A History of Oregon, 1792-1849 Part 57

"On the 11th of December we had the affliction to _hear_ that one of the captives had been carried off from the Doctor's house by the order of Five Crows, and brought to him; and we learned that two others had been violated at the Doctor's house."

How seriously these holy fathers were afflicted, Miss Bewley has told us in language not to be misunderstood. Her statement continues:--

Last summer, when I was teaching school near Mr. Ba.s.s, the tall priest, whose name I have learned was Brouillet, called on me, and told me that Mr. Spalding was trying to ruin my character and his, and said that Mr.

Spalding had said that I had told him (Mr. S.) that the priests had treated me as bad as the Indians ever had. I told him I had not said so.

He said he wanted to ask me some questions, and would send the Doctor, who could speak better English; he wished me to write it; I told him I would rather not do it. When at the Umatilla, the Frenchmen told me that they were making arrangements to locate the priests,--two at Mr.

Spalding's as soon as Mr. S. got away, and two at the Dalles, and they were going to the Doctor's next week to build a house. This conversation was before Mr. Ogden arrived at Wallawalla.

Q.--Did Dr. Whitman wish to have Joe Lewis stop at his place?

A.--He let him stop at first only because he said he had no shoes nor clothes and could not go on; but when a good many, on account of sickness, had no drivers, the Doctor furnished Joe with shoes and shirts, and got him to drive a team. He was gone three days, and came back, but the Doctor never liked it. I heard Mrs. Whitman and the Sager boys say that Joe Lewis was making disturbance among the Indians.

Q.--Did you ever hear the Doctor express any fears about the Catholics?

A.--Only once; the Doctor said at the table: "Now I shall have trouble; these priests are coming." Mrs. Whitman asked: "Have the Indians let them have land?" He said: "I think they have." Mrs. Whitman said: "It's a wonder they do not come and kill us." This land was out of sight of the Doctor's as you come this way (west of the station). When the Frenchman was talking, at Umatilla, of going to build a house there, he said it was a prettier station than the Doctor's.

(Signed,) LORINDA BEWLEY.

Sworn to and subscribed before me, this 12th day of December, 1848.

G. WALLING, Justice of the Peace, Clackamas County, Oregon Territory.

We have another original statement of Miss Bewley's, as taken by Rev. J.

S. Griffin, which we will give as a part properly belonging to the above statement.

OREGON CITY, February 7, 1849.

Questions to Miss Lorinda Bewley, in further examination touching the Wailatpu ma.s.sacre:--

Q.--Did the Five Crows, when you were taken to his lodge from the bishop's house by an Indian, send you back with your things in apparent anger, or did he appear at that time to pity you?

A.--I thought at the time that I had good evidence, from his manner and behavior to me at the lodge in giving me up, that he was disposed to pity me, and not to abuse me.

Q.--Did you antic.i.p.ate that evening that he would demand you afterward?

A.--No; I did not think he was disposed to.

Q.--What was this Five Crows' English name?

A.--Hezekiah (Brouillet's Achekaia).

Q.--Did you have evidence that it was necessary for Hezekiah to hold you as a wife to save you from a general abuse by the Indians?

A.--I was overwhelmed with such evidence at Wailatpu, but saw none of it at the Umatilla.

Q.--What was the order of conversation to you when the priest went to Wallawalla, after hearing of Mr. Ogden's arrival?

A.--I besought him to do all he could at the fort to obtain my delivery from bondage, and he said he would. A little after he called me to step out of the door from the rest, and told me if I went with the Indian I must not come back to his house any more, when I burst out crying, and asked him what to do; he said I must insist or beg the Indian to let me remain, or I must remain there. I begged him, as I was alone there, he would do everything in his power to get Mr. Ogden to take me away, whether he could obtain all the prisoners or not.

Q.--Did you know of the priests having baptized any at the time of the burial at Wailatpu?

A.--I did not; but they were baptizing a great many at the Umatilla, princ.i.p.ally children; two the same day after I went there, and very frequently afterward. On Christmas day they baptized many.

Q.--Was it understood among the Indians that the families at the mill were English?

A.--Yes, sir; and Mr. Smith was an Englishman.

Q.--Did the report reach the Indians at Wailatpu before you went to Umatilla, that the Indians were told at the Fort Wallawalla that they must not kill any more Americans?

A.--Yes, sir. This seemed to be generally understood.

Q.--Was it made known to you captives what Edward Tilokaikt was gone to the Umatilla for?

A.--It was made known to us, after a council, that Edward was to go to the big chief at the Umatilla and see what was to be done with us, and especially with the young women; and, after his return, he immediately commenced the ma.s.sacre of the sick young men, and the next morning announced to us that the arrangement had been made for Hezekiah to come and take his choice among the young women, and that Edward and Clark Tilokaikt were then to take the other two. Hezekiah was a chief [the one appointed by Dr. White in 1843], and regarded by us, and I believe by others, as a single man. Edward and Clark were only the sons of a chief.

Hezekiah did not come for me himself, but sent a man [Brouillet says, page 56 (Ross Browne, 40), the caution he received from Mr. McBean "obliged me to be content with sending my interpreter"] and a boy for the young woman that was a member of Mrs. Whitman's family. The contract between my mother and Mrs. Whitman was, that I was to continue my studies with Mrs. Whitman, and take part with her in the instruction and care of the children.

Q.--After Mr. Rogers entered the house wounded, and closed the doors, did he have any conversation with Nicholas or the Manson boys?

A.--No. Neither of them came into the house.

LORINDA BEWLEY.

Rev. J. S. Griffin says he is ready to testify to the fact that the above is a true statement, as made by Miss Bewley, and it was his own oversight at the time that her oath was not attached before a justice of the peace.

There was no other person living at the time that could positively state the facts as given by Miss Bewley; others have given their depositions, which confirm her statements, and show them to be the simple, unvarnished truth of the whole scene that pa.s.sed before her, and her treatment by those "_holy fathers, the bishop and his priests_."

We are forced to confess, that, after studying and copying these old doc.u.ments and papers, we dare not trust ourselves to express an opinion, lest the reader should say our feelings have overcome our better judgment. Therefore we will simply ask a question or two, and let each reader answer for himself.

What think you, kind reader, of the Hudson's Bay Company and Roman Catholic Jesuits, and priests and bishop in Oregon in 1847-8?

Did not Dr. Whitman, his wife, and all at his mission suffer, and many of them die, to save Oregon as a part of the great American Republic?

We know that a few of the poor miserably deluded Indians belonging to his mission have suffered an ignominious death by being hung like dogs (a death, of all others, the most odious to them), and for what? Simply because they were deceived by those who knew at the time they were deceiving them; and who have since so managed as to deceive the Christian world, and bring falsehood to cover their partic.i.p.ation in the transaction.

We would not have been so particular, nor copied doc.u.ments so extensively, had we not before us a narrative of 108 pages, written by one of these "_holy fathers_," Vicar-General Brouillet, purporting to give the causes both remote and immediate of this horrible ma.s.sacre; giving it the t.i.tle of "_Protestantism in Oregon_, account of the _murder of Dr. Whitman_, and the ungrateful calumnies of H. H. Spalding, Protestant missionary," in which he searches back even before the arrival of Dr. Whitman in the country, and cites Rev. Mr. Parker's first supposed or imaginary statements to the Indians as a cause of the ma.s.sacre, which we know to be false and unfounded from the six years'

early acquaintance we had with those Indians; and also from the personal allusions he makes to transactions with which we were intimately acquainted, and know to be false in fact and inference. These statements of this priest and his a.s.sociates, McBean and Sir James Douglas, have induced us to extend the particulars of that ma.s.sacre beyond our original design in giving the history of Oregon. As he claims great credit for himself and a.s.sociates, Stanfield in particular, in burying the dead, and showing kindness to the widows and orphans, we will give another item to show the character of the _thief_, _liar_, and _accomplice_ in that ma.s.sacre, whom this priest is so ready in his narrative to claim as a saint.

Mrs. Catharine Bewley says: "Dr. Prettyman said to me that Joe Stanfield told him at his own house, when the sheriff had him in custody, that 'the morning of the day when young Bewley was killed, he had gone into the room and had hid every thing in the room back of the bed he was upon.' This, the doctor thought, showed that he was the cause of his being killed."

Under date of Umatilla, December 21, 1847, Father Blanchet, bishop of Wallawalla, writes to Governor Abernethy as follows:--

"As soon as I had been informed what had happened, I instantly told the two chiefs near my house that _I hoped the women_ and children would be spared until they could be sent to the Wallamet.

They answered: 'We pity them,--they shall not be harmed; they shall be taken care of, as before.' _I have since had the satisfaction to hear that they have been true to their word_, and that they have taken care of these poor people."

In Father Brouillet's narrative, page 57 (Ross Browne, page 41), he says: "On the 3d, the bishop called for the Young Chief and his brother Five Crows, in order to express to them how deeply he had been pained by the news of the horrible affair at Wailatpu, and _to recommend to their care the widows and orphans_, as well as the men who had survived the ma.s.sacre. They protested to have given no consent to what had happened at Wailatpu, and promised to do all in their power for the survivors.