USA > Oregon > Pioneer days of Oregon history, Vol. I > Part 15
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He was a convert to Catholicism under the administra- tion of Father Blanchet, but in no sense was he a bigot or lacking in the Christian charity that recognizes true effort with good will wherever it was met. He soon saw where weakness was and reorganized the company's business with wonderful precision, as well as prescience. It was impossi- ble but that some trouble would arise, but he inspired such regard from the natives that his word was law and his prom- ise considered certainty. His policy to effect peace among
DR. JOHN McLOUGHLIN
This photo was taken from daguerreotype of Dr. John McLonghlin, the Governor of Vancouver. The original is in the Library of the Leland Stanford, JJunior, University, having been presented through M. S. Barnes. The daguerreotype was given to Mr. S. A. Clarke, Salem, Ore., by Judge J. Q Thornton, to whom it was given by Dr. McLoughlin in the early days
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the Indian tribes was potent for good, and the entire respect they soon had for the Hudson's Bay Company made possi- ble what was not before. He was a "Northwester" in the be- ginning, and worked his way up in the staff of that com- pany. He understood the Indian character and ruled it on natural principles. He made them believe he respected them, and that made them believe in and respect him. When he came to the Columbia it was unsafe to travel anywhere without an armed escort. It was not long after he assumed power that he had pacified the savage element and made it safe to journey within his jurisdiction. .
McLoughlin saw that it was best to seek new headquar- ters, not only to be nearer the sources of trade, while on nav- igable waters, but to be on the north side of the Columbia was much safer, as the general opinion was that the Colum- bia would eventually be the dividing line between British and American territory.
John McLoughlin was a man the Indians looked up to in all matters; most of the gentlemen connected with the company commanded their respect, for they had been bred to the business from youth and were educated to understand that they represented the Hudson's Bay Company, which was imperial, arbitrary, exacting, but just in all its dealings with the tribes. Therefore, Governor McLoughlin, with his grand manner and majestic port, heightened by white, wav- ing hair, was the embodiment of power and justice to them. He represented the imperial company in his person, and subordinates were but the expression of his will and the ex- ercise of the justice that was due from him. He had to be an exceptional man to meet the demands upon him, both to control the natives of the imperial west, as well as for the
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government of the often reckless creatures who were the employés of the company, including French-Canadians, Scotchmen, Orkney Islanders, Irish, Iroquois from the Canadian Indians, free trapping Americans, mountaineers, and Kanakas from the Sandwich Islands.
So far as religion went, these people represented so many phases of belief-or unbelief-that the Indians could learn little from them ; so far as government went, Dr. McLough- lin was one of the executives nominated by nature and edu- cated by time and emergency. Every man in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company recognized his superior qualities and paid him willing homage. That they did so was one of the strongest endorsements of his character. Passionate and imperious, he was able to overcome this pas- sion and impatience and do justice, often at his own ex- pense. As the autocrat who represented the claims and in- terests of a despotic company-that would not brook op- position and could not afford to permit encroachments-as a man whose personal interests were involved in those of the monopoly, whose selfish policy would have been to permit no trespass, much less to invite settlement and civilization, because the success arrived at was founded on the existence of barbarism-he rose superior to selfish and mercenary, or even what might be called reasonable motives, when, as a Christian, he invited missionaries to work among the heathen race ; and when as a man of humane nature and con- victions, he met the worn-out emigrants of the earliest days with kindness, supplied their suffering needs and cared for their women and children, so making it impossible for emi- grants to live and for other emigrations to settle the region of Oregon.
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If ever high moral attributes attached to any man who was placed under trial-where selfish justice and private in- terests were arrayed, in the might of legal right on the one hand, and the great interests of civilization, humanity and Christian teaching on the other-McLoughlin was the moral exemplar of his time, for he rose above the selfishness of trade and the laws of commercial right, to realize the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. No wonder there were two parties at Vancouver: the conservatives, who believed the rights of the Hudson's Bay Company should be the paramount consideration, and be maintained regardless of American settlers' claims on humanity ; and the radicals, who endorsed McLoughlin. He expressed it all when pro- test was made against his supplying the needs of emigrants -who could hardly have existed without his help-as rising equal to the occasion he answered, that first of all he was a man and a Christian and after that he was the servant of the Hudson's Bay Company.
He was indeed, as he was styled, "the Czar of the West." His rule was imperial for a thousand miles, and his mere word was law. Yet there was a genuine beneficence in his nature that overcame the pride of life and the lust of the flesh and made him the special providence to open the Canaan of the Occident to the civilization of the East.
Liberal and generous in his views, he was no religious bigot. In his association with Blanchet and other re- ligious teachers, he became impressed with the methods of Catholicity, and connected himself with the Roman Catho- lic Church ; but his kindly acts extended to all who sought to teach the same gospel. Every mission founded in Ore- gon received from him protection, encouragement and ad-
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vice, as well as frequent material assistance that advanced their interests, for he accepted honest Christian effort in whatever form it came.
It would seem that such a man as McLoughlin could pos- sess every quality that would endow a home with happiness ; yet he belonged to that class of adventurers who invaded the wilderness and had learned to ally themselves to its human nature as well as wild nature. It was impossible to take with them on their distant expeditions cultivated women to make homes at trading posts so remote from human progress ; so, to secure some semblance of home life -as well as ally themselves to the savage life around them -they took as life partners half-breed women, who were daughters of former traders and trappers, or often the daughters of chiefs among the tribes so wedded. Thus it was that men of cultivation and character, who had been well educated as younger sons of good families, when the wilderness was finally redeemed were found with half-breed sons and daughters, who had held their heads proudly as children of princes of the fur trade, but were not the equals of the civilized society that succeeded them. They had sup- posed that for ages to come the mood of the wilderness would rule this farthest Oregon ; they supposed the paths they opened could never become highways; that the immi- gration westward-that had existed since the time when Persian and Hindoo greatness impelled the past-that peo- pled and civilized the Ægean, and spread on all the shores of the Mediterranean, occupied Western Europe and con- quered the New World-whose motto was always, "West- ward Ho!"-was to find a final barrier where it reached the Rocky Mountains of the Western Hemisphere. But-be-
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fore they knew it-the wave swept over the ranges, com- pelled the wilds, overcame barbarism, and the banners of the pioneers were waving from hill top and plain of the Farthest Occident !
In his address to the Pioneer Association, in 1887, Rev. I. D. Driver, speaking of Dr. John McLoughlin, said: "He used to say to Rev. J. L. Parrish : 'For all coming time we and our children will have uninterrupted possession of this country, as it can never be reached by families but by water around Cape Horn.' Mr. Parrish went on to say, being an Eastern man, 'Before we die we will see the Yankees com- ing across the mountains with their teams and families.' The doctor said: 'As well might they undertake to go to the moon.' Years after, when the first emigrants arrived and the news reached the doctor, he treated it as a joke. When a train finally camped on this side of the Cascades, he went and conversed with the emigrants, saw the dilapidated wagons, torn covers, jaded animals and sun-burned women and children, and when meeting Parrish on his return, he said: 'God forgive me, Parrish! but the Yankees are here, and the first thing you know they will yoke up their oxen and drive to the mouth of the Columbia and come out at Japan.'"
CHAPTER XXVI
MCLOUGHLIN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
IT is fortunate for history, as well as for the future repu- tation of Dr. McLoughlin, that he wrote out and left among his papers a brief sketch of his doings and his mo- tives. Such a document was found among his papers, but has only been made in a small degree known to the world. As it constitutes in itself a very valuable memento and con- tribution to current history, we cannot do better than give it space in these sketches. The fame of Dr. McLoughlin does not rest on his autobiographical utterances, or even on this document that never saw the light until his decease; but it is well for that fame that his own modest utterances are sustained by the testimony of many Americans. It is true, beyond doubt, that he resigned that high position and surrendered its rich emoluments because the directors of the Hudson's Bay Company were not satisfied with his liberal course toward American emigrants. Not over one-third of the supplies he credited to early settlers were ever paid for. The losses of the company were heavy, and when they remonstrated with him his answer was the noble utterance that he could not be so inhumane and un-Christianlike as to permit his fellow-men to suffer, as they would had he pur- sued a different course. It was because of his loyalty to humanity and his kindness to Americans that he lost his high official station and was left almost heartbroken in his old age. We can afford to hold up in contrast those who
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profited by his bounty and left him to pay the bill; also those be they missionaries or who-that tried to rob him of his land claim, with the nobler minded man-Jolin Mc- Loughlin-who did so much and lost so much for humanity, and never expressed regret.
Dr. McLoughlin wrote as follows:
In 1824 I came to this country to superintend the management of the Hudson's Bay Company's trade on the coast, and we came to the determination to abandon the Astoria and go to Fort Vancouver, as it was a place where we could cultivate the soil and raise our own provisions.
In March, 1825, we moved there, and that spring planted potatoes and sowed two bushels of peas, the only grain we had, and all we had. In the fall I received from a New York factory a bushel spring wheat, a bushel oats, a bushel harley, a bushel Indian corn and a quart of timothy, and all of which was sown in proper time, and which produced well except the Indian corn, for which the ground was too poor and the nights rather cool, and continued extending our improvements. In 1828 the crop was sufficient to enable us to dispense with the importation of flour, etc.
In 1825, from what I had seen of the country, I formed the con- clusion, from the mildness and salubrity of the climate, that this was the finest portion of North America that I had seen for the residence of civilized man, and as the farmers could not cultivate the ground without cattle, and as the Hudson's Bay Company had only twenty-seven head, big and small, and as I saw at the time no possi- bility of getting cattle by sea, and that was too expensive, I deter- mined that no cattle should be killed at Vancouver except one bull calf every year for rennet to make cheese, till we had ample stock to meet all our demands, and to assist settlers, a resolution to which I strictly adhered, and the first animal killed for beef was in 1838; till that time we had lived on fresh and salt venison and wild fowl. From morality and policy I stopped the sale and issue of spirituous liquor to the Indians, but to do this effectually I had to stop the sale of liquor to all whites. In 1834, when Mr. Wyeth, of Boston, came, he began by selling liquor, but on my assuring him that the Hudson's Bay Company sold no liquor to whites or Indians, he immediately adopted the same rule.
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STORY OF JEDEDIAH SMITH'S PARTY
One night in August, 1828, I was surprised by the Indians making a great noise at the gate of the fort, saying that they had brought an American. The gate was opened, the man came in, but was so affected he could not speak. After sitting down some minutes to recover himself, he told us he was, he thought, the only survivor of eighteen men, conducted by the late Jedediah Smith. All the rest, he thought, were murdered. The party left San Francisco bound to their rendez- vous at the Salt Lake. They ascended the Sacramento valley, but finding no opening to cross the mountains to go east, they bent their course to the coast, which they reached at the mouth of the Rogue River, then came along the beach to the Umpqua, where the Indians stole their axe, and as it was the only axe they had, and which they absolutely required to make rafts to cross rivers, they took the chief prisoner and their axe was returned. Early the following morning Smith started in a canoe with two men and an Indian, and left orders, as usual, to allow no Indians to come into camp. But to gratify their passion for women, the men neglected to follow the order, allowed the Indians to come into camp, and at an Indian yell five or six Indians fell upon each white man. At the time, the narrator, Black, was out of the crowd, and had just finished cleaning and loading his rifle; three Indians jumped on him, but he shook them off, and seeing all his comrades struggling on the ground and the Indians stabbing them, he fired on the crowd and rushed to the woods, pursued by the Indians, hut fortunately escaped; swam across the Umpqua, and came north in the hopes of reaching the Columbia, where he knew we were. But broken down by hunger and misery, as he had no food but a few wild berries which he found on the beach, he determined to give himself up to the Killimour, a tribe on the coast at Cape Lookout, who treated him with great humanity, relieved his wants and brought him to the fort, for which, in case whites might again fall in their power, and to induce them to act kindly to them, I rewarded them most liberally. But as Smith and his two men might have escaped, and, if we made no search for them, die at daybreak the next morn- ing, I sent Indian runners with tobacco to the Willamette chiefs to tell them to send their people in search of Smith and his two men, and if they found them to bring them to the fort and I would pay them, and telling them if any Indians hurt these men we would punish them, and immediately equipped a strong party of forty well-armed
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men. But as the men were embarking, to our great joy Smith and his two men arrived.
THE INDIANS BROUGHT TO TEAMS
I then arranged as strong a party as I could make to recover all we could of Smith's property. I divulged my plan to none, but gave written instructions to the officer, to be opened early when he got to the Umpqua, because if known before they got there the officers would talk of it among themselves, the men would hear it and from them it would go to their Indian wives, who were spies on us, and my plan would be defeated. The plan was that the officer was, as usual, to invite the Indians to bring their furs to trade, just as if nothing had happened. Count the furs, but as the American trappers mark all their skins, keep these all separate, give them to Mr. Smith and not pay the Indians for them, telling them that they belonged to him; that they got them by murdering Smith's people.
They denied having murdered Smith's people, but admitted they bought them of the murderers. The officers told them they must look to the murderers for the payment, which they did; and as the murderers would not restore the property they had received, a war was kindled among them, and the murderers were punished more severely than we could have done, and which Mr. Smith himself admitted, and to be much preferable to going to war on them, as we could not distinguish the innocent from the guilty, who, if they choose, might fly to the mountains, where we could not find them. In this way we recovered property for Mr. Smith to the amount of $3,200 without any expense to him, and which was done from a principle of Christian duty, and as a lesson to the Indians to show them they could not wrong the whites with impunity.
FIRST FARMINO IN OREGON
In 1828, Etienne Lucier, a Willamette trapper, asked me if I thought this would become a settled country. I told him wherever wheat grew he might depend it would become a farming country. He asked me what assistance I would afford him to settle as a farmer. I told him I would loan him seed to sow and wheat to feed himself and family, to be returned from the produce of his farm, and sell him such implements as were in the Hudson's Bay Company's store at 50 per cent on prime cost. But a few days after he came back and told
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me he thought there was too remote a prospect of this becoming a civilized country, and as there were no clergymen in the country, he asked me a passage for his family in the Hudson's Bay Company's boats, to which I acceded. He started in September to meet the boats at the mountain; the express came in too late and he had to return, and went to hunt for the winter.
In 1829, he again applied to begin to farm. I told him that since he had spoken to me I heard that several of the trappers would apply for assistance to begin to farm, and that it was necessary for me to come to a distinct understanding with him, to serve as a rule for those who might follow. That the Hudson's Bay Company were bound under heavy penalties to discharge none of their servants in the Indian country, and bound to return them to the place where they engaged them; that this was done to prevent vagabonds being let loose among the Indians and incite them to hostility to the whites. But as I knew he was a good, honest man, and none but such need apply, and as, if he went to Canada and unfortunately died before his children could provide for themselves, they would become objects of pity and a burden to others-for these reasons I would assist him to settle. But I must keep him and all the Hudson's Bay Company's servants whom I allowed to settle on the Hudson's Bay Company's books as servants, so as not to expose the Hudson's Bay Company and me to a fine, but they would work for themselves and no service would be exacted from them.
Many of the Canadians objected to go to the Willamette, because it was to become American territory, which I told them it would, as the Hudson's Bay Company in 1825 officially informed that in no event could the British Government claim extend south of the Colum- bia, and that they were afraid they would not have the same advan- tages as American citizens. I told them from the fertility of the soil, the extent of prairie and the easy access from the sea that the Willamette, they must admit, was the best and only place adapted to form a settlement which would have a beneficial effect on the whole country north of San Francisco, where we could assist and protect them from the Indians in case of difficulty, and as to advantages, I did not know what they would have, but this I knew, that the American Government and people knew only two classes of persons, rogues and honest men; that they punished the first and protected the last, and it depended only upon themselves to what class they would belong.
Others wanted to go and live with the relatives of their wives, but
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as their children would be brought up with the sympathies and feel- ings of Indians, and as the half-breeds are in general leaders among Indians and they would be a thorn in the side of the whites, I in- sisted they should go to the Willamette, where their children could be brought up as whites and Christians, and brought to cultivate the ground and imbued with the feelings and sympathies of whites, and where they and their mothers would serve as hostages for the good behavior of their relatives in the interior. As Indians judge of whites by themselves, and think if they injure whites on their lands, the whites would revenge it by murdering their Indian relatives among them, and as the settlement increased by the addition of Indian women and half-breeds, the turbulence of the Indian tribes would diminish, and certainly the Cayuse war would not have been quelled so easily as it was if other half-breeds had not joined the Ameri- cans; and I have great pleasure to be able to say what must be admitted by all who know them, that the Canadian trappers and half-breeds who have settled as farmers are as peaceable, orderly, neighborly and industrious a set of men as any in the settlement; and that so far the Canadian settlement has produced and supplied three-fourths of the grain that has been exported.
WYETH'S EXPEDITION
In 1832 Mr. Nathaniel Wyeth of Cambridge, near Boston, came across land with a party of men, but as the vessel he expected to meet here with supplies was wrecked on the way, he returned to the East with three men. The remainder joined the Willamette settlement and got supplies and were assisted by the Hudson's Bay Company's servants, and to be paid the same price for their wheat- that is, three shillings sterling per bushel, and purchase their supplies at 50 per cent on prime cost.
In 1834 Mr. Wyeth returned with a fresh party and met the vessel with supplies here, and started with a large outfit for Fort Hall, which he had built on his way, and in 1836 he abandoned the business and returned to the States, and those of his men that remained in the country joined the settlements and were assisted as the others on the same terms as the Hudson's Bay Company's servants, and in justice to Mr. Wyeth I have great pleasure to be able to state that as a rival in trade, I always found him open, manly, frank and fair, and, in short, in all his contracts a perfect gentleman and an honest
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man, doing all he could to support morality and encouraging industry in the settlement.
THE EARLIEST MISSION
In 1834 Messrs. Jason and Daniel Lee and Messrs. Walker and P. L. Edwards came with Mr. Wyeth to establish a mission in the Flathead country. I observed to them that it was too dangerous for them to establish a mission; that to do good to the Indians they must establish themselves where they could collect them around them; teach them first to cultivate the ground and live more com- fortably than they do by hunting, and as they do this, teach them religion; that the Willamette afforded them a fine field, and that they ought to go there and they would get the same assistance as settlers. They followed my advice and went to the Willamette, and it is but justice to these pioneers to say that no men, in my opinion, could exert themselves more zealously than they did until 1840, when they received a large reinforcement of forty or more persons; then the newcomers began to neglect their duties, discord sprang up among them, and the mission broke up.
I made it a rule that none of the Hudson's Bay Company's servants should be allowed to join the settlements unless he had fifty pounds sterling before him, as he required that sum to supply him with cloth- ing and implements. He that begins business on credit is seldom so careful and industrious as he who does business on his own means. By this I effected two objects, I made the men more saving and in- dustrious, and attached them to their farms. If I had not done so, they would have abandoned on the least difficulty. But having their means invested on their improvements they saw if they abandoned the loss would be theirs, they therefore persisted and succeeded. When the settlement was formed, though the American trappers had no means, they were assisted on credit, and all in three years paid up from the produce of their farms.
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