# Portland, Oregon: Its History and Builders/Volume 1/Chapter 5

CHAPTER V.
1834—1842.
The mind of the native Indian possessed no ideas on the subject of religion except the single belief in a great spirit. And in the light of modern discoveries in science that might not be classed within the tenets or principles of any form of religion. The American Indian was the best specimen of the child of nature, the earth has ever produced. His instincts, passions and affections were but little above those of the forest bred animals around him on which he made war for his own subsistance. That he had attained to such simple arts as ministered to the bare necessities of his existance or aided the strength of his hands or the fleetness of his limbs in obtaining food and clothing shows some evolution of the mental faculties, but no enlargement of his moral or reflective nature. The Indians of the northwest coast of America were scarcely up to the average of Indians of the Atlantic coast and Mississippi valley. As a race they did not possess that vigor of constitution which characterized the tribes that rallied under the call of Pontiac and Tecumseh. They had but little reasoning powers and in a general way accepted everything they saw with their own eyes, or were told by the white men, to be facts until they found out to the contrary. To this lack of mental force and reflective faculties was added the inherent passion for alcoholic stimulants which has demoralized the native races of every land and country. It is both probable and reasonable, that if intoxicating liquors could have been kept entirely away from the Indian, he could have been perfectly controlled by just white men, taught the rudiments of education and Christianity and made a law-abiding self-supporting people. But long before the Missionaries reached this region the free fur traders of the coasting vessels, and free trappers and fur traders coming west from St. Louis, had debauched the Indian with whiskey and utterly poisoned his mind against all white men. The United States had spent five hundred millions of dollars in suppressing Indian wars and defending frontier settlements, which might have been saved and prevented entirely, if the same policy had been enforced in all intercourse with the natives which characterized the dealings of the Hudson Bay Company with the Indian. The policy of the United States government, so far as a policy could express the mind of the people, was intended to be just to the Indian. If wars came, and they did come—they had to be suppressed. But the error was in allowing ​irresponsible men to go into the wilderness with fire water to debauch the Indian, rob him of his peltries, ruin his wife and scatter corrupting diseases. It was inevitable that the weaker race would go down, or take an inferior position before the all-conquering Saxon. The Acts of Congress show that throughout the whole period called "The Century of Dishonor," the American people through their representatives in Congress provided ample means and necessary regulations (sufficient for honest men) to deal justly and humanely with all the Indian tribes. But it was the dishonesty of politics, the infernal corruption and dishonesty of Indian agents and their train of henchmen and hangers-on, robbing the Indians of the bounties of the government and corrupting and poisoning every element of their primitive life and ways, pushed on year after year for generations of men that wrought the monumental shame that disgraced the nation.
Why were there no Indian wars in the dominions of the Hudson Bay Company, a region as large as the United States? Because that company was a business government managed upon business principles and could not afford to have wars. If they allowed the Indians to have whiskey they would not go out and hunt for furs. And besides that, if the Indian got drunk he was incapacitated for work and business. If an Indian committed some offense the company did not go out and shoot down the first Indian met. The company did not wage war on Indian women, or allow white men to debauch Indian wives. A stolen article had to be returned, and a tribe harboring a thief was cut off from trade. If an Indian murdered a white man, his tribe was told that they had nothing to fear, but the murderer must be hunted up and surrendered for punishment. Justice was demanded, and nothing more than justice. And in all the vast empire the Hudson Bay Company ruled, there was no mountain fastness too far away, no forest deep enough, nor rocky cave dark enough to hide the felon from their justice, and not one single red man but the criminal himself, had anything to fear. Under this just and inexorable policy, criminals were tracked for thousands of miles and brought back for punishment. And had the United States adopted and rigidly enforces such a policy as this against both Indian and white men, and offered reasonable recompensation and provision for lands needed! for settlement, there would have been but few wars or troubles with the Indians. For the errors and mistakes of- public administration, the crimes and injustice of Indian agents, and the outrages of lawless border men, there was sure to come sooner or later a reaction against the injustice to the Indian and the dishonor of the nation. And revived and stimulated by the preaching of such evangelists as Peter Cartwright, and Lorenzo Dow, who traversed the western States in every direction, and more powerfully influenced public sentiment than any other agency, religious people were aroused to action and moved to make liberal provision for sending missionaries to distant Oregon to convert the Indians.
And about that time, in the year, 1832, occured the incident of the four native Indian chiefs going to St. Louis to get "the white man's book of Heaven." This pathetic advent from distant wilderness appealed forcibly to the sentimental feelings of all classes of people. There are several versions of the story. In one case it was the Flathead Indians of the Bitter Root mountains; in another the Nez Perces, of the Columbia; going in one story to the Catholic Priests of St. Louis, and in another to Captain Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. There is no doubt of the truth of the occurrence; and that these pious seekers of the gospel did reach St. Louis and spend a winter there, where two of them died, another dying on his way back to the mountains, while the remaining chief lived to return and report to his people.
This incident was heralded far and wide through the press, published in every pulpit and powerfully wrought up the feeling of religious people who felt condemned for the neglect of the poor heathen in the American wilderness. Hall J. Kelley, who will be fully noticed later on, took up the subject, as it was ​in line with the agitation he was carrying on, and published a pamphlet on the necessity of immediate action.
As a consequence of all this agitation, the Missionary Board of the Methodist Episcopal church was importuned to establish a mission among the Flathead Indians at once. A call was issued for volunteer missionaries for this work in distant Oregon. In answer to that call, Jason Lee formerly of Stanstead, Canada, and his nephew Daniel Lee, appeared and offered themselves for this work. Jason Lee had formerly been engaged in this line of work in the British Provinces. He had all the qualifications for the labors, trials and dangers for such a field of missionary effort. In fact no man could have been found probably who was as well prepared for such a trying and responsible trust. Lee was accepted by the Methodist Board and later on made a member of the Conference in 1833. He was now thirty years of age, tall, powerfully built, rather slow and awkward in his movements, prominent nose, strong jaws, pure blue eyes, with a vast store of reliable common sense. Such was the first man sent out to old Oregon, to preach the gospel to the heathen.
By October 10, 1833 three thousand dollars had been provided for an outfit; and in March 1834, Lee left New York for the west, lecturing on his way; and taking with him his nephew, Daniel, together with two laymen, Cyrus Shephard of Lynn, Mass. and Philip L. Edwards, and adding Courtney M. Walker of Richmond, Mo. At Independence, Mo. the missionary party fell in with Nathaniel J. Wyeth, then starting on his second trading expedition to the Columbia river, and were afterwards joined by the fur trader Sublette, going to California, and his party; and as they filed out westward on the 28th day of April, 1834, the party numbered all told, seventy men, and two hundred and fifty horses. Such was the first missionary expedition to old Oregon.
The Missionary party reached Old Fort Hall, which was some forty miles north of the present town of Pocatello, Idaho, on the 26th day of July, and held there the next day, being Sunday, the first public service of the Protestant churches ever held west of the state of Missouri and Missouri river, Jason Lee conducted this service and preached to a congregation made up of Wyeth's men, Hudson Bay fur hunters, half breeds and Indians, all of whom conducted themselves in a most respectful and devotional manner. It was a wonderful sight, a grand and solemn sight; the rough and reckless children of the forest, of various tongues and customs, gathered from the four quarters of the globe, a thousand miles distant from any civilized habitation, in the heart of the great American wilderness, listening to the message of Christ from this young man, and reverentially bowing their heads in prayer to the Almighty maker and Preserver of all men and things.
From the Chehalem mountains, the party descended into the Chehalem valley, and passing along by the little prairie where the prosperous town of Newberg and its Quaker College is now located, the party swam their horses across the Willamette river, and crossing in a canoe kept on south to the farm of Joseph Gervais, where they stayed all night with the hospitable Frenchman, and for whom the town of Gervais has been named. The next day they selected a tract of land two miles above the Gervais farm on the east side of the river and sixty miles south of Portland for the site of their mission; and where they built their first mission house. Returning to Vancouver, Dr. McLoughlin furnished a boat and boatman to move the household goods from the ship and transport them up the Willamette river to the mission point; seven oxen were loaned with which to haul timbers to build houses at the mission, eight cows with calves were furnished to supply milk and start stock; and by the 6th of October, 1834, Jason Lee and his party were all safely landed at their mission home in the Willamette valley—the first Protestant mission in the United States, west of the Rocky mountains from the North Pole down to the Isthmus of Panama.
It will be asked by the reader, why did not Lee answer the pathetic call of the Flathead Indians and establish a mission among them. If Lee had been moved wholly by sentimental consideration he would have gone to the Flatheads. But while Jason Lee was first, last, and all the time an evangelist and servant of his God, he was at the same time eminently a man of safe practical common sense. With nothing but his own light and resources to guide him, he must shoulder all the responsibility of his position, and take that course which would secure success in this great experiment, or be blamed for a failure. He had noted carefully the conditions of an experiment with the Flatheads, six hundred miles from sea coast transportation, surrounded by unfriendly Indians, and exhausted by continuous wars with the vengeful Blackfeet. The outlook was not inviting. And the very fact that he had become the friend of the Flatheads, if he had decided to locate there, would have aroused the enmity of the Blackfeet and other tribes, and not only cut off from him the friendship and access to other tribes, but might have resulted in the destruction of himself, supporters and innocent victims he had sought to help. More than that, the Willamette was the wider field, with the greater outlook to the future. Lee. saw, then, as we see now, that the Willamette valley was more important to the future than all the valleys of the Rocky mountains. His decision was based upon the practical common sense and the great interests he had come to serve, and has been a thousand times over vindicated by the development of the country, and by the vast results of his work.
Let us now for a few moments, look in on this young missionary to the Oregon Indians as he builds his first log cabin, three thousand miles distant from the comfortable and luxurious homes of the people who sent him out here from the state of New York. As he stood there on the virgin prairie alongside the beautiful Willamette gliding silently to the sea, the hills, the waving grass and silent woods, with native men, all innocent of the great work of civilization ahead. He was facing the great responsibility, and he must commence his work with the humblest means. Before a sheltering house could be raised, he must sharpen his axes, his saws, and break his half wild oxen to the services of the yoke and the discipline of a driver. Napoleon might easily win the greatest battles, but he would have failed utterly to make a wild ox pull in a yoke, as ​Jason Lee did. But the great work had to be done; and these men resolutely went at it and built a house in thirty days from the standing trees. Logs were cut, squared and laid up, a puncheon floor from split logs put in, doors were hewn from fir logs, and hung on wooden hinges, window sashes whittled out of split pieces with a pocket knife, a chimney built of sticks, clay and wild grass mixed; two rooms, four little windows, and tables, stools and chairs added little by little from the work of patient hands. And thus was started the first Christian mission west of the Rocky mountains.
While the Methodists were first in the Oregon missionary fields, the Presbyterians were not idle spectators of the movement. On the contrary they were deeply moved by the story of the four Flathead chiefs, and attended the farewell services to Jason Lee and joined in the prayers for his success. But being a more conservative people, they moved slower and with more careful preparation. The history of the American Board of Foreign Missions published in 1840 recites that the Dutch Reformed Church of Ithaca, New York, resolved to sustain a mission to the Indians west of the Rocky mountains. Rev. Samuel Parker, Rev. John Dunbar and Samuel Allis were selected to go west and explore the country for a suitable site for a mission. These explorers left Ithaca in May, 1834, but arriving at St. Louis too late to join the annual caravan across the plains, Parker returned home. But in the following spring (1835) Parker repeated his effort and this time with success; reaching St. Louis in April where he found Dr. Marcus Whitman, who had been appointed to accompany him, waiting his coming. These two men proceeded at once by steamboat from St. Louis to Liberty which was then the frontier town of Missouri from which the Rocky mountain fur trading expeditions then started. The caravan made up of the trappers and hangers-on of Fontenelle. The captain, and capitalist of the expedition, got off on the 15th of May, 1835, and reached Laramie in the Black Hills on the 1st of August.
And here at Laramie, Dr. Whitman made a showing of the reserve force and ready ability which great exigencies might bring out. Hearing that he was a doctor and near to a man of God, both natives and trappers flocked to see him, and secure his favor and services. From the back of Captain Jim Bridger, who afterwards discovered Salt Lake, and built Fort Bridger, Dr. Whitman, cut out an iron arrow head three inches in length which a Blackfoot Indian had planted there; and from the shoulder of another hunter he extracted an arrow imbedded in the flesh which the man had carried there for two years. This exhibition of his skill excited the wonder of the Flatheads and Nez Perces gathered there, and all joined in clamorous pleadings that Whitman, or other men like him be sent to their tribes to teach and preach.
At this juncture of affairs, it appears that there must have been some sort of friction between the Rev. Parker and the successful Doctor. For without any very good reason ever given to the public, Dr. Whitman left the missionary party and returned to the States for the purpose of obtaining other assistants and joining the overland train of fur traders in the spring of 1836. Mr. Gray in his history of Oregon (p. 108) states the reason for Whitman leaving Parker and returning to the states (to be) the fact that Parker could not abide the frontier ways and manners of Whitman who evidently believed in "doing in Rome as the Romans did," while Rev. Parker carried the etiquette of his cultured home town to the rough ways of the Rocky mountaineers. And as Gray is something of a partizan for Whitman, there is doubtless a foundation for this explanation; that Whitman went back to New York to get rid of Parker and make a new start with more congenial associates.
However, Parker went on with the natives. Flatheads and Nez Perces, being on the same route with Bridger's party of sixty men for eight days. As they proceeded, Parker studied the Indians and taught them the ten commandments, and in due time, reached Walla Walla, October 6, where he was feasted by the Hudson Bay agent with roast duck,bread, butter and milk, the first he had seen ​after leaving the Missouri river. From Walla Walla, Parker proceeded to Fort Vancouver where he arrived October 16, and was welcomed and hospitably entertained by Dr. John McLoughlin. Parker visited the mouth of the Columbia, the Willamette valley, and many points in the upper Columbia, going- as far north as Fort Colville, and making a careful study of the Indians and selecting eligible sites for missions. He selected the site of Wailatpu (near where the town of Walla Walla is now built) for a mission, and which Dr. Whitman settled and improved; and where he lost his life and sacrificed his noble wife. Parker was in may respects a level headed sensible man. But he like all the rest erred in their judgment of the Indian character. Parker summed up his observations, declaring that the "unabused, uncontaminated Indians would not suffer by comparison with any other nation that could be named, and that the only material difference between man and man, was that produced by the knowledge and practice of the Christian religion." But he thought there was a great difference between the Indians along the Columbia river and those inhabiting the Rocky mountains. The former would load their visitors with presents, while the latter would beg the shirt off a man's back. Parker returned to the States by seas voyage by the way of the Sandwich islands, reaching Ithaca, New York, in May, 1837, having traveled twenty-eight thousand miles.
We return now to Dr. Whitman. His separation from Parker and return to the states must not only be explained to the satisfaction of the Church, but he must vindicate his course to his friends and maintain a reputation by renewed zeal and energy in the cause in which he had enlisted. And so we find him organizing forces to establish two missions beyond the Rocky mountains; one among the long neglected Flatheads who were the prime movers of the whole missionary movement to Oregon, and one to the Nez Perces, who it seems were in all the investigations found to be a very interesting people for a missionary field. And the more effectually to arouse interest in the Indians, Whitman resorted to the expedients of Columbus and Pizarro, and carried back from the mountains two likely Indian boys to show the conservative Presbyterian Missionary board the inviting material he would have to begin work upon. And with what he had seen, and from common sense suggestions he decided that it was families he must take to Oregon, and not single men; if he was to make a success of his missions. And so he set the example by taking a good woman for a wife, to accompany him to the wilderness, the fateful fortune as it turned out to be, fell to the lot of Miss Narcissa Prentiss, of Prattsburgh, New York, whom he married in February, 1836. Mrs Whitman is described as a person of good figure, pleasant voice, blue eyes, and unusually attractive in. person, and manner, well educated and refined. Having secured one attractive and engaging woman for the mission to the wilderness it was easier to secure another, and so Dr. Whitman speedily enlisted the Rev. H. H. Spalding, a young Presbyterian minister who had then recently married Miss Eliza Hart, a farmer's daughter of Oneida County, New York. Mrs. Spalding had accomplishments, too, if not so well educated, she could be eminently useful as she was; for she had been taught to spin, weave cloth, make up clothing as well as an accomplished cook and housekeeper. Both of these ladies might have stood for models for all that was noble, good and of good report in any community, and were thoroughly imbued with that spirit of self-sacrifice which must come to any person who undertakes to teach and serve the ignorant and benighted natives of any race. Spalding, the man and preacher, hesitated to commit himself to the dangerous enterprise, pleading the delicate health of his wife; but the wife, the greater hero of the twain, asked only for twenty-four hours prayerful consideration, and then went into the expedition with all her heart, not even returning from Ohio to see her parents. To this party. Whitman, was able to enlist the services of William H. Gray, of Utica, New York, a bright, active, energetic young man of some education, and large natural abilities with great courage and forceful purposes in life. Mr. Gray wrote a history of Oregon after he had spent most ​of his life out here that must not be overlooked by any student who wants to know the whole history of the prominent actors in this northwest.
Dr. Whitman was furnished by the missionary board with necessary tools, implements, seeds, grain, and clothing for two years. At Liberty, Missouri, he bought teams, wagons, some pack animals, riding horses and sixteen milk cows, and these were all under the charge of Gray and the two Indian boys who were now going back to their homes with Whitman. By hard work and energetic pushing the party got across the Missouri and out on the plains in time to join a company of one Fitzpatrick for company and mutual protection.
Here then was the first attempt of white women to cross the great American desert, as the plains of Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming were then called; and scale the Rocky mountains and penetrate the wilderness of old Oregon. It was indeed on the part of these two women an act of the greatest heroism, requiring more than ordinary courage and self-sacrifice. While thousands of women and children followed after them, it was these two women who pointed the way, set the pace and showed the world that women could accomplish the great and hazardous trip. Presbyterian writers and historians have seized upon these facts to show that these two young Presbyterian women from the state of New York, were the real pioneers of civilization in old Oregon; and well they might so claim, for it may be set down as a fact that no country is ever civilized until it has received the humanizing touch and gracious benediction of the love and self-sacrifice of consecrated woman.
It is not within the purview of this history, or the object of this chapter to follow out the movements and settlements of- this little party of devoted missionaries. It is enough to our purpose to say; that after a long toilsome and tedious journey, full of dangers and trials of every- description, they reached their promised land, that they founded a mission at Wailatpu where Whitman college is now located near the city of Walia. Walla, that they labored and toiled, taught and prayed for the Indians, as no^ others had ever done before or since, and that they were rewarded in the end by the base treachery of those they sought to save and bless, and finally murdered by the infuriated savages they had fed, clothed and taught the lessons of love and affection of the founder of Christianity. We give this picture of these devoted men and women, to show by contrast and example, the characters of the teachers and the native inborn weakness and barbarism of those they sought to lift up in the human scale. We will let the characters of Lee and Whitman stand as substantial representatives of the whole Protestant missionary effort to the Indians of this country; and from their experience and good or ill success draw what conclusions seems to be reasonable as to the real character of these Oregon Indians. And to throw further light upon the picture, and enable the reader to more perfectly understand the Indian character we will give the experience of the Catholic priests and missionaries in dealing with and teaching these same Indians, although they may have labored with other and different tribes.
But the really great religious success among the Indians, was accomplished by Peter John De Smet; a member of the Jesuit order who came out in the spring of 1840; and being the first religious teacher to answer the petition of the Flatheads with "the white man's book of heaven," was by them received with great rejoicing. And within two weeks after he had reached that tribe in the Bitter Root mountains, had taught two thousand of them some of the prayers of the church, and admitted six hundred to the rite of baptism. De Smet was a man of great natural force, tact and persuasiveness, and having been sent out by the Jesuit order at St. Louis, he was greatly surprised to hear that Blanchet and Demers were already in western Oregon. Returning to St. Louis for more religious teachers, De Smet prosecuted his work in Oregon with great vigor and success. He even went to Europe for assistance, which he succeeded in obtaining, apparently pursuing his apostolic crusade among the Indians very much like St. Paul did in Asia Minor.
Here now is the proposition. What permanent good did these men accomplish for the Indian? Two Protestants—Jason Lee and Marcus Whitman, and two Catholics, Frances N. Blanchet and Peter John De Smet. They gave to each the entire influence of their respective creeds and churches. And each and all of them, were singularly and remarkably well qualified for the work they had undertaken; and each man, put his whole soul, mind and body into the work he had freely devoted his life to serve. And what effect has it had upon the mind and condition of the Indian. The Indian is here yet subsisting partly upon the bounty of the government, and partly by the shiftless, precarious labor of his hands. One in a hundred rises above his fellows in mental, moral or financial acquirements. But the general average of listless inactivity of mind and body is about the same. Religious teaching is still patiently pressed upon the Indian; but with the exception of Father Wilbur's work among the Yakimas, the results are insignificant. And yet very much the same might be said of religious teaching among the whites. But what has been the uplift to the Indian? We are presenting a question of evolution. This book is presenting that question in various ways.
​When the missionaries came to Oregon, the Indian that could,
"Find tongues in trees, books in running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything,"
accepted them as ministers of the Great Spirit, keepers of the "Book of Heaven," and superior beings. He took the white man as a friend, but found him too often to be a despoiler of his wives, a trader in fire water, that robbed him of his peltries and appropriated his hunting grounds. And although the ministers of religion treated him kindly and justly as far as their personal intercourse went, they did not and could not stay the tide of immigration which over-ran the country, seized his lands and drove away the wild animals that had furnished him food and raiment. He had gained a little knowledge, but had lost his freedom in the forest and his home on the earth the Great Spirit had given him in common with all his children.
The reasoning power of the Indian was limited to what he saw or felt. The novelty of the sacred rites and mystical signs, the commands of virtue and the teachings of the missionaries were good enough as long as there were no more white men coming; no fears of being driven from the land, and no fears but that they would possess the country in the future as their fathers had in the past. They had learned from the Iroquois and the Blackfeet how the white men had swarmed into the Mississippi valley and driven the Indians back from the beautiful Ohio and the rich lands of Illinois. And it took no reasoning power to satisfy them that if the white man was not stopped from coming over the mountains to Oregon they too must give up their lands and homes, or die. They appealed directly to Whitman and other Protestant missionaries to stop the white man from coming, and were told that more and more white men would come with their wives and children, cattle and horses. They saw that the priests did not bring men to take up more farms, and for that reason were more friendly to the Catholics. They had held their councils, and resolved to kill all the whites and drive back the human tide. And if they had possessed a leader like Pontiac or Tecumseh. or like Joseph who arose as a great leader after the country was settled, they could have exterminated the white settlers, and would have done so as mercilessly as they massacred Whitman and his family.
And when they resolved to fight the white man they threw away his religion, and all his teachings of morality. And now today, seventy years after the great Indian revivals wrought by De Smet, there are fewer professed Christians among the Indians of old Oregon than ever before. But by comparison with the white man this is not much to the discredit of the Indian. The number of professing christians among the white people of Oregon today are much less in proportion to population than seventy years ago. This was practically a prohibition community seventy years ago, but now Portland has four hundred and nineteen retail liquor shops, spends thousands of dollars on prize fights, and kills a man every day or so with automobiles.
The substantial uplift of any community is a slow and tedious work; and of a race a still slower and more tedious task—a work of evolution in which a thousand seen and unseen elements of change must take part. The factors undermining the strength of the man, community or race, are innate and always at work; while the forces that demoralize, or openly oppose the development of man's faculties and the uplift of the social fabric, are always present in some form ready to be set in motion. The Rev. Elkanah Walker, who was one of the first Protestant missionaries among the Oregon Indians, and who faithfully labored for their improvement for many years, in the last sermon he preached in his life, in the little Union church at the town of Gaston, discussed this matter from his experience with both the white and red man; and summed up the whole matter in this sententious sentence: "It takes a very, very long time to make a white man out of an Indian; but the descent of the white man into an Indian is short and swift."
​In all the contentions between Protestants and Catholics in this Indian country, and between the partizans of American Colonization and the occupancy of the Hudson Bay Company, the Whitman massacre has ever been a subject of most bitter crimination. And no persons of humane feeling- can read the record of the horrible butchery of Whitman and his wife, children and the others killed, without being wrought up to intense bitterness, not only against the savages, but against white men who may have known of the possibility of murder, and took no step to prevent it. It seems clear that the chiefs of the Hudson Bay Company did warn Whitman of his danger at the distant and unprotected station. Whitman was himself, recklessly careless of the safety of himself and family. The Indians were permitted free access to all his premises, and no preparation for protection or defense from harm was provided. The Hudson Bay people did not trust the Indians. They had substantial barricades and stockade forts well supplied with arms for defense; and at all times required the Indians to remain on the outside of protective defenses. McLoughlin never forgot the native ferocity of the savage when aroused. To the careless observer, the Indians about the trading stations, and missionary stations were peaceful and harmless; yet behind all this was the racial instinct of the savage, developed by ages of contention with wild beasts in the contest for existence. And with the first blow of the tomahawk on the head of the unsuspecting victim—Marcus Whitman—and the sight of blood, the savage gave tongue to demoniac yells that harked back a hundred thousand years, when the naked savage man fought with clubs, the savage beast.
We here finally reach our bearings in the quest for the rightful ownership of the wilderness of Oregon. Whether it suits our wishes or our preconceived views or not, we are compelled to face the proposition that the white man, black man, red man and yellow man, are all on this globe on equal land tenures. That they have all sprung from a single original pair and though now found in diverse races, they have fought for and conquered their positions on the face of the globe, not only in competition with wild beasts, but also wild men. That this tremendous evolutionary programme, so far as it has related to the possession of land on which to live and grow, has never been settled in any other way than
"The good old rule, the simple plan.
That they should take who have the power.
And they should keep who can."
The coming of the white man was inevitable, and the subjection of the Indian equally so. Our pioneers but followed nature's impulse, justified by the entire history of mankind. And if the inspiration of a higher humanity, and the precepts of Christianity can be used to enforce justice and inculcate charity to the poor benighted children of the forest that we found in the possession of this beautiful land, it is our bounden duty to see that while we enjoy all the beauty and glory of these grand rivers and gorgeous mountains, that the remnant of the native race be made as comfortable and enlightened as their mental and moral development will permit.
As a suggestive item in connection with the history and development of events in this vicinity, the photographic likeness of an aged Indian, still alive, is given on another page. Timotsk is now about one hundred and fifteen years of age. While able to go about on his pony, his sunken eyes—almost imperceptible, withered hands and white hair, betoken his great age. With his parents he camped here on the site of this city, before Lewis and Clarke reached this country. He remembers seeing the exploring party as they returned east and when they were camped at the mouth of White Salmon river, and says he was nine snows old at that time. As one of the chiefs of the Klickitats he took part in several great councils to determine what course should be taken by the Indians against the whites; and his family, or clan in that tribe always refused to go to war against the whites, but sought employment of them, Timotsk himself, ​working on the boats and about Vancouver, while troubles were going on in the upper country.
And as another matter of interest in Indian life, part of the Chinook Dictionary is given in the form of conversational phrases. The "Chinook Jargon" is a made up language, composed of some Indian words picked up by Capt. Cook, and other navigators, to which was added many words of the Hudson Bay Company, and a still larger number by the Protestant missionaries. It was the sole means of conversation with the Indians for many years, and is still used to some extent with the older members of the different tribes, having been in use all over the country west of the Rocky mountains all the way up to Alaska.
CHINOOK JARGON
Conversational Phrases.
| ENGLISH. | CHINOOK. |
| Good morning. | Klahowya, six? |
| Good evening. | or |
| Good day. | Klahowyam. |
| How do you do? | |
| Come here. | Chahco yahwa. |
| How are you? | Kahta mika? |
| Are you sick? | Mika sick? |
| Are you hungry? | * Nah olo mika? |
| How did you come? | Kahta mika chahco? |
| Are you thirsty? | * Nah, olo chuck mika? |
| What ails you? | Kahtah mika? |
| Would you like something to eat? | Mika tikeh muckamuck? |
| Do you want work? | Mika tikeh mamook? |
| To do what? | |
| What do you want me to do? | Iktah mika mamook? |
| Cut some wood. | Mamook stick? |
| Certainly. | Nawitka. |
| How much do you want for cutting that lot of wood? | Kan see dolla spose mika mamook konoway okoke stick? |
| One dollar. | Ikt dolla. |
| That is too much. I will give half a dollar. | Hyas markook, nika potlatch sitkum dolla. |
| No! Give three quarters. | Wake, six ! Potlatch klone quahtah. |
| Very well; get to work. | Kloshe kahkaw; mamook alta. |
| Where is the ax? | Kah lahash? |
| There it is. | Yah-wa. |
| Cut it small for the stove. | Mamook tenas, spose chickamin pah. |
| Give me a saw. | Potlatch lasee. |
| I have the saw; use the ax. | Halo lasee; is'kum lahash. |
| All right. | Nawitka. |
| Bring it inside. | Lolo stick kopa house. |
| Where shall I put it. | Kah mika marsh okoka? |
| There. | Yahwa. |
| Here is something to eat. | Yahkwa mitlite mika muckamuck. |
| Here is some bread. | Yahkwa mitlite piah sapolil. |
| Now bring some water. | Klatawa is 'kum chuck. |
| Where shall I get it? | Kah nitka iskum? |
| In the river there. | Kopa ikhol yahwa. |
| Make a fire. | Mamook piah. |
| Boil the water. | Mamook liplip chuck. |
| Cook the meat. | Mamook piah ohoke itlwillee. |
| Wash the dishes. | Wash ohoke leplah. |
| What shall I wash them in? | Kopa kah? |
| In that pan. | Kopa ohoke ketling. |
| Come again tomorow. | Chahco weght tomolla. |
| Good-bye. | Klahowya. |
| Come here, friend. | Chahco Yahkwya, six. |
| What do you want. | Iktah mika tikeh? |
| I want you to do a little job in the morning. | Spose mika mamook tenas mamook tenas sun? |
| Come very early. | Chahco elip sun. |
| At six o'clock. | Chahco yahkwa tahkum tintin. |
| Oh, here you are! | Alah! Mika chahco. |
| Carry this box to the steamer. | Lolo okoka lacasett kopa piah ship. |
| Take this bag also. | Lolo weght lesac. |
| What will you pay? | Iktah mika potlatch? |
| A quarter? | Ikt kwahtah? |
| Very well ; and something to eat ? | Kloshe kahkwa; pee tenas mucka-muck? |
| It is pretty heavy. | Hy'as till okoke. |
| Is that man your brother ? | Yahka nah mika kahpo okoke man? |
| He can help you, too. | Yahka lolo lecassett kopa mika. |
| I will give him something, too. | Nika potlatch weght yahka. |
| Can you carry it? | Nah, skookum mika lolo okoke. |
| Is it very heavy? | Hyas till okoke? |
| Oh, no ! We shall do it. | Wake! Nesika mamook. |
| Are you tired? | Mika chahco till? |
| How far is it, this ship? | Koonsee siah, okoke ship. |
| Not much farther. | Wake siah alta. |
| That is all. | Kopet. |
| Do you understand English? | Kumtux, mika boston wawa. |
| No, not very much. | Wake hiyu. |
| Will you sell that fish? | Mika tikeh mahkook okoke pish? |
| Which of the? | Klaxta ? |
| That large one. | Okoke hyas. |
| What is the price of it? | Konsee chickamin tikeh? |
| I'll give you two-bits. | Nika potlatch mox bit. |
| I'll give you half a dollar. | Nika potlatch situm dolla. |
| No, that is not enough. | Wake, okoke hiyu. |
| Where did you catch that trout? | Kah mika klap okoke opalo? |
| In Skamokaway river. | Kopa Skamokaway ikhol. |
| Are there many fish there? | Nah hiyu lepish yahwa? |
| Not many; too much logging. | Wake; klaska mamook hiyu stick alta. |
| Well, I won't buy it today. | Abba, wake tikeh iskum okoke sun. |
| What do you think of this country? | Iktah mika tumtum okoke illahee? |
| It is very pleasant when it does not rain. | Hyas kloshe yahkwa spose wake snass. |
| Not always ; it is worse when it snows and freezes. | Wake kwonesum. Chahco weght peshak spose cole snass pee selipo. |
| How long have you lived here? (how many years?) | Konsee cole mitlite yahkwa mika? |
| Many years ; I forget how many. | Hiyu cole; kopet kumtux konsee. |
| I was born at Skipanon. | Chee tenas nika kopa Skipanon. |
| Did you get your wife here? | Nah, mika iskum nika kloochman yahkwa? |
| No; she is a Tillamook woman, I married her at Nehalem. | Wake; Tillamook kloochman, yahka. Nika malleh yahka kopa Nehalem. |
| How many children have you? | Konsee tenas mika? |
| We have three boys and one little girl. | Klone tenas man nesika pee ikt tenas likp; ho. |
| I will send you some things for them when I get home. | Nika mamook chahco iktas Kimta nika ko nika illahee. |
The brief examples above, together with the phrases following words in the Chinook-English vocabulary, illustrate the use of the jargon as completely as possible in so limited space and of such a condensed idiom. The absence of the minor parts of speech and inflected forms, makes the combinations of words in sentences either circuitous or bluntly direct. The following version of the Lord's prayer shows the lack of adaption of the jargon to any but the simplest use, yet it also has a pathos in its rudeness and poverty. How incomplete, even in our english, is the idea we get from the words "Thy Kingdom Come!"
A "grace" to be said at table, and a hymn, are taken from Lee & Frost's "Ten Years in Oregon."
A COMMON SIGN LANGUAGE.
Intercourse by signs was universal among the Aborigines, the code of signals was much the same from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Major Lee Morehouse tells of being at Washington, D. C., with a party of Indians from Oregon and Washington, attending a great council of representatives from all parts of the country. Languages were different and the gathering clans were cold and morose, until somebody made an attempt at an address in the sign language, which put everybody at ease, for all understood.
Certain chants and songs were widely known, also. The Omahas knew at once the "stick-bone" gambling song of the Indians of Vancouver island, upon hearing it sung by a student of Indian music. It was the same as their own.
A GRACE AT TABLE.
From Lee & Frost's "Ten Years in Oregon."
O Sohole Isthumah, etokete mikah; toweah etokete itlhullam Mikah minchelute copa ensikah. Kadow quonesum minchtcameet ensikah, Uminsheetah conawa etoweta copa mikah, emehan. O God, good art Thou; this good food Thou hast given to us. In like manner always look kindly upon us, and give all good things to us, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.
A HYMN IN JARGON.
From Lee & Frost.
Aka eglahlam Ensikah
Mika ishtamah emeholew
Kupet mikam toketa mimah
Mika quonesim kadow
Mikah ekatlah gumohah
Mika dowah gumeoh
Konawa etoketa tenmah
Mika ankute gumtoh.
Mikah minchelute insikah
Ankute yukumalah Konawa edinch ag-uitquah
Quonesim ponanakow
Mika guimin chelute emeham
Yokah wawot gacheoweet
Ukah ensikah quotlanchkehah
Mikam toketa kanneoweeb.
(The hymn and the "grace" are a jargon of Chinook, Wasco, Klickitat, and other up-river tribes.)
Translation.
Here we now unite in singing
Glory, Lord, unto thy name,
Only good, and worthy praising,
Thou are always. Lord, the same.
Of the sun. Thou are creator.
And the light was made by thee;
And all things, good, yea every creature,
At the first Thou made'st to be.
We, oh Lord, are all thy children;
In the past we wicked were;
We are all most deeply wretched,
Always blind and in despair.
Thou did'st give thy Son, our Saviour,
He to us instruction gave,
Knowing this we now are happy ;
Thou art good and Thou wilt save.
THE LORD'S PRAYER.
Nesika Papa klaxta mitlite kopa Sahalee, kloshe kopa nesika tumtum mika nem. Nesika Hiyu Tikeh chahco mika ilahee ; Mamook Mika kaloshe tumtum kopa okoke illahee Kahwa kopa Shalee. Potlach konaway sun nesika mucka-muck; pee Mahlee konaway nesika mesahchee, kahkawa nesika mamook kopa klaska spose Mamook mesahchee kopa nesika. Wake lolo nesika kopa peshak, pee marsh siah kopa nesika konaway mesahchee. Kloshe kahkwa.
Our Father who dwellest in the above, sacred in our hearts (be) Thy name. We greatly long for the coming of thy Kingdom. Do Thy good will with this world, as also in the heaven. Give (us) day by day our bread, and remember not all our wickedness, even as we do also with others if they do evil unto ourselves. Not bring us into danger, but put far away from us all evil. So may it be.