A History of Oregon, 1792-1849

Since the above disclosures were made, a few other facts have come to light, which, however, do not materially affect the character of these atrocities. Mr. John McLaughlin, Jr., was doubtless intemperate, reckless, and tyrannical, and often unnecessarily cruel in the punishments inflicted upon his men; but he was surrounded by a set of desperadoes, who, for months before the arrival of the night, during the darkness of which the fatal shot ushered him into the presence of his Judge, had been seeking an opportunity to rob him of life. Some time before this event, he flogged Peter for the crime of stealing fish. Peter was exceedingly angry, and resolved upon the destruction of his master. At a time to suit his purpose, he went to the bastion, where were fire-arms, loaded to his hands, and rung the bell of alarm, with the intention of shooting Mr. McLaughlin when he should make his appearance. A man by the name of Perse came out to see what was the matter, instead of the intended victim, when Peter fired, but missed him, the ball hitting a post near his head. For this offense, Peter was again seized, put in irons, and subsequently severely flogged, and liberated. Nearly all the men had been flogged from time to time, for various offenses, and all conspired against the life of their master. As might have been expected, when the case was examined by Sir George Simpson, the murderers attempted to cast all the odium upon Mr. McLaughlin, doubtless for the purpose of exculpating themselves, in which attempt they but too well succeeded, in the estimation of Sir George. Whether the persons who procured his death would be pronounced, by an intelligent jury, guilty of willful murder, or whether, from the mitigating circumstances connected with these transactions, the verdict should assume a more modified form, is not for me to determine. But it can not be denied by any one, that the circumstances must be indeed extraordinary that will justify any man, or set of men, to cut short the probation of an immortal being, and usher him, with all his unrepented sins, into the presence of his God.

This account illustrates English and Hudson’s Bay Company’s dealings with Indians, and their treatment of men and murderers, both among the Indians and their own people.

We are forced to acknowledge that we can not see the correctness of moral principle in Mr. Hine’s conclusions. There was unquestionably a premeditated and willful murder committed by the men at that fort. We can understand the motives of Sir George Simpson and Mr. Douglas, in allowing those men to escape the penalty of their crime, from the amount of pecuniary interests involved, and the personal jealousy existing against Dr. McLaughlin and his sons, in the company’s service. We know of jealousies existing between Mr. Simpson and John McLaughlin, Jr., on account of statements made in our presence at the breakfast-table, that were only settled temporarily, while at Vancouver. These statements, and the placing of this young son of the doctor’s at that post, we are satisfied had their influence in acquitting his murderers, if they did not in bringing about the murder, which to us appears plain in the testimony; and we so expressed our opinion, when the father requested us (while in his office) to examine a copy of those depositions. We have no hesitancy in saying, that we believe it to have been a malicious murder, and should have sent the perpetrators to the gallows. We have never been able to learn of the trial of any one implicated.

CHAPTER VII

Treatment of Indians. – Influence of Hudson’s Bay Company. – Rev. Mr. Barnley’s statement. – First three years. – After that. – Treatment of Jesuits. – Of Protestants. – Of Indians. – Not a spade to commence their new mode of life. – Mr. Barnley’s statement. – Disappointed. – His mistake. – Hudson’s Bay Company disposed to crush their own missionaries.

Rev. Mr. Beaver says of them: “About the middle of the summer of 1836, and shortly before my arrival at Fort Vancouver, six Indians were wantonly and gratuitously murdered by a party of trappers and sailors, who landed for the purpose from one of the company’s vessels, on the coast somewhere between the mouth of the river Columbia and the confines of California. Having on a former occasion read the particulars of this horrid massacre, as I received them from an eye-witness, before a meeting of the Aborigines Society, I will not repeat them. To my certain knowledge, the circumstance was brought officially before the authorities of Vancouver, by whom no notice was taken of it; and the same party of trappers, with the same leader, one of the most infamous murderers of a murderous fraternity, are annually sent to the same vicinity, to perform, if they please, other equally tragic scenes. God alone knows how many red men’s lives have been sacrificed by them since the time of which I have been speaking. He also knows that I speak the conviction of my mind, and may he forgive me if I speak unadvisedly when I state my firm belief that the life of an Indian was never yet, by a trapper, put in competition with a beaver’s skin.”

One other case we will give to illustrate the conduct and treatment of this company toward the Indians under their “mild and paternal care,” as given, not by a chaplain, or missionary, but by Lieut. Chappel, in his “Voyage to Hudson’s Bay in H. M. S. Rosamond.” He relates that on one occasion, an English boy having been missed from one of the establishments in Hudson’s Bay, the company’s servants, in order to recover the absent youth, made use of the following stratagem: —

“Two Esquimaux Indians were seized and confined in separate apartments. A musket was discharged in a remote apartment, and the settlers, entering the room in which one of the Esquimaux was confined, informed him by signs that his companion had been put to death for decoying away the boy; and they gave him to understand at the same time that he must prepare to undergo the same fate, unless he would faithfully pledge himself to restore the absentee. The Esquimaux naturally promised every thing, and, on being set at liberty, made the best of his way into the woods, and, of course, was never afterward heard of. They kept the other a prisoner for some time. At length he tried to make his escape by boldly seizing the sentinel’s fire-lock at night; but the piece going off accidentally, he was so terrified at the report, that they easily replaced him in confinement; yet either the loss of liberty, a supposition that his countryman had been murdered, or that he was himself reserved for some cruel death, deprived the poor wretch of reason. As he became exceedingly troublesome, the settlers held a conference as to the most eligible mode of getting rid of him; and it being deemed good policy to deter the natives from similar offenses by making an example, they accordingly shot the poor maniac in cold blood, without having given themselves the trouble to ascertain whether he was really guilty or innocent” (p. 156). We have quoted these two examples, from two British subjects, to show the Hudson’s Bay Company’s manner of treating the Indians, who were under their absolute control from the mouth of the Umpqua River, in the extreme southwestern part of Oregon, to the extreme northern point on the coast of Labrador, including a country larger in extent than the whole United States.

This country had for two hundred and thirty years been in possession of these two powerful and equally unprincipled companies, who had kept it, as Mr. Fitzgerald says, “so us to shut up the earth from the knowledge of man, and man from the knowledge of God.”

But, we are asked, what has this to do with the history of Oregon, and its early settlement? We answer, it was this influence, and this overgrown combination of iniquity and despotism – this monster monopoly, which England and America combined had failed to overcome, – that was at last, after a conflict of thirty years, forced to retire from the country, by the measures first inaugurated by Lee, Whitman, and the provisional government of Oregon; and now this same monopoly seeks to rob the treasury of our nation, as it has for ages robbed the Indians, and the country of its furs.

They may succeed (as they have heretofore, in obtaining an extension of their licensed privileges with the English government), and obtain from the American government what they now, by falsehood, fraud, and perjury, claim to be their just rights. If they do, we shall be satisfied that we have faithfully and truly stated facts that have come to our knowledge while moving and living in the midst of their operations, and that we are not alone in our belief and knowledge of the events and influences of which we write.

Before closing this chapter we will quote one other witness (a British subject), the Rev. Mr. Barnley, a missionary at Moose Factory, on the southwestern part of James Bay, to show the full policy of that company toward British missionaries, and also to prove the assertion we make that the Hudson’s Bay Company, as such, is, in a measure, guilty of and responsible for the Whitman and Frazer River massacres, and for the Indian wars and the murder of American citizens contiguous to their territory.

The missionary above referred to says: “My residence in the Hudson’s Bay territory commenced in June, 1840, and continued, with the interruption of about eight months, until September, 1847.” The Whitman massacre was in November, 1847. Mr. Barnley continues: “My letter of introduction, signed by the governor of the territory, and addressed ‘To the Gentlemen in charge of the Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company’s Districts and Posts in North America,’ in one of its paragraphs ran thus: ‘The governor and committee feel the most lively interest in the success of Mr. Barnley’s mission, and I have to request you will show to that gentleman every personal kindness and attention in your power, and facilitate by every means the promotion of the very important and interesting service on which he is about to enter;’ and, consequently, whatsoever else I might have to endure, I had no reason to anticipate any thing but cordial co-operation from the officers of the company.

“For the first three years I had no cause of complaint. The interpretation was, in many cases, necessarily inefficient, and would have been sometimes a total failure, but for the kindness of the wives of the gentlemen in charge, who officiated for me; but I had the best interpreters the various posts afforded, the supply of rum to Indians was restricted, and the company, I believe, fulfilled both the spirit and the letter of their agreement with us, as far as that fulfillment was then required of them, and their circumstances allowed.

“In giving, however, this favorable testimony, so far as the first three years are concerned, I must say, that in my opinion we should have been informed, before commencing our labors, that the interpreters at some of the posts would be found so inefficient as to leave us dependent on the kindness of private individuals, and reduce us to the very unpleasant necessity of taking mothers from their family duties, that they might become the only available medium for the communication of Divine truth.

“But after the period to which I have referred, a very perceptible change, i. e., in 1845, took place. [The company had decided to introduce the Roman Jesuits to aid them in expelling all Protestant missionaries and civilization from the Indian tribes.] There was no longer that hearty concurrence with my views, and co-operation, which had at first appeared so generally. The effect was as if the gentleman in charge of the southern department had discovered that he was expected to afford rather an external and professed assistance than a real and cordial one; and, under his influence, others, both of the gentlemen and servants, became cool and reluctant in those services of which I stood in need, until at length the letter as well us the spirit of the company’s engagement with me failed.” The reader will remember that while Mr. Barnley was receiving this treatment at the Hudson’s Bay Company’s establishment at Moose Factory, James Douglas and his associates were combining and training the Indians in Oregon for the purpose of relieving, or, to use the language of the Jesuit De Smet, “to rescue Oregon from Protestant and American influence.”

Mr. Barnley continues: “I was prohibited from entertaining to tea two persons, members of my congregation, who were about to sail for England, because I happened to occupy apartments in the officer’s residence, and was told that it could not be made a rendezvous for the company’s servants and their families.” P. J. De Smet, S. J., on the 113th page of his book, says: “The Canadian-French and half-breeds who inhabit the Indian territory treat all the priests who visit them with great kindness and respect.” On page 313, he says of the Hudson’s Bay Company, just about this time: “In what manner can we testify our gratitude in regard to the two benefactors [Douglas and Ogden] who so generously charged themselves with the care of transporting and delivering to us our cases, without consenting to accept the slightest recompense? – How noble the sentiments which prompted them gratuitously to burden themselves and their boats with the charitable gifts destined by the faithful to the destitute missionaries of the Indians!” These last quotations are from letters of Jesuit missionaries, who were brought to the Indian country by this same Hudson’s Bay Company, and furnished transportation and every possible facility to carry on their missions among the Indians all over the American Indian country.

These missionaries have made no attempt to improve the condition of the Indians, but have impressed upon their ignorant minds a reverence for themselves and their superstitions. See Bishop Blanchet’s reply to Cayuse Indians, November 4, 1847, page 44 of Brouillet’s “Protestantism in Oregon;” also pages 34-5, Executive Doc. No. 38, J. Ross Browne, as given below: —

“The bishop replied that it was the pope who had sent him; that he had not sent him to take their land, but only for the purpose of saving their souls; that, however, having to live, and possessing no wealth, he had asked of them a piece of land that he could cultivate for his support; that in his country it was the faithful who maintained the priests, but that here he did not ask so much, but only a piece of land, and that the priests themselves would do the rest. He told them that he would not make presents to Indians, that he would give them nothing for the land he asked; that, in case they worked for him, he would pay them for their work, and no more; that he would assist them neither in plowing their lands nor in building houses, nor would he feed or clothe their children,” etc.

At Moose Factory, Mr. Barnley says: “A plan which I had devised for educating and training to some acquaintance with agriculture native children was disallowed, but permission was given me by the governor in council to collect seven or eight boys from various parts of the surrounding country, to be clothed, and at the company’s expense. A proposal made for forming a small Indian village near Moose Factory was not acceded to; and, instead, permission only given to attempt the location of one or two old men who were no longer fit for engaging in the chase, it being very carefully and distinctly stated by Sir George Simpson that the company would not give them even a spade toward commencing their new mode of life. When at length a young man was found likely to prove serviceable as an interpreter, every impediment was interposed to prevent his engaging in my service, although a distinct understanding existed that neither for food nor wages would he be chargeable to the company. And the pledge that I should be at liberty to train up several boys for future usefulness, though not withdrawn, was treated as if it had never existed at all; efforts being made to produce the impression on the mind of my general superintendent that I was, most unwarrantably, expecting the company to depart from their original compact, when I attempted to add but two of the stipulated number to my household. ⚹ ⚹ ⚹ ⚹ ⚹ ⚹

“At Moose Factory, where the resources were most ample, and where was the seat of authority in the southern department of Rupert’s Land, the hostility of the company (and not merely their inability to aid me, whether with convenience or inconvenience to themselves) was most manifest.

“The Indians were compelled, in opposition to their convictions and desires, to labor on the Lord’s day. They were not permitted to purchase the food required on the Sabbath, that they might rest on that day while voyaging, although there was no necessity for their proceeding, and their wages would have remained the same. ⚹ ⚹ ⚹

“At length, disappointed, persecuted, myself and wife broken in spirit, and almost ruined in constitution by months of anxiety and suffering, a return to England became the only means of escaping a premature grave; and we are happy in fleeing from the iron hand of oppression, and bidding farewell to that which had proved to us a land of darkness and of sorrow.

“From the above statements you will perceive that if true in some cases, it is not all, that the company have furnished the ‘means of conveyance from place to place.’ They have not done so, at all events, in the particular case mentioned, nor would they let me have the canoe, lying idle as it was, when they knew that I was prepared to meet ‘the expense.’

“And equally far from the truth is it, that the missionaries have been ‘boarded, lodged, provided with interpreters and servants free of charge.’”

In this last statement, Mr. Barnley is mistaken, for, to our certain knowledge, and according to the voluntary statement of the Roman Jesuits, Revs. Bishop Blanchet, Demer, P. J. De Smet, Brouillet, and many other Jesuit missionaries, they received from the Hudson’s Bay Company board and lodging, and were provided with interpreters, catechist, transportation, and even houses and church buildings.

The only mistake of Mr. Barnley was, that he was either an Episcopal or Wesleyan missionary or chaplain, like Mr. Beaver, at Fort Vancouver, and he, like Mr. Beaver, was a little too conscientious as to his duties, and efforts to benefit the Indians, to suit the policy of that company. The Roman Jesuitical religion was better adapted to their ideas of Indian traffic and morals; hence, the honorable company chose to get rid of all others, as they had done with all opposing fur traders. What was a civilized Indian worth to that company? Not half as much as a common otter or beaver skin. As to the soul of an Indian, he certainly could have no more than the gentlemen who managed the affairs of the honorable company.

CHAPTER VIII

Petition of Red River settlers. – Their requests, from 1 to 14. – Names. – Governor Christie’s reply. – Company’s reply. – Extract from minutes. – Resolutions, from 1 to 9. – Enforcing rules. – Land deed. – Its condition. – Remarks.

Before closing this subject we must explain our allusion to the Red River settlement, and in so doing illustrate and prove beyond a doubt the settled and determined policy of that organization to crush out their own, as well as American settlements, – a most unnatural, though true position of that company. It will be seen, by the date of the document quoted below, that, four years previous, that company, in order to deceive the English government and people in relation to the settlement on the Columbia River, and also to diminish the number of this Red River colony, had, by direction of Sir George Simpson, sent a part of it to the Columbia department. The remaining settlers of Rupert’s Land (the Selkirk settlement) began to assert their right to cultivate the soil (as per Selkirk grant), as also the right to trade with the natives, and to participate in the profits of the wild animals in the country. The document they prepared is a curious, as well as important one, and too interesting to be omitted. It reads as follows: —

    “Red River Settlement,

“August 29, 1845.

“Sir, – Having at this moment a very strong belief that we, as natives of this country, and as half-breeds, have the right to hunt furs in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s territories whenever we think proper, and again sell those furs to the highest bidder, likewise having a doubt that natives of this country can be prevented from trading and trafficking with one another, we would wish to have your opinion on the subject, lest we should commit ourselves by doing any thing in opposition either to the laws of England or the honorable company’s privileges, and therefore lay before you, as governor of Red River settlement, a few queries, which we beg you will answer in course.

“Query 1. Has a half-breed, a settler, the right to hunt furs in this country?

“2. Has a native of this country, not an Indian, a right to hunt furs?

“3. If a half-breed has the right to hunt furs, can he hire other half-breeds for the purpose of hunting furs? Can a half-breed sell his furs to any person he pleases?

“5. Is a half-breed obliged to sell his furs to the Hudson’s Bay Company at whatever price the company may think proper to give him?

“6. Can a half-breed receive any furs, as a present, from an Indian, a relative of his?

“7. Can a half-breed hire any of his Indian relatives to hunt furs for him?

“8. Can a half-breed trade furs from another half-breed, in or out of the settlement?

“9. Can a half-breed trade furs from an Indian, in or out of the settlement?

“10. With regard to trading or hunting furs, have the half-breeds, or natives of European origin, any rights or privileges over Europeans?

“11. A settler, having purchased lands from Lord Selkirk, or even from the Hudson’s Bay Company, without any conditions attached to them, or without having signed any bond, deed, or instrument whatever, whereby he might have willed away his right to trade furs, can he be prevented from trading furs in the settlement with settlers, or even out of the settlement?

“12. Are the limits of the settlement defined by the municipal law, Selkirk grant, or Indian sale?

“13. If a person can not trade furs, either in or out of the settlement, can he purchase them for his own and family use, and in what quantity?

“14. Having never seen any official statements, nor known, but by report, that the Hudson’s Bay Company has peculiar privileges over British subjects, natives, and half-breeds, resident in the settlement, we would wish to know what those privileges are, and the penalties attached to the infringement of the same.

“We remain your humble servants,

“Alexander Christie, Esq.,

“Governor of Red River Settlement.”

Governor Christie’s reply to these inquiries was so mild and conciliatory that it will not add materially to our knowledge of the company to give it. But the eight rules adopted by the company in council let us into the secret soul of the monstrosity, and are here given, that Americans may be informed as to its secret workings, and also to show what little regard an Englishman has for any but an aristocratic or moneyed concern.