Letter to General Lovejoy.—Call for men and ammunition.—Yankama chief.—His speech.—Small supply of ammunition.—Letter of Joseph Cadwallader.—Claim and a girl.—Combined Indian tribes.—Ladies of Oregon.—Public meeting.—A noble address.—Vote of thanks.—Address of the young ladies.—Death of Colonel Gilliam.—His campaign.—Colonel Waters’ letter.—Doubtful position of Indians.—Number at Fort Wallawalla.—Results of the war.—Jesuit letters.—Fathers Hoikin and De Smet.—The Choctaws.—Indian confederacy.—Last hope of the Indian.—Jesuit policy.—The Irish in the war of the Rebellion.—Father Hecker.—Boasts of the Jesuits.—Letter of Lieutenant Rogers.—Priests supply the Indians with arms and ammunition.—Ammunition seized.—Oregon Argus.—Discovery of gold.—No help for the Indian.—Withdrawal of the Hudson’s Bay Company to Vancouver.—The smooth-tongued Jesuits yet remain.
Let us now turn our attention from scenes of baseness and treachery to such as can not fail to draw forth the more noble sentiments of the heart. We find in the Old Spectator, April 20, 1843:— “General A. L. Lovejoy: “Sir,—The following was written for the Express, but in the hurry and bustle of business, was omitted to be forwarded: To call the men (158) who fought on the Tukanon and Tuchet rivers brave were but common praise,—officers and privates fought with unequaled bravery and skill. Captains Hall, Owens, and Thompson behaved with all that deliberate judgment and determined bravery that was requisite to so hard-fought and long-continued a battle. “The incomparable services of Sergeant-Major Birch, Quartermaster Goodhue, Judge-Advocate Rinearson, Sergeant Cook, Paymaster Magone, can not be passed unnoticed, and deserve their country’s praises. Captains English and McKay were not in the engagement—the latter being sick, the former returning from the Tuchet with the wagons and the stock. “H. J. G. Maxon,
“Commanding at Fort Wascopum.”
“Fort Wascopum, April 7, 1848. “General A. L. Lovejoy: “Sir,—We received your letter of instructions, by express, on the 3d instant, and I assure you it gave me great satisfaction to make them known to the troops under my command. Since the promotion of Major Lee to the command, the boys have taken fresh courage; though some of them can hardly hide their nakedness, they are willing under your promises to stick it out like men. “Give us five hundred men, and plenty of ammunition, with Colonel Lee at our head, and I think we will soon bring the war to an honorable close. “The Yankama chiefs came over to see us a few days ago, and stated that they had written to the white chief but had received no answer. [Who was the writer for the Indians? No American dare remain in the country beyond the protection of the army.] Therefore they had come over to see him. They spoke to us as follows:— “‘We do not want to fight the Americans, nor the French; neither do the Spokans, a neighboring tribe to us. Last fall the Cayuses told us that they were about to kill the whites at Dr. Whitman’s. We told them that was wrong, which made them mad at us; and when they killed them, they came and wished us to fight the whites, which we refused. We loved the whites; but they said, if you do not help us to fight the whites, when we have killed them we will come and kill you. This made us cry; but we told them we would not fight, but if they desired to kill us they might. We should feel happy to know that we die innocently.’ “I answered them as follows: ‘We are glad you have come, because we like to see our friends, and do not like to make war on innocent people. The Great Spirit we love has taught us that it is wrong to shed innocent blood; therefore we wish everybody to be our friends. Our peace men long ago sent you word, that we did not come to make war on any but those murderers who shed the blood of our countrymen, and insulted our women. When we get those wicked men we will go home, but those we will have; if not now, we will fight until we do get them. We do not want to kill any but the murderers; but all who fight with them, we consider as bad as they are. All tribes which receive them we must make war upon, because their hearts are bad, and we know that the Great Spirit is angry with them. We hope your nation will not receive them. We hope that you will not let your young men join them, because we do not wish to kill innocent people. We hope, that if the murderers come among you, you will bring them to us; then the Great Spirit will not be angry with you. We that fight do not care how many bad people we have to fight. The Americans and Hudson’s Bay Company people are the same as one, and you will get no more ammunition until the war is at a close.’ “I gave them a plow as a national gift, and told them that I gave that kind of a present because we thought tilling the ground would make them happy. They remained with us a day and night, and then left for their country with an assurance of friendship. “The ammunition boats arrived here this evening, and I shall start to-morrow for Wailatpu with nine provision wagons and baggage wagons besides, and about one hundred men to guard them, leaving McKay’s company to guard this place until Colonel Lee’s arrival here. “The scanty supply of ammunition sent us is almost disheartening. If the rumor that the Indians brought us this evening be true, I fear that we will have to shoot the most of it at the Indians before we can reach the boys. The Indians reported here this evening that the horse-guard at Wailatpu was killed by the Indians, and all the horses run off. I shall lose no time, I assure you, but will relieve them with all possible speed. “Your obedient servant,
“H. J. G. Maxon, S. C. C. O. D.”
We will not stop to comment on the facts and points stated in this letter relative to the Yankama Indians and Captain Maxon’s remarks to them, but continue our narrative from a letter of Jesse Cadwallader from Fort Waters, April 4, 1848. At the time of writing, he did not know of Colonel Gilliam’s death. He says:— “At present we are not in a very pleasant fix for fighting, as we are but 150 in number, and nearly out of ammunition. Colonel Gilliam, with the rest of the men, left here on the 20th ult. for the Dalles for supplies. We look for them in a few days, and hope to see more men with them. We look for the Indians to come upon us every day. They say they will give us one more fight, and drive us from the country. We expect they will number 1,200. The Cayuses, Nez PercÉs, Wallawallas, Spokans, and Paluces will all join and fight us, and you may expect a call for more men in a short time; we are preparing for an attack. We are killing beef and drying it to-day. I think we can defend this post; we shall do so or die in the attempt.—— “We can not complain of our living, so far; we have a plenty of beef and bread, nearly all the time. We have found several caches of wheat, peas, and potatoes. We have about thirty bushels of wheat on hand, and the mill fitted up for grinding. “I wish you would see to my claim on Clear Creek, for I expect to return when this war is over, and occupy it, with some man’s girl as a companion.”
The following proceedings of the ladies of Oregon City and vicinity, which was responded to all over the country, showing how the ladies of Oregon and this Pacific coast can respond to the call of their country, found a welcome place in the columns of the Spectator. We understand that considerable clothing has been contributed by the ladies for the volunteers in the field. Such acts by ladies are highly commendable to them, and can not fail to have a favorable influence in the army:— “At a meeting convened at the Methodist church, according to previous notice, on the 12th instant, to consult upon the best means to aid in relieving the necessities of the soldiers, the meeting was called to order by Mrs. Hood, when Mrs. Thornton was called to the chair, and Mrs. Thurston (the wife of our first delegate to Congress), was appointed secretary. Mrs. Thornton (whose husband was then in Washington, doing all he could for the country as a volunteer representative of its interests, while his noble wife was teaching school and ready to aid in sustaining our almost naked army) briefly stated the object of the meeting, when, on motion, it was resolved to form a society, the object of which should be to aid and assist in supporting the war (Sanitary Society). On motion, the meeting proceeded to choose officers; which resulted in the election of Mrs. Thornton, President; Mrs. Robb, Vice-President; Mrs. Leslie (second wife of Rev. D. Leslie), Treasurer; and Mrs. Thurston, Secretary. “On motion, it was voted to appoint a committee of three, whose duty it should be to assist the society in raising funds, etc. The president appointed Mrs. Hood (an active, energetic old lady), Mrs. Crawford (the wife of our first internal revenue collector), and Mrs. Herford, said committee. “Mrs. Robb then introduced the following address as expressive of the sense of the meeting, to be forwarded to the army with the clothing raised by the ladies, which, on being read, was unanimously adopted:— “‘Oregon City, April 12, 1848. “‘The volunteers of the first regiment of Oregon riflemen will please accept from the ladies of Oregon City and vicinity the articles herewith forwarded to them. The intelligence which convinces us of your many hardships, excessive fatigues, and your chivalrous bearing also satisfies us of your urgent wants. “‘These articles are not tendered for acceptance as a compensation for your services rendered; we know that a soldier’s heart would spurn with contempt any boon tendered by us with such an object; accept them as a brother does, and may, accept a sister’s tribute of remembrance—as a token, an evidence, that our best wishes have gone to, and l remain with you in your privations, your marches, your battles, and your victories. “‘Your fathers and ours, as soldiers, have endured privations and sufferings, and poured out their blood as water, to establish undisturbed freedom east of the Rocky Mountains; your and our mothers evinced the purity of their love of country, upon those occasions, by efforts to mitigate the horrors of war, in making and providing clothing for the soldiers. Accept this trifling present as an indorsement of an approval of the justice of the cause in which you have volunteered, and of your bearing in the service of our common country as manly, brave, and patriotic. “‘The war which you have generously volunteered to wage was challenged by acts the most ungrateful, bloody, barbarous, and brutal. “‘Perhaps the kindness which the natives have received at the hands of American citizens on their way hither, has, to some extent, induced a belief on the part of the natives, that all the Americans are “women” and dare not resent an outrage, however shameful, bloody, or wicked. Your unflinching bravery has struck this foolish error from the mind of your enemies, and impressed them with terror, and it is for you and a brotherhood who will join you, to follow up the victories so gloriously commenced, until a succession of victories shall compel an honorable peace, and insure respect for the American arms and name. “‘We have not forgotten that the soul-sickening massacre and enormities at Wailatpu were committed in part upon our sex. We know that your hardships and privations are great; but may we not hope, that through you these wrongs shall not only be amply avenged, but also that you inscribe, upon the heart of our savage enemies, a conviction never to be erased, that the virtue and lives of American women will be protected, defended, and avenged by American men. “‘The cause which you have espoused is a holy cause. We believe that the God of battle will so direct the destinies of this infant settlement, that she will come out of this contest clothed in honor, and her brave volunteers covered with glory. "‘The widows and orphans, made so by the massacre which called you to the field, unite with us in the bestowment of praise for the valuable service already rendered by you; and he who has already proclaimed himself the widow’s God, Judge, and Husband, and a Father to the fatherless, will smile upon and aid your exertions. Fight on, then!—Fight as you have fought, and a glorious victory awaits you.’
“On motion, a vote of thanks was tendered to Mrs. Hood for her unwearied exertions in behalf of the suffering soldiers. “Mrs. Robb moved, That when this society adjourn, it do so to meet at this place again on the 26th instant. “On motion, it was then voted that the proceedings of this meeting, with the address adopted, be published in the Oregon Spectator. “On motion, the meeting then adjourned.
“Mrs. N. M. Thornton, President.
“Mrs. E. F. Thurston, Secretary.”
The thought and sentiment manifested in the above proceedings and address allow the reader to look right at the heart and soul of our people. No one who reads our history will have occasion to blush or be ashamed to know that his father or mother crossed the vast mountains and plains of North America, found a home in Oregon, and fought back the savages, and their more savage foreign leaders. Oregonians, the fact that your father or mother was a pioneer on this coast will redound to your honor,—as a reference to the deeds of our fathers and mothers, on the eastern part of our continent, strengthened and nerved our hearts, when the whole host of savage instruments of cruelty and barbarism were let loose upon us, and many of our dearest friends fell by their ruthless hordes! We know not who the author of that address is, but the sentiment—the soul—belongs alone to Oregon. In the same paper we find the sentiment still further illustrated in a declaration of a number of young ladies. We only regret that we have not their names; the sentiment is too good to be lost, as it shows the finer and nobler sentiments of virtue and religion among the mothers and daughters of Oregon, in those trying times. The communication is as follows:— “Wallamet Valley, Oregon. “Response by young ladies to the call of Captain Maxon for young men in the army. “We have read with much interest the late report from the army, and feel ourselves under obligations to reply to the appeal made to us in that report. We are asked to evince our influence for our country’s good, by withholding our hand from any young man who refuses to turn out in defense of our honor and our country’s right. “In reply, we hereby, one and all, of our own free good will, solemnly pledge ourselves to comply with that request, and to evince, on all suitable occasions, our detestation and contempt for any and all young men, who can, but will not, take up arms and march at once to the seat of war, to punish the Indians, who have not only murdered our friends, but have grossly insulted our sex. We never can, and never will, bestow our confidence upon a man who has neither patriotism nor courage enough to defend his country and the girls;—such a one would never have sufficient sense of obligations to defend and protect a wife. “Do not be uneasy about your claims and your rights in the valley; while you are defending the rights of your country, she is watching yours. You must not be discouraged. Fight on, be brave, obey your officers, and never quit your posts till the enemy is conquered; and when you return in triumph to the valley, you shall find us as ready to rejoice with you as we now are to sympathize with you in your sufferings and dangers.” (Signed by fifteen young ladies).
Soon after the peace arrangements, as related in the previous chapter, the colonel and major left for the lower country. They arrived at the Dalles, where the colonel was accidentally shot by attempting to remove a rifle from the hind end of one of his wagons; the cap was burst, and he received the contents of the gun, which proved fatal in a few hours. In his death the country lost a valuable citizen, the army a good soldier, and his family a kind husband and affectionate father. As a commander of the provisional troops, he succeeded probably as well as any man could under the circumstances. The deep schemes of the British fur monopoly, the baser schemes of the Jesuits, both working together, and in connection with the Indians and all the American dupes that they with their influence and capital could command, it is not surprising that, as a military man, he should fail to bring to justice the immediate or remote perpetrators of the crime he was expected to punish. In fact, but few at the present day are able to comprehend the extent and power of opposing influences. One of the commissioners informed us that from the time the colonel opened a correspondence with the priests, he appeared to lose his influence and power and control of the troops. He lacked an essential quality as a commander—promptness in action and decision to strike at the proper time, as was manifest in his whole campaign. Yet, for this he is to a certain extent excusable, as he had with his army the Indian peace commissioners, and was acting under the orders of a governor who was greatly deceived as to the prime movers in the war. One of the commissioners was notoriously the dupe and tool of the foreign monopoly in our midst, as his own history before and since has proved. He claimed to know exactly how to deal with the difficulty. This influence was felt by the troops, and generally acknowledged, and, as we know from the best of authority, was the cause of the colonel’s being ordered to report at head-quarters. After lying at Fort Waters for a considerable time, his men becoming dissatisfied (as intimated in letters), he mounted his horse, and most of his men volunteered to follow him for a fight. He pursued what he supposed to be the correct trail of the murderers to a point on the Tukanon, and there fought a small party, and learned that the murderers were at the crossing of Snake River, some thirty miles distant. He continued his march all night. The next morning, the murderers having learned of his expedition in another direction, he came upon them and surprised their whole camp. An old man came out of the lodge and made signs of submission and pretended that the murderers were not in his camp, but that their cattle were upon the hills. This induced the colonel to order his men to gather the cattle and return to Fort Waters (while Tilokaikt was then crossing the river), instead of attacking them, as he should have done. The Indians soon gathered their best horses, which were kept separate from the common band, and commenced an attack upon his cumbered, retreating column, till they came near the ford on the Tuchet, when a running fight was kept up, and an effort made to get possession of the ford by the Indians, which it required all the colonel’s force to defeat; and like the crow and the fox in the fable, while the colonel was giving the Indians a specimen of American fighting, he neglected his cattle, and the Indians drove them off. But few were wounded on either side, though, in the struggle to gain the ford and bushes contiguous, there was swift running and close shooting, which continued till dark. The Indians retired with their cattle, and next day the colonel and his party, with the wounded, reached Fort Waters, and thence he obeyed the summons of the governor to return and report at head-quarters. While Major Lee is on his way with the body of Colonel Gilliam to the Wallamet, and to obtain recruits and supplies of arms and ammunition, we will see what Colonel Waters is about at Wailatpu, April 4, 1848. In his letter of the above date, he says:— “Since Colonel Gilliam’s departure from this place, our relations with the supposed friendly Indians have undergone a material change; not seeing any, either friendly or hostile, for several days, I concluded to send an express to Fort Wallawalla, and if possible to gain some information concerning their movements, as I had reason to believe from their long silence that there was something wrong; I accordingly addressed a short note to Mr. McBean on the evening of the 1st of April, and dispatched two of my men with the same, charging them strictly to remain there during the day, and return, as they went, in the night. They returned yesterday in safety, and their narrative, together with Mr. McBean’s written statements, fully confirms me in my previous views. “The Wallawalla chief, notwithstanding his professions of friendship to Colonel Gilliam and the Bostons, now looks upon us as enemies. The law prohibiting the sale of ammunition appears to be his principal hobby. By refusing it to him and his people he says we place them on an equal footing with the guilty, and if this law is not abrogated, they will become murderers. This sentiment he expressed in the presence of our express bearers. [The sentiment of Sir James Douglas, as expressed in his letter to Governor Abernethy.] “There were then at the fort some sixty lodges, and between two and three hundred warriors. Mr. McBean gave what purported to be information where the murderers had gone, stating that Ellis and sixty of his men had died in the mountains with the measles, and this had produced its effect upon our superstitious friends. “The Cayuses and Nez PercÉs have had a big feast, which to my mind speaks in language not to be misunderstood. Mr. McBean further states, that the Paluce Indians, Cayuses, and part of the Nez PercÉs, are awaiting the American forces, to fight them on the Nez PercÉs, or Snake River; but the signs of the times justify the conclusion that we will be attacked nearer home, and much to our disadvantage, unless soon supplied with ammunition. They know our circumstances about as well as we do ourselves, both as regards ammunition and provisions, and it need not be thought strange if they act accordingly. “Welaptulekt (an Indian chief) is at the fort, and has brought quite an amount of immigrant property with him, which he delivered to Mr. McBean; says he was afraid Colonel Gilliam would kill him, which was the reason of his not meeting him. This is the report of the men; Mr. McBean did not mention his name. My opinion is that we have nothing to hope from his friendship. “I see by General Palmer’s letter to Colonel Gilliam, that he (McBean) refused to accept the American flag, which was presented by his own Indians; he, of course, had nothing to fear from them. “I have now given you the outlines of our unpleasant situation, and doubt not that you will make every exertion to forward us ammunition, and men too of the right stripe. I have exaggerated nothing, nor has any active cautiousness prompted me to address you upon this subject. If they do come upon us, be their numbers what they may, rest assured, while there is one bullet left, they will be taught to believe that the Bostons are not all clochemen (women). “I have succeeded in getting the mill to work, and we are grinding up the little grain we found. Mr. Taylor died on the 24th of March. The wounded are doing well. I regret to say our surgeon talks strongly of leaving us the first opportunity. My impression is that a more suitable person could not be obtained in that capacity. His commission has not been sent on, which no doubt has its weight with him. “I have the honor to remain, “Your obedient servant,
“James Waters, Lieutenant-Colonel.”
As to the propriety of Governor Abernethy’s publishing this entire letter, there was at the time a question. With the facts since developed, it is plain that it should not have been given to the public; but, as we have before stated, the governor was one of those easy, confiding, unsuspecting men, that gave a wily and unprincipled enemy all the advantage he could ask. It was only the determined energy and courage of the settlers that enabled them to overcome their secret and open foes. The evidence is conclusive, that Colonel Gilliam, through the influence and duplicity of Newell, McBean, and the Jesuits, was induced to withhold his men from punishing the Indians, and received and treated with bands as guilty as the murderers themselves, thus giving an impression to the Indians of weakness and cowardice on the part of the troops, as well as a want of the requisite qualities for a successful commander. Major Lee returned to the settlement, obtained more troops and ammunition, and was appointed colonel of the regiment in place of Colonel Gilliam, deceased. This place he was justly entitled to fill by seniority in the service. He then returned to Fort Waters, and, finding the troops in the field satisfied with Colonel Waters, resigned at once, and filled a subordinate place in the army. The troops were soon put in motion. Captain McKay and his company of British subjects were disbanded, after being stationed a short time at Wascopum. The troops soon drove the murderers off to buffalo, “with the propriety, decorum, and energy which the case required,” as per “Veritas.” They gathered up such of the murderers’ cattle and horses as were not claimed by professed friendly Indians, and retired to the Wallamet, leaving a small garrison at Fort Waters and at Wascopum. The war, though attended with little or no loss of life to the settlement or the Indians, was of incalculable value to the American cause. It taught the Indians, the British monopoly, and their allies, the Jesuits, that, not withstanding they could drive from the upper country, or middle Oregon, the missionaries of the American Board, they could not conquer and drive the settlements from the country. While the main effort of the Hudson’s Bay Company was to rid the country of American settlements, the Jesuits were working against American Protestantism, and endeavoring to secure the whole country, middle Oregon in particular, for their exclusive Indian mission. One of them, A. Hoikin, S. J., in a letter to the editor of the PrÉcis Historiques, Brussels, dated “Mission of Flatheads, April 15, 1857” (this mission was established by Father De Smet as early as 1841 in opposition to that of the American Board at Spokan), says:— “If the less well-intentioned Indians from the lower lands would keep within their own territory, and if the whites, the number of whom is daily augmenting in St. Mary’s Valley, could act with moderation and conduct themselves prudently, I am convinced that soon the whole country would be at peace, and that not a single Indian would henceforward imbrue his hands in the blood of a white stranger. “Were I authorized to suggest a plan, I would have all the upper lands evacuated by the whites and form of it a territory exclusively of Indians; afterward, I would lead there all the Indians of the inferior portion, such as the Nez PercÉs, the Cayuses, the Yankamas, the Coeur d’AlÊnes, and the Spokans. Well-known facts lead me to believe that this plan, with such superior advantages, might be effected by means of a mission in the space of two or three years. “For the love of God and of souls, I conjure you, reverend fathers, not to defer any longer. All the good that Father De Smet and others have produced by their labors and visits will be lost and forgotten if these Indians are disappointed in their expectation. They weigh men’s characters in the balance of honesty; in their eyes, whosoever does not fulfill his promises is culpable; they do not regard or consider whether it be done for good reason, or that there is an impossibility in the execution. “Some of them have sent their children to Protestant schools, and they will continue to do so as long as we form no establishments among them. From all this you may easily conclude that there is apostasy and all its attendant evils.”
In connection with the above, Father De Smet says:— “These four letters of Rev. Father Hoikin show sufficiently, my dear and reverend father, the spiritual wants of these nations and their desire of being assisted. Apostasy is more frequent than is generally believed in Europe. Oh, if the zealous priests of the continent know what we know,—had they seen what we have witnessed, their generous hearts would transport them beyond the seas, and they would hasten to consecrate their lives to a ministry fruitful in salutary results. “Time passes; already the sectaries of various shades are preparing to penetrate more deeply into the desert, and will wrest from those degraded and unhappy tribes their last hope,—that of knowing and practising the sole and true faith. Shall they, in fine, obtain the black-gowns, whom they have expected and called for during so many years. “Accept, reverend father, the assurance of my sincere friendship. “P. J. De Smet.”
Would men entertaining the sentiments above expressed—sent among our American Indians, carried about, supplied and fed, by a fur monopoly, who were seeking in every way possible, to hold the country themselves—be likely to teach the Indians to respect American institutions, American missionaries, or American citizens? Let us look at another sentiment of this Father Hoikin; he says: “When, oh, when! shall the oppressed Indian find a poor corner of the earth on which he may lead a peaceful life, serving and loving his God in tranquillity, and preserving the ashes of his ancestors, without fear of beholding them profaned and trampled beneath the feet of an unjust usurper.” We can not discover in this sentiment any respect or love for the American people, or for their government, which is looked upon by this reverend priest, as an “unjust usurper” of Indian privileges;—something their own church and people have done the world over; but being done by a free American people, it becomes “unjust,” profane, and horrible. We will make a few other quotations, which we find in the very extensive correspondence of these Jesuitical fathers, with their society in Brussels. The writer, Father P. J. De Smet, after enumerating the usual complaints against our government and its agents, makes his Indian complainingly to say, “The very contact of the whites has poisoned us.” He then puts into the mouth of a Choctaw chief, a proposition from a Senator Johnson to establish three Indian territorial governments, “with the provision of being admitted later as distinct members of the Confederate United States.” “On the 25th of last November, 1862,” he says, “Harkins, chief among the Choctaws, addressed a speech on this subject to his nation assembled in council. Among other things he said: ‘I appeal to you, what will become us, if we reject the proposition of Senator Johnson? Can we hope to remain a people, always separate and distinct? This is not possible. The time must come; yes the time is approaching in which we shall be swallowed up; and that, notwithstanding our just claims! I speak boldly. It is a fact; our days of peace and happiness are gone, and forever.——If we will preserve among us the rights of a people, one sole measure remains to us; it is to instruct and civilize the youth promptly and efficiently. The day of fraternity has arrived. We must act together, and, by common consent, let us attentively consider our critical situation, and the course now left us. One false step may prove fatal to our existence as a nation. I therefore propose that the council take this subject into consideration, and that a committee be named by it, to discuss and deliberate on the advantages and disadvantages of the proposition made to the Choctaws. Is it just and sage for the Choctaws to refuse a liberal and favorable offer, and expose themselves to the destiny of the Indians of Nebraska?’ “According to news received recently, through a journal published in the Indian country, the speech of the chief has produced a profound impression, and was loudly applauded by all the counselors. All the intelligent Choctaws approve the measure. “The Protestant missionaries oppose the bill, and employ all their artifices and influence to prevent its success. Harkins proposes their expulsion. ‘It is our money,’ said he, ‘that these missionaries come here to get. Surely, our money can get us better teachers. Let us therefore try to procure good missionaries, with whom we can live in harmony and good understanding; who will give us the assurance that their doctrine is based on that of the apostles and of Jesus Christ.’ “The Chickasaws are represented as opposed to Senator Johnson’s measure. We trust, however, that the vote of the majority will prove favorably and that the three territorial States will be established. “It is, in my opinion, a last attempt, and a last chance of existence for the sad remnants of the poor Indians of America. It is, I will say, if I may here repeat what I wrote in my second letter in 1853, their only remaining source of happiness; humanity and justice seem to demand it. If they are again repulsed, and driven inland, they will infallibly perish. Such as refuse to submit, and accept the definite arrangement,—the only favorable one left,—must resume the nomad life of the prairies, and close their career with the vanishing buffaloes and other animals.” We have known this Father De Smet for many years, and have known of his connection as chaplain in the United States army, and of his extensive travels among the various Indian tribes of our country. We were well aware of his zeal and bigotry as a Jesuit; but we did not suppose he would take the first opportunity to combine all his associates, and the Indians under his influence, against the government that had favored him and his Indian missionary operations so readily. Yet perhaps we ought not to be surprised at this even, as the Roman hierarchy expressed more open sympathy and favor to the Southern rebellion than any other European power, by acknowledging the Southern Confederacy, and furnishing a man to assassinate President Lincoln. We have introduced these quotations in our sketches of early history, in order to show to the reader the far-reaching policy, as also the determination of foreign powers, through the Jesuit missionaries, to accomplish the overthrow of our American institutions, and prevent the spread of them upon this coast. The following is copied from the Christian Intelligencer:— “Rome in the Field. “There are those who believe that Rome has an evil eye on this country, and that our next great battle will be with her hosts, rapidly mustering on these shores. We would not be alarmists, but we would not have our countrymen ignorant of matters which most nearly and vitally concern our country’s welfare. If the policy of Rome is to rule or ruin, let us know it. If it be first to ruin, and then to rule, let us know that. “We purpose to go no further back than the beginning of the war, and to let the facts which we shall name speak for themselves. If they have no other lesson, they will, at least, show that Rome, during our terrible struggle for national existence, was true to her ancient history and traditions, as the enemy of civil liberty and the friend of the oppressor the world over. “It will not be forgotten how generally and enthusiastically our adopted citizens, the Irish, enlisted in the army when the call first came for men to put down rebellion. In the early part of the war, there were Irish battalions, and regiments, and brigades, but there were few, if any, at its close. The truth is, after the second year of the war, the Irish changed front, and suddenly became sympathizers with treason and rebellion. It was noticed that the girls in the kitchen began to roll their fierce gutturals against Mr. Lincoln; their brothers in the army began to curse the cause for which they fought; desertions were frequent; enlistments stopped; and the attitude of the Irish mind before Mr. Lincoln’s second election was one of disloyalty and hostility to the government of the United States. “And these facts can not be changed by the habit which these people have of boasting about fighting our battles, and saving our country. By actual examination of our muster-rolls, the simple truth appears to be, that only eight per cent. of our grand army were of foreign birth; the balance—ninety-two per cent.—were native Americans, who returned at length, worn and battle-scarred, to find their places on the farms, in the factories, and elsewhere, filled by Irish who had sought safety and profit at home, while our boys were courting danger and death in battle. “It may be interesting to know when this change came over the Irish mind. What dampened their ardor, what quenched the glow of their patriotic impulse? The coincidence is so complete, that the cause is doubtless the same. “It will be remembered that Bishop Hughes went abroad during the second year of the war, as was supposed, by authority of our government to interest the Catholic sovereigns of Europe in our favor. Instead of this, however, the archbishop went direct to Rome, and straightway the pope acknowledged the independence of the Confederate States. His insignificance gave him impunity, and purchased our silence. But the act had its influence; Biddy in the kitchen, Mike in the army, Patrick on the farm, and Mac in the factory, fell to cursing Mr. Lincoln as a tyrant and butcher. Enlistments among the Irish stopped from that time, unless it was bounty-jumpers and deserters. They banded together to resist the draft, as in New York, where they rioted in blood for three long days, and only yielded to the overwhelming power of United States troops. The spirit that actuated these human fiends came from Rome, and to Rome must be awarded the sole honor of welcoming to the family of nations a Confederacy whose first act was treason, and whose last was assassination. Indeed, it was Rome that furnished the assassin and his conspirators against the greatest life of modern times. And that assassin struck not against the life of a man, but against the life of the Republic; and if guilt lies in the intent, then is Rome guilty of the nation’s life. “With such a record, Rome vainly puts herself among the friends of our free institutions. She misjudged, we think, but she no doubt thought the time had arrived to destroy what had come of Puritanism. And for this, she was willing to be the ally of a government whose corner-stone was negro slavery. Are we still dreaming that Rome is changed, or that she has surrendered the hope of supplanting Protestant freedom on these shores? Would not every Fenian lodge in the country rally to the help of the South, if there was a chance to restore the old negro-hating oligarchy to power. “It can hardly have escaped every observing man that the Irish mind is expectant and exultant in regard to this country. They do not conceal their belief that the Catholic Church is to rise to the ascendant here, and that Protestantism is to do it reverence. “But a few weeks since, Father Hecker, one of the lights of the Catholic Church in this country, said in a public lecture, in New York, that his church had numbered eleven millions of our people, or one-third of our population; and that if the members of his church increased for the next thirty years as it had for the thirty years past, in 1900 Rome would have the majority, and would be bound to take the country and rule it in the interest of the church. ‘And,’ continued the reverend father, ‘I consider it my highest mission to educate our people up to this idea, that America is ours, and belongs to the church.’ “It is all of a pattern. Rome during the war sought to ruin us in order to rule us. She failed in the first, but is no less tenaciously striving to accomplish the last. In a future number we will hope to show how she means to do this through the freedmen.”
It appears that, when our government became apprised of the value of Oregon as a part of its domain, and was informed officially by the provisional government of the situation of affairs generally at the time of the Whitman massacre, at the same time the information was so arranged, and the circumstances so stated, that the government and people were generally deceived as to the cause and ultimate object of that transaction. It is clear that the Hudson’s Bay Company designed to hold the country. It is also evident that the British government expected that the arrangements of the company were such that their title to the Oregon Territory was secured beyond a question. The far-seeing shrewdness of P. J. De Smet, S. J., in relation to his efforts and church influence, was in a measure superior to both; for he made use of both to secure his object and add to the numerical strength of his church, and by that means gain political consideration in the United States and in other countries. For instance, all the Indian children and adults they have ever baptized (as may be seen by their letters to their society in Brussels) are counted, numbering two hundred and ninety-four thousand,—nearly one-half of their American converts. This, with all their foreign population, as claimed by them, and improperly allowed in the United States census, gives to that sect a political influence they are not entitled to; and were the question agitated openly, as it was undertaken once secretly, the result would show their weakness. While that church professes the open Catholic faith, it still holds to its secret Society of Jesus, and through it has carried its missions and influence into every department of our American government, more especially into that of the Indians. General Grant seems to understand our Indian relations, and has advised the best plan for disposing of the Indian question, i. e., place it under the exclusive control of the military department; and if an Indian becomes a settler, let him be protected as such. After the greater portion of our provisional troops had been disbanded, Revs. Eells and Walker and their families were ordered out of the upper country, it not being deemed safe for them to remain, on account of hostile Indians who were notoriously friendly with every one claiming to belong to the Hudson’s Bay Company or to the priests’ party; as asserted by Father Hoikin, who says: “The country is as safe for us as ever; we can go freely wherever we desire. No one is ignorant that the black-gowns are not enemies; those at least who are among the Indians.” Notwithstanding the order had been given, by Indian Agent Major Lee, that all the missionaries among those Indians should leave the country till troops could be stationed to protect all alike, still not one of the Jesuit missionaries obeyed it. On the 21st of August, Lieutenant A. T. Rogers writes to Governor Abernethy, as follows:— “Fort Lee, Wascopum, Aug. 21, 1848. “Believing it to be my duty to let you know any thing of moment that transpires at this station, for this purpose I now address you. “At about 2 o’clock, P. M., at this place, a boat arrived, consigned to the French priests who have taken up their residence here, loaded with eight casks of powder; six of them 150 pounds each, and two of them 90 pounds each, making 1,080 pounds. I also took fifteen sacks of balls, 100 pounds in each cask; three sacks of buck or goose shot, 100 pounds each, making 1,800 pounds of ball and buck-shot; counted one sack of the balls and found about 3,000 balls. I also took three boxes of guns; opened one box, and found twelve guns. “The general conviction at the fort was, that not more than 500 pounds of powder in all had been forwarded for the army by the government, probably not even that amount. I was told by the priest from an interior station, as also by one at the Dalles, that the powder was for four stations, viz.: Coeur d’AlÊnes, Flatheads, Ponderays, and Okanagons; and this had been purchased at Vancouver the year before. I judged that at least one-third of their outfit was ammunition. “Three days previous to the arrival of the ammunition, four Indians, embracing their chief from the Waiama village, near the mouth of Des Chutes, came into the fort, much alarmed, saying there had been Cayuses to them, declaring that the priests were going to furnish them plenty of ammunition, and that they were going to kill off all the Americans and all the Indians about that place, and the Cayuses wanted them to join them; said also that out of fear of the Cayuses they had sent away all their women and children. We had the best of evidence that they were frightened. Out of some four or five hundred souls along the river, between the fort and the Chutes of the Columbia, not a soul was to be seen on either side,—all, they said, were hid in the mountains. It was some ten days before the Indians came from their hiding-places. “When the munitions came, Quartermaster Johnson swore he believed the priests designed them for the Cayuses; said also, a man in this country did not know when he was in a tight place. “I must say I also believed it. “A. T. Rogers, Lieutenant Commanding Post.”[20]
The following editorial notice of the above letter is copied from the Oregon Spectator of September 7, 1848:— “By reference to the above letter by Lieutenant Rogers to Governor Abernethy, it will be seen that the arms and ammunition attempted to be taken into the upper Indian country by Catholic priests, have been seized by Lieutenant Rogers, and deposited in Fort Lee. Orders had been dispatched to Lieutenant Rogers to seize and detain those munitions. [A mistake of the editor. Lieutenant Rogers seized the ammunition, and wrote for orders.] Much credit is due to Lieutenant Rogers and the little garrison at Fort Lee for the promptness and efficiency with which they acted in the matter. “We understand that there was no disposition on the part of the officers of the government to destroy or confiscate those munitions, but that they were detained to prevent their transportation into the Indian country under the present juncture of affairs. “We had intended to have spoken upon the attempt by Catholic priests to transport such a quantity of arms and ammunition into the Indian country at this time, but as those munitions have been seized and are now safe, we abstain from present comment upon the transaction!”
The above notice of the transaction, as given by Lieutenant Rogers, is a fair specimen of the man who occupied the place of an editor at the time this infamous course was being carried on in Oregon by the two parties engaged in supplying the Indians with war materials. No one will suppose for a moment that these priests ever bought or owned the powder and arms; their own private supplies may have been in the cargo, but the ammunition and arms were on the way into the Indian country, under their priestly protection, for the benefit of their masters, the Hudson’s Bay Company, who, as we have repeatedly proved, were acting in concert upon the prejudices and superstitions of the Indians. Was it a great undertaking for that company to drive a thousand or twelve hundred American settlers from Oregon at that time? Robert Newell, already known to our readers, says, in speaking of missionaries and settlers, “They could not have remained in the country a week without the consent and aid of that company, nor could the settlers have remained as they did up to 1848.” We are willing to admit Mr. Newell’s position only in part. We know that company’s power and influence in Washington and London; we also know fully what they attempted to do from 1812 to 1821, and only succeeded by a compromise with their opponent. We also know all about their operations and influences in Oregon, and are ready to admit that they had the disposition to destroy the American settlements. We also know the extent of the effort made to establish a claim to the Oregon country by means of their French and Hudson’s Bay half-breeds, and we are fully aware of their effort to procure witnesses to substantiate their monstrous claims for old rotten forts and imaginary improvements. Knowing all this, we deny that that company had the courage, or would have dared to molest a single American citizen or missionary, only as they could influence the Indians by just such means as they used to destroy Smith’s party on the Umpqua, drive Captain Wyeth and the American Fur Company from the country, and destroy Dr. Whitman’s settlement. Any other course would have involved the two countries in a war, and led to an investigation of their proceedings and of their charter. “That company,” says Mr. Fitzgerald, “have submitted to all manner of insult and indignity, and committed all manner of crime, and they dare not go before any competent tribunal for the redress of any real or supposed injury, or right they claim.” This brings us to the reason that Mr. Douglas gave in answer to Mr. Ogden, in the presence of Mr. Hinman, “There might be other than sectarian causes” for the Whitman massacre, and here we have the united effort of priests and Hudson’s Bay Company to attribute the massacre to measles and superstition, while we have the positive testimony of Mr. Kimzey and others to show that the whole was determined upon before any sickness was among the Indians. From the testimony of General Palmer, the Donner party, Mr. Hines, and Mr. Ogden, we find but the one effort; which was, to prevent, or diminish as much as was possible, the settlement of the country. And why? To answer this question clearly, we have traced the early history of that monster monopoly in previous chapters, and given their proceedings in countries under their exclusive control. To illustrate more clearly the subject of the previous and present chapters, we will give an article we find in the Oregon Argus of February 9, 1856, eight years after the war. The article is headed:— “The Catholic Priests and the War—‘A Catholic Citizen’ attended to. “To the Editor of the Oregon Argus: “Sir,—For the past month I have noticed several virulent articles in each issue of your paper, all tending to impress upon the minds of your readers the idea that the Catholic priests were the head and front of the present Indian difficulties; and being fearful that your constant harping upon that one subject might render you a monomaniac, I am induced to submit to your Argus eyes a few facts in relation to the conduct of the Catholic priests prior to and during the present war. In your issue of the 8th inst., I find an article based upon the following extract from the official report of Colonel Nesmith:— “‘With sundry papers discovered in the mission building, was a letter written by the priest, Pandozy, for Kamaiyahkan, head chief of the Yankama tribe, addressed to the officer in command of the troops, a copy of which is communicated with this report. There was also found an account-book kept by this priest Pandozy, which is now in the custody of Major Raines. This book contains daily entries of Pandozy’s transactions with the Indians, and clearly demonstrates the indisputable fact that he has furnished the Indians with large quantities of ammunition, and leaving it a matter of doubt whether gospel or gunpowder was his principal stock in trade. The priest had abandoned the mission, but it gave unmistakable evidence of being cared for, and attended to, during his absence, by some Yankama Indian parishioners.’ “You then proceed with great sang froid to pride yourself upon the correct ‘position’ which you took about a month previous, relative to the above subject, and presuming upon the safe ‘position’ which you thus assumed, you say the priests have in a measure prompted the Indians to the late outbreak! A bold presumption, truly, when we find the puny evidence which you have to back your ‘position.’ You further assert as a fact, ‘that in this, as in the Cayuse war, these priests have been detected in the very act of conveying large quantities of powder in the direction of the camp of the enemy.’ This, sir, is a fact which emanated from your own disordered imagination, as during the Cayuse war no priest was ever detected in any such a position, and you know it; but then, it must be recollected that a little buncombe capital does not come amiss at this time, and if you can make it off of a poor priest by publishing a tissue of groundless falsehoods against him, why even that is ‘grist to your mill.’” “The foregoing is a portion of a communication which appeared in the Standard of December 13, over the signature of ‘A Catholic Citizen.’ The writer of that article, in endeavoring to blind the eyes of his readers, and his pretending to correct us in reference to certain statements we had made concerning a few things connected with the present Indian war, as also the Cayuse war of 1848, in which the Catholic priests had by their intercourse with the savages created more than a suspicion in the minds of the community that they were culpably implicated in the crimson character of these tragedies, wisely intrenched himself behind a fictitious signature. He has thereby thrown the responsibility of some three columns of pointless verbiage, flimsy sophistry, and Jesuitical falsehoods, upon the shoulders of an irresponsible, intangible, ghostly apparition, probably very recently dismissed from some sepulcher at Rome, or from the carcass of an Irishman just swamped in the bogs of Ireland. “Seven or eight weeks have now elapsed since we called upon this Roman Catholic citizen to emerge from his hiding-place among the tombstones, and if he was really incarnate, with a body of flesh and bones, such as the rest of us have, to throw off the mask, and not only give us a full view of his corporeal developments, but also to send us a copy of the book by which he cleared Pandozy, and justified himself in issuing, from his sweat-house Vatican, his bull of excommunication against us. “We have thus far ‘harked’ in vain for a sound ‘from the tombs.’ Like a true Jesuit, that loves darkness rather than light, he not only still persists in keeping his name in the dark, and keeping the ‘book’ we rightfully called for in the dark, but attempts to enshroud the whole subject in total darkness, by making up his own case from such parts of Pandozy’s book as he chooses to have exposed, and then thrusting the whole manuscript into a dark corner of his dark-colored coat, and in order to darken what light we had already shed in upon the dark nest of Jesuits, among the dark-skinned and dark-hearted savages, he most solemnly denies as false the most important of the dark charges we made against them, and then, after ‘darkening counsel’ by a whole column of ‘words without knowledge,’ by which, like the cuttle-fish, he darkens the waters to elude the hand of his pursuer, and then, under cover of all this darkness, he dodges into his dark little sweat-house, and issues his terrible bull consigning us to a very dark place, where the multitudes of dark Jesuits that have gone before us have doubtless made it ‘as dark as a stack of black cats.’ But what makes the case still darker is, that while ‘Catholic Citizen’ refuses to expose his personal outlines to our ‘Argus eyes,’ but intimates that as he is a member of the Catholic Church, and of the Democratic party, if we let off a broadside upon either of these societies, and wound either of their carcasses, the one bloated on the blood of saints, and the other on the juice of corn, we shall of course inflict a material injury upon him, upon the principle that ‘when one of the members suffers, all the members suffer with it;’ we say, that in view of the fact that after ‘Catholic Citizen’ has claimed to be a member of both these organizations, the Corvallis organ of the Sag Nichts and Jesuits has whet the razor of authority, and lopped him off, as a heterodox member, and consigned him to the fires of damnation, because ‘Catholic Citizen’ has intimated that the two bodies were not identical, thus wisely enveloping him in a dark cloud, and translating him far beyond the reach of our guns, makes the case terribly dark indeed. “‘He (Catholic Citizen) displays the cloven foot of either direct opposition to the Democratic organization, or sore-head-ism and disaffection with that organization.——We can hardly conceive that the author of that communication is a Catholic, or a friend of the Catholic Church.’—Statesman of Dec. 25. “Thus it will be seen that the editor of the ‘organ’ takes him by the top tuft, and applies the ‘rapin hook’ to his neck as a heretic, and not a genuine Catholic, because of his ‘sore-head-ism and disaffection with the Democratic organization,’ thus unequivocally asserting that the church and the clique are identical, or so closely identified that in placing himself in opposition to the one, he proves that he is not a friend of the other. Now whether the action of the organ has been from a malicious desire to ‘bury him out of our sight’ as an ‘unfruitful branch’ of the Catholic and Democratic trunk, or whether he intended in mercy to wrap him up in his Nessean shirt, and hide him from our view by denying to him the only earthly position he assumed, it matters not particularly to us. We shall probably teach him, or his ghost, in due time, a lesson which we long since whipped into the tough and slimy hide of the biped who controls the Statesman, and which he and his ilk would do well to read in the welts that checker his back, before they make their onslaughts upon us, viz., whenever we state a thing to be true, you may rest assured that it is so, and by calling it in question, you may be sure you will provoke the proof. We are not of that class of lying editors who make false charges which they are not able to sustain, and we have never yet vouched for the truth of a statement, and been afterward compelled to back out of it. Whenever we make a mistake, on account of bad information, we are sure to make the correction as soon as we are apprised of it, whether the statement affects the character or interest of friend or foe, or neither. “Your vile innuendo, that we wished to make a little buncombe capital off a poor sniveling priest, is readily excused, knowing as we do your impressions from associating with political comrades who neither yield to nor expect justice or decency from their political opponents; and presuming also that the moment you stepped your foot upon American soil, with your little budget of Irish rags, some demagogue put a loco-foco hook into your nose, and led you off to the political pound to learn your catechism, so fast that the remaining half of the nether extremity of your old swallow-fork made a right angle with your stalwart frame. We know very well what sort of lessons you have learned out of that catechism; how you have been duped to believe that the principles of Jefferson and other old sainted Democrats were still cherished by the designing demagogues who have taken you in tow; how we who oppose this office-hunting party are ‘down upon Catholics and foreigners’ simply because they are such; and how you had only to put in the ‘clane dimocratthic ticket’ to insure yourself great and glorious privileges. Under this sort of training, it is not surprising to us that you not only expect us to persecute you to the full extent that a priest is sworn to ‘persecute’ heretics, but that you are constantly in fear that the ‘Noo Nothins’ will soon be ladling soup from a huge kettle that contains your quarters boiled up with Irish potatoes. “We were not led to make the remarks we did in reference to the priests because they were Papists, but because we had reason to believe they were traitors to our government, and were identified with the savages in the present war. If Methodist, Presbyterian, or any other Protestant clergymen had rendered themselves equally obnoxious, we should probably have given our opinion at the time, that they deserved to be brought out of the Indian country, with all their ‘traps,’ to undergo a trial before a jury for their lives. “But, sir, to one of your falsehoods:— “‘You further assert as a fact, “that in this, as in the Cayuse war, these priests have been detected in the very act of conveying large quantities of powder in the direction of the camp of the enemy.” This, sir, is a fact which emanated from your own distorted imagination, as during the Cayuse war no priest was ever detected in any such a position, and you know it.’ “Now, sir, we did not suppose that there was a man green enough in all Oregon (excepting, perhaps, the Statesman) to call our statement in question. We happen to be an old Oregonian ourself, and profess to be pretty well posted in reference to many occurrences which will make up the future history of this lovely yet blood-stained land. The proof of our assertion we supposed could be come at by our file of the Spectator. The fact was still vivid in our memory. At the date of this transaction (August 21, 1848), there were three papers printed in the Territory: The Free Press, an 8 by 12 sheet, edited by G. L. Curry, present governor of Oregon, and the Oregon Spectator, a 22 by 32 sheet, edited by A. E. Wait, Esq., both published at Oregon City; besides a semi-monthly pamphlet, printed in the Tualatin Plains, and edited by Rev. J. S. Griffin. Although all of these papers at the time spoke of the transaction referred to, we believe none of them, excepting the Spectator, contained the official correspondence necessary to make out our case. We supposed, and so did many others, that all the old files of the Spectator were long since destroyed, excepting the imperfect one in our office. When ‘A Catholic Citizen’ called our statement in question, we, of course, referred to our ‘file’ for proof, but to our astonishment this particular paper was missing, although the immediate preceding and succeeding numbers were all there, embracing the whole summer of 1848. The missing number was accidentally (?) misplaced, of course, and the proof of that transaction supposed to be beyond our reach. By the kindness of a gentleman we have been furnished with the desired copy from his own file.” (See official note and letter as previously quoted.) “Now, will ‘A Catholic Citizen’ contend that our statement, in reference to the ‘large quantities of powder,’ is not fully covered by ‘seven or eight hundred pounds of powder, fifteen hundred pounds of lead, and three boxes of guns.’ “A man who can unblushingly utter such a falsehood as he has been guilty of, to create a public sentiment in favor of these priests, is below contempt, and we feel our task of exposing him to be truly humiliating. We have branded this goat with an L——, which will stick to his hide as long as Cain carried his mark; and we now turn him out to browse for a while with B., who wears about a dozen of the same brands, under the pain of which we have sent him off howling. ‘A Catholic Citizen’ may feed on ‘ferrin’ till we get time to clap the same brand to him again, when we shall tie him up to the post and again scorch his wool.”
In reference to the article, as quoted from the Oregon Argus, it is not certainly known who “Catholic Citizen” is, but the impression is that the production is from the pen of Hon. P. H. Burnett or Sir James Douglas, and not impossible from Robert Newell, with such assistance as he could obtain. If from either of those gentlemen, he may have been correctly informed as to the real owners of the munitions, but we can hardly believe Mr. Douglas or Newell would lay themselves liable to the falsehood charged upon them, as they were in the country, and must have known of the facts in the case. Mr. Burnett was in California, and may have been misled by his informant. Be that as it may, the munitions were found on their way into the Indian country in charge of the priests, and the remarks of the editor of the Argus, W. L. Adams, Esq., shows the true history of the times, and the continued effort of the Jesuits and their neophytes to continue the Indian wars, to prevent the Protestant missionary stations from being reoccupied and the settlement of the country by the Americans, as intimated by Father Hoikin, in his letter to his society in Brussels. Our provisional army did not capture a single murderer or prominent Indian engaged in the massacre, though many of them were known to have been frequently with the priests and at Fort Wallawalla. Neither the priests, McBean, nor the indescribably sympathizing Sir James Douglas made the least effort to bring the murderers to justice. A part of them were given up by the tribe,—tried and hung at Oregon City under the Territorial government of the United states, Judge Pratt presiding. In the trial, the same influence was used to get the murderers acquitted that had instigated and protected them in the commission of the crime. The discovery of gold in California took place before our troops had all returned; the universal excitement in relation to it caused the desertion of a large portion of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s men, and almost an abandonment of the fur trade in the country for the time. They, however, still kept up the semblance of fur trade; and, at the expiration of their parliamentary license in 1858, withdrew to British Columbia and Vancouver Island to repeat upon their own people what they have practiced so successfully and so long upon the Americans. There is, connected with this foreign company, a sort of Jesuitical suavity of manner and boasting propensity that naturally deceives all who come within its influence. All its titles and little performances of charity are sounded forth with imperial pomposity. The man that does not acknowledge his obligations to it for being permitted to remain in the country previous to the expiration of its parliamentary license, is considered ungrateful by it, and by such as are blind to its infamous practices.
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