USA > Oregon > Pioneer days of Oregon history, Vol. I > Part 23
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The Klickitats were both allied with and akin to the
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Yakimas and recognized Kamiakin as their highest chief. Kamiakin resided remote from the usual routes of white men ; he had long known the Hudson's Bay people and re- spected them for fair dealing; their hunters and trappers took wives from among them and fraternized with them. What they saw of the Bostons was, that men, often reck- less and wicked, passed through their country going to and from Colville, who sometimes committed outrages they resented. The return of their people from the Willamette they resented all they were capable of, and the old sagamore, from his mountain eyrie of the Mull Mull valley, decided on war. And it was no cheap pretence or hastily planned foray, but was a combined movement, built on a broad basis, that appealed to every native tribe in all the wide domain that now constitutes three States-Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
Runners, with cabalistic messages or sign language, as well as by word of mouth, were sent swiftly, north and south, far and near, and every well-known chief and independent band received the summons. The Yakimas and Klickitats were paramount on the sound country, and one of the most aggressive of their allies was Leschi, chief of the Nes- quallys ; a man of force, possessing eloquence as well as action. He took the field on a mission of vengeance ; crossed the Cascade Mountains to Kamiakin and worked on the hearts of the Indians far and near.
What a theme that must have been! He roused them with the story that for centuries the native tribes of the immense region east of the Rocky Mountains had been despoiled of their lands and then had been destroyed. He drew fearful pictures of an infernal region, as black as night, to which
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the whites would consign them when they should be con- quered.
Pee Pee Mox a Mox, a great chief of the Walla Wallas, to the eastward, was another leader; to the far south the braves of the Rogue River valley received the fateful mes- sage and made ready for the fray. The fearful appeal was made that has roused all lovers of freedom :
Fight for your altars and your fires, Fight for the green graves of your sires- God and your native land.
I have alluded to the fact that the Indians were aware of the fate of their race on the Atlantic coast, and through the Mississippi valley, and east of the Rocky Mountains. Tom Hill, a Delaware Indian, had found his way across the Rockies and was domesticated among the Nez Percés in 1845. He told all he met the story of the native tribes to the eastward; that they had owned the country until the whites came and had been destroyed and their lands taken by the invaders. There was foundation in truth for this ; his version was that missionaries came first, then settlers occupied the land. Jo Lewis-a half-breed Chinook-was sent East and educated in Maine; returning to Oregon, he became a member of the family of Dr. Whitman and was greatly responsible for the massacre of 1847, at Waiilatpu. He played on the superstition of the Cayuses and confirmed the tales told by Tom Hill years before. These recitals were repeated from tribe to tribe through the Northwest and were -to some extent-confirmed by the Canadian Iroquois em- ployed by the Hudson's Bay Company. Thus the savage mind received "confirmation strong as proof of holy writ."
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The Hudson's Bay Company had preserved amicable rela- tions, by a just and conservative course and humane treat- ment that commanded respect and secured allegiance. To strengthen this, officers and men took wives from among Klickitats, Yakimas, Nez Percés and others. Some of these Indian women possessed strong character and exercised in- fluence. Dr. McLoughlin had an Indian wife-a Red River woman-who influenced the destinies of that time by com- manding his respect. She was a remarkable woman.
Such were the existing conditions and fears among the Indians-that the Americans were taking the country and appropriating it for their own use. It was at this time that Kamiakin answered the appeal made to him and the zealous Leschi left the plains of Nesqually to become a prophet of evil and spirit of vengeance.
As we think of the scenes that must have occurred, over mountain and dell, on sage brush plain or by the flowing waters of the Columbia, one naturally recalls the wild picture Sir Walter Scott so vividly drew of the "fiery cross" speeding through the highlands of Scotland:
Specd, Malise, speed ! 'The dun deer's hide On fleeter foot was never tied. Speed, Malise, speed! Snch cause of haste Thine active sinews never braced ! Herald of battle, fate and fear Stretch onward in thy fleet career,
For danger, death and warrior deed Are in thy course- Speed, Malise, speed !
Imagine these Indian tribes, covering a region five hun- dred miles square, nearly all roused to action by the organiz-
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ing force of a single chief whose messengers are speeding, far and near, on their mission of war!
Imagine the cause they had for terror when these mes- sengers of fate held up for their alarm all their race had suffered; all that had befallen the red man of the Atlantic shore and of the Mississippi valley-of the far north and the farthest south !
If we had been of them, would we have felt less alarm or made less threat of war? It was an effort that spoke the earnestness and loyalty of race of many scattered bands who occupied a wide region ; and if their ways were savage, cer- tainly the provocation was great. Simply by these runners -who went on their Cayuse ponies to the ends of the west- ern world-the Klickitat Confederacy was formed.
It was intended that simultaneous war should be made through all the Northwest. It commenced on the Sound Country-to the north-and in Southern Oregon-400 miles apart-at the same time. But I am not trying to give general history, only to word-picture the character and intelligence of the Klickitats as a people and show their enterprise and relations toward a wide region as a conquer- ing and ruling nation. There is not space to show their skill in native arts and the value of their handiwork. In all they were influential, enterprising, progressive, and deserve to be remembered in the future as resembling the Iroquois-or six nations-who had wide sway in the olden time, carrying their conquests to the far south.
A people whose homes clustered about the base of the great mountains north and south of the Columbia-in the valleys of Hood River, White Salmon, Klickitat, Simcoe and Yakima-were born to rule the world around them. It is
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not too much to imagine that they caught inspiration from the scenic wonders they dwelt among ; from the wonderment the patient waters had made as for untold cycles they carved their way through that mountain range; from the graphic features of the Great Gorge and the convulsion that wrought the Cascades, The Dalles and Tumwater.
The vastness of Hood was a feature on all the landscape for over an hundred miles. The same is true of Adams and its fraternity of snowy peaks that are all in view from the Klickitat valley. This people had traditional reverence for their mountains, felt inspiration from their presence, and must have caught some element of power from that source.
Overly practical minds may smile at the idea that a sav- age race felt the influence of natural surroundings, but the Indian was essentially a child of nature and did feel the in- spiration of his region.
Where the Indian has pleaded his own cause at councils held, he has always been eloquent ; often their speeches have the elements of poetry. The man who fails to recognize that civilization-as we style it-has been ruthless, and often treacherous, in dealing with the aborigines of America for the centuries we have despoiled them, must be lacking in sympathy and incapable of justice. In few instances have the Indians been treated with fairness in making treaties, and seldom have treaties been honorably and faithfully ful- filled after they were made, as I shall show ere done.
Having traced the course of Leschi and canvassed the motives of the chief as he carried his message of war to the interior tribes, we read-almost with regret-the fate that awaited him a year or so later, when he was arrested, tried and convicted, condemned and executed for these very deeds
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of heroism-or that would have been heroic, if performed in a civilized way in defence of civilized humanity. Viewed from his own standpoint he was a patriot who dared all for his people. But he was a savage, and heroism based on savage instincts does not count in history and is not often sung in verse or told in story.
As a nation we have suffered from the greed of Great Britain, but the English deserve credit for pursuing an honest and friendly course with the natives of British America. The Hudson's Bay Company was trusted and respected by the Indians for the humane treatment re- ceived. This was in strong contrast with the criminal neg- lect of aboriginal rights that characterized the course of the United States.
When General Miles was in command of the Department of the Columbia, he invited the writer to visit him at Van- couver headquarters, when he gave an account of his re- lations with a tribe of Sioux with whom treaty had been made after surrender. As they were dissatisfied, he called a council, where it seemed impossible to satisfy them. As a dernier resort he advised to send a delegation to Washing- ton to see the President. To this an ancient warrior, clothed in blanket and seamed with stripes of paint, responded that it was no use, as they had been there. "Did you see the President?" They had seen him. "What did he say to you?" The answer was brief : "He lied to us !" In whatever shape the question came the answer ever was, "He lied to us!" Explanation finally showed that General Grant had told them to go home with confidence that the treaty lately made would be fulfilled and they would be provided with teams, tools and equipment to build homes and commence
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farming. This same grim warrior, who was put forward to be spokesman for the tribe, concluded with: "That was three years ago and we have had nothing yet." Then he repeated : "He lied to us."
To make an interesting story short: they said, as the general had never lied to them in the years he had been among them, they were willing to do whatever he told them was best. What was best-he said-was to have land, make farms and live as white men did. To this they agreed; the land was divided among them; from an incidental fund he furnished wagons, ploughs, tools, and a soldier was found who had been raised on a farm, who taught them farming. From that day they had cost the government nothing for subsistence. They became, in a measure, civilized, all be- cause they had found an agent of the government who did not lie to them. When I once delivered this lecture, and an army officer was present, he assured me that the experience of the army coincided with my assertion.
After peace, for many years the Yakimas and Klickitats had the services, as Indian agent, of Rev. J. H. Wilbur, a good and practical man, who became deeply interested in their welfare and did much for them. They are prosperous and their prosperity was due greatly to his efforts and influ- ence. He was a remarkable man and commanded their con- fidence supremely, so that they became civilized and made good citizens. In Klickitat County forty or more have left the reservation, taken homesteads and sent their children to the common schools. The near by reservation has good schools and the richest of land ; but these desired to be Amer- ican citizens. As I was riding on the driver's seat, ascend- ing the mountain ridge to reach the Klickitat valley, some
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years ago, we met a wagon descending with a woman driver. Her face was copper color and had a few touches of ver- milion ; the driver told me that they were citizens who had left the reservation to be Americans. The Klickitats are undergoing evolution. When I met one of stalwart build, who looked as if he might have been a brave of Kamiakin's day, I wondered if some poet of the race had never said-
The sequel of to-day unsolders all The goodliest fellowship of famous knights Whereof this world holds record.
When in that valley recently, there passed by a weary looking Siwash of the olden time, who told of the battle fought two miles away, where hundreds of warriors were on an upland of several acres, lifted hundreds of feet by a basalt wall above the valley. Looking down they saw their enemy with a mountain howitzer mounted on a mule. There came a flash and smoke, after sound of thunder, and a small ball went hopping and skipping along the plateau with the curious Indians following. When the explosion came, they were hovering over it and-as he explained by sign lan- guage-fragments of brave men were scattered over the rocky strand. There were fifteen killed and wounded: an- other shell did as much harm; then they "stood not on the order of their going, but went at once."
No! The Siwash had no show ! Civilization had undone them-morally, physically, every way.
"The old order changeth, giving place to new." The Indian disappears before it. It is pitiful to remember that -a few decades ago-his fathers bore sway over a wide re- gion on the west shore and ruled many nations. Could
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Kamiakin see to-day, he would find many prosperous Klick- itats who are themselves becoming civilized; the new order will in time bring them its advantages, and we may hope that the last days of the western Iroquois will be better than the first.
We have not attempted the story of the war ; of the mak- ing of peace ; but peace was made, though Kamiakin did not stay to enjoy it. True to his traditions, he disappeared over the northern frontier, went among the Indians of British Columbia, and was never heard of more. But his story re- mains. There has been no history to do justice to the states- manship and warlike lustre of one of the most remarkable characters of the last generation.
Of course, the Indian had to go. There were desperadoes among them, as there were also to misrepresent civilization. There was an irrepressible conflict between Savagery and Progress. It is a lamentable fact that this nation has neg- lected its duties and failed to do what it might to civilize the Indians.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE METHODIST MISSION OF 1843
JASON LEE had been doing mission work in Canada, and seemed by experience and character, as well as physical strength, to be well adapted to wild life, as also the taming of wild men. His nephew, Daniel Lee, was calculated to be an efficient aid. Jason Lee was tall, well built-save that he stooped a little-was slow and not graceful in movement and not the most refined in his way, but his appearance de- noted spirituality and gave confidence that he was truthful and of loyal temperament. Possessing good digestion and a sound mind, the missionary to the Indians of Oregon could dispense with the refinement and culture usually found in Boston. Daniel Lee was a supplementary feature and they mutually believed in each other. Daniel was not an Adonis, but a Puritanical youth of New England bringing up; in- nocent of grace, unconscious that he lacked of knowledge or elegance, he and his uncle were thoroughly devoted to the idea and very religious in all respects.
At a meeting held in New York October 10, 1833, ar- rangements were made by which $3,000 was provided for them by the Mission Board; two laymen were appointed to raise funds and accompany the Lees from the Missouri River to the scene of their labors by joining some caravan bound for the Indian country. On the 20th of November a meeting held in New York City to bid them Godspeed was attended by prominent members of other denominations.
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The laymen chosen were Cyrus Shepard, of Lynn, Mass., and P. L. Edwards, of Richmond, Mo. As this was matur- ing, Nathaniel J. Wyeth returned to Boston from his first journey to Oregon, and with him were two Indian boys from that land of promise. Here was not only news fresh from Oregon, but the Columbia River Company, organized by Wyeth, was dispatching a ship by Cape Horn, by which their missionary stores could be sent. Wyeth himself was to return in the spring; they could accompany his expedi- tion and have the benefit of his experience in crossing the continent. Such were the fortuitous conditions de- veloped.
They left New York in March, 1834, Jason Lee lectur- ing as they went, and all met at Independence, where Wyeth was arranging his departure. They were joined by Nuttall and Townsend-botanist and naturalist-who were going West on scientific exploration. Here were science, religion, and commerce, joined in an expedition to the new regions west of the Rocky Mountains.
The three distinct interests comprised seventy men and required two hundred and fifty animals. To the mission company it was relief from all that was conventional and they could worship nature in its vast and untamed solitudes. To Jason Lee it was inspiring, and the man in him so en- thralled the Puritan that he made himself useful and con- genial, and commanded the respect of all. The four of them became so cosmopolitan that, without in the least neg- lecting or ignoring religious duties, there was no break in the harmony of the journey. The mission people drove some good stock along, that made a valuable start of choice cattle for the settlement. Sundays they had regular ser-
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vices ; whenever it was proper Jason Lee officiated and main- tained his position as a religious teacher both by word and example.
On a Sunday, at Fort Hall, where Wyeth stopped to build a fort, or trading post, there was a gathering of Hudson's Bay people, Canadians, half-breeds and Indians, under Tom McKay, and there Jason Lee expounded the word to as motley an assemblage as the wilderness could afford. Wyeth remained to build Fort Hall, so Mckay sent some of his Indians to pilot them to Fort Walla Walla, where they arrived in due time, giving their cattle easy drives to let them eat their fill. Leaving the stock at the fort, they went down the Columbia in barges to The Dalles ; took canoes there for the lower river and experienced more dan- ger at the Cascades than had attended their journey across the continent.
In attempting to run the rapids most of their canoes were wrecked ; the outfit they had brought so painfully for two thousand miles was mostly lost, but they were fortunate to escape with their lives. They were received with genuine hospitality at Vancouver, where Governor McLoughlin gave them advice and encouragement. They arrived in bad or- der owing to the wreck at the Cascades, but their brig, the May Dacre, had fortunately arrived and was lying in the river, a few miles away, with all their tools and supplies. The question now was-where should they locate their mis- sion? They had responded to the appeal of the Flatheads, who occupied the Bitter Root valley, close to the Rocky Mountains-in among them, we may say-but Wyeth had told them of the Willamette valley, so they felt like seeing the Lower Columbia before locating.
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When at Vancouver McLoughlin could advise them bet- ter than any one; they did not come through the Flathead country and all they saw of the Nez Perce country was the Grande Ronde valley, but that was as lovely as the Garden of Eden could have been, as it lay in Nature's most exquisite loveliness, cradled among the Blue Mountain ranges. Even with this Vale of Beauty in memory, the Willamette region and Western Oregon left no comparison as to advantages of the two districts of country. McLoughlin furnished horses, with men as guides and attendants, and plenty of provisions. The Lees made the journey by canoe to Tom Mckay's farm, on the Willamette below the falls ; they took horses over the hills, to the Tuality Plains, then to the Chehalem hills and the valley they shelter. Then they crossed to the French settlements in the Willamette valley, where Canadians, who had given up trapping and hunting, had made farms. There never was a more beautiful region than the Willamette valley offered for all its length and breadth at that time. Wild grasses were waving waist high, the hills were covered with wild clover, while belts of fir for- ests divided the landscapes; groves of oak and maple crowned the verdant hills; the bordering cottonwoods, alders, ash, and willows beside the streams-all these made nature seem far more attractive than was possible east of the Cascades, where the mountains wore their sombre pines, and treeless uplands were rank with sage and grease wood that the alternating bunch grass could not redeem. The possibilities were greater west of the ranges, as the ocean was near by and rivers were navigable. True, their sym- pathies had been aroused by the Macedonian cry sent from Bitter Root valley in 1831, that reached St. Louis in 1832,
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echoing through Christendom and arousing religious senti- ment at the East.
Though they responded to that call, and found an im- perial region waiting the answer, they were told that the Flatheads were but a small nation ; that they had the Black- feet for deadly neighbors and were remote from all associa- tions. It may seem that to leave the Flathead uncared for was disloyalty, but it was only human to desire a pleasant home where greater inducements were offered. They chose a location about sixty miles from the Columbia, where the world around them was beautiful as any midsummer dream.
They had followed McLoughlin's advice in locating ; he gave them valuable assistance, exchanging other horses for those left at Walla Walla ; oxen were loaned for the work, and for the two cows they had driven so tediously across the plains, he gave them eight Spanish cows, with their calves and a bull. If they were inferior stock, he certainly was lib- eral in this exchange. Early in October they had all this stock and the material brought by the May Dacre trans- ported to the station. It was no child's play to make rails, build corrals, hew ox yokes, break their brutes to work, the cows to be milked, and build a house to live in. Meantime, they lived in tents ; the first rain of the season came and drenched them, but by the 1st of November they had a puncheon floor laid and walls up, with a clapboard roof to shelter. An oak log fire blazed in the stick chimney and they were ready to commence work. At leisure moments --- as they had them-tables and stools were manipulated. Salt pork had been shipped around the Horn, and barley and peas were had from the French settlers near by ; flour from Vancouver made unleavened bread; milk from the cows
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helped this régime a trifle, as did occasional venison pro- cured from the natives.
A school was already in operation, as Solomon Smith, a New Englander, who came in 1832 with Wyeth, was teach- ing the children of Gervais and other Canadians, and had a location of his own. He married an Indian woman, who was daughter of a Clatsop chief ; they lived close to the mission. As Shepard was not equal to farm work he for awhile taught the school at Vancouver. Courtney Walker had quit the mission to clerk for Wyeth at his place on Sauvie's Island. During the winter they fenced and ploughed thirty acres that was planted to wheat, corn, oats and gar- den stuff ; they found help to make shingles, saw boards and get out timbers for a barn, which taxed their physical en- ergies, as well as business tact. It was rough living and working, but they did it manfully.
They had not forgotten their mission; Jason Lee preached at Gervais's house every Sunday, and occasionally at Champoeg, not far away. He also preached occasionally at Vancouver and baptized there four adults and seventeen children, receiving a donation of twenty dollars from the gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Company. The mission work was light ; three native children were received into the mission family that winter. A boy they intended for the labor department soon relapsed to savagery. When spring came the other boy-who had been fed, clothed, and kept warm besides-when asked to work removed himself from their midst, so there was left to the care of male missionaries only a little girl, who was sick and scrofulous. As time went on children were left, for one cause or another, orphans or slaves, whose owners had died.
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McLoughlin aided them to get such, as well as helped to support them; but breaking new ground caused malaria ; many children died of consumption, or syphilis, for their blood was tainted and the race was doomed. Of fourteen children who came to them that year, five died, five ran away, and two died later, so but two were left.
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