In addition to these acts of imprudence, the doctor, it seems, had earned for himself an unenviable unpopularity. He was constantly extorting overpay in horses from them, and threatening them with soldiers and emigrants if they refused it. After having a quarrel with them on one occasion, “during which they insulted him, covered him with mud,” and even attempted his life, “he started for the United States, telling the Indians that he was going to see the great chief of the Americans, and that when he would return he would bring with him many people to chastise them; the Indians had been looking to his return with great fear and anxiety.”[143] At another time, in the fall of 1847, he said to the Indians at Walla Walla in the presence of several white men, “Since you are so wicked, such robbers, we shall send
for troops to chastise you, and next fall we will see here five hundred dragoons, who will take care of you.” But even Doctor Whitman, “fickle and obstinate” as he was, could not entirely overlook the dangers that beset him for so many years, and at the solicitation of his friend had been preparing to leave his station long before the arrival of the Catholic missionaries. Mr. Thomas McKay, whom the doctor had invited to stop the winter of 1847-8 with him for protection, says, “He told me repeatedly, during the last two years especially, that he wished to leave, as he knew the Indians were ill-disposed toward him, and that it was dangerous for him to stay there; but that he wished all the chiefs to tell him to go away, in order to excuse himself to the Board of Foreign Missions.” Dangerous and fatal mistake, which cost the lives of thirteen innocent people, and closed the unfortunate man’s earthly career!
Now for the affair of the young woman Miss Bewley, who is described in Pub. Doc. No. 37, p. 35, indifferently as an “amiable young saint,” a “dear girl,” and “an angel.” It is charged that, when Five Crows demanded her for his wife, and she refusing to go with him, the bishops and priests urged her to go, and even thrust her out-of-doors when she refused. So little credence was given this specific calumny, for many years after the alleged occurrence, that the only mention we find made of it in The Murder of Dr. Whitman is the following paragraph:
“Before taking leave of the chiefs, the bishop said to them all publicly, as he had also done several times privately, that those who had taken American girls should give them up immediately. And then all entreated Five Crows to give up the one he had taken, but to no purpose.”
Now let us hear Father Brouillet’s account of the affair in contradiction to Miss Bewley’s deposition:
“We did,” says the reverend gentleman, “all that charity could claim, and even more than prudence seemed to permit. We kept her for seventeen days in our house, provided for all her wants, and treated her well, and if she had minded us, and heeded our advice and entreaties, she would never have been subjected to that Indian. When she came first to our house, and told us that Five Crows had sent for her to be his wife, we asked her what she wanted to do. Did she want to go with him, or not? She said she did not want to go with him. ‘Stay with us, then, if you like; we will do for you what we can,’ was our offer. When the evening came, the Indian chief called for her. The writer then requested his interpreter to tell him that she did not want to be his wife, and that, therefore, he did not want her to go with him. The interpreter, who was an Indian, allied by marriage to the Cayuses, and knew the chiefs disposition well, would not provoke his anger, and refused to interpret. The writer, then making use of a few Indian words he had picked up during the few days he had been there, and with the aid of signs, spoke to the Indian himself, and succeeded in making him understand what he meant. The Indian rose furiously and without uttering a word went away. The young woman then got frightened, and wanted to go for fear he might come back and do us all an injury. The writer tried to quiet her, and insisted that she should remain at our house, but to no avail; she must go, and off she went. The Indian, still in his fit of anger, refused to receive her, and sent her back. She remained with us three or four days undisturbed; until one evening, without any violence on the part of the Indian, or without advising with us, she went with him to his lodge. She came back the next morning, went off again in the evening, and continued so, without being forced by the Indian, and part of the time going by herself, until at last she was told to select between the Indian’s lodge and our house, as such a loose way of acting could not be suffered any longer. That was the first and only time that she offered any
resistance to the will of the Indian; but, indeed, her resistance was very slight, if we can believe her own statement.”
This is a very different account from that sworn to by Miss Bewley, but written by Spaulding, as he says himself, Ex. Doc. No. 37, p. 27: “I would go to an individual, and take down in writing what he or shete knew, and then go before a magistrate, and the individual would make an oath to the statement, the officer certifying.” There is no mention that the parties were permitted to read what their amanuensis took down, and all who are acquainted with such ex-parte depositions know how easily it would be to alter their sense and meaning by an unscrupulous person—which we are about to show Spaulding to be. In this very statement there are two interpolations, one of eight lines on page 35 of Ex. Doc. No. 37, beginning with the words “I arose,” and one of six on the following page, at “The next day,” which materially alter the whole meaning of the document. This alteration of a sworn statement by any but the affiant is at common law forgery, and ought to entitle the person who makes it to the delicate attention of the prosecuting attorney of his county. Whether the saint and angel, Miss Bewley, is now aware of the forgery connected with her name we know not, but we trust that the Senate will make a note of it for the benefit of future historians. But Spaulding, who is described by his co-missionary Gray as “quite impulsive and bitter in his denunciations of a real or supposed enemy,” in endeavoring to make out a case, is not content with altering one affidavit. That of Mr. Osborne (Ex. Doc. No. 37, p. 32) is also materially changed in several places from the original, and the official reports of Mr. McLane (Ex. Doc. p. 33) and of Dr. White are
doctored in a manner that we venture to say would render it difficult for the writers themselves to recognize them. Even the plain statements of The Murder of Dr. Whitman are garbled in a most palpable and scandalous manner.
As to the other auxiliary charges against the Catholic missionaries, and the answers of Abernethy and a few others to questions propounded by Spaulding, we do not consider them worthy of serious attention. They are all directly or indirectly the creatures of Spaulding’s fertile imagination, who, if not crazy as Colonel Gilliam said, has allowed his hatred of Catholicity to carry him down to fearful depths of crime, to calumny, falsehood, and forgery. His motives are apparent, the gratification of his lust for revenge, and his hatred of our faith; that of the associations who have signed his outrageous statements is the present flourishing existence of the Catholic missions in every part of Oregon; and the end proposed is to compass their destruction by appealing to the religious prejudices of the authorities at Washington. We have too much confidence in the wisdom and good sense of the Executive and Congress to suppose that they will be influenced by such inflammatory appeals—bearing on their face the palpable impress of dishonesty and prejudice—and attempts to disturb the good fathers in their labor of love, as well as of hardships and suffering; and we expect soon to hear of those fanatics receiving a fitting rebuke in our Senate for attempting to make that august body the vehicle of perpetuating the vilest sort of falsehoods and slanders against the Catholics of this country.