A History of Oregon, 1792-1849. Gray William Henry

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ He says: “The Yankamas have always been opposed to the intrusion of the Americans.” This is also a mistake of Mr. Gibbs, as we visited that tribe in the fall of 1839, and found them friendly, and anxious to have an American missionary among them. At that time there had been no priest among them, and no combined effort of the company to get rid of the American missionary settlements. Kamaiyahkan, the very chief mentioned by General Gibbs as being at the head of the combination against the Americans, accompanied us to Dr. Whitman’s station, to urge the establishment of an American mission among his people.

      General Gibbs says, that, “as early as 1853, Kamaiyahkan had projected a war of extermination. Father Pandosa, the priest at Atahnam (Yankama) mission, in the spring of that year, wrote to Father Mesplie, the one at the Dalls, desiring him to inform Major Alvord, in command at that post, of the fact. Major Alvord reported it to General Hitchcock, then in command on this coast, Hitchcock censured him as an alarmist, and Pandosa was censured by his superiors, who forthwith placed a priest of higher rank over him.”

      The next year, Indian agent Bolon was killed, and the war commenced. How did General Hitchcock learn that Pandosa, a simple-hearted priest, and Major Alvord were alarmists? The fact of the censure, and placing a priest of higher rank over Pandosa at the Yankama station (the very place we selected in 1839 for an American station), is conclusive evidence on this point.

      “The war of extermination,” that General Gibbs, in his mistaken ideas of Hudson’s Bay policy and Indian character, attributes to the policy of Governor I. I. Stevens, was commenced in 1845. At that time, it was supposed by James Douglas, Mr. Ogden, and the ruling spirits of that company, that all they had to do was to withhold munitions of war from the Americans, and the Indians would do the balance for them.

      The Indian wars that followed, and that are kept up and encouraged along our borders, and all over this coast, are the legitimate fruits of the “DEADLY HATRED” implanted in the mind and soul of the Indian by the Hudson’s Bay Company and their allies, the priests. There is an object in this: while they teach the Indians to believe that the Americans are robbing them of their lands and country, they at the same time pretend that they do not want it.

      Like Bishop Blanchet with the Cayuses, they “only want a small piece of land to raise a little provisions from,” and they are continually bringing such goods as the Indians want; and whenever they are ready to join their forces and send their war-parties into American territory, this company of honorable English fur traders are always ready to supply them with arms and ammunition, and to purchase from them the goods or cattle (including scalps, in case of war between the two nations) they may capture on such expeditions.

      The more our government pays to that company, or their fictitious agent, the more means they will have to carry on their opposition to American commerce and enterprise on this coast. Should they obtain but one-third of their outrageous claim, it is contemplated to invest it, with their original stock, in a new company, under the same name, Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company, and to extend their operations so as to embrace not only the fur, but gold and grain trade, over this whole western coast.

      Will it be for the interests of this country to encourage them? Let their conduct and proceeding while they had the absolute control of it answer, and prove a timely warning to the country before such vampires are allowed to fasten themselves upon it.

CHAPTER XII

      Review of Mr. Greenhow’s work in connection with the conduct and policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company. – Schools and missionaries. – Reasons for giving extracts from Mr. Greenhow’s work. – Present necessity for more knowledge about the company.

      As stated by General Gibbs, Mr. Greenhow has given us a complete history of the discovery of Oregon. At the point where he leaves us the reader will observe our present history commences. We did not read Mr. Greenhow’s very elaborate and interesting history till ours had been completed in manuscript. On reading it, we found abundant proof of statements we have made respecting the policy of the British government to hold, by the influence of her Hudson’s Bay Company, the entire country west of the Rocky Mountains that was not fully occupied by the Russian and Spanish governments.

      This fact alone makes our history the more important and interesting to the American reader. Mr. Greenhow, upon pages 360 and 361 of his work, closes the labors of the eleven different American fur companies with the name of Captain Nathaniel Wyeth, and upon these two pages introduces the American missionaries, with the Roman Jesuits, though the latter did not arrive in the country till four years after the former.

      On his 388th page, after speaking of various transactions relative to California, the Sandwich Islands, and the proceedings in Congress relative to the Oregon country, he says: “In the mean time, the Hudson’s Bay Company had been doing all in its power to extend and confirm its position in the countries west of the Rocky Mountains, from which its governors felicitated themselves with the idea that they had expelled the Americans entirely.”

      Page 389. “The object of the company was, therefore, to place a large number of British subjects in Oregon within the shortest time, and, of course, to exclude from it as much as possible all people of the United States; so that when the period for terminating the convention with the latter power should arrive, Great Britain might be able to present the strongest title to the possession of the whole, on the ground of actual occupation by the Hudson’s Bay Company. To these ends the efforts of that company had been for some time directed. The immigration of British subjects was encouraged; the Americans were by all means excluded; and the Indians were brought as much as possible into friendship with, and subject to, the company, while they were taught to regard the people of the United States as enemies!”

      In a work entitled “Four Years in British Columbia,” by Commander R. C. Mayne, R. N., F. R. G. S., page 279, this British writer says: “I have also spoken of the intense hatred of them all for the Boston men (Americans). This hatred, although nursed chiefly by the cruelty with which they are treated by them, is also owing in a great measure to the system adopted by the Americans of removing them away from their villages when their sites become settled by whites. The Indians often express dread lest we should adopt the same course, and have lately petitioned Governor Douglas on the subject.”

      Commander Mayne informs us, on his 193d page, that in the performance of his official duties among the Indians, “recourse to very strong expressions was found necessary; and they were threatened with the undying wrath of Mr. Douglas, whose name always acts as a talisman with them.”

      We shall have occasion to quote statements from members of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and from Jesuit priests, further confirming the truth of Mr. Greenhow’s statement as above quoted. It would be gratifying to us to be able, from our long personal experience and observations relative to the policy and conduct of the Hudson’s Bay Company, to fully confirm the very plausible, and, if true, honorable treatment of the aborigines of these countries; but truth, candor, observation, our own and other personal knowledge, compel us to believe and know that Mr. Greenhow is entirely mistaken when he says, on his 389th page, speaking of the Hudson’s Bay Company: —

      “In the treatment of the aborigines of these countries, the Hudson’s Bay Company admirably combined and reconciled humanity with policy. In the first place, its agents were strictly prohibited from furnishing them with ardent spirits; and there is reason to believe that the prohibition has been carefully enforced.

      “Sunday, March 11, 1852,” says Mr. Dunn, one of their own servants, “Indians remained in their huts, perhaps praying, or more likely singing over the rum they had traded with us on Saturday. – Tuesday, April 26. – Great many Indians on board. – Traded a number of skins. They seem to like rum very much. – May 4. – They were all drunk; went on shore, made a fire about 11 o’clock; being then all drunk began firing on one another. – June 30. – The Indians are bringing their СКАЧАТЬ