in answer to Executive Document No. 38, House of Representatives, and a variety of historical information, which it would seem proper to have on file, or placed in some more permanent form for future history.”
It may be remarked that the letter from which the above is an extract is dated on the 28th of January, just five days before the passage of the Senate resolution, and evidently in anticipation of such action on the part of that body. “No one,” says a distinguished senator, “except the few in the secret, knew anything of the matter until the document was printed. All the previous proceedings were as of course.” The documents that were thus to be “placed in a more permanent form for future history,” apart from their uniformly infamous character, are perhaps the strangest in origin and composition that have ever been presented for the information of any deliberative body, much less one of the gravity and importance of the Senate of the republic. They consist mainly of extracts from the religious press, so-called; inflammatory letters from jealous and disappointed preachers, including the Rev. H. H. Spaulding himself; depositions written out by that indefatigable hater with his own hand, and changed in many essential points after having been sworn to and removed from the control of the deponents; false quotations from The Account of the Murder of Dr. Whitman, by the Very Rev. J. B. A. Brouillet, V.G., and others’ statements of the massacre; an address from the professors of that advanced educational institution called Oberlin College, Ohio; answers to leading queries addressed to Oregon officials, based on a false and supposititious statement of facts; and, lastly, a report adopted and endorsed by eight associations, including the Old School, New School,
Cumberland, and United Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, and the “Christian Church of Oregon,” and claiming to represent thirty thousand brother members, all of whom, though differing radically in other respects, are suspiciously unanimous in denouncing the “Jesuits,” and equally positive in affirming a previous condition of affairs, their knowledge of which must of necessity have depended solely on the statements of the veracious Rev. H. H. Spaulding. In style, the documents are unique, and have a very strong family resemblance. It is a judicious mixture of sanctimonious cant seldom heard outside of a camp-meeting, with a dash here and there of Shakespeare and the modern poets, to give it variety, we suppose.
Now, whence this solemn assembly of presbyteries and conferences, this pile of affidavits and newspaper extracts, and the desire of the Senate to be enlightened as “to the early labors of the missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Oregon, commencing in 1836”? Simply this. On the week commencing on the 29th of November, 1847, more than twenty-four years ago, a certain missionary to the Cayuse Indians, named Dr. Whitman, who had resided among them for several years, was, with his wife and twelve other Americans, brutally murdered by the savages; and it is now attempted by Spaulding, who was his friend, and missionary to the Nez Perces, a neighboring tribe, to fix the guilt of this foul outrage on the missionary priests who in that year accompanied the Rt. Rev. A. M. A. Blanchet, Bishop of Nesqualy, to Oregon, and who, it is alleged, instigated the Indians to commit the deed in order to get rid of the Protestant missions. At the
time of the slaughter, there was with others under Dr. Whitman’s roof a young woman named Bewley, whom one of the chiefs desired to have for his wife; and it is also asserted that not only did the priests encourage her to yield to the Indian’s wishes, but forced her from the shelter of their home and refused her any protection whatever. Other charges growing out of this sad calamity, such as baptizing children with the innocent blood of their victims on their hands, inhumanity to the prisoners left unharmed, attempting the precious life of Spaulding, supplying the Cayuses with guns and ammunition, etc., are likewise alleged, but the first two are the principal counts in this clerical indictment.
The slaughter of so many persons naturally created a great sensation in Oregon at the time, but for months after no one thought of attributing it to the interference of the Catholic missioners. However, Spaulding, whose mind had become disturbed by the contemplation of the dangers he had escaped, and having to abandon his mission among the Nez Perces, and finding himself unemployed, gradually began to give a new version of the affair, and in conversation, preaching, and writing at first hinted, and next broadly asserted, that the “Jesuits” were at the bottom of the whole matter. Considering that the shock to his nervous system was so great that he never entirely recovered from it, and that the repetition of the falsehoods was so persistent, it is charitable to suppose that he eventually came to believe them as truths; for no man in his right senses would persist in forcing on the world such a compilation of improbable statements and downright falsehoods as are contained in Pub. Doc. No. 37.
As there are always many persons, made credulous by ignorance or
prejudice, willing to credit any anti-Catholic slander, the Rev. Father Brouillet, the only priest near the scene of the crime, wrote and published, in 1853, a full and authentic account of the whole transaction, which was so clear and circumstantial that even the greatest opponents of the Catholic priesthood were silenced. In 1857, a special agent of the Treasury Department, J. Ross Browne, made a tour in the far West, and in reporting on the condition of the aborigines, and the potent causes of war between them and the white settlers, embodied in his statement Father Brouillet’s pamphlet, which together formed Pub. Doc. No. 38, against which all the powers of the presbyteries and conferences of Oregon, under the fitting leadership of a crazy preacher, are now directed, after a silence of more than ten years. Is it any wonder that it is so often remarked that the only bond of union, the sole vitalizing principles, of the sects are their hatred to Catholicity?
A glance at the history of the early Indian mission in Oregon is necessary to a clear understanding of the subject. It is well known that for many years that portion of our common country was debatable ground, and, while our government claimed the sovereignty and appointed officials to administer its affairs, the Hudson Bay Company held possession and virtually controlled the inhabitants, nearly all of whom were Indians or half-breeds. Under the direction of the company, the natives were honest, peaceable, and well disposed. Captain Bonneville, who visited the Nez Perces in 1832, says of them:
“Simply to call these people religious would convey but a faint idea of the deep hue of piety and devotion which pervades their whole conduct. Their honesty is