Columbus and Other Heroes of American Discovery

by N. D'Anvers

A few years previously, smallpox had ravaged the coast north and south of the Columbia; whole tribes had succumbed to it, and the mere mention of it was enough to cow the spirit of the most dauntless brave. None knew whence it came, but it was supposed to be sent by the Great Spirit to correct his children for their sins, and many connected it with the first coming of the white man.

M’Dougal, reminded by some trifling incident of the latter superstition, invited the leaders of the conspiracy against the infant colony to come and take council with him. They obeyed, wondering, doubtless, in their simple minds whether their designs had been discovered. When all were seated, and expectant silence reigned on every side, the white man stood in the midst and began his harangue.

“Your countrymen have destroyed our vessel,” he said, “and I am resolved on vengeance. The white men among you are few in number, it is true, but they are mighty in medicine. See here,” he went on, producing a small bottle; “in this bottle I hold the smallpox safely corked up. I have but to draw the cork and let loose the pestilence, to sweep man, woman and child from the face of the earth.”

Great was the horror and alarm at this announcement. The chiefs, forgetting their dignity, gathered round the white man, imploring him to stay his hand; and after affecting to be unmoved for some little time, M’Dougal at last declared that, so long as the white people were unmolested, the phial of wrath should be unopened, but——

The remainder of the scene may be imagined. Eternal amity was finally sworn, and M’Dougal, henceforth to be known as the Great Smallpox Chief, was able to attend without interruption to the internal affairs of the colony.

While the Astorians were thus struggling with their difficulties, the land party were working their way across the country to their assistance. At the head of this second expedition was William Hunt, with whom was associated Donald Mackenzie, both men of tact and experience in dealing with the Indians.

The start was made early in July, 1810, from Montreal, which we have visited under so many different auspices, and, on the 22d, Mackinaw, on the junction of Lakes Huron and Michigan, was reached. This town, first an Indian village and then a French trading post, was now the center of a numerous and mixed population. Here traders bound for Lake Superior, for the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Arkansas, or other rivers, met on their way to their several outlying posts. Here they returned laden with the spoils of the far West.

A long halt was made at Mackinaw to collect recruits, who were not easily met with. It was no joke, urged the redskins, to travel with these white men; they wanted you to go through wildernesses full of savage tribes, with whom they would have to fight, and if any of them escaped death at the hands of their fellow-countrymen, it would only be to starve in those desolate tracts on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. Why should our white man be so anxious to reach the Salt Lake (the sea)? or why, if his anxiety was so very great, would he not give his poor brothers their pay in advance, that the squaws and little ones at home might not pine away in hunger?

Not until the 12th August was the actual start made, and even then, instead of being able to strike across country at once for the mouth of the Columbia, the expedition had to make a voyage down the Mississippi to St. Louis, in order to settle certain difficulties, into which we need not enter here, with the numerous rival companies already alluded to. The starting point of so many expeditions was reached in September, and on the 21st November three canoes, bearing the new body of adventurers, embarked on the Missouri. Even now, progress was extremely slow. Hunt was more than once compelled to return to St. Louis to settle disputes with his rivals; and, as the boats crept cautiously along, rumors of a very discouraging character again and again reached the navigators. There was war among the native tribes, and a party of Sioux Indians were awaiting the arrival of the white men in the wilds of Nebraska, intending to massacre them all.

At the mouth of the Nebraska, signs appeared that the rumors of danger from savages were founded on facts. A frame of a skin canoe was found, in which the warriors had evidently crossed the river, and at night the sky was red with the reflection of huge fires, showing that the prairies had been set on fire by the combatants. Ignoring as much as possible all these terrible omens, Hunt, fresh from his last run back to St. Louis, carefully examined the face of the country on either side of the Nebraska; the naturalists of the party made their notes on the flora and fauna of the new districts; and on the 10th May, the village of Omaha, about eight hundred and thirty miles above the mouth of the Missouri, was reached in safety.