Authentic account of the murder of Dr. Whitman and other missionaries, by the Cayuse Indians of Oregon, in 1847, and the causes which led to the horrible catastrophe

Front matter

Copy 2 .UTHENTIC ACCOUNT

OF THE

MURDER OF DR. WHITMAN

II Second Kditioii

PORTLAND, OREGON: S. J. IMcCORMIICK, FXJBLISKER.

issued in 1853, has become exhausted; some of the priucipal witnesses of the Indian massacre at Dr. Whitman's station have left the country ; many of them are dead — a new community has sprung up in the land. Still there are found those amongst us whoso prejudices, even at tjiis remote day, are so strong as not to yield before the penetrating rays of truth ; whose minds will not be satisfied with the unchangeable and irrefutable evidence of disinterested witnesses, and whose spleen against the Catholic church, and all that pertains to her creed, her pastors and her people, findsvcnt in the shape of ^' resolutions" without reason,'^ paragraphs without point, and anonymous newspaper articles without responsibility.

It being not only impracticable, but distasteful, to the author to undertake the task of replying to the open or covert attacks thus made upon questions of veracity long since settled, ho has included in the present work all the evidence relative to the massacre of Dr. Whitman and others, by the Cayuse Indians, published in his former pamphlet, together with an appendix, wherein will be found additional irrefutable evidence which has since emanated from sources beyond the suspicion of partiality, some of which we deem worthy of special reference.

The Eev. Gustavus Hines, I). D., (extracts from whose History of Oregon are given in. the appendix) is an influential minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, ,and his evidence alone, aside from the testimony adduced from numerous other equally reliable sources, should bring conviction to the minds of all impartial men, who desire to learn the truth of history. Dr. Hines' w.ork was first issued in 1850, three years after the lamenta-

•i-See resolutions adopted by Congregational Assotjiation of Oregon, July, 1869.

THE WHITxMxVN MASSACRE. 5

blo tragedy at i)r. Whitman's mission ; the vvork has passed through several editions, finding its way into every State in the Union, and the author, encouraged by the success ^Yhich was justly accorded his first effort, has issued a recent work upon the Institutions of Oregon, yet the truths he published in 1850 have stood unchallenged for nearly tv/enty years, showing the remote causes which led to the massacre of so many innocent people, and clcarl}^ exonerating, the Catholic missionaries from the foul charge sought to be fastened on them.

The letter of Sir James Douglas, Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Co., (who was residing at Yancouver at the time of the massacre at Dr. Whitman's station, and who upon learning the sad newsiramediatelj^ dispatched a large force of their emploj-es, under charge of Peter Skeen Ogde-n, to the scene,. for the purpose of preventing further atrocities) will also be found in the appendix. The opinions so strongly expressed in this letter were based upon information received from Mr. Ogden, Mr. McBean, clerk at Fort Walla W^alla, (the nearest post to the &ceue of the murder) and other reliable gentlemen attached to the Hudson's Bay Company. It is thei'efore strictly impartial, detailing the circumstances which led to the sad catastrophe in plain, Unvarnished language, and expressing the united opinions of men well qualified by education and years of experience, to judge the Indian character.

The evidence adduced by these and other disinterested witnesses, together with the facts reite\-ated from the former publication, cannot fail of bringing conviction to every candid mind, that the murder of Dr. Whitman and his associates was premeditated, matured and determined upon by the evil-disposed Indians among the Cayusc nation, long before the arrival of the Bishop of

WalLa Walla and his mission^aries. In proof of this assertion, we need only recur to the files of the "Oregon, American "and Evangelical Unionist," a periodical issued during 1848, at Tualatin Plains, in Washington county, and edited by Rev. J. S. GrifTm. In the fourth number of this periodical we find over the signature of Rev H. H. vSpalding an article from which we learn the fact that a Kez Perces Indian inquired of him prior to the massacre if Dr. Whitman was not killed ; but little attention was paid to the question ; Mr. Spalding, however, mentioned the matter to Dr. Whitman, Mr. Kimble, and others at the station. "TTe considered it a reiteration of what had been said for a long time — a ball can j^enetrate your body. * ;!c * * rpj^^ Doctor in one of his

visits had discovered Tamahas (called the murderer from having killed several Indians) who had just before lost his wife, and who was the person that afterwards, with two blows upon the head laid our lamented brother bleeding senseless, but not lifeless, upon the floor) in rather a suspicious attitude. From that time the Doctor had been cautious. But there were no inflammatory meetings among the chiefs, as there had often been. For instance, when they returned from California, two years ago, after the death of the Walla Walla Chief, several meetings were held to consider whether Dr. Whitman, myself or some other American teacher should be killed as a set off for Elijah."

It must also bo borne in mind that on several occasions previous to the massacre, the Cayuse Indians had made assaults upon and threats against the missionary station at Wailatpu, and the ferocity of the character of the Ca3^use8 is clearly established by Sir James Douglas, who knew them well, and who declares them to be "the most treacherous and intractible of all the Indian tribes in this country, and who had on many former occasions alarmed the inmates of the mission by their tumultuous proceedings and ferocious threats."

In order to show more fully the precarious position occupied by the white settlers ia Oregon, previous to the year of the Whitman massacre, we insert an extract from the message of Governor George Abernethy to the Legislative Assembly of Oregon Territory, convened at Oregon City, December, 1847 :

'' Our relations with the Indians becomes every year more embarrassing. They see the white man occupying their land, rapidly filling up the country, and they put in a claim for pay. They have been told that a chief would come out from the United States, and treat with them for their lands ; they have been told this so often that they begin to doubt the truth of it ; at all events, they say, ' he will not come until we are all dead, and then what good will blankets do us? We want some-. thii:|g now.' This leads to trouble between the settler and the Indians about him. Some plan should be devised by which a fund can be raised, and presents made to the Indians of sufficient value to keep, them quiet until an agent arrives from the United States."

-^ven as early as 1835, some of the missionaries settled in Oregon and engaged in civilizing the Indians, were in danger of being murdered in consequence of the death of one of the Indian children attending school. The circumstances were as follows: "A boy whose name was Ken-o-teesh. belonging to the Si-le-Iah tribe, was re- 'ceived into the mission in April, and died on the 19th of the following August. A few days after, his brother determined to seek revenge for the death of Ken-o-teesh, by taking the life of Daniel Lee and Cyrus Shepard."*

•*lliaes' History of Oregon, p. 14.

8 THE WIIITMxlN MASSACRE.

This fact illustrates the If.clian creed of '' life for life, °^ and proves that it required no " priestlj^" influences to urge them on. to murder, inasmuch as no Catholic missionaries had then arrived in the Willamette valley.

Again, in 1836, "We-lap-tu-lekt, an Indian of the Cayuse tribe-j" went to the Willamette mission, "where he placed his two sons, desiring to have them educated. He had traveled with the missionaries, and desired them to settle in his country, but they^uot acceding to his request, he determined upon bringing his family from east of the Cascades to the Willamette mission. This he accomplished early in September, 1836. • Some of his children attended school, and appeared to be making rapid progress; but in February, 1837, his family began to suffer with disease. Two of his children died in quick succession, and a third was fast sinking with a burning fever. We-lap-tu-lekt was frightened, and supposed that all his children would die, if he did not leave the place. He accordingly fled in a canoe, but just as he lauded at ' Fort Vancouver, on his way to his mountain home, another of his children died. "These repeated deaths in one family,'' remarks Hev. Mr. Hines, from whose history of Oregon we glean these facts, " and the fact that most of the mission children were sick, and some had died but -recently, began to create a prejudice in the minds of the Indians against having their children remain with the mission, and after this it was not so easy to procure and retain them."

So that as early as 1836, eleven 3'ears before the massacre, « pr^jVZfce was created in the minds of the Indians against the American' missonaries, and that, too, among the very tribe that afterwards conlmittcd the brutal murders. Of course, the fact of children dying

fThe same tribe that murdered Dr.^ Whitman.

THE WHITMAN MASSACRE.

natural deaths could have no weight in forming opinions in the minds of intelligent, civilized men, but, with poor untutored savages, who could see no tangible cause for such unprecedented mortality, among their children, particularly when placed under the care of white men, the case was entirely altered, and in the terrible rcven^% which they afterwards per^^etrated upon the Whitman station, they doubtless sought to avenge the deaths of all their kindred and children who had perished, as they imagined, through the instrumentality of the whites,during long years of association.

Again, in 1838, wo are told by the Eev. Dr. Hines that '• a fearful mortality " raged among the children that attended the Methodist mission school. About one-tfdrd of all the children that had been received had died — a ratio of mortality that was almost nnprecedented in the annals of any country undergoing the change from barbarism to civilization.

Still again in 1842, a fatal disease carried away many of the children, others ran awaj^, and- some v/ere stolen by their parents, until but few were left, and these witherino; under the influence ot the fatal scrofula.

Finally, we find that in 18-13, the Indians, not only of the Willamette valley, but those of Eastern Oregon, were seriously disaffected towards the whites. Mr. Hines, treating on this subject, says;

'' About this time the Indians became quite troublesome in various parts of the country. At Wailatpu, on the Walla Walla river, where a missionary station had been established by Dr. Marcus Whitman, they took advantage of the Doctor's absence and broke into the house in the dead of night, and even into the bed-chamber of Mrs. Whitman, who, with much difficulty, escaped from their hands."

10 THE WIIITMx^N MASSACRE.

The reader vtiII bear in mind that this outrage upon Mrs. Whitman was perpetrated by the Cayuse Indians, nearly four years previous to the arrival of Bishop Blanchet, the author, and the other Catholic missionaries at Fort Walla Walla.

Such experience as illustrated in the foregoing calamities was not 53alculated to awaken a very warm love for Amei'ican missionaries in the breasts of savages who came for the first time in contact with white men, and found in such union almost certain death to their children.

True, all the Indian children who died through the "fearful mortality '^ which raged in the Willamette mission school were not of the Oayusc nation ; but these deaths, taken in connection with the " fearful mortality " which subsequently carried off whole tribes of Indians east of the Cascade mountains, had doubtless created prejudices in the minds of the Cayuse and other Indian tribes which were immeasurably unfavorable to the American missionaries. It will be borne in mind that the Cayuses, allied with other tribes, threatened the destruction of the whites prior to 1842. Again in that year they threatened to massacre the whites settled in Oregon in consequence of suspicions which were implanted in the minds of the Indians that the whites designed '• to destroy them and take possession of their country.^' The arrival of a large party of emigrants about this time, and the sudden departure of Dr. Whitman for the United States, with the avowed intention of bringing back with him as many as he could enlist for Oregon, served to hasten them to the above conclusion. Thus the Indians saw 'in Dr. Whitman the chief cause of bringing so many whites into their country, for the purpose, as they imagined, of destroying their liberties and their lives, and of occupying their lands, and this conviction in their minds, " strong as holy writ," led them, in conjunction with other causes, real and imaginary, to perpetrate a foul murder, that fell with double force upon the hearts of the Catholic missionaries, from the fact not only of the horror it created in their minds, the loss of their property, which the Indians burned when they abandoned their mission, but it also endangered their own lives, and was the cause for many years of preventing the Catholic missionaries from planting the standard of the cross among other Indians adjacent to the Cayuse nation, who passed away in the same paganism in which they lived, in consequence of no Catholic missionaries being amongst them.

A charge has also been brought against the Catholic missionaries that they carried arms and amunition to hostile Indian bands. This is not only untrue, but the charge is prompted through the basest feelings of malice, and made with the hope of prejudicing the Catholic cause. The facts in the case are simply these : The Catholic missionaries who had established themselves among the Flat-heads, Cour-de-alenes and other Indiana of the mountains, were annually in the habit of visiting the settlements for the purpose of laying in their supplies for the ensuing year. Among the more necessary articles indispensible to those who live in the region of the Eocky Mountains, is powder and shot, to be used in procuring game during the long and dreary winter regions where they have to live sometimes six months in succession upon venison or other game. The Indians have, since 1840, been well supplied with arms; but their supplies of amunition would become exhausted, and it became a question of life and death — not only to the missionary himself, but also to those with whom he resided, and all the Indians in his vicinity — whether he returned from his annual trip with or without amunition. So great was the necessity for amunition among the Indians, and so well were their necessities in this respect understood by the early settlers in Oregon, that Governor Abernethy — in his message to the Legislative Assembly which convened early in 1849 — asked the Legislature to repeal an act which had been passed at a previous session, forbiding persons selling or conveying arms and amunition to Indians, and gave as his motive for this request the following cogent reasons : " As many of the Indians live by hunting, and a small quantity of powder aud Jead is actually necessary to provide for their wants, I think the law should be modified so as to permit the sale of powder and lead to friendly Indians." It was for this purpose — and this alone — that the Catholic missionaries included powder and lead in their annual supplies — but these supplies were intended for their own peaceable Indians — as no Catholic missionary — under any circumstance ever conveyed munitions of war to hostile bands of Indians at war with American settlers upon American soil. This, I hope, finally disposes of this slander which the enemies of Catholicity have for years rolled under their tongues as a " sweet morsel."

Finally, this unfortunate massacre stands- in the records of history as another evidence of the unstability of the Indian charactei;', especially when operated upon by superstitious fears arising from the conviction among the Indians that their country, their property, and their very existence even, was endangered by the influx of Americans. It is characteristic of Indian justice to consider as forfeited the life of the Doctor or " Medicine Man" who fails to eifect a cure, or whose patient dies whilst under his treatment. In this connection it will be borne in mind that the wife' of Tamahas (the mur^ derer) who killed Dr. Whitman, died whilst under the Doctor's treatment a short time previous to the massaqre, and farther, it i^ an established fact that Dr. Wliitman had discovered Tamahas in a suspicious attitu(Je, a few weeks anterior to his death. These facts establish a predetermination ou the part of Tamahas and his accom-. plices in his murderous work, and were doubtless among the principal causes which led to the horrible butchery which followed.

The candid reader will also bear in mind that of all the Indians who imbrued their hands in the irnnocent blood of the Presbj^terian missionaries, not one among them prof essed the Catholic faith, and in order to exhibit the character of the Cayuse Indians, we need only refer to the opinion expressed by a correspondent of the Oregon American, who says :

" The Cayuses had become a praying people. In almost every lodge the family altar was erected.- No doubt on the morning of the bloody 29th the murderers were scrupulous to observe their morning devotions — • again at evening, while the dead bodies of the slain lay unburied, the food of the fowls of heaven and the beasts of the earth. One of the actors of this horrible scene was a member of our church, and while he held one of the captives as his wife, the sport of his brutal passions, he was careful to have morning and evening prayer, and to read a portion of the scripture from his book which we printed while he was iu our school at Clear water."*

Taking these facts, in connection with other equally

*A missionary station among the Nez Perces near the present site of Fort Lapwai, Idaho, and under charge of Mr. Spalding. 2 important and convincing evidence, no impartial mind can be warped into the conclusion that the Catholic missionaries were in the remotest degree, responsible for the atrocities at Dr. Whitman's mission. Aside from the horror which pervades the mind of every christian when contemplating the horrible sacrifice of human life, the natural current of events even, preclude the possibility of any collusion between missionaries of one faith, and Indians of another. The Catholic missionaries had never interfered with the Cayuse Indians under charge of Dr. Whitman and his associates. They could have no possible influence over them, either through spiritual advice or temporal friendship. Bishop Blanchet and the other Catholic missionaries arrived at Fort Walla Walla, in September, 1847, where they remained until the 28th of November, at which time they opened their first mission among the Umatilla Indians (not one of whom was concerned in the murder) at a distance of twenty-five miles from Dr. Whitman's station. At a council of the Chiefs of Indian tribes located along the banks of the Columbia between the Dalles and Walla Walla, called for the purpose of ascertaining the wishes of the several chiefs relative to having Catholic missionaries among them. Bishop Blanchet had peremptorily refused the oifer of some of the Cayuse Chiefs to dispossess Dr, Whitman. At a subsequent period, the writer reiterated to Tilokaikt (one of the chiefs of the Cayuse nation, who had tendered the mission lands) the refusal of the Bishop, ^and again rejected the offer. In order to set this matter visibly at rest, the writer proceeded at once to the camp of the young Chief (a Cayuse Indian who had been converted and who for several years had been expecting Catholic missionaries) and there entered upon his missionary labors, occupying a

THE WHITMAN MASSACRE. i^

house that had been erected for the Youno- Chiof u gave the missionaries the use of it. Thu "t wiU I; ° ce.ved that the Catholic mission was locate ^L^X from Dr. Whitman's mission-among Indians som^ of whom were already CathoKes, but not one ofTvLnf was concerned in the massaerp Ti,„ ,

Whitman „r„u,- ""''"'^ssacie. 1 ho murder of Dr Whitman and his associates occured on the 29th of No vember, one day after the Catholic mission was com' menced. It may here be reasonably asked whL . .' influence could the Catholic mission:?es-e:n fso

whom tl^ " '"""'!' "''"■ " *"'^« «f Indians among whonx they never resided, and whose lodges were twen ty-five miles distant, to induce them to perpetrate the fou murder of thirteen innocent people ?' The fnswer IS plam-neither time nor circumsLies could poX

wrth the Indians who committed the massacre To hmk otherwise is not only repugnant to ever.f Ii„ Jof

christian charity, but of common sense °

With these remarks the author presents the present volume to the reading public, believing that the perusa of Its pages will not only prove interesting to the Z eralread<.._contaii:ingas they do a trajc chap eft the early history of this coast, and embracing in^Ments of frontier ife sufficient to interest the studfnt of h"

ory-but this little work may also prove its u til I by dispelling the atmosphere of prejudice into which Tome mmds may have unthinkingly wandered, and briL" home to their better nature the pure lighi of hietori^

Walla Walla, August, 1869.

THE WHITMAN MASSACRE.

A deplorable event signalised the autumn of the year 1847 in Oregon, and brought consternation to all hearts. The 29th of November, Dr. Marcus Whitman, Presbyterian missionary among the Cayuses, his wife and eight other Americans, fell victims to the barbarity of the Indians, and three others shared the same fate a few days afterwards. For a time all the people apprehended that the fury of the savages would not stop there, but, that after having made new victims of the women and children who remained alive at the station, passing from tribe to tribe, it would excite suddenly all the neighboring Indians and bring them at once upon the Willamette settlements.

The Catholic Bishop of Walla Walla and his clergy, stationed in the neighborhood of the place of the disaster, togethpr with the clerk in charge of Fort Walla Walla and some other persons, were however so fortunate as to quiet by degrees, through their influence, their advice and their repeated solicitations, the fury of the Indians, and save the lives of the widows and orj^hans, until Mr. P. S. Ogden, one of the chief Factors of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver, came up to Fort Walla Walla, and having bought them from the hands of the Indians, had the consolation and glory of bringing them down in safety to the Willamette. The efforts both of the gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Company and of the clergy, had also the good effect of preventing for a time the Indians from carrying their hostilities any farther.

The causes, both remote and immediate, of the disaster, were clear, and left no doubts in the minds of unprejudiced persons, who knew the history of these countries, and the dispositions, prejudices, and superstitions of the Indians. It Avas evident that the ravages caused amongst them by the measles and dysentery, together with false reports and advices of a vagabond who was in the employ of Br. Whitman, were the only motives that urged the Indians to that act of atrocity, inclined as they were to believe these reports from the suspicions and dissatisfaction that they had been for a long time entertaining against Dr. "Whitman in particular and the Americans in general.

But a certain gentleman, moved on by religious fanaticism, and ashamed of owing his own life and that of his family and friends to some priests, began to insinuate false suspicions about the true causes of the disaster — proceeded by degrees to make more open accusations, and finally declared publicly that the Bishop of Walla Walla and his clergy were the first cause and great movers of all the evil. The gentleman is the Eev. H. H. Spalding, whose life had been saved from the Indians by a priest at the. peril of his own.

His first insinuations were so malicious and their meaning so well understood, that Colonel Gilliam and his troops, about starting for the purpose of chastising the murderers at Wailatpu, said publicly that the priests, missionaries of the Cayuses, w^ere deserving death, and that they would shoot or hang the first one of them they should meet. A letter, however, written to Colonel Gilliam by the Bishop of Walla Walla, and some explanations given by a priest to him and to the Commissary, General J. Palmer, before they started for the upper country, satisfied them, and the Colonel declared then that "Mr. Spalding could not have spoken so without being crazy," and Gen. Palmer said that " he ought not to be allowed any more to go among the Indians." A relation of the principal circumstances of the awful deed, which Colonel Gilliam himself had asked of one of the missionaries of the Cayuses, dissipated completely his prejudices against the priests, and from that moment to his death he did not cease to be one of their best and most sincere friends.

il

Hon. P. H. Burnett being aware of the different accusations made by Mr. Spalding, in his conversation and preaching, and of the unfavorable impressions that they were producing upon persons ignorant and already prejudiced, asked him in 1848, to give him in writing the charges he had made and the testimony which supported them, in order that he might see ^vhat means of defence the accused could employ.

That demand was followed sometime afterwards by the publication of a letter from Mr. Spalding and of his '•' History of the Massacre at Wailatjou" in the Oregon American. These writings, intermixed with editorial notes in the same sense, contain many grievious accusations against the clergy and the Catholics in general. Mr. Burnett then began in the Oregon American an answer that he intended to pursue, w^hen the cessation of the journal obliged him to suspend it.

Judging then that it w^ould be to the interest of religion that the public should be informed of the truth in that matter, in order to destroy the bad impressions which such atrocious accusations might have made on the minds of some persons, I have considered it my duty, as a priest, to resume the task of Mr. Burnett and to restore the facts which have been misconstrued by Mr. Spalding and others. Such is the origin and the design o± this writing. It was prepared in the fall of 1848, but circumstances did not allow me to have it published for the first time until the year 1853.

I show first the causes of the massacre of Wailatpu. I give next a min,ute journal of the principal events that occurred in the Walla Walla country from the arrival of the Bishop and his clergy there until the moment they left that country for the Willamette settlements, and I conclude by a summary of all the principal charges made against the Catholic clergy by Mr. Spalding, the Oregon American, and others, up to the month of October, 1848, with an answer to each of them.

An appendix has also been added wherein will be found many documents confirmatory of the evidence inserted in the body of the work.

CHAPTER I. The remote and immediate causes which led to the IVJiif

man 7nassacre

That events had occurred prior to the arrival of Bishop Blanchet and the other Catholic missionaries at "Walla Walla in 1848, which ultimately led to the unfortunate tragedy at Dr. Whitman's station will appear evident to every unprejudiced reader who calmly considers the following facts : —

I. Mr. McKinlay, the intimate friend of Dr. Whitman, had been for four or five years in charge of Fort Walla Walla. During his stay there, being aware of the evil dispositions of the Indians towards the Doctor, he warned him very often that he was in danger, that the Indians hated him, and that he had better go away, because he was afraid they would kill him. After he left the Fort he did not cease to advise him every year to leave Wailatpu, telling him that if he persisted in remaining there, the Indians would certainly kill him sooner or later.

II. Some years ago, prior to 1848, Dr. McLaughlin, then Governor of Fort Yancouver and of all the establishments of the Hudson's Bay Company west of the Rocky Mountains, judging by some difficulties which Dr. Whitman had with the Indians, that it was dangerous for him to stay any longer among them, wrote to him to urge him to leave his mission, at least for some time, and to come down to the Willamette, telling him that he feared the Indians would kill him if he should persist in remaining among them under such circumstances. A copy of that letter was inserted in the journal of Fort Vancouver.

III. Mr. R. Newell — agent among the Nez Perces Indians — who lived many years with the Nez Perces, and who had an opportunity of knowing the Cayuses well, often said to Dr. Whitman that he ought to leave Wailatpu, because the Indians hated him and would kill him. He told me iiimself, speaking of Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding, that he was astonished they had stood so long. " Mr. Spalding would have been killed long ago, said he, if it had not been for his wife, who was very much Kked by the Indians."