An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 13

Author: Hines, Harvey K., 1828-1902
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1056

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The Roman Catholics were the third to enter the missionary field in Oregon. Their first priests, Rev. Franeis N. Blanchet and Rev

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

Modest Demers, came overland from Montreal with the regular Hudson's Bay Express, reach - ing Vancouver on the 24th of November, 1839. They came at the instance of the Hudson's Bay Company. They were British subjects, although French themselves, and the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company were mostly French Canadians, and Roman Catholics in their re- ligious belief and sympathies. Many of these, at first, received the Protestant missionaries gladly, and attended upon their ministry, but the very presence of these suggestel and awakened a desire in their hearts for teichers of their own faith. This was but natural. The influence of these French Canadian subjects of Great Britain over the Indians was very greit, and it was soon felt against the Protestant missions. As we have shown in our chapter on " The Hudson's Bay Company and the Protest- ant Missions," the leading men of that com- pany did all they could to encourage their coming and facilitate their work when here, because they were British subjects, and because they were Roman Catholics, and therefore most against the only American influence then in the country-the Protestant missions. This they had a right to do, and our duty is only to record it.

But the coming of the Roman Catholic priests introdneed an element of discord and trouble in the country that bore very bitter fruit in after years, and this seems the only proper place to fairly consider it. This we shall try to do both judiciously and judicially, " with malice toward none, with charity for all."

It is necessary to observe that there had been no controversies between, nor because of, the missions of the A. B. C. F. M. and those of the Methodist Episcopal Church. There were two reasons for this. First, the religious ends before both were the same; they were not aiming to make sectaries of the Indians, but to make Christians of them. Second, they were all Americans, and therefore there was no division on political or national grounds. The priests of the Romish Church differed from the Protest-

ants at both these points, and that difference was at the basis of all the bitter controversies of that period of Oregon history, and of those that have been continnel from it down to the pres- ent by sune writers on both sides, -a contro- versy into which we shall not enter further than to state it historically.

It is exceeding difficult to discuss religions differences so that the discussion itself does not become a special plea on the side of the writer himself. It is equally difficult to make such discussion reasonably intelligent to the un- churched reader. But we will try to do both.

Of course the original basis of the contro- versy was theological, churchly, -Romanismn vs. Protestantism, -- which is true and which is false? This we do not debate, but it was the core of the trouble. Ont of the convictions of either party and both parties on this subject came their intense zeal and bitterness against each other.

The Protestant mission and missionaries ou the whole took too much counsel of their preju- dices and desires. They did not sufficiently consider that the Romish priests hal the same rights in the country, either religiously or po- litically, as they had. Their being first gave them no pre-emptive right to control the religion of the people. To a very great degree they for- got or ignored this very obvious and fundamen- tal principle of human freedom: consequently they met the priests with protests against their presence, and probably a somewhat acrimonious denunciation of their teachings if not of them- selves. It is very clear to any candid reader of the historical literature of this period that such was especially the spirit of the missionaries of the American Board, as it was, to a less extent, of those of the Methodist Board. Instances might be giveu and language quoted to evidence this, but its concession by a Protestant writer is sufficient.

On the other hand, the priests made it a special purpose to break down and destroy the Protest- ant missions. Instead of opening new fields to any considerable extent, they established their

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

missions almost by the very doors of the Protest- ant missions. They deelared it to be their pur- pose to antagonize and destroy them. This was in entire eonsistency with their beliefs as church- men, and we do not write of it as a erime, but simply as a faet, leaving the reader to his own conclusions. Rev. F. N. Blanchet, afterward archbishop of Oregon City, with whom the writer had a personal acquaintance, wrote his- torically, at a later day, of the work of their priests at that time, thus:

" They were to warn their floeks against the danger of seduction, to destroy the false im- pression already received, to enlighten and con- firm the faith of the wavering and deceived consciences, * * * and it was enough for them to hear that some false prophet [meaning Protestant missionary] had penetrated into a place, or intended visiting some locality, to in- dnee the missionaries to go there immediately, to defend the faith and keep error from propa- gating itself."

In another place, and in reference to the par- ticular mission of the Methodist Church at Nesqually, north of the Columbia river, the same eminent ecclesiastie wrote:

" The first mission to Nesqually was made by Father Demers, who celebrated the first mass in the fort of the Hudson's Bay Company, on April 22 (1839), the day after he arrived. His visit at such a time was forced upon him by the establishment of a Methodist mission for the Indians. *

* * After having given orders to build a chapel, and said mass outside the fort, he parted with them, blessing the Lord for the success of his mission among the whites and Indians, and reached Cowlitz on Monday, the 30th, with the conviction that his mission at Nesqually had left a very feeble chance for a Methodist inission there.

This statement of this most influential and controlling man in regard to the modes and pur- poses of the work of the Roman Catholic mis- sions, certainly justifies the statement we have made in regard to thein, historieally.

Among the Indians the Catholic missionaries

were more snecessinl than the Protestant, in the sense of gaining more adherents. Their mneth- ods and principles made this inevitable. With them Christians were constituted by saeraments; with the Protestants, by life. With them bap- tism opened the door of the kingdom of heaven; with the Protestants, a renewed nature. The difference was radical and with uninstrueted and unreasoning Indians, altogether in favor of the Romanists. The symbols and ceremonies of that church were far more alluring to the In- dian, easily approachable through his sensnous organs, but harder to reach through reason and conscience, than were the high idealism and lofty spirituality of Protestant teaching. Mr. Blanchet was right when he said: "The sight of the altar vestments, sacred vessels and great ceremonies were drawing their attention a great deal more than the cold, unavailable, long lay services of Brother Waller;" and this fully ac- counts for the greater influence of the priests over the Indian mind. There was, however, another reason that should be noted, namely, the influence of the Hudson's Bay Company over the Indians, which was very great and always favorable to the Romanists, while the Protestants were in close affiliation with the Americans,-indeed, at this time constituted the American element of the conntry. It can hardly be necessary to draw this parallel and contrast further.

From the time of the arrival of Messrs. Blanchet and Demers, in 1838, priests continned to arrive and seatter over the country. In 1847, nine years after the first arrival, the Ro- man Catholic Church had so increased that Ore- gon City was constituted an episcopal see, with Rev. F. N. Blanchet as its bishop. The otal number of clergymen employed was twenty-six, with tive churebes in the Willanı- ette valley, three north of the Columbia river, with quite a number of Indian missions in different parts of the country. It can hardly be needful to follow the history of these mnis- sions, as separate departments of the life of the common northwest, farther.

Fort Miqually Pugels Sound , North West Coast of America .. Established In the Hudsons Boy, Co '433 "aprendered' etre united States doy Enne i 1870, and purchased by E.H. Es lovs. 1873

FORT NISQUALLY.

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

CHAPTER IX.

THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY.

How CONSTITUTED-SIR ALEXANDER MCKENZIE-ATTITUDE TOWARD THE COUNTRY-EXTENT OF ITS OPERATIONS- THE NORTHWESTERN COMPANY-UNION OF THE COMPANIES-STAKES PLAYED FOR -DR. JOHN MCLOUGHLIN-GROWTH OF THE COMPANY-CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE AND THE HUD- SON'S BAY COMPANY-CAPTAIN WYETH AND THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY-ERECTION OF FORT HALL-REACHES VANCOUVER-FORT WILLIAM BUILT-SALE TO HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY-ALL RIVALRY CRUSHED-RULING POLICY OF THE COMPANY-STATEMENT OF A CHAPLAIN-THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY SOCIALLY.

T HE Hudson's Bay Company was consti- tuted by royal charter, given by Charles Il. on the 16th day of May, 1670. It gave the "government and company and their successors the exclusive right to trade, fish and hunt in the waters, bays, rivers, lakes and creeks entering into the Hudson's straits, to- getber with all the land and territories not already occupied or granted to any of the king's snbjects or possessed by the subjects of any other Christian prince or State." The company had eighteen original incorporators, at the head of whom was Prince Rupert; hence the name Rupert's Land was once given to that region. The first object of the company, as named in its charter, was "the discovery of a new passage into the South Sea," as the Pacific ocean was then generally called.

Some curions and interesting facts touching the pretended ownership of the region in which these "exclusive rights" were thus presumptu- ously ceded, appear both before and after this time. In 1631, Charles I. of England had re- signed to Louis XIII. of France the sovereignty of the country, and the French king gave a charter to a French company who occupied it, and it was called Acadia, or New France. Not- withstanding Great Britain, by this act of Charles I., had thus given np its right to the somewhat mythical region indicated, the second Charles reasserted that right in the giving of this charter to the Hudson's Bay Company. Still, in the terms of the treaty of Ryswick, in

1697. twenty-seven years after the Hudson's Bay Company received its charter, the whole country was confirmed to France by Great Britain, and no reservation of British rights, or of the rights of the Hudson's Bay Company, was made. This, at the present time, since all question of rights, real or pretended, have been definitely settled, is of interest only as showing upon what flimsy pretexts the sovereigns of western Europe asserted ownership of vast regions of country on the American continent, and how they used these "rights " as the small change that settled balances in their accounts with each other, not more than 200 years ago.

For 100 years little comparatively of interest attached to the company, and a few results of public importance are recorded. Something was done in the line of geographical discoveries in the northwestern parts of America, and the leaders of the company were growing hopeless of the discovery of an inland channel from the Atlantic to the Pacific. About 1778, Frobisher established a trading post on lake Athabasca, about 1,200 miles from lake Superior. Ten years later it was abandoned and Fort Chippe- wyan was built on the southwest shore of the same water. From this post Sir Alexander Mackenzie made an expedition down the river that bears his name, to the Arctic, and returned in 102 days. In the autumn of 1791, he started to explore a route to the South Sea, -- the Pacific ocean. He ascended Peace river to its head in the Rocky mountains, and in that dreary solitude

HISTORY OF WASHIINGTON.

made his winter quarters with his ten men. They were snowbound until May, when they resumed their journey, and in June came to the divide, and saw for the first time the waters that flowed toward the Pacific,-a sight that no white man had ever before beheld. In July they came in sight of the sea and were soon upon its shores. There, on a bold rock, facing Asia, this great explorer painted in vermilion these words: "Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three." This was the first expedition of white men across the continent to the Pacific ocean. It was a great feat, and had in it the presage of great events, to which our history will soon come. So valuable were his discoveries con- sidered to Great Britain that he was rewarded for them by the honor of knighthood in 1801.

Mackenzie was a man of far more than or- dinary ability. He had a statesmanlike grasp of mind, unconquerable determination, clear and penetrating foresight, and by his personal explanations and recommendations laid a foun- dation for mdch of the subsequent claims of Great Britain to the regions west of the Rocky mountains, and to more of the future progress and prosperity of the Hudson's Bay Company on that field. The point he reached on the Pacific coast was within the present limits of British Columbia (latitude 53° 21'), and clearly within the limits of the claim made by the United States, which afterward became the slogan of a great national party in one of the most exciting presidential contests in our history. when "The whole of Oregon or none," " Fifty-Four Forty or Fight," streamed on banners and were shouted by the people all over the land. He was the first and ablest representative of Great Britain in her quest for other empire on the Ameriean continent as a compensation for that which had been snatched from her grasp by the American Revolution that had closed but ten years before.

The attitude of the Hudson's Bay Company toward the vast region over which its charter

assumed to give authority was actually that of sovereignty. They legislated for it, governed it, made war and peace within it, and all other people were forbidden to "visit, haunt, frequent, trade, traffic, or adventure" within it. There was, of course, a confession of allegiance to the crown of Great Britain, in the fact that their charter was from it, but the power of the eom- pany was practically absolute. For all these rights and prerogatives the company was to pay an an- nual revenue of "two elks and two black beavers," to be collected on the grounds of the company.

With such unlimited prerogatives, in such a vast and productive field of trade, the company could not but rapidly increase in wealth and power. With these came a grasping avarice and a bold and inexorable spirit. The company stretched out its arms like a huge commercial octopus, and drew into itself all opposing and rival interests from the Yukon to the Sacra- mento, from the Arctic to Salt Lake, and from the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Colum- bia. What came in and what went out of the country was at its dictation. The Indian and the European alike did the bidding of the giant monopoly. Not to do it was to perish. This power was reaching out and preparing to enfold in its grasp all of the Pacific Coast from Amer- ican Russia to Spanish California.

The original stock of this company was only $50,820. In fifty years it had made its stock- holders rich, besides trebling its stock twice by profits alone. In 1821 its capital stock had gone up to $457,380, and in that year it ab- sorbed the Northwest Company of Montreal, with a capital equal to its own.

The Northwest Company was the Canadian- British rival and competitor of the Hudson's Bay Company. It was organized by the prin- cipal merchants of Montreal in 1787, especially to control and monopolize the fur trade over the boundless forests of the Canadas, and stretch- ing westward and northward along lakes Huron and Superior to the chain of great and small lakes, to lakes Winnipeg and Athabasca, and along the Saskatchewan and the Red River of

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

the North, following up the game and the In- dians wherever they could be found. Though these were both British companies, yet the riv- alry and hostility between them was as radical as they could have been between either of them and any rival American company.

There were many reasons for that hostility. The Hudson's Bay Company was the older and more powerful, and held letters patent from the British crown, and its organization and personnel were more distinctively English than the other, which was largely of the French-Canadian type. Besides, the great profitableness of the fur trade at that time made it a prize for commer- cial adventure eagerly to contend for. Hence, as the Northwest Company was reaping a rich harvest from its trade in these regions, and was pushing that trade farther and farther west- ward and southward and northward, the Hud- son's Bay Company began to set up rival estab- lishments and place rival traders by the side of theirs. Personal friendship could not long continue where commercial interests came into such sharp competition. The result was open war between the two companies. Forts were captured, prisoners taken and held in captivity : natives of the same country and subjects of the same king. Earl Selkirk, of the Hudson's Bay Company, resolved to establish a colony of Scotch and Irish Hudson's Bay people on the Red river, where was the great depot of the Northwest Company, and which that company considered its own ground. His first attempt was a partial failure, but he was skillful and de- termined enongh to detach some of the most important partisans of the Northwest Company from its service, and to unite them to that of the Hudson's Bay Company. Among them was Colin Robertson. one of the most success- ful traders and astute administrators of the company, to whom he committed the control of the interests of the Hudson's Bay Company in all that region. He pursued a most vigorous policy against the company with which he was so lately identified. The colony at Red river was re-established. This only intensified the

strife, and finally led to several severe battles, in one of which Governor Semple of the Red River colony and five other officers of the colony and fifteen men were killed. The result of these conflicts, on the whole, was favorable to the Hudson's Bay Company, but they left the companies exhausted, and in 1821, to save auy- thing from the wreck of the conflict, the com- panies amalgamated, and the name of the Northwest Company was lost, all becoming the Hudson's Bay Company.

The strongest play of this now twice-grown giant for the heaviest stakes was yet to be cast. While in London and in Washington diplomats were debating, and governments trying to foil each other by a play of technicalities, this giant corporation was nurturing all its powers and gathering up all its resources ready to cast them into the scale, when at last the contending nations should poise the beam for a last de- cision. Its play was first for itself, after that for great Britain, but always against America.

What this company first desired was to hold the country over which it ruled with such abso- lute sway in its old condition of barbarism. It had no instinct of civilization in it. It cared nothing for humanity-for man -- only as man could be made a machine for the use of its money-making greed. For its purposes a stolid and unreasoning Indian, with bow and steel- trap, roaming the hills or trapping the water courses for bear or beaver, was worth far more than the scholar in the schoolroom, or the plow- inan in the field. The Indian's wigwam was better than marble palaces. The silent prow of the birchen canoe was far more to be desired than the rush and roar of the wheels of the steamer. The sharp crack of the huntsman's rifle in the dark forest was far more musical to their ears than the roar of the paved streets of the metropolis. All these, and everything kindred to these, were what the Hudson's Bay Company thus sought for itself.

Let the reader pause a little here and remem- ber that the region this company was thus eu- deavoring, by the unscrupulous use of all its

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

power, to save to itself, and for that end to keep in its old barbaric state, was all that wonderful land in which now the four great States of the American Union-Oregon, Washington, Mon- tana, and Idaho-then all called Oregon-now holding a population, a wealth and a culture greater than the entire thirteen States at the close of the Revolution. Let him add to this all of British Columbia, itself a very empire of prosperous and cultivated civilization, and he will see for what enormous stakes this powerful company was playing its desperate game front the time of its union with the Northwest Com- pany for at least a quarter of a century. Surely the prize for which it struggled was well worth all its ventures.

Next to the keeping of the country for its own purposes of trade, it was the wish of this company to put enough vested interests in it to swing the scale of ultimate ownership in favor of Great Britain. Indecd it early became ap- parent to the company that this was the only means of saving it to itself. Of disinterested patriotism-country for country's sake-it had none. Notwithstanding many of its leaders and managers were eminent in abilities, and even high in the confidence of the English gov- ernment, they lived and wrought and wrote with this ultimate end forever in view,-subor- dinating country to company and patriotism to pelf.

We do not mean to say that in this these inen were worse than other men. They were like other men; and in their very faithfulness to the ends for which their company existed there was much that the historian must admire, though he may not commend the end for which they so strongly strove. No company's affairs were ever more ably administered, nor were means ever more wisely adapted to ends, than here. The agents of the company were every- where, watchful, vigilant; friends, if friendship would serve their purposes best, but enemies as readily as friends, if enmity better secured the object for which the company existed. Such was the Hudson's Bay Company when history

brings us to the verge of the decisive conflict of diplomacy, almost of arms, for the ultimate ownership of Oregon.

With the union of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany with the Northwest Company in 1821, there came into the consolidated and greatly enlarged Hudson's Bay Company a gentleman destined to a larger place and greater influence in its history, and the history of the country

DR. JOHN McLOUGHLIN.

for a full quarter of a century, than any other man. It was Dr. John McLoughlin. The position he occupied and the influence he ex- erted in the country fully justifies us in pans- ing in the midst of our story to give some brief characterization of this historic personage.

Dr. John McLoughlin was by birth a Cana- dian, by blood a Scotch-Englishman. He was an educated physician, and early entered the service of the Northwest Fur Company as such, and served in that capacity at Winnipeg. Such was his zeal and intelligence, however, that he exercised a very commanding influence over the counsels of the company, and at length, when

HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.

his company was merged into the Hudson's Bay, he became a factor in that company, in which his abilities received their legitimate appreciation, and he was made governor of all its territory and business west of the Rocky mountains. This made him practically a dic- tator in a country 1,200 miles long and 1,000 miles broad.

In person Dr. MeLonghlin was of most im- posing mien. He stood six feet and three inches in his moccasins-for he wore the Indian moccasin generally to the end of his life, -was erect as a fir tree, and moved with a stately and even majestic tread. His face was full and florid and cleanly shaven, and his eye a clear blne When the writer's personal acquaintance with him began, in 1853, his full hair was like a silver crown, and worn full and flowing, reach- ing nearly to his shoulders, and his eye had yet a quick and darting fire. His movements were decisive, if not quick. His voice in ordinary conversation was low, and his speech somewhat slow, but when excited it rang sharply and de- cisively out, like that of a man who was accus- tomed to his own way in all that he cared to do at all. The writer was then a young man, just entering upon his life-work in Oregon, while Dr. McLoughlin had then for some years been a private citizen; but his appearance was so venerable and august, his position in the conn- try had been so commanding and his history so remarkable, that he seemed to my imagination the most impressive personality I had ever beheld. To this day I doubt whether a more imposing physical presence ever walked the streets of this great Northwest than that of Dr. John McLoughlin.

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An illustrated history of the state of Washington, containing biographical mention of its pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 13

Author: Hines, Harvey K., 1828-1902 Publication date: 1893 Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 1056

Author: Hines, Harvey K., 1828-1902
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1056