By this news, Barnard, the Oregonian, was incited to return home and tell his neighbors. But at San Francisco he was detained two months, being positively refused passage on the ships for the Columbia. He believed that he was purposely hindered by parties who wished to go to Oregon and buy up all the provisions, tools, etc., to be had here, at low prices, and to sell them at San Francisco at a great advance. Finally he got a ship, and reaching Oregon late in August, the news was published, and the Oregonians, many of them just returning from the Cayuse war, formed a company, and that season broke and completed the first wagon road to California, taking the high table-land route by way of Klamath Lake, Lost Lake, the lava beds, and across the Pitt River Valley far to the eastward of Mount Shasta—or Shasta Butte, as called by the old pioneers. Mr. Case was not ready to go with the overland party, but found passage on the bark Anita, which sailed from the Columbia the middle of February. There was a large crowd of men on board, considering the size of the ship, being sixty-six in number, and the quarters were very narrow, 12 × 20 feet, and the ceiling being only 5 feet high, with two tiers of berths arranged around the sides of the apartment. The voyage, moreover, was long and tedious. As the crossing of the Columbia bar was made, with a stiff wind, Mr. Case was reminded by the breakers as they ran and tossed and finally broke upon the rocks of Cape Disappointment, of the herds of buffaloes that thundered over the plains—the movement of the waves seeming about equally swift and tumultuous. But the wind soon stiffened to a gale, the bark put to sea, and land was lost to sight; and the storm did not at last abate until they were far off the coast to the west of Vancouver Island. Then, however, with a west or north wind, that was bitterly cold, the voyage was made down to the latitude of San Francisco, but in constant storms of snow, frequently sufficient to leave as much as a foot of the article on deck over one night. When at last the clouds dispersed and a fair west wind blew, and the skies were again clear, the entire sweep of the horizon appeared as one world of water, except that far to the northeast, the very tip of Shasta, white and glittering, just jutted out of the sea. It was then seventeen hours sailing before the shore appeared in sight. Then the Golden Gate was reached and passed, and the voyage was over. It occupied a month. Sailing to Sacramento and proceeding thence to Coloma, Mr. Case, being a mechanic, found employment at such good prices as to detain him from the mines. But the season proved to be one of excitement during which even bloodshed occurred; and Mr. Case was forced to play an important part in the program.
THE COLUMBIA RIVER MEN’S VENGEANCE.
Very soon after reaching Coloma, Mr. Case found that the community was in a broil. No open troubles had yet occurred, but there were causes of exasperation which were working rapidly to a climax. It was due primarily to a difference in system and ideas between the various elements of the people then in California. It was in fact a part of the final clash between the old Spanish system and the American; the beneficiaries of the Spanish system, or Grandees, being on one side, and on the other the Oregonians, representing the American idea. It was proved in the event that men who could establish an independent government in Oregon, and were able to compel the obedience of the Cayuse Indians, were able also to make in California a deep impression for their idea of liberty. The disturbed, or rather the entirely unorganized condition of government in California, made possible the following course of events. The military government of this territory, just taken from Mexico, had not given place to a civil organization, and it was not thoroughly known what authorities were in power. Sutter had received a large grant of land, and with this was coupled certain power to enforce justice among the Indians, and he was recognized as a sort of justice of the peace; but this was of very limited extent, and there was no central authority in the whole state, unless military.
California was occupied originally by men who had received great land grants, some of which were as much as six leagues square. These men were at first Spanish-Americans, who were thus rewarded for government services. They formed a sort of nobility or aristocracy, and held their places like the baronies or counties of the old world, and their possessions were frequently of the dimensions of a county. Their ranches were on an average about twenty-five miles apart, and the ranges between were stocked with great bands of cattle. The Indians, a mild and inoffensive people, were employed as laborers and cattle drivers by the Spanish-Americans, and a genuine European feudal system was in force. The first Americans (or Germans, or English) who went to California acquired some of these ranches, and continued the Mexican system. Only they employed it with characteristic American energy, and pushed it to a much greater extreme. With the discovery of gold and the opening of the mines, a prospect of vast profits appeared to the early Californians, who were English, or American, or German; and their first intention was to work the mines in the same manner that they worked their ranches—by the labor of the native Indian, or by importation of Mexican debtors, who could be procured very cheap. It was still the law in Mexico to put debtors in prison on the complaint of their creditors, and they could be held until the debt was paid, and the debtor himself failing in this, his son could be held. Many of these debtors were imprisoned for but trifling sums, and upon settlement with the creditors, could be practically bought by other parties almost like slaves, the purchase of the debt giving the right to hold the debtor. Hundreds of Mexicans were thus procured and sent to the mines, at a cost in some cases of but a few dollars to the purchasers, and contracted to work for some trifling sum, often not over twenty-five cents a day, in washing gold. Contract labor from Chili (W. M. C.) was also obtained, and it was estimated that by the midsummer of 1849 as many as five thousand such laborers were at work on the California placers.
But the original traders were making even more profit by trade with the contract laborers, or with the Indians who were employed to wash gold, the Indian women doing such work along with the men. When they had a little dust their natural fondness for finery was stimulated, and cheap and gaudy articles, such as shawls and shirts, were sold for dust. But the dust that was brought by the Indians was balanced by the shrewd trader with a weight which was the Mexican silver dollar, weighing just an ounce, with whose value the Indians were well acquainted. By this method of reckoning, the gold was valued the same as the silver. A shirt, for instance, which was marked to begin with at the regular price of $3, was bought with a balance of three silver dollars in gold dust, making $48 in actual value. Indeed the amount of dust obtained of the Indians for some of the articles was truly “fabulous.” Mr. Case recalls that a certain shawl of unusually magnificent pattern and blinding colors, which cost the trader but $1.50, was bought by an Indian chief for his favorite daughter for $1,500 worth of dust.
Into this flourishing condition of things the Oregonians, or Columbia River men, as they were called, entered in 1849. The most of them went into the mines, but there were some who quickly saw that there was more profit in trading with the Indians than in digging the gold. Consequently they began setting up stores, and bought and sold goods. Competition thus began. The price of a shirt, a standard article, was forced down to $2, that is, to two ounces of dust; and then to one ounce, and even lower. By this operation the old traders, such as Weimer and Besters, of Coloma, and Marshall, and even Sutter, were offended, as it soon became apparent to those who were intending to operate the mines on the medieval Spanish system, and by the employment of Indians and contract labor, that their whole system of trade and business was in danger of collapsing. Mr. Case is confident that the Indians were then incited against the Columbia River men, that they were told that the people from Oregon were intruders and had no business there, and were taking gold that belonged to themselves. At all events, mysterious murders began to take place in the mountains and along the mining streams. This was not greatly noticed at first, but as one after another fell and it began to be asked who was killed, it became plain that in every case the victim was a Columbia River man. The authorities, such as they were, gave the subject no attention. Sutter himself, acting as a justice of the district under his old concession, showed no concern; and the Californians, among whom were such traders as Weimer and Besters, Winters, Marshall and others, when asked for their explanation, replied that these murders were evidently committed by the Oregonians themselves; they were old trappers and mountain men of the most desperate character, and they were undoubtedly murdering and robbing one another. This the Oregonians knew to be false, and that it should be said created a presumption in their minds that the California traders were inciting the Indians to cut off the Columbia River men. This suspicion led them to talk quietly to one another and to consider what should be done. Finally a little band of about thirteen in number was organized quite secretly, and of this Mr. Case, as one of the most intelligent, was chosen virtual leader. In this band of Oregonians was Fleming Hill (usually called Flem), and Greenwood, a half-breed Crow Indian.
Affairs were brought to a crisis at last by the murder of six Oregonians, all on one bar. The first that Case heard of the affair was at the house of Besters, where he was boarding while he was working upon a building. Besters, coming in late to supper, was in great glee, saying that he had taken in $2,500 that afternoon from the Indians. The news of the murder of the six Columbia River men was soon abroad, and it seemed impossible but that the murderers were the Indians who had brought the dust. This was the conclusion at which the Oregonians arrived, but they would not proceed until full evidence had been procured. Meeting Hill, as if casually, on the streets of Coloma, Case told him to take the thirteen men and find and follow the trail of the murderers, whom he felt certain were the Indians of the tribe in the vicinity, belonging to that very valley, and not a distant tribe from the mountains. A circumstance favoring such a conclusion was the fact that the tribe in the valley numbered over a hundred; but those who had come in to trade at Weimer and Bester’s store were only about twenty-five. The rest of the tribe, it was apparent to those acquainted with the Indians, had struck off in a body to make a trail to the mountains, to lead off suspicion, and would return, singly or in small groups, to their homes.
Case himself continued working as usual at Coloma, as it was very necessary that some one be at that point to watch the progress of affairs. He soon discovered, however, that there was a spy on him, an Indian employed at the sawmill of a Californian, Mr. Winters.
At the end of several days Hill appeared again in town. Seeing him while he was working upon the roof, Mr. Case contrived to meet him as soon as possible, and inquired what had been discovered. Hill replied, “We found various tracks from the pit where the six miners who had been killed and stripped were buried. These, taking across the river, then made one plain, broad trail out to the mountains. We followed this for two days, when it suddenly disappeared, scattering in all directions, and could be followed no longer.” “Then they are not mountain Indians,” said Case; “they belong right here in this valley.”
This brought the Oregonians decisively to what was to be done; whether to tell their discoveries to the Californians, or Sutter, or to take vengeance into their own hands. The former course seemed entirely useless, as they felt sure that the Californians knew enough of the affair already, and had decided to let the Oregonians take care of themselves. Confirmation of the guilt of the Indians, if any were needed, was found in the report of an American who kept a horse ranch at some distance from town. He had, shortly before, seen a large number of Indians coming down the mountain side on foot, and dispersed in separate groups, and not in single file, as he had always observed them before. They were evidently that part of the band who had led a trail off to the mountains, returning home. The Oregonians concluded, therefore, that the only way to put an end to the murders was to proceed precisely as they would out on the plains; that is, make war on the Indians irrespective of the California authorities and wipe out the tribe, if that was necessary. This was accordingly done. The tribe was found and surprised by the band of thirteen armed Oregonians. Twenty-six of the Indians were killed on the instant. No women were shot, however, though they fought the same as the men. They and six men surrendered. Greenwood shouted as the blow was struck, “Now, this is what you get for killing Columbia River men.”