USA > Washington > History of Washington the evergreen state : from early dawn to daylight with portraits and biographies Vol. I > Part 12
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" In 1832 four Indians, Flatheads from the Upper Columbia, arrived in St. Louis, weary and worn by a journey of a thousand leagues. Indians were not rare there, for St. Louis was the headquarters for the Western fur trade on the frontier. But these Indians came not to trade. Far away in their own hunting grounds they had heard from some wandering American trapper of the white man's God, of the happiness of the blessed, of a home eternal. They had heard of danger to those who knew not the words of life as contained in a book which would teach them all they desired to know of God and heaven. Per- haps they were anxious to secure the secrets of the white man's superior wisdom and strength. At any rate, they longed to know of the religion which the white man possessed, and their motives seem to have been singularly pure and noble. The peo- ple consulted together and resolved to learn the secrets of the book, with its wonderful words of life. Some one must go and bring back the book. Two old men were selected-one a chief- and two young braves, joining thereby wisdom and strength for the long expedition. They started, and on they went for hun- dreds of miles, often weary, hungry, and faint, often surround- ed by enemies, but still steadfast in their purpose to bring back the Word of Life to their people.
" Arriving at St. Louis, they no doubt wondered much at the fine buildings and goods, at the hundreds of new things on all sides. They sought out General William Clarke, whose name had been given to the river in that far-off land on whose banks
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they were born. To him they spoke of their object ; but accus- tomed as he was to regard Indians merely as trappers and hunt- ers, he does not seem to have cared much about their mission. They sought in vain, it seems, for those who could or would explain to them the secrets of the book. Even the church of St. Louis was given up to ceremonial rather than to religious life. The poor Indians saw much parade and little piety, much of the externals of religion but little of its vital essence. The two older died at St. Louis. One of the younger contracted disease, and on his return journey faltered and fell by the way. When the time came to return, this, their farewell address, was given in General Clarke's audience-room :
" ' I came 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 came 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 empty and broken. The two fathers who came with us, the braves of many winters and wars, we leave asleep here by your great water and wigwam. They were tired in many moons, and their moccasins worn out. My people sent me to get the white man's Book of Heaven. You took me where you allow your women to dance as we do not ours, and the Book was not there ; you took me where they worship the Great Spirit with candles, and the Book was not there ; you showed me the images of good spirits and pictures of the good land beyond, but the book was not among 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 mocca- sins will grow old in carrying them ; but the Book is not among them. When I tell my poor blind people again sitting in the big council that I did not bring the Book, no word will be spoken by our old men or our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. My people will die in dark- ness, 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.' "
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Is not this the realization of the multum in parvo? What strength, what brevity, what simplicity, what incisive direct- ness of speech, and withal how keen and scathing the rebuke it administers ! It is the realization of the great traveller, Bayard Taylor's, confession " that the bent knee of heathen devotion had oft rebuked his prayerless Christian lips."
" They departed sadly by the first 'fire canoe' which ever made the long trip of twenty-two hundred miles up the Mis- souri to the mouth of the Yellowstone River. The pathetic speech was heard by a clerk in General Clarke's office, and he wrote an account of their mission and its sad ending to friends in Pittsburg. Confirmation of his report was asked and sent, and the clerk's letter was published. It came to the attention of the American Board of Missions. In 1834 the Methodist Board sent Revs. Jason and Daniel Lee. In 1835 the American Board sent Rev. Samuel Parker and Dr. Marcus Whitman on a tour of inspection. These men met at the American rendezvous on Green River the Nez Percé Indians who had sent their agents to St. Louis on their search for the Book three years before. Rev. Samuel Parker remained in the valley of the Columbia until 1836, and returned by way of the Sandwich Islands ; but Dr. Whitman saw before him his grand life work, and after looking over the ground, he came back only that he might return fully equipped for the labors that awaited him. He saw the possi- bilities of rapid development for this broad and beautiful Pacific Northwest, and his prophetic eye already, it may be, beheld the States yet unborn to be added to the American Union. He saw, best of all, in this virgin field an opportunity for the grandest triumphs of the Christian civilization of the nineteenth century. He took back with him to the States two Nez Percé boys as specimens of the people who were waiting for the Book. He went East and he told his story. The presence of the bright Indian boys gave it a more personal and more dramatic interest. His appeal went to the hearts of his hearers, and it was decided that missionaries must be sent to Oregon-that at least two men with their wives should go. They rightly thought that permanent Christian influence could be exerted through the family, with its combination of strength and sympathy, of courage and faith. The missionaries who had so far gone into the wilderness were celibate priests, and their influence, though salutary, stopped
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short of that refinement and purity possible only through the influence of a noble womanhood. The Christianity of the French missionaries had done little to influence the conduct of the French voyageurs, and it could have still less effect upon the Indians. So here we are to come into the presence, not of a Christianity without morals, but one whose very basis is true refinement and solid character."
And now there comes to relieve the tedium of our narrative, if wearying it should be found, a little glimpse of romance, or, perhaps, we should rather call it reality, that reality strongest of all, of a Christian woman's brave endurance of every danger and trial in the cause of duty and devotion to the husband of her love.
" Dr. Whitman's betrothed was ready to go on a wedding journey of thirty-five hundred miles to the Pacific. No woman had ever gone through those wild and rocky mountain fast- nesses, no wagon wheel had ever passed through its deep can- yons. The Indians had been so incensed by the outrages of brutal white men that they were dangerous. Yet Dr. Whit- man's bride dared to go. He sought for a comrade, and found one in Rev. H. H. Spaulding, who, like himself, was just mar- ried, and on his way as a missionary to the Osage Indians. Whitman literally ran after him, stopping his novel conveyance, half sleigh, half wagon (with a touch of the prairie schooner), and proposed that he should go with him to the end of the earth (as it then seemed), to a land of silence and of savages. Mr. Spaulding's wife had just recovered from a serious illness, and it seemed that such a long and severe journey would for her be dangerous and possibly fatal. But this devoted young couple took counsel of the Lord, and in ten minutes the young wife, with a cheerful face, said, 'I have made up my mind for Ore- gon.' The husband warned her, but dared not dissuade ; he spoke of the three thousand miles of hard travel, most of it by canoe, in the saddle, or even on foot, with danger on all sides ; but the wife answered, 'I am ready, not to be bound only, but also to die on the Rocky Mountains for the name of the Lord Jesus.'"
And here again we step aside to pay our brief tribute to American womanhood-above all to the Christian, wifely, brave, energetic, and never-despairing womanhood of the female pi-
G. Dillon
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oneers of our own Northwest. Making the best of the worst situations, calm in the midst of dangers that might appall a man, bringing to their weary journeyings and pine-shaded log-cabin homes a devotion and continual self-sacrifice which purified their own lives, made beautiful their humble abodes, and so entwined their memories with good and gracious deeds that the wives and mothers of our Washington pioneers gone hence to meet their reward, leave behind them, though entombed in forgotten graves, a savor of sweetness as of pressed yet still fragrant flowers- the record of those of whom it may be said they lived not in vain, doing the duty nearest to their hand, and finally passing away
" Beloved in life, and sainted in the grave."
To return to Du Bois's narrative : " There were no railroads then toward the West. It was fifteen years before the locomo- tive found its way to Chicago. At Pittsburg, Catlin, the great Indian traveller, who had explored all the new Northwest, warned them against attempting to take women over the plains and through the steep, dark, and bloody passes of the Rocky Mountains. In every town they passed there were fears ex- pressed as to their fate ; but they pressed on to St. Louis, and here amid a mixture of costumes and a jargon of languages they began to realize something of the rough but picturesque life of the great West.
"Under the convoy of the American Fur Company they start- ed early in 1836. Dr. Whitman had roughed it long enough to get on more easily, but the minister had experiences calculated to lower his dignity. He was shaken by the ague, kicked by a mule, his blanket was whisked away by a frisky tornado, and, to take the last bit of starch out of him, he was crowded off a ferry-boat by a cow, who went with him, and to whose tail he clung with the tenacity of desperation until rescued, and yet he was not daunted (not even cowed) in his resolve to push on for the Pacific. June 6th they were at Laramie, and on July 4th they celebrated the nation's natal day in the famous South Pass and on the grand 'divide' of the waters of the continent, whence, within a few hundred yards, flow in opposite direc- tions streams which go, one to the Atlantic and the other to the Pacific Ocean. Here Mrs. Spaulding was ill and fainted, but with a cup of water from the stream leading toward the Pacific
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was revived. As that stream went on, joined with others, and in ever-broadening flow made green and fertile the valley of the Columbia, so did the beginning of her influence even here tend to that higher civilization born of unselfish aims and purified ambitions. The little rill of influence from a noble soul joins others, and in their union produces moral and religious fresh- ness and beauty in the world."
Here, in this South Pass, on the anniversary of the birthday of the republic, did these two weak women keep the day, and inscribe their names upon a rock which Fremont, "the path- finder," was to reach in 1842, six years afterward, and there dis- cover the trail traversed by this adventurous party.
Having thus, as unexpected guests, written their names in nature's register, they proceeded to celebrate the day, for though in the depths of the unbroken wilderness, twenty-four hundred miles from home, their American patriotism remem- bered its nationality. The missionary party dismounted, raised the Stars and Stripes, sang as did the pilgrims of old, making the forest arches of God's own sanctuary ring to the strain of that music borrowed from the English, but set to better words- " America"-and never, perhaps, was
" My country, 'tis of thee,"
rendered with more heartfelt enthusiasm ; and then, having thus poured forth their souls in song, all knelt about the Book and took solemn possession of the great Northwest in the name of God and the American Union.
" Look," says Du Bois, "on this picture, and then on an- other-the discovery of the Pacific by Balboa more than three hundred years before. With theatrical pomp and formal words and ceremony he takes possession of that ocean, its seas and coasts, in behalf of the Spanish crown and the 'Holy Catholic Church.' It is counted one of the most dramatic incidents of modern history. How different the act of possession we have just depicted ! The flag of Spain waved by the steel-clad Balboa over the Pacific was stained and sullied by a thousand deeds of cruelty and crime. Its policy was treachery, its tender mercies terrible, its hate as unrelenting as its lust and greed for gold. Spanish adventurers were everywhere welcomed by the Indians and received as friends ; their own base acts turned those
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friends into fiends. They sowed the seeds of murder and out- rage more than three centuries ago, and we reap its bloody har- vests of hate and retaliation even unto the present hour. Bal- boa claimed the coasts of the Pacific as regions in which to plunder and destroy ; but our little Christian band, looking but to conquests of peace, knelt upon the unbroken sod around the Bible that they loved and lifted up their hearts to the God of justice and mercy, seeking His aid and blessing upon their efforts to enlighten the ignorant, to raise the fallen, and show to the blinded heathen whom they came to teach a better light and a purer way.
"They had reached the ' big divide ; ' the larger part of the distance had been travelled, but the worst of the journey was still to come. So far, Dr. Whitman had insisted upon bringing his old wagon. He had been ridiculed about it, but he persist- ed. The Indians had never seen one. In their alliterative lan- guage they named it 'chiek-chiek' when it rattled over the prairie, and 'kai-kash' when it crushed or jolted over the stones ; so the full name of the wagon became ‘ chiek-chiek- shani-le-kai-kash.' Dr. Whitman had an object in bringing the wagon beyond that of personal convenience for the wives of the missionaries. Heretofore it had been given out that no wagon could pass through to the Columbia. If no wagons could get through, it would be very difficult for emigrants to go, and almost impossible to transport household goods or even provi- sions. But Dr. Whitman's old wagon went on and prepared the way for the long caravans of similar vehicles which in after days were to follow his lead into the valley of the Columbia.
" At Fort Hall the party came upon an outpost of the Hud- son's Bay Company, the absorber of the Northwest Company, which found strangers at Astoria (the Astor Fur Company) and ' took them in,' as the whale did Jonah. It was here that this arrogant and all-dominating corporation stood in the gate to bar the advance of progress and say, 'Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther.' It was given out that down into the Snake River Valley no wagon had ever gone. It was dry, rocky, barren, with no lands beyond of the slightest agricultural value. They were only good for hunting and fishing."
As we do not desire to cover ground which falls under the head of the great fur companies and their influence, we will
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simply state that their policy with the American settler was one of discouragement, which halted at no misstatement, and stooped to the lowest mendacity in the pursuit of its object. Their agents were their soldiers, wandering and nomadic by nature, travelling by command. They suited the Indians, for their tastes, habits, and occupations were similar-they were dwellers in the forest, hunters and fishers like themselves. The Ameri- cans, on the contrary, came as settlers, to take up land and im- prove it. "No white women were welcomed to the woods. The men lived singly or wedded nominally-nomads like them- selves -- the natives of the wild ; love was laughed at, constancy a mockery, and family ties of any reality unknown. The woods were to remain unbroken, the soil untilled. A beaver-dam was a source of profit, a mill-dam but a disturbance and menace."
Such was the condition of things when our little party reached their post and entered upon their labors in the valley of the Columbia. But mark the sequence of events-the links, slight and apparently trifling in themselves, which in the provi- dence of God unite the careless words of a wandering American trapper, spoken by his camp-fire in those continuous woods
" Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound Save his own dashings,"
and the peaceful wresting of an empire from British rule, there- by adding three more stars to the azure field of the flag of the American republic.
There are just twelve links in that most important chain --- links which required a decade of years to forge and bind to- gether : 1. The trapper's tale. 2. The Indian council. 3. The sending for the Book. 4. The failure of the messengers. 5. Their farewell speech. 6. The young clerk's letter. 7. Its pub- lication. 8. Action of the missionary boards. 9. Sending out of Whitman. 10. His "accidental"' presence at the British traders' feast. 11. His patriotic and wonderful ride. 12. His arousing of the land, ending in the American occupation of the great Northwest. Do you think that these were accidents, or like the tokens that He cast upon His billows to cheer the faint- ing heart of the great discoverer and still the murmurings of his mutinous crew with evidences from the wished-for land ? Well hath the poet sung :
SPOKANE FALLS, NOR. PAC. R. R.
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" God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform ; He plants His footstep on the sea, And rides upon the storm."
To which, writing under the inspiration of the facts recorded, the author adds some verses which may not inaptly close the story of the Book :
THE INDIAN SEEKS BUT FAILS TO FIND "THE WHITE MAN'S BOOK OF HEAVEN."
Perchance they dreamed some magic lay Within the sacred tome, Some spell to drive disease away, Or fright the fever moan.
To lead at last to hunting grounds Beyond the bright blue sky, Or breathe a blessing o'er the mounds Where buried kinsmen lie.
They journeyed far the prize to gain, " The Book" their only quest, Yet sadly sought the woods again -. None heeded their request.
They saw the sacred altars where Soft lamps lit silver shrine, Yet 'mid the censer-perfumed air Found not that Book divine.
The image of our dying Lord Upon the cruel cross Touched in their hearts no answering chord, No sense of grief or loss.
" The Book," and some one to reveal The secrets it might hold, To ope with solemn words its seal, And hidden truths unfold.
In vain they turn with tearful eyes To tread their homeward trail, Beneath the Western sunset skies To make their mournful wail.
To say, " 'The white man's Book ' is dark, To us a fountain sealed. We plead, alas ! they would not hark, Nor tell what it concealed."
-BREWERTON.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE GREAT FUR COMPANIES OF THE NORTHWEST AND THEIR INFLUENCE UPON AMERICAN EMIGRATION AND SETTLEMENT.
" Strange merchants these, who dwell alone, Their roof the spreading tree, Their lullaby the night wind's moan, Their home the forest free.
" They breathe the fragrant scent of pine, They hunt the moose and deer ; The mountain rill supplies their wine, The woodland wealth of cheer."
-BREWERTON.
As the El Dorados, real or fancied, of the Spaniard obtained notice and settlement from the greed of gold, to discover and secure which was the aim of the early adventurer, so the rich furs and valuable peltries of our own Northwest coast offered the lure that finally opened this country to emigrants of less wandering and more civilized ambitions. A speedy result of the discovery of this new source of wealth was the engendering of enterprises that ended in the establishment of such great cor- porations as the Russian and, as more nearly affecting our- selves, the Hudson's Bay, Northwest, Astor (or Pacific Fur) and other kindred fur companies, the far-reaching systems of two of which, both as regards their Indian policy and trade, made them a power in the land, carrying beneath the mask of apparent friendship and extended hand of frank courtesy and good-will the spirit of secret enmity and a grasp as of gauntleted steel, ever ready to crush out any and all who attempted to compete with their operations.
It is a fact patent to every intelligent reader of the history of Washington, that these great fur companies of the Northwest exercised an immense influence over our early emigration and settlement by encouraging the English and to the extent of their power disgusting and driving out the American ; nor was
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this the result of accident; on the contrary, it was the out- growth of plans wisely matured and deliberately carried out. Their secret and avowed object to those who were in their con- fidence was to make this yet unpeopled region from the Pacific to the Rocky Mountains so entirely English that, even if we should finally possess the land, it would require half a century of education under our own flag ere its original inhabitants could be dispossessed of the idea that they still owed an alle- giance to the British crown ; nor was this action entirely a mat- ter of their own volition. It was, as will be seen, not only fostered and encouraged, but even instigated by their home Government, which introduced a clause into their charter of exclusive right to trade to the following effect :
"One of the conditions on which this license to trade is granted is that English laws and the jurisdiction of English courts shall be extended over all parts of North America not yet organized into civil or provincial governments"-a condition strictly adhered to and most loyally carried out by the factors of the great Hudson's Bay Company, who for years, backed by large capital and endowed with almost unlimited powers, absorbed the wealth and insensibly acquired dominion over the country and people of the whole Northwest.
Let us look for a moment at the forces and plan of opera- tions, admirably disciplined and supplied, of this peaceable army of conquest, who, working under the guise of remunerative trade, were in reality seeking to establish British supremacy and inculcate English sentiment wherever their influence could be felt. First, as to their forces, quoting their own statement as embodied in their petition to the home Government, when, find- ing their original charter about to expire, they applied in 1837 for its renewal with enlarged privileges. They say :
" The company now occupy the country between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific by six permanent establishments on the coast, sixteen in the interior country, besides several migra- tory and hunting parties ; and they on the coast maintain a marine of six armed vessels, one of them a steam vessel. Their principal establishment and depot for the trade of the coast and interior is situated ninety miles from the Pacific, on the northern banks of the Columbia River, and called Vancouver, in honor of that celebrated navigator. In the neighborhood they have large
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pasture and grain farms, affording most abundantly every spe- cies of agricultural produce, and maintaining large herds of stock of every description ; these have been gradually estab- lished ; and it is the intention of the company still further not only to augment and increase them, to establish an export trade in wool, tallow, hides, and other agricultural produce, but to encourage the settlement of their retired servants and other emi- grants under their protection. The soil, climate, and other cir- cumstances of the country are as much adapted to agricultural pursuits as any other spot in America ; and with care and pro- tection the British dominion may not only be preserved in this country, which it has been so much the wish of Russia and America to occupy to the exclusion of British subjects, but Brit- ish interest and British influence may be maintained as para- mount in this interesting part of the coast of the Pacific."
So much for the material means at their command. They do not tell us of the number of their servants or the men-one day " to be retired"-under their supervision, with whom " British influence and dominion" was already paramount, but directly and indirectly they must have been a majority in that early day.
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