# Portland, Oregon: Its History and Builders/Volume 1/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV.
The city of Portland was founded in an Indian country. Its citizens had to hastily arm and rush to the defense of out-lying settlements against the raids of infuriated savages. The native Indians were the first customers of the first merchants in this pioneer region, and their presence not only largely influenced the pioneer establishments of commerce, but it markedly influenced the lives and character of the pioneers themselves.
And, before there were Indians, there were here in old Oregon, many species of wild beasts that passed away from the face of the earth so many long ages ago, that the mind of man can have no comprehension of the time. Of the sabre-toothed tiger, the most destructive beast that ever trod the earth; of the mammoth, the grandest beast that has left behind perfect evidence of his existence, and of the great reptiles, seventy feet in length, we have now no representatives except the fossil remains preserved in the rocks or given up from the perpetual ice cap of Siberia. Great herds of the mammoth roamed over the plains of eastern Oregon, Washington and Idaho, browsing upon palm trees and other tropical vegetation which is now covered over with volcanic outflows and ice-cap drift four or five thousand feet deep. And long before those tropical forests fed the mammoth, and harbored his enemy, the sabre-toothed tiger, the site where Portland now stands was a spot in the bottom of the Pacific ocean a thousand miles from any existing land. The great Rocky mountain back-bone of the continent was even submerged under the one time almost universal sea of waters. The first to emerge from that universal sea, was the Bitter Root range; the next to emerge was the Blue mountains of eastern Oregon and Idaho, and the Sierra Navadas in California. Their first uplift did not give them the elevation above sea level which we now see. But in the uplifted mountains there were veins of gold, silver, copper, and iron, and streams of water. The intermediate and off coast waters of these ancient times were shallow seas. There were many islands in the Pacific then which are now submerged. Then following this stage of the evolutionary development of the habitable globe, we find the whole north temperate zone of the earth overtaken by a catastrophe which cannot be understood or explained, but which enveloped the whole region of North America down probably to thirty seven degrees of north latitude, in an ice cap or continental wide glacier five or six thousand feet deep. How much of the north Pacific ocean this ice-cap covered, or how long it existed can only be imagined. But,' when from a relapse to former conditions, or change of seasons, this vast ice covering commenced ​to slowly melt away, the face of the earth covered by it shows that the ice drifted slowly southward, grinding down the elevated ground, scarring the solid rock formations with deep stria, and filling up the valleys and lowlands with vast deposits of gravel, sand and clay. In this way was the outcrop of gold bearing rock veins ground off and the gold dust and nuggets of gold carried down and deposited in valleys from which it was recovered by American miners in California and Oregon in recent times. Subsequent to this glacial age of the earth, the water-shed west of the Rocky mountains passed through more than one submergence to, and elevation from, the depths of the ancient Pacific ocean. And with each one of these elevations appeared the outlines of subsequent appearing mountain ranges, and the disappearance one after another of the inland seas and sounds which covered eastern Oregon and the Willamette valley. Those mighty changes in the land and the sea greatly affected the flora and the fauna of the regions involved. We find in the rock graves, and in the vast drift deposits not only the remains of animals already mentioned, but other and later species; and especially the httle three-toed fossil horse discovered by Professor Thomas Condon of the Oregon university, and being the first discovery of the fossil horse contributed by the geology of the globe. And in the elevation which finally dried up the inland seas, and which extended from the Blue mountains in Oregon far down into Nevada and California, we can imagine the grandest volcanic display of mighty forces which ever took place on the entire globe. In that mountain range upheaval, the earth's crust was so extensively broken along the line of the Cascade range, that there must have been, between the British line on the north and the Shasta peak on the south, not less than twenty volcanoes in active operation belching forth vast deposits of lava and volcanic ashes at the same time for a period of several years. The ancient inland sea was not only dried up, but its great basin was filled up with the lava outflows from these volcanic mountains, and the remains of ancient forests, seas, meadow lands and all their teeming life of wild animals was covered up thousands of feet deep. And subsequent to this great volcanic upheaval, but without volcanic violence came the uplift of the coast range in Oregon, which dried up the Willamette valley sound and made dry land where Portland now stands. But prior to the uplift which made the Portland townsite dry land, the earth surface forces of nature had entered upon the vast work of constructing the Columbia river water way. Thousands of years before Portland and the Willamette valley had emerged from ocean's waves, the mighty Columbia had been carrying down millions upon millions of boulders, gravel and sand and depositing the same in the winding estuary this side of the Sandy river. So that when W. S. Ladd undertook to bore an artesian well on the Laurelhurst tract of land now inside of Portland city limits, he bored down for twelve hundred feet through the debris which had been carried down by the river and deposited in the deep waters of the ocean, among which debris were the trunks of, large trees. The construction of the Columbia river was the most important of all the great events in the selection and building of the city of Portland. The river is the life of the city. Without the. river, the city, any city might have been here or any where else. The work of erosion by grinding out a channel, miles wide and thousands of feet deep, and thousands of miles in length, through wide-extended fields of lava rock, with rolling boulders and pebbles from the distant reaches of the water-shed behind the Selkirk, Sawtooth and Blue mountain ranges of mountains, down through Idaho, British Columbia, eastern Washington, and eastern Oregon, carrying a deep cut through the Cascade and Coast Range mountains to the ocean, may have required a hundred thousand years. But it was done. The grand and incomprehensible work of nature is before us, is building our city, is feeding and clothing millions of people, and nowhere else on the face of the globe is there to be found such a marvelous display of the destructive forces of nature employed to make a great region the comfortable home of the human race.
​And now we reach that development of the surface of the earth when it is possible for man to subsist in this region. And we find the Indian. Where did he come from? He was not created here. He was not evolved here. For not a single bone of him has ever been unearthed from the ancient sedimentary or rock deposits hereto described. From all the discoveries and investigations of science, this species of man must have started in Europe or Asia Minor. There is but one specie of man, and he could have had but one origin. There are different races of men which have been produced by environment and they each interbreed with the others. Different species of animals are not fertile with other species. This proves the one origin of all men. How then did the Indian get to America? How did he get to Portland, Oregon? He may have come over from the east coast of Asia on the last lingering floes of the glacial ice-cap, or he may have drifted across in some unfortunate canoe or elementary boat set afloat in the Pacific streams of Siberia. But how he reached this region is not so important as his character when the white man found him here.
One hundred years ago the Indian owned this whole country. He might well have sung with Robinson Crusoe:
"My right there is none to dispute;
From the center all round to the sea,
I am lord of the fowl and the brute."
He was to some extent a weaver, basket maker, canoe builder, stone ax and mortar maker, was expert in taking fish with a spear, and wild animals with the bow and arrow, whose skins he dressed for clothes and bedding. He was purely a child of nature, harbored no selfishness but the satisfaction of his immediate wants, and was quick to see the utility value of such articles of civilized life as would more efficiently serve the purposes of his simple wants than the simple instruments he then possessed. He believed in a great spirit who had made the heavens and the earth, and who had given the land and the water to all his children in common. He was the original socialist—the man who lived a socialist, fought for his lands as a socialist, and died in the belief that the white man robbed him of his God-given birthrights.
From this basis, and from small beginnings, the city of Portland has grown. The Indian had no more idea of the money value of his skins than a five year old child; as witness the instance already mentioned of his giving eight thousand dollars worth of sea otter skins for an old chisel that did not cost a dollar. In the grasp of the Indian mind he could catch more otter, but he might never have another opportunity to get a chisel, which would be more useful to him in carving a canoe out of a log than the stone ax he had made himself. But as lightly as it was esteemed by the Indian in the beginning of his bartering with the white man, the fur trade was a veritable gold mine. From the time that Captain James Hanna came over from China in a small brig of only sixty tons in the year 1785, as the pioneer fur trading ship to the northwest Pacific coast, down to the time of the discovery of the Columbia river by Gray, the number of fur trading ships numbered about fifty, and the value of the furs obtained from Indians in exchange for goods and trinkets of very trifling value must have amounted to millions of dollars. A dollar's worth of goods or trinkets, beads, fish hooks, and the like, would in the trade for furs, which would be sold in China and the proceeds invested in tea, silks or rice shipped to London or New York, bring twenty-five dollars as an average profit. Often three or four hundred dollars worth of goods would be sent out from the ship, or distributing depot, to the Indians, or trapper's camp, and there traded for furs that would sell in China for three or four thousand dollars. Bright colored calicoes, blankets, hats, axes, knives, kettles, beads, brass ornaments, and tobacco would be changed for furs at the rate of one dollar for ten or twenty, owing ​to the distance from the ship. The tobacco came from Brazil, a soggy molasses smeared leaf, twisted into a rope an inch in diameter, and sold by the inch of rope. Millions of dollars of this sort of trade was transacted in the trade region, of which this city is now the distributing point, for nearly fifty years, without a dollar of gold or silver coin or money—currency of any kind. The first merchants were fur traders; and their first customers were Indians.
The first organized effort to transact a mercantile business in the region of which Portland is now the distributing center, after the failure of Astor at Astoria, came from the great English corporation known as the Hudson Bay Company. It is true that the Northwest Fur Company, commonly called the Canadian Fur company had some stations and transacted some business in the Columbia river valley for a few years, after Astor's wreck; but it was soon absorbed and driven out by the Hudson Bay people. And as this latter company did so long rule this region and to a marked extent shape its future, it will be material to this narrative and interesting to the reader to give the origin and Oregon career of this first great organized trading monopoly of the Pacific coast.
The Hudson Bay Company was a British corporation created May 2, 1670, by royal charter from Charles II, by the grace of God King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, defender of the faith, etc., which declared:
"Whereas our dear entirely beloved cousin, Prince Rupert, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria and Cumberland; George, Duke of Albermarle; William, earl of Craven; Henry, Lord Arlington; Anthony, Lord Ashley; Sir John Robinson, and Sir Robert Vyrner, knights and baronets. Sir Peter Colleton, baronet; Sir Edward Hungerford, knight of the bath. Sir Paul Neele, Sir John Griffith, Sir Philip Carteet, and Sir James Hayes, knights, and John Kirke, Francis Millington, William Prettyman and John Portman, citizen and goldsmith of London, have, at their own great cost and charges, undertaken an expedition for the Hudson's bay in the. northwest parts of America for a discovery of a new passage into the South sea (Pacific ocean), and for the finding of some trade for furs, minerals and other commodities, and by such, their undertakings have already made such discoveries as to encourage them to proceed farther in pursuance of their said design, by means whereof there may probably arise great advantage to us and our kingdom.
"And Whereas. The said undertakers, for their further encouragement to the said design, have humbly besought us to incorporate them, and grant unto them, and their successors, the whole trade and commerce of all those seas, straits, and bays, rivers, lakes, creeks and sounds, in whatever latitude they shall be, that lie within the entrance of the straits commonly called Hudson straits, together with all the lands, countries and territories, upon the coasts and confines of the seas, straits, bays, lakes, rivers, creeks and sounds aforesaid, which are not now actually possessed by any of our subjects, or the subjects of other christian prince or state.
Now know ye. That we, being desirous to promote all endeavors that may tend to the public good of our people, and to encourage the said undertaking, have of our special grace, and mere motion, given, granted, ratified and confirmed unto our said cousin. Prince Rupert, (and the other nobilities and persons named) all and singular the most extensive rights of a private corporation, and also the sole trade and commerce of all those seas, straits, bays, rivers, lakes, creeks and sounds, in whatsoever latitude they shall be, together with all the lands and territories upon the countries, coasts and confines of the seas, bays, lakes, rivers, creeks and sounds aforesaid, together with the fishing of all sorts of fish, whales, sturgeons, and other royal fishes in the seas, bays, rivers, within the premises, and the fish therein taken together with the royalty of the sea upon the coasts, and all mines, royal as well discovered as not discovered, of gold, silver, gems and precious stones, to be found or discovered with the territories, limits and places aforesaid, and that the land be from henceforth reckoned ​and reputed as one 'of our colonies in America, called Rupert's land. And also, not only the whole, entire and only liberty, use and privilege of trading and traffic to and from the territories, limits and places aforesaid, but also the whole and entire trade and traffic to and from all havens, bays, creeks, rivers, lakes, and seas into which they shall find entrance or passage by water or land out of the territories, limits, and places aforesaid, and to and with all the natives and people, inhabitants or which shall inhabit within the territories, limits and places aforesaid, and to and with all other nations inhabitants any of the coasts adjacent to the said territories aforesaid. And do grant to the said company, that neither the said territories, limits, and places hereby granted, nor any part thereof, nor the islands, havens, ports, cities, towns, and places thereof, or therein contained shall ever be visited, frequented, or haunted by any of the subjects of us contrary to the true meaning of this grant; and any and every such person or persons who shall trade or traffic into any of such countries, territories, or limits aforesaid other than the said company and their successors, shall incur our indignation and the forfeiture and loss of all their goods, merchandise and other things whatsoever which shall be so brought into this realm of England or any dominion of the same country, to our said prohibition."
In all this monopoly of trade and commerce in all the vast region from Hudson bay west to the Pacific ocean, the charter conferred upon the company and its governors and chief factors, the sovereign rights of civil and military government of the region. Some people protest against the corporations and monopolies in the United States at the present day, not one of which has the sanction or support of the government, but every one of which is under the ban of the law. But here was a monopoly of all the trade in a region a thousand times greater in size than the country whose king created the monopoly, to which was given the right over the lives and liberties of the natives and subordinates of the chartered corporation. And all this by the grace of his most christian majesty. King Charles II. The kings of England two hundred and fifty years ago, had little conception of the rights of the common people. The whole government was run for the benefits of the king's favorites and relations; and it is no wonder that Macaulay should have said of this king: "That honor and shame to him were scarcely more than light and darkness to the blind."
Those who have not made some investigation of the subject have no idea of the vast powers and dominions of this great English corporation. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, three thousand miles, and from the Arctic ocean down to where the southern boundary is now located—a full two thousand miles, the undisputed sway of all living things for a half century, and over half of that region for more than a century. We are now all of us accustomed to think of organized governments with legislatures and laws, sworn officers and courts of justice, in connection with territorial expansion. That has been the rule under all the western extensions of American enterprise and settlement. But here in this great fur company we see an English king and his cousins and courtiers organizing in a private room, a private company, with all the powers of a responsible state government in America, and handling over to that private company a region larger than all Europe, to be ruled and exploited for their own private and exclusive use and profit for an unlimited period of time; and without any limitations or restrictions in favor of any other people or person on the face of the globe. Picture if you can, this vast empire of natural wealth in land, and all that the richest land will produce, six million square miles in extent, diversified with beautiful lakes, grand rivers, mountain ranges, fertile prairies, great forests, of matchless timber, millions of wild animals, and peopled by probably one hundred thousand native Indians, and you may have some idea of the sort of a monopoly that was set down to exploit old Oregon and all the region east and north of it except Alaska.
​If we turn to Mitchell's geography, printed in 1842, we find Oregon territory described as the most western part of the United States; and contains an area greater than that of the whole of the southern states, with an Indian population of eighty thousand. So that the dominions of the Hudson Bay Company must have been all told, larger than the whole of the United States in 1842, with a much larger Indian population than is here set down. These facts as to the vast dominions and unrestricted sovereign powers of the Hudson Bay Company, are given as an all sufficient reason to explain the anxiety of the early pioneers of Oregon as to the course of this great corporation towards these early settlers. These pioneer families of civilization could not believe that any King Charles could sell out this great country to a private monopoly trading company to be held for all time as a game preserve to produce pelts for London profits. And hence their early and unrestrainable resentment.
The original capital stock of the Hudson Bay Company was $52,500. And upon that capitalization the company declared dividends of fifty per cent, per annum. In 1690 the stock was trebled, and annual dividends of twenty-five per cent was paid. And in 1720 the stock was again trebled and on that capitalization the dividends averaged nine per cent, per annum. And by the time the Americans commenced to open farms in the Willamette valley, the capital of the company had been gradually raised up to two million dollars, on which the company was paying dividends annually varying from ten to twenty per cent, and the shares of the stock were selling at a premium of over one hundred per cent, after paying a payroll of three thousand skilled white men operating boats, posts, ships and a net work of one hundred and fifty trading posts reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Its vast business was divided up with two departments, and eight districts as follows:
Post—Fort Vancouver; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district, Columbia; Indians, 200.
Post—Umpqua; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district, Columbia; Indians, 800.
Post—Cape Disappointment; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district, Columbia; Indians, 100.
Post—Chinook Point; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district, Columbia; Indians, 100.
Post—Coweeman; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district, Columbia; Indians, 100.
Post—Champoeg; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district, Columbia; Indians, 150.
Post—Nisqually; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district, Columbia; Indians, 500.
Post—Cowlitz; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district, Columbia; Indians, 250.
Post—Fort Colville; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district, Columbia; Indians, 800.
Post—Pend d'Reille Lake; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district, Columbia; Indians, 400.
Post—Flatheads; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district, Columbia; Indians, 500.
Post—Kootenai's; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district, Columbia; Indians, 500.
Post—Okanogan; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district, Columbia; Indians, 300.
Post—Walla Walla; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district. Snake Co.; Indians, 300.
Post—Fort Hall; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district. Snake Co.; Indians, 200.
​Post—Fort Boise; locality, Oregon territory; department, Oregon; district, Snake Co.; Indians, 200.
Post—Fort Victoria; locality, Vancouver island; department, Western; district, Vancouver island; Indians, 5,000.
Post—Fort Rupert; locality, Vancouver island; department, Western; district, Vancouver island; Indians, 4,000.
Post—Nanimo; locality, Vancouver island; department, Western; district, Vancouver island; Indians, 3,000.
Post—Fort Langley; locality, Indian territory; department, western; district, Frazer river; Indians, 4,000.
Post—Fort Simpson; locality, Indian territory; department, Western; district, Northwest coast; Indians, 10,000.
Post—Fort Simpson; locality, Indian territory; department Western; district, Northern Tribes; Indians, 35,000.
Posts—Kamloops and Fort Hope; locality, Indian territory, department, Western; district, Thompson river; Indians, 2,000.
Posts—Stuart Lake, McLeod Lake, Frazer Lake, Alexandria, Fort George, Baibnes and Connolly Lake; locality, Indian territory; department. Western; district. New Caledonia; Indians, 12,000.
Considering time and circumstances the Hudson Bay Company was the most perfect commercial organization ever operated on the American continent. No phase of its vast business was neglected. No element of success, no matter how small or questionable was forgotten. There was a local governor residing in America with headquarters at York factory, with jurisdiction over all the establishments of the company, together with sixteen chief factors, twenty-nine chief traders, five surgeons, eighty-seven clerks, sixty-seven postmasters, five hundred voyageurs, besides sailors on sea-going vessels, and over two thousand common servants engaged in trapping, mechanic arts, and farming. And besides this army of skilled white men, all armed for war, if war was necessary, was the vast population of native Indians who were at all times subservient to the company, furnished nearly the whole of its business in the furs caught and traded for goods. No exact amount can of course be given if its wide extended business, reaching from Hudson bay to the Pacific ocean, but an accounting by the company to its stockholders for four years commencing with 1834 and ending 1838 is interesting, as showing the vast business done, as follows:
| | 1834 | 1835 | 1836 | 1837 | Total |
| Beaver | 98,288 | 79,908 | 46,063 | 82,927 | 307,186 |
| Martin | 64,490 | 61,005 | 52,749 | 156,118 | 334,362 |
| Otter | 22,303 | 15,487 | 8,432 | 15,934 | 62,156 |
| Silver fox | 1,063 | 910 | 471 | 2,147 | 4,592 |
| Other foxes | 8,876 | 8,710 | 1,924 | 822,086 | 342,361 |
| Muskrat | 649,192 | 1,111,616 | 160,906 | 738,549 | 2,660,263 |
| Bear | 7,457 | 4,127 | 1,715 | 8,763 | 22,062 |
| Ermine | 491 | | | | 491 |
| Fisher | 5,296 | 2,479 | 1,327 | 6,115 | 15,117 |
| Lynx | 14,255 | 9,990 | 3,762 | 31,887 | 59,894 |
| Mink | 25,100 | 17,809 | 12,218 | 27,150 | 82,277 |
| Wolf | 8,484 | 3,722 | 307 | 7,301 | 19,544 |
| Badger | 1,000 | 698 | 201 | 754 | 2,662 |
| Swan | 7,918 | 4,703 | 12 | 6,660 | 19,233 |
| Raccoon | 713 | 522 | 99 | 585 | 1,191 |
Making a grand total of twenty-three million, four hundred and eighteen thousand, one hundred and nine animals destroyed in four years. If we multiply those figures by ten, we get an approximate estimate of the total destruction of animal life by this great company in the forty years of its hey-day of pros​perity. Think of the great natural wealth of a region that could stand the destruction of two hundred and thirty millions of wild creatures by a single fur company in forty years.
As may readily be seen, the power and influence of this company over the condition and future relations of the country it ruled over was absolute and invincible. It was operated for profits solely. The young men were encouraged to take wives from among native women for no other purpose than to give them power and influence with the Indians, to get their furs and prevent anybody else from getting them. Alcholic liquors were used to a certain extent, and by some factors more than others. Chief Factor Dr. McLoughlin of the Oregon department has a record of great care and prudence not only in handling the natives, but in not demoralizing them with stimulants. And when we consider the wide extended power and influence of this company, the wonder is that the American emigration to this country ever got a foothold at all.
Such was the beginning of trade and commerce in the Columbia river valley. Many people hastily conclude that such a trade was a trifling matter. But such a conclusion is not based upon a consideration of the facts. The fur trade is now foreign to the great mass of our people. But not so ninety years ago. It was a great business then, and it is a great business yet. The city of St. Louis is now the headquarters of the fur trade of the United States; and it will strike the reader with surprise to learn that there are over five hundred thousand people in the United States who now, today, make their living trapping and dressing the furs and skins of wild animals.
And no matter how much we may condemn the Hudson Bay Company for holding the country solely for furs, and working the Indian to discourage American fur traders, there is a silver lining to even that cloud, as we shall see later on. The Hudson bay men got along with the Indians, prevented bloody wars, like those that ravaged the Ohio valley and visited upon the pioneer settlers on the Ohio a thousand more terrors than ever troubled the pioneer Oregonians, by skillfully turning the sexual instinct of the race to the work of peace with the savages, and profits to the corporation. The company encouraged its employees to take wives from among the native women. There was but little thought and less solemnity in but very few cermonials of that kind. But it served the purposes of the company, satisfied the instincts of nature and formed a bond of confidence and peace between the two races camping in the wilderness. To the phlegmatic John Jacob Astor, or the more refined Wilson Price Hunt, or the still more select Lieutenant Bonneville, all of whom tried their fortunes at fur trading in this region, such a proposition as promiscuous marriages with the natives would have appeared as an impracticable proposition. In the settlement of the Ohio, and in fact of all the Atlantic state regions, intermarriages with the natives as a custom was looked upon with horror; notwithstanding the romantic unions of Pocahontas and others equally well authenticated. When the Hudson bay traders organized their company, they found the Canadian Frenchmen already in the business of taking furs from the St. Lawrence to the head of the great lakes. The Frenchman set the pace with the Indians. And whatever he might have been on the boulevards of Paris, he was not at all fastidious in the wilds of America, when it came to living with, camping with and managing wild Indians, to trap for furs and put the good francs in his pocket. And we very soon see in the history of the French in the fur trade of North America, that the trapper's wife was nearly always a native woman. The custom worked well with the French. They profited in the fur trade and in the main preserved the peace with the Indians; and the Hudson Bay Company adopted the tactics of their rivals for a rich trade and eventually drove them from the field.
The Hudson Bay Company produced many forceful, useful and distinquished men. They had not the culture of the colleges, or the polish of so-called polite society. But they accomplished far more for mankind and for civilization than all the college men who have walked in their steps since their day.
​They governed a wilderness empire filled with more natural wealth than any other equal territory in the world. They successfully managed a population of two hundred thousand wild Indians, which but for their tact, perseverance, and courage would have been two hundred thousand murdering savages. And while it is true they did not look forward to the fruits of labor which might bestow upon them offices, honors and distinctions, which the wilderness could not confer, they sacrificed pride and ambition to faithfully and loyally serve their employer, looking only to the present and to their salary for reward; and still none the less, performed so great a work in moulding and controlling the character and natural bent of the Indians as to make the eventual settlement of the country an easy conquest over native savagery. The gradual and comparatively easy substitution of civilization in all the vast territory once ruled by the Hudson Bay Company, as compared with the stern and relentless warfare which greeted and decimated the Scotch-Irish and Virginian pioneers who settled the Ohio valley sixty years prior, is little less than a miracle in the development of the west. If any one will turn to the history of the settlement of the states of Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee and see with what nameless horrors, indescribable tortures and devilish savagery the Indians in that country fought the white settlers, they will see that the old Oregon Indians were peaceful men, by comparison. All the Indian wars of Oregon put together would not make three years actual warfare. And in all of it, so far as can be learned, there were but few prisoners put to torture by the Indians. But from the time Daniel Boone crossed over the Alleghany mountains and settled on the lonely wilds of Kentucky in 1769, down to the great battle with the Indians October 5, 1813, when their great leader and hero Tecumseh was killed, over forty years, there was almost continuous warfare with the Indians of the Ohio valley. Warfare, characterized by all the horrible tortures which the devilsh ingenuity of the savage could imagine, and of which slow burning at the stake, with burnings arrows thrust into the eyes of the helpless victims was the least horrible.
Let the impartial reader contrast the settler's experience in the Ohio valley, with the Indian wars of Oregon, and then thank such a man as John McLoughlin and Peter Skene Ogden that our pioneer fathers and mothers of Oregon were spared the trials and sufferings which their fathers and mothers passed through in reclaiming Ohio, Missouri and other eastern states from their savage foes.
The Indians of the vast Hudson bay provinces did not lack the courage or the brains of the Indians of the Ohio valley. Neither did they lack natural resources to make effective opposition to the advances of the white man. They were simply managed and kept quiet until effective opposition was impracticable. The men who did this great work for Oregon, no matter what their motive was, deserve a large space in the history of this state and of this city. It cannot be pretended that they managed the Indians for the purpose of making them accept the rule of the white man in the establishment of civil society. It may be truly said they builded wiser than they knew, but for all they performed, all they accomplished, and all their labors to tame the red man, let us give them generous recognition and deserved honors. And while it is not within the purview of this history to give extended biographical notice in this volume, yet for the purpose of more perfectly showing the kind and character of men who ruled this vast region of old Oregon, in that age and era of thought and development which is wholly unlike and altogether foreign to the thought and civilization of the present, we give one example of a man who is of all others, the most perfect type of those who served the vast work of the Hudson Bay Company, and swayed the destinies of the Indian population of this region—Peter Skene Ogden. And for this purpose we make liberal use of a very able and painstaking address delivered before the Oregon Historical Society by Mr. T. C. Elliott of Walla Walla:
"Peter Skene Ogden was born in the city of Quebec, in the year of 1794, the exact date not yet having been traced. His father was then a judge in the admiralty court at Quebec and a leading U. E. Loyalist of Canada. His mother ​was Sarah Hanson Ogden from Livingston Manor near New York city, a sister of Captain John Wilkinson Hanson, of the British army. His grandfather was Judge David Ogden, of Newark, N. J., a graduate of Yale college in the class of 1728.
"Judge Isaac Ogden, the father of Peter Skene, graduated from Kings college, now Columbia university of New York city. During the revolution the family split, Isaac and two other brothers becoming royalists. Isaac lost his property by confiscation and fled to New York, and from there to England, in 1783, but in 1788 was by King George III appointed to a judgeship in Canada. Soon after the birth of Peter Skene, he was promoted to be puisne judge at Montreal, and removed there. Of the two brothers who espoused the side of the colonies, Abraham became a close adviser to General Washington, and his house at Morristown was the headquarters at one time. He was a prominent attorney, and was appointed district attorney for New Jersey by President Washington. The other, Samuel, purchased land in northern New York, and colonized it, and founded the city of Ogdensburg.
"Peter Skene was educated in a private family, but early in life began his career in the fur trade as a clerk in the office of John Jacob Astor, at Montreal. He also began the study of law and acquired some knowledge of legal phrases. But in 181 1, at the age of seventeen, obtained a position as clerk with the Northwest Company, probably through his brother, who was a prominent attorney for that company. He was located until 1718 at Isle a La Crosse fort m southern Athabasca. This locality takes its name from the game of La Crosse, which the Indians there were playing, when first discovered. He participated in many exciting events in the region of Isle a La Crosse. Ross Cox gives a very interesting description of him there.
"In 1818 he was transferred to the Columbia, and arrived at tort George (Astoria) in June. On the way he had an encounter with the Indians at the Walla Walla river, and perhaps assisted in the building of the fort of that name that summer. He spent two years with trapping parties in the Cowlitz and Chehalis and Willapa neighborhoods, with headquarters at Fort George, and the next two years at the interior forts of Spokane and Flathead. In the fall of 1822, he went to Canada, and that winter to London; called there by the ill health of his father and the merger of the two fur companies. In the summer of 1823, he returned to the Columbia in charge of the fall express from York factory on the Hudson's bay. He had by this time acquired an interest in the company.
"In the fall of 1824 he was at Spokane house when Governor Simpson and Dr. McLoughlin arrived from across the mountains and was assigned to take charge of the Snake country brigade, which started on the annual trading and trapping expedition in December of that year. They reached the Snake country by the Bitter Root valley and Gibbon pass, in the dead of winter. Here remained m charge of the Snake brigade for five seasons, and the sixth season that of 1829-30, led the brigade along the eastern side of the Sierras to the gulf of California. During this period he explored many localities not before known to white men especially central and southern Oregon, and Nevada and western Utah, and suffered many hardships and dangers. His name had been permanently attached to the river and city in Utah, and the Humboldt river was called Ogden s river for many years. He named Mount Shasta on one of his expeditions. He had been promoted to be chief trader in 1824.
"Returning from California in the fall of 1830 he found himself named to command the expedition to the coast of British Columbia, where the Yankee vessels were getting too much trade, but the sickness of the servants at Fort Vancouver delayed the expedition until April, 1831. That year he bui t the fort at the Nass river, near to where Port Simpson is now located. The following years he located a post on Milbank sound, and in 1834 attempted to enter the Stikine river to build a fort within the thirty mile limit, but the Russian-American Fur ​Company officials objected, and he thought best not to force a passage. That fall he returned to Fort Vancouver.
"The following spring he was promoted to a chief factorship, the second on the Columbia, and placed in charge of the New Caledonia district, with six forts under his charge, with Headquarters at Fort St. James on Lake Stuart. There he remained until the spring of 1844, and was eminently successful in the management of the district, bringing in furs to the value of $100,000 to Fort Vancouver every spring. He was during this time, made a member of the board of management of the Columbia district, which met at Fort Vancouver every year.
"In 1844, he crossed the mountains on a year's leave of absence, and visited Canada and Europe, and returned in the summer of 1845, in charge of the Warre-Vavasour party, to the Columbia, in behalf of the British government. From that time he became the factor closest to the confidence of Colonial Governor, Simpson, and in many ways succeeded Dr. McLoughlin, who retired from Fort Vancouver in 1846. After James Douglas moved to Victoria in 1849, Mr. Ogden was in full charge of the Columbia up to the time of his death. The year 1852 he spent in Canada and New York and vicinity, and visited Washington to present claims of the company for advances during the Cayuse war, and assisted Governor Simpson in business matters there. Returning by way of the Isthmus of Panama in the winter of 1853, he was a passenger on the Tennessee, which was wrecked on the California coast, near Telegraph Rock, in March, and by some exertion or exposure, then contracted or aggravated some disease that caused his death. He died at the home of his favorite daughter, Mrs. Archibald McKinlay of Oregon city, in September, 1854, at the age sixty years. The Rev. St. Michael Fackler, officiated at his burial in the Mountain view cemetery of that city, where his grave may be seen, a wild rose bush its only adornment, and the shining peak of Mt. Hood, his only monument.
"Peter Skene Ogden was twice married to native women .(according to fur company custom.) His first wife was a Cree, and his second a Spokane woman. The latter resided with him for several years at Fort Vancouver, and afterward at Oregon city, where a house was built for her on the McKinlay donation claim. During his last illness, Dr. McLoughlin visited Mr. Ogden, and urged him to have a legal ceremony performed, but Mr. Ogden refused saying that his open support of, and companionship with this wife for many years counted for more than any mere words a clergyman might utter.
"The service for which Peter Skene Ogden is best known in Oregon was his ransom of the survivors of the Whitman massacre in December, 1847. It is probable that no other man, with the possible exception of Dr. Robert Newell, of Champoeg, could have accomplished this rescue. The Indians had known Mr. Ogden for more than thirty years, and knew that he always kept his word, and they trusted him. But he was careful to make them no promises, and not to upbraid them for what their Indian nature had made inevitable. He himself was not so very fond of the 'Missionarying,' as he called it, but had great admiration for Mrs. Whitman. He was known to the Indians during his later years as the Old White-Head. During his management at Fort Vancouver, he came to be generally known by the whites as Governor Ogden. He never became a citizen of the United States, but described himself in his will as of Montreal, Canada."
There are few instances in history where a man has filled so large a page in dealing with the native races of men as that of Peter Skene Ogden. And ther are none where greater patience, successful management and supreme courage were manifested. Dr. John McLoughlin whose great career will be set forth in another chapter, occupied a higher station than Ogden, and he had a greater part in managing the business of the company, but he says he was not so greatly ​tried in the open field, the deep forest on dangerous missions over extensive and successful explorations, and for these reasons he occupies relatively a different position in the evolutionary program of old Oregon, and is for the reasons,stated a more perfect type of the real Hudson bay trapper, director, captain and pioneer.
The land question was at the bottom of all the troubles with the Indians. And the land question will be at the bottom of all the trouble among the Americans. The Hudson Bay Company did not seek to monopolize land for cultivation or sale. It only sought to preserve the wilderness as a vast fur bearing game preserve. This disposition of the land coincided exactly with the ideas of the Indian, and as the company brought goods and trinkets for exchange for his furs, the Indian was happy and welcomed that sort of a white man to his tepe and his confidence. But not so with the American. He came hunting new lands for farms and homes, clearing away the forest and driving away the game—the natural food support of the Indians. With the single exception of Penn's experiment in buying the lands of the Indian in Pennsylvania, the contest between the white man and the Indian on the American continent has been one of opposition and violence, and the cause of the trouble, the possession of the land.
All the Indians from the Atlantic to the Pacific were possessed with the same socialistic idea of land ownership. And while neighboring tribes would war with each other for favorite hunting grounds, yet to- the white man all of them presented the same unyielding front on the land question. This view of the land question was never more forcibly or clearly set forth than by the Indian chief Tecumseh, of the territory of Indiana. When General Harrison was appointed govenor of Indiana territory in 1801, he tried to secure a permanent peace with the warlike Indians of that region, of which Tecumseh was the great warrior and leader. And to promote this end, he invited Tecumseh and other chiefs to visit him at old Vincennes. Tecumseh accepted the invitation and was attended by a number of other chiefs. The governor proposed to hold the conference on the portico of his residence, but Tecumseh declined to meet there, and proposed a nearby grove, saying: "The earth is my mother, and on her bosom will I repose." And in the speech following, Tecumseh said "that the Great Spirit had given this great island (America) to his red children and had put the whites on the other side of the water. The whites, not contented with their own, had taken that of the red men. They had driven the Indians from the sea to the lakes, and the Indians could go no further. The whites had taken upon themselves to say that this land belongs to the Miamis, this to the Delawares, and so on. The Great Spirit intended the land as the common property of all."
"Since the peace we formerly made," he continued, "you have killed some Shawnees, Winnebagoes, Delawares and Miamis, and you have taken our land from us. and I do not see how we can remain at peace if you continue to do so. You try to force the red people to do some injury. It is you that are pushing them on to do mischief. You endeavor to make distinctions. You wish to prevent the Indians from doing as they wish to do—unite and to consider their land as the common property of the whole. By your distinction of Indian tribes in alloting to each a particular tract of land you want them to make war with one another."
"Brother, this land that was sold to you was sold only by a few. If you continue to purchase our lands this way, it will produce war among the different tribes. Brother, you should take pity on the red people, and return to them a little of the land of which they have been plundered. The Indian has been honest in his dealings with you, but how can we have confidence in the white people? When Jesus Christ came on earth, you killed him and nailed him to the cross. You thought he was dead, but you were mistaken. You have many religions, and you persecute and ridicule those who do not agree with you. The Shakers are good people. You have Shakers among you, but you laugh and make light of their worship. You are counseled by bad birds. I speak nothing but the truth to you."
​And as Tecumseh reflected the ideas of all the Indians, east of the Rocky mountains, so we find also the same ideas prevailing among those west of the Rockies.
At the council with the Indians at Walla Walla to secure a treaty for the Indian title to their lands, several chiefs spoke freely, showing, that they not only well understood the position of the land question, but their great fear of giving up their lands. Lawyer, the old Nez Perce chief spoke first, describing how the Indians in the eastern states were driven back before the white men, and then went on as follows:
"The red man traveled away farther, and from that time they kept traveling away further, as the white people came up with them. And this man's people (pointing to a Delaware Indian, who was one of the interpreters) are from that people. They have come on from the Great Lakes where the sun rises, until they are near us now, at the setting sun. And from that country, somewhere from the center, came Lewis and Clark, and that is the way the white people traveled and came on here to my forefathers. They passed through our country, they became acquainted with our country and all our streams, and our forefathers used them well, as well as they could, and from the time of Columbus, from the time of Lewis and Clark, we have known you, my friends; we poor people have known you as brothers."
Governor Stevens.—"We have now the hearts of the Nez Perces through their chief. Their hearts and our hearts are one. We want the hearts of the other tribes through their chiefs."
Young Chief, of the Cayuse.—(He was evidently opposed to the treaty but grounded his objections on two arguments. The first was, they had no right to sell the ground which God had given for their support unless for some good reasons.)—"I wonder if the ground has anything to say? I wonder if the ground is listening to what is said? I wonder if the ground would come alive and what is on it? Though I hear what the ground says. The ground says: Tt is the Great Spirit that placed me here. The Great Spirit tells me to take care of the Indians, to feed them aright. The Great Spirit appointed the roots to feed the Indians on.' The water says the same thing. 'The Great Spirit directs me. Feed the Indians well.' The grass says the same thing. 'Feed the horses and cattle.The ground, water and grass say, 'The Spirit has given us our names. We have these names and hold these names. Neither the Indians or whites have a right to change those names.' The ground says, 'The Great Spirit has placed me here to produce all that grows on me, trees and fruit.' The same way the ground says, 'It was from me man was made.' The Great Spirit, in placing men on the earth desired them to take good care of the ground and to do each other no harm. The Great Spirit said, 'You Indians who take care certain portions of the country, should not trade it off except you get a fair price.'"
"The Indians are blind. This is the reason we do not see the country well. Lawyer sees clear. This is the reason why I don't know anything about this country. I do not see the offer you have made to us yet. If I had the money in my hand I should see. I am, as it were, blind. I am blind and ignorant. I have a heart, but cannot say much. This is the reason why the chiefs do not understand each other right, and stand apart. Although I see your offer before me, I do not understand it and I do not take it. I walk as it were in the dark, and cannot therefore take hold of what I do not see. Lawyer sees, and he takes hold. When I come to understand your propositions, I will take hold. I do not know when. This is all I have to say."
General Palmer.—"I would enquire whether Pe-pe-mox-mox or Young Chief has spoken for the Umatillas? I wish to know farther, whether the Umatillas are of the same heart?
Owhi, Umatilla Chief.—"We are together and the Great Spirit hears all that we say today. The Great Spirit gave us the land and measured the land to us, ​this is the reason I am afraid to say anything about the land. I am afraid of the laws of the Great Spirit. This is the reason of my heart being sad. This is the reason I cannot give you an answer. I am afraid of the Great Spirit. Shall I steal this land and sell it, or what shall I do? This is the reason why my heart is sad. The Great Spirit made our friends, but the Great Spirit made our bodies from the earth, as if they were different from the whites. What shall I do? Shall I give the land which is a part of my body and leave myself poor and destitute? Shall I say I will give you my land? I cannot say so. I am afraid of the Great Spirit. I love my life. The reason why I do not give my land away is, I am afraid I will be sent to hell. I love my friends. I love my life. This is' the reason why I do not give my land away. I have one word more to say. My people are far away. They do not know your words. This is the reason I cannot give you an answer. I show you my heart. This is all I have to say."
As explanatory of the trouble which led to the Whitman massacre, and to the wars with the Oregon Indians, Mrs. Victor in her history of the Indian wars of Oregon says, page 29, "The real cause of ill feeling between the Indians and their Protestant teachers was the continued misunderstanding, concerning the ownership of land, and the accumulation of property. No one had appeared to purchase the lands occupied by the missions; nor had any ships arrived with Indian goods and farming implements for their benefit, as had been promised."
Both the missionaries and the settlers had located in the Indian country and proceeded to build houses and cultivate the land as if the Indian had no title. That indeed was the way the white man had viewed the question from the first settlement in America. They who came from civilized Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries found the American continent peopled by tribes without cultivation, literature and refinement, or fixed habitations. They considered the Indians mere savages, having no rightful claim to the country of which they were in possession. Every European nation had deeemd it had secured a lawful and just claim to any part of the American continent which any of its subjects had discovered, without any regard to the prior occupation and claims of the Indians. And even in much later times, and by the highest court this view was affirmed as good law, by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1810, delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States (Cranch's Reports, Vol. 6, page 142) held, that the Indian title to the soil is not of such a character or validity as to interfere with the possession in fee, of the disposal of the land as the state may see fit.
It takes a long time to correct an erroneous principle of fundamental law, and a still longer time to beat down a race prejudice. The nation has had to spend billions of dollars and sacrifice almost millions of lives to extinguish the heresy that neither the black man or the red man had any rights the white man was bound to respect. And while our Nation has finally arrived at the full standard of giving justice and equity to all men, without respect of persons, the great nations of Europe are still enforcing their ideas of two hundred years ago upon the weaker peoples of Asia and Africa to maintain privilege and power by taxation without representation. The decision of the Supreme Court in 1810 did not pass unchallenged. Justice Story in his exposition of the Constitution, page 13, says: "As to countries in the possession of native tribes at the time of the discovery, it seems difficult to perceive what right of title any discovery could confer. It would seem strange to us, if, in the present times, the natives of the South Sea islands should by making a voyage to and discovery of the United States, on that account set up a right to this country. The truth is, that the European nations paid not the slightest regards to the rights of the native tribes. They treated them as barbarians that they were at liberty to destroy. They might convert them to Christianity, and if they refused to be converted, they might drive them from their homes, as unworthy to inhabit the country. Their real object was to extend their own power and increase their own wealth, by ​acquiring the treasures as well as the territory of the New World. Avarice and ambition were at the bottom of all their enterprises."
Seventy-five years after this criticism by Justice Story, Theodore Roosevelt in his Winning of the West, treats this question somewhat differently, saying, "Looking back, it is easy to say that much of the wrong doing (to the Indians) could have been prevented, but if we examine the facts to find out the truth, we are bound to admit that the struggle (between whites and Indians) was really one that could not possibly have been avoided. Unless we were willing to admit that the whole continent west of the Alleghanies should remain an unpeopled waste, the hunting grounds of savages, war was inevitable. And even had we been willing and had refrained from encroaching on the Indians lands, the war would have come, nevertheless, for then the Indians themselves would have encroached on ours. The Indians had no ownership in the land as we understand that term. Undoubtedly the Indians have often suffered terrible injustice at our hands. The conduct of the Georgians towards the Cherokees, and the treatment of Chief Joseph and Nez Perces in Oregon, may be mentioned as indelible blots on our fair fame."
But what has all this to do with the history of Portland? A very great deal. It throws light on the great drama of settlement of this regio^n of Old Oregon, of which Portland is the center and chief city. It explains the massacre of Dr. Marcus Whitman and family, about which more has been written than any other one subject in the history of the Northwest.
The Americans made a great mistake in assuming when they came to this country, that the Indians had no rights to the land which they ought to respect. The missionaries who came professing to be the best friends to the Indians, were as much to blame as those who made no pretense of religion. It was a fatal mistake to think the Indians had no ideas on this first of all questions. They knew nothing of the practice of European nations or of the decisions of courts. All the guide they had was the light of nature, and that first and greatest of all laws—self-preservation. The Indian never troubled himself to inquire into what he could not comprehend. He did not launch into conjecture or give rein to imagination. His puerile mind followed the glimmering light which had led his forefathers. He saw that he must, like the deer and the buffalo, live on the land; and that if another man crowded him off it he must die. Here he was where his ancestors had lived untold ages. He knew no other place. He was familiar with the Hudson Bay man, who wanted nothing but the furry skins of dead animals. He understood that proposition. The H. B. man deprived him of nothing, but bought the pelt he had for sale, and that was a positive gain. But the American was a different man. He came preaching peace and good will to all men, but he took up land, raised crops, built mills, bred domestic animals, sold the produce of the land for money to put in his pocket. There was no gain to the Indian in that, but a positive loss,—the loss of land. And worse, than this; where there was one American in 1842, there were hundreds in 1843; and then hosts more coming. He had heard from the wandering Iroquois how the white man came as flocks of wild geese come and covered the prairies of Indiana, Illinois and other states. The Indian was terrified at the thought of losing his land, him home, his mother; and so he acted.
We are now able to give for the first time in history, the first authentic account of the first great Indian council held west of the Rocky mountains by the Indians, of old Oregon. We print on another page the photograph of Timotsk, an aged Indian, a chief of the Klickitats, who was a member of that council. This council was held near where Fort Simcoe is located in the Yakima valley. Indian messengers had been sent out by the Cayuses to all other tribes in the Columbia river region, and chiefs had come in from the Nez Perces, Spokanes, Shoshones, Walla Walla, Wascoes, Umatillas, Cayuses, Klickitats and Yakimas. Timotsk says they were in council for "A whole moon;" that is about a month; and that there were about fifty chiefs in attendance. They talked ​from day to day as to what course they should pursue against the white men. The burden of all their fears and complaints were against the Americans; and was summed up in the belief that these white men would come more and more every year and finally take all their lands and hunting grounds from them; that they were even now killing and driving away all the deer, and that after a while the Indians would have nothing to eat and must die. The Yakimas, Cayuses, Walla Wallas and some of the Spokanes advocated killing off all the Americans at once. The Nez Perces, Wascoes, Umatillas and Klickitats opposed this course, saying that the white men had good guns to fight with and would easily kill off the Indians who had but a few guns and must fight mostly with bows and arrows.
After this council broke up, Timotsk came down to Vancouver and got employment of Dr. McLoughlin as a boatman in which work he continued for many years. He speaks of McLoughlin as a good man, a father to everybody, whites and Indians alike. As soon after this council had broken up and the measles broke out among the Indians at the Whitman mission. Dr. Whitman and family were massacred, 'Whitman would have been killed all the same if no sickness had occurred, as he was blamed by the Indians for going back over the mountains and bringing more white men out to Oregon. The Cayuses made it plain at the council that they would go on the war path and kill all the whites they could. And that is what they did do.
During the Indian war of 1855 and 56 Portland was the supply point for all the forces in the field against the Indians in the Columbia river valley. Volunteers and U. S. Regulars were frequently marching through the streets on their way to the front. A general military camp and headquarters was maintained in East Portland and the U. S. officers with the Oregon volunteer officers, Colonels Nezmith, Kelly and Cornelius, were frequently seen on the streets marching the volunteer forces through the streets armed with muskets, yagers, shot guns, etc., and clad according to their own private wardrobes, making Portland look exceedingly warlike. Little Phil Sheridan, then a Lieutenant, but afterwards the greatest cavalry leader of the Union army, that ended the Rebellion, was among the fighters of the early day, but his budding greatness and national fame was then never imagined.