Mr. Hines, in speaking of this same band, says, 158th page: “As a matter of course, lying has much to do in their system of trade, and he is the best fellow who can tell the biggest lie, make men believe it, and practice the greatest deception. A few years ago a great religious excitement prevailed among these Indians, and nearly the whole tribe, consisting of a thousand, professed to be converted, were baptized, and received into the Christian church; but they have nearly all relapsed into their former state, with the exception that many of them still keep up the outward form of religion.
“Their religion appears to be more of the head than of the heart, and though they are exceedingly vicious, yet doubtless they would be much worse than they are, but for the”—(“doubtful success,” as Mr. Hines affirms on his 156th page, while here he says)—“restraining influences exerted by the missionaries.”
Mr. Hines has given us an interesting history of those early missionary labors, but the greater portion of his book relates to himself,—to his travels on shipboard, and at the Sandwich Islands, a trip to China and back to New York, and his trip to the interior of Oregon.
He says: “The Cayuse Indians, among whom this mission is established, had freely communicated to Mr. Geiger, whom they esteemed as their friend, all they knew concerning it. When the Indians were told that the Americans were designing to subjugate them and take away their land, the young chiefs of the Cayuse tribe were in favor of proceeding immediately to hostilities. They were for raising a large war party and rushing directly down to the Wallamet settlement and cutting off the inhabitants at a blow. They frequently remarked to Mr. Geiger that they did not wish to go to war, but if the Americans came to take away their lands and make slaves of them they would fight so long as they had a drop of blood to shed. They said they had received their information concerning the designs of the Americans from Baptiste Doreo, who is a half-breed son of Madame Doreo,—the heroine of Washington Irving’s ‘Astoria,’—understands the Nez Percé language well, and had given the Cayuses the information that had alarmed them. Mr. Geiger endeavored to induce them to prepare early in the spring to cultivate the ground as they did the year before, but they refused to do any thing, saying that Baptiste Doreo had told them that it would be of no consequence; that the Americans would come in the summer and kill them all off and destroy their plantations.
“After Doreo had told them this story, they sent a Wallawalla chief—Yellow Serpent—to Vancouver, to learn from Dr. McLaughlin the facts in the case.
“Yellow Serpent returned and told the Cayuses that Dr. McLaughlin said he had nothing to do in a war with the Indians; that he did not believe the Americans designed to attack them, and that if the Americans did go to war with the Indians, the Hudson’s Bay Company would not assist them. After they got this information from the Emakus Myohut (big chief), the Indians became more calm. Many of them went to cultivating the ground as formerly, and a large number of little patches had been planted and sown before we arrived at the station.”
Mr. Hines soon learned that the reports about war that had reached the lower country were not without foundation. That the Indians still had confidence in Mr. Geiger, and that they did not wish to go to war. The reader will observe the statement of the Indians after they had told Mr. Geiger they would fight if forced to do so. “They,” the Indians, “said they had received their information concerning the designs of the Americans from Baptiste Doreo.” This half-breed is also an interpreter of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and an important leader among the half-breeds—next to Thomas McKay. After Doreo had told them his story, the Indians were still unwilling to commence a war against the Americans. They sent a messenger to Vancouver to consult Dr. McLaughlin, just as those same Indians in 1841 went to Mr. McKinley, then in charge of Fort Wallawalla, and wanted to know of him, if it was not good for them to drive Dr. Whitman and Mr. Gray away from that station because the Doctor refused to pay them for the land the mission occupied? Mr. McKinley understood their object, and was satisfied that there were outside influences that he did not approve of, and told the Indians, “Yes, you are braves; there is a number of you, and but two of them and two women and some little children; you can go and kill them or drive them away; you go just as quick as you can and do it; but if you do I will see that you are punished.” The Indians understood Mr. McKinley. Whitman and Gray were not disturbed after this.
Dr. John McLaughlin we believe to have been one of the noblest of men while he lived, but, like Messrs. Hines, White, Burnett, Newell, Spalding, and many others, influences were brought to bear upon him that led him to adopt and pursue a doubtful if not a crooked course. It was evident to any one conversant with the times of which we are writing that there were at least four elements or influences operating in the country, viz., the unasserted or quasi rights of the American government; the coveted and actual occupancy of the country by the English Hudson’s Bay Company and subjects, having the active civil organization of that government; the occupancy of the country by the American missions; and the coveted occupancy of the same by the Roman Jesuit missions.
These four influences could not harmonize; there was no such thing as a union and co-operation. The struggle was severe to hold and gain the controlling influence over the natives of the country, and shape the settlements to these conflicting views and national and sectarian feelings. The American settler, gaining courage and following the example and the track of the American missionaries with their wives, winds his way over the mountains and through the desert and barren plains down the Columbia River and through the Cascade Mountains,—weary, way-worn, naked, and hungry. In one instance, with his rifle upon his shoulder, and his wife and three children mounted upon the back of his last ox, he plods his weary way through Oregon City, and up the Wallamet, to find his future home; and there the warm heart of the early missionary and his family is ready to feed, clothe, and welcome the wanderer to this distant part of our great national domain, in order that he may aid in securing Oregon to its rightful inhabitants, and in forming a fifth power that shall supersede and drive away all foreign influences.
For a time the struggle with the four influences was severe and doubtful; but men who had crossed the Rocky and Cascade mountains with ox-teams, were not made to give up their country’s cause in the hour of danger, though Britain and Rome, with their savage allies, joined to subdue and drive them from it. With the British Hudson’s Bay Company, Roman Jesuit missions, savage Indians, American missions, and American settlers the struggle is continued.