This priest says: “The conclusion is evident, from the circumstances which preceded that death, and from the proceedings of the Nez Percés against Mr. Spalding and all the people of his establishment on account of it, and likewise from the general habit of the Indians in such cases.”
We will here state that we were two years at Mr. Spalding’s station, on returning from the States, and saw the whole Nez Percé tribe, and employed them for days and months, and worked with them, and explored their country to select farms for them, and know that the Nez Percés never, on any occasion, made the least disturbance about the station, or in any other place, on account of the death of that Indian; and we know that neither Mr. Spalding nor any of the people at his place were ever confined in their houses for an hour on account of it; and we further know that the statement made by Brouillet, as coming from old Toupin, is false and malicious, and only shows the ignorance and malice of this priest, who has made these false statements, as he has those about the killing of Elijah, to cover his own guilt in the infamous crime charged upon him and his associates.
“3d. The murder committed by an American in California on the person of Elijah, the son of the Wallawalla chief, in 1844.” Answered already.
This priest says of Yellow Serpent: “On his way coming back from California he lost many of his people from sickness [to which Istacus alludes in his reasons for not believing that Dr. Whitman was the cause of the Indians dying by poison], so that he and his young men, when arrived at home in the fall, felt more ill-disposed than ever toward the Americans.” This priest’s fourth reason embraces the tales told by Tom Hill, Joe Lewis, Finlay, old Toupin, and Stanfield, which are all of the same class, and have all been learned from the same reverend teachers, and copied into Sir James Douglas’s letter, for the benefit of the American Board, going by way of the Sandwich Islands.
His fifth reason, about the small-pox, as stated by Craig—the Doctor and Gray’s poisoning melons—the Doctor being a physician, shows that he is terribly pressed for a plausible reason for the crime he attempts to excuse. His sixth reason—lack of sincerity. Here he quotes Mr. Spalding’s letter, written soon after his return home, after being exposed six days and nights to extreme fatigue, hunger, and cold,—his mind racked with anxiety and fear in regard to himself and family, and tortured with thoughts of the scene at Wailatpu; being ignorant of any of the particulars of the massacre, and of the part the bishop and his priests were taking in it, he wrote as to friends whom he thought would feel for his situation. He also quotes a letter he received through P. H. Burnett, signed J. Magone, who says: “I recollect distinctly, however, that he (Mr. Spalding) was not in favor of killing all the Cayuses, for he gave me names of some four or five that he knew to be friendly, and another whom I marked as questionable.” (Mr. S. had learned more of the particulars of the massacre.) Does this letter prove that he was in favor of killing all the Indians but the ones mentioned, or does it show his anxiety lest the innocent should perish with the guilty, which led him to give those names to Major Magone, an officer in the provisional army?
We have naturally left that deep, silent grand council of Indians, presided over by his reverence, Bishop Blanchet, and directed our attention to other important facts and statements relative to the subject of this chapter.
We now have the touching appeal of Edward Tilokaikt, with whom the reader has become acquainted in the depositions already given. He is now brought before us in this grand council at the bishop’s house (page 66 of Brouillet; page 44 Ross Browne).
“Edward, the son of Tilokaikt, then came forward, bearing in his hand the Catholic Ladder stained with blood; he repeated the words which Dr. Whitman had used when he showed it to them, one or two weeks before he died: ‘You see this blood! it is to show you that now, because you have the priests among you, the country is going to be covered with blood! You will have nothing now but blood!’ He then related what had passed, gave a touching picture of the afflicted families in seeing borne to the grave a father, a mother, a brother, or a sister; spoke of a single member of a family who had been left to weep alone over all the rest, who had disappeared. He stated how and for what the murder had been committed, entered into the most minute details, avoiding, however, to give any knowledge of the guilty, repeated the words which Joseph Lewis said had passed between Dr. Whitman, his wife, and Mr. Spalding, and finally spoke of the pretended declaration of Mr. Rogers at the moment of his death: ‘that Dr. Whitman had been poisoning the Indians.’”
Reader, need I tell you that the language and sentiment above quoted as coming from Edward Tilokaikt, never entered his savage Indian brain; that this speech is the carefully combined and studied production of the author of the narrative we have quoted it from? It is given in connection, repeated and combined with a little variation by every individual who makes a statement favorable to those priests; and in the whole list of statements this priest Brouillet and McBean are the only two that could write or translate the Indian ideas into French or English; so that at the time these Indian speeches were said to have been made, and purport to have been translated by Brouillet, it is plain to be seen that he tells his own story to suit the case in hand; and the letter of Sir James Douglas to the Sandwich Islands shows this priest to be the author of the statements contained therein. These Indian assemblies or councils were held to more closely unite the tribe, and give a coloring of truth to the malicious statements of Joe Lewis and Edward Tilokaikt.
All these false statements were written out and sent to the Sandwich Islands under date, Vancouver, 9th December, 1847, while Brouillet says this Edward Tilokaikt repeated them as a reason for the massacre on the 20th December, 1847, eleven days before they are said to have been repeated by the Indians.