USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848 > Part 35
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To the doctor's appeals for help from the board no encouraging response was given after 1840. It appears that the board thought the mission should be self- supporting; but to this intimation Whitman replied, that it was visionary to expect a mission so isolated, which could exchange no products to obtain foreign sup- plies, to support itself. Besides, he asked, who was to perform the labors of the missionaries if the latter were
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MUST BE SELF-SUSTAINING.
to turn farmers and traders ?39 In this respect the Presbyterian missionaries differed from the Metho- dists, and were not prepared to accept the views of their own board of commissioners.40
In the midst of these perplexities there came upon them two unexpected events. In the first place, the board ordered the discontinuance of Lapwai and Waiilatpu stations, the missionary efforts to be con- fined to the Chemakane mission, and Spalding to return to the States.41 The order was received late in Sep- tember 1842, and a meeting was immediately called to consider it. Whitman and Spalding were much opposed to abandoning their stations, while Walker and Eelis were in favor of carrying out instructions. Whitman urged the strong probability, that as soon as Lapwai and Waiilatpu should be left, the Catholics would come in and possess the fruits of their labors, both temporal and spiritual.42 On the other hand, there was the possibility that the Catholic influence might overcome them though they remained, and drive them from the field nolens volens. Then there was the objection of the board to sustaining two stations which were never to become self-supporting. How was it to be overcome ?
The second event to which I alluded furnished Whit- man with a reply to the arguments of his brethren. This was the arrival, overland, of an immigration of over a hundred persons, men, women, and children, invited to make homes in Oregon by the government of the United States, and expecting to receive as a reward for their patriotism a liberal grant of land in the fertile Valley Willamette. "If these hundred have come this year," said Whitman, "more will come the next. These have left their wagons at Fort Hall, but very soon others will discover that they can bring
39 Boston Miss. Herald, Aug. 1840, 329.
# Applegate's Views of History, MS., 32-4; White's Ten Years in Or., 175-6; Palmer's Journal, 57.
#1 Boston Miss. Herald, Jan. 1843, 14.
* Letter of Dr Whitman, in Boston Miss. Herald, Dec. 1866, 374
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THE CATHOLIC MISSIONS-THE PRESBYTERIANS.
them through to the Columbia. The moment that is accomplished, there will be a large immigration yearly ; Lapwai and Waiilatpu will become supply stations to thousands of travellers, and the objections of the committee will be removed. Help can be obtained from the immigrants; a settlement can be formed, and a strong Protestant influence brought to counter- act the efforts of the Catholics. Here again was earthly empire rising up to overshadow the spiritual. So sure did Whitman feel of the truth of his prophecy, that he proposed to start at once for Boston to pro- cure a reversal of the unwelcome order recalling Spalding and closing the two most important stations, and to procure further assistance for the missions. In vain did his colleagues oppose the scheme. With the determination characteristic of the man, he set about making his arrangements for the journey.
As in all cases of exigency, Whitman now sought counsel of his friends of the fort.43 Mckinlay said that although the proposed expedition in the winter was likely to be attended with some hardships it was not impossible, if the southern route by Santa Fé were taken. Nothing remained but to hastily conclude arrangements for the care of the station during his absence, which he did by writing to Geiger and Mr and Mrs Littlejohn to spend the year of his absence with Mrs Whitman,44 and by charging McKinlay also with her welfare.45
On the 3d of October Whitman left his home,
43 U. S. Ev., H. B. Co. Claims, 173-5.
44 Lee and Frost's Or., 213, 257.
45 There was a warm friendship between Whitman and Mckinlay. I have also a letter written by D. Greene, secretary of the American Board of Com. missioners for Foreign Missions, acknowledging the receipt of a letter from Mckinlay, dated December 27, 1842, which seems to have been written with a view of furthering the object of Whitman's visit, as it was in praise of Spalding's success as a missionary, and hoping he would not be recalled. The same refers to an order of Mckinlay for books which Whitman left with Greene to be filled; all showing their kindly relations. See also note on page 221 of Gray's Hist. Or. But most of all I have seen the eyes of the old fur-trader fill with tears when speaking of the noble Presbyterian. In a letter written recently by Mckinlay, he expresses the highest regard for Whitman, which opinion is also equally emphasized in Tolmie's Puget Sound, MS., 24.
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WHITMAN AT THE EAST
accompanied only by a guide and A. L. Lovejoy of the recent immigration, who, being detained two or three weeks behind his company, was induced by the doctor's specious arguments to return to the States. 46 From Fort Hall they took the route by the way of Uintah, Taos, and Santa Fé, changing guides at each of these points, and experiencing sometimes bitter cold, and sometimes pinching hunger. They arrived at Bent Fort on the Arkansas in time to join a com- pany going from Santa Fé to the border, when Love- joy determined to remain at the fort till spring, and Whitman proceeded without him to his destination, which he reached in March 1843.
The reception given to the doctor by the missionary board was not cordial or even kind; it was frigid. They disapproved of his leaving his station, of the unnecessary expense of the journey, and of its object, especially as it asked for more money and mission- aries. Whitman repeated the arguments advanced to his colleagues in the wilderness.47 The board was cold; the savages of the inhospitable north-west were not just then in favor with the Sunday-schools. Nev- ertheless, these wise men of the east did finally con- sent to permit the doctor to continue the mission work there begun should he wish to do so without further help from them.48 Further than this, the board refused to pay the expenses of his journey,49
46 Lovejoy's Portland, MS., 20.
47 This is the statement made of Whitman's object and arguments, by the prudential committee to whom they were addressed. See Boston Missionary Herald, September 1843, 356. Daniel Lee also says : 'Whitman visited the United States to obtain further assistance, in order to strengthen the efforts that had already been made.' Lee and Frost's Or., 213. But Gray wickedly asserts that Whitman went to Washington with a political purpose, instead of going on the business of the mission.
48 The Missionary Herald of Sept. 1843, after mentioning the doctor's de- sire to have 'Christian families to emigrate and settle in the vicinity of the different stations,' goes on to say: 'How far his wishes in these particulars will be responded to is at present uncertain '-showing that the matter was left to him to arrange. A man whose acquaintance he formed on the return journey says : 'He often talked with me about his want of success with the board, and expressed his fears of the consequences.' Applegate's Views of Hist., MS., 35.
49 I gather this from the statements of some of the immigrants of 1843, with whom he travelled. He certainly knew the requirements of a journey
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and he was left to get back to Oregon as best he could. First repairing to his former home in central New York, he settled up some private business affairs, and taking with him a young nephew, hastened to the frontier, where was being collected for a final start the emigration of 1843, of which he probably heard as he journeyed east two months before. He arrived at the rendezvous of the emigrants just as they were about to organize on the 18th of May, and was invited to attend their meeting and make sug- gestions.50 After this he visited some relatives near Westport, and the Shawnee mission, and overtook the emigration on the Platte River, travelling with them and rendering professional and other services, as re- quired, on the way.51
Whitman reached home after a year of incessant and arduous exertion, to find that his absence, and the information the savages had of his intention to bring other white men to settle among them,52 had occasioned trouble at his station. Hardly had he turned his back upon Waiilatpu before Mrs Whitman
across the plains; yet he was not properly provisioned, and seemed to have undertaken to get along by shooting game, which proved to be scarce. Daniel Waldo says that he had nothing but a boiled ham to start with, and that he fed him while they were in Kansas, and after they crossed Snake River. Critiques, MS., 17. J. B. McClane refers to his want of supplies after leaving Fort Hall, and his picking up a dropped calf, and putting in his (McClane's) wagon with the intention of eating it. McClane, however, threw it out, for which he was severely reproved by the doctor. First Wagon Train, MS., 4, 5.
50 Burnett's Recollections of a Pioneer, 101. The Missionary Herald, last quoted, says that Whitman set out on his return 'about the Ist of June ;' but as Burnett kept a journal, it is probable that he is correct as to date. The Herald may have made its statement from reference to a letter received from the doctor just before he quitted the Pawnee mission.
51 Marginal notes to Gray's Hist. Or., 289-90 ; Ford's Road-makers, MS., 7; Waldo's Critiques, MS., 1; Boston Miss. Herald, May 1844, 177; Nesmith, in Or. Pioneer Assoc., Trans., 1875, 47.
52 When excited by the misconduct of the Cayuse chiefs, Whitman had so far lost his self-centrol as to threaten them with white settlers. Toupin says he told them he would bring 'many people to chastise them.' White says, that, though a most estimable man, Whitman was 'the most unfit person in the world to manage Indian affairs;' because instead of treating them as chil- dren, he would become heated in an argument with them, as with his equals. Early Government of Oregon, MS., 12. This is confirmed by what is known of Whitman's dealings with the Cayuses, both before and subsequent to his visit to the States. Yet again he was a miracle of coolness and patience, which was his normal state, so contradictory is human nature.
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THE CAYUSES THREATEN.
was grossly insulted, and compelled to take refuge for the winter at the Dalles. A few days later the mis- sion mill, with the grain stored in it, was destroyed, and a general warlike attitude assumed by the Cay- uses,53 which was only overcome by the united efforts of an authorized agent of the United States govern- ment and the British fur company, as before narrated. Owing to this intervention, order had been restored, and the savages were once more apparently friendly, receiving him with demonstrations of pleasure.
Yet there were present many disappointments. When he left the east, where, contrary to his expecta- tions, not a single family had been obtained for settle- ment near the missions, he indulged the hope that some of the immigrants might yet be induced to take locations in his neighborhood; but we find him writing, shortly after his return, that all the help received by the mission was one man, hired by Mr Spalding, a Scotch school-teacher, and one family selected from the emigrants, all of whom he had sent to Spalding's assistance at Lapwai, none being found to go to the help of Walker and Eells. He also added a hope that the board would send one minister, fitted to preach to western men, to meet the Catholics, and to instruct the natives. "It is asking but little," he wrote, "to request two ministers for this [the Indian] language; as in the case of the death of Mr Spalding or myself, the knowledge of the language would be limited to so few that little could be done." He also referred to his protect of encouraging teachers to come out as
53 It was about this time that Mckinlay had his famous adventure with Peupeumoxinox of the Walla Walla branch of the Cayuses, who, on account of his son being seized by a clerk at the fort for a slight theft, was about to do violence to the chief trader, when Mckinlay placed a keg of powder in the midst of the apartment, and stood over it ready to touch it off at the first hostile movement. Not wishing to be blown up, Peupeumoxmox became cooler, and was induced to listen to reason. White says, in one of his re- ports, that the insolence of the Cayuses had been growing ever since the visit of Bonneville, who paid them more for furs than the Hudson's Bay Company. This caused them to make similar demands on Pambrun, and these not being complied with, they seized him, stamped violently on his breast, beat him, and retained him prisoner, until they gained to some extent their object. Ten Years in Or., 175.
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emigrants, and labor for a time at the mission, and to the need of good men being settled, three or four in a place, to form a nucleus for religious institutions, and to hold Romanism in check.54 The country must be occupied, he said, by Americans or foreigners; and if by the latter, they would be chiefly Catholics.
This alarm regarding the Catholics, who at the period when these apprehensions were felt had no station nearer than the Bitter Root and Willamette valleys, would appear disproportioned to the occasion, were it not that in a subsequent letter it is said there was an evident desire on the part of the natives to make use of the differences between the Protestants and Catholics for their own purposes, a danger which only those who understood Indian character could properly estimate. From the time of Whitman's return to Waiilatpu, it could not be said that there was any improvement in the moral character of the savages, though their temporal condition continued to mend chiefly through the increase in the number of those who cultivated the ground and raised cattle. As early as 1842 the Nez Percés owned thirty-two head of neat cattle, ten sheep, and forty hogs. The Cay- uses owned about seventy head, chiefly cows, which they obtained from the Hudson's Bay Company, the mission of the American board, the Methodist mis- sion, or the Willamette settlers, in exchange for horses. They had also a few sheep, earned by herding the flock belonging to the mission. The possession of cattle by their teachers had been a constant occasion of envy and of reproach by the natives, who demanded, in effect, that the missionaries should share their herds with them, instead of which they were shown how to procure them for themselves.
The advent of the immigrants produced a change for the worse in the savages for two reasons. It gave them plausible ground for declaring that the mission- aries were leagued with other Americans to take
54 Boston Miss. Herald, May 1844, 177.
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WHITMAN'S DILEMMA.
possession of the lands which they claimed to be theirs; and it made them independent of the mission- aries by furnishing them a market for the vegetables they raised, while it gave them an opportunity to obtain stock, which they were eager to do, cheerfully giving a good horse for a poor cow. Each year there- after their riches increased in the same manner, and each year they grew more intractable, proud, and insolent. They complained that Whitman occupied lands belonging to them on which he raised wheat to sell to the immigrants; that he had a mill on their lands, yet charged them for grinding their grain; and often, when in bad humor, ordered him to leave the country. That they appreciated the benefits received through the missionaries seemed evident, but they appeared incapable of gratitude, and used the intelli- gence with which they had been furnished to make more conspicuous their indifference or their hostility.
Thus matters went from bad to worse at the Pres- byterian mission, until Dr Whitman himself became convinced that there was nothing to be gained by remaining. No settlements had been formed in his neighborhood, though many immigrants had passed. If he was able to induce a few persons to winter at his station, they invariably left in the spring for the Willamette Valley. Little by little the savages de- parted, and now that he was ready to go, the difficulty was for time to withdraw, the chiefs being divided, and some desiring him to remain on purely sectarian grounds, that they might, as Protestants, triumph over the Catholics of the tribe. As this was the very ground on which he had proposed to the board to remain, he had no valid reason to give for abandoning the field. Had all the chiefs desired his departure, his way would have been plain.55
In this delay he was probably encouraged by the temporizing policy of the United States in the matter of the boundary of Oregon, and afterward in the
35 Statement of Thomas McKay, in Brouillet's Authentic Account, 28.
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THE CATHOLIC MISSIONS-THE PRESBYTERIANS.
neglect to establish a territorial government, and to extinguish the Indian titles. At last, in the autumn of 1847, acting upon the conviction that the Waiilatpu station would have to be abandoned, he purchased the Methodist station at the Dalles, intending to remove thence the following spring; and at the very moment that he decided upon this course, and had already commenced preparations by sending his nephew to occupy the Dallas during the winter, Archbishop Blanchet, the bishop of Walla Walla, and associate clergy of the Catholic church, arrived among the Cayuses, prepared to take the Presby- terians' place.
CHAPTER XIV.
OREGON BEFORE CONGRESS.
1820-1846.
OREGON'S EARLY CHAMPION-IRREPRESSIBLE DESTINY-CRUDE IDEAS OF THE COUNTRY-EXPEDIENCY OF OCCUPYING THE COLUMBIA-TORTUOUS COURSE OF FLOYD'S BILL-THE RUSSIAN UKASE-BAYLIES, TUCKER, COLDEN, MALLARY, WOOD, WALKER, BRECKENRIDGE, BUCHANAN, DICK - ERSON, BENTON, AND OTHERS EXPRESS THEIR VIEWS-END OF THE FIRST EPOCH OF LEGISLATION-LINN, CLAY, CALHOUN, PIERCE, CUSHING, AND PENDLETON, OF THE SECOND EPOCH-LINN'S BILL-POPULAR FEEL- ING-PETITIONS FOR THE OCCUPATION OF OREGON-THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY.
I HAVE shown how, step by step, without the aid of congress, a hundred Americans established a gov- ernment in Oregon, and while professing allegiance to the United States, were in fact independent. But congress was not indifferent to the movement; and whatever opinion in their isolation the colonists may have held, the archives of the national legislature contain the proofs of a watchful care over the United States claim to the Oregon Territory, and a determi- nation not to relinquish it to any foreign power; the only doubt being as to the expediency of pressing that claim while other matters of immediate impor- tance to the government and the commerce of the country were pending. Before proceeding further with the history of the Oregon colony, a brief review of the action of congress will tend to make clear the mutual action of the national representatives and the people in promoting the settlement of the disputed territory on the Pacific coast. It is not to be sup- posed that at the period of the convention of 1818, or
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OREGON BEFORE CONGRESS.
the Louisiana purchase of 1819, the people of the United States were much interested in or well in- formed as to the geography or history of that region, or that they understood the gounds of the contro- versy with Great Britain upon the sovereignty of the Columbia. But they were not long to remain in ignorance.
On the 19th of December, 1820, Floyd of Virginia, a member of the house of representatives, a man of ardent temperament, ability, courage, and persistent purpose, took up the Oregon Question with the deter- mination to champion it in congress against whatever indifference, opposition, or ridicule it might meet.1 From many years' residence in Kentucky, he under- stood the character of the men of the western states, each a pioneer of the Alexandrian type, sighing for more worlds to conquer, more wilderness to redeem to civilization by the sheer strength of brawny arm and independent will. Of the support of this portion of the people he was sure, as soon as they should be informed of the value of the territory in dispute, and the foundation of the American claim.
Encouraged by the well-understood sentiments of President Monroe and certain younger men of the Jeffersonian school, Mr Floyd began the contest by a motion in the house that a committee be appointed to inquire into the situation of the settlements on the Pacific, and the expediency of occupying the River Columbia, and procured the appointment of that com- mittee with himself as chairman, the other members being Metcalf of Kentucky and Swearingen of Vir- gınia.
On the 25th of January, 1821, Floyd presented his report, giving an abstract of the history of the United States from the discovery of the continent down through the mutations of more than two centuries, embracing in his review an account of the several
1 Benton's Thirty Years, i. 13. See Hist. Northwest Coast, this series.
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FLOYD OF VIRGINIA.
treaties by which the United States had enlarged their original boundaries since achieving independence. Following this was an able and suggestive examina- tion of the profits of the fur-trade in the west and north-west over the territory acquired by discovery and treaty, but which was still almost a terra incognita to the citizens of the union.
As to the expediency of occupying the Columbia, Floyd was sanguine, for the reasons contained in his report on the fur-trade, the profits of that business, and the opportunities for greatly enlarging the com- merce of the United States by direct communication with China by way of the Columbia and Missouri rivers, that idea of which the eccentric John Ledyard was author, President Jefferson, however, usually receiving the credit of it, and in whose mind it was confirmed by the expedition of Lewis and Clarke. The route recommended by Floyd was the same, namely, up the Missouri, across the mountains, and down the Columbia.
Accompanying the report was a bill authorizing the president to occupy the Oregon Territory, extinguish the Indian title, and provide a government.2
The bill was twice read, and referred to a committee of the whole for the following day, but was not taken up, and nothing further appears to have been said upon the subject till the 10th of December, when Floyd again made a motion for a committee to inquire into the expediency of the measure, with leave to report a bill. This was agreed to, and he was ap- pointed chairman of the committee, with Baylies of Massachusetts and Scott of Missouri as associates. The report of the committee, accompanied by a bill authorizing the occupation of the Columbia, was pre- sented to the house the 18th of January, 1822. This, like the previous bill, was twice read, after which it disappeared for the remainder of that session. Mean- while Floyd had submitted a resolution requiring the
2 Annals of Congress, 1820-1, 946-59.
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OREGON BEFORE CONGRESS.
secretary of the navy to report on the expense of examining the harbors on the Pacific, and shipping artillery to the mouth of the Columbia.
The secretary's estimate for the survey and trans- portation was $25,000. In February, in consequence. of rumors that the emperor of Russia had promulgated a ukase in relation to the western limits of the United States, Mr Floyd offered a resolution requesting the president to communicate to the house whether any foreign government laid claim to any part of the ter- ritory of the United States upon the coast of the Pacific Ocean north of latitude 42°, and to what. extent; whether any regulations of a foreign power existed, affecting the trade of the Pacific; how far the trade of the public was affected by it; and whether any foreign power had made any communi- cation "touching the contemplated occupation of the Columbia River." 3
In reply to this resolution, the president submitted a report by the secretary of state containing the correspondence with the ministers of Great Britain and Russia relative to the respective claims of those governments,4 which communication was re- ferred to the select committee of which Floyd was chairman, on the expediency of the occupation of the Columbia.
At the second session of congress for 1822, Floyd's bill of January previous was discussed in committee of the whole, and certain additions and amendments were made. Floyd made the opening speech, which was an exhaustive résumé of the values of certain articles of commerce to the countries which were so fortunate as to secure them, being the same which the settle- ment of the Columbia would secure to the United States; advocating its military possession, and the steamboat route to it before mentioned. As the first speech ever made in congress on this subject, it is
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