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 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 Perces 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 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 Perces, 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.
"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 PERCES, 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]
[Footnote 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 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 Gilliam, 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:--
"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 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 Perces 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 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.
"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 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 canon, which was close by. We charged upon them, killed one, took two females prisoners, and several horses; the rest escaped into the canon, 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 canon, 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 canon, 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 canon, at the Meek crossing. On the 30th, ten A.M., as they entered the mouth of the canon, the Indians appeared on the 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. 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 Perces,--Joseph and Red Wolf,--with several prominent Indians of the Nez Perces, 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 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 Perces. 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 Perce 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 Perces. 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."
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 Perces 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. 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."
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 Perce country. Serpent Jaune, chief of the Wallawalla tribe, had visited the commissioners, and decided on remaining quiet; the Nez Perces 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."
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 Perces 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 PERCES, 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 Perces 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 Perces, 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 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 Perces, 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 Perces for supplies than the Nez Perces, 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?
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 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.'
"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 Perces, 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 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 I 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.
"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 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, 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 dispatched 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 Perces 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 Perces, are awaiting the American forces, to fight them on the Nez Perces, 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).
"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 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 Precis 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 Perces, the Cayuses, the Yankamas, the Coeur d'Alenes, 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 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 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 hierarchy 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 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 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.
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.: Coeur d'Alenes, 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 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]
[Footnote 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, 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 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.'"
"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 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.
"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 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 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.
Chapter LXIV
Missions among the Western Indians.--The Coeur d'Alene 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:--
"Coeur d'Alene Mission.
"The old Mullan road from the Bitter Root or Missoula River to the Coeur d'Alene Mission, shows to the traveler little evidence that it was once explored, laid out, and built by a scientific engineer. Decayed remnants of bridges are scattered all along the Coeur d'Alene and St. Regis Borgia rivers; excavations have been filled up by the debris 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 canon 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 canons, 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 canon of the Coeur d'Alene 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 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 Coeur d'Alene, 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 Coeur d'Alene 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 Alene 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 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]
[Footnote 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 Sunday, 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 Coeur d'Alenes, 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 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 Perce 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 Perce, 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 Perce 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 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 Perces 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 Perces, 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 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 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 Perces, 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 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 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.
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.
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 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 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 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 defeat them; but the L7,000 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.
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 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 Cowlitz, 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 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 Mountains 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 Coeur d'Alene 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.
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 resume of the bullion product from January 1 to November 1, 1866, as assayed by different parties. The figures are greenback valuation:--
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]
[Footnote 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]
[Footnote 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 Nevada 20,000,000 Montana 12,000,000 Idaho 6,500,000 Washington 1,000,000 Oregon 2,000,000 Colorado 2,500,000 New Mexico 500,000 Arizona 500,000 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. Intelligent 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.
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 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 northern 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 37-1/4, 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, 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, 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 Perces, 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 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, 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.
* * * * *
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 have not been incorporated.
"Hudson Bay Company" changed to "Hudson's Bay Company" without note for consistency.
page 19: "by" added (would not be made slaves by the King George warriors).
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 property values has several either typos and/or incorrect calculations based on the text preceding. Corrections of typos have been made to match the preceding 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 monopoly).
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 323: duplicate "and" deleted (Messrs. Eells and Walker).
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."