out for this place. This side of the Cascades I was
made acquainted with the horrible massacre that took place at Wailatpu
last Monday. Horrid to relate! Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, Mr. Rogers,
Mr. Osborn, Mr. Sanders, a school-teacher, the two orphan boys (John
and Francis Sager), together with all the men at that place,—eleven in all.
Some are living at the saw-mill, which is situated about twenty miles[Pg 531]
from the Doctor’s. A party set out for that place to dispatch them;
also a party for Mr. Spalding’s, to dispatch them; and they are not
satisfied yet, but a party is said to have started for my place, and has,
if true, reached them before this time. Oh! had I known it when I
was at home. I can neither sleep nor take any rest, on account of my
family and those with them, viz., my wife and child, the Doctor’s
nephew, Dr. Saffron, and Mr. McKinney and wife. If I had ten men I
could defend myself with perfect ease, by occupying the meeting-house,
which is very roomy and close. You see my situation, as well as Mr.
Spalding’s. I have perfect confidence in your doing all you can to get
a party to come up and spend the winter there, and likewise to go to
the rescue of the women and children, and Mr. Spalding, if alive,
which I think very doubtful.


Delay not a moment in sending a few men for my protection; a
few moments may save our lives.


I expect to leave to-morrow for home, and perhaps the first salutation
will be a ball. My family is there, and I must return if it costs
my life.


We are in the hands of a merciful God, why should we be alarmed?
I will close by saying again, send a small force immediately without
the delay of one day. Farewell.



Yours truly,

Alanson Hinman.


It will be seen that the main facts are given by Mr. Hinman, with
the designs of other Indian parties to cut off the Americans at Mr.
Spalding’s, the saw-mill, and at the Dalles, which Mr. Douglas omits
in his letter to Governor Abernethy, but informs him of the Indians’
threatened attack upon Fort Nez Percés (Wallawalla).


That part of Mr. Douglas’s letter relating to Mr. Rogers’ supposed
statement to the Indians, the brother (still living) has requested
Mr. Douglas to explain; but no explanation has been given. We
know, from the depositions given, that Mr. Douglas made the statement
without evidence of its truth; and it is evident he is too stubborn or
proud to acknowledge or explain his error.


There is one other fact in connection with this transaction that looks
dark on the part of Sir James Douglas.


It is shown in the dates of the several letters. Mr. Hinman’s is
dated December 4; Mr. Douglas’s, December 7; that to the Sandwich
Islands, December 9. Now, between the 4th and 7th are three
days. In a case of so much importance, and professed sympathy,—as
expressed in his letter,—how is it, that three, or even two days were[Pg 532]
allowed to pass without sending a dispatch informing Governor
Abernethy of what had happened, and of what was expected to take
place? which last he had left out of his letter, and the copy of
McBean’s; but does inform him of the threatened danger to Fort Nez
Percés, as coming from McBean.


Mr. Douglas is prompt to urge the removal of Mr. Spalding, but
unreasonably slow to send an express twenty or thirty miles to notify
the American settlement of its danger.


We wish to say, once for all, that we are not giving the private
history or character of any man or set of men. Their public conduct
and proceedings are a part of our history. Mr. Douglas was, at the
time we are writing, the acknowledged head of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, and, as such, acted and controlled the movements of its members.
Bishop Blanchet was the acknowledged head of the Roman
Church, and, as such, acted with Mr. Douglas; for while not one
Roman priest, or a servant of either of these two parties were disturbed
or harmed in the least, all Protestant missionaries and American
citizens were either killed, or driven from the upper country by order
of that company. As Robert Newell asserts, under date of October
25, 1866: “And they could not have remained in the country a week
without the consent and aid of that company, nor could any mission,
in my opinion, in those days have been established in this (Wallamet)
or that (Wallawalla) valley, without the aid and influence of the
Hudson’s Bay Company, nor could the settlers have remained in the
country as they did up to 1848, for the same reasons.”


This statement is made by a gentleman who professes to know more
of, and has been (without a question) more favored by the Hudson’s
Bay Company than any other American in the country. If his statement
is true, which we have no doubt he believes it to be, then who
is responsible for all the murders of American hunters, trappers, missionaries,
immigrants, and settlers on their way to our country and in
it. But we will not risk our conclusions upon the statement of an
individual, who is totally ignorant of the policy of the company he
undertakes to defend. We have, in addition, the sworn statement of
Sir James Douglas as to the power and influence of his company, one
year previous to the cutting off of the missionary settlement at Wailatpu.


He says, under oath: “Their posts were so arranged as to practically
enjoy a monopoly in the fur trade, and they possessed an extraordinary
influence with the nations west of the Rocky Mountains.” (Answer
to interrogatory in claim Hudson’s Bay Company v. United States.)


That this influence was exerted to destroy that mission there can be[Pg 533]
no question; and that the same influence has since been exerted to
spread, far and wide, statements originated by them and their associates
to blast the character of the dead, and destroy the influence of
the living in the cause of truth, is equally true.


We find it stated in Brouillet’s narrative that the most friendly and
cordial relations existed between the Hudson’s Bay Company and his
mission; so much so, that he is present by special invitation at Mr.
Ogden’s council for arranging the purchase of the captives. He
informs us, on page 69, “Protestantism in Oregon,” that Mr. Ogden
told them that “the Hudson’s Bay Company had never deceived
them; that he hoped they would listen to his words; that the company
did not meddle with the affairs of the Americans; that there
were three parties; the Americans on one side, the Cayuses on the
other, and the French people and the priests in the middle; the company
was there to trade and the priests to teach them their duties;
‘Listen to the priests,’ said he, several times; ‘listen to the priests;
they will teach you how to keep a good life; the priests do not come
to make war; they carry no arms,—they carry but their crucifixes,[15] and
with them they can not kill.’ He insisted particularly, and at several
times, upon the distinction necessary to be made between the affairs of
the company and those of the Americans.”


[15] The Oblates, who constantly carry a crucifix on their breasts, were present.


The company’s interests must not be interfered with. The professions
of sympathy found in Mr. Douglas’s letters are all explained,
when the facts are fully developed. The complaint of the company, as
stated in the memorial presented to the commissioners, April 17,
1865 (Hudson’s Bay Company v. United States, page 19), states that
“among these circumstances may be specified the aggressive acts and
the general conduct of American citizens, and of persons acting under
the authority of the United States, commencing shortly after the 15th
of June, 1846, and continuing from year to year, by which the rights
of the claimants under that treaty were violated and denied, and their
property and possessions were, in some instances, usurped and taken
from them, and, in others, were necessarily abandoned. This course of
conduct was, perhaps, to be expected, from the anomalous position in
which the company was placed,—a foreign corporation exercising a
quasi sovereignty and exclusive rights over territory transferred to a
power whose policy in dealing with such territory was diametrically
opposed to that which the company pursued, and from which they
derived their profits.”


This complaint demands careful consideration at the present time.
[Pg 534]The statements of Mr. Ogden to the Indians, the memorial of the company,
and the testimony it has produced in support of its claims, the
statements and correspondence of the Jesuit missionaries, all go to
prove the settled policy of the company to maintain its “quasi sovereignty”
and exclusive asserted claims to the country at the time of the
Wailatpu massacre.


That company, with less than half its then powerful influence and
capital, had compelled the more powerful and active French-Canadian
Northwest Company, numerically stronger than itself, to yield and accept
its terms of a union in 1821.


They had driven from the country all American traders. They had,
as they vainly imagined, secured an influence in the provisional American
government sufficient to control all danger from that source, while
they were ready to let loose the Indians upon the settlers, and prepared
to supply them with the means to destroy or drive them from the
country.




[Pg 535]


CHAPTER LXI.


Preliminary events of the Cayuse war.—Message of Governor Abernethy.—Journal
of the house.—Resolutions.—Assembling of the people at the call of the governor.—Enlisting
of men.—Names of the volunteers.—Names of the officers.—Their
flag.—Their departure.—Letter to Sir James Douglas.—His reply.—Commissioners
return.—Address to the citizens.—Public meeting.—Report of commissioners
to the Legislature.—Messenger sent to Washington.—Memorial to Congress.—Champoeg
County tax.—Strength of the settlement called for.—Bishop
Blanchet’s letter to Governor Abernethy.


Message of Governor Abernethy.



Oregon City, December 8, 1847.



Gentlemen,—It is my painful duty to lay the inclosed communications
before your honorable body. They will give you the particulars
of the horrible massacre committed by the Cayuse Indians on the residents
at Wailatpu. This is one of the most distressing circumstances
that has occurred in our Territory, and one that calls for immediate and
prompt action. I am aware that to meet this case funds will be
required, and suggest the propriety of applying to the Hudson’s Bay
Company and the merchants of this place for a loan to carry out whatever
plan you may fix upon. I have no doubt but the expense attending
this affair will be promptly met by the United States government.


The wives and children of the murdered persons, the Rev. Mr.
Spalding and family, and all others who may be in the upper country,
should at once be proffered assistance, and an escort to convey them to
places of safety. I have the honor to remain, gentlemen,



Your obedient servant,

George Abernethy.


To the Honorable Legislative Assembly, Oregon.


Journal of the House, December 8, 1847


At two o’clock the house met. The sergeant-at-arms announced a
special communication from the governor, which was read by the clerk.
It consisted of letters from Messrs. Douglas and McBean, of the forts on
the Columbia, announcing the horrid murder of Dr. Whitman’s family
and others, accompanied by a letter from the governor, praying the
immediate action of the house in the matter.


Mr. Meek moved the reference of the communications to a committee[Pg 536]
of the whole house, which was lost. Mr. Nesmith offered the following,
which was adopted:—


“Resolved, That the governor be, and is hereby, authorized and
required to raise, arm, and equip a company of riflemen, not to exceed
fifty men, with their captain and subaltern officers, and dispatch them
forthwith to occupy the mission station at the Dalles, on the Columbia
River, and hold possession until re-enforcements can arrive at that
point, or other means be taken, as the government thinks advisable.”


Messrs. Nesmith, Reese, and Crawford were appointed a committee
to wait on the governor and inform him of said resolution.


The communications concerning the Indian depredations were referred
to a committee consisting of Messrs. Ford, Rector, and White.


The committee appointed to wait on the governor concerning the
resolution for raising a company of riflemen, reported that they had discharged
their duty, and received, in answer, that the governor will use
his utmost endeavors to accomplish the object.




The governor called the people together in the evening, and, after
the statements of the object of the meeting, some forcible and earnest
remarks from Judge Nesmith and Messrs. Lee, Barlow, and others, the
enrollment of the first company of Oregon riflemen commenced.


The following true and noble-hearted men sprang to arms, and, in fifteen
hours from the time they had enrolled their names as defenders of
Oregon, were on their way to protect their own and their countrymen’s
lives from Hudson’s Bay Company, Jesuitical, and Indian savagism.


We will give the names of this noble little band a place in the history
of the country they were so prompt and ready to defend. They are as
follows:—






Joseph B. Proctor, George Moore, W. M. Carpenter,


J. S. Rinearson, Henry W. Coe, Lucius Marsh,


H. A. G. Lee, William Buckman, Joel McKee,


Thomas Purvis, S. A. Jackson, H. Levalley,


J. Magone, Jacob Witchey, J. W. Morgan,


C. Richardson, John Fleming, O. Tupper,


J. E. Ross, A. C. Little, R. S. Tupper,


Isaac Walgamoutts, A. J. Thomas, C. H. Devendorf,


John G. Gibson, George Westby, John Hiner,


B. B. Rogers, Edward Robson, C. W. Savage,


Benjamin Bratton, Andrew Wise, G. H. Bosworth,


Samuel K. Barlow, D. Averson, Jacob Johnson,


Wm. Berry, J. H. McMellen, Stephen Cummings,


John Bolton, John C. Danford, George Weston.




[Pg 537]Forty-two as noble and true men as ever breathed. They were soon
organized under a set of energetic and brave young officers, who feared
no danger, and were ready to meet in open fight the combined enemies
of their country’s rights upon the shores of the Pacific or in the mountains
or valleys of Oregon. Their officers were:—






Captain, H. A. G. Lee. First Sergeant, J. S. Rinearson.


First Lieutenant, J. Magone. Second Sergeant, W. Savage.


Second Lieutenant, J. E. Ross. Third Sergeant, Wm. Berry.


Commissary, C. H. Devendorf. First Corporal, Stephen Cummings.


Surgeon, W. M. Carpenter, M. D. Second Corporal, J. H. McMellen.






“At twelve o’clock on the afternoon of Tuesday, the company assembled
at the City Hotel, where they were presented with an appropriate
flag, by Judge Nesmith, in behalf of the ladies of Oregon City, with an
appropriate address. (No record of that address or of the names of
the donors can be found.) Captain Lee, on the part of the company,
made an exceedingly happy reply upon receiving the beautiful token of
the patriotism of the lovely donors.”


In two hours after, the company started, amid the firing of cannon
and the cheers of the assembled citizens. It speaks well for our city,
that in less than twenty-four hours this detachment was raised and had
started for the scene of action.


It is to be regretted that the editor of the Oregon Spectator, at the
time these deeply-interesting events were occurring, should fill the only
public journal on the coast with accounts of personal piques, and allow
the remarks of Judge Nesmith and the reply of Captain Lee to pass
with the meager notice we have quoted; that the deeply-stirring events
respecting the murder of his countrymen should find so small a place in
his editorial. He tells us in this same paper that he means to keep us
posted in the war news, but the next paper is filled with a personal war
between himself and the directors of the Printing Association, about
some political resolutions that did no good or harm to anybody, except
to show the party spirit then existing in the country, in which he is
foolish enough to engage, and degrade his noble position as a journalist
and editor, which compels us to look to other sources for facts relative
to the history of those times.


Our little army of braves were accompanied by Governor Abernethy
and three commissioners to Vancouver, where they completed their
outfit before proceeding to the Dalles.


They arrived at Vancouver on the 10th of December. On the 11th,
the commissioners addressed a letter to Mr. Douglas, requesting him to
furnish supplies, as follows:—


[Pg 538]


Fort Vancouver, December 11, 1847.



To James Douglas, Esq.:



Sir,—By the inclosed document you will perceive that the undersigned
have been charged by the Legislature of our provisional government
with the difficult duty of obtaining the means necessary to arm,
equip, and support in the field, a force sufficient to obtain full satisfaction
of the Cayuse Indians for the late massacre at Wailatpu, and
protect the white population of our common country from further
aggression.


In pursuance of this object, they have deemed it their duty to make
immediate application to the Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company for the
requisite assistance.


Though clothed with the power to pledge, to the fullest extent, the
faith and means of the present government of Oregon, they do not consider
this pledge the only security of those who, in this distressing
emergency, may extend to the people of this country the means of protection
and redress. Without claiming any especial authority from the
government of the United States to contract a debt to be liquidated by
that power, yet from all precedents of like character in the history of
our country, the undersigned feel confident that the United States government
will consider the murder of the late Dr. Whitman and lady
as a national wrong, and will fully justify the people of Oregon in taking
active measures to obtain redress for that outrage, and for their protection
from further aggression.


The right of self-defense is tacitly accorded to every body politic in
the confederacy to which we claim to belong and in every case similar
to our own, within our knowledge, the general government has promptly
assumed the payment of all liabilities growing out of the measures
taken by the constituted authorities to protect the lives and property
of those residing within the limits of their districts.


If the citizens of the States and Territories east of the Rocky
Mountains are justified in promptly acting in such emergencies, who
are under the immediate protection of the general government, there
appears no room to doubt that the lawful acts of the Oregon government
will receive a like approval.


Should the temporary character of our government be considered by
you sufficient ground to doubt its ability to redeem its pledge, and
reasons growing out of its peculiar organization be deemed sufficient
to prevent the recognition of its acts by the government of the United
States, we feel it our duty, as private individuals, to inquire to what
extent and on what terms advances may be had of the Honorable Hud[Pg 539]son’s
Bay Company, to meet the wants of the force the authorities of
Oregon deem it their duty to send into the field.


With sentiments of the highest respect, allow us to subscribe ourselves,




 Commissioners.[16]




}




Your most obedient servants,

Jesse Applegate,

A. L. Lovejoy,

Geo. L. Curry,



[16] Mr. Douglas’s reply to the above was, in substance, a refusal to advance the means
asked for in consequence of the stringent rules laid down for his government by the home
company. He, however, upon the security of the governor and two of the commissioners,
advanced the amount necessary to fit out the first company of Oregon riflemen,
$999.59.—(See report of Loan Commissioners, Oregon Archives, p. 323.)


Captain Lee’s company received their outfit as per arrangements
through the governor, Mr. Applegate, and Mr. Lovejoy, and proceeded
to the Dalles. The commissioners returned to Oregon City, and on the
13th December, 1847, addressed the merchants and citizens of Oregon
as follows:—


Gentlemen,—You are aware that the undersigned have been charged
by the Legislature of our provisional government with the difficult
duty of obtaining the means necessary to arm, equip, and support in
the field a force sufficient to obtain full satisfaction of the Cayuse Indians,
for the late massacre at Wailatpu, and protect the white population
of our common country from further aggression. In furtherance
of this object, they have deemed it their duty to make immediate application
to the merchants and citizens of the country for the requisite
assistance.[17]


[17] The paragraphs here omitted are the same as those addressed to the Hudson’s Bay
Company.




Though the Indians of the Columbia have committed a great outrage
upon our fellow-citizens passing through their country, and residing
among them, and their punishment for these murders may, and ought
to be, a prime object with every citizen of Oregon, yet, as that duty
more particularly devolves upon the government of the United States,
and admits of delay, we do not make this the strongest ground upon
which to found our earnest appeal to you for pecuniary assistance. It
is a fact well known to every person acquainted with the Indian
character, that, by passing silently over their repeated thefts, robberies,
and murders of our fellow-citizens, they have been emboldened to the
commission of the appalling massacre at Wailatpu. They call us
women, destitute of the hearts and courage of men, and if we allow this
[Pg 540]wholesale murder to pass by as former aggressions, who can tell how
long either life or property will be secure in any part of this country,
or what moment the Wallamet will be the scene of blood and carnage?


The officers of our provisional government have nobly performed
their duty. None can doubt the readiness of the patriotic sons of the
West to offer their personal service in defense of a cause so righteous;
so it now rests with you, gentlemen, to say whether our rights and our
firesides shall be defended or not. Hoping that none will be found to
falter in so high and so sacred a duty, we beg leave, gentlemen, to
subscribe ourselves, your servants and fellow-citizens,




 Commissioners.




}






Jesse Applegate,

A. L. Lovejoy,

Geo. L. Curry,



On the evening of the 13th December, 1847, a public meeting of the
citizens was called, and a public loan effected, and subscriptions commenced
for the equipment and supply of the army, as will be seen by
the following report of the commissioners:—



To the Honorable the Legislative Assembly of Oregon Territory:



The undersigned commissioners appointed by your honorable body
for the purpose of negotiating a loan to carry into effect the provisions
of an act entitled “An Act to authorize the governor to raise a regiment
of volunteers,” etc., have the honor to inform you, that, fully realizing
the heavy responsibilities attached to their situation, and the peculiarly
difficult nature of their duties, they at once determined to act with
promptness and energy, and to leave no fair and honorable effort untried
that might have a tendency to a successful termination of their undertaking.


They accordingly proceeded to Fort Vancouver on the 10th instant,
and there addressed a communication to James Douglas, chief factor of
the Hudson’s Bay Company, a copy of which is already given. The
commissioners had anticipated the unfavorable reply of Mr. Douglas,
as agent of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and its only effect was to
heighten their zeal and to occasion them stronger hopes of a more satisfactory
reliance upon the citizens generally of our common country.


However, two of the commissioners, with the governor, became
responsible for the amount of the outfit for the first regiment of Oregon
riflemen, being $999.59.


Not at all disheartened by the unsuccessful issue of their mission, the
commissioners returned to this city on the 13th instant, and at once
entered into negotiations, the revelation of which herewith follows.[Pg 541]
The commissioners, through a public meeting held at Oregon City, on
the night of the 13th instant, addressed the “merchants and citizens
of Oregon,” at which meeting, from citizens generally, a loan of about
one thousand dollars was effected.——The commissioners are
happy to state that they have succeeded in negotiating a loan of sixteen
hundred dollars from the merchants of Oregon City, with, perhaps, a
likelihood of a further advance. The commissioners feel well assured,
from the interest manifested by our fellow-citizens in the matter, and
the prompt action they have proposed to take in the several counties in
the Territory to assist the commissioners in the successful discharge of
their duties, that the government will ultimately succeed in negotiating
an amount adequate to the present emergency of affairs.


The commissioners would beg your honorable body, with as little
delay as possible, to appoint appraisers, whose duty it shall be to set a
cash valuation upon produce and other property, which may be converted
into means to assist government in its present operations.


Therefore, gentlemen, as we believe we can no longer be useful to
our fellow-citizens as a Board, we hope to be permitted to resign our
trust into the hands of the proper accounting officers of this government.




 Commissioners.




}




We have the honor to remain,

Jesse Applegate,

A. L. Lovejoy,

Geo. L. Curry,



It will be seen by reference to this last report of the loan commissioners,
and the answer to their letter of the 11th December, 1849, that
Sir James Douglas had made up his mind to enforce “the stringent
rules laid down for his government by the home company.” In other
words, the time had now arrived to allow the Indians and half-breeds
in the country to destroy the missionary settlements that were beginning
to extend beyond the Wallamet Valley; and in case they succeeded
in defeating the provisional troops, the settlement in the Wallamet
would become an easy prey to the combined Indian forces, while the
Hudson’s Bay Company would pursue its accustomed trade without
any further interference from American settlements.


In addition to the proceedings above referred to, the Legislative
Assembly, on the 10th of December, on motion of Hon. J. W.
Nesmith,—


“Resolved, That in view of our critical situation with the powerful
tribes of Indians inhabiting the banks of the Columbia, and with whom
we are actually in a state of hostilities, it is the duty of this Legislature
to dispatch a special messenger, as soon as practicable, to Washington[Pg 542]
City, for the purpose of securing the immediate influence and protection
of the United States government in our internal affairs.”


On the 11th December, Cornelius Gilliam was elected by the Legislative
Assembly, Colonel Commandant; James Waters, Lieutenant-Colonel;
H. A. G. Lee, Major; and Joel Palmer, Commissary-General,
in compliance with the bill passed on the 9th, authorizing the governor
to call for one regiment of not to exceed five hundred men.


On the 13th, Mr. Nesmith presented a bill to provide for sending a
special messenger to Washington.


On the 14th, on motion of Mr. Crawford, “Resolved, That a delegation
of three persons be appointed by this house to proceed immediately
to Wallawalla, and hold a council with the chiefs and principal men of
the various tribes on the Columbia, to prevent, if possible, their coalition
with the Cayuse tribe in the present difficulties.”


On the 15th, it was “Resolved, That the commodore of the United
States squadron in the Pacific Ocean be solicited to send a vessel of
war into the Columbia River for our relief, and to send such other
assistance as may be in his power.”


A motion was adopted to appoint a committee of five to prepare a
memorial to Congress.


On the 16th, an act was passed appropriating one thousand dollars to
defray the expenses of J. L. Meek, special messenger to Washington.


On the 17th, Mr. Meek resigned his seat in the Legislative Assembly,
preparatory to leaving for the United States with dispatches and a
memorial to Congress.


As to what those dispatches were, we have no copy or public document
that gives us any information, but we presume he carried a copy
of Mr. McBean’s mutilated letter, and one of Sir James Douglas’s, such
as we have already given; and also the following



Memorial to Congress.



“To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States in Congress assembled:


“Your memorialists, the Legislative Assembly of Oregon Territory,
would respectfully beg leave once more to lay before your honorable
body a brief statement of their situation and wants.


“Having called upon the government of the United States so often
in vain, we have almost despaired of receiving its protection, yet we
trust that our present situation, when fully laid before you, will at once
satisfy your honorable body of the great necessity of extending the
strong arm of guardianship and protection over this remote, but beautiful
portion of the United States domain.


[Pg 543]


“Our relations with the proud and powerful tribes of Indians residing
east of the Cascade Mountains, hitherto uniformly amicable and pacific,
have recently assumed quite a different character. They have shouted
the war-whoop, and crimsoned their tomahawks in the blood of our
citizens. The Cayuse Indians, after committing numerous outrages and
robberies upon the late immigrants, have, without the semblance of provocation
or excuse, murdered eleven [seventeen] American citizens.
Among the murdered were Dr. Marcus Whitman and his amiable wife,
members of the American Board of Foreign Missions.


“Called upon to resent this outrage, we feel sensibly our weakness
and inability to enter into a war with powerful tribes of Indians. Such
outrages can not, however, be suffered to pass unpunished. It will be
the commencement of future and more extensive murders, and our
hitherto peaceful settlement will become the scene of fierce and violent
warfare. We do not doubt the readiness of the people of this country
to defend their lives and property, and to submit to all the privations
incident to a state of war in a new and remote settlement like this.
Circumstances warrant your memorialists in believing that many of the
powerful tribes inhabiting the upper valley of the Columbia have
formed an alliance for the purpose of carrying on hostilities against
our settlements. The number of white population in Oregon is alarmingly
insignificant compared with the swarms of Indians which throng
its valleys.


“To repel the attacks of so formidable a foe, and protect our families
and property from violence and rapine, will require more strength
than we possess. We are deficient in many of the grand essentials of
war,—such as men, arms, and treasure; for them, our sole reliance is on
the government of the United States; we have the right to expect
your aid, and you are in justice bound to extend it. For although we
are separated from our native land by ranges of mountains whose lofty
altitudes are mantled in eternal snows; although three thousand miles,
nearly two-thirds of which is a howling wild, lie between us and the
federal capital, yet our hearts are unalienated from the land of our
birth. Our love for the free and noble institutions, under which it was
our fortune to be born and nurtured, remains unabated. In short, we
are Americans still,—residing in a country over which the government
of the United States have sole and acknowledged right of sovereignty,—and
under such circumstances we have the right to claim the benefit
of its laws and protection.


“Your memorialists would avail themselves of this opportunity to
invite your attention to other subjects of deep and vital interest to the
citizens of this Territory. The very nature of our compact formed[Pg 544]
between the citizens of a republic and the subjects and official representatives
of a monarchy, is such that the ties of political union could
not be drawn so closely as to produce that stability and strength sufficient
to form an efficient government. This union between the democrats
of a republic and wealthy aristocratic subjects of a monarchy
could not be formed without reserving to themselves the right of
allegiance to their respective governments. Political jealousy and
strong party feeling have tended to thwart and render impotent the
acts of government, from its very nature weak and insufficient.”


The deep, dark, and infamous schemes of a foreign monopoly and
religious bigots were but just developing themselves; but, thank God,
there was strength enough in the provisional government, which was
formed in the face of their combined opposition. They had yielded to
its power, to gain time to organize their savage hosts to crush it;
calculating, no doubt, that the Mexican war would prevent assistance
reaching us from the United States. The Indians, let loose upon
the settlements, would soon clear the country. That such was the
general English idea, we know from two different English subjects.
The one, a chief trader in the Hudson’s Bay Company, who said all
they had to do was to organize the Indians, under the direction of their
eight hundred half-breeds, to drive back any American force. The
other, a gold commissioner, a Mr. Saunders, direct from England, in
speaking of the small number of troops the English government had in
British Columbia, remarked to us, that if they had not troops enough
to subdue the Americans in British Columbia, “all they had to do was to
let loose the Indians upon them.”


Such being the facts, it is not surprising that our Legislative Assembly
should be made to feel its weakness, under this powerful combination,—the
British monopoly that had refused to furnish necessary
supplies to the provisional troops sent to punish the murderers of our
citizens. It was not yet apprised of the efforts made by Mr. Ogden to
supply the Indians with munitions of war, and the determination of the
company not to allow itself to be considered by the Indians as favoring
the American settlement of the country. Mr. Hines’ book, in
which he says Dr. McLaughlin had announced to those Indians in 1843
“that in case the Americans did go to war with them, the Hudson’s Bay
Company would not assist them,” had not yet been published. The
memorial continues:—


“In establishing a regular form of government, creating tribunals
for the adjustment of the rights of individuals, and the prevention and[Pg 545]
punishment of crime, a debt has accumulated, which, though an insignificant
amount, your memorialists can devise no means of liquidating.
The revenue laws, from not being properly executed, while they are
burdensome to classes of our citizens and sections of country, are
wholly disregarded by others, and whole counties, which for numerical
strength are equal to any in the Territory, and fully participating in all
the advantages of our compact, have never contributed any assistance
in bearing the common burdens.[18]




[18] Champoeg County being one, and represented by Dr. R. Newell, then Speaker of the
house.


“To coerce obedience to our temporary government would at once
destroy the great object which called it into existence,—the peace and
harmony of our country. Anxiously looking forward to that happy
period when we should again be under the protection of our revered
and parent republic, we have rather endeavored to maintain peace by
forbearance, hoping that the dangers and difficulties to be apprehended
from domestic discord and from the savages around us, would
be postponed until we became an acknowledged people, and under the
protection of our mother country.


“The action of your honorable body in regard to the land in Oregon
would seem to justify the expectation that liberal grants would be
made to our citizens; yet the uncertainty of our title, and the uneasiness
which is felt upon this subject, urge to press this subject upon your
attention. Our citizens, before leaving their homes in the United States
for Oregon, have had the strongest inducements held out by Congress
to settle in this country, and their just expectations will not be met
short of liberal donations of land.


“On the subject of filling the offices that will be created in the event
of the extension of the jurisdiction of the United States over this Territory,
your memorialists would respectfully represent, that, as the
pioneers of the American population in this country, the present citizens
of this country have strong claims upon the patronage of the general
government, and that it would be gratifying to have them filled by our
fellow-citizens; but as few of them of an equally deserving number
can enjoy this mark of the approbation of our parent republic, and in
view of our peculiar and difficult situation, it is the opinion of your
memorialists that it will be better for the future prosperity of our
country, and that the great mass of the people will concur with them
in requesting that important and responsible offices created here, such
as the office of governor and the several judgeships, should be filled with
men of the best talent and most approved integrity, without regard to
their present location.”


[Pg 546]In relation to this last paragraph, emanating as it did from the
Legislative Assembly of Oregon, it may appear strange that a body of
men possessing the talent and ability there was in that Assembly,
should be so liberal in requesting that most of the important federal
appointments for the Territory should be filled from abroad, or with
strangers to the condition and wants of the people; but the fact is
plainly stated, and it becomes our duty to impart such information as
will explain so strange a request. No one will contend for a moment
that we did not have the men who were abundantly qualified to fill
those offices, for they have since been filled with far better satisfaction
to the country by men who were then in it, than by those sent by the
federal government; hence we are led to inquire what was the reason
for this request.


The general politics of the country, as intimated in the memorial,
were English aristocratic and American democratic. The parties
were nearly equally divided. At the same time, there was the pro-slavery
influence laboring to so mold the Territory as to bring it in as
a slave State, though it had started free, and upon the most liberal
principles of a free government. The democratic pro-slavery influence
was not strong enough to secure the federal appointments without
cousining with the English aristocrats, who looked upon African
slavery with abhorrence. Under these circumstances, the democrats
of this assembly became liberal, and naturally sought aid from that
party in the United States to which the anti-slavery influence yielded,
and took their chances in the federal appointments. There was also
in this Assembly a strong personal feeling against Judge Thornton,
who was supposed to be in the federal capital seeking the organization
of the Territory, as also its governorship; and, in that case, though
Mr. Thornton was then acting with the democratic party, should he
become the governor, or one of the judges, the pro-slavery influence
would be the loser. Hence the “rule or ruin” party chose to make
the strange request found in this memorial. The closing paragraph
seems to be a flourish of rhetoric, and an appeal to Uncle Samuel’s
tender feelings. Notwithstanding, it took him till August 14, 1848, to
say that Oregon should be a Territory under its protection. The
remainder of the memorial is as follows:—


“If it be at all the intention of our honored parent to spread her
guardian wing over her sons and daughters in Oregon, she surely
will not refuse to do it now, when they are struggling with all the ills
of a weak and temporary government, and when perils are daily thickening
around them and preparing to burst upon their heads. When[Pg 547]
the ensuing summer’s sun shall have dispelled the snow from the
mountains, we shall look with glowing hopes and restless anxiety for
the coming of your laws and your arms.


“The accompanying documents will afford additional information
concerning some of the subjects of which we have spoken.


“To insure the speedy conveyance of these papers to the federal
government, your memorialists have elected J. L. Meek, Esq., a
special messenger to bear the same, and respectfully ask your honorable
body to make him such compensation therefor as you may deem
just. And your memorialists will ever pray, etc.”


It will be seen by a reference to the first day’s proceedings of this
Legislative Assembly that Dr. Newell was chosen its Speaker. In
tracing the history of events, we find this man always intimately in
council with the English aristocratic party in the country. Although
he sometimes favored unimportant American measures, he seemed
always to guard carefully those in any way affecting the interests of
this English monopoly. Champoeg, the county he in part represented,
was the most numerous in population and wealth, and by reference to
the Spectator of February 4, 1847, we find the following: “Champoeg
County tax.—There has been no tax for the year 1846, received by the
treasurer from Champoeg County. How is this? Who is to blame, and
where is the honorable County Court of Champoeg County?” This note
explains the critical relations of the country and the scheming policy of
the enemy we had to contend with, as also the personal bickerings among
the Americans. When Mr. Crawford, on the 14th of December, introduced
his resolution for a delegation of three persons to endeavor to
prevent a coalition with the Indians, we find this measure deferred till
near the close of the session, and this Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company
Speaker of the Assembly is one of the commissioners, as we shall see
hereafter.


On the 24th of December, Messrs. Nesmith, Rice, and Rector were
appointed a committee to correspond with the American consul at the
Sandwich Islands, and also with the Commander-in-chief of the army
and navy on this coast, in California, soliciting help from them. On the
25th, the house went into secret session for the purpose of conferring
with the governor, colonel, lieutenant-colonel, and commissary-general,
in relation to our Indian difficulties.


The result of that secret council was embodied in a resolution presented
to the house by Mr. Nesmith.


“Resolved, That the executive, as commander-in-chief, has full power
to adopt all measures necessary for the prosecution of the existing war,[Pg 548]
and that it is the opinion of this house, that it is expedient for the
executive to issue orders for five hundred men, and trust to the patriotism
of the citizens of Oregon for their support in the field.”


It will be seen by this resolution that there was sufficient reason to
justify the calling of the whole strength of the settlement into the field.
The captives had reached the settlement, and his Reverence Bishop
Blanchet had seen proper to inform the governor, “that by going
to war with the Cayuses to get redress for the murders committed at
Wailatpu, he would have the whole Indian combination, or confederation,
against him. This, however, he must determine with his
council,” which we see was done, and the American settlement and
Protestant missionaries gave them a cordial support. The Indian combination,
which, the Jesuit Brouillet says, Dr. Whitman attempted to
form, is here admitted by the bishop’s letter to Governor Abernethy to
have been formed, and ready to fight the American settlement. Who
formed this confederation of Indian tribes is no longer a doubt.


But we have kept our readers too long from the proceedings of our
little army, under the command of Captain H. A. G. Lee, which we
left on its way to the Dalles, to save that station from falling into the
hands of the Indians.




[Pg 549]


CHAPTER LXII.


The Cayuse war.—Letter of Captain Lee.—Indians friendly with the Hudson’s Bay
Company.—Conduct of Mr. Ogden.—His letters to Mr. Walker and Mr. Spalding.—Note
of Rev. G. H. Atkinson.—Sir James Douglas’s letter to Governor
Abernethy.—A rumor.—The governor’s reply.—Another letter from Sir James.—Mr.
Ogden.—Extraordinary presents to the Indians of arms and ammunition.—Colonel
Gilliam’s campaign.—Indian fight.—Property captured.—The Des Chutes
Indians make peace.—Captain McKay’s company of British subjects join the army.—A
nuisance.—“Veritas.”—Nicholas Finlay gives the signal for battle.—Running
fight.—Captain McKay’s company.—Council held by the peace commissioners with
the Indians.—Governor Abernethy’s address.—Speeches of the Indians Camaspelo,
Joseph, Jacob, Old James, Red Wolf, Timothy, Richard, and Kentuck.—Letters
of Joel Palmer, R. Newell, James Douglas, and William McBean.—Who is
responsible for the Cayuse war?


If the reader has carefully perused the foregoing pages, he will be
able to understand the movements of our little army in the Cayuse
war, as to the prime cause of which, the development of twenty-five
years, and the monstrous claims of the Hudson’s Bay Company, have
relieved our present history from all mystery and doubt, and have
enabled us to arrange and combine the facts, without fear of a truthful
contradiction. Major H. A. G. Lee, in a letter dated at Wascopum,
December 26, 1847, writes:—


To Governor Abernethy:


“Sir,—I reached this place on the evening of the 21st instant, with
ten men, including Mr. Hinman, whom I met on his way to Wallamet
at Wind River Mountain, thirty miles below. The boats being windbound,
and hearing from Mr. Hinman that a party of the Cayuses and
river Indians had been down and driven off some horses from the mission,
and that he had left with his family soon after, thinking it unsafe
to remain longer, I was induced to lead the few men that were with me
(for we had been separated by the wind and could not get together),
and press to this place by land with all dispatch, to save the houses
from destruction; and I am very happy to inform you that we arrived
just in time, and that all is now safe. The natives immediately about
this place are friendly, and hailed our arrival with much joy. Seletsa
professes friendship, but I shall keep an eye on him; his men have been
killing cattle, and I suspect with his consent, though he promises to[Pg 550]
make them pay for them. We have been collecting the cattle and
placing them below, in order to stop the slaughtering that has been
carried on above. We have not yet learned the amount of mischief
done at this place, but are getting things under way quite as well as I
could have anticipated. Mr. Hinman has been of great service to me
here; he leaves to-day to join his family, whom he left on the river.


“We have no intelligence from Wailatpu, except Indian report,
which, if we may credit, is awful enough. It is said, after the murder
of the whites at the place, a general council had been held, and that the
Nez Percés were present by special invitation, i. e., the chiefs; that it
was determined to make ‘a clean sweep’ of all the Bostons, including
Messrs. Spalding, Eells, and Walker above, and Hinman here; that they
had, in execution of that resolution, returned and murdered all the
women and children who had been spared in the first place, with the
exception of three females who had been reserved for wives. Remember
this is but native news. I must refer you to Mr. Hinman for many
other items which I dare not write.


“From all I can gather, the country east of the river Des Chutes is
all an enemy’s country, and our movements should be directed accordingly.
Can you have us two or three small guns cast at the foundery?
Each one would be equal in effect to fifty men. I am satisfied that the
enemy is going to be much more formidable against an invading force
than many in Wallamet are willing to believe. The Indians are all
friendly with the Hudson’s Bay Company’s men, and I am truly sorry
to learn that Mr. Ogden paid them powder and ball for making the
portage at the Dalles. I hope this will be stopped, and their supplies
of ammunition immediately cut off. Please take some measures to effect
this without delay.


“Mr. Rogers and Mr. Savage return immediately from this place,
feeling that the object for which they enlisted has been accomplished;
and as they would have to return, according to promise, in the course of
ten or twelve days, and there being no active employment for them,
they are permitted to return now. You are aware that they are among
my best men, and for their persevering energy, so far, they deserve the
praise due to good soldiers, although they have not had the pleasure of
a fight. They are therefore honorably discharged from service in the
1st company of Oregon riflemen.


“Sergeant McMellen will bear this to you and return to me as soon
as possible. If he gets down in time to accompany the next party, he
will be of much service to them on the river; he has few equals in
the service.


“While writing the above, one horse which had been stolen from the[Pg 551]
immigrants has been brought in, and others reported on the way. I think
most of the property stolen near this place will be returned; that above
Des Chutes will probably be contended for. The Indians about this
place are evidently terrified, and I shall avail myself of that fact, as far
as possible, in furthering the object of our trip. I have no fears of an
attack on this place, yet I shall be as vigilant as though an attack
were certain. The boats which were windbound eight days arrived
this morning all safe and well.



“I remain, your most obedient humble servant,


“H. A. G. Lee.”



With the light that twenty-two years have shed upon the early
history of Oregon, how shall we regard the policy and practice of the
professedly kind and generous chief factors of the Hudson’s Bay Company?
The one, Sir James Douglas, attempting to deceive the American
settlement and the world as to the real danger of the settlement
and the cause of the massacre; the other, Mr. Ogden, supplying the
Indians on his route, and at Wallawalla, with ammunition, and “insisting,”
while bargaining with the murderers for their captives, “upon
the distinction necessary to be made between the affairs of the company
and those of the Americans.”


We undertook, in our third position, to show the influences of this
Hudson’s Bay Company, as well as Romanism, upon our early settlements,
and the causes of the Indian wars. These were backed by one
of the most powerful nations then on the globe, while a handful of
American pioneers found themselves involved in a savage war. The
Indians were advised, aided, and urged on by the teachings of Roman
priests and this Hudson’s Bay Company, sustained by the British
government, with assistance pledged to them by Bishop Blanchet and
Chief-Factor Ogden, as he received the captives from their hands, and
gave them more ammunition and guns than had ever before been given
to them at any one time. He says, in a letter dated Fort Nez Percés,
December 31, 1847, addressed to Rev. E. Walker, at Cimakain:


“I have been enabled to effect my object without compromising myself
or others, and it now remains with the American government to take
what measures they deem most beneficial to restore tranquillity to this
part of the country, and this, I apprehend, can not be finally effected
without blood being made to flow freely. So as not to compromise
either party, I have made a heavy sacrifice of goods; but these, indeed,
are of trifling value, compared to the unfortunate beings I have
rescued from the hands of the murderous wretches, and I feel truly
happy. Let this suffice for the present.


[Pg 552]“On my arrival at the Dalles, Mr. Hinman’s mission, the previous
day, had been plundered of four horses in open day, and in presence of
all the inmates of the mission; and on consulting me on the propriety
of remaining or removing under the present distracted state of the country,
I advised him to move, leaving a trusty Indian, on whom he could
rely, and who speaks the English language, to remain in charge of the
establishment; and he would have started the same day I left it. I
trust this arrangement will meet with your approbation; under existing
circumstances, could not consistently give any other.”



“Yours truly,
      “P. S. Ogden.”[19]


With such powerful combinations, and such experienced, wise, and
reverend advisers, it is not surprising that those Indians should feel
themselves able to make, as Captain Lee says, “a clean sweep of all the
Bostons in the country.” Mr. Ogden, in his letter to Mr. Walker, does
not intimate that the provisional government will presume to attempt
to seek any redress for the murders committed; but consoles himself
with the “happy” thought that the difficulty is to be settled by the
United States. Mr. Hinman he advises to leave, and to Mr. Spalding
he sends the following letter:—



“Fort Nez Percés, December 23, 1847.


“Rev. H. H. Spalding:



“Dear Sir,—I have assembled all the chiefs and addressed them in
regard to the helpless situation of yourself and the rest at Wailatpu,
and I have got them to consent to deliver them all to me: yourself
and those with you, save the two Canadians, who are safe enough among
the Indians; and have now to advise you to lose no time in joining
me. At the same time, bear in mind, sir, you have no promises to make
them, or payments to make. Once more, use all the diligence possible
to overtake us.



“Yours truly,


“P. S. Ogden.”[19]




[19] Copied from the original letter.


We place a note of Rev. G. H. Atkinson, D. D., in this connection, to
show the influences that have for a series of years been operating, and
how careful that unscrupulous monopoly was to combine its influences,
and to deal out its hospitalities, to secure a good word from a reverend
Protestant divine, who was connected with the United States Home
Missionary Board, whose character is unimpeachable, and to whom it
refers for evidence of its generosity. We are not surprised to find
[Pg 553]Doctor Atkinson attempting to ease the weight of censure due to that
overgrown monopoly, from the fact, that on his first arrival in the
country (after the Cayuse war), on one of the company’s ships, unusual
attention and kindness were evidently shown to him and his family by
the company’s agents, to gain his favorable representations of their
proceedings, and a name for honorable dealing and generous treatment
of missionaries, as intimated in his note. Doctor Atkinson says:—


“The agents of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Oregon furnished all
the missionaries with supplies at the usual trade rates until they could
supply themselves from home.”


In this the doctor is mistaken, as we have shown in previous pages.
He continues:—


“After the death of Mr. Whitman and family, Mr. Ogden, an agent
of the company, brought the rest of the mission and the American
families to the Wallamet Valley, at considerable risk and sacrifice to
himself. The guilt of the plot to massacre Dr. Whitman and other
Americans is understood to belong to the Jesuits.”


The letters above quoted, from Mr. Ogden and Captain Lee, show the
doctor’s great mistake in this statement. Mr. Ogden ran no risk, and
made no sacrifice, as the Hudson’s Bay Company presented their bills,
and have been paid every dollar they had the impudence to demand of
our government, for transporting the captive women and children to a
place of safety, and for all the supplies they so reluctantly furnished to
our provisional troops. We do not believe it is good morals, or divinity,
to say nothing of politics, to praise, encourage, or warm the serpent
that improves every opportunity to sting us with his poisonous fangs.
That company has enjoyed the monopoly of this vast country, and prevented
its settlement too long, for any one to seek its praise or favor.


We have another letter from Sir James Douglas, which shows us
more clearly the exact position of that monster monopoly. It is as
follows:—



“Fort Vancouver, Dec. 31, 1847.


“To Governor George Abernethy, Esq.:



“Sir,—A rumor having been in circulation, for some days past, that
it is General Gilliam’s intention to levy contributions on the Hudson’s
Bay Company’s property, for the purpose of completing the equipment of
the troops ordered out in your late proclamation, for the intended operations
against the Indians, I feel it my duty to communicate with you
frankly on the subject, as it is most important, in the present critical
state of our Indian relations, that there should be an entire absence of
distrust, and that the most perfect unanimity should exist among the
whites of every class. From my personal knowledge of General Gil[Pg 554]liam,
and his highly respectable character, I should be the last person
to believe him capable of committing an outrage which may prove so
disastrous in the immediate and remoter consequences to the peace and
best interests of this country; at the same time, as the representative of
a powerful British association, it becomes my duty to take instant
measures for the protection of their property, until I receive, through
you, a distinct disavowal of any such intention as herein stated. Difficulties
of that nature were certainly not contemplated by us when we
dispatched a large part of our effective force into the interior for the
purpose of receiving the unfortunate women and children, the survivors
of the massacre at Wailatpu, who remained in the hands of the Indians.
It was never supposed that our establishment would be exposed to insult
or injury from American citizens, while we are braving the fury of the
Indians for their protection.”


What a powerful and noble company, and how much “fury of the
Indians” they had to contend with, when they were handing them
guns and ammunition by the quantity; and all their servants and posts
were unharmed by either whites or Indians, during all the Indian wars
that have occurred on this coast. This letter continues:—


“Such a proceeding would, in fact, be so inconsistent with every
principle of honor and sound policy, that I can not believe any attempt
of the kind will be made; but I trust this explanation will satisfactorily
account for any unusual precaution observed in the present arrangement
of this establishment.


“Trusting that this note will be noticed at your earliest convenience,
I have the honor to be, sir,



“Your most obedient, humble servant,


“James Douglas, C. F., H. B. Co.”



Mr. Douglas, in this letter, has suddenly assumed a very honorable,
as well as powerful position. As to his personal bravery, there is no
question; but as to truth, there is. He says, “I can not believe any
attempt of the kind will be made,” and then tells us not to be alarmed;
or, at least, as the “rumor having been in circulation,” we must excuse
him for his “unusual precaution” in his establishment, while he has
deceived, and intends to continue to deceive, the governor and the
settlers as to his real motives of caution, and the deep-laid schemes
that he and his “powerful British association” are bringing about, not
against the “fury of the Indians,” but against the American settlements.


As was to be expected in those times, our governor and General
Gilliam wilted right down, and the governor wrote:—


[Pg 555]



“Oregon City, January 3, 1848.



“Sir,—I received your favor of 31st ultimo yesterday evening, and,
in answering it, would thank you for your frankness in communicating
with me on the subject. Having had conversation with Colonel Gilliam
on this subject, I can state that he has no intention of levying contributions
on the Hudson’s Bay Company’s property for any purpose
whatever. He will probably cross the Columbia River at the mouth
of Sandy.”


This was the information that Mr. Douglas wished to obtain, as we
have since learned from one of the company’s clerks, and also the
extent of information received from Mr. Lee by his express.


“I trust nothing will occur that will in any way cause distrust among
the whites during this crisis. The reports from above lead to the conclusion
that Messrs. Spalding, Walker, and Eells have been cut off, and
the women and children, spared in the first place, have since been murdered.
Should these rumors prove true, we know that peace can not be
restored between the Indians and whites without bloodshed.”


As near as we can learn, Governor Abernethy was disposed to follow
the counsels of a writer in the Spectator, signed “Veritas,” which was,
to wait till spring opened, and then make a decent demonstration in
the summer to punish the murderers. The energy of the people overruled
his tender spirit, to use no harsher term, and pushed their forces
up in the winter, which allowed most of the men to return in time to
secure the following harvest, and produced the desired effect upon the
Hudson’s Bay Company and the Indians. The governor says:—


“Captain Lee informs me that Mr. Ogden paid the Indians powder
and ball for making the portage. The Legislature passed an act during
their last session prohibiting the sale of powder, lead, caps, etc., to
Indians. I trust you will see the necessity of complying with this act;
it will be published in the next Spectator.


“I trust the disavowal in this letter will prove satisfactory to you.
I have the honor to remain, sir,



“Your obedient servant,


“George Abernethy.”


The next day, the 4th of January, Mr. Douglas returned a long
letter, which is as follows:—



“Fort Vancouver, January 4, 1848.


“George Abernethy, Esq.:



“Sir,—I have to acknowledge yours of yesterday’s date, and consider
it perfectly satisfactory. I place little confidence in the late[Pg 556]
reports from the Dalles, and entertain sanguine hopes that they will
prove unfounded.


“The Indians have been always paid with ammunition and tobacco
by our traveling parties, for passing boats at the portages of this river,
and I can not see that Mr. Ogden had any reason to depart from the
established practice on the occasion mentioned in your letter, as these
Indians have no fellow-feelings with the Cayuses.”


This statement of Sir James is notoriously untrue; the Cayuses have
always had more or less trade with the Dalles Indians, in dried salmon,
horses, etc., and have always been the superiors, and treated them as
they pleased. Mr. Douglas has invariably cautioned us, in passing
those portages, not to give ammunition, as it was against the rules of
the company to do so, except to a very few, and in small quantities, and
that for packing goods by trusty Indians. This sudden change from
tobacco to powder is only a part of the policy now being executed.


“These Indians behaved in the most friendly manner, and, I am convinced,
will not enter into any combination against the whites, unless
there be great mismanagement on our part.


“In fact, when we consider the object of Mr. Ogden’s journey to
Wallawalla [which we consider really to have been to inform the Indians,
as he did, that the Hudson’s Bay Company would take no part
in this quarrel between the Indians and Americans, and that the company
would supply them with ammunition and aid them in the present
war, we are not disposed to question but that the lives of some of the
men that were left would have been taken, but we doubt if any more
women would have been killed, unless the company had consented to it;
but it answered for a plausible argument for Sir James, who says],
and that the lives of sixty or seventy fellow-creatures were, under
Providence, mainly dependent on the celerity of his movements, it can
not be supposed he would allow any minor consideration to weigh one
moment in his mind against the great object of their preservation. As
he could not carry his boats over the portages of the falls without the
assistance of the Indians, it would have been an act of great indiscretion
on his part to have excited alarm and created suspicion in
their minds.”


Doctor Saffron, in answer to the interrogatory, “In what way did
you become acquainted with the Whitman massacre?” makes the following
reply: “I was residing at the Dalles mission when the Canadian,
bearing an express from Fort Nez Percés to Vancouver, came to the
station and ate dinner, and with whom Mr. Hinman went to the lodge,
and secured a canoe to assist him on his way to Vancouver, and went
to Vancouver with him. A very short time after they were off,—I did[Pg 557]
not think they had scarcely got off before the Indians came from the
lodges, and told what they said the Frenchman had told them, that
Doctor Whitman was killed. The next information was from an
Indian lad from Des Chutes, who came on horseback, in great haste, and
said that two Cayuses were at Des Chutes, and had told them that Dr.
Whitman, his wife, and all his people were killed, except the women,
who had been taken for wives for the chiefs. In giving the causes
which the two Cayuses had given them, he spoke of the sickness, and
also that the priests had made known to them that the Doctor was a
dangerous medicine man to have among them, and said something of
their having said about the Doctor’s medicines being the cause of their
dying; and also of what Mr. McBean had said of Dr. Whitman’s determining
to have all their spotted horses. I can be certain as to the
priests’ part, but not so certain as to McBean’s part, being said by the
young Indian at that time, or told me afterward by other Indians.”
Dr. Saffron states in this deposition that the Indians were very
threatening about the station, and that he thinks the reason they did
not commence the massacre of all at the station was the report that
Mr. Ogden was just below with a party. “On Mr. Ogden’s arrival, we
stated to him these things, and he informed Mr. Hinman that we had
better get away as soon as possible, which we did.”


In this letter from Mr. Douglas, in answer to Governor Abernethy,
about supplying the Indians with powder, etc., he says:—


“It would have been an act of great indiscretion on his part to
have excited alarm and caused suspicion in their minds by withholding
the compensation of two or three pounds of gunpowder and lead,
which they had been accustomed to receive for such service, when it
was certain that the omission would be regarded as evidence of a hostile
intent, and induce them to put every possible obstacle in his way,
whereby the object of the journey must have been entirely defeated,
and the unfortunate women and children left to their cruel fate.


“To prohibit the sale of ammunition within certain districts in arms
against the whites would be the proper course; but to extend the measure
to every part of the country is to make the innocent suffer with
the guilty, and a departure from the conciliatory course of policy which
we have always found to answer best with Indians; and will, I much
fear, drive them to the most desperate course. I am now only expressing
an opinion on what the law is reported to be, and await the next
issue of the Spectator with some impatience, to discover its real character
and value.


“You may rest assured that we will do nothing improper, or which
will, in any way, endanger the safety of the country.


[Pg 558]


“We have not yet heard from Mr. Ogden since he left the Dalles, but
are now daily expecting to hear from him.



“I have the honor to be, sir



“Your most obedient servant,


“James Douglas.”


The careless reader, or one that is disposed to regard Sir James
Douglas as an honorable, truthful, and upright man, will, on first reading
this letter, in all probability, consider it a satisfactory reply to
Governor Abernethy, and his reasons sufficient to justify Mr. Ogden’s
course at the Dalles and at Wallawalla.


Doctor Saffron tells us, under oath, “On Mr. Ogden’s arrival, we
stated to him these things,” about the massacre, the priests, McBean,
and the Indians threatening, which Mr. Ogden admits in his letter to
Mr. Walker, when he advised them to leave. He then proceeds on up
the river, and does a thing which Sir James says was common, which
we know Mr. Douglas has said to us was not common, for the company
to give ammunition to the Indians for making those portages.


On the present occasion, knowing all the facts, and the danger to the
lives of all at the Dalles station, Mr. Ogden deliberately gave (Mr.
Douglas says, “as usual”) an unusual amount of war material; he
then proceeds to Wallawalla, called the Indians together, and gave
them “twelve common guns, six hundred loads of ammunition, twelve
flints, thirty-seven pounds tobacco, sixty-two three-point blankets, sixty-three
common cotton shirts.”


And what was the service that these Indians had rendered, for which
these goods were given by this “powerful organization?” Six years
before, when a Hudson’s Bay servant got into a drunken row, and was
killed by an Indian at the mouth of the Columbia, the Americans and
company went in a body, and demanded and hung the murderer; but
now, when Dr. Whitman and fifteen other Americans are murdered,
Mr. Ogden goes up and pays them more guns, ammunition, blankets,
and shirts, than had ever before been given to them on any one occasion.
Was that company weaker at this time than they had been
before, that they could not manage or conquer the Cayuses? Sir
James Douglas, under oath, says the company in 1846 “practically
enjoyed a monopoly of the fur trade, and possessed extraordinary influence
with the natives.” And we say, the Whitman massacre is the
result of that influence.


Mr. Ogden, distinctly, and at several times, insisted upon the distinction
necessary to be made between the affairs of the Americans and
the company, and why? Simply, because the company had determined[Pg 559]
to suppress and crush the American settlements, if it could be done, by
the Indians. They were now in a condition to furnish the Indians
directly, or clandestinely, through their Jesuit missionaries, all the
ammunition required. Hence the liberality of Mr. Ogden, and the care
of Mr. Douglas to catch “a rumor” to defend Mr. Ogden’s course;
to manifest great sympathy for the sufferers, to deceive the settlement
in every way possible; and refuse, under the plea of the “stringent
rules of the home department,” to supply munitions to the provisional
troops.


On the 23d of February, Colonel Gilliam, with fifty of his men, arrived
at Wascopum, an express having been sent by Major Lee for him to
hasten forward with his troops. On his arrival, he learned that the Des
Chutes Indians were hostile. Was Mr. Douglas correct in his opinion?


The main body of his troops having arrived on the 27th, he started
with 130 of his best mounted men, crossed Des Chutes, and ascended on
its east or right bank. On the 28th, he sent forward Major Lee with
twenty men to find the Indians, they all having fled from their usual
encampments. At twelve o’clock at night, Major Lee returned, having
found the Indians, and made the following report, which we give in Major
Lee’s own language. He says:—


“We proceeded this morning up the river some twenty miles, when
we discovered a considerable party of Indians with their families,
removing across the plains, and evidently to station themselves higher
up the cañon, which was close by. We charged upon them, killed one,
took two females prisoners, and several horses; the rest escaped into the
cañon, which was close by. Expecting a large war party out immediately,
we hastened toward camp with the prisoners, but had not proceeded
far when we discovered a large party of mounted Indians making
after us with all possible speed; we rode down into a small cañon,
turned our horses loose below us, and prepared for battle,—the Indians
by this time all around us on the hills, tumbling down huge
stones in our midst, and annoying us much with their savage yells,
some with their arms. We were fighting some two or three hours, killed
and wounded, I suppose, some six or eight, as they took care to keep
at a respectful distance. They drew no blood from us, and got only
in return for their loss their horses which we had taken, with four
or five of ours that went out with them, unperceived, through a small
cañon, during the engagement. We have all returned safe, though
much fatigued.”


On the 29th of this month the whole of the camp moved to the
mouth of the cañon, at the Meek crossing. On the 30th, ten A. M.,
as they entered the mouth of the cañon, the Indians appeared on the[Pg 560]
hills immediately above, drawn up in order of battle, to about their
own number. The colonel ordered his horses and train to a safe position
under a strong guard, dismounted his men, ascended the hill, drove
and killed, as was supposed, some twenty or thirty Indians, with but
one man (a Spaniard) slightly wounded, capturing forty horses, four
head of cattle, and three hundred dollars’ worth of personal property,
which the colonel had sold to the regiment, and credited to the paymaster,
amounting to fourteen hundred dollars. Mr. Brown, first
lieutenant, 5th company, died at Vancouver. The skirmishing and
battle with the Des Chutes Indians brought them to terms, and
a treaty of peace was made with them. The army was re-enforced
by the arrival of Captain McKay’s company of British subjects,
as claimed by a writer in the Spectator, of February 24, 1848, who
says:—


“The party consisted of two Canadians, fifty or sixty half-breeds,—all
British subjects,—and two or three American citizens, while there is
not a single Frenchman in it. It is due to the British subjects, Canadians,
and half-breeds, to state, that many more would have gone, but,
they know well, that winter is not the time, in this country, to go to
war, and that all that can be done at this season is, to rescue the prisoners,
which could be effected only by negotiation, and acquire correct
information, and make all preparations necessary, so as to be able
to act with the propriety, decorum, and energy which the case required.



“Veritas.”


By the statements of “Veritas,” the feelings of the British subjects
in our midst, at that time, can be seen. He evidently wished to claim
credit for the British and half-breed subjects, who, in the operations
of the provisional army, were found to be, to use no harsher term, a
nuisance in the American camp, keeping the Indians and murderers
well informed as to all the movements of the army, so that while they
were permitted to remain, no movement of the army produced any
satisfactory results.


This statement is made upon the verbal information given to us at
the time, as well as from personal knowledge, and a letter of Colonel
Waters to Governor Abernethy, under date, Wailatpu, April 4, 1848,
in the Spectator, April 20, 1848. The colonel says of the Indians,
“They know our circumstances about as well as we do ourselves, both
as regards ammunition and provisions, and it need not be thought
strange if they act accordingly.”


Soon after the re-enforcement of this provisional army by Captain T.[Pg 561]
McKay’s British subjects, there was a general engagement or battle.
It commenced while the army was on the march in the open rolling
prairie, between Mud Spring and the Umatilla. Nicholas Finlay, of
the Whitman-massacre notoriety, met the scouts and officers, and while
there was a consultation, or parley, it appears he prolonged it, to give
time for the main body of the Indians to surround the troops; he then
turned his horse, rode a short distance toward a party of Indians, and
discharged his gun in the air, as a signal to commence the attack, while
the peace commissioners were attempting to effect a compromise.


At Finlay’s signal, from five to seven hundred Indian warriors
appeared on the plains all about them, with from two to three hundred
Indian camp-followers, as spectators, all on horseback, consisting of
boys and women, who had come to see the slaughter, and gather up the
property that the Americans were going to throw down and run from,
as soon as Nicolas Finlay fired his gun, and the warriors raised the
yell. But instead of this, Colonel Gilliam, as soon as Finlay made his
appearance, and other Indians were seen in the distance, ordered a hollow
square to be formed to protect his train and cattle, and by the time
the Indians were ready, he was, and the fight commenced, a sort of
running, dashing, and, on the part of the Indians, retreating performance.
There being no water near the place where the attack was commenced,
it became necessary to continue upon the march, and they
drove the Indians before them, till they reached water at night. By
this time the Indians found that the Bostons were not all clochemen
(women), as they had been told by the “British half-breeds.”


A stranger would naturally conclude from the accounts published in
the Spectator at that time, that the company under Captain T. McKay
did all the fighting on this occasion. They, we infer from the printed
account as given in C. McKay’s letter, made some gallant dashes in
true Indian style, and as prudent retreats back to the protection of the
“Boston men,” making a great show of bravery and fight, without
much effect. At the close of this demonstration, the Indians retired in
their usual confused manner, while the Americans moved on to find
water and a camp for the night. They continued their march till they
reached Fort Waters, at Wailatpu.


At this place the commissioners called for the principal chiefs of all
friendly tribes to meet them, to have a big talk. In this council, one
Cayuse war-chief, Camaspelo, and two of the lower grade of the Nez
Percés,—Joseph and Red Wolf,—with several prominent Indians of the
Nez Percés, were present, and received the commissioners with the
governor’s letter, and made the speeches hereafter given.


Governor Abernethy’s address to the Indians asserted the fact, that[Pg 562]
Dr. Whitman was invited by the Indians themselves to remain in their
country, and teach them the arts of civilization, agriculture, a knowledge
of books and of religion; that the Indians had not regarded the
Doctor’s instructions, else they would not have stolen property belonging
to the immigrants, and, on the 29th of November, murdered him and
Mrs. Whitman. That the Doctor, in giving them medicine, was not
poisoning them, but doing all he could to save their lives, and relieve
their sick. That Americans died of the disease as well as the Indians.
That if the Doctor was poisoning them, which they knew was not the
case, why did they kill all the Americans at his place? That the Doctor
was their best friend, and always trying to do them good; and
now he required of them, that they should give up the murderers, and
those who had taken and forced young women to be their wives, to be
punished according to our laws. He named Tilokaikt and Tamsaky
in particular. They were also required to restore or pay for the property
stolen from the immigrants, while on their way to the Wallamet
Valley.


Camaspelo (a Cayuse chief).—“My people seem to have two hearts.
I have but one; my heart is as the Nez Percés. I have had nothing
to do with the murder. Tamsaky came to me to get my consent to
the murder, before it was committed. I refused. I pointed to my
sick child, and told him my heart was there and not on murder; he
went back and told his friends he had obtained my consent; it was
false. I did not give my consent to the murder, neither will I protect
or defend the murderers.”


Joseph (a Nez Percé chief, half-brother of Five Crows).—“Now I
show my heart. When I left my home I took the book (a testament
Mr. Spalding had given him) in my hand and brought it with me; it
is my light. I heard the Americans were coming to kill me. Still I
held my book before me, and came on. I have heard the words of
your chief. I speak for all the Cayuses present and all my people. I
do not wish my children engaged in this war, although my brother
(Five Crows) is wounded. You speak of the murderers; I shall not
meddle with them; I bow my head; this much I speak.”


Jacob.—This Indian had once been a celebrated medicine man among
the Nez Percés. He said: “It is the law of this country that the
murderer shall die. That law I keep in my heart, because I believe it
is the law of God,—the first law. I started to see the Americans, and
when on the way I heard the Americans were coming to kill all the
Indians; still I came. I have heard your speech, and am thankful.
When I left home I believed the Americans were coming for the murderers
only. I thank the governor for his good talk.”


[Pg 563]James was an old Indian who was for a long time a pet of Mr. Spalding’s;
but, through the influence of Mr. Pambrun and the priest, he
had been induced to receive a cross and a string of beads. He was the
acknowledged owner of the land on which the Lapwai station was
located, and, by the influence above referred to, caused Mr. Spalding
considerable annoyance, though nothing of the difficulty asserted
by Brouillet, page 14. He says: “The Indians then met together and
kept all the whites who lived at the station blockaded in their houses
for more than a month.” Living at the station at the time, I know
there was no quarrel or disturbance with the Indians, nor were any
at the station confined to their houses for a moment at any time,
as stated by this priest; it is one of a great number of just such
statements made to cover their guilt in a great crime.


Old James said: “I have heard your words and my heart is glad.
When I first heard of this murder, our white brother Spalding was
down here; I heard the Cayuses had killed him also, and my heart was
very sad. A few days after, when he returned, I met him as one arose
from the dead. We spoke together; he said he would go to Wallamet.
I told him to tell the chiefs there my heart. We have been listening for
some word from him. All these chiefs are of one heart.”


Red Wolf was connected by marriage with the Cayuses, and, it
seems from his speech, was instructed as to the information he should
give to the Americans. He says: “You speak of Doctor Whitman’s
body. When I heard of the Doctor’s death, I came and called for the
murderers. I wished to know if it was the work of the chiefs. I went
to Tawatowe, and found it was not of all, but of the young men. I
did not sleep. I went to Mr. Spalding and told him the chiefs were
engaged in it. Mr. Spalding said, ‘I go to Wallamet and will say the
Nez Percés have saved my life, and I will go to Wallamet and save
yours.’ We have all been listening to hear from the white chief.”


Timothy.—This Indian had always been a firm friend of the Americans,
and of the mission, and was a consistent member of the mission
church. He seems to have taken no decided part. He says: “You
hear these chiefs; they speak for all. I am as one in the air. I do not
meddle with these things; the chiefs speak; we are all of the same
mind.”


Richard was one of the Indian boys taken to the States by Doctor
Whitman from the American rendezvous in 1835, and brought back in
1836, and was always more or less about the mission. He was an
active and intelligent young Indian, and was basely murdered by a
Catholic Indian after being appointed a chief by Indian Agent H. A. G.
Lee. He said: “I feel thankful for the kind words of your chief.[Pg 564]
My people will take no part in this matter. Our hearts cling to that
which is good. We do not love blood. This is the way our old chief
(Cut Nose) talked; his last words were: ‘I leave you; love that which
is good, be always on the side of right, and you will prosper.’ His
children remember his words. He told us, take no bad advice. Why
should I take bad words from your enemies, and throw your good
words away? Your chief’s words are good; I thank him for them.
My chief is in the buffalo country; he will be glad to hear I talk thus to
you. They would be sorry should I talk otherwise. This much I tell
you of the hearts of my people.”


Kentuck, a good-natured, sensible, and yet apparently crazy Indian,
said: “The chiefs have all spoken; I have listened, and now
I wish to speak a little. I have been much with the Americans and
French; they know my heart, can any one tell any thing bad of me?
In war with the Blackfeet, I and my father fought with the Americans,
and my father was killed there. He (pointing to Mr. Newell) knows
it. Last year I was in California at Captain Sutter’s, and helped
Captain Fremont,—not for pay, but from a good heart. I came home,
and heard the Doctor was killed! We heard that the whites were told
we were with the Cayuses. We have not such hearts. I and my people
are from the furthermost part of our country. We had heard there
that you were coming to kill off the last Indian west of the mountains.
We have never shed the blood of the Americans. We are glad to
hear that you want none but the murderers.”


In the Spectator of March 23, 1848, we find the following letters:—



“Wailatpu, March 4, 1848.


“William McBean, Esq.:



“Dear Sir,—I have been requested by Captain McKay to apprise
you of the progress we have made in adjusting the difficulties between
the whites and Cayuses, and I am happy to say that matters are
assuming a favorable appearance. With your and his assistance, with
that of a little forbearance on the part of the troops, I believe all that
could be devised will be accomplished without further shedding of
blood.


“Captain McKay thinks that Captain Grant (of the Hudson’s Bay
Company) can travel through the country with perfect safety. Mr.
Meek will leave the first of the week. Doctor Newell will write to
Captain Grant, according to your request. In haste, I have the honor
to subscribe,



“Your humble servant,


“Joel Palmer.”




[Pg 565]


Dear Sir,—I only have time to say a word. Stikas was here yesterday,
and things look more favorable since Gervais arrived. I wish
to go down when your people go. I will be ready in a few days and
come to the fort; no time for particulars; Mr. Meek leaves to-night.



“With respects, yours, etc.,


“R. Newell.”





“Fort Vancouver, March 15, 1848.


“Governor Abernethy, Esq.:



“Dear Sir,—One of the company’s servants has this moment
arrived with dispatches from Wallawalla, of date the 7th instant;
I hasten to communicate the intelligence received, for your information.
The army had made its way to Wailatpu, and taken
possession of the remains of the mission, the Cayuses having been
defeated, with considerable loss, some days previously, in a pitched
battle near the Umatilla River; and had since fallen back upon the Nez
Percé country. Serpent Jaune, chief of the Wallawalla tribe, had
visited the commissioners, and decided on remaining quiet; the Nez
Percés had in part also decided for peace, and were expected in camp
within a few days. The remaining part of the tribe appeared still
undecided about the part they would take, and will, no doubt, be much
influenced in their future conduct by the success which attends the
operations of the army. Their sympathies are with the Cayuses; but
fear may restrain them from taking an open part against the whites.
The Cayuses remain, therefore, without any open support from the
more powerful tribes in their neighborhood, and in such circumstances
can not be expected to make a very protracted defense.


“The accompanying copy of a letter from Mr. Palmer possesses much
of interest, and will put you in possession of further particulars.


“Our dates from Fort Colville are up to the 23d of January; the
Indians were all quiet and well disposed, though they had been severe
sufferers from the measles and dysentery. Their detestation of the
brutal conduct of the Cayuses has been openly and generally expressed,
as well as their determination to oppose the repetition of such atrocities
in the country. Messrs. Walker and Eells have been induced, by
the friendly protestations of the Indians about them, to continue their
residence at the mission near Spokan.


“We have letters from Fort Hall up to the 30th of December. A city
has sprung up, as if by enchantment, in the midst of the desert, near
the southern extremity of great Salt Lake. It contains a population of
3,000, and numbers within its precincts 600 houses. One flour-mill was
in operation, and four saw-mills were nearly finished.



“In haste, yours truly,


“James Douglas.”


[Pg 566]As to the letter of General Palmer, he has informed us that, while he
was attempting to effect an arrangement with the Indians, he was satisfied
that McBean was using his influence against the Americans, and
doing all he could to keep up the hostile feelings then existing, but, by
humoring and flattering him, he would do less harm than by opposing
his self-conceit.


As to Dr. Newell’s note, it showed his disposition to crawl under the
shade of McBean and the Hudson’s Bay “people” and to give them information
that would enable them to cut off the messenger sent to
Washington.


General Palmer informed McBean that he would leave the first of the
week. Newell says, “Mr. Meek leaves to-night.”


Mr. Douglas is all friendship and affection. He has just learned that
a large body of American people are in Salt Lake Valley, and that the
Indians about the Spokan station are friendly, notwithstanding the
measles and dysentery have been severe among them.


The Indians had been defeated with considerable loss, but the “sympathies
of the Nez Percés are with the Cayuses.” Whence did Sir
James get this information? When he wished to convince Governor
Abernethy that Mr. Ogden had done right in giving powder and ball
for making the portages at Des Chutes, he said, “These Indians have
no fellow-feeling with the Cayuses.” We will give another remarkable
letter, in answer to the one Mr. Douglas refers to:—



“Fort Nez Percés, March 4, 1848.


“To the Commissioners, Messrs. Palmer and Newell:



“Gentlemen,—I have to acknowledge your esteemed favor of this
date, which was handed me this evening.


“I am happy to learn that your success to effect peace has so far rewarded
your endeavors, and that the Nez Percés are on your side.
Previous to their visiting you, the most influential chiefs came to me,
to know your real intention, which I fully explained, and addressed them
at length. They left me well disposed, and, I am glad to learn, have
acted up to their promise.”


Put this statement of Mr. McBean by the side of that of Sir James
Douglas, and how does it read? March 7, “Their sympathies are with
the Cayuses.” What are we to understand by such information given
to two different parties? Mr. McBean professes to know the views of
the Nez Percés, and, on March 4, tells the American commissioners
he is happy to learn they are on their side; and, three days after, writes
to his superior, at Vancouver, “Their sympathies are with the Cayuses.”
General Palmer, nor any one else, need mistake the character of such a[Pg 567]
man; and we will give the company credit for ability to select their
men to perform their appropriate business, and at the proper time.


“I now forward letters to Fort Hall and Fort Boise, and have to request,
in behalf of the company, that you be kind enough to get them
forwarded by Mr. Meek. They are of importance. On their being
delivered depends loss or gain to the company.



“William McBean.



“P. S.—Please present my best respects to General Gilliam and
Major Lee.”


There are two remarkable facts in these two letters. The first, “the
most influential chiefs” went to him, and he explained the real intentions
of the Americans, which, according to his report to his superior, made
them sympathize with the Cayuses; but to accomplish another object,
he would have us believe he made them favorable to the Americans, and
claims all the credit for doing so. This would have done very well,
only it leaked out, in the speeches of the Indians, the part this agent of
the company was playing.


Query 1. How came the Nez Percés, who had always been friendly
with the Americans, and never had shed any of their blood, but always
fought with and for them, to be at war—that it should require the
consent or advice of McBean, or any other Hudson’s Bay Company’s
servant or clerk, to go and make peace with friends?


Query 2. The importance of two letters to Forts Boise and Hall?
The loss or gain to the company was of more importance to him than
the lives of the missionaries and all at the Dalles, for he would not
allow his messenger to inform them of their danger. We have in their
communications a specimen of a high and a low agent of that company
during the Cayuse war. The Cayuse tribe was always more dependent
upon Fort Nez Percés for supplies than the Nez Percés, who have
always had more or less intercourse with American traders. From the
deposition of Mr. Geiger, we learn that this agent (McBean) of the
company was in the habit of interfering with the affairs of the American
Indians and missionaries, and from the deposition of Mr. Kimzey, that
he was equally officious in favoring the Jesuit missions. And now,
from his own officious letter, we learn his position in relation to the
war then in progress; that he was attempting to deceive the commissioners,
as to his operations and instructions to the Indians, is shown
in the information he communicated to Mr. Douglas, and in the letter
of Colonel Waters to Governor Abernethy.


Putting all these facts together, who is responsible for the massacre
and the war with the Cayuses?




[Pg 568]


CHAPTER LXIII.


Letter to General Lovejoy.—Call for men and ammunition.—Yankama chief.—His
speech.—Small supply of ammunition.—Letter of Joseph Cadwallader.—Claim and a
girl.—Combined Indian tribes.—Ladies of Oregon.—Public meeting.—A noble
address.—Vote of thanks.—Address of the young ladies.—Death of Colonel Gilliam.—His
campaign.—Colonel Waters’ letter.—Doubtful position of Indians.—Number
at Fort Wallawalla.—Results of the war.—Jesuit letters.—Fathers Hoikin and De
Smet.—The Choctaws.—Indian confederacy.—Last hope of the Indian.—Jesuit
policy.—The Irish in the war of the Rebellion.—Father Hecker.—Boasts of the
Jesuits.—Letter of Lieutenant Rogers.—Priests supply the Indians with arms and
ammunition.—Ammunition seized.—Oregon Argus.—Discovery of gold.—No help
for the Indian.—Withdrawal of the Hudson’s Bay Company to Vancouver.—The
smooth-tongued Jesuits yet remain.


Let us now turn our attention from scenes of baseness and treachery
to such as can not fail to draw forth the more noble sentiments of the
heart. We find in the Old Spectator, April 20, 1843:—



“General A. L. Lovejoy:



“Sir,—The following was written for the Express, but in the hurry
and bustle of business, was omitted to be forwarded: To call the
men (158) who fought on the Tukanon and Tuchet rivers brave were
but common praise,—officers and privates fought with unequaled
bravery and skill. Captains Hall, Owens, and Thompson behaved
with all that deliberate judgment and determined bravery that was
requisite to so hard-fought and long-continued a battle.


“The incomparable services of Sergeant-Major Birch, Quartermaster
Goodhue, Judge-Advocate Rinearson, Sergeant Cook, Paymaster
Magone, can not be passed unnoticed, and deserve their country’s
praises. Captains English and McKay were not in the engagement—the
latter being sick, the former returning from the Tuchet with the
wagons and the stock.



“H. J. G. Maxon,

“Commanding at Fort Wascopum.”





“Fort Wascopum, April 7, 1848.


“General A. L. Lovejoy:



“Sir,—We received your letter of instructions, by express, on the
3d instant, and I assure you it gave me great satisfaction to make them[Pg 569]
known to the troops under my command. Since the promotion of
Major Lee to the command, the boys have taken fresh courage; though
some of them can hardly hide their nakedness, they are willing under
your promises to stick it out like men.


“Give us five hundred men, and plenty of ammunition, with Colonel
Lee at our head, and I think we will soon bring the war to an honorable
close.


“The Yankama chiefs came over to see us a few days ago, and
stated that they had written to the white chief but had received no
answer. [Who was the writer for the Indians? No American dare
remain in the country beyond the protection of the army.] Therefore
they had come over to see him. They spoke to us as follows:—


“‘We do not want to fight the Americans, nor the French; neither
do the Spokans, a neighboring tribe to us. Last fall the Cayuses told
us that they were about to kill the whites at Dr. Whitman’s. We told
them that was wrong, which made them mad at us; and when they
killed them, they came and wished us to fight the whites, which we
refused. We loved the whites; but they said, if you do not help us to
fight the whites, when we have killed them we will come and kill you.
This made us cry; but we told them we would not fight, but if they
desired to kill us they might. We should feel happy to know that we
die innocently.’


“I answered them as follows: ‘We are glad you have come, because
we like to see our friends, and do not like to make war on innocent
people. The Great Spirit we love has taught us that it is wrong to
shed innocent blood; therefore we wish everybody to be our friends.
Our peace men long ago sent you word, that we did not come to make
war on any but those murderers who shed the blood of our countrymen,
and insulted our women. When we get those wicked men
we will go home, but those we will have; if not now, we will fight
until we do get them. We do not want to kill any but the murderers;
but all who fight with them, we consider as bad as they are. All
tribes which receive them we must make war upon, because their
hearts are bad, and we know that the Great Spirit is angry with them.
We hope your nation will not receive them. We hope that you will
not let your young men join them, because we do not wish to kill
innocent people. We hope, that if the murderers come among you,
you will bring them to us; then the Great Spirit will not be angry
with you. We that fight do not care how many bad people we have
to fight. The Americans and Hudson’s Bay Company people are the
same as one, and you will get no more ammunition until the war is at
a close.’


[Pg 570]“I gave them a plow as a national gift, and told them that I gave
that kind of a present because we thought tilling the ground would
make them happy. They remained with us a day and night, and then
left for their country with an assurance of friendship.


“The ammunition boats arrived here this evening, and I shall start
to-morrow for Wailatpu with nine provision wagons and baggage wagons
besides, and about one hundred men to guard them, leaving McKay’s
company to guard this place until Colonel Lee’s arrival here.


“The scanty supply of ammunition sent us is almost disheartening.
If the rumor that the Indians brought us this evening be true, I fear that
we will have to shoot the most of it at the Indians before we can reach
the boys. The Indians reported here this evening that the horse-guard
at Wailatpu was killed by the Indians, and all the horses run off. I shall
lose no time, I assure you, but will relieve them with all possible speed.



“Your obedient servant,


“H. J. G. Maxon, S. C. C. O. D.”


We will not stop to comment on the facts and points stated in this
letter relative to the Yankama Indians and Captain Maxon’s remarks to
them, but continue our narrative from a letter of Jesse Cadwallader
from Fort Waters, April 4, 1848. At the time of writing, he did not
know of Colonel Gilliam’s death. He says:—


“At present we are not in a very pleasant fix for fighting, as we are
but 150 in number, and nearly out of ammunition. Colonel Gilliam,
with the rest of the men, left here on the 20th ult. for the Dalles for
supplies. We look for them in a few days, and hope to see more men
with them. We look for the Indians to come upon us every day. They
say they will give us one more fight, and drive us from the country.
We expect they will number 1,200. The Cayuses, Nez Percés, Wallawallas,
Spokans, and Paluces will all join and fight us, and you may
expect a call for more men in a short time; we are preparing for an
attack. We are killing beef and drying it to-day. I think we can
defend this post; we shall do so or die in the attempt.——


“We can not complain of our living, so far; we have a plenty of
beef and bread, nearly all the time. We have found several caches of
wheat, peas, and potatoes. We have about thirty bushels of wheat on
hand, and the mill fitted up for grinding.


“I wish you would see to my claim on Clear Creek, for I expect to
return when this war is over, and occupy it, with some man’s girl as a
companion.”


The following proceedings of the ladies of Oregon City and vicinity,
which was responded to all over the country, showing how the ladies[Pg 571]
of Oregon and this Pacific coast can respond to the call of their
country, found a welcome place in the columns of the Spectator. We
understand that considerable clothing has been contributed by the
ladies for the volunteers in the field. Such acts by ladies are highly
commendable to them, and can not fail to have a favorable influence in
the army:—


“At a meeting convened at the Methodist church, according to previous
notice, on the 12th instant, to consult upon the best means to
aid in relieving the necessities of the soldiers, the meeting was called
to order by Mrs. Hood, when Mrs. Thornton was called to the chair,
and Mrs. Thurston (the wife of our first delegate to Congress), was
appointed secretary. Mrs. Thornton (whose husband was then in
Washington, doing all he could for the country as a volunteer representative
of its interests, while his noble wife was teaching school and
ready to aid in sustaining our almost naked army) briefly stated the
object of the meeting, when, on motion, it was resolved to form a society,
the object of which should be to aid and assist in supporting the
war (Sanitary Society). On motion, the meeting proceeded to choose
officers; which resulted in the election of Mrs. Thornton, President;
Mrs. Robb, Vice-President; Mrs. Leslie (second wife of Rev. D. Leslie),
Treasurer; and Mrs. Thurston, Secretary.


“On motion, it was voted to appoint a committee of three, whose duty
it should be to assist the society in raising funds, etc. The president
appointed Mrs. Hood (an active, energetic old lady), Mrs. Crawford
(the wife of our first internal revenue collector), and Mrs. Herford, said
committee.


“Mrs. Robb then introduced the following address as expressive of
the sense of the meeting, to be forwarded to the army with the clothing
raised by the ladies, which, on being read, was unanimously adopted:—



“‘Oregon City, April 12, 1848.



“‘The volunteers of the first regiment of Oregon riflemen will please
accept from the ladies of Oregon City and vicinity the articles herewith
forwarded to them. The intelligence which convinces us of your many
hardships, excessive fatigues, and your chivalrous bearing also satisfies
us of your urgent wants.


“‘These articles are not tendered for acceptance as a compensation
for your services rendered; we know that a soldier’s heart would spurn
with contempt any boon tendered by us with such an object; accept
them as a brother does, and may, accept a sister’s tribute of remembrance—as
a token, an evidence, that our best wishes have gone to, and[Pg 572]
l remain with you in your privations, your marches, your battles,
and your victories.


“‘Your fathers and ours, as soldiers, have endured privations and
sufferings, and poured out their blood as water, to establish undisturbed
freedom east of the Rocky Mountains; your and our mothers evinced the
purity of their love of country, upon those occasions, by efforts to
mitigate the horrors of war, in making and providing clothing for the
soldiers. Accept this trifling present as an indorsement of an approval
of the justice of the cause in which you have volunteered, and of your
bearing in the service of our common country as manly, brave, and
patriotic.


“‘The war which you have generously volunteered to wage was challenged
by acts the most ungrateful, bloody, barbarous, and brutal.


“‘Perhaps the kindness which the natives have received at the hands
of American citizens on their way hither, has, to some extent, induced
a belief on the part of the natives, that all the Americans are “women”
and dare not resent an outrage, however shameful, bloody, or wicked.
Your unflinching bravery has struck this foolish error from the mind of
your enemies, and impressed them with terror, and it is for you and a
brotherhood who will join you, to follow up the victories so gloriously
commenced, until a succession of victories shall compel an honorable
peace, and insure respect for the American arms and name.


“‘We have not forgotten that the soul-sickening massacre and enormities
at Wailatpu were committed in part upon our sex. We know
that your hardships and privations are great; but may we not hope,
that through you these wrongs shall not only be amply avenged, but
also that you inscribe, upon the heart of our savage enemies, a conviction
never to be erased, that the virtue and lives of American women
will be protected, defended, and avenged by American men.


“‘The cause which you have espoused is a holy cause. We believe
that the God of battle will so direct the destinies of this infant settlement,
that she will come out of this contest clothed in honor, and her
brave volunteers covered with glory.


"‘The widows and orphans, made so by the massacre which called you
to the field, unite with us in the bestowment of praise for the valuable
service already rendered by you; and he who has already proclaimed
himself the widow’s God, Judge, and Husband, and a Father to the
fatherless, will smile upon and aid your exertions. Fight on, then!—Fight
as you have fought, and a glorious victory awaits you.’


“On motion, a vote of thanks was tendered to Mrs. Hood for her unwearied
exertions in behalf of the suffering soldiers.


[Pg 573]“Mrs. Robb moved, That when this society adjourn, it do so to meet
at this place again on the 26th instant.


“On motion, it was then voted that the proceedings of this meeting,
with the address adopted, be published in the Oregon Spectator.


“On motion, the meeting then adjourned.




“Mrs. N. M. Thornton, President.


“Mrs. E. F. Thurston, Secretary.”



The thought and sentiment manifested in the above proceedings and
address allow the reader to look right at the heart and soul of our
people. No one who reads our history will have occasion to blush or
be ashamed to know that his father or mother crossed the vast mountains
and plains of North America, found a home in Oregon, and fought
back the savages, and their more savage foreign leaders. Oregonians,
the fact that your father or mother was a pioneer on this coast will
redound to your honor,—as a reference to the deeds of our fathers and
mothers, on the eastern part of our continent, strengthened and nerved
our hearts, when the whole host of savage instruments of cruelty and
barbarism were let loose upon us, and many of our dearest friends fell
by their ruthless hordes! We know not who the author of that
address is, but the sentiment—the soul—belongs alone to Oregon.


In the same paper we find the sentiment still further illustrated in a
declaration of a number of young ladies. We only regret that we have
not their names; the sentiment is too good to be lost, as it shows the
finer and nobler sentiments of virtue and religion among the mothers
and daughters of Oregon, in those trying times. The communication
is as follows:—



“Wallamet Valley, Oregon.



“Response by young ladies to the call of Captain Maxon for young
men in the army.


“We have read with much interest the late report from the army,
and feel ourselves under obligations to reply to the appeal made to us
in that report. We are asked to evince our influence for our country’s
good, by withholding our hand from any young man who refuses to
turn out in defense of our honor and our country’s right.


“In reply, we hereby, one and all, of our own free good will,
solemnly pledge ourselves to comply with that request, and to evince, on
all suitable occasions, our detestation and contempt for any and all
young men, who can, but will not, take up arms and march at once to
the seat of war, to punish the Indians, who have not only murdered
our friends, but have grossly insulted our sex. We never can, and[Pg 574]
never will, bestow our confidence upon a man who has neither patriotism
nor courage enough to defend his country and the girls;—such a
one would never have sufficient sense of obligations to defend and
protect a wife.


“Do not be uneasy about your claims and your rights in the valley;
while you are defending the rights of your country, she is watching
yours. You must not be discouraged. Fight on, be brave, obey your
officers, and never quit your posts till the enemy is conquered; and
when you return in triumph to the valley, you shall find us as ready to
rejoice with you as we now are to sympathize with you in your sufferings
and dangers.”



(Signed by fifteen young ladies).



Soon after the peace arrangements, as related in the previous chapter,
the colonel and major left for the lower country. They arrived at the
Dalles, where the colonel was accidentally shot by attempting to remove
a rifle from the hind end of one of his wagons; the cap was burst,
and he received the contents of the gun, which proved fatal in a few
hours. In his death the country lost a valuable citizen, the army a good
soldier, and his family a kind husband and affectionate father. As a
commander of the provisional troops, he succeeded probably as well as
any man could under the circumstances.


The deep schemes of the British fur monopoly, the baser schemes of
the Jesuits, both working together, and in connection with the Indians
and all the American dupes that they with their influence and capital
could command, it is not surprising that, as a military man, he should
fail to bring to justice the immediate or remote perpetrators of the crime
he was expected to punish. In fact, but few at the present day are able
to comprehend the extent and power of opposing influences. One of
the commissioners informed us that from the time the colonel opened
a correspondence with the priests, he appeared to lose his influence
and power and control of the troops. He lacked an essential quality
as a commander—promptness in action and decision to strike
at the proper time, as was manifest in his whole campaign. Yet,
for this he is to a certain extent excusable, as he had with his army
the Indian peace commissioners, and was acting under the orders
of a governor who was greatly deceived as to the prime movers in the
war.


One of the commissioners was notoriously the dupe and tool of the
foreign monopoly in our midst, as his own history before and since has
proved. He claimed to know exactly how to deal with the difficulty.
This influence was felt by the troops, and generally acknowledged, and,[Pg 575]
as we know from the best of authority, was the cause of the colonel’s
being ordered to report at head-quarters.


After lying at Fort Waters for a considerable time, his men becoming
dissatisfied (as intimated in letters), he mounted his horse, and most of
his men volunteered to follow him for a fight. He pursued what he
supposed to be the correct trail of the murderers to a point on the
Tukanon, and there fought a small party, and learned that the murderers
were at the crossing of Snake River, some thirty miles distant.
He continued his march all night. The next morning, the murderers
having learned of his expedition in another direction, he came upon
them and surprised their whole camp. An old man came out of the
lodge and made signs of submission and pretended that the murderers
were not in his camp, but that their cattle were upon the hills. This
induced the colonel to order his men to gather the cattle and return
to Fort Waters (while Tilokaikt was then crossing the river),
instead of attacking them, as he should have done. The Indians
soon gathered their best horses, which were kept separate from
the common band, and commenced an attack upon his cumbered,
retreating column, till they came near the ford on the Tuchet,
when a running fight was kept up, and an effort made to get possession
of the ford by the Indians, which it required all the colonel’s
force to defeat; and like the crow and the fox in the fable, while the
colonel was giving the Indians a specimen of American fighting, he
neglected his cattle, and the Indians drove them off. But few were
wounded on either side, though, in the struggle to gain the ford and
bushes contiguous, there was swift running and close shooting, which
continued till dark. The Indians retired with their cattle, and next day
the colonel and his party, with the wounded, reached Fort Waters,
and thence he obeyed the summons of the governor to return and
report at head-quarters. While Major Lee is on his way with the body
of Colonel Gilliam to the Wallamet, and to obtain recruits and supplies
of arms and ammunition, we will see what Colonel Waters is about at
Wailatpu, April 4, 1848.


In his letter of the above date, he says:—


“Since Colonel Gilliam’s departure from this place, our relations with
the supposed friendly Indians have undergone a material change; not
seeing any, either friendly or hostile, for several days, I concluded to
send an express to Fort Wallawalla, and if possible to gain some information
concerning their movements, as I had reason to believe from their
long silence that there was something wrong; I accordingly addressed
a short note to Mr. McBean on the evening of the 1st of April, and dis[Pg 576]patched
two of my men with the same, charging them strictly to remain
there during the day, and return, as they went, in the night. They returned
yesterday in safety, and their narrative, together with Mr.
McBean’s written statements, fully confirms me in my previous views.


“The Wallawalla chief, notwithstanding his professions of friendship
to Colonel Gilliam and the Bostons, now looks upon us as enemies.
The law prohibiting the sale of ammunition appears to be his principal
hobby. By refusing it to him and his people he says we place them on
an equal footing with the guilty, and if this law is not abrogated, they
will become murderers. This sentiment he expressed in the presence
of our express bearers. [The sentiment of Sir James Douglas, as expressed
in his letter to Governor Abernethy.]


“There were then at the fort some sixty lodges, and between two and
three hundred warriors. Mr. McBean gave what purported to be information
where the murderers had gone, stating that Ellis and sixty
of his men had died in the mountains with the measles, and this had
produced its effect upon our superstitious friends.


“The Cayuses and Nez Percés have had a big feast, which to my
mind speaks in language not to be misunderstood. Mr. McBean further
states, that the Paluce Indians, Cayuses, and part of the Nez Percés,
are awaiting the American forces, to fight them on the Nez Percés, or
Snake River; but the signs of the times justify the conclusion that we
will be attacked nearer home, and much to our disadvantage, unless
soon supplied with ammunition. They know our circumstances about
as well as we do ourselves, both as regards ammunition and provisions,
and it need not be thought strange if they act accordingly.


“Welaptulekt (an Indian chief) is at the fort, and has brought quite
an amount of immigrant property with him, which he delivered to Mr.
McBean; says he was afraid Colonel Gilliam would kill him, which was
the reason of his not meeting him. This is the report of the men; Mr.
McBean did not mention his name. My opinion is that we have nothing
to hope from his friendship.


“I see by General Palmer’s letter to Colonel Gilliam, that he (McBean)
refused to accept the American flag, which was presented by
his own Indians; he, of course, had nothing to fear from them.


“I have now given you the outlines of our unpleasant situation, and
doubt not that you will make every exertion to forward us ammunition,
and men too of the right stripe. I have exaggerated nothing, nor has
any active cautiousness prompted me to address you upon this subject.
If they do come upon us, be their numbers what they may, rest assured,
while there is one bullet left, they will be taught to believe that the
Bostons are not all clochemen (women).


[Pg 577]“I have succeeded in getting the mill to work, and we are grinding
up the little grain we found. Mr. Taylor died on the 24th of March.
The wounded are doing well. I regret to say our surgeon talks strongly
of leaving us the first opportunity. My impression is that a more suitable
person could not be obtained in that capacity. His commission has
not been sent on, which no doubt has its weight with him.



“I have the honor to remain,



“Your obedient servant,


“James Waters, Lieutenant-Colonel.”


As to the propriety of Governor Abernethy’s publishing this entire
letter, there was at the time a question. With the facts since developed,
it is plain that it should not have been given to the public; but, as we
have before stated, the governor was one of those easy, confiding,
unsuspecting men, that gave a wily and unprincipled enemy all the
advantage he could ask. It was only the determined energy and
courage of the settlers that enabled them to overcome their secret and
open foes.


The evidence is conclusive, that Colonel Gilliam, through the influence
and duplicity of Newell, McBean, and the Jesuits, was induced to
withhold his men from punishing the Indians, and received and treated
with bands as guilty as the murderers themselves, thus giving an
impression to the Indians of weakness and cowardice on the part of the
troops, as well as a want of the requisite qualities for a successful commander.


Major Lee returned to the settlement, obtained more troops and
ammunition, and was appointed colonel of the regiment in place of
Colonel Gilliam, deceased. This place he was justly entitled to fill by
seniority in the service. He then returned to Fort Waters, and, finding
the troops in the field satisfied with Colonel Waters, resigned at once,
and filled a subordinate place in the army. The troops were soon put
in motion. Captain McKay and his company of British subjects were
disbanded, after being stationed a short time at Wascopum.


The troops soon drove the murderers off to buffalo, “with the propriety,
decorum, and energy which the case required,” as per “Veritas.”
They gathered up such of the murderers’ cattle and horses as were
not claimed by professed friendly Indians, and retired to the Wallamet,
leaving a small garrison at Fort Waters and at Wascopum.


The war, though attended with little or no loss of life to the settlement
or the Indians, was of incalculable value to the American cause.
It taught the Indians, the British monopoly, and their allies, the Jesuits,
that, not withstanding they could drive from the upper country, or middle[Pg 578]
Oregon, the missionaries of the American Board, they could not conquer
and drive the settlements from the country.


While the main effort of the Hudson’s Bay Company was to rid the
country of American settlements, the Jesuits were working against
American Protestantism, and endeavoring to secure the whole country,
middle Oregon in particular, for their exclusive Indian mission. One
of them, A. Hoikin, S. J., in a letter to the editor of the Précis Historiques,
Brussels, dated “Mission of Flatheads, April 15, 1857” (this
mission was established by Father De Smet as early as 1841 in opposition
to that of the American Board at Spokan), says:—


“If the less well-intentioned Indians from the lower lands would keep
within their own territory, and if the whites, the number of whom is
daily augmenting in St. Mary’s Valley, could act with moderation and
conduct themselves prudently, I am convinced that soon the whole
country would be at peace, and that not a single Indian would henceforward
imbrue his hands in the blood of a white stranger.


“Were I authorized to suggest a plan, I would have all the upper
lands evacuated by the whites and form of it a territory exclusively of
Indians; afterward, I would lead there all the Indians of the inferior
portion, such as the Nez Percés, the Cayuses, the Yankamas, the Cœur
d’Alênes, and the Spokans. Well-known facts lead me to believe that
this plan, with such superior advantages, might be effected by means of
a mission in the space of two or three years.


“For the love of God and of souls, I conjure you, reverend fathers,
not to defer any longer. All the good that Father De Smet and others
have produced by their labors and visits will be lost and forgotten
if these Indians are disappointed in their expectation. They weigh
men’s characters in the balance of honesty; in their eyes, whosoever
does not fulfill his promises is culpable; they do not regard or
consider whether it be done for good reason, or that there is an impossibility
in the execution.


“Some of them have sent their children to Protestant schools, and
they will continue to do so as long as we form no establishments among
them. From all this you may easily conclude that there is apostasy
and all its attendant evils.”


In connection with the above, Father De Smet says:—


“These four letters of Rev. Father Hoikin show sufficiently, my
dear and reverend father, the spiritual wants of these nations and their
desire of being assisted. Apostasy is more frequent than is generally
believed in Europe. Oh, if the zealous priests of the continent know
what we know,—had they seen what we have witnessed, their generous[Pg 579]
hearts would transport them beyond the seas, and they would hasten
to consecrate their lives to a ministry fruitful in salutary results.


“Time passes; already the sectaries of various shades are preparing
to penetrate more deeply into the desert, and will wrest from those
degraded and unhappy tribes their last hope,—that of knowing and
practising the sole and true faith. Shall they, in fine, obtain the black-gowns,
whom they have expected and called for during so many years.


“Accept, reverend father, the assurance of my sincere friendship.



“P. J. De Smet.”


Would men entertaining the sentiments above expressed—sent among
our American Indians, carried about, supplied and fed, by a
fur monopoly, who were seeking in every way possible, to hold the
country themselves—be likely to teach the Indians to respect American
institutions, American missionaries, or American citizens?


Let us look at another sentiment of this Father Hoikin; he says:
“When, oh, when! shall the oppressed Indian find a poor corner of the
earth on which he may lead a peaceful life, serving and loving his God
in tranquillity, and preserving the ashes of his ancestors, without fear of
beholding them profaned and trampled beneath the feet of an unjust
usurper.” We can not discover in this sentiment any respect or love
for the American people, or for their government, which is looked upon
by this reverend priest, as an “unjust usurper” of Indian privileges;—something
their own church and people have done the world over; but
being done by a free American people, it becomes “unjust,” profane,
and horrible. We will make a few other quotations, which we find
in the very extensive correspondence of these Jesuitical fathers, with
their society in Brussels. The writer, Father P. J. De Smet, after
enumerating the usual complaints against our government and its agents,
makes his Indian complainingly to say, “The very contact of the whites
has poisoned us.” He then puts into the mouth of a Choctaw chief, a
proposition from a Senator Johnson to establish three Indian territorial
governments, “with the provision of being admitted later as distinct
members of the Confederate United States.”


“On the 25th of last November, 1862,” he says, “Harkins, chief
among the Choctaws, addressed a speech on this subject to his nation
assembled in council. Among other things he said: ‘I appeal to
you, what will become us, if we reject the proposition of Senator Johnson?
Can we hope to remain a people, always separate and distinct?
This is not possible. The time must come; yes the time is approaching
in which we shall be swallowed up; and that, notwithstanding our just
claims! I speak boldly. It is a fact; our days of peace and happiness[Pg 580]
are gone, and forever.——If we will preserve among us the rights
of a people, one sole measure remains to us; it is to instruct and civilize
the youth promptly and efficiently. The day of fraternity has arrived.
We must act together, and, by common consent, let us attentively consider
our critical situation, and the course now left us. One false step
may prove fatal to our existence as a nation. I therefore propose that
the council take this subject into consideration, and that a committee
be named by it, to discuss and deliberate on the advantages and disadvantages
of the proposition made to the Choctaws. Is it just and sage
for the Choctaws to refuse a liberal and favorable offer, and expose
themselves to the destiny of the Indians of Nebraska?’


“According to news received recently, through a journal published
in the Indian country, the speech of the chief has produced a profound
impression, and was loudly applauded by all the counselors. All the
intelligent Choctaws approve the measure.


“The Protestant missionaries oppose the bill, and employ all their
artifices and influence to prevent its success. Harkins proposes their
expulsion. ‘It is our money,’ said he, ‘that these missionaries come
here to get. Surely, our money can get us better teachers. Let us
therefore try to procure good missionaries, with whom we can live in
harmony and good understanding; who will give us the assurance that
their doctrine is based on that of the apostles and of Jesus Christ.’


“The Chickasaws are represented as opposed to Senator Johnson’s
measure. We trust, however, that the vote of the majority will prove
favorably and that the three territorial States will be established.


“It is, in my opinion, a last attempt, and a last chance of existence
for the sad remnants of the poor Indians of America. It is, I will say, if
I may here repeat what I wrote in my second letter in 1853, their only
remaining source of happiness; humanity and justice seem to demand
it. If they are again repulsed, and driven inland, they will infallibly
perish. Such as refuse to submit, and accept the definite arrangement,—the
only favorable one left,—must resume the nomad life of the
prairies, and close their career with the vanishing buffaloes and other
animals.”


We have known this Father De Smet for many years, and have
known of his connection as chaplain in the United States army, and of
his extensive travels among the various Indian tribes of our country.
We were well aware of his zeal and bigotry as a Jesuit; but we did
not suppose he would take the first opportunity to combine all his associates,
and the Indians under his influence, against the government that
had favored him and his Indian missionary operations so readily. Yet
perhaps we ought not to be surprised at this even, as the Roman hier[Pg 581]archy
expressed more open sympathy and favor to the Southern rebellion
than any other European power, by acknowledging the Southern
Confederacy, and furnishing a man to assassinate President Lincoln.


We have introduced these quotations in our sketches of early history,
in order to show to the reader the far-reaching policy, as also the determination
of foreign powers, through the Jesuit missionaries, to
accomplish the overthrow of our American institutions, and prevent the
spread of them upon this coast. The following is copied from the
Christian Intelligencer:—


“Rome in the Field.


“There are those who believe that Rome has an evil eye on this
country, and that our next great battle will be with her hosts, rapidly
mustering on these shores. We would not be alarmists, but we would
not have our countrymen ignorant of matters which most nearly and
vitally concern our country’s welfare. If the policy of Rome is to rule
or ruin, let us know it. If it be first to ruin, and then to rule, let us
know that.


“We purpose to go no further back than the beginning of the war,
and to let the facts which we shall name speak for themselves. If
they have no other lesson, they will, at least, show that Rome, during
our terrible struggle for national existence, was true to her ancient history
and traditions, as the enemy of civil liberty and the friend of the
oppressor the world over.


“It will not be forgotten how generally and enthusiastically our
adopted citizens, the Irish, enlisted in the army when the call first came
for men to put down rebellion. In the early part of the war, there were
Irish battalions, and regiments, and brigades, but there were few, if
any, at its close. The truth is, after the second year of the war, the
Irish changed front, and suddenly became sympathizers with treason
and rebellion. It was noticed that the girls in the kitchen began to roll
their fierce gutturals against Mr. Lincoln; their brothers in the army
began to curse the cause for which they fought; desertions were frequent;
enlistments stopped; and the attitude of the Irish mind before
Mr. Lincoln’s second election was one of disloyalty and hostility to the
government of the United States.


“And these facts can not be changed by the habit which these
people have of boasting about fighting our battles, and saving our
country. By actual examination of our muster-rolls, the simple truth
appears to be, that only eight per cent. of our grand army were of foreign
birth; the balance—ninety-two per cent.—were native Americans, who
returned at length, worn and battle-scarred, to find their places on the[Pg 582]
farms, in the factories, and elsewhere, filled by Irish who had sought
safety and profit at home, while our boys were courting danger and
death in battle.


“It may be interesting to know when this change came over the
Irish mind. What dampened their ardor, what quenched the glow of
their patriotic impulse? The coincidence is so complete, that the cause
is doubtless the same.


“It will be remembered that Bishop Hughes went abroad during the
second year of the war, as was supposed, by authority of our government
to interest the Catholic sovereigns of Europe in our favor. Instead
of this, however, the archbishop went direct to Rome, and straightway
the pope acknowledged the independence of the Confederate States.
His insignificance gave him impunity, and purchased our silence. But
the act had its influence; Biddy in the kitchen, Mike in the army, Patrick
on the farm, and Mac in the factory, fell to cursing Mr. Lincoln as
a tyrant and butcher. Enlistments among the Irish stopped from that
time, unless it was bounty-jumpers and deserters. They banded together
to resist the draft, as in New York, where they rioted in blood
for three long days, and only yielded to the overwhelming power of
United States troops. The spirit that actuated these human fiends
came from Rome, and to Rome must be awarded the sole honor of
welcoming to the family of nations a Confederacy whose first act was
treason, and whose last was assassination. Indeed, it was Rome that
furnished the assassin and his conspirators against the greatest life of
modern times. And that assassin struck not against the life of a man,
but against the life of the Republic; and if guilt lies in the intent, then
is Rome guilty of the nation’s life.


“With such a record, Rome vainly puts herself among the friends of
our free institutions. She misjudged, we think, but she no doubt
thought the time had arrived to destroy what had come of Puritanism.
And for this, she was willing to be the ally of a government whose
corner-stone was negro slavery. Are we still dreaming that Rome is
changed, or that she has surrendered the hope of supplanting Protestant
freedom on these shores? Would not every Fenian lodge in the
country rally to the help of the South, if there was a chance to restore
the old negro-hating oligarchy to power.


“It can hardly have escaped every observing man that the Irish mind
is expectant and exultant in regard to this country. They do not conceal
their belief that the Catholic Church is to rise to the ascendant
here, and that Protestantism is to do it reverence.


“But a few weeks since, Father Hecker, one of the lights of the
Catholic Church in this country, said in a public lecture, in New[Pg 583]
York, that his church had numbered eleven millions of our people, or
one-third of our population; and that if the members of his church
increased for the next thirty years as it had for the thirty years past, in
1900 Rome would have the majority, and would be bound to take the
country and rule it in the interest of the church. ‘And,’ continued the
reverend father, ‘I consider it my highest mission to educate our people
up to this idea, that America is ours, and belongs to the church.’


“It is all of a pattern. Rome during the war sought to ruin us in
order to rule us. She failed in the first, but is no less tenaciously striving
to accomplish the last. In a future number we will hope to show
how she means to do this through the freedmen.”


It appears that, when our government became apprised of the value
of Oregon as a part of its domain, and was informed officially by the
provisional government of the situation of affairs generally at the
time of the Whitman massacre, at the same time the information was
so arranged, and the circumstances so stated, that the government and
people were generally deceived as to the cause and ultimate object of
that transaction. It is clear that the Hudson’s Bay Company designed
to hold the country. It is also evident that the British government expected
that the arrangements of the company were such that their title
to the Oregon Territory was secured beyond a question.


The far-seeing shrewdness of P. J. De Smet, S. J., in relation to his
efforts and church influence, was in a measure superior to both; for he
made use of both to secure his object and add to the numerical strength
of his church, and by that means gain political consideration in the
United States and in other countries. For instance, all the Indian
children and adults they have ever baptized (as may be seen by their
letters to their society in Brussels) are counted, numbering two hundred
and ninety-four thousand,—nearly one-half of their American
converts. This, with all their foreign population, as claimed by them,
and improperly allowed in the United States census, gives to that
sect a political influence they are not entitled to; and were the question
agitated openly, as it was undertaken once secretly, the result would
show their weakness. While that church professes the open Catholic
faith, it still holds to its secret Society of Jesus, and through it has
carried its missions and influence into every department of our
American government, more especially into that of the Indians.
General Grant seems to understand our Indian relations, and has
advised the best plan for disposing of the Indian question, i. e., place
it under the exclusive control of the military department; and if an
Indian becomes a settler, let him be protected as such.


[Pg 584]After the greater portion of our provisional troops had been disbanded,
Revs. Eells and Walker and their families were ordered out
of the upper country, it not being deemed safe for them to remain, on
account of hostile Indians who were notoriously friendly with every
one claiming to belong to the Hudson’s Bay Company or to the
priests’ party; as asserted by Father Hoikin, who says: “The country
is as safe for us as ever; we can go freely wherever we desire. No
one is ignorant that the black-gowns are not enemies; those at least
who are among the Indians.”


Notwithstanding the order had been given, by Indian Agent Major
Lee, that all the missionaries among those Indians should leave the
country till troops could be stationed to protect all alike, still not
one of the Jesuit missionaries obeyed it. On the 21st of August,
Lieutenant A. T. Rogers writes to Governor Abernethy, as follows:—



“Fort Lee, Wascopum, Aug. 21, 1848.



“Believing it to be my duty to let you know any thing of moment
that transpires at this station, for this purpose I now address you.


“At about 2 o’clock, P. M., at this place, a boat arrived, consigned to
the French priests who have taken up their residence here, loaded
with eight casks of powder; six of them 150 pounds each, and two of
them 90 pounds each, making 1,080 pounds. I also took fifteen sacks
of balls, 100 pounds in each cask; three sacks of buck or goose shot,
100 pounds each, making 1,800 pounds of ball and buck-shot; counted
one sack of the balls and found about 3,000 balls. I also took three
boxes of guns; opened one box, and found twelve guns.


“The general conviction at the fort was, that not more than 500
pounds of powder in all had been forwarded for the army by the
government, probably not even that amount. I was told by the priest
from an interior station, as also by one at the Dalles, that the powder
was for four stations, viz.: Cœur d’Alênes, Flatheads, Ponderays, and
Okanagons; and this had been purchased at Vancouver the year
before. I judged that at least one-third of their outfit was ammunition.


“Three days previous to the arrival of the ammunition, four Indians,
embracing their chief from the Waiama village, near the mouth of
Des Chutes, came into the fort, much alarmed, saying there had been
Cayuses to them, declaring that the priests were going to furnish them
plenty of ammunition, and that they were going to kill off all the
Americans and all the Indians about that place, and the Cayuses
wanted them to join them; said also that out of fear of the Cayuses
they had sent away all their women and children. We had the best of
evidence that they were frightened. Out of some four or five hundred[Pg 585]
souls along the river, between the fort and the Chutes of the Columbia,
not a soul was to be seen on either side,—all, they said, were hid in
the mountains. It was some ten days before the Indians came from
their hiding-places.


“When the munitions came, Quartermaster Johnson swore he
believed the priests designed them for the Cayuses; said also, a man
in this country did not know when he was in a tight place.


“I must say I also believed it.



“A. T. Rogers, Lieutenant Commanding Post.”[20]



[20] From original letter.


The following editorial notice of the above letter is copied from the
Oregon Spectator of September 7, 1848:—


“By reference to the above letter by Lieutenant Rogers to Governor
Abernethy, it will be seen that the arms and ammunition
attempted to be taken into the upper Indian country by Catholic
priests, have been seized by Lieutenant Rogers, and deposited in Fort
Lee. Orders had been dispatched to Lieutenant Rogers to seize and
detain those munitions. [A mistake of the editor. Lieutenant Rogers
seized the ammunition, and wrote for orders.] Much credit is due to
Lieutenant Rogers and the little garrison at Fort Lee for the promptness
and efficiency with which they acted in the matter.


“We understand that there was no disposition on the part of the
officers of the government to destroy or confiscate those munitions,
but that they were detained to prevent their transportation into the
Indian country under the present juncture of affairs.


“We had intended to have spoken upon the attempt by Catholic
priests to transport such a quantity of arms and ammunition into
the Indian country at this time, but as those munitions have been
seized and are now safe, we abstain from present comment upon the
transaction!”


The above notice of the transaction, as given by Lieutenant Rogers,
is a fair specimen of the man who occupied the place of an editor at
the time this infamous course was being carried on in Oregon by the
two parties engaged in supplying the Indians with war materials. No
one will suppose for a moment that these priests ever bought or owned
the powder and arms; their own private supplies may have been in the
cargo, but the ammunition and arms were on the way into the Indian
country, under their priestly protection, for the benefit of their masters,
[Pg 586]the Hudson’s Bay Company, who, as we have repeatedly proved, were
acting in concert upon the prejudices and superstitions of the Indians.


Was it a great undertaking for that company to drive a thousand or
twelve hundred American settlers from Oregon at that time?


Robert Newell, already known to our readers, says, in speaking of
missionaries and settlers, “They could not have remained in the country
a week without the consent and aid of that company, nor could the settlers
have remained as they did up to 1848.” We are willing to admit
Mr. Newell’s position only in part. We know that company’s power and
influence in Washington and London; we also know fully what they
attempted to do from 1812 to 1821, and only succeeded by a compromise
with their opponent. We also know all about their operations
and influences in Oregon, and are ready to admit that they had the
disposition to destroy the American settlements. We also know the
extent of the effort made to establish a claim to the Oregon country by
means of their French and Hudson’s Bay half-breeds, and we are fully
aware of their effort to procure witnesses to substantiate their monstrous
claims for old rotten forts and imaginary improvements. Knowing all
this, we deny that that company had the courage, or would have dared
to molest a single American citizen or missionary, only as they could
influence the Indians by just such means as they used to destroy Smith’s
party on the Umpqua, drive Captain Wyeth and the American Fur
Company from the country, and destroy Dr. Whitman’s settlement.
Any other course would have involved the two countries in a war, and
led to an investigation of their proceedings and of their charter.


“That company,” says Mr. Fitzgerald, “have submitted to all manner
of insult and indignity, and committed all manner of crime, and
they dare not go before any competent tribunal for the redress of any
real or supposed injury, or right they claim.”


This brings us to the reason that Mr. Douglas gave in answer to Mr.
Ogden, in the presence of Mr. Hinman, “There might be other than
sectarian causes” for the Whitman massacre, and here we have the
united effort of priests and Hudson’s Bay Company to attribute the
massacre to measles and superstition, while we have the positive testimony
of Mr. Kimzey and others to show that the whole was determined
upon before any sickness was among the Indians. From the testimony
of General Palmer, the Donner party, Mr. Hines, and Mr. Ogden, we
find but the one effort; which was, to prevent, or diminish as much as
was possible, the settlement of the country. And why? To answer
this question clearly, we have traced the early history of that monster
monopoly in previous chapters, and given their proceedings in countries
under their exclusive control. To illustrate more clearly the subject[Pg 587]
of the previous and present chapters, we will give an article we find in
the Oregon Argus of February 9, 1856, eight years after the war.
The article is headed:—



“The Catholic Priests and the War—‘A Catholic Citizen’ attended to.


“To the Editor of the Oregon Argus:



“Sir,—For the past month I have noticed several virulent articles in
each issue of your paper, all tending to impress upon the minds of your
readers the idea that the Catholic priests were the head and front of
the present Indian difficulties; and being fearful that your constant
harping upon that one subject might render you a monomaniac, I am
induced to submit to your Argus eyes a few facts in relation to the
conduct of the Catholic priests prior to and during the present war.
In your issue of the 8th inst., I find an article based upon the following
extract from the official report of Colonel Nesmith:—


“‘With sundry papers discovered in the mission building, was a letter
written by the priest, Pandozy, for Kamaiyahkan, head chief of the
Yankama tribe, addressed to the officer in command of the troops, a copy
of which is communicated with this report. There was also found an
account-book kept by this priest Pandozy, which is now in the custody
of Major Raines. This book contains daily entries of Pandozy’s transactions
with the Indians, and clearly demonstrates the indisputable
fact that he has furnished the Indians with large quantities of ammunition,
and leaving it a matter of doubt whether gospel or gunpowder
was his principal stock in trade. The priest had abandoned the mission,
but it gave unmistakable evidence of being cared for, and attended
to, during his absence, by some Yankama Indian parishioners.’


“You then proceed with great sang froid to pride yourself upon the
correct ‘position’ which you took about a month previous, relative to
the above subject, and presuming upon the safe ‘position’ which you
thus assumed, you say the priests have in a measure prompted the
Indians to the late outbreak! A bold presumption, truly, when we find
the puny evidence which you have to back your ‘position.’ You further
assert as a fact, ‘that in this, as in the Cayuse war, these priests
have been detected in the very act of conveying large quantities of
powder in the direction of the camp of the enemy.’ This, sir, is a fact
which emanated from your own disordered imagination, as during the
Cayuse war no priest was ever detected in any such a position, and you
know it; but then, it must be recollected that a little buncombe capital
does not come amiss at this time, and if you can make it off of a poor
priest by publishing a tissue of groundless falsehoods against him, why
even that is ‘grist to your mill.’”


[Pg 588]“The foregoing is a portion of a communication which appeared in
the Standard of December 13, over the signature of ‘A Catholic
Citizen.’ The writer of that article, in endeavoring to blind the eyes
of his readers, and his pretending to correct us in reference to certain
statements we had made concerning a few things connected with the
present Indian war, as also the Cayuse war of 1848, in which the Catholic
priests had by their intercourse with the savages created more than
a suspicion in the minds of the community that they were culpably
implicated in the crimson character of these tragedies, wisely intrenched
himself behind a fictitious signature. He has thereby thrown the
responsibility of some three columns of pointless verbiage, flimsy sophistry,
and Jesuitical falsehoods, upon the shoulders of an irresponsible,
intangible, ghostly apparition, probably very recently dismissed from
some sepulcher at Rome, or from the carcass of an Irishman just
swamped in the bogs of Ireland.


“Seven or eight weeks have now elapsed since we called upon this
Roman Catholic citizen to emerge from his hiding-place among the
tombstones, and if he was really incarnate, with a body of flesh and
bones, such as the rest of us have, to throw off the mask, and not only
give us a full view of his corporeal developments, but also to send us a
copy of the book by which he cleared Pandozy, and justified himself in
issuing, from his sweat-house Vatican, his bull of excommunication
against us.


“We have thus far ‘harked’ in vain for a sound ‘from the tombs.’
Like a true Jesuit, that loves darkness rather than light, he not only
still persists in keeping his name in the dark, and keeping the ‘book’
we rightfully called for in the dark, but attempts to enshroud the whole
subject in total darkness, by making up his own case from such parts
of Pandozy’s book as he chooses to have exposed, and then thrusting
the whole manuscript into a dark corner of his dark-colored coat, and
in order to darken what light we had already shed in upon the dark
nest of Jesuits, among the dark-skinned and dark-hearted savages, he
most solemnly denies as false the most important of the dark charges
we made against them, and then, after ‘darkening counsel’ by a whole
column of ‘words without knowledge,’ by which, like the cuttle-fish,
he darkens the waters to elude the hand of his pursuer, and then, under
cover of all this darkness, he dodges into his dark little sweat-house,
and issues his terrible bull consigning us to a very dark place, where
the multitudes of dark Jesuits that have gone before us have doubtless
made it ‘as dark as a stack of black cats.’ But what makes the case
still darker is, that while ‘Catholic Citizen’ refuses to expose his personal
outlines to our ‘Argus eyes,’ but intimates that as he is a member[Pg 589]
of the Catholic Church, and of the Democratic party, if we let off a
broadside upon either of these societies, and wound either of their carcasses,
the one bloated on the blood of saints, and the other on the juice
of corn, we shall of course inflict a material injury upon him, upon the
principle that ‘when one of the members suffers, all the members suffer
with it;’ we say, that in view of the fact that after ‘Catholic Citizen’
has claimed to be a member of both these organizations, the Corvallis
organ of the Sag Nichts and Jesuits has whet the razor of authority,
and lopped him off, as a heterodox member, and consigned him to the
fires of damnation, because ‘Catholic Citizen’ has intimated that the
two bodies were not identical, thus wisely enveloping him in a dark
cloud, and translating him far beyond the reach of our guns, makes
the case terribly dark indeed.


“‘He (Catholic Citizen) displays the cloven foot of either direct
opposition to the Democratic organization, or sore-head-ism and disaffection
with that organization.——We can hardly conceive that
the author of that communication is a Catholic, or a friend of the Catholic
Church.’—Statesman of Dec. 25.


“Thus it will be seen that the editor of the ‘organ’ takes him by the
top tuft, and applies the ‘rapin hook’ to his neck as a heretic, and not
a genuine Catholic, because of his ‘sore-head-ism and disaffection with
the Democratic organization,’ thus unequivocally asserting that the
church and the clique are identical, or so closely identified that in placing
himself in opposition to the one, he proves that he is not a friend of
the other. Now whether the action of the organ has been from a malicious
desire to ‘bury him out of our sight’ as an ‘unfruitful branch’ of
the Catholic and Democratic trunk, or whether he intended in mercy to
wrap him up in his Nessean shirt, and hide him from our view by denying
to him the only earthly position he assumed, it matters not particularly
to us. We shall probably teach him, or his ghost, in due
time, a lesson which we long since whipped into the tough and slimy
hide of the biped who controls the Statesman, and which he and his
ilk would do well to read in the welts that checker his back, before
they make their onslaughts upon us, viz., whenever we state a thing
to be true, you may rest assured that it is so, and by calling it in question,
you may be sure you will provoke the proof. We are not of that class
of lying editors who make false charges which they are not able to
sustain, and we have never yet vouched for the truth of a statement,
and been afterward compelled to back out of it. Whenever we make
a mistake, on account of bad information, we are sure to make the correction
as soon as we are apprised of it, whether the statement affects
the character or interest of friend or foe, or neither.


[Pg 590]“Your vile innuendo, that we wished to make a little buncombe capital
off a poor sniveling priest, is readily excused, knowing as we do your
impressions from associating with political comrades who neither yield
to nor expect justice or decency from their political opponents; and
presuming also that the moment you stepped your foot upon American
soil, with your little budget of Irish rags, some demagogue put a loco-foco
hook into your nose, and led you off to the political pound to learn
your catechism, so fast that the remaining half of the nether extremity
of your old swallow-fork made a right angle with your stalwart frame.
We know very well what sort of lessons you have learned out of that
catechism; how you have been duped to believe that the principles of
Jefferson and other old sainted Democrats were still cherished by the
designing demagogues who have taken you in tow; how we who oppose
this office-hunting party are ‘down upon Catholics and foreigners’
simply because they are such; and how you had only to put in the
‘clane dimocratthic ticket’ to insure yourself great and glorious privileges.
Under this sort of training, it is not surprising to us that you not
only expect us to persecute you to the full extent that a priest is sworn
to ‘persecute’ heretics, but that you are constantly in fear that the
‘Noo Nothins’ will soon be ladling soup from a huge kettle that contains
your quarters boiled up with Irish potatoes.


“We were not led to make the remarks we did in reference to the
priests because they were Papists, but because we had reason to believe
they were traitors to our government, and were identified with the
savages in the present war. If Methodist, Presbyterian, or any other
Protestant clergymen had rendered themselves equally obnoxious, we
should probably have given our opinion at the time, that they deserved
to be brought out of the Indian country, with all their ‘traps,’ to undergo
a trial before a jury for their lives.


“But, sir, to one of your falsehoods:—


“‘You further assert as a fact, “that in this, as in the Cayuse war,
these priests have been detected in the very act of conveying large
quantities of powder in the direction of the camp of the enemy.” This,
sir, is a fact which emanated from your own distorted imagination, as
during the Cayuse war no priest was ever detected in any such a
position, and you know it.’


“Now, sir, we did not suppose that there was a man green enough
in all Oregon (excepting, perhaps, the Statesman) to call our statement
in question. We happen to be an old Oregonian ourself, and profess to
be pretty well posted in reference to many occurrences which will
make up the future history of this lovely yet blood-stained land. The
proof of our assertion we supposed could be come at by our file of[Pg 591]
the Spectator. The fact was still vivid in our memory. At the date of
this transaction (August 21, 1848), there were three papers printed
in the Territory: The Free Press, an 8 by 12 sheet, edited by G. L.
Curry, present governor of Oregon, and the Oregon Spectator, a 22
by 32 sheet, edited by A. E. Wait, Esq., both published at Oregon
City; besides a semi-monthly pamphlet, printed in the Tualatin Plains,
and edited by Rev. J. S. Griffin. Although all of these papers at the
time spoke of the transaction referred to, we believe none of them, excepting
the Spectator, contained the official correspondence necessary to
make out our case. We supposed, and so did many others, that all the
old files of the Spectator were long since destroyed, excepting the imperfect
one in our office. When ‘A Catholic Citizen’ called our statement
in question, we, of course, referred to our ‘file’ for proof, but to
our astonishment this particular paper was missing, although the immediate
preceding and succeeding numbers were all there, embracing
the whole summer of 1848. The missing number was accidentally (?)
misplaced, of course, and the proof of that transaction supposed to be
beyond our reach. By the kindness of a gentleman we have been furnished
with the desired copy from his own file.” (See official note and
letter as previously quoted.)


“Now, will ‘A Catholic Citizen’ contend that our statement, in reference
to the ‘large quantities of powder,’ is not fully covered by
‘seven or eight hundred pounds of powder, fifteen hundred pounds of
lead, and three boxes of guns.’


“A man who can unblushingly utter such a falsehood as he has been
guilty of, to create a public sentiment in favor of these priests, is below
contempt, and we feel our task of exposing him to be truly humiliating.
We have branded this goat with an L——, which will stick to his hide
as long as Cain carried his mark; and we now turn him out to browse
for a while with B., who wears about a dozen of the same brands,
under the pain of which we have sent him off howling. ‘A Catholic
Citizen’ may feed on ‘ferrin’ till we get time to clap the same brand to
him again, when we shall tie him up to the post and again scorch his
wool.”


In reference to the article, as quoted from the Oregon Argus, it is not
certainly known who “Catholic Citizen” is, but the impression is that
the production is from the pen of Hon. P. H. Burnett or Sir James
Douglas, and not impossible from Robert Newell, with such assistance
as he could obtain.


If from either of those gentlemen, he may have been correctly informed
as to the real owners of the munitions, but we can hardly believe[Pg 592]
Mr. Douglas or Newell would lay themselves liable to the falsehood
charged upon them, as they were in the country, and must have known
of the facts in the case. Mr. Burnett was in California, and may have
been misled by his informant. Be that as it may, the munitions were
found on their way into the Indian country in charge of the priests, and
the remarks of the editor of the Argus, W. L. Adams, Esq., shows the
true history of the times, and the continued effort of the Jesuits and
their neophytes to continue the Indian wars, to prevent the Protestant
missionary stations from being reoccupied and the settlement of the
country by the Americans, as intimated by Father Hoikin, in his letter
to his society in Brussels.


Our provisional army did not capture a single murderer or prominent
Indian engaged in the massacre, though many of them were known to
have been frequently with the priests and at Fort Wallawalla. Neither
the priests, McBean, nor the indescribably sympathizing Sir James
Douglas made the least effort to bring the murderers to justice. A part
of them were given up by the tribe,—tried and hung at Oregon City
under the Territorial government of the United states, Judge Pratt
presiding. In the trial, the same influence was used to get the murderers
acquitted that had instigated and protected them in the commission of
the crime.


The discovery of gold in California took place before our troops had
all returned; the universal excitement in relation to it caused the desertion
of a large portion of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s men, and
almost an abandonment of the fur trade in the country for the time.
They, however, still kept up the semblance of fur trade; and, at the
expiration of their parliamentary license in 1858, withdrew to British
Columbia and Vancouver Island to repeat upon their own people what
they have practiced so successfully and so long upon the Americans.


There is, connected with this foreign company, a sort of Jesuitical
suavity of manner and boasting propensity that naturally deceives all
who come within its influence.


All its titles and little performances of charity are sounded forth
with imperial pomposity. The man that does not acknowledge his
obligations to it for being permitted to remain in the country previous
to the expiration of its parliamentary license, is considered ungrateful
by it, and by such as are blind to its infamous practices.




[Pg 593]


CHAPTER LXIV.


Missions among the Western Indians.—The Cœur d’Alêne Mission.—Protestant and
Catholic missions compared.—What the American Protestant missionaries have
done for the country and the Indians.—Extent of their influence, progress, and
improvements.—Patriotism of Dr. Whitman.


Any person who has read the previous pages of this volume will
not charge us with being ignorant of missionary operations on our
western coast. Though we were but eight years connected in mechanical
and business relations with them, still we have never lost sight of
their labors, or their intellectual, moral, religious, political, or physical
operations, nor of their personal conduct, or their adaptation to the
work assigned them. We have spoken plainly our views, and impressions
of the character, conduct, and influence of all prominent men
in the country. Our main object has been to introduce the reader to
the people of Oregon at the time in which they were acting in a public
capacity. The private morals of the country have only been incidentally
drawn out by reference to a petition sent to Congress, signed by
the Rev. David Leslie, in 1840. In that document Mr. Leslie does
himself and the country an injustice, by asserting that “theft, murder,
infanticide, etc., are increasing among them to an alarming extent”
(Senate Doc., 26th Congress, 1st Session, No. 514). Those charges
Mr. Leslie no doubt sincerely thought to be true at that time, from the
occurrence of the two most serious crimes about the time he wrote.
But such crimes were by no means common.


It is often asked, What good have the missionaries done to the
Indians? If this question applied alone to the Jesuit missionaries,
brought to the country by the Hudson’s Bay Company, we would say
unhesitatingly, None at all. What few Indians there are now in the
country that have been baptized by them, and have learned their
religious catechisms, are to-day more hopelessly depraved, and are
really poorer and more degraded than they were at the time we visited
them twenty-two years since, looking carefully at their moral and
pecuniary condition then and now. In proof of which we give the
following article:—



“Cœur d’Alêne Mission.




“The old Mullan road from the Bitter Root or Missoula River to
the Cœur d’Alêne Mission, shows to the traveler little evidence that[Pg 594]
it was once explored, laid out, and built by a scientific engineer.
Decayed remnants of bridges are scattered all along the Cœur d’Alêne
and St. Regis Borgia rivers; excavations have been filled up by the
débris of fallen timber; huge bowlders that have rolled down the
mountain side, constantly crumbling masses of slate, and huge chasms,
worn or torn by the furious progress of the streams swollen by the
melting snows and spring rains, obstruct entirely the passage of
vehicles of all kinds, and render the passage of pack and saddle horses
almost impossible. In the distance of eighty miles, you cross these two
rivers one hundred and forty-six times, climb the precipitous sides of
numerous mountains, continually jumping your horses over fallen timber,
and filing to the right and left to avoid the impassable barriers
which the mountain tornadoes have strewn in your way. The gorges,
through which the road sometimes winds to avoid the mountains of
rocks that close in even to the edge of the main stream, are narrow,
and so completely shaded, that the rays of the sun have never penetrated,
and one everlasting cold chill dampness prevails. Our party
were halted for an hour in one of those passes to allow the passage of
a herd of two hundred Spanish cattle, and, although when we emerged
from the cañon we found the sun oppressively hot, I do not remember
ever to have suffered more from cold in any climate or in any altitude.
The oppressiveness seemed to spring from something besides the mere
temperature. We found but one living thing in those narrow cañons,
and that was the most diminutive of the squirrel species. There was no
song of birds or whir-r-r of partridge or grouse. It had the silence of
the cold, damp grave.


“After arriving within six miles of the mission, the cañon of the
Cœur d’Alêne opens out to about four miles in width, and you come
suddenly to Mud Prairie,—a broad, open park, with here and there a
solitary pine, and the ground covered with a heavy growth of swamp
grass, which stock will only eat when nothing better can be obtained.
Two hours more, and the mission, with its stately church (so it appears
in the mountains), suddenly presents itself to view.


“Dilapidated fences are passed, rude Indian houses made of ‘shakes,’
fields of wheat and vegetables overrun with weeds, and at last, making
the one hundred and forty-sixth crossing of the river, you halt your
hungry and jaded horses in front of the rudest piece of architecture
that ever supported a cross or echoed to the Ave Maria of the Catholic
faith. Rude though it is, when we consider the workmen by whom
it was constructed and the tools employed, the feeling of ridicule and
smile of contempt will give way to admiration of the energy and
(though I think mistaken) zeal which sustained the Jesuit fathers[Pg 595]
during what was to them, at that time, a most herculean labor. The
building is 46 by 60 feet, and 30 feet posted, and was two years in
process of construction. The workmen were two or three Jesuit
priests, assisted by a few Indians, and the reverend fathers showed me
a saw, an auger, an ax, and an old jack-plane, their only tools. It is
situated on a little elevation from the main valley. On the left is the
dwelling of the fathers, and still to the left is the storehouse, hospital,
workshop, and building for the sick and crippled recipients of their
benefactions. Around the slope of the elevation are scattered Indian
huts and tepees, and at its base lies the resting-place of departed
Indians who had died in the faith and gone to the hunting-grounds
of the Great Spirit. In front of all, the Cœur d’Alêne, seemingly
satisfied with the havoc which its furious progress had made, runs
slowly and sluggishly along. The interior of the church is a curiosity.
Here you see the marks of an unfortunate stroke from a clumsy ax-man;
there a big Indian had sawed a stick of timber half off in the
wrong place; in another spot, a little Indian had amused himself
boring holes with the auger, while the joints ‘broke’ like a log-house
before chinking. I was told that in its original construction there was
not a nail used; but lately some efforts have been made to smooth
down the rough exterior by the addition of cornice and corner-boards.


“The priests are very jealous of their claims to the territory around
the mission, and regard the unlimited control of the Indians as a right
which they have acquired by their self sacrificing labors, and as a duty
on the part of the Indians in return for the salvation of their souls and
absolution from their sins. For my part, from an acquaintance with
twelve tribes of Indians, among whom the gospel has been preached,
and the forms, mysteries, and ceremonies of the Catholic Church introduced,
I have failed to see a soul saved, or one single spark of
Indian treachery, cruelty, or barbarism extinguished. The lamented
General Wright thrashed the murdering propensities of the Cœur
d’Alêne Indians out of them. The balance of their virtues—stealing,
drinking, and supreme laziness—they possess in as large a share as they
did before the heart of Saint Alêne was sent among them. I would
like to give a favorable portrait of this mission and its occupants,
if I could. I would like to say that the reverend fathers were neat,
cleanly, intelligent, hospitable individuals, but there are too many who
travel that road, and it would be pronounced false. I would like
to say they were sowing the seed of civilization and cultivating it
successfully in the untutored mind of the poor red man, but truth
forbids. I would at least be glad that they urged upon the Indians to
obey the laws of this government and respect the property of its[Pg 596]
citizens, but must leave that task to some one who has never bought
of them horse meat for beef, and traveled for days on foot, because
they would not, from pure deviltry, sell him one horse out of a band of
two or three hundred. I say not these things with any reference
to the Catholic Church or its belief, nor am I forgetful of what I have
read of the Jesuits of St. Bernard and their acts of humanity; but
for the filthy, worthless, superannuated relics of Italian ignorance,
who have posted themselves midway between the extremes of Pacific
and Atlantic civilization, acknowledging no law save that of their
church, I have not the slightest particle of respect, and believe
with an old packer, ‘that it was a great pity General Wright had
not carried his threat into execution, and blown the den over the
range.’”[21]




[21] From the Oregon Herald of May 5, 1866.


These Indians were among the most honest, peaceable, and hopeful
of any west of the Rocky Mountains. The mission here spoken of is
the one represented by Fathers De Smet and Hoikin as their most successful
one west of the mountains. We have reason to believe that
Colonel Dow’s statements are correct, from remarks made by other
travelers, as also from Father Joset’s own confession. On the 61st
page of “Indian Sketches,” he says: “I have been here nearly fifteen
years; I am not yet master of the language, and am far from flattering
myself with becoming so. My catechist remarked to me, the other
day, ‘You pronounce like a child learning to talk; when you speak of
religion we understand you well, but when you change the subject it is
another thing,’ That is all I want, I have at last succeeded in translating
the catechism; I think it is nearly correct. You can hardly
imagine what it cost me to do it; I have been constantly at it since my
arrival here; I finished it last winter; nevertheless it is short; it has
but fourteen lessons; it is based upon the first part of the Catechism of
Lyons. This catechism is printed, not on paper, but on the memory
of the children.”


According to Father Joset’s own statement, it has taken him nearly
fifteen years to learn their language sufficiently well to teach the children
fourteen lessons in the catechism, about as much time as some of
our Protestant missionaries have consumed in translating the whole of
the New Testament, and a large part of the Old, into heathen languages,
besides establishing schools, where they teach the people to read the
pure word of God and practice its sacred principles, instead of following
the traditions of men.


Father Joset continues: “From the end of November to Palm Sun[Pg 597]day,
on which day this ceremony (children’s first communion) took
place, they had catechism at the church three times a day, and it was
rare that one missed the exercise; besides this, there was a repetition
every day, either before the chief or the catechist. I give catechism
three hundred times a year. I doubt whether there is a catechist in the
world more utterly deprived of the means of encouraging his pupils.
Some prayer beads would have been a great reward, but I could give
them nothing but a medal to each, as a memorial of their first communion.”


This reverend father, in speaking of the Church of the Sacred Heart,
as it is called, says: “It is a magnificent monument to the faith of
the Cœur d’Alênes, who have given the lie to their name by its erection.
If it were finished, it would be a handsome church even in
Europe. The design is by Father Ravalli; it is ninety feet long by
forty wide; it has twenty-eight pillars, two and a half feet square
by twenty-five feet in height; all the rest is of timber, and in proportion.”


Compare this with Colonel Dow’s description of the same building.
It will be seen, by the quotations we have given, how these “filthy,
worthless, superannuated relics of Italian ignorance” employ themselves
and the Indians under their instruction. None but a bigot or a
Jesuit will pretend that such instructions tend to enlarge, to elevate, or
civilize the savage mind. We have only to look to countries grown
old under just such teachings, to see its legitimate results.


From the Roman Catholic works before us, on the Oregon missions,
embracing over eight hundred pages, one would conclude that over
forty different tribes who have been visited by these Jesuits, in the territory
of the United States, were all converted and Christian Indians,
ready to shout, “Glory to God in the highest,” and peace all over our
Indian country. But Colonel Dow says he failed to see “one single
spark of Indian treachery, cruelty, or barbarism extinguished” among
the tribes he visited, who were taught by these priests.


De Smet, the prince and father of Jesuitism in the Indian country, as
early as December 30, 1854, five years before the Southern rebellion
commenced, communicated to his society in Brussels his approval and
desire to have all these Indians join the confederate United States, as
their last and only hope. This measure, he says, the Protestant missionaries
strongly opposed. He says, also, that Harkins, the Choctaw
chief, proposes the expulsion of the Protestant missionaries; we add,
for their strong allegiance to their government, and their opposition
to this Jesuitical confederate United States scheme (See his letter,
“Western Missions,” page 206). Such missionaries, we are forced to[Pg 598]
admit, have done no good to the Indians, and, we again repeat the
question, What good have the missionaries done?


The writer will answer, that before he left the Whitman station in
1842, there were three hundred and twenty-two Indian families among
the Cayuse and Nez Percé tribes that had commenced to cultivate, and
were beginning to enjoy the fruits of their little farms. About one
hundred of them were talking about locating, and were looking for
places and material for building themselves more permanent houses.
We have never doubted for a moment that the Cayuse, Nez Percé, and
Spokan tribes would, in twenty-five years from the time the missions of
the American Board were located among them (if let alone by the Hudson’s
Bay Company and Roman priests), have become a civilized, industrious,
and happy Christian people, ready to have entered as honorable
and intelligent citizens of our American Republic.


The unparalleled energy and success attending the efforts of the missionaries
among these two powerful migratory tribes excited the
jealousy, and aroused the extreme opposition of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, and caused them to encourage the largest possible number
of Jesuits to come to the country and locate themselves immediately
in the vicinity of those missions, and use every possible influence to
dissuade the Indians from attending the missionary schools, cultivating
their little farms, or attending in the least to any instruction, except
such as was given by the priests when they came to the Hudson’s Bay
Company’s forts for trade, as they came at stated times to the fort, before
the American missionaries came to the country. The Jesuit missionary
teaching did not interfere with the roving and hunting life of
the Indians, while the plan of settling and civilizing them proposed,
and in a measure carried out, by the American missions, did directly
interfere with the company’s fur trappers and hunters. This at first
was not so regarded, but a moment’s reflection establishes the fact.
Every Indian that became a settler, or farmer, had no occasion to hunt
for furs to get his supplies.


The moral influence of those missions upon the Indians was good:
the Nez Percé and the Protestant part of the Cayuses and Spokans
have, through all the Indian wars, remained true and loyal to the American
government, while, with perhaps a single exception, those who
have been under the opposing religious teachings have been at war with
our American people all over our territory. The Methodist missionary
influence upon the natives was good, so far as they had an opportunity
to exert any. At the Dalles it was certainly good and lasting, notwithstanding
the Jesuits placed a station alongside of them. The Methodists
were, from the commencement of their mission, interfered with in[Pg 599]
every way possible, in their efforts to improve the condition of the Indians,
and induce them to cultivate their lands and leave the hunting
of fur animals. As Rev. Mr. Beaver said of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, the life (and, we will add, the present condition and future
happiness) of the Indian race had no influence upon that company
when put in comparison with the few beavers they might hunt and sell
to them. Still the Methodist influence was sufficient, up to the arrival
of the French priests, and four years after, to keep up a flourishing
native school, notwithstanding the French half-breed children were
withdrawn from them, and placed under the tuition of the priests
on French Prairie. The result of that Jesuitical teaching is embodied
in the law disfranchising all half-breeds, except American, from the
privileges of American citizens, for the course they took in the Indian
wars against the American settlements and government. The larger
portion of them, and especially those adhering to the company and the
teachings of their priests, have gone into British Columbia, carrying
with them an implacable hatred of our people and government. As to
the good the American missionaries have done to the Indians on this
coast, we can point to-day, more than thirty years from the commencement
of their labors, to improvements, made and kept up by the Indians,
that were commenced under the direction of those missionaries. We
can point to Indian families who have strictly adhered to the Protestant
religious forms of worship taught them by the American missionaries.
We have the testimony of General Benjamin Alvord, of the United
States army, on this point. After saying (September 10, 1854) that
the Nez Percés never shared in the hostile feelings of the Cayuses,
declined to join in the war of 1847 against the whites, and have since
steadily and repeatedly refused to do so, he proceeds as follows: “In
the spring of 1853 a white man, who had passed the previous winter in
the country of the Nez Percés, came to the military post at the Dalles,
and, on being questioned as to the manners and customs of the tribe,
he said that he wintered with a band of several hundred in number,
and that the whole party assembled every morning and evening for
prayer, the exercises being conducted by one of themselves, and in
their own language. He stated, that on Sunday they assembled for
exhortation and worship. The writer of this communication made repeated
inquiries, and these accounts have been confirmed by the statements
of others who have resided among them. Thus, six years after
the forced abandonment of the mission, its benign effects are witnessed
among that interesting people.”


In addition to the above, we would add our own observations made in
1861 among those Indians. That year they were more sorely tried[Pg 600]
than ever before. Gold had just been discovered in their country, and
thousands of unarmed miners were passing and repassing all through
it. The disaffected Cayuses were among them, urging them to join and
rescue their country from the Bostons. We met some twenty-five of
the chiefs and principal men, and conversed with them in the most
friendly and familiar manner about their country and their situation;
the old scenes of the mission; the killing of Dr. Whitman and those at
his station; all the reasons assigned; the causes and the result of the
Doctor’s death, and its effect on the Cayuses. Having no disposition
to deceive them, we inquired distinctly if there was gold in their country.
They told us frankly there was, and that they had seen it, as the
Americans had taken it away. They then asked what they had better
do;—if it was not best for them to join the Cayuses, and drive the
Americans from their country. They said the agent had told them to
keep quiet, and in a few years the whites would get out the gold and
leave the country, and their buildings and improvements would be their
own. We replied: There are two things you can do. These miners will
come to your country; they are bound to have the gold. Now, you
can join the Cayuses, and go to killing them off if you choose, but you
will soon find yourselves in the condition of the Cayuses,—roving about,
without a home or country, and the more miners you kill, the sooner
you will be cut off, and your country occupied by strangers. Our advice
is, that you remain quiet and improve your farms; as fast as you can,
educate your children; become like the Americans, and live in peace
with all who come to settle, or dig gold in your country. This course
will insure you protection from the American people.


We have reason to believe this advice was followed in a measure, at
least, as no whites have been killed by them, and they remain peaceable
and friendly. In this same meeting they wished to know if Mr.
Spalding could come back as their teacher. We inquired particularly
how many of them wished him to come back, and found that a majority
of the tribe were in favor of his return. He went back as their teacher;
but we have since learned that such influences were brought to bear upon
him, as made him feel that he was compelled to leave the tribe. The
mission right of the property, as we are fully assured, has since fallen
into Jesuit hands, for the paltry sum of $500 in greenbacks. Who is
responsible for the giving up of that mission, we are unable to say. No
money consideration should ever have induced the American Board of
Missions to relinquish their legitimate claim.


We have not recently been permitted to visit the Indians at Rev.
Messrs. Walker and Eells’ station; but we have the testimony of others
in regard to the good effect of the teachings of their missionaries upon[Pg 601]
them. Major P. Lugenbeel, who was in command of New Fort Colville
for years, and also acted as Indian agent, said to Mr. Eells in 1861,
“Those Indians of yours are the best I ever saw. I wish you would go
back and resume missionary labor among them.”


Mr. Eells says, in the Missionary Herald, December, 1866:—


“Some fifteen or twenty of these Indians spent a portion of last
winter in Wallawalla. On the Sabbath a larger proportion of them
than of the citizens of the place could be collected in a house of worship.
I met them as my class in connection with the Sabbath school in the
Congregational Church. As we were allowed our share of the time
allotted to singing, we sang, in their tongue, the words which I arranged
for them more than twenty-five years ago. So far as I have learned,
their conduct in transactions with whites has been less objectionable
than that of the superior race.”


We have frequently met individual Indians from about all those
early stations, and found a most cordial greeting from them, and always
a regret that they have lost their Boston teachers.


We have always regretted the course pursued by the American Board,
in allowing those missions to be given up, as unwise and injudicious. If
the men who first commenced them had not the courage to return and
continue their labors, others should have been sent to take their places.


The Whitman Institute has come up from the ashes of that noble and
devoted martyred missionary, which to the writer looks like “white-washing
the sepulchers of the prophets” whose death we have seemed
to approve, by our silence (not to say cowardice) in not ferreting out
and exposing the authors of that crime.


Mr. Spalding has not been sustained in his recent efforts among the
Nez Percés, but feels that he has been driven away from among his
Indian brethren and disciples by Jesuit influence.


The cowardly, timid, hesitating, the half-God and half-mammon
Christian may say, What will you have us do? We answer, Maintain
the natural rights of men and Christians, and leave consequences to a
higher power.


We have thus briefly summed up the labors of the Protestant and
Roman missions, and shown the influence of each upon the Indians on
the western portion of our American continent. In further proof that
this Roman Jesuit influence tends only to the destruction of the Indian
race, I might refer to California, Mexico, and other countries where
they have had the exclusive religious teaching of the people; the result
is the same.


We know from long experience that it has always been the policy of
the Hudson’s Bay Company to place an opposing post or trader by the[Pg 602]
side of an opponent in the fur trade. The same policy was adopted,
and carried out by the Jesuits in regard to the Protestant missions in
American territory. We will be told that the Hudson’s Bay Company
people were principally of the English Episcopal Church. This is true,
and they, to satisfy the Christian sentiment of the English people,
brought an Episcopal minister to Vancouver, and allowed a few in the
vicinity of Moose Factory, when they wished to renew their fur license,
but dismissed them as soon as possible after their object was accomplished,
for reasons already stated, and introduced these Jesuit missionaries
for no other purpose than to facilitate their trade among
the Indians, and destroy the American influence in the country. But,
thank God and the energy of a free people, the country, with all its
untold wealth and prospective grandeur, is ours, and to-day, as we
hear the lightning tap of intelligence, from the Old World to Oregon,
we have not one solitary regret that thirty of the best and most active
years of our life have been spent, in contending publicly and privately,
by day and by night, in season and out of season, against that influence.
We know what it is to feel its power, as an assistant missionary,
as a settler, as a representative and as an officer of the provisional,
Territorial, and State governments. We have no complaint of personal
unkindness to us, or ours; but we feel that the withering condemnation
of every true American, and Englishman too, should rest
upon the Hudson’s Bay Company while that name is claimed by any
association of men, for the unrighteous course they have been, and still
are, pursuing.


It is obvious that to the American missionaries our nation owes an
honorable record, and the names of Dr. Whitman, Rev. J. Lee, Mr.
C. Shepard, Mr. C. Rogers, Rev. Harvey Clark, Mr. A. Beers, and Dr.
Wilson, and Mrs. Whitman, Mrs. Spalding, Mrs. Lee, Mrs. Leslie, Mrs.
Beers, and Mrs. Smith, among the dead, and many others still living,
should find a prominent place in the catalogue of noble men and women
who not only volunteered to civilize and Christianize the Indians, but
did actually save this western golden coast, to honor and enrich the great
Republic in the time of her greatest peril.


It would be ungenerous to confine the answer to our question alone
to the good that the early American missionaries did to the Indians of
our western coast. The whole country, now within the jurisdiction of
the United States, is more indebted to them than most men are willing
to admit.


The country, as all are aware, was first occupied by Astor’s Company
in 1811, followed by the Northwest Company in 1813, and by the
Hudson’s Bay Company in 1821. For twenty-three years the British[Pg 603]
Hudson’s Bay Company was scarcely disturbed by an American. No
effort was made by it to comply with the conditions of its charter, in
regard to the civil and religious instruction of the Indians, supposing
that charter to have been valid.


In 1832, the Indians themselves asked for the American missionary.
They had previously asked the Hudson’s Bay Company for religious
teachers, but they only allowed a few Indian boys to go to Red
River, there to receive a very limited English education, and return
to be employed by the company as interpreters or traders. This did
not satisfy the Indian longing for light and knowledge. The tribes in
middle Oregon resorted to the American rendezvous, and, although
there was little or no moral influence there, they discovered a more
liberal and generous spirit among the Americans than among the English
or French. This led to further inquiry as to the cause, and by some
means they concluded that it must arise from their religious notions
or worship. They asked to see the Americans’ sacred book, about
which they had heard, as it was said that book told about the Great
Spirit above. For a time they received packs of cards, but were not
satisfied,—there must be something more. They sent some of their
number to St. Louis, and as has been before stated, Mr. Catlin learned
their object, and gave the information that started the missions.


While the American missionaries were going to the country, the
American fur traders were being driven from it. Rev. Jason Lee and
associate were allowed to locate in the Wallamet Valley. He labored,
and measurably filled, gratuitously, the chartered stipulations of the
company.


As there were no women in this first missionary party, no fears were
excited as to the supremacy of the soil, or the future occupation of the
country by the company’s retired servants.


In 1836, Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding and their wives arrived,
with cattle and other material for a distinct and independent mission.
They at once commenced their labors, and sent for assistance by the
overland route. Rev. Mr. Lee received a re-enforcement by sea, with
which came a wife for himself and Mr. Shepard. Dr. Whitman and
Mr. Spalding’s associates arrived overland; more cattle were brought
across the mountains, and, through the exertions and means of
Mr. Lee and his associates, cattle were brought through from
California.


Schools and farms were opened; mills, houses, and churches built;
and more and better improvements made by the missionaries, than
were then owned by the company, with the single exception of a farm
at Vancouver.


[Pg 604]The American missionaries did not stop with the mills and farms,
nor with cattle and swine. Sheep and a printing-press were brought
from the Sandwich Islands, and soon the Indian beholds the clean white
paper made into a book, and his own thoughts and words placed before
him, and he is taught to read for himself. In the Wallamet Valley an
extensive building for an Indian boarding-school was erected, and one
for whites and half-breed children, almost entirely by the American
missionaries. A second school was started by the Rev. Harvey Clark
and his friends at Forest Grove, which is now Pacific University.
There were also private schools and churches all through the settlements,
mostly under the Methodist influence; while the Hudson’s Bay Company,
with their priests, established three schools,—one for boys at
Vancouver, one for girls at Oregon City, and one at French Prairie.
These last institutions were particularly an opposition to the American
schools.


The improvements spoken of above were accomplished within twelve
years from the first arrival of the American missionaries. This laid
the foundation for education and civilization, upon which the country
has been steadily advancing. While the Legislative Assemblies refused
to take action on the subject of education, the missionary influence was
active, and strongly in favor of sectarian schools.


In the Legislature of 1845, an ineffectual effort was made to establish
a common-school system for the country. In 1846, Mr. T. Vault, from
the committee on education, made a report recommending a memorial to
Congress on the subject of education. This is all that was done that year.
In 1847-8, the Cayuse war, the liquor question, and the gold mines excitement,
seem to have absorbed the whole attention of the Legislature;
hence the subject of education was left to the direction and influence
of the religious sects and individual effort, until the Territorial
organization in 1849, in which we find a very imperfect school law; and
the one at the present day, 1870, is no honor to our State. This, however,
is wholly due to the influence of the various sects, each seeking to
build up its own peculiar sectarian schools, thus dividing the whole
educational interests of the country to promote sectarian education.


It is to be hoped that our next Legislature will adopt a system that
will at once lay aside all sects, and place the education of our youth
upon a national, instead of a sectarian basis, honorable alike to the
State and nation. With all due credit and honor to all previous missionary
and sectarian efforts, we say, give us a national standard of
education that shall qualify our youth to become the honored sovereigns
of a free, intelligent, industrious, virtuous, and forever united
nation.


[Pg 605]We have occupied much more space than we would, in giving quotations,
knowing, as we do, the ignorance there is in relation to our
early history, and the efforts of the British Hudson’s Bay Company and
Roman Church to secure the exclusive control of Oregon. We will
here give an article which we find in the Missionary Herald. The
writer says:—


“While it is apparent from the letters of Dr. Whitman at the
missionary house, that, in visiting the Eastern States in 1842-3, he had
certain missionary objects in view, it is no less clear that he would not
have come at that time, and probably he would not have come at all
[which we know to be the case], had it not been for his desire to save
the disputed territory to the United States. It was not simply an
American question, however,—it was at the same time a Protestant
question. He was fully alive to the efforts which the Roman Catholics
were making to gain the mastery on the Pacific coast, and he was
firmly persuaded that they were working in the interest of the Hudson’s
Bay Company, with a view to this very end. The danger from this
quarter had made a profound impression upon his mind. Under date
of April 1, 1847, he said: ‘In the autumn of 1842-3, I pointed out to
our mission the arrangements of the Papists to settle in our vicinity,
and that it only required that those arrangements should be completed
to close our operations.’”


To the statement of Dr. Whitman as here quoted from his letter to
the Board, we can bear positive testimony. He did point out to his
associates all the dangers to which they were exposed.


“Dr. Whitman evidently regarded his visit to Washington, and his
success in conducting the immigrants of 1843 [eight hundred and
seventy-five souls] across the Rocky and Blue mountains, as settling
the destiny of Oregon. In the letter just referred to, he said, ‘It may
be easily seen what would have become of American interests in this
country, had the immigration of 1843 been as disastrous as were the
immigrations of 1845 and 1846.’ [In both those years the route which
he had selected was abandoned for another.] In confirmation of this
opinion, we find a writer in the Colonial Magazine using this language:—


“‘By a strange and unpardonable oversight of the local officers,
missionaries from the United States were allowed to take religious
charge of the population; and these artful men lost no time in introducing
such a number of their countrymen as reduced the influence of
the British settlers to complete insignificance.’”


The above quotation from the Colonial Magazine is but a repetition
of evidence already given from other English testimony, relative to[Pg 606]
their determination to hold the country. We also have the expectation
of Chief-Factor A. McDonald, as expressed in 1842 to Rev. C.
Eells: “He also gave it as his opinion that if England should obtain
the desired portion of Oregon, it would be made over to the Hudson’s
Bay Company.” He thought that fifty years from that time, the Hudson’s
Bay Company’s descendants would be the only occupants of the
country. Dr. Whitman, in expressing an opinion upon the same subject,
thought that fifty years from that time they would not be found.


In the closing remarks of the article from which we have quoted the
above, there is a strange mixture of truth and ignorance. The writer says:
“It is not too much to say, perhaps, that Dr. and Mrs. Whitman lost
their lives in consequence of the success of the endeavors already
described. The immigrants of 1847 carried diseases into the Indian country,
which proved very fatal to the aborigines. Some became suspicious
of him; some were exasperated; and a few affirmed that he was poisoning
them with his medicines, to get them out of the way. It is believed
by many, moreover, that the Roman Catholics were in a measure
responsible as directly or indirectly, for the catastrophe of Wailatpu.
But it is inexpedient to discuss this question at the present time.”


It is evident from this last quotation, that Sir James Douglas’s letter
for the information of the Board of Missions produced its desired effect;
and it is only from the recent statements respecting that transaction,
that the Board have allowed the subject to come before them; they
have asked and received from the most cautious missionary they have
ever sent to the country, a statement of the facts in the case. He has
complied with their request, and the result is a repetition of the slander
of the murdered dead. We are unwilling to believe that the Rev. Mr.
Treat, D. D., in this closing paragraph, intended to give the impression
that he believed the statement; yet we can not understand his object
in reporting the statement made to blast the character of a good man,
and to shield his murderers from the punishment due to their crime;
leaving the impression upon the mind, that it was the Indian superstitions
alone that were the cause of the massacre. Those who have read
the foregoing pages will not be deceived as to those causes. Mr. Treat
should have given us the benefit of his authority for that statement, as
we are assured by the Indians themselves that there is not one of them
that ever believed those reports till they were affirmed by the priests,
and even then they doubted. We have been several times among the
Indians of that tribe; and were present at the first consultation held
with them by Indian Agent R. R. Thompson in 1853, and took particular
pains to inquire as to their belief in that matter. I could not find
one, even among the Roman Catholic Indians, that would say he[Pg 607]
believed that Dr. Whitman did as he is represented by the priests and
the company to have done. The Indians invariably told me that the
priests, Finlay, Stanfield, Joe Lewis, or Mr. McBean said so, but they
believed Dr. Whitman was their friend, and their hearts had wept and
cried because they had consented to his being killed.


It was to develop the facts and influences operating in our early
history that we commenced to write. It does not matter to us
whence a statement comes or by whom it is made, if it does not correspond
with the facts in the case, we intend to give what we conceive
and firmly believe to be the truth; letting such as are ignorant of the
facts, or have been deceived by commercial, religious, or sectarian statements,
judge as to the correctness or truth of our conclusions.


A great crime has been committed in our land;—a poor, ignorant, and
harmless and comparatively innocent people, have been charged with
committing it through “superstitious prejudices,” which, if the very men
who make the charge are to be believed, fixes the crimes upon their own
heads, for they tell us that they were unharmed amid the scenes of
blood and murder, while gathering up the remains of the first missionary
victims and consigning them to a common grave. Their messengers
pass and repass all through the country, and mingle freely, and
“rejoice” that the ignorant murderers will come to them for advice,
which is cheerfully given, and a pledge made to assist them to avoid
its consequences; while the commercial party in this great crime is
handing over to the murderers munitions for defense, and to continue
the slaughter of American settlers, the Jesuitical party is confirming
the doubtful mind of the Indians in the justness of the crime they have
committed. Such were the parties seeking to control our destiny from
1834 to 1849, and such as we have quoted are the sentiments of men
high in giving direction to truth and righteousness in a great nation
in 1866-7.


We feel, and admit, that our task has been most difficult and arduous,—to
seek out and bring to light the truth in relation to events so
momentous, and consequences so important to the interests of this
western part of our continent. It would be far more gratifying to us
to dwell upon the pleasing and happy influences and incidents that
float upon the surface of society; but these are commonplace and the
natural growth of circumstances, such as the most careless could
scarcely fail to observe.


Oregon was ours by right of discovery, exploration, and cession; as
well as settlement by Astor in 1811-12. A foreign monopoly, having
knowledge of the American Fur Company’s weakness and danger, paid
a nominal price for its goods and possessions, and has held and[Pg 608]
robbed the country, as by its own statements, of twenty million
pounds sterling, in profits. As we have before stated, that company
dared not use the same instruments at first, to drive out or destroy the
missionaries, that it had used against fur traders and hunters. The
Indians regarded the American missionaries as teachers sent from God,
and received them, and protected them, till forced by the teachings
and influence of their masters to attempt to cut off the American
settlement.


The English people, as a whole, charge the American missionaries,
and justly, with being the means of their losing Oregon. They also
charge the Hudson’s Bay Company, wrongfully, as favoring the American
settlement of the country. Dr. John McLaughlin, all honor to his
name and memory, told his superiors in London the truth, when he said
to them, “Gentlemen, as a man of common humanity, I could not do
otherwise than to give those naked and starving people to wear and to
eat of our stores. They were not our enemies. I did what I thought
was right, and must leave consequences to God and the government,
and if you insist upon my compliance with your rules in this particular,
I will serve you no longer.”


Contrast this noble sentiment of Dr. McLaughlin, though a Canadian-born
subject and supporter of the Roman Catholic faith in the country,
with that of his successor, Sir James Douglas, who refused supplies to
punish the murderers and protect the American settlements, he having
been an officer under the provisional government, and taken an oath to
protect and defend it.


Did it conflict with his duties as a British subject? The reason assigned
by him for his refusal was, “the stringent rules laid down for his
government by the home company,” which the noble old Canadian said
he would resign his position sooner than obey.


It is not difficult to see that Oregon, during the existence of the provisional
government, was a country possessing peculiarly interesting
relations to the two nations who were claiming its allegiance and sovereignty.
Had the Hudson’s Bay Company been true to its own
country, and encouraged the settlement of loyal British subjects in it,
there is no question but, with the facilities and capital at its command,
it could have secured the country before an American settlement
could have acquired any strength in it. The same was the case with
California. One or two ships a year from 1835 to 1840, or even 1846,
leaving out the Roman and Jesuit missionaries, could have brought
substantial English families with their English chaplains, and formed
their colonies and absorbed the American missionary settlements in it,
and no one would have questioned their right, or attempted to[Pg 609]
defeat them; but the £7,000 or more of clear profits in the fur trade,
and native associations, were too strong. The country becomes valuable
in its estimation, as others have improved and developed its wealth.
The natives with the furs of the country were the only source of wealth
to it, and especially to the home company in London. If the least
possible credit is due to it from any source, it is for its stupidity
and ignorance as to the real value of the country, of which no one can
give a true history without developing the avaricious character and
degrading influences and proceedings of that company; for it had,
as we remarked at the commencement of our history, and as every one
knows, the absolute control of it up to the organization of the provisional
government in 1843. Those influences were active and in full
operation up to 1842, when it was discovered, by Dr. Whitman and a
few others, that the whole country was about to pass into the hands of
the English, as was asserted by the over-zealous priest at Wallawalla:
“The country is ours! America is too late! They may now whistle.”
An American heard, and to hear with him was to act. “If the Board
dismisses me, I will do what I can to save Oregon to my country,” was his
remark to us, as he gave his hand and mounted his horse, to see what
could be done at Washington. The result of that trip was the delay
of the boundary question and an immigration and settlement, that no
Hudson’s Bay and Jesuit exterminating combinations have been able to
overcome or drive from the country.




[Pg 610]


CHAPTER LXV.


Description of the face of the country.—Agricultural and mining productions.—Timber.—The
Wallamet.—Columbia.—Dalles.—Upper Columbia.—Mountains.—Rivers.—Mineral
wealth.—Climate.—The Northern Pacific Railroad.—Conclusion.


Thus far I have confined myself to the history of the Hudson’s Bay
Company, the early settlement of the country, its public men, the provisional
government, adverse influence, and the American and Jesuit
missions. We will now proceed to describe its geographical and
physical position and value.


Previous to the treaty of 1846, all that portion of country lying south
of the Russian possessions, west of the Rocky Mountains, and north of
California, was called Oregon. By that treaty the 49th parallel was
constituted the boundary line between the United States and the
British possessions.


In the act of Congress passed August 14, 1848, the boundaries were
thus defined: “All that part of the territory of the United States which
lies west of the summit of the Rocky Mountains, north of the 42d degree
of north latitude, known as the Territory of Oregon, shall be organized
into, and constitute a temporary government, by the name of
The Territory of Oregon.” Unfortunately, though our national Congress
contained many noble, intelligent, and talented men, none of them
knew any thing about the country they were defining as Oregon Territory.


Thomas H. Benton, about this time, made his famous Oregon speech.
In it he declared that all north of the 49th parallel of latitude was only
fit for the poorest and most meager animal existence; that it was the
“derelict of all nations,” not fit for the subsistence of civilized man.


This impression of Mr. Benton was received from high British—and
no doubt he thought the most correct and reliable—authority. In fact,
in the mind of this, and many other of our statesmen, the entire territory
was of but little value. It is scarcely necessary to say whence this
impression arose, and for what purpose it was so persistently kept before
the minds of our most eminent statesmen. The immense fur trade of
the country, carried on at a nominal expense, was too profitable to allow
the truth to be told, or an experiment to be made, to show the value
of the soil, or the amount or variety of its productions. The soil, like[Pg 611]
the furs and the natives, must be misrepresented, neglected, and slandered,
that it may yield its silent income to avarice and idleness.


The American missionary arrives in the country, and is assured by
the Hudson’s Bay Company that but a very small portion of the country
is susceptible of cultivation; that no extensive settlements can ever be
formed in it. These statements are made by men who have spent their
lives in the country, and say they have tested the qualities of the soil
faithfully, and found it to be unproductive. The missionaries partially
believe these statements, and communicate to their friends in the east
their doubts as to the extent and richness of the arable land in the
country. In the mean time they must provide for their own subsistence.
The Missionary Boards that sent them out are not able to pay the prices
demanded for a continual supply of such food as can be raised in the
country. This they knew and were prepared for it, and at once commenced
to experiment upon the soil for themselves. Their first effort
astonishes and delights them. Instead of a hard, barren, unproductive
soil, as they had been told, it proves to be a light rich clay loam all
through the Wallamet Valley, and in the interior, a dark, mellow, inexhaustible
alkali soil, of the richest kind, and, when properly cultivated,
very productive.


The missionary experiments are continued and extended. They
soon begin to send glowing accounts to their friends of the richness of
the valleys of Oregon—eight hundred bushels of potatoes, or from thirty
to sixty bushels of wheat, to the acre. The American trappers and
hunters gather into the Wallamet Valley, around the Methodist Mission.
The Canadian-French, British subjects, who have become worn out and
unprofitable to the company, are permitted to locate in the same valley,
but, with the clumsy and imperfect farming implements furnished them,
and their ignorance of farming, they were not able to accomplish much,
and are still referred to, as proof of the worthlessness of the country.


The American settler comes in, and proves the truth of the missionaries’
large farming stories, and finds that he can do, with two yoke of
oxen, what it required six to do in the Mississippi Valley—his labor
producing double pay. He is more than satisfied—he is delighted—with
the soil, the climate, and country, and reports his success to his friends.


By this time a few peaches and apples have been produced outside
the inclosures and garden of Fort Vancouver, which convinces the
American settler that fruit can be produced in Oregon; and soon we
find every known variety to be profitably cultivated.


Timber.—The fir, spruce, and hemlock are superabundant, all along
the coast range, from California to Puget Sound. The fir, pine, oak,
ash, and maple are abundant in the valleys of the Wallamet and Cow[Pg 612]litz,
and on the western slope of the Cascade range of mountains; there
is also an abundance of pine, fir, oak, and maple on the eastern slope.


The Wallamet Valley is from forty to sixty miles wide, and one
hundred and eighty long. It has less timber land than fine level
prairie; through which winds with its tributaries the beautiful Wallamet,
skirted all along its banks and level bottoms with cotton-wood,
ash, alder, oak, fir, yellow pine, yew, and soft maple, with a small
amount of cedar. This river has its source in the Umpqua Mountains;
and its tributaries in the Coast and Cascade ranges,—the main river
running north, or west of north, till it joins the majestic Columbia.
Its meandering streams, and valleys composed mainly of prairie interspersed
with groves of oak, pine, fir, and cotton-wood, make up a scenery
which for beauty and loveliness can not be surpassed. The Cascade
range on the east is dotted, at intervals of from a hundred to a hundred
and fifty miles apart, with towering, snow-capped mountains from
15,000 to 18,600 feet high, and is cut at right angles, midway between
the California Mountains on the south, and Mount Baker on the
north, by the great river of Oregon, the noble Columbia, which forces
its resistless current over its rocky bed, till it finds its way to the
ocean.


Ascending this river from the ocean, for sixty miles, to the mouth of
the Cowlitz, we find it lined on either bank with lofty and dense forests
of spruce, hemlock, cedar, and fir, with scarcely a sign of prairie; from,
this up, the timber is interspersed with prairie, till we enter the Cascade
Mountains, one hundred and twenty-five miles from the ocean, and
ten below the Cascade portage, which is five miles long,—now made
by railroad; thence to the Dalles is thirty-eight miles, making fifty
miles of the roughest and grandest river and mountain scenery on our
continent.


Old ocean in its mightiest heavings is but a placid lake, when compared
with this fifty-five miles of mountain roughness, grandeur, and
sublimity, from various points of which may be seen Mounts Baker,
Rainier, St. Helens, Adams, Hood, and Jefferson, with others of
less note, all raising their lofty heads above the regions of perpetual
snow.


Prominent among them stands Mount Hood, about thirty miles south
of the Columbia, towering to the height of 18,600 feet, with his everlasting
white cap on, and overlooking the lovely valleys of the Wallamet
to the south and west; the Columbia and Cowlitz to the west and
north; and the great upper basin of the Columbia to the northeast,
east, and southeast. From the Dalles we ascend this mighty river
fourteen miles by rail, where the water has worn its crooked course[Pg 613]
amid solid basaltic rocks to unknown depths, not exceeding a hundred
and fifty feet in width, causing the river, in discharging its annual
floods, to rise at this point over eighty feet in perpendicular height.


At the end of the railroad the steamboat receives the traveler, when,
as he ascends the river, the land on either side diminishes in height, till
he reaches Castle Rock; seventy-one miles above the Dalles. This is a
lone pile of basaltic rocks having the appearance of an old castle in the
midst of a great plain to the east, south, and west of it.


A large portion of this plain, lying along the river, is of course gravel
and sand, dry, and comparatively barren; yet producing the artemisia,
sage, and a luxurious growth of wild mustard in the early spring; with
but little grass, and abundance of the low sunflower.


The lands back from the river are high rolling prairie, covered with
rich bunch grass, having a light soil composed of pulverized basaltic
sandstone.


This soil, to the eye of the careless observer, though it is thickly set
with the bunch grass, generally appears barren and worthless; yet, with
irrigation, or with winter grains, or grasses adapted to the soil, it can not
be exhausted.


Twenty-five miles above Castle Rock stands the thriving little town of
Umatilla, at the mouth of the river of the same name, and nine miles
above is Windmill Rock. In ascending the river fifteen miles from this
place, the land on either side rises to some fifteen hundred feet above
the level of the river which occupies the entire bottom from rocks to
rocks on either side; when the land suddenly drops from this high
plain which extends from the Blue Mountains on the east to the Cascade
range on the west, forming, as it were, a great inland dam across the
Columbia River, fifteen hundred feet high at the place where the river
has broken through the dam. As you pass out of this gap, in looking
to the north and east, the eye rests upon another vast, high, rolling
plain, in the southeastern part of which lies the beautiful valley of the
Wallawalla. At the upper or eastern end was situated the Whitman
or Cayuse Mission. Some six miles above is the flourishing town of
Wallawalla. The most of this vast, high, rolling plain, and especially
the valleys, have more or less of alkali soil; the high plains are
similar to those we have just passed,—destitute of all kinds of timber,
except at the foot of the mountains, and small patches of willow and
cotton-wood, in some little nook or corner, near some spring or stream.


Imagine Wallawalla a little east of the center of a great plain one hundred miles
wide, east and west, one hundred and eighty long, north and south, situated
just inside of this great mountain dam we have described; with
the majestic Cascade range of mountains on the west, the Blue Moun[Pg 614]tains
on the east, and this vast open plain covered with bunch grass, and
no tree in sight, except upon the mountains; you can then form some
idea of the middle Columbia plains. Ascending to the north one hundred
miles, over the same high rolling plains, you begin to find the yellow
pine and larch; not in dense forests, but scattering trees, the ground
beneath being covered with a species of coarse, wild grass. These
woods form a delightful change to the traveler after riding for days
beneath the scorching rays of a summer sun. As you near the forty-ninth
parallel, the timber increases in size, quantity, and quality. The
soil is light, and, when the frosts of winter give place to the sleet and
rain of early spring, forms a soft, deep mud, till the ground becomes
settled, which is generally about the first of May; then all this vast
country is in full bloom, with its myriads of beautiful wild flowers.


The northern portion of Oregon, now Washington Territory, is
beautifully interspersed with timber and prairie, in good proportions,
and has a rich clay soil.


The whole country abounds in trap-rock and granite, singularly
mingled with basalt. Near the mouth of Spokan River is found a
splendid variety of marble; some sections of it are of a pure white, while
others are beautifully clouded with blue, brown, and green. The face
of the country is not so uneven as that further south.


Some sixty miles south of the forty-ninth parallel, we come to the
mouth of the Okanagon River, which is the outlet of a chain of lakes in
British Columbia, from which it takes its name; it has an extensive and
rich valley for settlement.


At Colville, in the vicinity of the Kettle Falls, on the Columbia, are a
United States military post, the Hudson’s Bay Company’s post, and a
considerable settlement. Some fifteen miles from the mouth of the
Spokan, and sixty from Kettle Falls, was located the Cimakain—or Rev.
Messrs. Walker and Eells’—Mission. About sixty miles in a southeasterly
direction is the Cœur d’Alêne Italian Jesuit Mission.


Turning to the north, east, and southeast, we enter the gold and silver
mountains of the Pacific Slope; this range is cut through by the Snake
River, or south branch of the Columbia. Millions of dollars’ worth of
treasure is taken out of the mines within these desolate and barren-looking
regions, and untold millions still await the miner’s toil. The
reader will remember that we are now traveling east. This range is,
on the north of Snake River, called Salmon River Mountains, and on the
south, the Blue Mountains; thence, on to the southern portions of Oregon,
it joins the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges, bends to the west,
and, near the forty-second parallel, runs into those vast promontories
that jut into the Pacific Ocean.


[Pg 615]Passing through this range of Salmon River and Blue Mountains,
which are not as high as the Cascade range, we descend into the great
basin of the Rocky Mountains, which is intersected by high, broken
ranges running east and west for about three hundred miles, to what is
usually called the top of the Rocky Mountains, and the eastern boundary
of this vast basin. The principal rivers which flow into and
through this immense plain, are the Boise, Snake, Portneuf, Owyhee,
and their tributaries. On the north is Clarke’s or Flathead River,
which runs northwest into the Columbia, near the northern boundary
of the United States.


In all the northern portion of this great inland mountain plain there
is an extensive placer and quartz mining country, besides numerous rich
farming valleys, with an abundance of timber for all practical uses; most
of the rough, rocky ranges of mountains being covered about half-way
up their sides with timber, till you reach the open prairies along the
main valley.


To the south, and along Snake River, are the high barren sage
plains, extending from the Rocky Mountains on the east to the Blue
Mountains on the west.


There are large tracts of arable land in the region just described,
though to the weary traveler coming from the green plains of Kansas
or the valley of the Wallamet, every thing looks forbidding and desolate,
especially during the dry season. But remove the sage from any
of these dry, barren places, and the rich bunch-grass takes its place.
As well might the farmer expect his wheat to grow in a hemlock wood
or cedar swamp, as for any thing but sage to grow on these plains till
that is destroyed. Hence, from the experiments we have made on the
soils of which we have been speaking, we are confident that the greater
portion of the country now and for years past pronounced barren and
useless, will be found, with intelligent and proper cultivation, to rank
among as good lands as any we have, and probably more desirable. As
to timber, that must be cultivated till it becomes accustomed to the soil.
Cotton-wood is found in small quantities all over this plain, in the
vicinity of streams and springs. The northeastern part of this basin is
Montana; the southwestern is Idaho. The mineral wealth of this country,
especially that of north Idaho and Montana, is inexhaustible. Gold,
silver, copper, iron, lead, cinnabar, and tin, are found in abundance in
these Territories, and in eastern and middle Oregon.


“Owyhee Bullion.—John A. Post, internal revenue collector, furnishes
the following resumé of the bullion product from January 1 to
November 1, 1866, as assayed by different parties. The figures are
greenback valuation:—


[Pg 616]






January $36,632 81


February 62,874 00


March 15,640 85


April 11,959 25


May 34,570 34


June 46,224 44


July 46,456 26


August 177,704 15


September 293,921 53


October 371,173 13


 ——————


Total $1,073,256 78




“During the early part of the year, Mr. Post says, there was a great
amount of treasure sent out in various shapes, of which he could get no
account. To the foregoing must still be added the many tons of ruby,
silver, polybasite, etc., shipped just as it came from the Poorman mine,—enough,
at a rough estimate, to increase the total to fifteen hundred
thousand, at least. It is safe to say that the product of the present year
will be two millions, and that of next year go beyond five millions.”[22]




[22] From the Oregonian.


“Treasure.—There has been shipped from this city during the past
year, the sum of $8,070,600 in treasure. The amount passing through
private hands may be safely estimated at $3,000,000.”[23]




[23] From the Portland Herald.


We take the following from an official report to the Secretary of the
Treasury, a copy of which has been sent to Congress:—


“From the best information available, the following is a near
approximation to our total gold and silver product for the year ending
January 7, 1867:—






California$25,000,000


Nevada20,000,000


Montana12,000,000


Idaho6,500,000


Washington1,000,000


Oregon2,000,000


Colorado2,500,000


New Mexico500,000


Arizona500,000


Add for bullion derived from unknown sources within the States


and Territories, unaccounted for by assessors and express


companies, etc.                   5,000,000


—————


Total product of the United States$75,000,000




“The bullion product of Washington is estimated by the surveyor-general
at $1,500,000. That of Oregon is estimated at $2,500,000. In[Pg 617]telligent
residents of Idaho and Montana represent that the figures given
in the above estimate, so far as these Territories are concerned, are entirely
too low, and might be doubled without exceeding the truth. The
product of Idaho alone, for this year, is said to be $15,000,000 to
$18,000,000. That of Montana is estimated by the surveyor-general at
$20,000,000. Similar exceptions are taken to the estimates of Colorado,
New Mexico, and Arizona.”


The climate varies in the three sections of country we have described,
exactly in the ratio of soil and timber. On the coast, contiguous to the
ocean, we have more rain than we require. Like our superabundance
of the tallest and best of fir-timber, there is so much of it that we would
be glad if we could divide with the second and third places we have
described. We have enough rain and timber to supply all the country;
and perhaps, when we can cut down our tall trees, that filter the rain
out of the clouds, they may get more and we less. Be that as it may,
our winters are mild and rainy, our summers cool and pleasant, with
sufficient rain and ocean mist to supply the vegetable creation with
abundant moisture.


In middle Oregon the winters are mild and frosty, with a small
amount of snow—seldom severe; farmers should feed stock a month
or six weeks; summers warm, and sometimes sultry in July and
August; rains in the spring and late in the fall, scarcely enough for
the farmers’ use.


In the eastern plain or great mountain basin, the winters are cold and
dry, snow and frost severe. Snow seldom falls to exceed two feet in
depth,—average winters, eighteen inches,—but it falls deep upon the
mountains and remains till it is melted by the warm winds and sun of
early summer, causing the summer floods. The principal rise in the rivers
is during the mouths of June and July. Less rain, spring and fall, than
in middle Oregon; summers dry and hot. In the northern part, the
country is better supplied with rain. This may arise from the ranges
of the mountain currents of air and the winds from the South Pacific
Ocean along the inland plains, and the cool atmosphere around our
snow-clad mountains. We will leave further speculation on this point
to those who have had more experience in such matters than ourselves.


Taking the country as a whole, with our inexhaustible gold, silver,
and other minerals; our extensive farming valleys; our vast forests of
timber upon the borders of an ocean comparatively destitute of this
essential element of civilization; there is no plausible reason why this
western portion of the United States may not in a few years become the
abode of industrious and thriving millions.


[Pg 618]The Northern Pacific Railroad.


The following article on the Northern Pacific Railroad is from the
pen of Mr. Philip Ritz:—


“Having spent most of the last year in traveling through Washington,
Idaho, and Montana Territories, and having crossed the continent
in midwinter, partly on both of the great railroad routes, and at the
earnest request of Ex-Governor Smith, of Massachusetts, who is president
of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, and of some members
of Congress, I compiled, while in Washington, the following statistics,
on the practicability of the Northern route:—


“On the first section of the country from Puget Sound, there are
two routes, both practicable; one via the Columbia River, to the mouth
of Snake River; the other via Snoqualmie Pass and Yakima River, to
the same point. On either route there will not be much heavy grading.
There is on this section an abundance of the finest timber, excepting
on that part of the Columbia from the Dalles to Snake River, and a
short distance of the route from Yakima to the mouth of Snake River.


“The second section, lying between the Columbia River and the
Bitter Root Mountains, a distance of about two hundred and twenty
miles, is over a rolling prairie country, with splendid grazing, and fine
timber on the Spokan River, a distance of about one hundred miles.


“On the third section, which includes the mountainous part, a
distance of two hundred and fifty miles, and lying between the 116th
and 112th degrees of longitude, the grading will, in places, be heavy,
and will require three or four short tunnels. This will include the
entire Rocky Mountain district, the work on which will be heavy, but
not more difficult than on the Baltimore and Ohio road, between the
Ohio River and Harper’s Ferry. On this entire section there is an
abundance of the finest timber. On this section there is considerable
good wheat land, as has been proven by the fine crops raised in Hell
Gate Valley last season.


“This extends from the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains to
Lake Superior, a distance of about one thousand and ten miles. The
route here passes over a rolling prairie, susceptible of settlement the
entire distance.


“It will be seen that the entire distance on this route, between the
head of Lake Superior and Puget Sound, is about 1,810 miles, and that
there is scarcely a mile of the entire country but will eventually be settled.
It is much shorter than any other route across the continent,
connecting navigable waters. The mountains are much lower and the
country much more fertile. It is really the only easy pass across the[Pg 619]
American continent, for it is the only part of the continent where two
large rivers rise immediately together and flow in opposite directions—the
Columbia cutting its way entirely through the mountains on a water
level to the Pacific; and the Missouri connecting with the great plains
bordering on the lakes. The Rocky Mountains at this point are really
so low, that the miners, last summer, actually took large streams in
ditches from the waters of the Missouri, over the divide to the Pacific
side for mining purposes. In consequence of the low passes through
to the Pacific, the climate is warmer than it is in the mountains in
the latitude of Salt Lake City, 400 miles due south. I crossed the
summit of the Rocky Mountains near Deer Lodge Valley, in Montana,
on the 17th of December. There was no snow; the roads dry and
dusty, and the weather mild and pleasant, and none of the streams
frozen over. When I reached Salt Lake City, the snow on the Wasatch
and Rocky Mountain ranges was twenty-six inches deep, and the night
we crossed the Wasatch range, the thermometer stood at ten degrees
below zero, and Green River and all those streams in the mountains
had been frozen over six weeks, so that the stage rolled over on the
ice. Such was the difference in the climate of the two routes. The differences
in the real wealth and resources of the two routes is perhaps
even greater than that of climate. The central route, after it leaves the
mining country of Nevada, around Virginia City, passes up the Humboldt
country toward Salt Lake, for a distance of 500 or 600 miles, over
the most desolate and barren country on the American continent. The
country has neither mines, timber, nor any other redeemable quality
about it. Salt Lake Valley is a small and rather fertile valley; the only
fertile spot for hundreds of miles. From Salt Lake City to Denver, a
distance of six hundred miles, the route lies over an alkali and sage plain.
On the other hand, there is not one mile on the northern route that does
not either furnish timber, grazing, agricultural lands, or minerals, and,
in some instances, all together. Montana is just in its infancy; its mines
scarcely prospected; and yet, last season, according to the report of
the Treasury Department, Montana stood second on the list in the
amount of gold produced; California producing $25,000,000; Montana,
$18,000,000; Idaho and Colorado, $17,000,000 each; and Nevada,
$16,000,000.


“The mountains of Montana are a perfect net-work of quartz ledges,
immensely rich in gold and silver. Five years from this time, I believe
there will be as much as $40,000,000 of gold and silver taken from the
mines of Montana per year; more than one-fourth enough to build and
equip the Northern Pacific Road, ready for use. There are also immense
mines of coal, iron, copper, and lead, in the country. The north[Pg 620]ern
route crosses but one range of mountains, and that at a point which,
so far as the experience of white men have gone, is known to be as passable
in winter as the Michigan Central Railroad. In deciding the question
of relative distance, we must consider the entire distance between
Liverpool and Canton. Say the mean latitude of the North Pacific
route is 46 degrees, and of the Central 37¼, and a difference of nine degrees
exists. Now a degree of longitude (longitude contracting as we
approach the poles) is about six miles shorter on the former than the
latter. There are 240 degrees of longitude between Liverpool and Canton;
this makes the navigator’s distance, on the line of the North Pacific,
1,440 miles less than the Central. This longitudinal difference is
quite an item. This difference in distance is not the only item in favor
of the northern route. It is an established fact that every sailing vessel,
bound directly from San Francisco to Hong Kong, comes up to, and
even beyond, the latitude of Puget Sound, before striking directly west,
in order to take advantage of the wind currents of the Pacific Ocean.
Time, these days, being an important consideration in commercial
transactions, the argument would still be in favor of the North
Pacific route, admitting rates of transportation to be equal on both
lines. But these rates would not be the same, even if the distance of
the two were equal, for the reason that the country would be self-supporting
on nearly every mile of the Northern route, while on the Central,
for hundreds of miles between Salt Lake and Nevada, not a tie
for the track, nor a stick, nor a pound of coal for fuel can be had. All
these things must be brought from abroad.


“Now, owing to adventitious circumstances,—the discovery of the
precious metals in California, Nevada, and Colorado, and the settlement
of Mormons in Utah,—the bulk of local business seems to be on the side
of the Central route. But Montana will soon outstrip California in the
yield of gold; besides, the route passes through a country susceptible
of settlement all the way from Lake Superior to Puget Sound, and
there is no doubt but that five years hence there will be as much local
business through Minnesota, Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and
Oregon, as through Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California.
Accident gives the Central route the present pre-eminence; nature insures
the Northern the final victory.


“It is not generally known, the large amount of business that was
done in Montana last season. From May, 1866, to October 1, 1866,
C. C. Huntley carried, on his line of stages between Fort Benton and
Helena, 2,500 passengers, and during the same period 9,500 tons of
freight passed from Benton to Helena; 4,375 freight-wagons passed
over the same route; 45 steamboats, with passengers and freight,[Pg 621]
arrived at Fort Benton from St. Louis and other points in the east, and
this, be it remembered, is the first season that this trade has been carried
on to any extent, and also, that this is but one point in the Territory.
It is really the commencement of a great trade, that will require
a vast capital, and employ the energy and industry of a large number
of persons.


“There are no less than four lofty ranges of mountains to cross on
the Central route, the Rocky Mountains, at Bridger’s Pass, being the
most passable crossing; the Wasatch, the Humboldt, and the Sierra
Nevada are barely passable in summer. By the way of Pen d’Oreille
Lake, on the Northern route, freight can be taken from the Columbia
to the Missouri nearly all winter. Another advantage possessed by
the Northern route is, that at present the distance is less than 600 miles
between the head of steamboat navigation on the Missouri and Snake
rivers, and when the boats are completed which are now building on
the Pen d’Oreille Lake and Clarke’s fork of the Columbia, the land
travel will be reduced to about 390 miles.


“Did time and space permit, I might give further proof of the superiority
of the Northern route. In my comparative reasoning, I have
made these distinctions with no invidious feeling. The sooner San
Francisco is connected by rail with New York, the better for Washington
and Montana, in common with all the mountain regions. It is
gratifying to see our friends to the southward prosecuting their enterprise
with so much vigor. But I am perfectly satisfied in my own mind
that the time will come when the trafficking wealth of Europe and Asia
will be poured across the mountains and valleys of Washington and
Montana Territories.


“Our prospects, it is true, look rather dull here at present, the whole
energy of the Pacific coast being concentrated in building the Central
road, and for a short time we may expect dull times. The attention of
capitalists can not be diverted from this enterprise much longer, and
when once fully examined, there will be millions of capital ready to
invest in it.


“Let us open up the Mullan road and the lake route, and all other
routes to the Missouri River, and invite travelers and emigrants to
come this way and see the advantages of this northern country, and
then we will have no trouble in getting money to build a railroad.”


CONCLUSION.


As the reader will have discovered, we commenced our history with
Oregon as it was in 1792. With the single exception of the feeble
effort made by Mr. Astor in 1810-11, and Captain Wyeth in 1834-5,[Pg 622]
no one ever attempted any thing like an organized opposition to the
British fur companies on the Pacific coast.


In regard to Captain Wyeth, we admit with Mr. Newell that he was
driven from the country “not by fair and open competition in the
trade,” and that he is entitled to much credit for his discernment and
forethought in leaving when he did, for if he had not accepted the
terms offered to him by Dr. McLaughlin, that gentleman said to us that
the company would have insisted on other means being used to relieve
its trade from his competition, so that whatever credit or honor there
is due in the case belongs to Captain Wyeth’s judgment and decision
in accepting such compensation as the company chose to give, and not
to the company for giving it; for it was that, or a crime to be committed
in getting rid of him and his party; and, as in the case of Smith
and Dr. Whitman, to be charged upon the Indians.


As Americans, we must not conclude that it could do a dishonorable
or mean act to our traders, hunters, missionaries, or even settlers.
No one must presume to think that the Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company
would ever conduct any but an honorable trade, or engage in any
but an honorable business, in the country; notwithstanding, its own
countrymen charge it with having seized and sunk vessels belonging
to them, by running them ashore in Hudson’s Bay; robbed and fought
with the Northwest Company before they combined their interests; and
had its own Governor Semple killed in fighting for its interests, besides
all its transactions with its own countrymen; this would be
ungenerous and mean in the estimation of men unable to distinguish
between a selfish and a generous act, or a cause and a crime of civilized
and savage men.


Missionary efforts were first made in the country by Rev. Jason Lee.
He, being a Canadian-born subject, was received with less objection
than Rev. Messrs. Parker and Spalding, and Dr. Whitman; but, as has
been shown, the English people expected to hold the country by the
power and influence of their Hudson’s Bay Company.


The company, as such, could not act against the American missionaries
as it did against American traders and hunters; hence, the
Episcopal or Established Church influence from London was made use
of, and a clergyman sent to Vancouver. While missionary operations
were confined to the Wallamet Valley this was sufficient, but when
those efforts were extended to the Cayuses and Nez Percés, and efforts
were being made to establish missions further north by another responsible
religious society, the company became alarmed for its profits
by the fur trade; and by one of its own unprincipled, dishonorable,
as well as hypocritical arrangements, under the specious pretense of[Pg 623]
having religious teachers to look after the moral and religious instructions
of its Canadian-French Catholic servants, it sent for, and continued
in its service, the very religious order of the Roman Church
that was at that time proscribed by the laws of the country from which
it held its license. This showed the moral principle by which it
was governed in relation to its own country. The interests of its
trade were paramount to all moral principles or religious teachings;
and while it was professing warm friendship for one religious sect,
it was encouraging secretly and openly an opposite and strongly
bigoted one, to divide and distract the moral and religious sentiments
of the ignorant natives; claiming for itself an exclusive monopoly
in trade, as being beneficial to the Indian race, which was admitted
by all. This was the moral and religious condition of the whole
country when the American settlers came to it. They, with the American
missionaries, combined in forming a provisional government, and
established a quasi independent American republic, with the condition
that, whenever the United States government saw fit to extend its jurisdiction
over the country, this temporary government should cease.


The English and French united with us in this organization, on condition
that they should not be required to do any thing that would
conflict with their duties as subjects of Great Britain.


The reader will perceive that, in carrying out the plan laid down in
our preface, we have been obliged to give the Hudson’s Bay Company
a prominent place in our history, as we have had to meet them in every
step of our progress.


No history of Oregon can be written, without acknowledging the
immense influence that company held in the country, and the zeal and
energy it put forth, in counteracting American ideas and influence.
It was its original design to colonize and secure to the British crown
all the countries which it might explore and occupy. And had it
carried out that design, no American effort could have succeeded in
securing the country to the government of the United States. But
from a selfish, short-sighted, and mistaken policy; and a blind perception
of its asserted commercial rights, privileges, and powers, it
“hunted up” the country, and expected to secure to itself undisturbed
possession of the northwestern part of the continent.


For this purpose, while it was destroying the valuable fur animals
in what is now United States territory, it was protecting such as
were to be found further north; and by this means continued the
enormous profits of its trade, for a series of years longer than it otherwise
could have done. The discovery of gold on the Frazer River
in 1858, the rush of miners, and the organizing of British Columbia,[Pg 624]
partially checked this fur company, and led to the formation of a
sickly colony strangled in the embrace of an avaricious monopoly. To
counteract the American and Protestant missionary efforts, it brought to
Oregon the Roman and French Jesuits. To compete with the Americans
in stock and agricultural products, it originated the Puget Sound
Company. To outnumber the American settlers, it brought on a colony
of half-breeds from Red River.


While by the influence of its Jesuits it could destroy one branch
of the Protestant missions, and bring on an Indian war, the settlement
had gained strength sufficient to maintain independence without
its aid.


While the country has increased in population and wealth, this
English monopoly has been decreasing in power and influence.


While the Protestant religion has continued to widen and deepen
its hold upon the American people, the Papal superstition has increased
among the Indians, thus rendering them more hopelessly depraved,
and consigning them and their descendants to unending superstition
and ignorance, or to utter oblivion as a race, to be superseded by an
enlightened Christian, American people.


With unfeigned thanks to all who have assisted us in this work, we
take our leave, hoping the facts we have given will be useful, and
abundantly reward the reader for his time and money.[Pg 625]




TRANSCRIBER NOTES:


Punctuation has been corrected without note.


Footnotes have been moved closer to their reference point.


"Corrections" noted at the beginning of the book may have been incorporated in a previous edition. None of these have
been changed for this project.


"Hudson Bay Company" changed to "Hudson's Bay Company" without note for consistency.


Page 63: "Kingdon" changed to "Kingdom" (from the United Kingdom).


Page 67: duplicate word "to" removed (who went to London).


Page 75: "monoply" changed to "monopoly" (a commercial monopoly) and (to the fur monopoly).


Page 86: the table regarding propery values has several either typos and/or incorrect calculations based on the text preceding. Corrections of typos have been made to match the preceeding text, however, the total dollar amount stated in the next paragraph is incorrect and has not been changed.


Page 128: "supppose" changed to "suppose" (I suppose by this expression).


Page 177: "bring" changed to "bringing" (bringing with them to Fort Hall).


Page 210: "foregn" changed to "foreign" (generous to a foreign monoploy).


Page 221: "sufficent" changed to "sufficient" (a sufficient number to command).


Page 246: "sufferered" changed to "suffered" (suffered for willful murder).


Page 249: duplicate "of" removed (repetition of the threats made).


Page 294: "peace'" changed to "peace's" (for some peace's sake).


Page 315: "souyht" changed to "sought" (prize they sought).


Page 332: "scull" changed to "skull" (but none in the skull).


Page 359: "how" changed to "now" (Any person now holding).


Page 374: duplicate "their" removed (starvation was their only portion).


Page 376: "peculiary" changed to "peculiarly" (so peculiarly republican and in accordance with).


Page 449: duplicate "only" removed (not only by giving in).


Page 487: "surpise" changed to "surprise" (Here, to our surprise and terror).


Page 495: "though" changed to "through" (and through the French half-breed).


Page 504: "victms" changed to "victims" (sustaining them among their deluded victims).


Page 507: duplicate "that" removed (said that they had forgotten all this).


Page 514: "Witman's" changed to "Whitman's" (slept in Dr. Whitman's room).


Page 582: "againt" changed to "against" (that assassin struck not against).


The original book included a list of errata which has been applied to the text.  The original list of errata is below.


ERRATA. (From original text)


Page 526, 11th line from top, for "becamed," read "became."


Page 568, 6th line from bottom, for "Moxon," read "Maxon." Also on pages 570 and
573 the same error occurs.


Page 583, 19th line from top, for "that British," read "that the British."


Page 592, 7th line from bottom, for "propriety," read "propensity."


Page 602, 7th line from top, for "where," read "when."


Page 613, 4th line from bottom, for "ten," read "one hundred."