Vicar-General Brouillet’s statement.—Statement of Istacus.—The priest finds the poison.—Statement of William Geiger, Jr.—Conduct of Mr. McBean.—Influence of the Jesuit missions.

We left Vicar-General Brouillet and Bishop Blanchet and his priests on their way to their station on the Umatilla, where they arrived on November 27. On the 28th, Brouillet says, page 47: “The next day being Sunday, we were visited by Dr. Whitman, who remained but a few minutes at the house, and appeared to be much agitated. Being invited to dine, he refused, saying that he feared it would be too late, as he had twenty-five miles to go, and wished to reach home before night. On parting, he entreated me not to fail to visit him when I would pass by his mission, which I very cordially promised to do.

"“On Monday, 29th, Mr. Spalding took supper with us, and appeared quite gay. During the conversation, he happened to say that the Doctor was unquiet; that the Indians were displeased with him on account of the sickness, and that even he had been informed that the Murderer (an Indian) intended to kill him; but he seemed not to believe this, and suspected as little as we did what was taking place at the mission of the Doctor.”

The reader will note and remember the statement which follows: Brouillet says, on the 48th page of his narrative, the 36th of J. Ross Browne’s report:—

“Before leaving Fort Wallawalla, it had been decided that, after visiting the sick people of my own mission on the Umatilla, I should visit those of Tilokaikt’s camp, for the purpose of baptizing the infants and such dying adults as might desire this favor; and the Doctor and Mr. Spalding having informed me that there were still many sick persons at their mission, I was confirmed in this resolution, and made preparations to go as soon as possible.

“After having finished baptizing the infants and adults of my mission, I left on Tuesday, the 30th of November, late in the afternoon, for Tilokaikt’s camp, where I arrived between seven and eight o’clock in the evening. It is impossible to conceive my surprise and consternation when, upon my arrival, I learned that the Indians the day before had massacred the Doctor and his wife, with the greater part of the Americans at the mission. I passed the night without scarcely closing my eyes. Early the next morning I baptized three sick children, two of whom died soon after, and then hastened to the scene of death, to offer to the widows and orphans all the assistance in my power. I found five or six women and over thirty children in a situation deplorable beyond description. Some had just lost their husbands, and others their fathers, whom they had seen massacred before their eyes, and were expecting every moment to share the same fate. The sight of those persons caused me to shed tears, which, however, I was obliged to conceal, for I was the greater part of the day in the presence of the murderers, and closely watched by them; and if I had shown too marked an interest in behalf of the sufferers, it would only have endangered their lives and mine; these, therefore, entreated me to be upon my guard.”

The women that lived through that terrible scene inform us that this priest was as familiar and friendly with the Indians as though nothing serious had occurred. We have seen and conversed freely with four of those unfortunate victims, and all affirm the same thing. Their impression was, that there might be others he expected to be killed, and he did not wish to be present when it was done. According to the testimony in the case, Mr. Kimball and James Young were killed while he was at or near the station. Brouillet continues, on the 49th page:—

“After the first few words that could be exchanged under the circumstances, I inquired after the victims, and was told they were yet unburied. Joseph Stanfield, a Frenchman, who was in the employ of Dr. Whitman, and had been spared by the Indians, was engaged in washing the corpses, but being alone, he was unable to bury them. I resolved to go and assist him, so as to render to these unfortunate victims the last service in my power to offer them. What a sight did I then behold! Ten dead bodies lying here and there, covered with blood, and bearing the marks of the most atrocious cruelty,—some pierced with balls, others more or less gashed by the hatchet. Dr. Whitman had received three gashes on the face. Three others had their skulls crushed so that their brains were oozing out.

“I assure you, sir, that, during the time I was occupied in burying the victims of this disaster, I was far from feeling safe, being obliged to go here and there gathering up the dead bodies. In the midst of assassins, whose hands were still stained with blood, and who, by their manners, their countenances, and the arms which they still carried, sufficiently announced that their thirst for blood was yet unsatiated. Assuming as composed a manner as possible, I cast more than one glance aside and behind at the knives, pistols, and guns, in order to assure myself whether there were not some of them directed toward me.”

The above extract is from a letter addressed to Colonel Gilliam. The cause of the priest’s alarm is explained in a statement found in the journal of Mr. McLane, private secretary to Colonel Gilliam, while in the Cayuse country, taken from the Indians’ statement in the winter of 1847-48. He was compelled to find the poison. Brouillet says:—

“The ravages which the sickness had made in their midst, together with the conviction which a half-breed, named Joseph Lewis, had succeeded in fixing upon their minds that Dr. Whitman had poisoned them, were the only motives I could discover which could have prompted them to this act of murder. This half-breed had imagined a conversation between Dr. Whitman, his wife, and Mr. Spalding, in which he made them say that it was necessary to hasten the death of the Indians in order to get possession of their horses and lands. ‘If you do not kill the Doctor,’ said he, ‘you will be dead in the spring.’”

Statement of Istacus, or Stikas.

In the first place, Joe Lewis told the Indians that the Doctor was poisoning. Tamsaky went to Camaspelo and told him he wanted to kill the Doctor, and wished him to help. He replied, pointing to his child, that his child was sick, and that was as much as he could attend to. Tamsaky then went to Tilokaikt, and he said he would have nothing to do with it. But his son and young men wished to do it, and they contended so long that at last he said: “If you are determined to do so, go and kill him.” Afterward, the Indians presented a gun two different times to Tamsaky, and told him to go and kill the Doctor. He said he would not kill him.

When the priests came, they got to quarreling; the Catholic priests told them that what the Doctor taught them would take them to the devil, and the Doctor told them what the priests taught them would take them to the devil. After the priests told them that, the Indians said they believed it, for the Doctor did not cure them.

After the Doctor was killed, the priest told the Young Chief that it was true that the Doctor had given them poison; before that, the Doctor had given them medicine and they died. After the massacre, all the Indians went to the priest’s house (an Indian lodge near Dr. Whitman’s station), and I said that I was going to ask the priest himself whether it was true or not, so that I could hear with my own ears. He (the priest) told them that the priests were sent of God. They did not know how to answer him. The Five Crows told me that the priest told him the Doctor was poisoning them. I then believed it.

They then went and killed the two sick men. I asked the Indians, if he gave us poison, why did the Americans get sick?

[It is evident that this conversation took place at the camp of Tilokaikt, where Mr. Brouillet says he spent the night of the 30th of November.]

Afterward, they went to the Doctor’s place, and the priest was there too, and they asked him where the poison was that the Doctor gave them. After searching some time among the medicines, he found a vial with something white in it, and told them, “Here it is.” I tell you what I heard.

The priest then told them that Mrs. Whitman had a father in the States that gave poison to the people there, and that he had given this to her, to poison them all; then they all believed. I told them that I did not believe that the Doctor was poisoning them; I said I expected they brought the sickness with them from California, for many of them died coming from that place. Joe Lewis told them to make a box, and Beardy buried the vial in the square box, stating, if they did not, the Americans would get it and poison them all.

The head man of the priests told them all these things, and the priest took all the best books to his house.

The above is a true extract from the journal of Mr. McLane, private secretary to Colonel Gilliam, the same as was read in my hearing to Mungo, the interpreter for Colonel Gilliam, when these statements were made, and he said it was true and correctly written.

(Signed,)
L. H. Judson.

Sworn to and subscribed before me, this 25th day of November, 1848, Champoeg County, Oregon Territory.

Aaron Purdy, Justice of the Peace.

There are three important facts stated by this Indian which are confirmed by other testimony.

First. That the priest was upon the ground, or in at the death.

Second. He was ready to overhaul the Doctor’s medicines and hunt out some vial, and tell the Indians, “Here it is,—the medicine the Doctor has been killing you with.”

Third. That he told them it was sent to the Doctor by Mrs. Whitman’s father, who poisoned people in the States.

This explains the terrible and brutal treatment of Mrs. Whitman’s body, even after death.

Brouillet says, “Joseph Lewis had succeeded in fixing upon their minds that Dr. Whitman had poisoned them,” but Istacus, one of the first and most truthful Indians we became acquainted with in the country, tells us that the Indians did not believe Joe Lewis till the priest confirmed his statements, and this priest was required to show them the poison.

It would not be strange, if, while he is compelled to hunt over the medicines of Dr. Whitman, to find any that he could call poison, and in exhibiting such evidence to the deluded murderers about him, that he should feel himself in danger, yet his whole conduct belies such a statement, for he well knew the ignorance of those about him as to any medicine he might select and call poison.

This Indian’s statement also explains the killing of the two young men, Sales and Bewley, and that as these priests “were sent of God,” the disease of these young men would spread; in other words, their testimony would convict the parties implicated.

We find in this same letter to Colonel Gilliam, other statements that are important in the history we are giving. He says: “I knew that the Indians were angry with all Americans, and more enraged against Mr. Spalding than any other.” If this was the case, why did they not kill him first? There is certainly some mistake in this statement of Mr. Brouillet, or else the Indians were too hasty, which is probably the case. The Indians were not quite as much “enraged” against Mr. Spalding as his reverence, who claimed to know their feelings so well.

Again, on the 54th page (39th of Ross Browne), in answer to Mr. Spalding’s wild, despairing cry, “But where shall I go?” he answers: “I know not; you know the country better than I; all that I know is that the Indians say the order to kill Americans has been sent in all directions.”

How did this Rev. Father Brouillet know all this? We have yet to learn that he ever gave a single American, except Mr. Spalding, any information respecting their danger,—which he certainly could have done with perfect safety, by sending any one or all of them a written notice of the “order to kill Americans;” but instead of warning them of their danger, he was present to show to the Indians a vial of Dr. Whitman’s medicine and tell them it was the poison.

The long list of statements collected and given to the world as reliable historical data, by this priest, and embodied in an official report by J. Ross Browne, do but show the active part he, with his associate priests and the Hudson’s Bay Company, took to destroy the American influence and settlements then in the country.

Says the historian Bancroft: “It is the duty of faithful history to trace events not only to their cause, but to their authors.”We will direct our attention for a short time to the proceedings of Mr. McBean in charge of Fort Wallawalla (or Fort Nez PercÉs), in council with the Indians. From the statement of Mr. Wm. Geiger, Jr., who was at Dr. Whitman’s station during the winter of 1846-7, teaching school, we learn that the Indians showed some dissatisfaction, and were called together by Dr. Whitman, to consult and decide what they would do. The Doctor proposed to them that a majority of the tribe should let him know definitely, and a vote was taken, and but two or three were found to favor his leaving. During this council Mr. Geiger and the Doctor learned that there had been conversation and a council with the Indians at the fort, by Mr. McBean. That he had informed them of the Mexican war between the United States and Mexico, and of the prospect of a war between the United States and England (King George men), and that he was anxious to know which side the Cayuses would take in the event of such a war. This question Mr. McBean kept constantly before the Indians whenever they went to the fort. They would return to the station and say that Mr. McBean had given them more news of the prospect of war between the King George people and Americans, and that he wished to know which side they would take. Tamsaky, Tilokaikt, and one other Indian said they had told Mr. McBean that they would join the King George. Some said they had told him their hearts favored the Americans; others professed to be on the “back-bone,” i. e., hesitating. All matters and causes of dissatisfaction between the Doctor’s mission and the Indians were amicably settled. The Doctor and Mr. Geiger could not see why Mr. McBean should beset the Indians on that subject, unless it was to bring about what had been before, viz., to make allies of the Indians in case of war.

On account of this dissatisfaction, the Doctor thought of leaving. Mr. Geiger says, “I told them I thought it their duty to remain. I thought the Indians as quiet as communities in general; in old places there were more or less difficulties and excitements.”

In the communication signed by Mr. Geiger, he is asked, “What was the cause of discouragement with the Doctor and Mr. Spalding at that time?”

A.—“The influence of the Roman priests, exercised in talking to the Indians, and through the French half-breed, Lehai, Tom Hill, a Delaware Indian, and others.”

Q.—“What did the Indians mention was the instruction they received from Roman Catholics?”

A.—“That the Protestants were leading them in wrong roads, i. e., even to hell. If they followed the Suapies (Americans) they would continue to die. If they followed the Catholics, it would be otherwise with them; only now and then one would die of age. That they would get presents,—would become rich in every thing.”

We have a statement made by Brouillet as to their influence among the Indians on this coast, found on the 87th page of his narrative, “Protestantism in Oregon” (55th of Ross Browne.) He says:—

“Messrs. Blanchet and Demerse, the first Catholic missionaries that came to Oregon, had passed Wallawalla in 1838, where they had stopped a few days, and had been visited by the Indians. In 1839, Mr. Demerse had spent three weeks in teaching the Indians and baptizing their children. In 1840, he had made there a mission so fruitful that the Protestant missionaries had got alarmed, and feared that all their disciples would abandon them if he continued his missions among them. Father De Smet, after visiting the Flatheads in 1840, had come and established a mission among them in 1841; and from that time down to the arrival of the bishop, the Indians of Wallawalla and of the Upper Columbia had never failed to be visited yearly, either by Mr. Demerse or by some of the Jesuits, and those annual excursions had procured every year new children to the church. Almost every Indian tribe possessed some Catholic member.”

We can bear positive testimony as to the effect and influence of those teachings up to 1842 among the Upper Columbia Indians; and it is to illustrate the bearing and result of those teachings, continued for a series of years upon the savage mind, and the influence of a foreign monopoly in connection with such teachers, that we bring these statements before the reader.

The vast influence wielded by this foreign fur and sectarian monopoly was used to secure Oregon for their exclusive occupation. The testimony of Rev. Messrs. Beaver and Barnley, and Sir Edward Belcher, as given by Mr. Fitzgerald, and that of his Reverence Brouillet, as found on the 56th page of his narrative, all affirm the close connection of these two influences. Leaving out of the question the statement of many others, we have that of this priest. He says:—

“Some days after an express reached us from the fort, informing us that our lives were in danger from a portion of the Indians who could not pardon me for having deprived them of their victim; and this was the only reason which prevented me from fulfilling the promise which I had made to the widows and orphans of returning to see them, and obliged me to be contented with sending my interpreter” to the scene of the murder, to bring Miss Bewley to be treated as the evidence in the next chapter will show.