“Poor Little Quee-lawt!”
On one occasion I found three poor women by the roadside near the sawmill at Nanaimo, all helplessly drunk. It seemed of daily occurrence in those days to see women drunk. With these poor creatures was a little girl, Quee-lawt by name. She was one of the brightest and most attractive of our little scholars. When she first came to school, like some others of the children, she was very scantily clad, but by the kindness of some good ladies this little maid was neatly clothed, and because her forehead had not been flattened as much as some others, she was pleasing in appearance. She learned to read nicely and could sing very sweetly, and we had great hopes of a bright future for her.
But alas! poor Quee-lawt had been led astray by these sinful women, and by some low, degraded white men had been robbed of her purity, made drunken and defiled. And here we saw her, all besmeared with dirt and filth—drunk, drunk.
Poor Quee-lawt! the terrible drink and the vile treatment she had received were too much for her. She was carried home to the old chief’s house and died that night. Oh, what a sad, sad, pitiful sight it was! Poor little Quee-lawt! Will not a just God lay at the door of those wretched white men the murder of this child?
We could only wish that this vile blot upon the character of our fair province were wiped away. But still it continues. Some of the finest tribes on the Coast have for years been following this awful practice, until whole bands have been practically wiped out, and their only monument is a forest of totem poles raised in many cases with the money secured from this dreadful slavery.
Recently the provincial press has drawn attention to what they term the “slave traffic in girls” among the Kwa-kwulths of Cape Mudge and surrounding country.
From the reports thus circulated we gather that these people have been making the practice of selling their girls to white men and others for immoral purposes. At a recent potlatch, held in January, 1906, a number of girls were sold at prices ranging from $300 to $1,200. The latter figure was paid by an Indian for a particularly attractive girl whom he planned to take with him to the various lumber camps for the purpose of gain. “It is proverbially true,” says one writer, “that the Indians have no convictions or sentiments that cannot be easily overcome by greed of gain or power. Their chief and only object—that is, the men’s—is to become great and powerful amongst their own people, and as the possession of money is the quickest road to power and the assumption of pride, some of these men to secure money, and secure it easily, have for years been selling their women.”
“Surely the Government,” continues this same writer, “will not allow this state of affairs to exist any longer. By means of these women diseases are spread amongst our young men, and disasters too terrible to speak of must follow this indiscriminate dealing in the bodies and souls of these Indian women.”
With this whole matter are involved the questions of Indian barter marriages and the potlatch, customs which, the missionaries know, are linked with heathenism, and which present some of the greatest difficulties to be met with in Christianizing and civilizing the Indian tribes of the Coast.
In our judgment, if a law were enacted similar to one which was put in force in the State of Washington some years ago, compelling any white men living with Indian girls or women to marry them, or else the women must leave and return to their own people, we would to a large extent clear the country, as they did on the other side of the line, of this dreadful evil.
The Indians, as well, should be compelled to give up their “barter marriages” and conform, as every one else must, to our Canadian marriage laws, and thus the greatest difficulty in the way of the suppressing of this evil would be removed.
On account of the prevalence of this traffic in Indian girls, many of the early missionaries were led to establish “Girls’ Homes” for the rescue and further protection of these poor victims of this awful system.
CHAPTER VIII.
FEUDS AND BLOODSHED.
“I am weary of your quarrels,
Weary of your war and bloodshed,
Weary of your prayers for vengeance,
Of your wrangling and dissensions;
All your strength is in your union,
All your danger is in discord;
Therefore be at peace henceforward,
And as brothers live together.”
—“Hiawatha.”
The natives of the Pacific Coast are represented by some historians as a fierce, savage, warlike race. At one time they were a numerous people, but their own bloody and ferocious wars were the means in years gone by of greatly reducing their numbers, and the ravages of the white man’s diseases and fire-water have so far completed the work that some tribes have become almost extinct.
In very early days the white traders had several encounters with the natives, and the account is preserved of the Indians of the west coast of Vancouver Island surrounding and capturing two vessels, one the Boston, at Nootka, and the other the Tonquin, at Clayoquot. The latter was afterwards blown up, it is thought, by some imprisoned members of the crew, and hundreds of the captors who swarmed her decks were killed. Another vessel, the Atahualpa, was also taken by the Indians of Millbank Sound, and four of the crew, including the captain, were killed. The vessel was, however, recaptured by the remaining members of the crew, who sailed away in safety.
Their tales of war among themselves are thrilling and often very exciting. They boast of sweeping out whole tribes at once; of wading ankle deep in blood! of taking many slaves and killing and scalping the rest. Chiefs from the north would sweep down south in their great war-canoes and pick a quarrel with a southern tribe over some trifling matter, then enter into bloody conflict with them, take many slaves, and hasten back to the far north to sell them, and thus enrich themselves.
The southern people fought among themselves, or, headed by some vicious chiefs, would make trips up the Fraser River or into Puget Sound, returning after a successful foray with the slaves taken in the fight, or more likely kidnapped at their fishing or berry-picking grounds.
The northerners were not always successful in making the trip home with their booty. The Cowichans would gather at Dodds’ Narrows and Active Pass, or at Cowichan Gap, and set upon the victors, often turning their victory into defeat. If they escaped the Cowichans they still had to run the gauntlet of the Yu-kwul-toes, the most to be dreaded of the whole coast tribes, and many a Tsimpshean, Hydah or Kling-get war party has found its death trap at Seymour Narrows or the Yu-kwul-toe Rapids.
On one occasion a party of northerners, on their way home through Dodds’ Narrows, about seven miles south of Nanaimo, had a battle with some Nanaimos, whom they defeated, killing eleven warriors. Striking off the heads of their slain enemies they took them with them, leaving the bodies, which were afterwards discovered by their friends. A short time after, in retaliation for the deed, on the south side of Salt Spring Island a canoe load of seven northern people were all butchered in a most shocking manner; stones were tied to their necks and they were sunk in the sea. Not reaching Victoria at the time expected, their friends instituted a search along the coast. I was then living at Nanaimo, and in the course of my work made frequent visits to Chemainus and Salt Spring Island, Cowichan and Saanich. On my next trip down the coast I was asked by the authorities to make inquiries regarding the lost ones.
After preaching to the Indians at Chemainus I referred to the murder, and warned them, if they knew who the murderers were, not to conceal them, as sooner or later they would be found out.
Several days after, on returning from Salt Spring Island, I met young chief Lis-tcheem, of the Chemainus tribe, who had come out some three or four miles in a canoe to meet me. Approaching in that cautious, suspicious manner which only an Indian will manifest, he came alongside and, speaking in an undertone, said: “Missionary, I want to say something that I don’t want my people to know. You told us the other day that we must not hide the murderers. Now, a party of our people have just returned from Victoria with a great deal of new property, and they seem to have money. We don’t know where they got all this money. I suspect they are the party who murdered the people you spoke of. They are now camped on the Chemainus River. But don’t tell the people that I told you.”
I immediately returned to Nanaimo and acquainted the magistrate with the facts. A party of ten special constables were sent down to the river, and the murderers were captured, brought to Nanaimo, given a preliminary hearing, and sent down to Victoria to stand their trial at the next assizes.
Some time after, amid the busy rush of the missionary’s life, this young chief met me at my home in the Nanaimo camp, and said he had been down to the place where they heard the murder had been committed, some forty miles away, and had found their goods, clothing of all kinds, strewn upon the beach, particularly the clothes of a little child belonging to the party. This was the child of a white man from Nanaimo, whose Indian wife was on her way to take the steamer at Victoria to make a visit to her friends in the north. Among the other things he found a bunch of little papers, rolled up and stuck in the fork of a tree. This roll, which he handed to me, I found contained eighty-five dollars in bills.
I took him to the magistrate, to whom he told his story and handed over the bills. The official praised him for his honesty and faithfulness, and as a reward gave him a note of recommendation saying what a good, honest chief he was. This document, signed and sealed with a large red seal and placed in an official envelope, pleased the chief very much.
Some weeks after he was in Victoria and happened to show this paper, of which he was very proud, to a police officer, who at once put him in jail, where he was held as a witness for over two months. During this time his family were left to starve, and nothing was done to help them. Is it any wonder that the Indians were enraged at this high-handed piece of injustice, and that when the young chief finally was released he declared that if all the Indians and whites in the place were murdered he would never again tell anything that he had discovered about the matter.
Speaking of the Indian’s love of “a big paper,” as they called an official certificate, I recall the amusing circumstance of a chief who was given “a paper” by a certain sea captain, which, not being able to read, he supposed was highly complimentary. The Indian went about, proudly showing to everyone a document which stated, “Look out for this fellow; he is the greatest old rascal and biggest thief I have ever met with.”
In those early days, when hundreds and thousands came from the north, it was not an uncommon thing to see a body floating in the harbor. It is the nature of an Indian always to keep in mind an old feud. Where blood has been shed they seek retaliation, and with them it is always “a life for a life.”