History of Benton County, Oregon, Part 17

Author: David D. Fagan
Publication date: 1885
Publisher:
Number of Pages:

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then requested to see the Indians dance. With this they readily complied, and the whole assemblage, amounting, with the women and children of the village, to several hundred, stood up, and sang and danced at the same time. The exercise was not, in- deed, very graceful, for the greater part of them were formed into a solid column, round a kind of hollow square, stood on the same place, and merely jumped up at intervals, to keep time to the music. Some, however, of the more active warriors entered the square, and danced round it sidewise, and some of our men joined in the dance, to the great satisfaction of the Indians. The dance continued till ten o'clock the next morn- ing. In the course of the day we gave small medals to two inferior chiefs, each of whom made us a present of a fine horse. We were in a poor condition to make an adequate acknowledgment for this kindness, but gave several articles, among which was a pistol, with some hundred rounds of ammunition. We have, indeed, been treated by these people with an unusual degree of kindness and civilty. *

* We may indeed, justly affirm that of all the Indians whom we have met since leaving the United States, the Wollawollahs were the most hospitable, honest and sincere."

Bidding adieu to these hospitable people, they left the Columbia on the twenty- ninth of April and followed eastward what is known as the Nez Perce trail. They went up the Touchet, called by them White Stallion because of the present Yellept had made to Captain Clarke, the Patet and Pataha and down the Alpowa to Snake river, which they crossed and followed up the north side of Clearwater until they reached the village of Twisted-hair, where had been left their horses the fall before. The Lolo trail was not yet free from snow and for six weeks they resided among the Nez Perces, a tribe closely woven into the history of this region. Of them and the intercourse held with them the fall before, the journal says : "The Chopunnish or Pierce-nosed nation, who reside on the Kooskooskee and Lewis' rivers, are in person stout, portly, well-looking men; the women are small, with good features, and generally handsome, though the complexion of both sexes is darker than that of the Tushepaws. In dress they resemble that nation, being fond of displaying their ornaments. The buffalo or elk skin robe decorated with beads, sea shells, chiefly mother-of-pearl, attached to an otter skin collar, and hung in the hair, which falls in front in two queues; feathers, paint of different kinds, principally white, green and light blue, all of which they find in their own country; these are the chief ornaments they use. In winter they wear a short shirt of dressed skins, long painted leggings and moccasins, and a plait of twisted grass around the neck. The dress of the women is more simple, consisting of a long shirt of argalia or ibex skin, reaching down to the ankles without a girdle; to this are tied little pieces of brass and shells, and other small articles ; but the head is not at all ornamented. The dress of the female is indeed more modest, and more studiously so, than any we have observed, though the other sex is careless of the indelicacy of exposure. The Chopunnish have very few amusements, for their life is painful and laborious; and all their exertions are necessary to earn even their precarious subsistence. During the summer and autumn they are busily occupied in fishing for salmon, and collecting their winter store of roots. In the win- ter they hunt the deer on snow-shoes over the plains, and towards spring cross the mountains to the Missouri, for the purpose of trafficing for buffalo robes. The incon- veniences of that comfortless life are increased by frequent encounters with their

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enemies from the west, who drive them over the mountains with the loss of their horses, and sometimes the lives of many of the nation. Though originally the same people, their dialect varies very perceptibly from that of the Tushepaws; their treatment of us differed much from the kind and disinterested services of the Shoshonees (Snakes); they are indeed selfish and avaricious ; they part very reluctantly with every article of food or clothing ; and while they expect a recompense for every service, however small, do not concern themselves about reciprocating any presents we may give them. They are generally healthy-the only disorders, which we have had occasion to remark, being of a scrofulous kind, and for these, as well as for the amusement of those who are in good health, hot and cold bathing is very commonly used. The soil of these prairies is of a light yellow clay, intermixed with small, smooth grass; it is barren, and pro- duces little more than a bearded grass about three inches high, and a prickly pear, which we now found three species." It is very evident that these gentlemen were not acquainted with the attributes of the succulent bunch grass, the stockman's friend, nor of the soil, for the country they denominated "barren" is now producing thirty bushels of wheat to the acre without any irrigation or fertilizing of any kind.

On the fifteenth of June an effort was made to cross the Bitterroot mountains, but it was unsuccessful, and not until the thirtieth were the mountains safely passed. On the fourth of July the company separated into two parties, one of them under Cap- tain Lewis striking across the mountains to the Missouri, down which it passed, ex- ploring the larger tributaries and learning much of the geography of Montana; the other was led by Clarke to the headwaters of the Yellowstone, down which it passed to the Missouri, uniting with the first party some distance below the mouth of the Yellowstone on the twelfth of August. They then continued down the stream, arriv- ing at St. Louis September 25, 1806, having been gone more than two years, and hav- ing achieved honor for themselves and rendered inestimable services to their government.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ASTORIA ENTERPRISE.

The Northwest Company Establishes a Post on Fraser Lake-Result of the Journey of Lewis and Clarke-Fort Henry Built by Americans on Snake River-Organization of the Pacific Fur Company-Canadian Voyageurs- - Astoria Founded -- Sad Fate of the Tonquin-Terrible Sufferings of Hunt's Party-Success of the Business in 1813-McDougal Sells the Property to the Northwest Company-The Other Parties Return to the Atlantic Coast.

When Great Britain was officially notified that an expedition was about to be dispatched by the United States government to explore that much-claimed region lying to the west of the Mississippi, much anxiety was felt, especially by the North west Com- pany of Montreal, whose traders were operating farther west and south than were the employees of the Hudson's Bay Company. They could not be expected to submit

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without a struggle to the loss of so vast a territory in which to prosecute their peculiar industry. The line of division west of the Lake of the Woods was undefined, and the extent of territory to be occupied in the future by England and America depended largely upon the actual occupancy by the contending parties. The Northwest Com- pany consequently, in 1804, dispatched a trusted agent named Laroque, in command of a party, with instructions to establish trading posts on the Columbia. Laroque failed utterly to accomplish the purpose of his journey, since circumstances conspired to prevent him from progressing beyond the Missouri river in the Mandan country. The next year Simon Fraser left the company's headquarters at Fort Chipewyan, and following the course pursued thirteen years before by Mackenzie, reached Fraser lake, where he founded a trading post. This post of the Northwest Company was the first establishment made by Englishmen or Americans west of the Rocky mountains, and lies one hundred miles north of the international line subsequently established. The name New Caledonia was bestowed upon that region, which was considered to lie north of the country known as Oregon.

The return of Lewis and Clarke was the cause of great rejoicing in the United States. Mr. Jefferson says : " Never did a similar event excite more joy throughout the United States. The humblest of its citizens had taken a lively interest in the issue of this journey, and looked forward with impatience to the information it would furnish. Their anxieties, too, for the safety of the corps had been kept in a state of excitement by lugubrious rumors, circulated from time to time on uncertain authorities, and uncontradicted by letters, or other direct information, from the time they had left the Mandan, towns, on their ascent up the river in April of the preceding year, 1805, until their actual return to St. Louis." Captain Lewis was soon after his return ap- pointed governor of Louisiana, with which his journey had rendered him more familiar than any other man except his associate; and Captain Clarke was appointed general of militia of the same territory and agent for Indian affairs in that vast region he had explored. During a period of temporary mental derangement Captain Lewis died by his own hand, in September, 1809, before he had fully completed his narrative of the journey. The history of the expedition was prepared from his manuscript under the direction of Captain Clarke and was first published in 1814. The general details, however, were spread throughout the country immediately upon their return, especially on the frontier. During their absence other exploring parties were traversing Louis- iana in various directions in search of information for the government. Lieutenant Pike ascended the Mississippi to its headwaters in 1805, and the following year jour- neyed southwestward from the mouth of the Missouri to the sources of the Arkansas, Red and Rio Bravo del Norte. At the same time Dunbar, Hunter and Sibley explored Red river and its companion streams. These explorations served to greatly stimulate the fur trade carried on from St. Louis and Macinaw, as well as to strengthen the government in its purpose of adhering to its right to Louisiana, acquired by the tripple method of purchase, discovery and exploration. To these was soon added the fourth and most important-occupation.

One of the first results of the expedition was the organization of the Missouri Fur Company, in 1808, with headquarters at St. Louis. Trading posts were established on the affluents of the Mississippi and Missouri, and that same year Mr. Henry, one of

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the agents of the company, crossed the mountains and founded Fort Henry on the headwaters of Lewis or Snake river, being the first American establishment west of the Rocky mountains. The first effort to occupy the mouth of the Columbia was made by the captain of one of the American vessels trading in the Pacific, whose name is variously given by historians as T. Winship, Nathaniel Winship, and Captain Smith. In 1810 this gentleman built a small house for trading purposes at Oak Point, on the south bank of the Columbia some sixty miles above its mouth, far enough up the stream to meet even the requirements of Captain Vancouver's idea of what constituted a river.

During the first decade of the nineteenth century American fishing and trading vessels crowded the Pacific, while other nations were not entirely unrepresented. The fur trade developed into a great industry, being conducted by them in the most prac- tical manner. All furs collected by the Russian American Trading Company were sent to China or Russia by land from Kamtchatka, since their vessels were not granted the privilege of entering Chinese ports. It was this fact and because England had granted to monopolies the control of her Pacific commerce, that the fur trade by sea was conducted chiefly by Americans. That this condition of affairs should be especially distasteful to the subjects of Great Britain is natural. They looked upon the enter- prise and success of these " Yankee adventurers " with jealous eyes, nor were they willing to give them the least credit for their skill as navigators or energy as trades- men. Because they conducted the details of their traffic in such a way as to render it highly successful, they were classed by the English traders as adventurers, though often the representatives of wealthy and substantial business houses. Archibald Campbell thus contemptuously reviews their method of carrying on the Pacific commerce : " These adventurers set out on the voyage with a few trinkets of very little value. In the Southern Pacific, they pick up a few seal skins, and perhaps a few butts of oil ; at the Gallipagos, they lay in turtle, of which they preserve the shells ; at Valparaiso they raise a few dollars in exchange for European articles; at Nootka, and other parts of the northwest coast, they traffic with the natives for furs, which, when winter com- mences, they carry to the Sandwich islands, to dry and preserve from vermin ; here they leave their own people to take care of them, and, in the spring, embark, in lieu, the natives of the islands, to assist in navigating to the northwest coast in search of more skins. The remainder of the cargo is then made up of sandal, which grows abundantly in the woods of Atooi and Owyhee (Hawaii), of tortoise shells, sharks' fins, and pearls of an inferior kind, all of which are acceptable in the China market ; and with these and their dollars they purchase cargoes of teas, silks and nankins, and thus complete their voyage in the course of two or three years."

This may be considered a correct statement of the general manner of conducting the trade by Americans, with the exception of the " few trinkets " slur, for the majority of vessels, which were large and valuable ones, took out with them quite extensive cargoes of English, American and other manufactured goods and products, with which they supplied the Spanish and Russian settlements, the latter in particular relying almost wholly upon the Americans for their supplies of ammunition, sugar, spirits and manufactured articles. That a large proportion of furs procured from the natives were paid for in "trinkets " is true, but this practice was as much indulged in by English

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traders on the Atlantic side as by Americans on the Pacific, and such articles have always in every land and by every nation been deemed a valuable consideration in dealing with uncivilized races. The Americans are deserving of much credit for their economical, energetic and highly practical method of conducting their commercial ventures in the Pacific.

In one particular, however, some of these independent traders, who might, per- haps, merit the contemptuous title of adventurers bestowed upon them all by their rivals, were guilty of conduct very reprehensible when viewed from a certain stand- point. Caring only for present profits and heedless of the effect of their conduct upon the future of their trade, they supplied the Indians with whisky and fire-arms. Upon the first glance it would seem that, as the Indians were chiefly depended upon to provide the furs, any addition made to their facilities for accomplishing this would be beneficial to the business and that the giving of guns to them would result in an in- crease of the trade ; but the opposite was the case. Irving says: " In this way several fierce tribes in the vicinity of the Russian posts, or within range of their trading ex- cursions, were furnished with deadly means of warfare, and rendered troublesome and dangerous neighbors." The fact is that the Russian intercourse with the natives was often marked by conduct so illiberal and heartlessly cruel that it is no wonder they objected to their victims being supplied with means of asserting their rights. Repre- sentations were made by the Russian government to the United States of this objection- able conduct of American traders, but since no law or treaty was infringed the govern- ment could do nothing. It, however, applied to John Jacob Astor, a merchant of New York, who had long been engaged in the fur trade about the lakes and headwaters of the Mississippi, to see if he could not suggest a remedy.

Mr. Astor conceived the idea of establishing a post at the mouth of the Columbia, from which the Russian traders could be supplied annually by a vessel sent out from New York, and which would be the headquarters for a large trade with the interior. By this systematic conduct of the business he expected to supersede the independent traders, remove the cause of irritation to Russia, and found permanent establishments of the United States along the Columbia. Mr. Astor imparted his idea to the presi- dent and cabinet, by whom it was heartily endorsed, and he was assured that all the support and encouragement would be his which the government could properly offer. President Jefferson had, as we have seen, always been a warm advocate of American supremacy in this region, and in a letter written in later years to Mr. Astor, said: "I considered, as a great public acquisition, the commencement of a settlement on that part of the western coast of America, and looked forward with gratification to the time when its descendants should have spread themselves through the whole length of that coast, covering it with free and independent Americans, unconnected with us but by the ties of blood and interest, and enjoying like us the rights of self-government." Grand as was that great statesman's conception of the destiny of this coast, it is trans- cended by actual, living reality. Not only the "ties of blood and interest," but of national union and loyal brotherhood, bind together the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, while the great interior wilderness has now become more potent as a bond of union to hold them together, than it then was as a barrier to keep them apart.

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Mr. Astor associated with himself as managing partners several experienced men, some of whom had formerly been connected with the Northwest Company. This was a very unwise, and, as it afterwards proved, an unfortunate step. These men were thoroughly competent to manage the details of the business, being energetic and able men and completely familiar with the management of the successful English company ; but they were subjects of Great Britain, their interests and instincts were British, and in forming an American settlement none but Americans should have been placed in command. Washington's injunction to "put none but Americans on guard," should have been borne in mind. These men made no pretense of Americanizing themselves or transferring their allegiance ; on the contrary they took the precaution to provide themselves before leaving Canada with proofs of their British citizenship, to be used for their advantage in case of future difficulties between the two nations. These were Alexander McKay, who had accompanied Mackenzie on both of his journeys, Duncan McDougal, David and Robert Stuart, and Donald Mckenzie. Wilson Price Hunt, of New Jersey, the only American at first interested as a partner, was given the chief direction of the enterprise on the Pacific coast. Mr. Astor owned a half interest in the enterprise and furnished the capital, while the other half was divided among the four partners, who managed the details of the work in the field. These gentlemen in- corporated as the Pacific Fur Company, with Mr. Astor as president.

On the second of August, 1810, the ship Tonquin sailed for the mouth of the Columbia. She carried ten guns, had a crew of twenty men and was under the com- mand of Jonathan Thorn, a lieutenant of the United States navy, on leave of absence. She carried a large cargo of supplies and merchandize for trading with the natives, e frame of a small schooner designed for use along the coast, and seeds and imple- ments for the cultivation of the soil. In the Tonquin sailed four of the partners, Mckay, McDougal, David Stuart and Robert Stuart, twelve clerks, several artisans and thirteen Canadian voyageurs.

The voyageurs were a special outgrowth of the fur trade and are deserving of more than a passing notice. Irving thus describes them: "The voyageurs may be said to have sprung up out of the fur trade, having originally been employed by the early French merchants in their trading expeditions through the labyrinth of rivers and lakes of the boundless interior. In the intervals of their long, arduous, and laborious expeditions they were wont to pass their time in idleness and revelry about the trading posts or settlements ; squandering their hard earnings in heedless conviviality, and ri- valling their neighbors, the Indians, in indolent indulgence and an imprudent disre- gard of the morrow. When Canada passed under British domination, and the old French trading houses were broken up, the voyageurs were for a time disheartened and disconsolate, and with difficulty could reconcile themselves to the service of the new comers, so different in habits, manners and language from their former employers. By degrees, however, they became accustomed to the change, and at length came to consider the British fur traders, and especially the members of the Northwest Company, as the le- gitimate lords of creation. The dress of these people is generally half civilized, half savage. They wear a capot or surcoat, made of a blanket, a striped cotton shirt, cloth trowsers, or leathern leggings, moccasins of deer skin, and a belt of variegated worsted, from which are suspended the knife, tobacco pouch, and other implements.

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Their language is of the same piebald character, being a French patois, embroidered with Indian and English words and phrases. The lives of the voyageurs are passed in wild and extensive rovings. They are generally of French descent and inherit much of the gaiety and lightness of heart of their ancestors, being full of anecdote and song, and ever ready for the dance. Their natural good will is probably height- ened by a community of adventure and hardship in their precarious and wandering life. They are dexterous boatmen, vigorous and adroit with the oar and paddle, and will row from morning until night without a murmur. The steersman often sings an old traditionary French song, with some regular burden in which they all join, keep- ing time with their oars. In the course of years they will gradually disappear; their songs will die away like the echoes they once awakened, and the Canadian voyageurs will become a forgotten race, or remembered among the poetical images of past times and as themes for local and romantic associations."

The Tonquin reached the mouth of the Columbia on the twenty-second of March, 1811, much jealousy and ill-feeling having been engendered during the voyage be- tween the commander and the Scotch partners. Captain Thorn was a martinet, a strict disciplinarian, with a high opinion of the power and dignity of the commander of a vessel. He was headstrong and stubborn in the extreme. When the ship arrived at the river the bar was very rough, and the captain feared to enter until the location of the channel was ascertained. He ordered Mr. Fox, the chief mate, to take one seaman and three Canadians in a whale boat and explore the channel, and though the mate protested that it was certain death to attempt it, he insisted upon obedience to his orders. The boat left the ship and was soon swallowed up in the angry billows. The next day he sent out another crew to seek the channel, and their boat was swept out to sea by the tide and current, only one of the crew finally reaching land. The vessel succeeded in getting just inside of the bar when darkness came on and she was com- pelled to cast anchor for the night, while the ebbing tide threatened to sweep her from her precarious hold upon the sand and swamp her amid the breakers. Irving says: " The wind whistled, the sea roared, the gloom was only broken by the ghastly glare of the foaming breakers, the minds of the seamen were full of dreary apprehensions, and some of them fancied they heard the cries of their lost comrades mingling with the uproar of the elements."

In the morning the Tonquin passed safely into the river and came to anchor in a secure harbor. On the twelfth of April, a point on the south side of the river which Broughton had called Point George having been selected, the erection of a fort and buildings was begun ; and on that spot, which was then christened Astoria in honor of the projector of the enterprise, now stands one of the most important commercial and manufacturing cities of the Pacific coast. After much delay in preparing a place for the reception of the goods and in landing those to be left at Astoria, during which the captain and partners constantly wrangled about their authority, and before the fort was completed, the Tonquin sailed, on the fifth of June, to engage in trade with the na- tives along the northern coast, and eventually to reach the Russian settlements in Alaska, with the hope of opening a friendly communication with them.

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History of Benton County, Oregon, Part 17

Author: David D. Fagan Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: David D. Fagan
Publication date: 1885
Publisher:
Number of Pages: