We shall have occasion to quote statements from members of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and from Jesuit priests, further confirming the truth of Mr. Greenhow’s statement as above quoted. It would be gratifying to us to be able, from our long personal experience and observations relative to the policy and conduct of the Hudson’s Bay Company, to fully confirm the very plausible, and, if true, honorable treatment of the aborigines of these countries; but truth, candor, observation, our own and other personal knowledge, compel us to believe and know that Mr. Greenhow is entirely mistaken when he says, on his 389th page, speaking of the Hudson’s Bay Company:—
“In the treatment of the aborigines of these countries, the Hudson’s Bay Company admirably combined and reconciled humanity with policy. In the first place, its agents were strictly prohibited from furnishing them with ardent spirits; and there is reason to believe that the prohibition has been carefully enforced.
“Sunday, March 11, 1852,” says Mr. Dunn, one of their own servants, “Indians remained in their huts, perhaps praying, or more likely singing over the rum they had traded with us on Saturday.——Tuesday, April 26.—Great many Indians on board.——Traded a number of skins. They seem to like rum very much.——May 4.—They were all drunk; went on shore, made a fire about 11 o’clock; being then all drunk began firing on one another.——June 30.—The Indians are bringing their blankets—their skins are all gone; they seem very fond of rum.——July 11.—They traded a quantity of rum from us.”
The Kingston Chronicle, a newspaper, on the 27th of September, 1848, says: “The Hudson’s Bay Company have, in some instances with their rum, traded the goods given in presents to the Indians by the Canadian Government, and afterward so traded the same with them at an advance of little short of a thousand per cent.”
Question asked by the Parliamentary Committee: “Are intoxicating liquors supplied in any part of the country—and where?” The five witnesses answered:—
1st. “At every place where he was.”
2d. “All but the Mandan Indians were desirous to obtain intoxicating liquor; and the company supply them with it freely.”
3d. “At Jack River I saw liquor given for furs.”
4th. “At York Factory and Oxford House.”
5th. The fifth witness had seen liquor given “at Norway House only.”
The writer has seen liquor given and sold to the Indians at every post of the company, from the mouth of the Columbia to Fort Hall, including Fort Colville, and by the traveling traders of the company; so that whatever pretensions the company make to the contrary, the proof is conclusive, that they traffic in liquors, without any restraint or hinderance, all over the Indian countries they occupy. That they charge this liquor traffic to renegade Americans I am fully aware; at the same time I know they have supplied it to Indians, when there were no Americans in the country that had any to sell or give.