Doctor Saffron, in answer to the interrogatory, “In what way did you become acquainted with the Whitman massacre?” makes the following reply: “I was residing at the Dalles mission when the Canadian, bearing an express from Fort Nez Percés to Vancouver, came to the station and ate dinner, and with whom Mr. Hinman went to the lodge, and secured a canoe to assist him on his way to Vancouver, and went to Vancouver with him. A very short time after they were off,—I did not think they had scarcely got off before the Indians came from the lodges, and told what they said the Frenchman had told them, that Doctor Whitman was killed. The next information was from an Indian lad from Des Chutes, who came on horseback, in great haste, and said that two Cayuses were at Des Chutes, and had told them that Dr. Whitman, his wife, and all his people were killed, except the women, who had been taken for wives for the chiefs. In giving the causes which the two Cayuses had given them, he spoke of the sickness, and also that the priests had made known to them that the Doctor was a dangerous medicine man to have among them, and said something of their having said about the Doctor’s medicines being the cause of their dying; and also of what Mr. McBean had said of Dr. Whitman’s determining to have all their spotted horses. I can be certain as to the priests’ part, but not so certain as to McBean’s part, being said by the young Indian at that time, or told me afterward by other Indians.” Dr. Saffron states in this deposition that the Indians were very threatening about the station, and that he thinks the reason they did not commence the massacre of all at the station was the report that Mr. Ogden was just below with a party. “On Mr. Ogden’s arrival, we stated to him these things, and he informed Mr. Hinman that we had better get away as soon as possible, which we did.”
In this letter from Mr. Douglas, in answer to Governor Abernethy, about supplying the Indians with powder, etc., he says:—
“It would have been an act of great indiscretion on his part to have excited alarm and caused suspicion in their minds by withholding the compensation of two or three pounds of gunpowder and lead, which they had been accustomed to receive for such service, when it was certain that the omission would be regarded as evidence of a hostile intent, and induce them to put every possible obstacle in his way, whereby the object of the journey must have been entirely defeated, and the unfortunate women and children left to their cruel fate.
“To prohibit the sale of ammunition within certain districts in arms against the whites would be the proper course; but to extend the measure to every part of the country is to make the innocent suffer with the guilty, and a departure from the conciliatory course of policy which we have always found to answer best with Indians; and will, I much fear, drive them to the most desperate course. I am now only expressing an opinion on what the law is reported to be, and await the next issue of the Spectator with some impatience, to discover its real character and value.
“You may rest assured that we will do nothing improper, or which will, in any way, endanger the safety of the country.
“We have not yet heard from Mr. Ogden since he left the Dalles, but are now daily expecting to hear from him.
“I have the honor to be, sir
“Your most obedient servant,
“James Douglas.”
The careless reader, or one that is disposed to regard Sir James Douglas as an honorable, truthful, and upright man, will, on first reading this letter, in all probability, consider it a satisfactory reply to Governor Abernethy, and his reasons sufficient to justify Mr. Ogden’s course at the Dalles and at Wallawalla.
Doctor Saffron tells us, under oath, “On Mr. Ogden’s arrival, we stated to him these things,” about the massacre, the priests, McBean, and the Indians threatening, which Mr. Ogden admits in his letter to Mr. Walker, when he advised them to leave. He then proceeds on up the river, and does a thing which Sir James says was common, which we know Mr. Douglas has said to us was not common, for the company to give ammunition to the Indians for making those portages.
On the present occasion, knowing all the facts, and the danger to the lives of all at the Dalles station, Mr. Ogden deliberately gave (Mr. Douglas says, “as usual”) an unusual amount of war material; he then proceeds to Wallawalla, called the Indians together, and gave them “twelve common guns, six hundred loads of ammunition, twelve flints, thirty-seven pounds tobacco, sixty-two three-point blankets, sixty-three common cotton shirts.”
And what was the service that these Indians had rendered, for which these goods were given by this “powerful organization?” Six years before, when a Hudson’s Bay servant got into a drunken row, and was killed by an Indian at the mouth of the Columbia, the Americans and company went in a body, and demanded and hung the murderer; but now, when Dr. Whitman and fifteen other Americans are murdered, Mr. Ogden goes up and pays them more guns, ammunition, blankets, and shirts, than had ever before been given to them on any one occasion. Was that company weaker at this time than they had been before, that they could not manage or conquer the Cayuses? Sir James Douglas, under oath, says the company in 1846 “practically enjoyed a monopoly of the fur trade, and possessed extraordinary influence with the natives.” And we say, the Whitman massacre is the result of that influence.
Mr. Ogden, distinctly, and at several times, insisted upon the distinction necessary to be made between the affairs of the Americans and the company, and why? Simply, because the company had determined to suppress and crush the American settlements, if it could be done, by the Indians. They were now in a condition to furnish the Indians directly, or clandestinely, through their Jesuit missionaries, all the ammunition required. Hence the liberality of Mr. Ogden, and the care of Mr. Douglas to catch “a rumor” to defend Mr. Ogden’s course; to manifest great sympathy for the sufferers, to deceive the settlement in every way possible; and refuse, under the plea of the “stringent rules of the home department,” to supply munitions to the provisional troops.
On the 23d of February, Colonel Gilliam, with fifty of his men, arrived at Wascopum, an express having been sent by Major Lee for him to hasten forward with his troops. On his arrival, he learned that the Des Chutes Indians were hostile. Was Mr. Douglas correct in his opinion?