USA > Washington > Lincoln County > An illustrated history of the Big Bend country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams, and Franklin counties, state of Washington, pt 1 > Part 6
USA > Washington > Adams County > An illustrated history of the Big Bend country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams, and Franklin counties, state of Washington, pt 1 > Part 6
USA > Washington > Douglas County > An illustrated history of the Big Bend country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams, and Franklin counties, state of Washington, pt 1 > Part 6
USA > Washington > Franklin County > An illustrated history of the Big Bend country, embracing Lincoln, Douglas, Adams, and Franklin counties, state of Washington, pt 1 > Part 6
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In 1836 when Dr. Marcus Whitman and his party were entering Oregon. J. K. Townsend. a naturalist sent from Philadelphia to collect
GENERAL HISTORY.
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specimens of fauna and flora, said to him at Walla Walla: "The company will be glad to have you in the country, and your influence to improve their servants and their native wives and children. As to the Indians you have come to teach they do not want them to be any more enlightened. The company now have absolute control over them, and that is all they require."
And right here is the crux of the differences between the United States and England con- cerning the territory of Oregon. It was the aim of the former. to develop, improve and civil- ize the country ; it was the expressed determina- tion of the latter to keep it in darkness and sav- agery. For in North America the Hudson's Bay Company was England and English states- men were under the complete domination of this company's abject commercialism. It has pleased modern English writers to describe Americans as "a nation of shop-keepers." But throughout the whole Oregon controversy the United States stood for progress and civili- zation; England for the long night of ignor- ance and barbarism-for profit. Summed up by Mr. Barrows the relations to Oregon of the two countries were as follows :
"The Americans struck Oregon just where the English failed, in the line of settlements and civilization. One carried in the single man and the other the family; one, his traps and snares, the other his seed wheat and oats and potatoes ; one counted his muskrat nests, and the other his hills of corn; one shot an Indian for killing a wild animal out of season; and the other paid bounty on the wolf and bear ; one took his newspaper from the dog-mail twenty-four or thirty-six months from date. and the other carried in the printing press ; one hunted and traded for what he could carry out of the country, the other planted and builded for what he could leave in it for his children. In short the English trader ran his birch and batteaux up the streams and around the lakes to bring out furs and peltries, while the American
immigrant hauled in with his rude wagon, the nineteenth century and came back loaded with Oregon for the American union."
In 1840 the flow of American immigration into Oregon, especially the missionaries, Lee, Whitman and Parker, alarmed the Hudson's Bay Company. It strenuously opposed the advent of wagons and carriages. Immigrants were lied to at Fort Hall; were told that it would be impossible to proceed farther on wheels. It is recorded that on this account many of them reached Dr. Whitman's mission in a deplorably destitute condition. But all the artifices of the company could not check the hegira from the east. It is reserved for an- other chapter to relate the experiences of these pioneers. We have to do here, mainly, with the final settlement of the great "Oregon Ques- tion" between England and the United States -- the political struggle for sovereignty.
In 1843 Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had made a tour of the continent, challenged us in these words: "The United States will never possess more than a nominal jurisdiction, nor long possess even that, on the west side of the Rocky Mountains. And supposing the country to be divided tomorrow to the entire satisfaction of the most unscrupulous patriot in the union, I challenge congress to bring my prediction and its power to the test by imposing the Atlantic tariff on the ports of the Pacific."
Thus the great international question of tariff was brought into the Oregon Contro- versy. But we must not jump to the conclusion that Sir George was without some foundation for his vaporous remarks. At that time the Hudson's Bay Company had twenty-three posts and five trading stations in the northwest; it had absorbed ten rival companies, not leaving one American or Russian, and had been the means of putting to rout seven immigrant ex- peditions seeking homes in Oregon.
The Oregon boundary question was still in dispute. But those Americans familiar with
1
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GENERAL HISTORY.
the subject were destined to temporary disap- pointment. In 1827 it had been referred, through a convention, to the King of the Netherlands as arbiter. Both parties to the dis- pute had rejected his decision in 1831. Five efforts had been made to adjust the boundary by President Jackson, and five failures had re- sulted. The administration of President Van Buren closed with the matter still unsettled. In 1842 Lord Ashburton came from London to negotiate a boundary treaty with Daniel Web- ster, secretary of state. A certain boundary treaty was negotiated, August 9, 1842, the two ministers signed it; it was ratified by the sen- ate on the 25th ; by the Queen soon after, pro- claimed on November 10, 1842-and the Ore- gon boundary was not in it. Nothing official whatever alluding to Oregon was found there- in. The only boundary touched was one "be- ginning at the monument at the source of the river St. Croix." terminating at the Rocky Mountains on the forty-seventh parallel. Little wonder that sectional feeling developed in the far west.
Dr. Marcus Whitman, whose connection with the "Oregon Question" is treated in an- other chapter, had arrived in Washington too late for any effectual pleas for consideration of the matter in the treaty just signed. Still, as Mr. Barrows says, "The pressure of Oregon into the Ashburton treaty would probably have done one of three things, prevented the treaty altogether, excluded the United States from Oregon, or produced a war. Delay and ap- parent defeat were the basis of our real success, and the great work of Marcus Whitman, by his timely presence at Washington, was in making the success sure."
With Oregon left out the Ashburton treaty had been ratified. The outlook was, indeed, gloomy. As a reflex of the insiduous teachings of the Hudson's Bay Company the following extract from a speech delivered by Mr. McDuffie in the United States senate is inter- esting. He said :
What is the character of this country? Why, as I understand it, that seven hundred miles this side of the Rocky Mountains is uninhabitable, where rain scarcely ever falls-a barren and sandy soil- mountains totally impassable except in certain parts, where there were gaps or depressions, to be reached only by going some hundreds of miles out of the direct course. Well, now, what are we going to do in a case like this? How are you going to apply steam? Have you made anything like an estimate of the cost of a railroad run- ning from here to the mouth of the Columbia? Why, the wealth of the Indies would be insufficient. You would have to tunnel through mountains five or six hundred miles in extent. * Of what use will this be for agricultural purposes? I would not, for that purpose, give a pinch of snuff for the whole territory. I wish it was an impassable barrier to secure us against the intrusion of others. * * If there was an em- * bankment of even five feet to be removed, I would not consent to expend five dollars to remove that embank- ment to enable our population to go there. I thank God for his mercy in placing the Rocky Mountains there.
At the time this speech was being delivered Dr. Marcus Whitman was on his way from Oregon with "the facts in the case," informa- tion destined to shed a flood of intelligence on a rather benighted congress. And, in reality, our country was rapidly nearing the end of this interminable controversy. An area of terri- tory sixty-three times the size of Massachusetts and four times as large as Great Britain and Ireland was about to come under the protecting ægis of the United States government. The Hudson's Bay Company had declared, through its emissaries, that a wagon trip to Oregon was an impossibility. The same sentiment had been voiced in the United States senate. It remained for Dr. Whitman to prove the falsity of such an audacious statement. He led a party of two hundred wagons through to his mission on the mouth of the Columbia, arriving in October, 1843. And this, too, against vigorous opposi- tion from the Hudson's Bay Company, at Fort Hall. Then the people began to manifest a lively interest in the question. This interest had been stimulated in December, 1842, by a mes- sage from President Tyler, in which he said : "The tide of population which has reclaimed what was so lately an unbroken wilderness in
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GENERAL HISTORY.
more contiguous regions, is preparing to flow over those vast districts which stretch from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. In ad- vance of the acquirements of individual rights sound policy dictates that every effort should be resorted to by the two governments to settle their respective claims." January 8, 1843, con- gress received news that Dr. Whitman had made good his claim, and reached his destina- tion, with wagons, in Oregon. Party spirit, for there were two parties to the Oregon Con- troversy, aside from the British, ran high. Dr. Winthrop said: "For myself, certainly, I be- lieve that we have as good a title to the whole twelve degrees of latitude," i. e., up to 54 de- grees 40 minutes. Senator Thomas Benton voiced the prevailing sentiment of the time in these words: "Let the emigrants go on and carry their rifles. We want thirty thousand rifles in the valley of the Oregon; they will make all quiet there, in the event of a war with Great Britain for the dominion of that coun- try. The war, if it come, will not be topical : it will not be confined to Oregon, but will em- brace the possessions of the two powers throughout the globe. Thirty thousand rifles on the Oregon will anihilate the Hudson's Bay Company and drive them off our continent and quiet the Indians."
Rufus Choate spoke for peace. He was followed by pacificatory utterances from others. Still, there was sufficient vitality in the "Fifty- four forty or fight" to elect President Polk on such a campaign issue. The population of Ore- gon at the close of 1844 was estimated by Mr. Greenhow at more than three thousand. The Indian agent for the government. Mr. White. placed it at about four thousand; Mr. Hines said: "In 1845 it increased to nearly three thousand souls, with some two thousand to three thousand head of cattle." The west was warm with zeal and anticipation. In the house of representatives Mr. Owen, of Indiana. said : "Oregon is our land of promise. Oregon is our land of destination. 'The finger of nature'-
such were once the words of the gentleman from Massachusetts (J. Q. Adams) in regard to this country,-'points that way;' two thousand Americans are already dwelling in her valleys, five thousand more
* * will have crossed the mountains before another year rolls round." It was the opinion of the senator from Illinois, Mr. Semple, that ten thousand would cross the Rocky Mountains the follow- ing year.
At last a resolution was introduced ir con- gresss "affirming Oregon to be part and parcel of the territory of the United States from 42 degrees to 54 degrees, 40 minutes, and that notice should be given at once to terminate the joint occupation of it." It was held on the floor of the house that "no doubts now remain in the minds of American statesmen that the gov- ernment of the United States held a clear and unquestionable title to the whole of the Oregon territory."
In the region at this time the Hudson's Bay Company had about thirty "trading posts." Really they were forts and powerful auxiliaries to an internecine war. Seven thousand citizens of the United States were in the same country. The question of another war with England had become a live and important issue. To have stood solidly for 54 degrees, 40 minutes, would have meant war, and as one gentleman ex- pressed it, "a war that might have given the whole of Oregon to England and Canada to the United States." During forty days the ques- tion of giving notice to England of discontinu- ance of joint occupancy was discussed in the house. It was carried by a vote of one hun- dred and sixty-three to fifty-four. The
struggle in the senate was longer. An idea of the engrosoing nature of the Oregon topic may be gleaned from the fact that three score bills and resolutions were kept in abeyance on the calendar for future ac- tion. Daniel Webster prophesied that war would not result: that the incident would be closed by compromise and that the compromise
26
GENERAL HISTORY.
would be on the boundary line of the forty- ninth parallel. The attitude of the two coun- tries was this: We had offered forty-nine de- grees from the mountains to the Pacific ocean, not once, but several times; England had of- fered forty-nine degrees from the mountains to the Columbia, and by that stream to the sea. A comparatively narrow triangle of land only lay between the demands of England and conces- sions of the United States. Most excellent grounds for a compromise. April 23. 1846, the notice passed the house by a vote of forty- two to ten, with important amendments strong- ly suggestive to both governments to adjust all differences amicably. No one longer feared war.
From the point on the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude where the boundry laid down in existing treaties and conventions between the United States and Great Britian terminates, the line of boundary between the territories of the United States and those of her Britannic Majesty shall be continued westward along said forty-ninth parallel of north latitude to the middle
of the channel which separates the continent from Van- couver's Island, and thence southerly through the mid- dle of the said channel, and of Fucca's Strait, to the Pacific ocean: Provided, however, that the navigation of the whole of the said channel and straits south of the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, remain free and open to both parties.
Thus reads the first article of the final boundary treaty between England and the Uni- ted States, so far as concerns Oregon. But to mould it into this form and sign the same, fifty- four years, two months and six days had been required by the two countries. On July 17, 1846, the document, previously ratified, was exchanged in London between the two govern- ments. But Captain Robert Gray, of Boston, had discovered the Columbia river May II, 1792, and fully established a United States title to the country which it drains. It re- mained yet for a boundary commission, in 1857, to run the line. The first meeting of the commission was held July 27, of the same year.
CHAPTER IV.
TRAGEDY OF WHITMANS' MISSION.
"Who will respond to go beyond the Rocky Mountains and carry the Book of Heaven ?"
This was the startling question asked by President Fisk, of Wilbraham College. It was an editorial inquiry published in the Christian Advocate in March, 1833. Yet this ringing call for spiritual assistance was not initiative on the part of President Fisk. A Macedonian cry had been voiced by four Flathead Indians, of the tribe of Nez Perces, or Pierced-noses. They had come down to St. Louis from the headwaters of the Columbia, the Snake, Lewis or Clarke's rivers, far to westward of the
Rocky Mountains. They were strangers in a strange land; almost as singular in dress, speech and accoutrements to the citizens of St. Louis as would be visitors to us from the planet Mars. Yet in their distant teepees among the western foothills of the Rockies, these four chiefs had heard of the "White Man's Book" from eager, pushing, tireless and resourceful pioneers who had followed the trail made by Lewis and Clarke. Alone and un- assisted by government appropriation, they had followed the same course down the Mis- souri and the Father of Waters three thousand
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GENERAL HISTORY.
miles to St. Louis. This was in 1832. The peculiar mission of these Indians was the open- ing act of the Whitman tragedy. Mr. Barrows says : "The massacre ran riot through eight days, and Dr. Marcus Whitman and wife, of the American Board, and thirteen or more as- sociates, were savagely killed on the 29th of November, 1847, and days following. It was the bloody baptism of Oregon, by the like of which the most of the American states have come to form the union."
At the period of the arrival of these four Nez Perce chiefs Indians were not an uncom- mon sight in St. Louis. At certain seasons the suburbs of the city were fringed with teepees and wickiups. So, at first, but little attention was paid to them, otherwise than to note their strange dress and unknown dialect. It is not difficult to gatlier how they had learned of the White Man's Book. Their own rude eloquence addressed to General William Clarke at part- ing conveys this information. After a long time passed in the city, after two of them had gone to the happy hunting ground, the survi- vors made their desires known, and it appears their request was, perforce, denied. Transla- tion of the Bible into an Indian dialect is not the work of a few days or months. The two remaining Indians decided to return home; their mission a failure. The pathos of their complaint is in the spirit. if not the words, of one of the chiefs in his farewell speech to Gen- eral Clarke :
"I come to you over a trail of many moons from the setting sun. You were the friend of my fathers who have all gone the long way. I come with one eye partly opened, for more light for my people who sit in darkness. I go back with both eyes closed. How can I go back blind to my blind people? I made my way to you with strong arms, through many enemies and strange lands, that I might carry back much to them. I go back with both arms broken and empty. The two fathiers who came with us-the braves of many winters and wars
-we leave here by your great waters and wig- wam. They were tired in many moons and their moccasins wore out. My people sent me to get the White Man's Book of Heaven. You took me to where you allow your women to dance, as we do not ours, and the Book was not there. You took me to where they worshipped the great spirit with candles, and the Book was not there. You shewed me the images of good spirits and pictures of the good land beyond, but the Book was not amnog them to tell us the way. I am going back the long, sad trail to my people of the dark land. You make my feet heavy with burdens of gifts, and my moc- casins will grow old in carrying them, but the Book is not among them. When I tell my poor, blind people, after one more snow, in the big council, that I did not bring the Book, no word will be spoken by our old men or by our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. My people will die in darkness, and they will go on the long path to the other hunting grounds. No white man will go with them and no White Man's Book to make the way plain. I have no more words."
Of this utter failure to secure a copy of the Bible, Mr. Barrows says, pertinently :
"In what was then a Roman Catholic city it was not easy to do this, and officers only were met. It has not been the policy or practice of that church to give the Bible to the people, whether Christian or pagan. They have not thought it wise or right. Probably no Chris- tian enterprises in all the centuries have shown more self-sacrificing heroism, foreseen suffer- ing and intense religious devotion than the la- borers of that church, from 1520, to give its type of Christianity to the natives of North America. But it was oral, ceremonial and pic- torial. In the best of their judgment, and in the depths of their convictions, they did not think it best to ruduce native tongues to writ- ten languages and the Scriptures to the vernac- ular of any tribe."
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GENERAL HISTORY.
But the eloquence of this speech had fallen on appreciative ears. A young clerk in Gen- eral's Clarke's office, who had heard the sad plaint of the chief, wrote to George Catlin, in Pittsburg, historian and painter, an account of the scene. Thereafter events moved rapidly; the seed was sown and the harvest was about to be fulfilled. One Indian only lived to return to his people, without the Book, but it cannot be said that his mission was a failure. The edi- torial appeal of President Fisk produced re- sults. Measures were at once taken by the American Board of Commissioners for For- eign Missions, and the Methodist Board of Missions to send missionaries to Oregon. Revs. Jason and David Lee were pioneers in this scriptural crusade. They went under ap- pointment of the Methodist Board. They were followed the next year by Revs. Samuel Par- ker and Marcus Whitman, M. D., sent by the American Board of Commissioners. In the summer of 1835 the latter arrived at the Amer- ican rendezvous on Green river. Accompanied by a body of Nez Perces, from which people the four chiefs had gone to St. Louis, Rev. Mr. Parker went to Walla Walla and on to Vancouver. And with him he carried the "Book." Dr. Whitman returned to the states the same fall, married Narcissa Prentice, and organized an outfit with which he returned, with his bride, to Oregon, arriving at Walla Walla in September, 1836.
The question as to whether or no Dr. Whit- man "saved Oregon to the United States" will remain forever a question of casuistry. Events might have shaped themselves as they subse- quently did, had Whitman not made his long midwinter ride to Washington, D. C .. to lay his facts and fears before the president. Every- thing might have resulted in the retention by the United States of all of Oregon south of the 49th parallel, had no warning cry come from the far northwest, a culverin shot announcing the attempt of England to seize the country, not only by force of majority colonization, but
through artifices of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany. At a dinner in Waiilatpu, attended by Dr. Whitman, news was received that a colony of English, one hundred and forty strong, were then near Fort Colville, three hundred and fifty miles up the Columbia. A young priest leaped to his feet, threw his cap into the air and cried : "Hurrah for Oregon! America is too late and we have got the country !"
This is but one of the many significant signs witnessed by Whitman. He was a man of foresight; he had seen and realized the wealth, position and future possibilities of Ore- gon as had no other American at that period. And he rode on to Washington and told his story. It will be read in the preceding chapter that not until he had done so did the American congress act. Of the personality of Dr. Whit- man one who knew him contributes the follow- ing picture :
"Marcus Whitman once seen, and in our family circle, telling of his one business-he had but one-was a man not to be forgotten by the writer. He was of medium height, more com- pact than spare, a stout shoulder, and large head not much above it, covered with stiff. iron gray hair, while his face carried all the moustache and whiskers that four months had beeen able to put on it. He carried himself awkardly, though perhaps courteously enough for trappers, Indians, mules and grizzlies, his principal company for six years. He seemed built as a man for whom more stock had been furnished than worked in symmetrically and gracefully. There was nothing peculiarly quick in his motion or speech, and no trace of a fanatic; but under control of a thorough knowledge of his business, and with deep, ar- dent convictions about it, he was a profound enthusiast. A willful resolution and a tena- cious earnestness would impress you as making the man."
Sordid motives have been attributed to Dr. Whitman's efforts in behalf of Oregon. One writer has assumed that his sole object was to
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GENERAL HISTORY.
secure continuance of his little mission at Waiilatpu. But there is abundance of evidence that his ideas were of broader scope than this. Let it be noted that efforts to depreciate Whit- man suddenly ceased as late as 1891. That year there was found in the archives of Wash- ington, D. C., a letter from him proposing a bill for a line of forts from the Kansas river to the Willamette. In the Walla Walla Union- Journal of August 15, 1891, the letter was first published. It has been reproduced in Dr. O. W. Nixon's work, "How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon :"
To the Hon. James W. Porter, Secretary of War: Sir :- In compliance with the request you did me the honor to make last winter while at Washington, I herewith transmit to you the synopsis of a bill, which, if it could be adopted, would, according to my exper- ience and observation, prove highly conducive to the best interests of the United States generally; to Oregon, where I have resided for more than seven years as a missionary, and to the Indian tribes that inhabit the intermediate country.
The government will doubtless for the first time be apprised through you, and by means of this communi- cation, of the immense migration of families to Oregon, which has taken place this year. I have, since our in- terview, been instrumental in piloting across the route described, in the accompanying bill, and which is the only eligible wagon road, no less than fam- ilies, consisting of one thousand persons of both sexes, with their wagons, amounting in all to one hundred and twenty-six; six hundred and ninety-four oxen and seven hundred and seventy-three loose cattle.
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