USA > Oregon > Pioneer days of Oregon history, Vol. II > Part 3
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They asked him to teach them Christian doctrines, and he often did so, as he says: "Many a time was my little lodge thronged, or rather piled, with hearers ; for they lay on the ground, one leaning over the other, until there was no further room, all listening with greedy ears to the wonders which the Great Spirit had revealed to the White Men. No other subject gave them half the satisfaction or com- mands half the attention, but few scenes of my life remain so freshly on my memory, or are so pleasantly recalled to my contemplation, as those hours of intercourse with a distant and benighted race in the midst of the desert."
Bonneville found the Hudson's Bay Company very kind and hospitable, and had most cordial relations with Pierre Pambrun, factor at Walla Walla, until he asked to purchase supplies for his own use, when Pambrun replied: "As gen- tlemen and acquaintances there could be utmost good will, but his company could not afford to supply the wants of competitors for their own trade."
On this, finding also that the Indians would not deal with him, Bonneville went back to the east of the Rockies.
CHAPTER XL
THE WILKES EXPEDITION
IN 1838 the United States sent out the first exploring ex- pedition in the history of this government under command of Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, of the navy. Its object was general exploration and protection of United States com- merce; to visit the islands of the Pacific, look after the whale fisheries, that were then attaining great importance, then to survey the Northwest Coast and Columbia River and visit various points on the west coast ; finishing the voyage by rounding the Cape of Good Hope, after visiting Japan and other Asiatic points, all of which was completed in 1842.
There sailed from Norfolk, Va., on the 18th of April, 1838, the sloops-of-war Vincennes and Peacock, the brig Porpoise, the ship Relief and tender Sea Gull and Flying Fish. In the interest of science there accompanied this ex- pedition a number of naturalists and botanists, a taxider- mist, philologist, mineralogist, and several artists, who looked after the interests of science and art. On the 5th of April, 1841, the Vincennes and Porpoise arrived off the Columbia ; his narrative shows that Wilkes thought the entrance to that river was a terror to navigation: "one of the most fearful sights that possibly can meet the eye of a sailor." The bar was so rough that they turned north to visit the Sound country, entered the Straits of Fuca and there
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began the survey of the coast ; they anchored at Port Dis- covery May 2d. The Peacock was expected to enter the Columbia when she should arrive on the coast from voyaging the South Seas.
The details of this expedition are not necessary for our use. What we wish to know is, the general result, what was accomplished in the Northwest and conclusions arrived at ; in fact, what good resulted. Everywhere the officers were hospitably entertained by representatives of the Hudson's Bay Company, who were almost the only occupants of the country and whose vessels coasted the shores, bays and rivers.
While the vessels were exploring the shores of the Sound and adjoining waters, the scientific force was also at work with especial interest, because on American soil that it was hoped would become national domain. The Hudson's Bay Company sent experienced navigators, who knew the Sound waters well, to aid them. Excursions were organized to visit the Columbia and its upper waters. Scientific in- struments were landed and an observatory established on a hill top within easy call, all of which was interesting to the natives of the region, who could not easily comprehend that ships sailed the ocean save for purposes of trade; or that white men lived for any other intention but to buy beaver and sea otter skins.
The fur company furnished guides, horses and all neces- saries, and Commmander Wilkes himself made a journey on horseback from Nesqually to the Cowlitz, sixty miles south, where they took canoes for Astoria. From there they visited the Methodist mission near Clatsop Point, and various Indian towns around the mouth of the river; then
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went by canoe to Vancouver, one hundred miles above, where McLoughlin met them with his habitual courtesy and hos- pitality.
At Vancouver Commodore Wilkes met a number of mis- sionaries who were enjoying McLoughlin's hospitality ; from there excurisons were made to all points where the English companies had farms, mills, stations or improvements of any value. At that time, too, that company was at the zenith of its power, with commerce, trade, fisheries, farms and . factories all in successful operation, a commerce that ex- tended over the Northwest of the Pacific, along the coast for a thousand miles, to the Sandwich Islands and China, so that their vessels, sailing to and from London, circumnavigated the globe.
On the 3d of June McLoughlin sent them on a tour of the beautiful Willamette valley, where they visited the Canadian families who had commenced farming there; also the few American settlers located in different parts, as well as the farm and home of the Methodist mission.
At the falls of the Willamette they saw the immense power Nature had developed and mills in operation ; saw the Catholic mission, then crossed to the west side to look at the hills and prairies of Yamhill. Not having seen half the magnificent valley of the Willamette, they realized that it was one of the garden spots of Nature-a very Eden that lay under the shadows of mighty ranges, while grand snow peaks dominated the universal loveliness with supernal grace, and with sublimity that changed from day to day, as their summits wore new robes of virgin white, or the outer ridges were left bare by the fervency of the midsummer sun. The summer solstice and the wintry clouds told the chang-
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ing, yet unchanging story, for through them all those hoary heights were
"Clothed in white samite-wonderful !"
At Vancouver Commander Wilkes met traders and factors of the Hudson's Bay Company from the far interior, who gave him information of value. So far as concerned the gathering of information from correct sources, he had more opportunity than could have been acquired in years of ordinary journeying through the wilderness. Other offi- cers of the expedition made similar excursions for the pur- pose of learning of the region, its people and resources. McLoughlin assailed their loyalty by his magnificent bear- ing and fine hospitality. What they never could have ac- complished he made possible and feasible. Drayton, an artist with Wilkes, was asked to accompany Peter Skeen Ogden, one of the magnates of the Hudson's Bay Company, on a trip up the Columbia, through the magnificent scenery of the Grand Gorge at the Cascades and past the fearful rage at The Dalles, where the river has cut its way deep and narrow, through an inferno of rugged lava that offers no relief, shows no beauty ; where the fallen archangel could have found less to please than on the fiery lake where Milton found him and his cohorts sweltering. Here the only relief was the abundance of water that ran its swift course with a vengeance. But all the river for two hundred miles was a picturesque scene while Ogden's force was on that jour- ney, if only from the presence of nine batteaux, manned by sixty voyageurs, part Canadians and partly Iroquois and a number of women. They camped at the Cascades, where an old savage was ready to receive his dole of a new shirt
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and a modicum of tobacco for once having had the good fortune to save Ogden's life, a cheap rate, it would seem, though history fails to say if Ogden valued his shirt very high, or put his life at a cheap average.
He also gave them warning of threatened danger and death from savage treachery and so saved more than Ogden's life. They visited missions at The Dalles and at Whitman's, which was some distance from the trading post where the Walla Walla enters the Columbia; which, by the way, is one of the dreariest places, made desolate by drift- ing sands, howling winds and black piles of basaltic lava ; yet was available as site for a trading post, as canoes could come for a long way up or down the Columbia.
Lieutenant Johnson had gone to Okanogan, on the Upper Columbia, with another such an expedition, made from Puget Sound, crossing the great range by the Naches Pass to the beautiful Yakima country, thence north to Okanogan, from whence they went through the Big Bend country and the Grand Coulee, visiting the Chimikane Mission by the way; then north to Colville, then a long way south to Spaulding's mission at Lapwai, and Whitman's on the Walla Walla, returning via Yakima valley to the Sound.
The journey of Lieutenant Johnson's party covered nearly a thousand miles of land travel of ever-varying fea- tures. Another party later explored the coast of Washing- ton and Gray's Harbor. The various excursions covered the entire region north of the Blue Mountains for two hundred miles and three hundred miles east of the Cascade Range. Other expeditions were sent from the Sound that included Fraser's River, Vancouver's Island, and the straits that in- tervene. Certainly, the Wilkes expedition was calculated
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to yield much valuable information concerning the wide region of the Pacific Northwest.
To the few people who at that time had reached here- not over a hundred, if that many who were Americans-the coming of Wilkes was a great occasion, as it would make the country known and lead to government protection. It was a comfort to them to see proof that the United States cared thus much for Oregon, and gave them courage to live and do and hope. It must have tried sorely the kindheartedness of McLoughlin to welcome such representatives of Ameri- can interests ; to open the treasury of information at his command and dispense all this to those he had most occasion to fear. Loyalty to his company demanded that no en- couragement should be given to any who might become rivals in trade, or any who could tear away the mystery of doubt and ignorance that shrouded the entire regions ; and, lo! here comes the accredited officer of the United States, that disputed possession and sovereignty, when, with the grace and dignity of his position, and charm of hospitality that was all his own, McLoughlin received them with princely liberality, sinking for the time the fur trader to act the part of nature's nobleman. It was magnificent for these Englishmen to do this ; it was splendid humanity to be capable of it, and it is a pleasure to be able to know that they did it when all their interests for the present and hopes for the future were bounded by possession of this wilderness.
Meantime, word comes that the war ship Peacock had been pounded to wreckage on the bar of the Columbia. Wilkes's forebodings were realized, and the bones of one of his fleet were buried in the sands. Fortunately, the crew were all saved; the brig Perkins was bought, rechristened the
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Oregon, and Captain Hudson, of the wrecked ship, had another command.
The loss of the Peacock caused an expedition to go from the Columbia through to California, under Lieutenant Em- mons, that gathered information as to Southern Oregon and Northern California. About the middle of October, six months from the date of arrival, the squadron left the Columbia to join the Vincennes, that had gone to San Fran- cisco in August, because they did not dare to trust her on the Columbia bar. It will be pleasant news for readers of to-day to know that government work at the entrance of the Columbia has made it as safe as the harbor of New York ; that the commerce of the "River of the West" is as reliable as that through the Straits of Fuca. It used, in the fifties, to be that vessels would lay "off and on" for weeks, even months, not daring to enter in, but now pilotage and towage are perfect.
The few people who were here in 1841 consulted Com- mander Wilkes as to the propriety of forming some kind of government, but he gave no encouragement, rather the contrary ; though it is not apparent that his opinion pos- sessed any value in that connection. The news he furnished, and the information gathered by the expedition, was of value, and it is reasonable to suppose had importance in the future of Oregon. The few settlers he found there man- aged another year to organize a provisional government that gave the world another striking example of the ability of our people to govern themselves.
The memorials sent East had the effect to rouse the gov- ernment to learn something of the conditions of the coast as to the monopoly that was complained of, exercised by the
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Hudson's Bay Company ; Commander Wilkes was instructed very particularly on that score. The result was that he did not sustain the memorialists in their plea that they were imposed on, and saw little need of any established govern- ment when conditions were as he saw them. The generous way the leaders of the Hudson's Bay Company received the officers of the expedition, and ready courtesy with which McLoughlin anticipated all their wants, had the effect to disarm prejudice. There was abundant evidence that the odious monopoly was, at least, as generous as any octopus of commerce could afford to be. Its monopoly was so kindly that its kindness condoned for the fact that the grasp must be deadly, unless speedily unloosed.
CHAPTER XLI
ELIJAH WHITE REDIVIVUS-TIIE FIRST OVERLAND EMIGRA- TION, 1842
WHEN Jason Lee was East in 1839 he wrote to Caleb Cush- ing and urged that the people of Oregon greatly required government and that some provision should be made for their protection. He suggested that a suitable person should be selected to act as governor, as well as magistrate. In January, 1842, after Dr. Elijah White had returned East, and the Lausanne had also returned, White was in- duced to go to Washington to give information of Oregon to those in power. The friends of Oregon favored sending some one, as Lee had suggested years before, to represent the government. As a result of canvassing existing con- ditions, it was decided as only proper to send some one to be a sub-Indian agent, not to give cause of offence to Great Britain under agreement for joint occupancy. It was fur- ther agreed that Dr. White himself should be commissioned as such officer. So White made his arrangements to leave for Oregon as a government officer of not very high grade, with only $750 salary per annum, but with expenses paid. It may be supposed that Jason Lee was not consulted in this selection. Lee might have secured the appointment had he been on the ground, but it was thought necessary to im- press personally on the mind of the officer what his duties
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were to be; White was present and could be sufficiently in- structed. He was to go overland at once, and try to secure something of an immigration to accompany him. He was very industrious and visited considerable of the border, so that by May 14, 1842, he had 112 people assembled, of whom 52 were men over 18 years of age.
Here we have the first organized immigration to the Pa- cific, that set out on May 16th, with 18 wagons and many horses, mules and cattle, to cross a savage wilderness to the western shore. White's idiosyncrasies took shape when he demanded that all dogs should be slain, for fear they would go mad on the way. Very soon they tired of White's leader- ship, and chose L. B. Hastings for captain of the company. Then the company divided and became two, but was re- united again for fear of hostile Indians. At Laramie they were joined by F. X. Matthieu and six Canadians, who wanted to settle in Oregon. With Kirkpatrick, who knew the road, they went on to Fort Hall and reached the Willa- mette valley without serious trouble. White pushed on in advance and reached Vancouver September 20th; he soon got the Willamette settlers together and very modestly in- formed them that he was ex officio governor of all Oregon; they need not worry as to public affairs, for he was able to attend to all that concerned whites as well as Indians.
There is something amusing in the fact of White's return with official power and the cool way in which he monopolized all the functions of courts as well as of executive. The man was a curious mixture of egoism and practicality, for he possessed in some degree unusual qualities. His reports to Washington are clearly put and in good taste. While he actually usurped power and place with a cool effrontery, we
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must admire if we cannot respect; usurper as he was, he showed a remarkable degree of ability and conservatism in his tyranny. It is not perceivable that he carried any grudges or practised any reprisals; really, for a man so unscrupulous he was very considerate, and perhaps mag- nanimous. There was a plausibility about the man and a flavor of justice in all his injustice, that enables to accord him more than his actual deserts could claim, weighed by the strict account of duties performed. With so much against him, and the influence of Jason Lee, an unknown quality, to overcome, he needed the wisdom of Ulysses to es- cape hidden dangers and not be wrecked by Scylla while he avoided Charybdis.
Whoever writes history should be able to weigh facts for all their value, discuss character and award merit with- out prejudice, give credit for true motives and right in- tention wherever found, and be too proud to bend to powers or wealth, as well as too just to ignore the merit of those who do not succeed. Even personal enmities must not pro- voke acts of omission or commission. Whoever cannot rise to such height cannot write history the world will respect or remember. Thus, in reviewing the character of Elijah White it requires to discriminate between the man and the official. As a man he was so unscrupulous that when re- turning to the States overland, bearer of many letters, Orus Brown, who was with him, said he would at camping places open a great number of letters that had been entrusted to him and destroy all that reflected on his own conduct.
This first of all Oregon immigrations was in poor plight when it arrived. It was autumn ; they had little means, no tools or implements for farming, no houses to move into,
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and were thousands of miles from their old homes. If Mc- Loughlin wanted to monopolize Oregon, their plight was in his favor, for if they left, disgusted, others would be slow to follow. It is thus interesting to know that he did all that was possible to relieve distress, giving employment, where he could, to workers, and supplying the needs of others, allowing them to pay for goods when able. It is at least the truth of history to concede to the great Hud- son's Bay Monopoly that it forgot its exclusive character and desire to control a wilderness whenever it was able to re- lieve human suffering or aid the efforts of those who aimed to become settlers. At least, its great manager always rose above the mere demands of business to recognize the claims of humanity.
The arrival of Dr. White in his official capacity was well timed. He had been in Oregon but a few weeks when word came to Vancouver that in the absence of Dr. Whit- man, who had gone East, the flour mills at his station had been burned by the Indians and that a chief had grossly insulted Mrs. Whitman ; also, that there were threats of vio- lence at Lapwai, where the Spauldings were. There had been prevalent a rumor that the Indians through the coun- try were preparing to rise and exterminate the settlers, and this seemed confirmation. It was afterwards proved that they were not capable of agreeing on any course of action ; that when wars did occur no general action of the tribes could be agreed upon. Dr. White was ready, and even anxious, to air his official state ; consulting with Tom Mckay, who lived on French Prairie at this time, a party of six armed men accompanied White, headed by McKay, while Cornelius Rodgers and Baptiste Dorian went along as in-
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terpreters. At The Dalles they found Mrs. Whitman, Dr. Geiger, and Littlejohn and wife, who had abandoned Waiilatpu. The two men joined White's party and at Fort Walla Walla Agent Mckinlay also went with them, for he made common cause with the Americans. There were not many Indians at the mission, so they left word when they would return and went on to meet the Nez Percés, 120 miles east.
At Lapwai the Indian agent made a speech to explain his office and the intentions of the government, that was friendly and would protect the Indians in their rights, and no white man should wrong them and go unpunished. Mr. Mckay spoke to assure them that all the whites were in the same interest and allied as different tribes of their people were. Rodgers, who had been their teacher, also spoke kindly, but it was Tom McKay who addressed the chiefs in their own language and their own style of oratory; told the tragic story of his father's death, of the years he had spent among them, how he and they had fought the Blackfeet and had enjoyed all the pleasures and sports of life to- gether as well as suffered together. Now that he was grow- ing old and living in peace on his farm, word came that there was trouble, and he had come in haste to tell his old friends not to forget that the children of the great chief were numerous as the stars in heaven or the leaves on the trees. He made them see that they had everything to gain by peace, and when he ceased several chiefs avowed friend- ship and said they were glad to see an agent sent to look after their welfare.
The conclusion was that Ellis, aged 32, and somewhat educated, was chosen as their head chief and they adopted
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laws to be executed by sub-chiefs, creating penalties, rang- ing from hanging for murder to whipping for theft. A few presents were made and they returned to Waiilatpu to meet the Cayuses. Here was more speaking, but it was thought best to defer further action until April and not urge them to act against their wishes. It was considered favorable that peace reigned, and they had the Nez Percés secured as allies. The Cayuses felt discouraged when they saw Mckinlay and Tom McKay harmonizing with the Americans, for it showed them they could not count on having the Hudson's Bay Company as their ally if they made war on the Bostons.
After some days spent at The Dalles the Indians there ac- cepted the laws and regulations adopted by the Nez Percés. Then Mr. and Mrs. Littlejohn went to Lapwai to aid the Spauldings and White returned to the Willamette. His position was no sinecure, for he had to visit the Lower Co- lumbia, where ships had sold liquor to the Indians, causing infernal tumult and bloodshed. A sailor had deserted, named Geer, who took offence at Rev. Frost's protest against liquor selling, and tried to bribe some of the Clatsops to kill him. So White went down and prevailed on McLough- lin to send Geer off with an express bound over the moun- tains. He had acted as magistrate, and it was so necessary to have such action that he had his hands full. Current history does not say he was unjust in his dealings of jus- tice, and he certainly had a very difficult rôle to fill.
White's position was useful, for the natives saw national authority in his conduct, and it had the mysterious effect needed with such a race, but much was due to McLoughlin's aid and his influence. When the Indians came to him with
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complaint that too many Americans were in the country, and were too cruel, he invariably told them the Americans and Hudson's Bay men were all the same race and they had nothing to fear from either if they gave no cause for of- fence. It was his influence that maintained peace more than any other. But there was smouldering still the vol- cano, and in the spring of 1843 Dr. White had to take the field again. News came from The Dalles, Lapwai and Whit- man's station that the Indians were exasperated at seeing so many whites come into their country, and threatened to commence a war of extermination. There was trouble because they heard that an immense immigration was coming back with Whitman, while the Indians of the Willamette were also roused with several causes for complaint. Brewer wrote from The Dalles to come up and try to quiet the ex- citement. McLoughlin was also incensed because of the petition, gotten up by some of the settlers, that deprecated the acts of the Hudson's Bay Company, and reflected on himself ; so it was a question if any supplies could be had at Vancouver. Arriving there, White "found it rather squally," but he had not done anything personally to be complained of. McLoughlin did not approve of his going among the Indians with an armed force, but equipped him for the mission which he undertook with Le Breton, an In- dian, and a Hawaiian servant. Provided with material for presents, they proceeded to The Dalles and received a de- putation. According to rules adopted in the fall, many had been whipped for theft and other lawless acts, who thought they should be paid in shirts and blankets ; if not, they had no use for the law and would object to the whip- pings.
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