Emerging finally out of the Pitt River Valley and entering upon the great plateau east of Shasta Butte, Case’s little party traveled so near the snow of the mountain region, and it was now late September, that the snow-banks seemed no higher above them than the tops of the trees. They were coming to the Modoc country, and the lava beds. These last were a great curiosity; the natural forts made by boiling and finally subsiding little craters of not over an acre in area, and looking so much like fortifications that many took them for the work of Indians, especially attracted attention. Here began the forced marches. For three nights and four days Case slept not a wink, and the distance covered during that time was about three hundred miles. Skirting the marshy shores of Lost Lake, where Lost River disappears, and the water is so stained with ochre as to be a deep red; and finally crossing the natural bridge, or causeway, and coming to the Klamath Basin; and crossing the Klamath River where there is a series of three low falls of about two feet high each, over some flat tabular rock formations—they finally reached the dangerous Indian country of the Rogue River. Here occurred one of the strangest Indian fights. Mr. Case’s party was not concerned in this, but was a few hours behind; yet enjoyed the results of the victory. The road at a certain point skirted along a bluff where there were many crevices and natural hiding places, and below the road ran the river. The wagon-way here was only just about wide enough for one vehicle to pass. This was a natural place for the Indians to ambush a passing party, and Case and his comrades would no doubt have suffered and probably have been cut off entirely, if it had not been that just before they reached this place, two other parties were passing, one on the way to California and the other but a few hours ahead of Case going to Oregon. The Oregon party was that of Robert Newell, consisting of thirty men, for California. As he came to this dangerous point, about four or five o’clock in the afternoon, Newell discovered that there were Indians in the crevices of the rock ready to attack him. With the capacity of a general, he divided his force so as to command the situation. Five of his men he sent forward so as to attract the Indians’ attention along the road and to draw their fire, but still to keep out of reach. A reserve of seven he stationed under cover; and in the meantime he detailed the eighteen others to pass under the shelter of the wild plum bushes that skirted the river and faced the bluff, and under this shelter to creep up into the very midst of the Indians, select their men and shoot them down instantly—which would surprise and stampede the savages, and is the true way, so says Mr. Case, to fight the Indians.
This manouvre was executed with perfect success. The eighteen men that crept up through the brush succeeded in falling upon the Indians in the rocks, and were shooting them down before their presence was discovered; and the Indians, surprised and confused, seeing white men in front and in their midst, rushed out of their hiding places and began retreating along the face of the bluff. But just at this time the party from California, under Weston and Howard, arrived from the other direction, and hearing the firing, hurried forward, and seeing the Indians pouring out of the rocks, began discharging their rifles upon them. By this the savages were entirely demoralized. The only space left was the river itself, and into its tumultuous current they began to precipitate themselves, the miners still firing upon them as they struggled in the water, until the river ran red. The slaughter must have been very great. Yet of all this, though but a few miles away, Case knew nothing. He placed his camp for the night in a sink, so that any Indians creeping up must be seen, and kept guard himself, with his ear to the ground, so as to hear any stealthy steps approaching. He saw or heard nothing. Nevertheless, the next morning, when one of his men went to the river for water, he reported upon his return that there were the footprints of as many as five hundred Indians upon the sand bar of the river, where the night before there were none to be seen. This, Case found to be about so, and with hands on the trigger, and hearts ready for anything, the little company started out, expecting an ambuscade at any moment. Case’s advice to his men was, “If we are attacked, keep close together. If you divide up, we are lost.” But they had not gone far before they heard a shot, and soon were greeted by the advance of Newell’s men; and the next moment were met by Newell himself, who told them of the fight, and that the country was full of hostile Indians; but Weston and Howard were not far ahead, and the best thing for them was to shove forward and overtake them. Accordingly, Case shoved forward, passing hour after hour in the depths of the canyons, and hearing almost continually the Indians calling to one another from the mountains—now on this side and now on that. But still they were not attacked. They were often upon the trail of the white men, but they, too, were shoving ahead, and not until the Rogue River Valley was passed and the Umpqua reached, was Weston’s party overtaken. The junction was made early in the morning. The night before, Mr. Case, although for the third night without sleep, kept guard, and at about 2 o’clock A. M. heard a dog baying not over a quarter of a mile away. He knew this indicated the white men’s camp, and in fact recognized the dog. Very cautiously approaching the camp, for fear of being mistaken for Indians, and being fired upon, the little party advanced and were recognized. Then the peril was over. The rest of the journey was made more deliberately, but though now relieved of guard duty, Mr. Case felt sleepless, and scarcely rested until some days had passed.
THE NUMBER AND CONDITION OF THE NATIVE RACE IN OREGON WHEN FIRST SEEN BY WHITE MEN.
The first estimates we have of the number of the native race in the valley of the Columbia were by Lewis and Clark, who gained their information while exploring the river from its sources in the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Based upon information derived from the natives, their estimate was forty thousand. This was in 1805-6.
Forty years later, Rev. C. G. Nicolay, of King’s College, Oxford, and member of the Royal Geographical Society of London, writing in support of England’s right to the country created by the assumed moral benefits to the natives effected by the trade influences of the Hudson’s Bay Company—and, doubtless, with all the information that company could furnish—estimated the number at thirty thousand, including all the country from the California line north to 54° 40′. Noting that the second estimate is for the wider bounds, and yet twenty-five per cent. less, the numbers seem strongly to indicate that the native race was rapidly decreasing between the dates mentioned.
In looking for the causes of this decrease of population of the native race, we find at the outset diseases common to, but not very destructive to civilized life, are, nevertheless, terrible in their effects on people living so near the plane of mere animal life as were the natives of Oregon—especially those of them in the largest valleys, and near the sea,—when first seen by white men. The first American explorers received information from the Clatsop tribe of Indians during their stay near them in the winter of 1805-6, that some time previous to that a malady had been brought to them from the sea, which caused the death of many of their people. As they reached the Lower Willamette Valley, on their return eastward, they found living evidence that the malady had been smallpox, and the remains of capacious houses within the district—now covered, or being rapidly covered, by the white race,—which indicated that the disease had swept out of existence, or caused to flee the locality, large numbers of the natives. A woman was seen by Captain Clark in the company of an old man, presumably her father, sole occupants of a building two hundred and twenty-five feet long and thirty feet wide, under one roof, and divided by narrow alleys or partitions into rooms thirty feet square. Other buildings, empty or in ruins, were found near this. This woman was badly marked with smallpox; and from her apparent age, and information the old man endeavored to convey, this disease had killed many people and frightened others away about thirty years previously.
Information received from natives by signs cannot be deemed reliable; but no writing can be plainer than the human face marked by smallpox. We have, then, from the journal of Lewis and Clark, traditional information from the Clatsop natives, and in the appearance of this woman—presumably of the Multnomah tribe—evidence of the presence of smallpox one hundred miles in the interior; and fifty years later we have from the Yakima chieftain, Kamiakin, at the Walla Walla council held by Gov. I. I. Stevens, intimations that the suffering of his people from smallpox in former times was one reason for his objection to whites’ settling in his country.
Whatever truth there may be in these earlier traditions of the natives, the rapid decrease of the tribes on the Lower Columbia and in the Willamette Valley, between 1805 and 1845, and the decaying condition of those found here at the latter date, are facts which cannot be called in question. Those writers who are predisposed to blame the white man for all the results of the commercial and social contact between the races will see only the fearful and repulsive effects upon the ignorant native—supposed to be innocent—of drunkenness and debauchery, which the white man’s avaricious trade and licentiousness ministered to. While, beyond question, these were destructive agencies, they, in my judgment, never were but a small moiety of the cause of the general decay of the race west of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada ranges, from Alaska to Lower California. As to the licentious intercourse between the sexes, the natives were ready and sought opportunity to participate in the destructive commerce. And their customs, which were their only laws, left womanhood—especially widowhood—an outcast, where she was not held as a slave. It was a fact well known to pioneers yet living that a woman of bright, kindly disposition, of natural intelligence, which made her a natural leader of her sex, who was in 1840 the honored wife of the chief of one of the strongest coast tribes, and as such styled a queen by some writers, was in 1845 a leader and guide of native prostitutes, who watched and followed ships entering the Columbia from the time they crossed the bar in until they crossed out. And between opportunities of this kind, she went from camp to camp of white settlers on the Lower Columbia, thus seeking trade without the least sign of shame. The customs and usages of the race, for which the leading men were responsible, debar us of any just right to hold native womanhood responsible for a social system which deemed a female child the best trading property—valued high or low according to the status of the male portion of her family. The husband bought his wife, and might, where she did not suit, send her back to her people and claim a return of the property given for her, ostensibly as presents.[[1]] This, if her family had any pride or courage, would probably lead to trouble. A native husband could dispose of an unsatisfactory wife. He could kill her by personal ill-usage,[[2]] or keep her to labor for means to purchase and support another wife, or as many more as his means and desires induced him to buy.[[3]]
The general relations between the husband and wife among the native races in Western Oregon were that the husband should kill the game or catch the fish, as the subsistence was from game or fish. The dressing of skins for clothing, the weaving of rush mats for camp covers or for beds, the preparation of cedar bark for clothing, nets and ropes, and the digging of roots, gathering of berries, etc., were all left to the wife and the slaves at her command, if there were any. The husband and wife seemed to have separate property rights as to themselves, and on the death of either the most valuable of it, and often all of it, was sacrificed to the manes of the dead. Sometimes living slaves were bound and placed near the dead body of a person of importance in the tribe.[[4]]