USA > Oregon > Pioneer days of Oregon history, Vol. I > Part 22
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Mr. Slacom had personal interest in the cattle com- pany, numbering twenty-three animals. Those he left in care of Ewing Young. His death-occurring four years later-saw their increase amount to sixty-three head. His nephew was a midshipman with the Wilkes exploring expe- dition that came soon after; he claimed his uncle's share, and disposed of them to Dr. McLoughlin for $860. The reader will call to mind that the influence of Hall J. Kelley induced Ewing Young to come to Oregon in 1834; that the writings of Kelley-after his return-denouncing the Hud- son's Bay monopoly-caused the President to send Mr. Slacom in 1836, and by joint efforts of Ewing Young and Mr. Slacom the cattle company succeeded. It is interest- ing to trace the hand of fate as it guides the destinies of Oregon! It seemed to be influenced by the action of one whose personal schemes were all abortive, but whose efforts resulted in good for the young colony at every turn. Whether in higher mood of prescience he told of the future that awaited that Northwest Coast, or, as a morose and dis- couraged visionary in his later years he vented his spleen, all his acts matured to the advantage of Oregon. He made that the object of his hopes which became the author of his unfortunate destiny.
Still later, with the dawn of a new century, we see his claim realized-made three-quarters of a century ago-that this west coast would some day be peopled with great states and have extensive trade with the Orient. It was hardly possible to conceive that all this was to come before the cen- tury was passed in which he made that prophecy !
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE KLICKITAT NATION-THE IROQUOIS OF THE PACIFIC
EARLY comers to Oregon found a competent and self- reliant Indian race domiciled at the Cascades of the Columbia, who held the recesses of the great range and owned the fisheries at the Cascades. It is hardly necessary to explain that the range has a width of sixty miles, through which the River of the West had cut its way and left stu- pendous monuments to mark its course; that in the heart of the mountains the immense flood meets with obstructions and for half a mile raves and foams among bowlders that block the flow. On those rapids white men plant fisheries to-day, and on them the Indian strove with net or spear to win salmon through untold ages.
Such a fishery was invaluable to the aborigines, and only a stalwart race could have held it. All the course of the Columbia at and above the Cascades, through the ranges, belonged to the Klickitats, who occupied from the summits of the mountains and eastward for over an hundred miles, divided into separate bands, but allied in race and interest. It has been well said that the Klickitats had the same rela- tion to the Pacific coast that the Iroquois held to the Atlantic. As the Six Nations held under tribute all the tribes as far south as the Carolinas, so the Klickitats and their allies had conquered three hundred miles of the west coast, from Puget Sound to the Umpqua on the south.
After half a century of residence in Oregon-much of
MOUNT HOOD
Remnant of time forgotten ! Symbol of years to come- Standing alone in vastness, mystical, grim and dumb !
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the time interested in historical research-it seems to me in- credible that we know so little of the Indian race who pre- ceded us. When much of interest was to be learned we neg- lected to acquire it. The Hudson's Bay people, who were here before our time, seem also to have ignored much that would be valuable if it had been gathered and preserved.
The Klickitats occupied the very gateway that connected the western valleys with the Inland Empire, the waterway made by the river through sierras that stand for fifteen hundred miles, from British Columbia on the north to Southern California, all the way sentinelled by snowy peaks whose sublimity is unapproachable.
The Klickitat country included Mount Adams on the north, and Mount Hood on the south, with the great river between. Such territorial bounds give little idca as to their influence, for the Klickitats were everywhere, marauding, trading, horse racing and holding lands they did not own under a burden of tribute that at times became onerous. Their trading excursions went as far south as California, and a thousand miles east to the buffalo ranges east of the Rockies to lay in supplies of robes and cured meat.
When Portland was a lively village, if one met an es- pecially bright Indian, he was sure to be a Klickitat. They were the Yankees of the aboriginal time ; not only sharp as traders but undaunted as warriors, making themselves feared when necessary. With all their enterprise and many good points, they were tyrannical in their treatment of western tribes, by whom they were known as the "Robber Klicki- tats." Indeed, the name itself means "robber" and seems to have been well deserved.
They who suppose the native race lived in squalor and
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were always base are mistaken. Before white men came to occupy and pervert, the Indians were numerous, had their towns, their annual gatherings to exchange products and regulate affairs ; owned their special privileges, as fisheries, camas ground and berry fields, and hunted in their own territory.
All the seasons had appropriate duties ; it was no light work to gather and cure the fruits of the earth, the fish of the streams, and game of forests, mountains and plains. Besides this, they had arts and manufactures that became obsolete when they could purchase of the fur company cloth and other goods, tools and trinkets, and pay for them with furs and pelts. When they could purchase firearms they no longer needed bows and arrows, so the making of beautiful arrow-heads of flint or obsidian became a lost art.
Civilization, in its baser form, corrupted them and gave little compensation. They no longer hunted elk, deer and bear so assiduously, nor did they have to tan skins to make material for clothing. Much that was characteristic, orig- inal and romantic with them disappeared; then pestilence came, and of the thousands who made a mighty people orig- inally, only a few were left, who surrendered too often to the vices that form the dregs of civilized life, while they caught little impulse from its virtues.
Even the competition of different sects of pretended Christian missions was hurtful, for while these missions were, no doubt, founded in a spirit of self-sacrifice, their rivalry was baleful.
To the east of the Cascades lies the semi-arid region of the Inland Empire, as different as possible from the moist climate of the valleys west of the Cascade Range. The homes of the
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Klickitats were on the eastern slopes of the sierras and on the arid plains and uplands. Occupying the course of the river through the range, they held the key to the Columbian region, the gateway between the East and the West. They maintained intimate relations with both, while they levied tribute at will on the West for over an hundred miles north of the Columbia, to nearly three hundred miles south. Through all this region they rode triumphant. Their lodges were full of spoil won by these forays, and slaves were taken through the length and breadth of that far West. To the north, their predatory raids reached to the waters of Lower Puget Sound and to the ocean shore. South of the Columbia, and along the ocean, at the foot of the Coast Range, there is yet a well-worn trail that antecedes all his- tory, known now and aforetime as the Klickitat Trail. Dif- ferent tribes occupied the narrow verge, between the coast mountains and the ocean, who lived on the game of the ranges and the fish in the streams and the ocean. While skies were fair and ocean smooth they ventured out on the broader wave. Other bands dwelt in the great valleys spread between the Coast and Cascade ranges, the latter forming a mighty barrier that held back the cold winds of winter and the summer heats that were natural to the in- terior. These valleys were sheltered somewhat from ocean storms by the Coast Range, while ocean influences prevailed to create a climate varied with few extremes.
It is worth while to describe the Klickitat country as well as people, for country is often a key to character. In addition to the fishing grounds along the Columbia they occupied favorite mountain valleys, one reaching to Mount Hood, on the south ; another to Mount Adams, on the north.
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They hunted about the great mountain peaks, while their especial and favorite home was in the Klickitat valley, twenty miles east of Mount Adams, a broad basin that was rimmed in by hills and ranges, twenty by thirty miles in extent, with the snows of Hood, St. Helen's and Adams gleaming at a distance. Rainier was an hundred miles away, while Adams rose so near as to leave no wish for sublimity unsatisfied-a vision of wonder beyond words to tell or pencil to picture.
In this valley they had homes where the Little Klickitat flows quietly and a great spring pours a living stream that feeds a flouring mill and supplies a town. There are buttes and ranges all around; the only outlet is where the Klickitat River tears a way through the southern hills and leaps head- long into the flow of the Columbia. Such was the home- land of the "Robber Barons" of the North Pacific in pre- historic times. From this idyllic spot they went forth on many a wild foray, following the ocean shore so far south as the Umpqua, then crossing the Coast Range, returned by the Klamath trail.
Some years ago, when spring was dressing the shores of the Columbia with the dawning hues of May, I took the route for this same valley. About twenty miles above The Dalles we left the train and ferried the river to climb for hours the steep hills, until at 3,000 feet elevation we looked abroad on another world. The river, with its avenue of basalt walls to the west, and the shifting sands that bor- der the flow were far below. Looking down the silver flood, with its framing of basalt palisades, Mount Hood stood in the distance. Looking north, where the Klickitat valley spread beyond, we saw the wonderful cordon of summits
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with Adams in the foreground. In this mountain eyrie the Robber Klickitats had their rallying ground. From here they made their forays ; but we should say that they never dared to go farther south than the Umpqua; the Rogue Rivers were a race of fighters and held their own against all comers. They were a superior race, therefore the Klickitats were not trespassers any farther south than Ump- qua. It is not known that they often made war on the tribes to the eastward of them, but had alliance with neigh- bors that made them formidable.
There were some men among the leaders of the tribes on the Columbia who deserve to be rememberd with Philip of Pokonocket, Tecumseh, Blackhawk, Uncas, Mionto- nomah, and the most notable characters of aboriginal his- tory. There is evidence that the Klickitats held great fairs, or gatherings, to which the different tribes sent representa- tives from far and near to exchange products and attend to matters of public interest. These occasions were more important than we would suppose; they were of ancient ori- gin and answered as a parliament to regulate affairs of an extensive territory. If one could have a faithful picture of the aboriginal era, the life and character of the Indians of the Upper Columbia region would be interesting.
In 1873, I wrote for the New York Times, for which I was corresponding during the Modoc war, the story told me by Modoc and Klamath chiefs, of the traditions of their people as to the great fairs held annually, in prehistoric times, at Yainax, where a grassy butte stands in the midst of the Sprague River valley. Sprague River is a tributary of the Klamath, and the valley is one of the most beautiful spots in all south-middle Oregon.
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The legend has it that from immemorial time there had been an annual October gathering of the tribes from all the northwest, who met there for purposes of trade, to exchange products and for friendly intercourse.
The Nez Perces came from the rivers of Idaho with droves of horses loaded with buffalo meat, robes, etc .; the Columbia River Indians brought salmon in different forms, cloth made from the fibre of the milkweed, matting, also weapons for war or the chase. The Klickitats were famous as horse- men ; their women made many things for trade as well as home use, including hats braided of the small roots of the spruce.
The tribes west of the Cascades had a specialty in fish and shells-the smaller of which circulated as money. Each tribe brought to Yainax, which is 250 miles south of the- Columbia, various articles of native product or manufac- ture to exchange for what others had to sell.
This gathering included also the warlike tribes of South- ern Oregon and Northern California. The greatest im- portance attached to the Pitt Rivers, who were proficient in making bows and arrows. They took the lead as armorers, and no brave seems to have been fully equipped for war or chase who did not have a Pitt River outfit. The Klicki- tats also excelled in this work, that was all important from an Indian standpoint.
At that day the Indians retained their original customs and had not lost their identity. Troubles between them and the whites had made them angry, and they showed their ill feelings. At that time the fur trade was newly introduced and the peace policy not fully established.
To study the manufactures and products of the various
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tribes, their clothing and mode of living will prove that these natives, who lived so near to nature and are so often believed to have led idle and vagrant lives, were as busily occupied as average humanity. There was variety of class and character among them, as in civilized communities ; many lived from hand to mouth and were without industry or ambition, while the best were students of humanity and of nature; developing genius, showing capacity for gov- ernment and ability as leaders in peace or war. They had poets and orators as well as statesmen and warriors.
The last vivid act of the Klickitat drama was enacted when Kamiakin, with the art of a great organizer, called into life the Klickitat confederacy and made a war of ven- geance on the whites.
During a recent visit to the Klickitat valley -- now the scene of varied homes and industries-I learned interesting facts that I will condense to a paragraph.
No existing history contains any true account of the Klickitats, of their dominion over two great States, nor of the career and character of Kamiakin, who may be called a savage but was a man among men ; whose power of organiza- tion, and for combination, has not often been equalled. Of course, it was a hopeless war. The Indian had no true con- ception of the white man's power; even if they had, many were "mad for life's history" and preferred to die with arms in their hands rather than live but to endure.
How Kamiakin combined all his own affiliations and drew into his confederacy many other great tribes, making war for over two years, is history that as yet has never been written, save from the white man's standpoint. His sys- tem of intelligence covered the entire northwest, and the
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details of affairs were known to the tribes of the whole region.
The war was hopeless and resulted in the entire submis- sion of the hostile tribes. The atrocities the Indians com- mitted were recorded ; history tells how massacres were com- mitted, but has never gleaned the truth as to provocation given. In our pride of power we forget that they were despoiled of their native lands, their homes and their all.
It is not easy to do justice to a race that has almost passed away and left few definite annals ; whose prophets are dead; whose priests and kings are forgotten ; of whom we only know that they made futile struggles ere they accepted their fate; but some facts are reliable and well sustained. That the Klickitats were enterprising was well known to early comers ; the Hudson's Bay people depended on them whenever they needed hunters or found it necessary to em- ploy Indians in any capacity.
The relations of the Klickitats to the country are set forth in a report made in 1857 to the commissioner of In- dian Affairs by J. Ross Brown, who was sent to review the origin of the Indian wars of 1855-57. I will condense from his report what will be of interest in this connection.
In 1851 the Willamette valley was the main resort of the Klickitats, a powerful and warlike tribe from the country east of the mountains and from the Columbia through the Cascades. He compares them to the Arabs of the desert ; they were adventurous as traders, bold and cunning, and had acquired ascendancy over the Indians of Western Ore- gon as far south as to the Rogue River valley. In earlier years they used to descend the Columbia, conquered the Chinooks, Cowlitz and other tribes to the west, reducing
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them to pay tribute. They envied the rich valleys and hunting grounds to the south, and as pestilence early in the century had swept away thousands of the Western Oregon Indians, those bands were unable to resist invasion, so were in turn subdued. In their dealings with the Hudson's Bay Company they secured firearms, and becoming skilled in the use of them, made easy prey also of the Umpquas, to the south, and of all the bands along the ocean shore. They es- tablished camps for their families in the Willamette and opened trade as far south as Northern California ; their conquests did not include territory south of the Umpquas ; their main depots were in the Willamette, where their wives and children were left while on these raids and trading ex- peditions.
After immigration commenced, in 1840, they found it profitable to engage as farm laborers and grew to be fairly proficient in acts of husbandry. In 1853 General Jo Lane engaged sixty of their warriors to assist in subduing the Rogue River Indians, but at the northern frontier of that valley they met the announcement that peace was made, or they could have tried conclusions with the fighting race of Southern Oregon.
In 1851 a treaty had been made with the tribes of the Willamette for the purchase of their lands, but no account was made as to the rights of the Klickitats, who claimed by right of conquest. They were told that their country was east of the Cascades, but they were people who never slept on their rights, so when settlers fenced in their well-worn trails, for they had their clearly defined highways, they tore the fences down and went marching on.
In 1851 Daniel McLeod accused them of trespass and
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the accused were brought before the United States court ; but the court could find no law to suit the case. Their claim was that they held the country by right of conquest, that they travelled their own trails, cut their own timber and had warned McLeod that he was trespassing on their rights to settle there.
There were similar cases, and the Klickitats stoutly held for their right of conquest. As a rule they had made friends of the whites; as workers they were useful and esteemed superior to other Indians. In the spring of 1855 the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Oregon had them removed to their own country, east of the Cascades, but they left with no good will toward the whites, charging fraud and bad faith on the government and its agents. They swore vengeance, and that was one cause for the war of 1855-57 that costs such loss and expense. In May, 1855, General I. I. Stevens, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Wash- ington, and General Joel Palmer, Superintendent for Ore- gon met the Indians of the Inland Empire in the Walla Walla valley, not far from the present city of that name, near the site of the old Whitman Mission, for the purpose of making a treaty with all. They were not in good humor ; even Lawyer, of the Nez Percés, made bitter remarks ; Kamiakin wore a habitual sneer and refused to speak. Day after day the thousands of warriors waited, refusing to be fed, or to smoke the pipe that meant peace ; only the pres- ence of 1,500 Nez Percés, known to be averse to war, though scarce kindly to a peace to be won by selling their lands, held in check the savage hordes who wore their war paint, sang war songs and danced war dances. Of Ameri- cans there were but a corporal's guard of soldiers, a lieu --
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tenant and fifty men; of Indian warriors there were three thousand. The interpreter, who had a Cayuse wife, had left because she had told him of intended treachery. The Cayuses were ripe for war, but were afraid, for they remembered the sufferings in the war that ended in defeat seven years before; Kamiakin was the evil genius of the hour; it was in vain that presents were made of food and days spent making long speeches. One chief said they had no right to sell the soil their fathers had left them ; the Great Spirit would never forgive and eternal damnation would be their lot if they did. An- other recited what a Delaware Indian had told them of the death and destruction of the race on the Atlantic shore ; and all the while Kamiakin listened with the sarcastic sneer he continually wore.
When speech making seemed exhausted, General Palmer rose for the last time ; pointing where the Columbia rolled along, he said: "You have seen the river, can you change it to run the other way? No! You cannot! When it rains, can you stop it? You cannot!" Pointing to the hills, "Can you count the spears of grass that grow there?"
Then, bending to point out the Cayuse chief, "You, Cayuse! when you murdered our friend Whitman, yonder, we came to fight you and drove you out of your own coun- try. This country is ours by conquest ; but the Great Father has sent us to talk with you! Now we are done." He walked away and the chiefs sat awhile silent; then Peu Peu Mox Mox followed and overtook Palmer, and after they talked half an hour the chief came back, took the pen and signed the treaty, and the others followed the example.
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But it was not done cheerfully or willingly. It was not long before war was declared.
While the Rogue Rivers on the south and Nesquallys to the far north took the war-path, the Cayuses refused, for they were afraid. The Nez Percés did not wish to go to war, nor would the Flatheads, so it was the Yakimas, Klickitats, Palouses and Spokanes, to the north, and the Walla Wallas, and others south of the Columbia, who took the field and held it almost three years. During that time they excluded whites from their country north of the Columbia and almost prevented emigration from the States. If all the tribes had joined the confederacy, especially the Nez Perces and their neighbors, it would have required longer time and much larger force to subdue them.
The war was the work of one man ; Kamiakin planned it and led it ; only for him it would never have been ; had our government pursued a policy judicious and forceful, to command respect, and fair to command confidence, no such war would ever have occurred.
To a Deschutes chief, sent as a spy, Kamiakin told his intentions. He had secured ammunition and made provision so that he believed the confederacy could carry on war for five years; whatever Indians refused to join them should be treated as enemies, killed or enslaved. After the Walla Walla treaty referred to, there was a gathering of the tribes in Grande Ronde valley, which was then unoc- cupied by whites. The Nez Percés opposed, but the ma- jority were for war ; even a brother of Kamiakin's pretended to oppose war.
As early as April, 1853, a priest of the Catholic Mission at Yakima wrote that word had come to him that effort was
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making to unite all the tribes to declare war against Ameri- cans ; the reason assigned being that emigrations were pour- ing into the country and Americans were sure to seize their lands. When Indian agent Boland heard that one Mattice had been murdered in the Yakima country, he went alone among them to ascertain from Kamiakin what was the cause, desiring to show his confidence. Indian authority said that Kamiakin was very independent and that Boland threatened the vengeance of the government. As a result he was also killed, on his return, by a nephew of Kamiakin.
Kamiakin carried on war as long as possible; when he saw there was no hope he left the beautiful mountain valley of the Mull Mull, crossed the northern line to British Co- lumbia, and the scenes that had known him knew him no more.
It would be folly to assert that the Indian was altogether sinned against, but he certainly had rights that should have been recognized. The march of civilization was impera- tive ; the only recourse for the Indian was to join that march and become civilized. The way to secure this would have been for the government to command confidence by a just course and compel compliance by firm exercise of domin- ion. The later history of the Klickitats, Simcoes and Yakimas, on their beautiful and fertile reservation, shows that Indians can be civilized, improved and self-sustaining, but that was done under the management and influence of Rev. J. H. Wilbur, who was a very successful man in all walks of life. He accepted religious work as a duty, and their respect for him and confidence was unbounded. Their present prosperity is the result.
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