USA > Washington > History of Washington the evergreen state : from early dawn to daylight with portraits and biographies Vol. II > Part 7
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And now the history of territorial Washington, struggling like a tired and, at times, almost overwhelmed swimmer, to reach the wished-for shore, is about to enter on many years of savage warfare-years during which its bloody tide ebbed and flowed by coast and forest ; when the isolated settler was alike
ErabuE & Winame NEWNY
Thomas
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menaced by the savage tribes of the far North, who paddled silently in to attack their seaside homes in their great war canoes, and the yet more stealthy approach of those inland warriors, who crept like serpents through the forest trails on their missions of massacre and revenge. The emigrant, who was beginning to congratulate himself that he was securing a home, too often left that humble cabin beneath the shade of the pines to clear or plough some outlying section of his claim to be shot down in the furrow beside his oxen, leaving his defenceless loved ones to a fate so horrible that pandemonium itself might take a lesson from their orgies. Even the troops sent to pursue and punish them were at times surprised or outnumbered, and more than one gallant spirit -- some of whom it was the author's privilege to know-has yielded up life in this inglorious warfare, and left the clay yet warm with the lifeblood to be mutilated beyond words to describe-ofttimes by the fiendish squaws, more diabolical, if possible, than their brutal mates, who have ever been the loudest and most active by the torture fire, yet over whose fortunate acci- dental taking off we have heard so much of the soldiers' barbar- ity. And yet there is no old frontiersman in Washington who will not tell you that the squaws are more cunning in contriving new sufferings for the pale-face captive and venomous in execut- ing them than their dusky lords. Do you doubt it ? Then from many well-recorded instances we will quote the following :
In 1856 Captain Ben Wright, then in charge of Indians in Southern Oregon, while endeavoring to pacify those inclined to be hostile, was treacherously murdered as follows, the prin- cipal actor in his butchery being a Canadian Indian named Enos, who was with Fremont, and favorably mentioned by that offi- cer in connection with the attack made on him by the Modocs at Klamath Lake in 1845. He was, moreover, Wright's scout, and fully trusted by him. Evans thus relates his murder :
" On the morning of the 22d of February Enos entered the quarters of Captain Wright, unsuspected of treachery, and killed him with an axe, which was the signal for the general massacre. He afterward mutilated the body, cut out his heart, and ate a portion of it. It is said that Chetcoe Jenny, a squaw who was acting as an interpreter for Wright, at a salary of $500 a year from the Indian Department, also joined in the repast."
If we seem to write too strongly, the author's own vivid recollec-
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tions of frontier suffering and outrage must plead our best excuse. We will serve up in the next chapter a menu of horrors-actual occurrences of Washington's early days of trial by fire and steel -which may serve to convince, and from whose banquet of atrocities the greediest devourer of the terrible can hardly fail to rise unsatisfied.
Before entering upon it we propose to make a few general re- marks upon the friction which once and again retarded the har- monious working of well-intended efforts to restore peace by the punishment of these Indian offenders. It cannot be denied that previous to the great Civil War, where volunteers fought side by side with and emulated the regulars both in endurance and gal- lantry, there was a disposition in the minds of our army officers to undervalue the rude levies called temporarily into service by the exigencies of frontier wars. Those were days of red tape and " Old Steuben," of leather stocks and precision of military eti- quette. It is by no means wonderful, then, that the thoroughly drilled veteran should look down upon the backwoods recruit, who hardly knew a colonel from a corporal, and cared less-a feeling very apt to be returned by the buckskin-clad rifleman. who never wasted a shot, and who from sad experience knew all about Indians. There were subordinate officers in the field- men like Sheridan, for instance-who understood them well enough to make their old squaws drag his canoes to attack their relations, the hostiles against whom he was operating ; but with . others-Rains, for instance-it was otherwise. Keyes seems to have been both a writer and a fighter, wielding the pen and the sword with equal facility. It was a serious misfortune for the Territory that General Wool, an old officer, who, however fortunate and distinguished in his other military employments, was entirely out of place as Commander of the Department of the Pacific, in his action, or, rather, want of action, in directing the Indian campaigns of Washington and Oregon. There was nothing in his previous experience to fit him to take that broad view, combined with prompt and decided blows, which the oft- times critical situation of affairs in these Territories demanded. As an Eastern commander he was a success ; as a Western, so far as the Indian question was concerned, an utter and lament- able failure. Officers of experience in Indian affairs, thoroughly acquainted with " their tricks and manners," men whose com-
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mon-sense and determination to protect their own race and stamp out Indian barbarities, by giving measure for measure, outrides and overshadows the baby talk of abusing the poor Indian, are the only men fit for such commands, and to such should be given the largest discretion, or, if you like, an unlimited indiscretion. There is many a ruined, fire-blackened cabin, with its violated women, murdered babes, and tortured men, which would to-day have been a happy home, surrounded by smiling harvest fields and filled with thriving inmates, if the War Department, or, rather, the Indian Bureau and its surrounding rings, like those of Saturn, had taken a lesson from the red man's creed and wiped out those nests of human rattlesnakes wherever they could be found. No; we do the rattlesnake injustice ; he gives a warning before he strikes, but the Indian-never. Why should we make those prisoners of war, to be fed, clothed, and relegat- ed to reservations, who horribly murder every captive they can secure ? Mete out to them the same measure they accord to their foes, and believe us, there would be fewer " bad Indians" and many sudden conversions to better things. The mercy of the white the Indian regards as an evidence either of his coward- ice or his folly. In estimating the character of the savage leave out gratitude ; he has none, and expects none. " White man heap fool'' is his very truthful interpretation of our forbearance.
All this may seem very hard, very cruel, very unsoldierlike doctrine ; but desperate diseases require desperate remedies. Let humanitarians talk as they will, Colonel Chevington's whole- sale wiping out of the murderous hostiles, so much reprobated, at Sand Creek did more to convert these wretches, who had a blanket garnished with hardly dried white women's scalps among their properties, than all the presents and missionary talk in the world. What did Sherman write to Grant after the massacre, with mutilation too horrible to relate, of our troops at Fort Fet- terman ? He said just this: "We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination-men, women, and children. Nothing else will reach the root of the case." And he was right. " War," as he declared upon another occasion, "is hell," and we add that he who undertakes to handle that devil, especially in Indian form, with soft speeches and kid gloves is something worse than a fool. If it is inhuman, the Indian took the initiative ; the soldier who takes his life in
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his hand and goes down to avenge or protect the innocent settler or emigrant and his family is not there to set humane examples or teach a Sunday-school. It should be an appliction of the " similia similibus" doctrine of " like cures like," and not ad- ministered homœopathically either. If the Indian does not desire his women and children to be unmercifully shot down, let him cease unmercifully torturing unto death, with barbarities impos- sible to describe, the mothers, daughters, and infants of the white who unhappily fall into his power.
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CHAPTER XXVI.
A CHAPTER OF HORRORS-THE MOUNTAIN MASSACRE.
" Stand at this door with bated breath ; A terror lurks within.
A gruesome form of dreadful death, The child of lust and sin. No demon dire need evil plan The innocent to wrong ;
' Man's inhumanity to man ' To Hades might belong."
-BREWERTON.
THERE is in the human mind, even among the refined and in- telligent, a strange hankering after the horrible, a morbid desire to look into gruesome and uncanny things, and devour details of terrible events ; to trace the course of some gigantic crime, its revelations, and follow it even to its final expiation ; to gloat over an analysis of motives whose diseased perversion eventuated in a mania to destroy ; to make mental post mortems of the vic- tims of undiscovered sins. Let those who doubt watch the half- terrified but always deeply interested throngs who haunt the " Chamber of Horrors" in the Eden Musée, or gaze with fearful eyes upon its originator in the London wax works of Madame Tassaud, the " Slaying of the Prince Imperial by the Zulus," the terrified criminal going to execution, the aged prisoner of the Bastille, or the gory murder weapon of some celebrated assassin exercising a more subtle charm than the glowing triumphs of the brush or the chastest conceptions of the chisel. Why is it so, do you ask ? Who shall say, but it is equally impossible to ignore its existence.
If there be seekers after the blood-curdling among our read- ers, preferring high tragedy to any comedy of life, these life-or, perhaps, we should rather say death-pictures which we are about to sketch in should fully satisfy them. Gruesome and wild, yet, unhappily, but too true, we select_them at a venture
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from Pacific coast territorial history, as incidents whose lurid details cannot fail to interest those who are thus abnormally fascinated.
Were our theme one which admitted the amelioration of levity, we might quote the Frenchman's well-aired proverb and say that we suffered from "the embarrassment of riches"-in other words, that the dark bead-roll of west coast savage atroci- ties was so full and replete with terrors that one scarcely knows where to commence or what particular act of outrage to favor.
We will, for various reasons, but more especially from the fact that its most distinguished victim was the hero of that " famous ride" to save Oregon for the Union --- which we have already narrated in detail-begin with the massacre of Dr. Mar- cus Whitman and his associates at Waiilatpu, in 1847, by the Cayuses, a tribe for whose welfare, both spiritual and temporal, this good physician and servant of Christ had been laboring for years, supported and assisted by his excellent wife, than whom no better or more devoted woman ever endured the privations of frontier life or laid down existence, a martyr sacrificed upon the shrine of duty. It was an attack utterly unprovoked, causeless, and inexcusable, brought about, as a lesser agency, through the deep treachery and lying tongue of a " friendly" English-speak- ing Canadian half-breed Indian, to whom the doctor had given employment, but, being straitened for room, had been obliged to refuse a lodging in his house. It was a massacre initiated while the physician was actually engaged, according to the best authorities, in ministering to a pretended sick man of their tribe. It revolts the pen to detail the unspeakable barbarities with which these fiendish murders were carried out; but we have essayed the task, and thus proceed to open the first door and present the word painting, which must be regarded as the prin- cipal attraction of this our "Chamber of Horrors."
Let us premise, however, by saying that Dr. Whitman was well aware of the hostile attitude and evident unrest which per- vaded the Indians in his vicinity-a disturbance, however, never so great that it was unable to discriminate between the Catholic priest and the Protestant missionary, and most of all between their English friends of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Americans entering the country to settle. To hold his ground in the interests of the natives whom he had taught, fed, and in
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some instances adopted, and, if possible, prevent their proselyt- izing by the French Canadian Catholic priests who were about to establish themselves in his neighborhood, and who were cur- rently reported as anxious to possess his mission buildings for their own occupancy, the doctor determined to remain. He did so, well knowing his danger, though probably blinded as to its full extent, and in so doing fell, like many another gallant sol- dier of the cross, dying, martyr-like, at his post of duty-a duty self-appointed and ably and fearlessly performed in the interests of religion and humanity.
His location, its equipment, and surroundings at the time of its destruction is thus described by Evans :
" The station of Waiilatpu, on the line of travel from the Rocky Mountains to the Willamette, was the asylum and rest- ing place of the emigrant worn out and broken by the journey of the plains ; a hospital for the sick, without regard to caste or condition ; a church and a farm to supply necessaries, and an industrial school to teach the Indians how to support themselves. Saw and grist mills, shops and granaries had been erected. The superintendent's residence was furnished with a good library, and a valuable collection of specimens had been gathered to illustrate the natural wealth of the country. The Indian Department included kitchen, school, and lecture-rooms, over which were lodging apartments ; these were attached to the superintendency. Another large building afforded accommoda- tions for travellers ; at a distance of eight miles up Mill Creek was a saw-mill and dwelling-house."
Twenty-five miles from Whitman's, at the very Hudson's Bay station where he is said to have been an unexpected guest at the British traders' feast, and from whence he and his sturdy Cayuse started on their winter ride across the continent, a Catholic bishop with six other Canadian priests had established them- selves. It is a significant fact that these people were never inter- fered with ; and when some of the red-handed murderers most active in the Whitman massacre were finally brought to justice, and met their well-earned doom upon the scaffold, one of these priests smoothed their last moments and consigned them to the hangman with the same tender farewell with which a spiritual father, under far different circumstances, saw the martyred King of France go to his slaughter with the benediction, " Son, ascend
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to heaven." Well, whether they went to heaven or not-which, from an orthodox point of view, seems somewhat doubtful-it is a consolation even at this late day to know that they were thor- oughly hanged in this world.
The occupants of this combination of home, hospital, church, and school at the time of its destruction numbered seventy-two. The doctor's own household consisted of himself and wife-the same noble woman who knelt with her husband beside the rock at the South Pass, as we have elsewhere related, to pray for the Almighty's blessing upon the land they were about to enter- Mr. Rogers, the teacher, ten adopted children-seven of whom were the Sagar orphans, whose parents had perished in crossing the plains-and the others three half-breed girls. There were also two half-breed boys whom he had raised-Joseph Stanfield, a Canadian Catholic, and Joe Lewis-the latter of whom had come with emigrants from Fort Hall. As Evans tells us, to the diabolical lying of this wretch may in some measure be ascribed the horrible fate so soon to overtake this unfortunate family. He was probably moved to this infamy by the fact already nar- rated, that the doctor could find no room for him in the house. He revenged himself by repeating to the Indians alleged con- versations which he claimed to have overheard between the doc- tor and his wife, in which they were plotting to poison the Indians, then suffering very generally from the prevalence of measles in a virulent form, many of whom the doctor was treating professionally, well knowing when he did so that it is a custom among the Indians to hold the "medicine man" responsible for the death of the patient he is unable to cure, however honest his practice. There were also at the mission Miss Bewley and her brother, Mr. Hoffman, Mr. Sales, Eliza Spaulding, a child of ten, the daughter of Rev. H. H. Spaulding, fortunately absent during the raid. Of these, Messrs. Bewley and Sales were sick, confined to their beds. The remaining fifty were emigrants-Americans en route to the Willamette -- who had remained to winter. Eighteen of these were adults, of whom eight were women. Of the eighteen, ten were under the doctor's medical care.
The story of this "Massacre of the Mountains," as it was called, has been told by various writers, all of whom agree as to the main facts, only differing in fulness of detail. We select
Engªby E. G. Kernan, N.Y.
J. D. Scofull
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from one of the least terrible, where much, taken in the form of sworn testimony, is omitted as being too harrowing even for lovers of the horrible, and proceed to quote generally from Dunn's " Indian Wars of the Far West" as follows :
" In the summer of 1847 the newly appointed Jesuit Bishop of Oregon, F. N. Blanchet, returned with a re-enforcement of thirteen clergymen of different ranks and seven nuns ; to these were added eight priests and two nuns, who arrived overland the same season. The bishop proceeded up the river, and on Sep- tember 5th reached Walla Walla, accompanied by the Superior of the Oblates and two other clergymen. On September 23d he was met there by Dr. Whitman, who, according to Father Brouillet, showed that he was agitated and wounded by the bishop's arrival. He said : 'I know very well for what purpose you have come ; ' to which the bishop replied : ' All is known. I come to convert the Indians, and even the Americans, if they will listen to me.' The bishop and his party remained at the fort, enjoying the hospitalities of the Hudson's Bay Company fur traders" (the consistent enemies of the Americans and, most of all, of American emigration). "On October 26th Ta-wai-tan (Young Chief) arrived and held a conference with the bishop. On November 4th a general council was held, at which Tilokaikt, who owned the land on which Whitman's mission stood, was present. The Protestants say the Indians were given to under- stand" (and there is strong evidence to that effect) "that the priests would like to have Whitman's place, the buildings being just what they required for their purposes. The Jesuits say it was offered to them, and they refused to take it." We pause here to ask some very pertinent questions. Who offered it ? Who but Dr. Whitman would have had a right to do so ? He certainly did not, though he offered to put it to a vote of his Cayuses, and go if they no longer desired his ministrations ; but the majority declined. What induced these Catholic Indians to suggest the surrender of what was not their own ? To return : " On November 27th" (two days before the massacre) " the bishop and his party left for the Umatilla, a few miles below, to occupy a house offered them by Young Chief at his and Five Crows' (the ravisher of Miss Bewley) village, which was only twenty- five miles distant from Waiilatpu.
" Eight-and-forty hours glide away-hours of treacherous
6
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preparation on the part of the savages ; of sure expectancy, it is to be feared, on that of the tricky Jesuits, and, alas ! for them, unsuspecting confidence among the victims so soon to be sacri- ficed on the altars of Indian cruelty and lust-poor, deluded beings ! they had no fear. The night wind as it sighed through the forest brought no anticipation in its moan of the human agonies about to fill its shades with the shrieks of women, the weeping of children, and the death groans of murdered men. They confided, as many of their race have done before them, and thereby sealed their own destruction, in the oft-repeated professions of amity of the dusky friends whom they had nour- ished like serpents in their bosoms, to turn and sting them to the death. Were not the Indians their friends ? Had they not treated them like brothers ? Did not some of them, claiming to be 'converted,' break bread with them at the table of that Lord whose religion is one of perfect peace ?
" It is half-past one o'clock of Monday, November 29th. Nothing appears to mar the usual quiet which prevails at the Waiilatpu mission. The only sounds distinguishable are the rumbling of the mill, where Mr. Marsh is grinding, and the tap- ping of a hammer in one of the rooms of the doctor's house, where Mr. Hall is laying a floor. There is, too, the low hum of the school, which Mr. Saunders has just called for the afternoon. Between the buildings, near the ditch, Kimball, Hoffman, and Canfield are dressing an ox. Gillan, the tailor, is on his bench in the mansion. Mr. Rogers is in the garden. In the blacksmith's shop, where Canfield's family lives, young Amos Sales is lying sick. Crockett Bewley, another young man, also lies ill at the doctor's house. The Sagar boys, the orphans of some unfortu- nates who died en route, and who, with their younger sisters, had been adopted by Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, were scattered about the place. John, who is just recovering from the measles, is in the kitchen ; Francis, in the school-room, and Edward out- side. In the dining-room are Dr. Whitman, Mrs. Whitman, three of the little Sagar girls -all sick, Mrs. Osborn, and her sick child. As the doctor reads from his Bible several Indians open the door from the kitchen and ask him to come out. He goes, Bible in hand, closes the door after him, sits down, and Tilokaikt begins talking to him." Evans tells us that he or some other Indian complained of illness, and the doctor was
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ministering to him, which is most probable. And now, before the war-whoop is sounded and the slaughter work begins, let us pause for a moment and contemplate this scene. This good physician is reading the Bible to his family, bringing comfort as best he may in this time of sickness to his little audience. It might be curious to know what particular passage of the sacred text he had selected for this last reading of the Book. While so engaged, the demons without, whose plans, now fully ma- tured, are ripe for execution, call him to his death. He is ready. Still holding the Book, the guide and watchword of his pure and blameless existence, he goes like a sheep to the slaughter, unsuspectingly to meet his doom. The Indian was but the agent ; it was the Master who called to come up higher, to sit with kings and counsellors of old time in heavenly courts and hear the welcome of the Saviour whom he had so truly served, saying, " Well done, good and faithful servant ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
"As they converse, Tamsaky," or, as Evans calls him, Tamahos, " steps carelessly behind the doctor, and the other Indians gather about, seeming very much interested. Suddenly Tamsaky draws a pipe tomahawk from beneath his blanket and strikes the doctor on the head. His head sinks on his breast, and another blow quickly following stretches him senseless on the floor. John Sagar jumps up and draws a pistol. The Ind- ians in front of him, cowardly assassins that they are, crowd back in terror to the door, crying, 'He will shoot us "' but those behind seize him and throw him down. At the same time knives, tomahawks, pistols, and short Hudson's Bay muskets flash from beneath their blankets, and John is shot and gashed until he is senseless. His throat is cut and a woollen tippet is stuffed into the wound. With demoniac yells the Indians rush outside to join in the work doing there. The sounds of the deadly struggle are heard in the dining-room. Mrs. Whitman starts up and wrings her hands in agony, crying, ' Oh, that Joe' (meaning Joe Lewis) ' has done it all.' Mrs. Osborn runs into the Indian room with her child, and they, with Mr. Osborn, are soon secreted under the floor. Mrs. Hall comes screaming into the dining-room from the mansion. With her help Mrs. Whit- man draws the doctor into that room, places his head on a pil- low, and tries to revive him. In vain ; he is unconscious and
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past all help. To every loving word and sympathetic question he faintly answers ‘ No.'
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