A History of Oregon, 1792-1849 Part 71

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 repet.i.tion 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sembled 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 a.s.sembled 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 pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing 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 princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.signed; 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 a.s.sured, 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 cla.s.s 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 Inst.i.tute has come up from the ashes of that n.o.ble 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-G.o.d 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sistant 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 a.s.sociation 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sociate 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 a.s.sistance 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 a.s.sociates arrived overland; more cattle were brought across the mountains, and, through the exertions and means of Mr. Lee and his a.s.sociates, 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 inst.i.tutions 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 a.s.semblies 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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.sociates 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 repet.i.tion 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 repet.i.tion 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 superst.i.tions_ alone that were the cause of the ma.s.sacre. 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 a.s.sured 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 "_superst.i.tious 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 pa.s.s and repa.s.s 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 a.s.sist 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d and the government, and if you insist upon my compliance with your rules in this particular, _I will serve you no longer_."