An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 13

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1172

USA > Washington > Skagit County > An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 13
USA > Washington > Snohomish County > An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 13

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After the return of Whitman. an event hap- pened which boded no good to the white people. About forty Indians, mostly of the Cavuse and Walla Walla tribes, having decided to embark ex- tensively in the cattle business, formed a company to visit California for the purpose of securing stock by trading with the Spaniards. Peo-peo-mox-mox, head chief of the Walla Wallas, was the leader of the enterprise. The company reached California in safety, had good success for a while in accom- plishing their ends, but eventually fell into difficulty through their unwillingness to be governed by the laws of the land. While on a hunting expedition. they met and conquered a band of robbers, recover- ing a number of head of horses stolen from Ameri- cans and Spaniards. Some of them were claimed

by their former owners, in accordance with the law that property of this kind belonged to the original possessors until sold and marked with a transfer mark. An incident of the dispute was the killing by an American ( in cold blood if the Indian account be true ) of Elijah, son of Peo-peo-mox-mox. This unfortunate event had its effect in deepening the hatred of the Indians for the American people. Peo-peo-mox-mox and his band were eventually expelled from California by the Spanish authori- ties, being pursued with such vigor that they had to leave their cattle behind. They returned home in the spring of 1845. Dr. Whitman was deeply disturbed by the incident, fearing that the Indians would take their revenge upon his mission, and sent a hasty message to the sub-Indian agent, so stating. White was visited about the same time by an Indian chief, Ellis, who wished advice as to what to do in the matter. White states that he was apprehen- sive of difficulty in adjusting it, "particularly as they lay much stress upon the restless, disaffected scamps late from Willamette to California, loading them with the vile epithets of dogs, thieves,' etc .. from which they believed or affected to that the slanderous reports of our citizens caused all their loss and

disasters, and therefore held 11S

responsible."

"According to Ellis," writes Mrs. Victor. "the Walla Wallas. Cavuses, Nez Perces, Spokanes, Pend d'Oreilles and Snakes were on terms of amity and alliance ; and a portion of them were for raising two thousand warriors and marching at once to California to take reprisals by capture and phinder, enriching themselves by the spoils of the enemy. Another part were more cautious, wishing first to take advice and to learn whether the white people in Oregon would remain neutral. A third party were for holding the Oregon colony responsible, because Elijah had been killed by an American.

"There was business, indeed, for an Indian agent with no government at his back, and no money to carry on either war or diplomacy. But Dr. White was equal to it. He arranged a cordial reception for the chief among the colonists ; planned to have Dr. McLoughlin divert his mind by refer- ring to the tragic death of his own son by treachery, which enabled him to sympathize with the father and relatives of Elijah ; and on his own part took him to visit the schools and his own library, and in every way treated the chief as though he were the first gentleman in the land. Still further to establish social equality, he put on his farmer's garb and be- gan working in his plantation, in which labor Ellis soon joined him, and the two discussed the benefits already enjoyed by the native population as the result of intelligent labor.

"Nothing, however, is so convincing to an Indian as a present. and here it would seem Dr. White must have failed, but not so. li the autumn of 1844, thinking to prevent trouble with the immi-

THE CAYUSE WAR

gration by enabling the chiefs in the upper country to obtain cattle without violating the laws, he had given them some ten-dollar treasury drafts to be exchanged with the emigrants for young stock, which drafts the emigrants refused to accept. not knowing where they should get them cashed. To heal the wound caused by this disappointment, White now sent word by Ellis to these chiefs to come down in the autumn with Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding to hold a council over the California affair, and to bring with them their ten-dollar drafts to exchange with him for a cow and a calf each, out of his own herds. He also promised them that if they would postpone their visit to California until the spring of 1846, and each chief assist him to the amount of two beaver skins, he would estab- lish a manual training and literary school for their children, besides using every means in his power to have the trouble with the Californians adjusted, and would give them from his private funds five hundred dollars with which to purchase young cows in California."

By this means White succeeded in averting an impending calamity, though he was unable to fulfill all his pledges. l'eo-peo-mox-mox did, however, return to California in 1846 with forty warriors to demand satisfaction for the murder of his son. Not a little excitement resulted, and a company was sent by the California authorities to protect fron- tier settlements. The Indians, seeing that both Americans and Spaniards were prepared to defend themselves, made no hostile movement, but gave their attention to trading and other peaceful pur- suits.

For a few years prior to the settlement of the Oregon question in 1846, there was another cause of alarm among the colonists, namely, the possibil- ity of war with Great Britain and consequent hos- tilities between the settlers and the Hudson's Bay Company. It was very certain that in the event of war the Indians would side with the British com- pany, and the condition of the colonists would be- come truly deplorable. Happily, this contingency was averted by the triumph of diplomacy.

But even after the question of sovereignty had been settled by the treaty of peace, war clouds still hung over the Northwest. In his message to the provisional legislature of Oregon, sent in December 8. 1844, Governor Abernethy referred to the Indian situation in this language :

"Our relations with the Indians become every year more embarrassing. They see the white man occupying their land, rapidly filling up the country, and they put in a claim for pay. They have been told that a chief would come out from the United States and treat with them for their land; they have been told this so often that they begin to doubt it ; 'at all events,' they say, 'he will not come till we are all dead, and then what good will blankets do us? We want something now.' This leads to

trouble between the settler and the Indians about him. Some plan should be devised by which a fund can be raised and presents made to the Indians to keep them quiet until an agent arrives from the United States. A number of robberies have been committed by the Indians in the upper country upon emigrants as they were passing through their terri- tory. This should not be allowed to pass. An appropriation should be made by you sufficient to enable the superintendent of Indian affairs to take a small party in the spring and demand restitution of the property, or its equivalent in horses."

As heretofore stated, this message reached the legislature December 8, 1841. The same day another was sent with communications from Will- iam MeBean and Sir James Douglas, of the Ilud- son's Bay Company, giving details of a horrible massacre in the upper country. The calamity so long expected had come at last. With savage whoops and fiendish yells, the Cayuse Indians had fallen upon the helpless inhabitants of the Waiilatpu mission, enacting the most awful tragedy which has stained the pages of northwest history, a history presenting many dark and dreadful chapters, writ- ten in the blood of the Argonauts who bore the stars and stripes o'er plain and mountain and through the trackless forest to a resting-place on the. Pacific shore.

There were several causes in addition to the general ones heretofore recited which impelled the Indians to strike their first blow when and where they did. A short time before the fatal 29th of November, Bishop A. M. \. Blanchet, of the Catho- lic Society of Jesus, Rev. J. B. A. Brouillet. and other priests, made their appearance in the vicinity of the Whitman mission. Whitman met Blanchet at Fort Walla Walla and told him frankly that he was not pleased at his coming and would do nothing to help him establish his mission. The priests, how- ever, eventually took up their abode in the house of an Indian named Tanitowe, on the U'matilla river. having failed to secure a site near Whitman from Tiloukaikt. The later intercourse between Whit- man and Blanchet seems to have been more friendly than their first interview, and there is no evidence of any bitter sectarian quarrel between them. But there is little doubt that the priests encouraged the Indians in the belief that the Americans would even- tually take all their lands. Many of the earlier Protestant writers accused the priests, or the Hud- son's Bay Company, or both, of having incited the Indian murderers to their devilish deeds, but most of the historians of later date refuse to accept any such theory.

Perhaps one of the boldlest of the early secta- rian writers was W. H. ,Gray, whose history of Oregon is so palpably and bitterly partisan and shows such a disposition to magnify "trifles light as air" that it fails to carry conviction to the mind of the unprejudiced reader.

INTRODUCTORY

The proximate cause of the massacre, assigned by the Indians themselves, was a belief that Dr. Whitman was administering poison instead of wholesome medicines to such of their number as were sick and required his professional services. The large immigration of 184; had been the victim of a terrible pestilence, and by the time it reached the vicinity of Whitman's station was suffering from measles in a form so virulent as to cause the death of many. Of course, the disease was com- municated to the Indians, who hung about the wagons parleying or pilfering. The condition of the diseased Indians became pitiful. "It was most distressing," said Spakling, "to go into a lodge of some ten or twenty fires, and count twenty or twen- ty-five, some in the midst of measles, others in the last stage of dysentery, in the midst of every kind of filth, of itself sufficient to cause sickness, with no suitable means to alleviate their inconceivable sufferings, with perhaps one well person to look after the wants of two sick ones. They were dying every day, one, two, and sometimes five in a day, with the dysentery which generally followed the measles. Everywhere the sick and dying were pointed to Jesus and the well were urged to prepare for death.'

Six were sick with measles in the doctor's house- hold, and furthermore, Mrs. Osborn was weakly from a recent confinement and her baby was in ill- health. Dr. Whitman had the care of all these, and besides was acting as physician to the entire white and Indian population of the surrounding country. He was unremitting in his attentions to those who needed him, but no skill could avail to stay the rav- ages of the dread scourge. . This terrible condition of things furnished an opportunity to Whitman's two principal enemies- Joe Lewis, a half-breed, of his own househokl, and Chief Tiloukaikt-both of whom had been many times the beneficiaries of his benevolence. The cause of Lewis's spite is not known, but "with the iniquity which seemed inherent in his detestable nature," he began circulating the report that Whit- man was poisoning the Indians, for the purpose of securing their lands and horses. He even went so far as to state that he ( Lewis) had heard Dr. and Mrs. Whitman and Mr. Spalding discussing the matter among themselves.

"The mission buiklings." says Gray, "occupied a triangular space of ground fronting the north in a straight line, about four hundred feet in length. The doctor's house, standing on the west end and fronting west, was eighteen by sixty-two feet, adobe walls; library and bedroom on south end; dining and sitting-room in the middle, eighteen by twenty-four : Indian room on north end. eighteen by twenty-six: kitchen on east side of the house, eighteen by twenty-six: fireplace in the middle and bedroom in the rear: school-room join- ing on the cast of the kitchen, eighteen by thirty ;

blacksmith shop, one hundred and fifty feet east ; the house called the mansion on the east end of the angle, thirty-two by forty feet, one and one- half stories ; the mill made of wood, standing upon the old site about four hundred feet from either house. The east and south space of ground was protected by the mill pond and Walla Walla creek- north front by a ditch that discharged the waste water from the mill. and served to irrigate the farm in front of the doctor's house, which overlooked the whole. To the north and east is a high knoll, less than one-fourth of a mile distant and directly to the north, three-fourths of a mile distant is Mill creek.

Referring to the disposition of different persons about these premises at the time of the outbreak. the same writer says :

"Joseph Stanfield had brought in an ox from the plains, and it had been shot by Francis Sager. Messrs. Kimball. Canfield and Hoffman were dress- ing it between the two houses; Mr. Sanders was in the school, which had just called in for the afternoon; Mr. Marsh was grinding at the mill; Mr. Gillan was on his tailor's bench in the large adobe house, a short distance from the doctor's; Mr. Hall was at work laving a floor to a room ad- joining the doctor's house; Mr. Rogers was in the garden ; Mr. Osborn and family were in the Indian room adjoining the doctor's sitting-room; young Mr. Sales was lying sick in the family of Mr. Can- field, who was living in the blacksmith shop; young Mr. Bewley was sick in the doctor's house ; John Sager was sitting in the kitchen but partially recov- ered from the measles ; the doctor and Mrs. Whit- man, with three sick children, and Mrs. Osborn and her sick child were in the dining or sitting-room."

Dr. Whitman had attended an Indian funeral on the morning of the fatal 29th of November. After his return he remained about the house, and is said to have been reading in his Bible when some one called him to the kitchen, where John Sager was. His voice was heard in conversation with an Indian, and soon after the work of slaughter began. Whitman was tomahawked and shot. John Sager was overpowered, cut and gashed with knives : his throat cut and his body pierced with several balls from short Hudson's Bay muskets. Mrs. Whitman. who was in the dining-room, hearing the tumult, began wringing her hands in anguish and exclaim- ing, "Oh, the Indians! the Indians!" The Osborn family hid themselves under the floor of the Indian room. Having done their dreadful work in the kitchen, the Indians engaged in it joined others in the work of despatching such of the American men and boys as they could find on the outside. Mrs. Whitman ran to the assistance of her husband in the kitchen. Women from the mansion house came to her aid, as did also Mr. Rogers, who had been twice wounded, but the noble doctor, though still breathing, was past all human assistance. Mr.

THE CAYUSE WAR

Kimball, with a broken arm, came into the house, and all engaged in fastening the doors and removing the sick children up-stairs.

Without all was din and turmoil and fury. Re- treating women and children screaming in dread- ful anguish, the groans of the dying, the roar of musketry, the unearthly yells of frenzied savages, maddened with a diabolical thirst for human blood, the furious riding of naked, dusky horsemen, insane with excitement, the cries of despair and the fierce, exultant shouts of infuriated fiends mingled to- gether to create a scene which for terror and de- spair on the one side and devilish atrocity on the other has few parallels in human history. No pen has power to describe it adequately and no imagina- tion is equal to its full reconstruction.

Having killed all the male representatives of the hated American race to be found without, the Indians turned again to the doctor's house. Mrs. Whitman, venturing too near a window, was shot through the breast. The doors were battered down and the window smashed. By the time the Indians had gained an entrance to the building, Mrs. Whit- man, Mrs. Hays, Miss Bewley, Catherine Sager and Messrs. Kimball and Rogers and the three sick children had taken refuge in an up-stairs room, whence Mrs. Whitman and Mr. Rogers were soon summoned by the Indians. As they did not comply with the request to come down, Tamsucky started up-stairs after them, but seeing a gun so placed (by Miss Bewley) as to command the stairway, he became frightened and advanced no further. He, however, urged Mrs. Whitman to come down, as- suring her that she would not be hurt. On learning that she had been shot, he expressed great sorrow, and upon being assured that there were no Ameri- cans in the room waiting to kill him, Tamsucky at last went up-stairs and engaged in conversation with the people there, in the course of which he reiterated expressions of sorrow for what had hap- pened and desired the white men and women to retire to the mansion house, as the building they then occupied might soon be destroyed by fire. Eventually, Mrs. Whitman started down, assisted by Mr. Rogers and Mrs. Hays. Her wound, or the sight of her mangled and dying husband, or both, caused a faintness to come over her, and she was laid on the settec. As this was borne out of the door, a volley was fired into it and those who bore it, killing or fatally wounding Mr. Rogers, Mrs. Whitman and Francis Sager, the last-named, according to Gray, being shot by Joe Lewis.

Not content with destroying the lives of their victims, the Indians gave vent to their savage spleen by heaping upon the dead and dying such indigni- ties as they could. The noble face of the good doc- tor, a face that had expressed no sentiments but those of kindness toward the dusky savages, was hacked beyond recognition, while the doctor still breathed, by the tomahawk of Tilonkaikt ; the ma-

tronly features of Mrs. Whitman were lashed unmercifully with whips, and her body was rolled contemptuously in the mud; John Sager was terri- bly gashed with knives, and the remains of other victims were treated with similar indignities.

Joe Lewis, the darkest demon of the tragedy, went to the school-room, sought out the innocent children, who, terrified, had hidden themselves in the loft above, and brought them down to the kitchen to be shot. For a time they stood huddled together, guns pointed at them from almost every direction, expecting the order to be given at any moment which should occasion their death. Eliza. daughter of Rev. H. H. Spalding, was among them. Being acquainted with the Indian language, she understood every word that was said regarding the fate of herself and the other chiklren, and her feelings, as she heard the Indians beseeching their chief to give the order to shoot, may be imagined. That order was never given, thanks, it is claimed, to the interposition of Joseph Stanfield, and the chil- dren were led away by two friendly Walla Wallas to a place of sechuision and temporary safety.

When night closed down upon this scene of savage cruelty and destruction, the Indians with- drew to the lodge of Tiloukaikt to review the day's proceedings and consult as to future operations. The killed on this first day of the massacre were Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, Mr. Rogers, John and Francis Sager, Messrs. Gilliland (Gray calls him Gillan), Marsh, Sanders and Hoffman. Mr. Osborn and family had taken refuge under the floor of the Indian room at the first outbreak. There they remained until night, when they stole out and sought safety in the brush. Eventually, after enduring terrible hardships, they reached Fort Walla Walla, where McBean, yielding to their im- portunity, reluctantly furnished them a blanket or two and enough victuals to sustain life. Mr. Can- field, wounded, fled to the blacksmith shop, thence to the mansion house, where he secreted himself until the coming of darkness, when he stole away to Lapwai. Mr. Hall escaped by snatching a gun which had missed fire from an Indian and pro- tecting himself with it till he reached the cover of the brush, whence he escaped to Fort Walla Walla. He was put across the Columbia river by Mr. McBean, and started for the Willamette valley, but was never afterward heard of. Mr. Kimball and the four sick children, who remained in the attic which Mrs. Whitman and Mr. Rogers were induced by the treachery of Tamsucky to leave. were forgotten by the Indians in their excitement and were left unharmed the first day. Crocket Bewley and Amos Sales, both sick, were spared for reasons unknown until Tuesday. December 1th. when they were cruelly butchered in their beds.

The morning of November 30th, Mr. Kimball, induced by the suffering of himself and the sick children to seek water, was discovered and shot.

.16

INTRODUCTORY

The same fate overtook James Young, who, igno- rant of the massacre, had come from the saw-mill with a load of lumber. On this day, also, two sons of Donald Munson, of the Hudson's Bay Company, who were attending school at the station, also a Spanish half-breed boy, whom Dr. Whitman had raised, were sent to Fort Walla Walla, for the Indians had no quarrel with any but Americans.

Wednesday, December 1st. Rev. J. B. A. Brouillet, one of the Catholic priests before men- tioned, arrived at the scene of desolation. He assisted Joseph Stanfield in the work of preparing the dead for burial. In his "Authentic Account of the Murder of Dr. Whitman," this priest makes this statement concerning his visit :

"After having finished baptizing the infants and dying adults of my mission, I left Tuesday, the 30th of November, late in the afternoon, for Tiloukaikt's camp, where I arrived between seven and eight o'clock in the evening. It is impossible to conceive my surprise and consternation when upon my arri- val I learned that the Indians the day before had massacred the doctor and his wife, with the greater part of the Americans at the mission. I passed the night without scarcely closing my eyes. Early the next morning I baptized three sick children, two of whom died soon after, and then hastened to the scene of death to offer to the widows and orphans all the assistance in my power. I found five or six women and over thirty children in a condition deplorable beyond description. Some had just lost their husbands, and the others their fathers, whom they had seen massacred before their eyes, and were expecting every minute to share the same fate. The sight of these persons caused me to shed tears, which, however, I was obliged to conceal, for I was the greater part of the day in the presence of the murderers, and closely watched by them, and if I had shown too marked an interest in behalf of the sufferers, it would have endangered their lives and mine ; these, therefore, entreated me to be on my guard. After the first few words that could be ex- changed under those circumstances, I inquired after the victims, and was told that they were yet tin- buried. Joseph Stanfield, a Frenchman, who was in the service of Dr. Whitman, and had been spared by the Indians, was engaged in washing the corpses, but being alone, was unable to bury them. I re- solved to go and assist him, so as to render to those unfortunate victims the last service in my power to offer them. What a sight did I then behold! Ten dead bodies lying here and there covered with blood and bearing the marks of the most atrocious cruelty, some pierced with balls, others more or less gashed by the hatchet."

It is a well-known fact that the lives of the women and children of the mission were more than once in jeopardy. llow near they came to being sacrificed at one time appears from the following

language of Brouillet, who was writing in defense of Joseph Stanfield :

It was on the morning of the day that followed the massacre. There were several Indians scattered in the neighborhood of the mission buildings, but especially a crowd of Indian women was standing near the door of the house in which all the white women and children were liv- ing. Stanfield, being then at a short distance from the house, Tiloukaikt, the chief of the place, came up and asked him if he had something in the house. "Yes." said Stanfield. "I have all my things there." "Take them away," said the Indian to him. "Why should I take them away? They are well there." "Take them off." he insisted, a second time. "But I have not only my things there : I have also my wife and children." "Yes," replied Tiloukaikt, who appeared a little surprised; "you have a wife and children in the house! Will you take them off?" "No." replied Stanfield, "I will not take them away, and I will go and stay myself in the house. I see that you have bad designs; you intend to kill the women and chil- dren; well, you will kill me with them. Are you not ashamed? Are you not satisfied with what you have done? Do you want still to kill poor, innocent children that have never done you any harm?" "I am ashamed," replied Tiloukaikt, after a moment's hesitation. "It is true. those women and children do not deserve death; they did not harm us; they shall not die." And, turning to the Indian women who were standing near the door of the house waiting with a visible impatience for the order to enter and slaughter the people inside, he ordered them to go off. The Indian women then became enraged, and, show- ing the knives that they took from beneath their blankets, they insulted him in many different ways, calling him a coward, a woman who would consent to be governed by a Frenchman: and they retired, apparently in great anger for not having been allowed to imbrue their hands in the blood of new victims. The above circumstance was related at Fort Walla Walla to Mr. Ogden, by Stanfield himself. under great emotion, and in presence of the wid- ows, none of whom contradicted him.

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An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties; their people, their commerce and their resources, with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 13

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.) Publication date: 1906 Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1172

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1172