USA > California > History of California, Volume III > Part 19
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161
McLEOD'S TRAPPERS.
that the party sent back from Fort Vancouver to avenge Smith's disasters was under the command of McLeod, and after recovering the stolen furs, traps, and horses, was guided by Turner down into the Sac- ramento Valley in 1828, where he made a successful hunt. Returning northward, however, he was over- taken by a snow-storm in the Pit River country, which he was the first to traverse.23 He lost his animals, and was compelled to leave his furs, which were spoiled by melting snow before they could be moved.
125
120
115
INDIANS
R.los Mong78
Trinidad B
Branch
C.Mendocino
Lake
Timpanogos
R. Timpanogos
Pt.Arenas
R. Buena yen
L.Salado
37
o Brigsda
PLAINS OF SENORA DE LA LUZ
NOCHI INOS.
TIMBAOACHI
R. Zaguananos
R. Nabajos
R.San Felipe NEW
37
S. Luis
Weat
INDS.
MOQUI
· S.Gabriel
R. S. Maria
I.ST.ROSA II
Sn. Pedro B.
EST. CATALINAO
JUMAS INDS.
R.St. Francisco
Diego
R. Gila
APACHES
Loma Pt. La W
115
MAP OF 1826.
McLeod was discharged for his imprudence or for his bad luck. Meanwhile the company had hastened to despatch Ogden with another party of hunters up the Columbia and Snake, to proceed thence southward to Smith's trail,24 by which he was to enter Califor-
represents the manager of the company as having driven a shrewd bargain with Smith, and derived much profit from his disaster.
23 The McLeod River, generally written McCloud, was named by or in honor of this hunter.
21 That is one of Smith's trails, probably the most northerly, though War- ner makes it the earliest.
HIST. CAL., VOL. III. 11
JENIQUIEH INDB
R. Colorado
K. S. Podr 110
GILENOS
120
CALIFORNIA
Pi Arguelles! Concepcion
R Martires
R.Jaquesita
R. Buenaventura
Bay of Six Ers. Drake
Port FranciscoF St. Francisco
Monterey B, c St. Carlos
INOS.
12
162
OVERLAND-SMITH AND PATTIE-FOREIGNERS.
nia, and thus get the start of any American trappers that might be sent as a result of Smith's reports. Ogden was successful in this movement, and entered the great valley about the same time that McLeod left it.25 He also obtained a rich harvest of skins during his stay of eight months, and carried his furs to the north by McLeod's trail. These were the only visits of Hudson Bay trappers before 1832.26
The visit of the Patties to California in 1828-30 is the topic next demanding attention. Sylvester Pattie, a Kentuckian, lieutenant of rangers against the Indians in 1812-13, and later a lumberman in Missouri, joined a trapping and trading expedition to New Mexico in 1824, with his son James Ohio Pat- tie. The father was about forty years of age, and the son a school-boy of perhaps fifteen. With their adventures in New Mexico and Arizona for the next three years I am not concerned here. More than once they visited the Gila, and in September 1827 the elder Pattie was made captain of a company of thirty trappers, organized at Santa Fé to operate on the Colorado.27 They reached the Colorado and Gila junction December Ist, or at least the Patties and six men did so, the rest having left the Gila, striking northward some two weeks earlier. The eight of Pattie's party were in a desperate strait. They un- derstood from the Yumas that there were Christians down the river, and started to find them, floating on canoe rafts, trapping successfully as they went, and
25 It seems rather unlikely that this could have been accomplished so soon as the autumn of 1828. Either it was in 1829, or Smith had reached Fort Vanconver early in 1828, instead of in the autumn as has been supposed.
2G Similar versions of McLeod's and Ogden's expeditions, originating prob- ably indirectly from Warner, but perhaps also from the recollections of other old trappers, are given in the county histories, newspaper articles, and other recent publications. See also Hist. N. W. Coast, i., this series. Cronise, Nat. Wealth, 41, says that French Camp, near Stockton, was located by a party of these trappers who encamped here from 1829 to 1838. In Humphreys' Letter to Gwin, 1858, p. 5, it is stated that Richard Campbell of Sta Fé came with pack-mules from N. Orleans to S. Diego in 1827. I find nothing more on the subject.
27 P'attic, Narr., 133, translates the passport given them.
103
PATTIE'S VISIT.
reaching tide-water the 18th of January, 1828. They soon started back up the river, making little progress, and February 16th, having buried their furs and traps, they started westward across the desert. After terrible suffering they reached Santa Catalina Mission in Lower California the 12th of March. Ten days later, by Echeandía's order,28 they started under a guard for San Diego, where they arrived the 27th. The company included, besides the Patties, Nathaniel Pryor, Richard Laughlin, Will- iam Pope, Isaac Slover, Jesse Ferguson, and James Puter,22 most of whom sooner or later became per- manent residents of California.
The narrative of James O. Pattie was subsequently printed; from it I have drawn the preceding résumé, and I have now to present in substance that part of it relating to California, introducing occasional notes from other sources, and reserving comment until the end.30 On arrival at San Diego the strangers were
28 March 22, 1828, E. to com. of S. Diego. Eight armed men have ap- peared at a frontier post with a guia of the N. Mex. custom-house as a passport. Arrest them and seize their arms. Dept. Rec., MS., vi. 194; Pattie's Narr., 170.
29 All the names appear in the archives, in one place or another, though Ferguson is not elearly stated to have belonged to this company. Joseph Yorgens is named, perhaps a corruption of Ferguson's name, since War- ner speaks of Ferguson, whom he must have known. Puter is mentioned only once, and there may be some error about his name. Pattie himself strangely names only Slover in his narrative, speaking also of a Dutchman; and on the other hand, Pattie's own name appears only once in the archives.
30 Pattie, The Personal Narrative of James O. Pattie, of Kentucky, during an expedition from St Louis through the vast regions between that place and the Pacific Ocean, and thence back through the city of Mexico to Vera Cruz, during journeyings of six years; in which he and his father, who accompanied him, suj- fered unheard-of hardships and dangers, had various conflicts with the Indians, and were made captives, in which captivity his father died; together with a ile - scription of the country, and the various nations through which they passed. Edl- ited by Timothy Fient. Cincinnati, 1833. Svo. 300 pp. The editor, a some- what voluminous writer of works largely fictitious, claims not to have drawn on his imagination, but to have changed the author's statement-apparently written-only in orthography and by an occasional abridgment.
The Ilunters of Kentucky; or the trials and toils of traders and trappers, during an expedition to the Rocky Mountains, New Mexico, and California, by B. Bilson, New York, 1847, Svo, 100 pp., is called by T. W. Field, see Sabin's Dictionary, viii. 569-70, 'a reproduction of Pattie's narrative, which the penury of the thieving writer's imagination has not empowered him to clothe with new language, or interleave with new incidents;' yet this reprint is much less rare than the original, and has been much more widely read. From it at the time of publication many people formed their ideas about the
164
OVERLAND-SMITH AND PATTIE-FOREIGNERS.
brought before Echeandía and questioned, the younger Pattie, who had learned a little Spanish in New Mexico, serving as spokesman, and expressing his ideas with great freedom on this as on every other occa- sion when he came into contact with the Spaniards. The governor believed nothing of their story, accused them of being spies for Spain-worse than thieves and murderers-tore up their passport as a forgery, cut short their explanations, and remanded them to prison. On the way they resolved to redress their wrongs by force or die in the attempt; but their arms had been removed,31 and they were locked up in separate cells. The father was cruelly torn from the son, and died a month later without being permitted again to see him. The cells were eight or ten feet square, with iron doors, and walls and floor of stone. Young Pattie's experience alone is recorded, as no communication was allowed. Nauseating food and continued insults and taunts were added to the horrors of solitary con- finement. From his grated door Pattie could see Echeandía at his house opposite. "Ah! that I had had but my trusty rifle well charged to my face ! Could I but have had the pleasure of that single shot,
Spanish Californians. In Harper's Magazine, xxi. 80-94, J. T. Headley tells the story of Pattie's sufferings, taken from one of the preceding works, and erroneously called the first overland expedition to California. Cronise, Nat. Wealth of Cal., 45, says, 'the particulars of Pattie's journey were pub- lished with President Jackson's message to congress in 1836.' The subject is vaguely and incorrectly mentioned in Greenhow's Hist. Ogn, 366; and Capron's Hist. Cal., 37. Warner, who knew personally most of Pattie's companions, gives a valuable account in his Reminiscences, MS., 33-7. The archive rec- ords are much less satisfactory than in the case of Jedediah Smith; but I shall have occasion to refer to them on special points.
31 Dr Marsh, Letter to Com. Jones, MS., 1842, p. 3, says they came to S. Diego on a friendly visit, 'were well received at first, and shown into com- fortable lodgings, where they deposited their arms and baggage. They were shortly after invited into another apartment to partake of some refreshment, and when they returned found that their arms had been removed, and that they were prisoners. I mention this incident, trivial as it is, because I con- sider it as a characteristic trait of the whole Mexican people. Gen. Echean- día in his own capital, with all his troops, could not take five American hunt- ers without resorting to an artifice which would have been disdained by the most barbarons tribe of Indians on the whole continent. These poor men were kept in close confinement a long time ... Two or three of the number are still in the country.' Where Marsh got this version, which leaves even Pattie in the shade, does not appear.
105
THE HUNTER'S TALE.
I think I would have been willing to have purchased it with my life," writes the captive, and this before his father died alone. No attention was paid to pleas for justice or pity. Yet a sergeant showed much kindness, and his beautiful sister came often to the cell with sympathy and food, and even enabled the prisoner to get a glimpse of his father's coffin as it was hastily covered with earth. 32
Captain Bradshaw of the Franklin soon got Pattie out of jail for a day by the 'innocent stratagem' of pretending to need his services as an interpreter; and with an eye to business, he made an effort to get per- mission for the hunters to go to the Colorado and bring the buried furs, but in vain. In the proceed- ings against Bradshaw for smuggling, Pattie served as interpreter; and later, by reporting certain orders which he had overheard, he claims to have prevented Bradshaw's arrest, and thus to have contributed to the escape of the Franklin.33 Seth Rogers, A. W. Williams, and W. H. Cunningham are named as other American masters of vessels who befriended the young prisoner, and gave him money.
Echeandía himself also employed Pattie as an in- terpreter, and at times assumed a friendly tone. The captive took advantage of this to plead his cause anew, to discuss questions of international law, and to sug- gest that there was money to be made by sending after the buried furs. At the first he had known that every word of kindness pronounced by Echeandía "was a vile and deceitful lie," and after repeated inter- views he perceived "that, like most arbitrary and cruel men, he was fickle and infirm of purpose," and
32 He calls the young lady Miss Peaks, and the couple may have been Sergt l'ico and his sister. A certain capitan de armas is also mentioned as of a friendly disposition, though he did not dare to brave the tyrant's rage. The reference may be to Portilla or Ruiz. It is remarkable that Pattie came so often into contact with the governor, and not at all with the comandante.
33 Seo preceding chapter for affair of tho Franklin. Pattie's statements that Bradshaw's trial was concluded July 28th, that the Franklin ran out of the harbor in Sept., and that she fired a broadside at the fort, are so positive, so erroncons, and yet so closely connected with details of his own affairs, as to leave a doubt as to the accuracy of those details.
166
OVERLAND-SMITH AND PATTIE-FOREIGNERS.
thereupon proceeded to " tease him with importuni- ties;" but under this treatment the general became surly. "How earnestly I wished that he and I had been together in the wild woods, and I armed with my rifle!" writes Pattie. This could not be, but he refused to translate any more letters, and the gov- ernor, striking him on the head with the flat of his sword, had him dragged again to prison to lie and rot.
The suggestion of profit from the furs had, however, taken root; and early in September the prisoners were released, allowed once more to see each other, and promised permission to go to the Colorado, greatly to their delight. "I was convinced that Mexico could not array force enough to bring us back alive. I fore- saw that the general would send no more than ten or twelve soldiers with us. I knew that it would be no more than an amusement to rise upon them, take their horses for our own riding, flea some of them of their skins to show that we knew how to inflict torture, and send the rest back to the general on foot." Pattie was allowed to go to the mission to hire horses for the trip; but at the last moment Echeandía remarked that he could spare no soldiers to go with them. It did not matter, they said, though it spoiled their plan of vengeance. But the governor added that one must remain as a hostage for the return of the rest, and Pattie was the man selected. "At this horrible sen- tence, breaking upon us in the sanguine rapture of confidence, we all gazed at each other in the conster- nation of despair;" but Pattie urged them to go and follow their inclinations about coming back. They came back at the end of September. The furs had all been spoiled by the overflow of the river, and the traps were sold to pay the mule-hire. Two of the six, however, failed to return, having left their compan- ions on the Colorado and started for New Mexico.34
34 These two were probably Slover and Pope, since these are the only ones not recorded as being in California in 1829. Warner says Slover and Pope (with Geo. C. Yount, whom nobody else connects with this expedition at all) started
167
SAVED BY SMALL POX.
In the absence of his companions, Pattie, by advice of Bradshaw and Perkins,35 had written a letter to Jones, consul of the United States at the Sandwich Islands, imploring intervention in his own behalf, and then he lay in his cell, harassed by continual threats of being shot at as a target, hanged, or burned alive. Soon came news from the north that the small-pox was raging in the missions. Fortunately Pattie had a small quantity of vaccine matter, and he resolved to make the best possible use of his advantage. Nego- tiations followed, which gave the young trapper many opportunities to show what could be done by the tongue of a free American citizen. In return for the liberty of himself and companions, he offered to vacci- nate everybody in the territory; refusing his own lib- erty, refusing to vaccinate the governor himself, though trembling in fear of death, refusing even to operate on the arm of his beautiful guardian angel, the Señorita Pico, unless his proposition were accepted. There were many stormy scenes, and Pattie was often remanded to prison with a curse from Echeandía, who told him he might die for his obstinacy. But at last the governor had to yield. Certain old black papers in possession of the trappers, as interpreted by Pattie, were accepted as certificates of American citizenship, and in December all were freed for a week as an ex- periment. 36
from New Mexico with the company, but returned from the Colorado without coming to Cal. There must be an error in Pattie's version of the departure of these two men; for I find that on Nov. 11, 1828, Echeandia informed tho com. at Altar that he has issued passports to Pope and Slover, who started from N. Mexico for Sonora, but lost their way and entered Cal. Dept. Rec., MS., vi. 13. Pope came back some years later, and has left his name to Pope Valley, Napa county, where he lived and died. May 1, 1828, E. had written to the com. of Altar about the 8 Americans detained at S. Diego, whom he thought it expedient to send back to the Colorado under a guard, that they might go to Sonora according to their custom-house permit. Dept. Rec., MIS., vi. 9. July 5th, the gov. of Sonora writes to the alcaldo of Altar on the sub- ject, and presumes that the com. gen. has already issued the proper instruc- tions. The captives are alluded to as suspicious characters. Pinart, Col. Doc., Son., MS., 43.
35 Bradshaw had really been gone over a month at the time when these in- terviews are said to have taken place.
s" It is implied by the writer that vaccination was a great mystery to the Californians, and even to the Russians, which is absurdly inaccurate, and
168
OVERLAND-SMITH AND PATTIE-FOREIGNERS.
It was deemed best to take no risks. By a false promise to their friend, the capitan de armas, they got their rifles and pistols on pretence of cleaning them, and refused to return the weapons, which were con- cealed in the thicket. Charles Lang, the smuggler, now made his appearance secretly,37 and the trappers determined to join him. Pattie with one companion left San Diego Christmas night, and went down to Todos Santos; but learning that Lang had been ar- rested, they returned. Their comrades were still at liberty; no trouble was made by Echeandía about their absence or the recovery of their arms; and in January and February 1829, Pattie vaccinated every- body at the presidio and mission. On February 28th a paper was issued to each, granting liberty for a year on parole;38 and Pattie obtained also a letter to the padres, who were instructed to furnish supplies and horses for the journey, and "indemnify me for my services as far as they thought proper."
Pattie started immediately on his trip northward, called at mission, presidio, and pueblo, and arrived at San Francisco the 20th of June. He had vaccinated
forms a weak point in the narrative. It is not certain, however, that they had any vaccine matter in their possession in 1828, nor is it evident that Pat- tie could have kept that which he had from being taken. I suppose that all is exaggerated for effect, but that Pattie may have been really employed to vac- cinate. Early in 1829 a Russian vessel brought vaccine matter, and W. A. Richardson was employed that year to vaccinate at the missions; and in 1821 the Russians had vaccinated 54 persons at Monterey.
37 See p. 139, this volume, for Lang's adventures.
38 Pattie's carta de seguridad of Feb. 28th is preserved in Dept. Rec., MS., vii. 89. It is as follows: 'Whereas, Santiago Ohio Pattie, who came into this territory hunting beaver in company with other foreigners, without any license whatever, in March of the past year, appears to be a North American according to a custom-house permit given in New Mexico; and whereas, the comandante of this place reports him not to be vicions but of regular condnet, in the petition presented by Pattie on the 27th of this month for permission to travel and remain in the country, there being no consul nor mercantile agent of his nation, nor any Mexican bondsman, therefore I have determined to grant him provisionally this letter of security, that he may remain and travel in this territory for one year,' in accordance, so far as possible, with the laws of May I and Mar. 12, 1828.
I have not found the papers of the other men under this date, but in a list of Feb. 14th, Dept. St. Pap., MS., xix. 44, Pryor, Puter, and Yorgens are named, Pryor being already at S. Luis Rey. He received a carta de seguridad April 52th. Id., xix. 18-19. It is doubtful if any of them were kept in prison after their return from the Colorado.
169
A TOUR OF VACCINATION.
in all 22,000 persons,32 receiving from the padres cer- tificates by which the value of his services was to be finally estimated by a 'high dignitary' in the north. After a week's visit to Ross, where everything pleased the American, and where he received $100 for his medical services,40 he returned and presented his cer- tificates to the padre at San Francisco. On July 8th John Cabortes, presumably Padre Juan Cabot, presented the amateur physician a paper, by which he gave him 500 cattle and 500 mules, with land on which to pasture the same-to be delivered when he had become a Catholic and a Mexican citizen. "When I had read this," says Pattie, "I was struck dumb. My anger choked me." But he soon recovered his speech sufficiently to give the padre his opinion in the matter, to say that he came from a country where the laws compelled a man to pay another what he justly owed him without condition of submission to "any of his whimsical desires;" that as a protestant he would not change his opinions for all the money the mission was worth, and that as an American, "rather than consent to be adopted into the society and companionship of such a band of murderers and rob- bers," he would suffer death. For this "honest and plain utterance" of his feelings, he was ordered to leave the house; and, keeping his rifle ready for any one the priest might send after him, he bought a horse for three dollars, and started for Monte El Rey !
At the capital Pattie shipped on an American ves- sel, and for several months ploughed the Pacific, touching at various ports. He does not name the vessel, and he gives no particulars of his voyage, save
39 Strangely enough there is no record in the archives respecting the ravages of small-pox or Pattie's professional tour; yet his statement is confirmed by the fact that the statistical tables show an extraordinary number of deaths this year among the Indians of all the northern missions. (See note 36.) Sta Cruz, S. José, and Sta Clara do not appear to have been visited at all. Here in the extreme north only the few who had not had the small-pox were vac- cinated.
40 HIc had seen Don Sereldo, as he calls the Russian manager, at S. Diego, and had been implored to come to Bodega and administer his remedy.
170
OVERLAND-SMITH AND PATTIE-FOREIGNERS.
of the first week's terrible sea-sickness. Back at Mon- terey,41 he took a more or less active part, on both sides, in the Solis revolt, to which event considerable space is devoted in his narrative.42 At first the trap- per had contributed in a small way to the rebellion fund, and had with difficulty been dissuaded from joining the army of Solis in the hope of getting a shot at Echeandía; but in the end he had become an ally of his old foe, who on his coming to Monterey received Pattie affably, and even listened with some patience to a repetition of his long-winded arguments and com- plaints. Yet notwithstanding the portentous aspect of a document which Pattie had prepared by the ad- vice of the Hawaiian consul, Jones,43 for presentation to the American minister at Mexico, Echeandía ven- tured to doubt that his wrongs would be redressed, though he granted a passport that he might go to Mexico and try. Spending three days de fiesta at San Carlos in company with Captain William Hinckley, hunting otter profitably for ten days on the coast, presenting his rifle to Captain Cooper, and writing a letter of farewell to his former companions in the south, Pattie sailed on the Volunteer May 9th, in company with Solis and his fellow-prisoners, for San Blas. At Mexico. in June, at the office of Butler, American chargé d'affaires, he saw a communication of President Andrew Jackson in his behalf. He was honored by an interview with President Guerrero, and had the pleasure of learning that Echeandía had been recalled. I have his original letter of June 14, 1830, to friends in California, naming Lothlin (Laugh-
11 He says it was Jan. 6, 1830; but if there is any foundation of truth in that part of the narrative which follows, it must have been about 2 months carlier.
42 See chapter iii., this volume, on the Solis revolt, and especially Pattie's version of that affair. His dates are all wrong; there are many absurd inae- curacies built on a substratum of truth; and there is apparently deliberate falschood respecting his personal exploits in the capture of Solis.
43 Pattie says that this consul, John W. Jones, to whom he had written from S. Diego, arrived at Monterey April 29th in his own brig from the Islands. The reference is to John C. Jones, Jr., owner of the Volunteer, which arrived at about this time.
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