Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1882-02-17
American Settlement of Oregon.
Establishment of the Oregon Mission,
under The Au.pic.'s Of the American
Board "I Commissioners o. to,-i.s.
Missions,



The status of the several cl .mnnts
of population within the hostile re-
g.on has HOW been fully exhibited.
The Americans expelled from th'
country, the Protestant Mis- sion at
an end. The officers and servants
Of the Hudson's Bay Compa , and
the CIhol:c priests with aaict, t.
maiu i'll the country.
While many ciuscs for this cnor-
NIFTY are alleged, tn prctcXt ;llr"cl-
ly melting the massacre was:
Several families of the overland
migration of lS4i, reached the Vail
latpu, station, members of whom
were sick with measles and dy=en-
terry. Stopping FOX the winter, As a
consequence, the former disease
broke out wi Ii considerable fatality
among the Indians. Those who
adopt the Indian remedy OF the
sweating oven, followed by the
planging into the river, invariably
died. OF the number who applied
to d.. Whi'mar, several cases proved
fatal.
By Indian custom, tie moGicinu-
man furicits his lie to tie kindred of
! the patient, K dealt: cn,ucs. Al
thon.A il h3@ acver been claimed
;hat the if.i;1h4 cXactcl this penal
& as TO DR.. Whitman, still by their
sEpersiitions tenets he was regarded
as instrumental! in comprising the
deaths which occurred. Again, the
Doctor, anroy~d by wolves rrtying
upon his stock, had set out poisoned
bait FOR their destruction, which the
Indians finding had eaten with fatal
results Thus ,hcy learned and pre-
tended to believe that the Doctor
could sickcn or kill by all of his
Jn1 mrdici,r%. This being their
state of mind, it was an easy task for
Joe Lewis to iuilamo them by his
stories that he had overheard the
plottinGs together of DR.. Whitman,
his amiable Christian wife and the
Rev II. II. Spalding, III which they
had resolved to gcJ rid of the Indi
ans by poison, and thereby secure
their lands ana their horses.
Had DR.. Whitman alone been
killed, his murderer laboring under
4 do:uSion tr superstition that he
was q bal n'fit"jHc-m,U, Il Voisoncr
OF Indians, such might be accepted
as the motive ot the act. But the
Indians on that day made no such
discrimination. They slaughte!c
those who we've unsupported of az
mclltatcd wrong, SICK men, a"d
those who had but recently come 10
the station, just from the East, rno
Were intending 20 g on to the
Wallamet. Instead Of combining
their murdcrOus ar:i 10 those who
had thus been. accused of meditat-
ing or plac.ic!ng tnpir wrong, all
the havoc and coHcomitants of saw
| age wArf. II were let loose upon a
certain nationality, against which
war was thereafter to be waged. In
accordance with the customs of In
dian warfare, tho wo,lon and chill
dren had been capture alive The
fuci had been accumula :lg foryears.
The pile of intiamable Material en-
braced jealousy of a superior race,
opposed to the occupancy, /. e., the
permanent settlement in the coun-
try, of Americans; bias in favor of
the Hudson's Bay Co. employee, or
King George, the natural result of
quarter intercourse with
the posts, and in corresponding de-
gree Il suspicion against the Ameri-
can or Boston, the presence of d.
verse not to say hostile religious
systems, Doctor Whitman's avowed
policy and his direct agency in ell
couraging American settlement in
the country. His profession as a
doctor of medicine rendered him
measurably an object of awe to the
Indian, and by their ritual made him
amenable for the life of patients act
ually attended, while others more
superstitious and ignorant believed
or pretended to believe that he was
instrumental III causing contagious
disorder to be spread among them.
This mass of combustibles was readi-
ly fired by n ruthless incendiary, who
acquired prestige with the Indian
because he was 4 member of the
Doctors household. All this in
huence operated to create that AMI
mus towards Americans, the motive
for breaking up the mission and to
expel the Americans from the coun-
tly. The massacre was an outburst
of national hostility and hate against
Americans. Waiilatpu and its
peaceful unarmed inmates had been
doomed because it was an American
missionary siation-because it was
the home of Americans. The Whit
man Massacre was an Indian raid by
the hostile Cayuses against the
American inmates of that station.
The immediate sequel of the mas
sacre was bitter controversy be-
tween the Protestant and Roman
Catholic settlers of Oregon. Many |
claimed to believe that the Cayuses
had been melted thereto by the
agency of servants of the Hudson's |
Bay Co. That company almost
exclusively occupied the interior. in
which the mission of the American
Board had its several stations, and
by its matchless Indian policy had
acquired perfect control of the H.
dians. The horror of Waiilatpu
was accredited by many as the di-
rect result of anti-American COM
bined with anti-Protestant influences,
Time, alike modifying sectarian rant
Cor and national prejudice, has miti-i
gated such suspicious, which arc
without any evidence to warrant
them, and are chronicled as among
the most unhappy concomitants of
that terrible crime.
1t is plain that the introduction
of q religion in direct conflict with