USA > Washington > History of Washington the evergreen state : from early dawn to daylight with portraits and biographies Vol. I > Part 13
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64
Of their system and modus operandi it was, as Evans tells us, simply " admirable." Their discipline was not only perfect, but extended through all the ramifications of their enormous trade, from the superintendent of a post to the far-away Indian gathering their furs as he trapped upon some lonely river. We wish that our space would permit an extended statement of their methods-methods which would seem, looking at results, to have been, so far as their treatment of the natives was con- cerned, a vast improvement upon our own. For certain it is that British rule in North America has had far less difficulty in its relation with its Indians, considering the extent of terri- tory and the character of the tribes to be controlled, than we have had with our own. In this connection let us go back a little.
The Hudson's Bay Company came into life by special grant in December of 1821. Its power extended from 42º north to the southern border of the Russian possessions, a state of affairs lasting for a quarter of a century, during which Oregon, and consequently our State of Washington, of which it was then a
W. Durham
201
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON,
part, was merely an adjunct, a trading district of the company for the gathering of its furs. Evans puts the situation very tersely thus :
" The Hudson's Bay Company was present in Oregon by virtue of its license for a term of years to prosecute the Indian trade in those parts of North America not included in its chartered territory. Its charter not only conferred corporate existence-it was an immense grant of territory from the King of Great Britain-but that grant did not extend to territory west of the Rocky Mountains. Under the Joint Occupancy Treaty of 1818, as British subjects this corporation extended its opera- tions into Oregon. By the license of trade all other British sub- jects had been excluded in 1824 by act of Parliament of July 2d, 1821 ; and the Hudson's Bay Company were the only British sub- jects permitted to trade with the Indians west of the Rocky Mountains."
With the almost regal powers of the predecessor of this company-the corporation known as " the Governor and Com- pany of the Adventurers of England," chartered by King Charles of England in 1670 and ratified by the Parliament of 1690-we have little to do ; but we will quote a somewhat curious passage from the immense privileges thereby conferred, whereby they are constituted
" The true and absolute lords and proprietors of the territo- ries, limits, and places, saving always the faith, allegiance, and sovereign dominion due to us (the crown), our heirs and succes- sors for the same, to hold as tenants by free and common socage and not by knights' service, reserving as a yearly rent two elks and two black beavers."
We fancy that King Charles' elks would be harder to obtain than in the days when he rented that empire of land and sea for two elks and a brace of beaver.
One is simply astounded as one examines this deed of gift to the original company. Their grant is an empire ; the owners are lords, subject only in their fealty to their king ; its directors, powerful noblemen, " solid" with the English court ; its powers simply unbounded, and excluding all competition.
To return to their (the company of the present century's) treatment of the Indians. It may be reduced from Evans's sum- ming up as follows, and he may well say that it commands
202
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
favorable consideration. It duplicates in many respects Penn's action in the settlement of the " Keystone State," and in a lesser degree that of the Spanish missions of California. He says :
" How profitable the lesson, how worthy of adoption that system upon which was predicated the successful career of the company in acquiring absolute control and unbounded influence over the aborigines of the territories in which it operated ! This policy had a twofold object : first, to hold in moral subjection the native tribes as a matter of self-defence and economical man- agement ; and second, to convert them into dependents and allies. Thus did the company draw to itself and retain all the Indian trade as a matter of preference. At the same time, it con- verted the native tribes into auxiliaries, ready to serve the com- pany should such service be required.
" The gift or sale of ardent spirits to the Indians was posi- tively prohibited." (It is needless to dwell upon the excellent results arising from this rule.) "With comparatively few to defend their posts, oftentimes established in the midst of large bands of Indians, completely isolated and unprotected, yet those posts and the employés continued safe. Under Hudson's Bay rule there were no Indian outbreaks nor wars, and but little bloodshed. The establishment of schools, the effort to educate Indian children, the employment of Indians, all embraced within their Indian policy, continued to assure the confidence and gain the friendship of the native population."
They kept the Indian employed ; they excited his zeal and encouraged him to supply their posts with furs, fish, and game ; they required little or no land for settlement, hence the Indian neither feared the loss of his hunting-grounds nor the graveyards of his people. The Indians became, instead of enemies, as with ourselves, their guides, their messengers, the providers of the furs in which they dealt, and their friends. Instead of avoiding, they located their forts among the tribes, at the same time scat- tering their warriors in pursuit of game, for which and their peltries they were, from their standpoint, fairly and remunera- tively paid. Again, the Indian soon came to depend upon the company for comforts which they learned to appreciate and consider necessaries of life-weapons, blankets, fishing tackle, wearing apparel, and cooking utensils-all of which served to cement a union advantageous to both parties. But withal they
203
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
held the hand of their power with no feeble or tremulous grasp. If an Indian was violent or threatening he was promptly and severely punished. In this connection Evans tells us :
"No half-way measures were used. Uniformly kind and conciliatory to the well-disposed, punishing with promptness and firmness the wrongdoer, the natives were taught that it was their true interest to live on terms of friendship with the com- pany. This influence which the company acquired over the Indian population was eradicated with difficulty. Indian sus- picion of Americans resulted from their educated devotion to the Hudson's Bay Company, continuing for many years after the actual withdrawal of the company from the territory."
The author takes occasion to remark here: Why were we more unfortunate in our early experiences with the Indian tribes on Puget Sound and the interior ? Why did they evince a desire to expel the American white and permit the English to remain ? Was it the result of a less conciliatory policy on our part, or jealousies secretly fomented by our British friends (?) of the Hudson's Bay Company ?
Meanwhile, it is but fair to admit that the company's treat- ment of Americans as individuals was worthy of all praise so long as that American did not come to trade, thereby touching that most sensitive nerve of our English cousin, "John Bull"'- his pocket. If he did so, his trading post soon found a rival, and competition " froze out" the new-comer. But to the travel- ler of consideration, the army officer or missionary of our nationality, they were uniformly courteous and kind.
Evans says : "The hospitality of the officers in charge of their posts to the first American emigrants entitles the company to the lasting gratitude of the early settlers." After all, " blood is thicker than water," and the whites of both races have many a time stood shoulder to shoulder in bitter perils by land and sea, forgetting sectional jealousies, and only remembering the claims of a common origin and the same mother tongue. It would seem to be the mission of the Anglo-Saxon to dominate and drive out the black, the yellow, and the red of a more effete man- hood.
But, as we have just suggested, when it came to a competi- tion of trade Evans tells us :
" The American who made an effort to trade with the Ind-
204
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
ians, to trap, hunt, or do anything in which the company was engaged, found in the company a rival and competitor. In such opposition the result was generally that the American trader was obliged to retire from the field. Whenever an American established a trading house, post, or kindred enterprise, imme- diately the company formed a counter establishment in the vicinity ; American vessels were obstructed-nay, defeated in obtaining cargoes upon the coast ; Hudson's Bay Company ves- sels were not allowed to import from the Sandwich Islands goods or supplies ordered or purchased by American merchants. They were without mercy for a rival trader, yet the unfortunate who suffered by land or sea was freely offered shelter or food in the various establishments of the company."
After all, looked at from a financial standpoint, was it not a " fair fight"' ? If all methods are considered allowable in con- tests of love and war, why not those on the broader battle-fields of commerce ? Let such merchants as the late A. T. Stewart answer the question, or, haply, the heavy operators on the stock exchanges of our own day.
Turning from their Indian and rival trader policy, let us look for a moment at their treatment of their own employés. There were no " strikes" in those days. Their subordinates, by a Deed Poll of June, 1834, executed by the company, were divided into four classes-chief factors, chief traders, clerks, and servants.
Evans's details of their contracts with their people are so elaborate and instructive as compared with our wages of to-day that we feel it impossible to condense or resist the temptation to give them in extenso. He says :
" The chief factors superintended the affairs of the company at the trading posts. The chief traders under their direction managed the trade with the natives. The clerks served under both. Extra allowance of necessaries, free of charge, was made to chief factors wintering at inland posts. Personal and private trade with the Indians for individual benefit was not tolerated. The failure to annually make strict account was severely pun- ished by the council, who possessed the power to reprimand, impose penalties, or suspend a servant. Three chief factors and two chief traders were annually allowed to leave the country for one year. Wintering three years in the country entitled a factor or trader to retire with full share of profits for one year, and
Ery aby FG Kernan NY
6A laugh
207
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
half profits for four years. Wintering five years entitled the same officers to half pay for six years. Three chief factors, or two and two chief traders, were permitted annually to retire, according to rotation. The legal representatives of a deceased chief factor, who had wintered in the country, were entitled to all the benefits deceased would have received had he lived. A proportionate allowance was made for a shorter duration of ser- vice. After the payment of all expenses, sixty per cent of all the profits went to the shareholders and forty per cent to the chief factors and chief traders in lieu of salaries. The next grade below were clerks, who received from $100 to $500 per annum."
So far the company's arrangements seem fair and even liberal in their provisions. It is to be remembered, too, that the clerk hire of that day was far less than our own, not to mention the fact that the dissipations and dress of the wilderness-gambling excepted-were by no means extravagant. "Dudeism" was confined to some squaw's elaboration of a suit of buckskins, and the game dinners of the wilderness, though superior in flavor, were less expensive than those of Delmonico's.
Evans goes on to say : "The perfect absolutism of the com- pany's system is found in the enlistment of the servants. The pay was about $85 per annum" (less than four months' wages oftentimes paid to an incompetent female domestic with us), "out of which the servant clothed himself. The term of ser- vice, or, more properly to speak, enlistment, was five years from the date of embarkation. He bound himself by indentures to devote his whole time and labor to the service of the company, to obey all orders of its agents, to defend its property, not to ab- sent himself from its service or engage in any other employment during his term of engagement. He was faithfully to obey all laws and defend all servants and officers of the company to the utmost of his power. He engaged also to enroll as a soldier if required, and attend all drills and military exercises. In con- sideration of his wife and children being furnished with provi- sions, he obligated that they should render light services upon the company's farms. If a servant desired to return to Europe at the end of his enlistment, he gave a year's notice of his in- tention before expiration, and entered into an obligation to work a year longer, or until the next ship should leave for England.
10
203
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
If called upon to enroll as a soldier, he was entitled to be fur- nished by the company with a uniform suit every two years, and be supplied, free of cost, with arms and ammunition. Should he desire to remain in the country after the expiration of his term as a settler, he was allowed fifty acres of land, for which he rendered annually for seven years twenty-eight days' service. The company retained the right to dismiss the servant during his term or at its conclusion, in which event he was car- ried back in one of their ships free of expense. Desertion and neglect of duty were followed by forfeiture and loss of wages without redress. With such a pittance, is it to be wondered at that at the end of his term the servant was in debt for advances ? As a consequence, he was obliged to continue service to dis- charge his obligations.
" Marriage with Indian women was encouraged. Attach- ments were formed, and at the end of his enlistment the servant, surrounded by a family to whom he owed support, could not abandon them. Thus precluded from gratifying the desire of returning to his native land, he was left the election between re- enlistment or acceptance of the grant of land, continuing de- pendent upon the company for the necessaries of life."
Their system in this respect stopped but little short of the " peonage" of Mexico, leaving the man free in name but not in reality, by so enveloping him in a network of ever-increasing pecuniary liabilities that, struggle as he might, he was consigned to a slavery most hopeless, because ever strengthening its chains.
This great corporation surrendered its " license to trade" in 1838, and received a renewal one for a period of twenty-five years. Its terms were sufficiently ample, granting " the exclu- sive right of trading over a territory embracing the whole coun- try west of the Rocky Mountains between 42º north latitude and the Russian line. The rental was as moderate as the rights conferred were enormous, being nothing for the first five years, and afterward a yearly rental of five shillings, payable on June 1st. The company was, however, obliged to execute a bond to insure the service of legal process within their boundaries, and the rendition of any of its servants accused of crime. The clause which, as Americans, most interests us, is that in which they are enjoined from "claiming or exercising any trade with the Indians on the Northwest coast to the prejudice .cr
209
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
exclusion of any of the subjects of any foreign State who, under or by force of any convention or treaty for the time being between Great Britain and such foreign State, may be entitled to and shall be engaged in such trade"-a restriction which, so far as they could evade it, they certainly never pro- posed to abide by.
There is a marked resemblance between the financial methods and policy of the Hudson's Bay Company and the operations, in this day " of trusts," of many of our own great corporations. Like the serpent of the fairy-tale, they simply swallowed and made a part of themselves any opponent too strong for. their competition to undermine otherwise. Its one great rival, the Northwest Company, was for years its most persistent and dan- gerous adversary. But even this was finally bought out and absorbed by the Hudson's Bay-a fitting fate and well deserved, for to its (the Northwest's) treacherous treatment and to the demoralization of his agents did Mr. Astor owe the overthrow and failure of his company (intended to be American), the Pa- cific Fur. But ere we treat of that unlucky scheme and the causes which led to its downfall, let us give a page or two to the his- tory and methods of the Northwest Company of Montreal. Or- ganized in 1784, it was, as the name suggests, an outgrowth of Canadian, as the Hudson's Bay was the offspring of British enterprise. In 1778 Frobisher and Pond, of Montreal, built a trading post on the Elk River, which, till Fort Chippewyan, was the most distant from the white settlements. This, with other enterprises of a similar nature by merchants of Montreal, was too weak to sustain itself against Hudson's Bay opposition ; hence the creation of the Northwest, formed from an ordi- nary mercantile partnership, but growing, like a descending snowball, which gathers as it goes, into immense proportions. Its partners numbered twenty-three, of whom the wealthiest remained in Montreal and furnished the capital. They were the agents and general managers. The "wintering partners" did duty at and gave their personal supervision to the trading posts. In the prosecution of their trade they employed no less than two thousand persons-clerks, traders, guides, interpreters, and voy- ageurs. The clerks, young Highlanders of good family, which will account for the array of " Macs" which figure in Astor's later scheme, served a thorough apprenticeship of from five to
210
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
seven years. Merit in the discharge of their duty (as in the case of MacDougal) rendered them eligible to partnership. These clerks traded with the Indians at points selected by the company on lakes and rivers, some of which were hundreds or even thousands of miles distant from Montreal ; the other em- ployés also enlisted for a term of years, with increased pay if faithful to their trust. When disqualified by age or infirmity they were retired with a pension.
Evans gives us a very clear idea of the manner in which their trade was carried on. He says :
" The trading goods imported from England were packed in bundles, each weighing ninety pounds, and distributed among the various trading posts. Furs were packed in bundles of the same weight. These packs were transported by bark canoes by the chain of lakes and rivers, which canoes and packs were car- ried over portages by voyageurs. Some of these points were three thousand miles distant from Montreal."
The results of these trading operations were twofold : they carried out the plans of their projectors ; but, though by no means a part of their scheme, these trading parties became explorers also, opening paths which in the fulness of time should be util- ized by those whose aims were far higher than men who limited their ambitions to a full cargo of furs. The railroad engineer, the settler, the stockman, and the agriculturist have all taken a leaf from the unwritten journals of the trapper and voyageur. The indefatigable Alexander Mackenzie was its mainspring and pilot ; but to him and his inscription on the rock we have already referred. MacDougal, the traitorous partner in Astor's enterprise, also figures more respectably in this capacity. They seem to have had one American among their " wintering" partners -Daniel Williams Harmon, a Green Mountain boy, who did them good service, crossing the Rocky Mountains and wintering upon Fraser's Lake. After a series of adventures he returned to his native Vermont to write them up in a book subsequently pub- lished at Andover. Truly the unknown even in those early days suffered many things at the hands of their journal-writing ex- plorers. The failure of Astor's enterprise in 1813 left the North- west in full possession of their ill-gotten gains, and without a competitor in the region of the Columbia. In fact, they were in absolute possession of the whole territory west of the Rocky
Eng"by F , Ke: nan NI
Janna Duvill
213
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
Mountains between the Russian on the north and a trading post or two of the American Fur Company on the extreme southeast. This state of things continued for years, and the unfortunate " Joint Occupancy Treaty" endorsed, and British subjects pro- tected their sovereignty.
Evans tells us that for a period the Northwest Company wielded a powerful influence in British America. Its operations reached far and wide into the unexplored and the unoccupied. It respected no right of territory ; it sent out its parties wher- ever profit was to be gained. The inland voyages of Mackenzie were all made in its interest. In 1804, when advised of the pro- posed expedition of Lewis and Clarke, it attempted to forestall it by sending out a party with instructions to reach the Columbia in advance of the United States expedition. It failed, owing to the ill health of its chief. It must be a source of gratification to every patriotic reader of the history of Washington to see how clearly the hand of a higher Power seems to have interposed to interrupt and bring to naught the wily plans and subtle machina- tions of the British Government and these great corporations, its allies, and lead our people, a weak and feeble band as compared with those already in occupancy, to finally invade, hold, and secure to our flag and nationality this land of promise, so full of present fruition and teeming with future promise.
Growing by slow degrees from its organization in 1784, the Northwest Company grew to imperial influence in the first decade of the present century. In 1805 it had become the suc- cessful rival of the Hudson's Bay, whose theory of trade was exactly the reverse of (and it seems to us inferior to) their own. The Hudson's Bay, relying upon its long establishment, was stationary-furs came to it; on the contrary, the Northwest, so to speak, " drummed" their trade, sending out parties to scour the land ; their agents were everywhere ; they were visited at regular intervals and at appointed rendezvous. In these palmy days the Northwest Company employed thousands, doubling the salary of their eminently successful men. In the Hudson's Bay let a man work as he might, his salary was fixed, his promotion slow. It was, in fact, the old British red-tape system as opposed to the wide-awake, wise Yankee method of picking out the best man and remunerating him accordingly. And the keen blade of self-interest carved a way when circumlo-
214
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON.
cution failed to enter. Space does not permit us to enter upon difficulties with various rivals and embarrassments, notably those of the " Selkirk project" and the colony at Assiniboia- difficulties ending at length in actual war, in which, on June 19th, 1816, a battle was fought between the Northwest Company and the colonists, in which the company were victorious, killing twenty-two of the colonists, among whom was Mr. Semple, the Governor of Assiniboia. Competition had led both companies to the verge of insolvency when, in the winter of 1819-20, the British Secretary for the Colonies, Lord Bathurst, interposed his good offices to bring about their peaceable union, which ended in an agreement in March, 1821, merging both into a single cor- poration under the charter of the Hudson's Bay ; so the North- west, as such, virtually ceased to exist-a state of things which ended in their entire absorption. when, in 1824, the Hudson's Bay acquired all their rights, becoming the sole grantees under the license of exclusive trade of December, 1821. So the spoiler was spoiled, yielding to its rival and enemy even as Astor's company, whose inception and disastrous career we are about to narrate in the next chapter, was plundered and captured by themselves.
CHAPTER XV.
. SETTLEMENT AND CAPTURE OF ASTORIA.
" As cunning spiders wisely weave The web that nets their prey, So patiently does commerce plan For gain of future day ; Yet as the insect's well-wrought snare By chance of breeze is blown,' So wisest schemes are fruitless found By circumstance o'erthrown."
-- BREWERTON.
As the reader must already have discovered, the British fur companies were the bitter enemies of all who attempted to com- pete with them in a region which they had already come to regard as exclusively their own, and where they used every effort to retain their supremacy. Weaker attempts to oppose them had been rendered abortive by a policy which systematically discour- aged or " froze out"' (to use a most expressive Westernism) their authors. Matters were in this condition when Mr. John Jacob Astor, the beginnings of whose then great fortune (for a few hundred thousand dollars in those days ranked their possessor with the millionaire of our own time) had risen from his dealings in furs, determined to form a company and establish the traffic on a large scale as an American enterprise on the Northwest coast. Now this Mr. Astor, so widely known now as the founder of a family of enormous wealth, was not an American by birth, but a native of Heidelberg, who came here poor, amassed a fortune, and was a citizen by adoption of the United States. Had he been "to the manor born" we fancy his enter- prise would have been more patriotically American and have ended more happily than it did. As it was, he regarded his undertaking as a mere commercial investment, selected its per- sonnel accordingly, and failed. Otherwise his plans were far- seeing and well laid. He proposed to prosecute the fur trade
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.