USA > Oregon > Pioneer days of Oregon history, Vol. I > Part 14
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of this man, to give due credit to this dusky helpmate, whose influence was so kindly.
An Indian chief came to McLoughlin, at the time the emi- grations were commencing, and he saw the inevitable com- ing with them, and asked him what the Indians were to do ; what recourse they had but to kill off all the Bostons. He came to McLoughlin because he recognized that the coming of these Americans must be to the detriment of his com- pany and their interests, as they were the natural allies of the Indians, but McLoughlin scorned him and threatened him so he never appeared at Vancouver again ; for if Mc- Loughlin despised him, and would not unite with the tribes against a common enemy, he saw their case was hopeless. Thus it was that the web of fate was drawn around the na- tive race, but who can say-if self-preservation is first law of nature-that the Indian had not the instinctive right to oppose and destroy the power that else must surely de- stroy him?
But, unhappily for both Indians and traders of the earli- est time, all who managed the fur trade were not possessed of the great qualities that distinguished McLoughlin, his friends and companions. Many were unscrupulous, and their trespass on the rights, or tampering with the lives of the natives, was revenged on others who came in all good faith. In the absence of sound government, and reckless determination to be enriched at whatever cost, there was strife between natives and traders, often, too, between native tribes, and for a time there was actual war in the wilder- ness when expeditions of rival fur companies met. This was ended when final consolidation was effected of the two great companies, when, of course, competition ceased. For
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a while it was customary for traders to sell the natives strong liquors, and the result was the most diabolical orgies conceivable. There is no kind of man who becomes so in- fatuated and ungovernable under the influence of liquor as the American Indian. In our own day government is compelled to denounce the traffic as illegal on that account, but in that day there was no government, no restriction if there was no conscience, and the result of the traffic was simply infernal.
The fearful nature of this trade can be seen by quoting the experience of F. X. Mathieu, a respected citizen from early days, who was once a trader for the American Fur Company among Sioux and Blackfeet. He had straight alcohol and diluted it to suit occasion. The Indians would only have liquor at stated times, and then a portion ab- stained while the rest drank, taking their turn next time. After the trader dealt out the poison he went to sleep with a guard over him, and when he waked might find a dozen dead Indians around. A few times of this dreadful ex- perience induced him to quit the business. That was but a sample of the assured result of alcohol among the Indians.
When McLoughlin came to take charge he discontinued the sale of liquor to the natives from motives of humanity. As a Christian man he could not see his way to deal out death and all its horrors for mere sake of gain; but there was always liquor for sale in vessels trading on the coast, by men who cared nothing for humanity ; and I regret to say, they were often reckless Americans, more bent on gain than troubled with conscience. While McLoughlin was making the company respected he had much trouble to undo the evil ways that preceded him. In his rule of over twenty years
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it was wonderful that he succeeded in retaining confidence as he did. Nor was it always peaceable, for many a time they had to conquer peace. As time went on, however, these savage tribes found they could trust him always, and that his men were usually obedient, but there were some among them who made trouble.
If enlightened humanity and the highest sense of gov- ernment administration could have existed to impress the best of the Indian race with confidence, and awe the reck- less and vicious with sense of power administered with jus- tice, it might have been possible to conquer, civilize and christianize the Indians of Oregon and the Northwest, and to have made them self-sustaining citizens; but that was to expect that omnipotent justice would intervene in mun- dane affairs and guide human events. It is to be deplored that the crude, ignorant, and too often vicious and depraved element, that is but the dregs of our boasted civilization, gave the Indians their first acquaintance with the race that was to supersede them. They soon learned that these men were not children of the gods, but possessed worse passions and baser natures than themselves. They caught from them their vicious lives, their immoral characteristics, and the prostitution that was fed by lust resulted in poison and pollution that showed such intercourse of different races to be unnatural.
With civilization came to the Indian untold evils. Civil- ization he did not accept and there was no constitutional ten- dency to take it as they did the chills and fever and the measles, and the smallpox went through them like a scourge. Is it any wonder that they charged it on the Bos- tons that they were poisoned, lost heart of grace and faith,
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and rose to do wonders to free their land from a race that robbed them of their soil, despoiled their homes, degraded their lives, and at last brought death to their doors?
Under the Hudson's Bay Company there was no in- trusion, no violence often, little cause for distrust. They took Indian women to make their homes and be their wives, and native marital rights were usually respected. It was when the irresponsible class came among them that their lives were poisoned, and as that poison spread they charged their evil days on their best friends. Thus it was that the fair and beautiful Land of the Oregon was wrested from the original possessors, and they disappeared from the scene they formed so natural a part of. If the wilds were savage, and the humanity that assimilated through them was also savage, there certainly was consistency pre- served, for savagery was the rule and like met like every- where. But that time is past and there is a new heaven and a new earth without much strain of metaphor. Recalling that bygone time, when the fur-trader and the Indian dealt together, I feel like giving to each their due. We can well afford to concede that the Indian lost fearfully when the American settler claimed the earth. As for the great fur company-that time was a transition stage that in the na- ture of things must pass ; but there remains a glamour of the romance that dwelt in the time, and we should catch its gleam before it forever fades.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY
As the fur-bearing animals were exterminated-and that was soon done under the active operations of hunters and trappers and Indians-the Hudson's Bay Company looked for other sources of revenue. Then salmon packing on the Columbia became a regular business, and also on the Fraser, two hundred and fifty miles north. In 1829, at Fort Langley, on the Fraser, they bought of the Indians 7,544 salmon at a cost of a little less than a cent a piece. They had their own coopers to make barrels and carried on a regular business of shipping pickled salmon to London. They had their own coasters and vessels to load for China and the islands, as well as the regular ships that came from London. Saw mills were built, to manufacture lumber for the China trade, and spars were cut and timber to fill orders.
In 1829, Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, made a western tour and was received with semi-barbaric pomp when he reached any of the company's posts. This was done to impress the minds of the savages who were looking on, and give them something to talk of in their mingling with each other. No doubt the tremen- dous story of the parade, the salute, the unfurling of the British flag, the music of bugles and bagpipes, went through the length and breadth of the land for the benefit of all who did not see and hear.
With the clearing of many hundreds of acres of land
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around Vancouver came malaria, and with it came chills and fever, that, strange to say, spread among the Indians and became general along the Columbia. From 1829 the na- tives died off so fearfully that the villages of the Mult- nomahs, below Vancouver, were very nearly depopulated.
When lumber became a very important article for export, as well as needed for home use, McLoughlin took possession of the falls of the Willamette to build a saw mill. It was, and is, an imperial power, and nature has seldom prepared such for the use of man. Log houses were erected at the falls for workmen, and timber was hewn for the mill. The mill race was cut and blasted in 1832; they were in no hurry, but the Indians thought they were too much so, and burned the houses and all the timber as well ; they only regretted they could not burn the mill race also. This was their home place, they lived on the banks where Oregon City now is. Here, too, they had caught salmon time out of mind and age after age. It was not strange, then, that they resented encroachment and were fearful that the trespass- ing stranger would destroy their homes and ruin their fisheries. No one can blame them for thinking they had rights and that they had the further right to defend them. Even with us, self-preservation is considered as a first law of nature.
About 1830 three low white men, who were employed in the field work at Vancouver, instigated an Indian boy, who was a Rogue River captive and had been a slave, to kill McLoughlin, so as to regain his freedom. The doctor had a way of buying such slave lads, giving them work and pay- ing them wages. The matter was exposed and the mis- creants shipped out of the country, while the Indian boy
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was sent to his people. Such were the dangers that beset human life in the wilderness.
About 1832 there came opposition from Boston, by the brig Llama, Captain William O'Neal, who bought more cunningly made contrivances than were ever heard of, in fact, all the outfit made for children's amusement, from jumping jacks to squeaking cats and dogs. This stock of goods struck the fancy of the natives, and O'Neal had the trade until McLoughlin in self-defence bought ship and cargo and hired the enterprising captain to remain in charge. He proved valuable and trustworthy; was in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company for thirty years, then settled near Victoria and died there in 1875.
As years passed on, the Hudson's Bay Company had a house at Honolulu, shipped lumber, timber, flour, salmon, and other products from the farms at Vancouver or the Cowlitz, as well as from Oregon City ; and vessels brought back return cargoes of such goods as they needed. Farm- ing was also begun on the Cowlitz in 1837, when McLough- lin advised Simon Plomondeau to go there and settle. He was an old employé and times had changed; also Faincant went, and they were supplied with animals. The next year, 1838, Blanchet and Demers established the Jesuit mission north of them. Fort Nesqually was established in 1833 and there was soon an extensive sheep and cattle farm there, but the gravelly land of the Nesqually River was not suited to farming, nor is it now. The Cowlitz valley, however, has much fine farming land. This was the beginning north of the Columbia, other than trading posts and land culti- vated in connection with them.
In 1839, Douglas, Work and Ross went to Cowlitz prai-
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ries, measured off four thousand acres, and farming was commenced for the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, for as farming was to become a fixed feature of business, in consequence of the decadence of the fur trade, a separate organization was effected to keep the accounts distinct. In 1846, they had 1,500 acres fenced and in cultivation, 11 barns, 1,000 cattle, 200 horses, 100 swine and 2,000 sheep. The English continued to occupy this land until 1853, when American settlers came and took the land, with fences, houses and all improvements. They were so banded to- gether as to carry guns and pistols when at their work, to resist any claims of the British Company. It looks as if the land could have been held by the former occupants, if they had taken it as American citizens, and remained on it as such. The Americans who claimed and held this land as their donations were E. L. Finch, I. H. Pierson, William Lemon, George Holsapple and Jackson Barton.
The Puget Sound Agricultural Company was organized in 1838. Its prospectus was issued by W. F. Tolmie, Forbes Barclay and George B. Roberts. They occupied the country from the north of the Cowlitz to Puget Sound, pro- cured sheep and cattle from California, that came by land and sea, while improved swine and sheep were procured from England. This did not prove a very profitable enterprise, as it turned out that the British held none of the land thus occupied.
It is not necessary for the purpose of this work to state in detail all the adventures and tragedies of the fur trade. Gradually the wilderness was invaded, posts planted to the far north, for the operations of the company included all the territory capable of rendering tribute to human cupidity.
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Order was maintained, discipline established, systematic trade encouraged from the farthest north down into the regions of upper California, on the sage plains, and among the mountains to the eastward. If Vancouver was head- quarters, there was great power also at Spokane House, Colville, and Okanogan on the upper Columbia; at Fort Nesqually on the Sound; at Langley, on the Fraser; in British Columbia, and also on Vancouver Island ; while Fort Hall, on Snake River, and Boisé on its tributary, were em- poriums to the far south, near the Rocky Mountains.
It is interesting, as a pieture of the times, to read how the magnates in command of trading or trapping eom- panies travelled, their half-breed wives, gaily equipped, by their side. Sometimes, as such a company was starting, McLoughlin would muster his personal following to go a day's journey in their company. Then his wife would ac- company them also, riding by his side, her eayuse as gor- geously eaparisoned as possible, with jingle of bells to the bridle rein and accoutrements braided with silver ornaments. All gay colors accord with Indian complexion, and in con- trast to her ebon locks were the snowy ones of the Czar of the West, as he also rode with elaborate dress by her side. They go away in eanoes, to take horses at Tom MeKay's place, on the Seappoose, then mount their horses and ride over the hills and prairies, to the great entertainment and astonishment of all the humanity they meet.
Along in the early thirties Laframboise goes south with a party to explore the Umpqua, passes the Rogue River and makes a detour far south in California. Somewhere they find a deserted house and help themselves to garments within it ; contamination follows and some of the best men die of it.
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They have to fight their way, lose some men and kill dozens of the natives. Hunted and tired, wounded and lame, they got back to the Willamette to be fed and nursed by French settlers there. Yet, it was an idyllic time, but a summer idyl that was all the way mixed with weariness and death.
THE CANOE ROUTE ACROSS THE CONTINENT
The dominion of the Hudson's Bay Company extended across the continent for four thousand miles, and over a great portion of this immense territory there was no other rule than the laws it established. The perfection of system was attained in all its business, and the management of great Indian tribes was conducted with not only skill but such good faith and stern discipline that they met with few of the disasters and murders that marked the career of the other companies. The Hudson's Bay Company had a long route to travel from Montreal to the Columbia that was done almost entirely by canoes. This was the highway for carry- ing their goods. By this the furs were sent to market and supplies were furnished to the most distant posts. Dr. Mc- Kay returned home by this route when he had finished his educational course in 1843. Mr. Ross closes his career in the far west and returns by this route in the last pages of his interesting books. Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, published a minute account of his voyage around the world about the same time, leaving London in March, 1841. The Ottawa River empties into the St. Lawrence at or near Montreal. The overland jour- ney begins at Montreal, and ascends the Ottawa River a long distance in birch bark canoes that required fifteen men
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to handle them. These canoes are forced over many rapids, and they and their contents, all packed in convenient size, are often carried around portages. It is a voyage of sev- eral hundred miles from Montreal to Lake Nipissing, where they turn down to Lake Huron. Skirting the shores of Lake Huron and through the Straits of Mackinac, the canoe then crosses Lake Superior, stopping at islands, the great Manatontin and others. Fort George is the starting point for a change of travel. They change to lighter canoes, for the travel will be more changeable, and canoes must be light to handle. Following the outlets of the chain of lakes and traversing the lakes themselves, they skirt the shores of Rainy Lake, Lake of the Woods and Winnipeg, and finally reached the valley of the Saskatchiwan, the great Red River of the north. For two long months they went on and on, westward ever, and far north always, for the Red River is north of the fiftieth parallel of latitude. They made patient headway as they could, paddling, poling, towing, sometimes sailing with a fair wind. Two months of this brings them to Fort Edmondton. There they took horses for seven days to cross a mountain divide and come down on the waters of the Mckenzie River, the great river of the north that puts into the Arctic Ocean. Up the Mc- Kenzie they went, poling and paddling for twenty-two days more, until they reached Fort Jasper. Another seven days' journey with horses took them from Fort Jasper over the Rocky Mountains to a place where the party going east the season before had left their boat. This place they called Boat Encampment. It was at the foot of the mountains at the farthest point possible for a boat to ascend. Here they had first tarred the bottom of the boat and then covered it
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over with care so as not to attract attention. The voyage down the head waters of the Columbia then commenced. Rapids were frequent and many portages had to be made. A month was put in boating from the far northern waters of the river, in British Columbia, to Vancouver. They left Montreal in May and reached Vancouver in November, ex- pending six months of toil in a journey which can now be made in six days of comparative luxury, from one point to the other.
The foregoing was the regular route for travel across the continent by the Hudson's Bay Company. From this great line of travel there diverged trails and water courses to other ports for the great northern wilderness, and the savage tribes inhabiting it were under the influence of that company, and learned all they knew of civilization through their association with its members. The singular fact about the great canoe route above described is that they were able to make a water way by a few land connections. The great river Saskatchiwan is traversed six or seven hundred miles by longitude, and following the river's course, it must have been over a thousand miles.
OCEAN TRADE OF HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY
In early times the Hudson's Bay Company had regular communication with the world by the ocean highway once a year. Three sister ships were built expressly for their trade. One of these was always on the way from England, another was voyaging up the coast and back. They were named Columbia, Vancouver and Cowlitz, and were about 500 tons burden. The one that came from England dis-
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charged her cargo of goods, machinery, etc., and then made a journey as far north as the fur company had trading posts. Sometimes they went to the Sandwich Islands with cargoes of lumber. The third year it returned to England. It was a three-year voyage. The voyage to and from Eng- land occupied eight months at that early day. Their trade with the Russians required a voyage as far north as Sitka, where they carried flour and lumber. It was a great time when the ship from England came in. There were letters for all then, for that was the regular time to hear from home. The ship was due in the fall, and expectation ran high when the time approached. All the news they had from home and from the world depended on their ship com- ing in.
In 1836 the Beaver came out as a sailing vessel. She was rebuilt into a small steam craft for local use. She was put together here, and when ready for service an excursion was given that included all people of distinction. It went down the Columbia to St. Helen's, up the slough to the main Wil- lamette, then down the Willamette and up the Columbia to Vancouver. Little Willie Mckay was a lad only nine or ten years old, and went on this pleasant voyage. He recol- lects it as one of the sunniest days in all his life-the hap- piest time he had any memory of. There were aboard Mc- Loughlin, Douglas, Mckinley and Work, and their fami- lies ; also Pambrun, Missionary Samuel Parker, a compan- ion of Whitman ; John R. Thompson, of Philadelphia, the ornithologist ; Calvin Tibbetts, James Gervais, E. Lucie and H. B. Emers. It was a distinguished party. So the Beaver made her trial trip, and for the first time a steam vessel ploughed the waters of the Columbia River. The next
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day she towed the ship Columbia to the company's saw mill, to load lumber for the Sandwich Islands. This was the ocean traffic of the Fur Company. As will be seen, even in 1836 there were distinguished strangers in Oregon who could be invited to make the excursion trip on the Beaver.
The great distance from England and the danger of loss on the ocean made it necessary to take many precautions. For this reason there was always in the storehouses in Van- couver a full year's supply ahead of all possible needs and requirements. They had early experience that taught the need of this, for they lost two vessels when they had no such surplus stock and suffered greatly for want of supplies.
There were three forts near the sound and the mouth of Fraser's River one on Vancouver's Island, several on the north coast, and at least ten more on Fraser's River and other inland waters. The Upper Columbia had forts Okanogan, Colville, Spokane, Shepherd, Kootenai and Sim- coe, all to the north, while Walla Walla was east on the main river ; Boisé and Hall were hundreds of miles south- east in the Snake River region. Vancouver was at the head of navigation on the Columbia, one hundred and twenty miles from the ocean ; two others were at the mouth of the Columbia and of the Umpqua, on the coast. These posts numbered at least twenty-five, reaching from 44º to 55° north, covering territory averaging a thousand miles north and south, and a thousand miles east and west, over all of which the fur trade extended.
It is rather amusing to know that the often-time over- educated gentlemen at these posts read and discussed stand- ard works on theology and philosophy, revelled in recollec- tion of classic times and writers, sympathizing ardently
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with the labors of scientific men who came out to study na- ture, but did not realize that they might endear themselves to generations yet unborn by handing down reliable record of the people they found there, their manners, customs, be- liefs, as a contribution to the ethnological research of their time. I can forgive them, for at the date of my own com- ing there was much to be learned that I would now prize; but then the red man and his ways were so every-day, and so lacking in rarity, that we let them pass by, to become receding and dying vistas before we knew that the oppor- tunity was lost forever.
CHAPTER XXV
LIFE AND TIMES OF DR. JOHN MCLOUGHLIN
IN 1823 Dr. John McLoughlin superseded Keith in charge of the Columbia district. He entered the service early in the century as a physician, developed unusual business talent, and was promoted accordingly. He reached Fort George in the spring of 1824. Over six feet in height, powerfully made, with a grand head on massive shoulders and long snow-white locks covering them, he was a splendid picture of a man. His hair was white when he was forty-five; the Indians knew him as the White Eagle, and they respected him as they never did any one else. I saw him in his old age at Oregon City, and he then preserved the fine appearance and commanding manner that was natural and not preten- tious. The advent of McLoughlin marked a new era in the management of the Columbia district and secured a cohesion and loyalty in all branches that made organization easy and perfect.
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