Case of The Hudson’s Bay Companyv.The United States.—Examination of Mr. McTavish.—Number of witnesses.—Their ignorance.—Amount claimed.—Original stock.—Value of land in Oregon.—Estimate of Hudson’s Bay Company’s property.—Remarks of author.
Case of The Hudson’s Bay Companyv.The United States.—Examination of Mr. McTavish.—Number of witnesses.—Their ignorance.—Amount claimed.—Original stock.—Value of land in Oregon.—Estimate of Hudson’s Bay Company’s property.—Remarks of author.
I have carefully reviewed all the testimony in the above case, on both sides, up to May 1, 1867. On April 12, the counsel on the part of the United States having already spent twenty-five days in cross-examining Chief-Factor McTavish, so as to get at the real expenditures of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and arrive at a just conclusion as to the amount due them,—Mr. McTavish having frequently referred to accounts and statements which he averred could be found on the various books of the company,—gave notice to the counsel of the company in the following language:—
“The counsel for the United States require of Mr. McTavish, who, as appears from his evidence, is a chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and its agent in the prosecution of this claim, to produce here for examination by the United States or their counsel, all accounts, account-books, and letter-books of said company, together with the regulations under which their books were kept, and the various forms of contracts with servants of the company, all of which books, rules, and forms contain evidence pertinent to the issue in this case, as appears from the cross-examination of Mr. McTavish, and suspends the further cross-examination of this witness until he shall produce such books, accounts, rules, and forms.”
“The counsel for the United States require of Mr. McTavish, who, as appears from his evidence, is a chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and its agent in the prosecution of this claim, to produce here for examination by the United States or their counsel, all accounts, account-books, and letter-books of said company, together with the regulations under which their books were kept, and the various forms of contracts with servants of the company, all of which books, rules, and forms contain evidence pertinent to the issue in this case, as appears from the cross-examination of Mr. McTavish, and suspends the further cross-examination of this witness until he shall produce such books, accounts, rules, and forms.”
On the 1st of May Mr. McTavish’s examination was resumed.
Int. 952.—“Will you please produce here for examination by the United States or their counsel, all accounts, account-books, and letter-books of the Hudson’s Bay Company which were kept at the various posts of that company south of the 49th parallel of north latitude during their occupation by the company, together with the regulations under which their books were kept, and the regular forms of contracts with the company’s servants?”Ans.—“I can not say whether I will produce them or not.”
Int. 952.—“Will you please produce here for examination by the United States or their counsel, all accounts, account-books, and letter-books of the Hudson’s Bay Company which were kept at the various posts of that company south of the 49th parallel of north latitude during their occupation by the company, together with the regulations under which their books were kept, and the regular forms of contracts with the company’s servants?”
Ans.—“I can not say whether I will produce them or not.”
(The above question was objected to as incompetent, and as asking the witness, not as to what he knows of the subject, but as to what hisfuture course of action will be, over which, as witness, he can have no control.)
During the examination of Mr. McTavish it was evident that he was the main prosecuting witness, and considerably interested in the results of the claim, or suit.
It would doubtless be interesting to most of our readers to see a review of the testimony, or at least a summary of the evidence presented on both sides in this case. There are now printed about one thousand pages of documents and depositions. That relating particularly to the Hudson’s Bay Company comprises about two-thirds of the whole amount. The balance relates more particularly to the Puget Sound Agricultural Company’s claim. This claim, the company have not been able, by any testimony yet presented, to separate from that of the Hudson’s Bay Company; so that there is no prospect of their receiving one dollar on that account. There have been examined on the part of the Puget Sound Company, to prove its separate existence from the Hudson’s Bay Company, thirty witnesses; on the part of the United States, twenty-one. On the part of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s claim as separate from the Puget Sound Company, nineteen witnesses; on the part of the United States, thirty. On both sides not far from forty-five witnesses have been called upon the stand to testify in this important case. The company in London have been requested to furnish evidence of the separate organization or independent existence of the two companies; and with all this evidence produced, nothing definite or certain is shown, except that the concern was gotten up to deceive the English people and rob the American government, and to counteract and oppose the American settlement of this country.
As a looker-on and an observer of events in this country, I must confess my astonishment at the ignorance, perverseness, and stupidity of men whom I have ever heretofore regarded as honorable and truthful.
From the testimony before me of the twenty odd English witnesses, it really appears as though they felt that all they had to do was to ask their pay, and our government would give it to them; or, in other words, they, as Englishmen and British subjects, are prepared to compel the payment of any sum they demand.
There are many interesting developments brought out in this case relative to the early history of this country, which renders the depositions in the case, though voluminous and tedious in the main, yet interesting to the close and careful student of our history.
If time and opportunity is given, I will review this whole testimony as a part of the history of this country, and, in so doing, will endeavorto correct an erroneous impression that will result from the testimony as now before us.
The amount claimed in this case is four million nine hundred and ninety thousand thirty-six dollars and sixty-seven cents, or, nine hundred and eighty-five thousand three hundred and fifty pounds sterling, in gold coin.
I now have before me, including the Hudson’s Bay Company’s memorial, eleven hundred and twenty-six pages of printed documents and depositions relating to this case. I also have what may properly be termed British testimony, bearing directly upon this case, which is entitled to its full weight in a proper and just decision as to the amount of compensation this Hudson’s Bay Company is entitled to receive from our government.
I do not propose to review all the one thousand four hundred and nineteen pages of statements and depositions in detail; that would be too tedious, though I might be able to make it interesting to the general reader, as it develops the whole history of that portion of our continent that has for one hundred and ninety-seven years been under the exclusive jurisdiction of a monopoly that effectually closed it to all outside influences up to the yearA. D.1834.
According to our British testimony, it was originally £10,500. In 1690, in consequence of the enormous profits upon this small capital, it was increased threefold, making it £31,500. In 1720 it was declared to be £94,500. In this year the stock was (as is termed)watered. The then proprietors each subscribed £100, and received £300 of stock, calling the whole nominal stock £378,000, while the actual subscription was but £94,500, and only £3,150 was paid. The stock was ordered to reckon at £103,500, while the actual total amount paid was but £13,650.
In 1821, there was another “watering” of the stock, and a call of £100 per share on the proprietors, which raised their capital to £200,000. The Northwest Fur Company joined the Hudson’s Bay Company in this year, and the joint stock was declared to be £400,000.
We are ready to admit, in fact, the testimony in the case goes to prove, that the French Northwest Company brought into the concern an equal amount of capital with that of the Hudson’s Bay Company. This would give the present Hudson’s Bay Company a real capital of £27,300, a nominal capital of £400,000.
By reference to the memorial of the company, we find they claim, on the 8th of April, 1867, of our government:—
For the right to trade, of which the settlement of the country and removal of Indians to reservations has deprived them, £200,000.
For the right of the free navigation of the Columbia River, £300,000.
For their forts, farms, posts, and establishments, with the buildings and improvements, £285,350, making, in all, £785,350, or $3,822,036.67, or £385,350 more than the whole amount of nominal stock which they claim to have invested in their entire trade.
We will not stop to speak of the morality of this claim; it is made in due form, and this with the claim as set forth in the same document, to wit: For lands, farms, forts, and improvements, £190,000; loss of live stock and other losses, £50,000; total, £240,000—equal to $1,188,000, to be paid in gold. In British money these two sums amount to £1,025,350 sterling, in American dollars to $4,990,036.67; or £625,350 sterling money more than their nominal stock, and £998,050 sterling more than all their real stock invested.
It will be remembered that this demand is simply on account of the settlement of Oregon by the Americans. A part of the posts for which this demand is made are still in their undisputed possession, and a large portion of the claim is set up in consequence of the loss of the profits of the fur trade, of that portion of their business as conducted in territory that originally belonged to the United States, and was actually given up to them by the treaty of December 24, 1814.
The reader will bear in mind, that in the review or discussion of this Hudson’s Bay Company’s claim on our government, we only refer to that part of their trade, and the rights or privileges they were permitted to enjoy, jointly with Americans, in what is now absolutely American territory. Over two-thirds of their capital has always been employed in territory that the American has not been permitted to enter, much less to trade and form a settlement of any kind.
The witnesses on the part of the Hudson’s Bay Company have been forty-one in number. Of this number fifteen are directly interested in the results of the award. Fourteen were brought to the country by, and remained in the service of the company till they left the country; and were all British, though some of them have become naturalized American citizens. Twelve are American citizens, and are supposed to have no particular interest in the results of the case; in fact, their statements are all of a general and very indefinite character. Having come to the country since 1850, they know but little or nothing about the Hudson’s Bay Company, its rights, policy, or interests there. Not one of them appears, from the testimony given, to understand the justness of the company’s claim, or the injustice there would be in allowing any part of it. Their testimony appears to be given under the impression that because the treaty stipulated that the possessory rightsof the company were acknowledged and to be respected, that therefore full payment must be paid the company for the right of trade, and the prospective profits in trade, and the increased value of assessable property for an indefinite period in the future. As, for example, a witness is asked:—
“What is the present value per acre of the company’s claims at Cowlitz and Nasqualla, for farming and grazing purposes?”Ans.—“Supposing both claims to belong to the same person or company, having a clear and undisputed title, and perfectly exempt from molestation in the transaction of business, I think the Cowlitz claim worth to-day thirty dollars an acre, and the Nasqualla claim five dollars an acre, for farming and grazing purposes.”
“What is the present value per acre of the company’s claims at Cowlitz and Nasqualla, for farming and grazing purposes?”
Ans.—“Supposing both claims to belong to the same person or company, having a clear and undisputed title, and perfectly exempt from molestation in the transaction of business, I think the Cowlitz claim worth to-day thirty dollars an acre, and the Nasqualla claim five dollars an acre, for farming and grazing purposes.”
The fifteen interested witnesses all testify to about the same thing, asserting positively as to the real value of the company’s supposed rights. One of the chief factors, in answer to the interrogatory, “State the value of the post at Vancouver, as well in 1846 as since, until the year 1863; give the value of the lands and of the buildings separately; and state also what was the value of the post in relation to the other posts, and as a center of trade,” said:—
“It being the general depot for the trade of the company west of the Rocky Mountains, in 1846 the establishment at Vancouver, with its out-buildings, was in thorough order, having been lately rebuilt; taking into account this post” (a notorious fact that but two new buildings were about the establishment and in decent repair), “together with the various improvements at the mill, on the mill plain, on the lower plain, and at Sauvies Island, I should estimate its value then to the company at from five to six hundred thousand dollars.”
“It being the general depot for the trade of the company west of the Rocky Mountains, in 1846 the establishment at Vancouver, with its out-buildings, was in thorough order, having been lately rebuilt; taking into account this post” (a notorious fact that but two new buildings were about the establishment and in decent repair), “together with the various improvements at the mill, on the mill plain, on the lower plain, and at Sauvies Island, I should estimate its value then to the company at from five to six hundred thousand dollars.”
The value of the land used by the company, at Fort Vancouver, in 1846, say containing a frontage of twenty-five miles on the Columbia, by ten miles in depth, in all two hundred and fifty square miles, or about 160,000 acres, I should calculate as being worth then, on an average, from $2.50 to $3 an acre (at $2.50 would give us $400,000); this, with the improvements, say $500,000, gives us, at this witness’s lowest estimate, $900,000 for the company’s possessory rights.
This witness goes into an argument stating surrounding and probable events, and concludes in these words: “I am clearly of opinion that had the company entire control to deal with it as their own, without any question as to their title, from the year 1846 and up to 1858, when I left there, taking the fort as a center point, the land above and below it, to the extent of three square miles, or 1,920 acres, with frontage on the Columbia River, could have been easily disposed of for $250 per acre ($480,000). The remainder of the land claim of the company atVancouver is more or less valuable, according to its locality; thus, I consider the land on the lower plain, having frontage on the river for a distance of five miles, or 3,200 acres, as worth $100 per acre ($320,000). Below that, again, to the Cathlapootl, a distance of probably ten miles, with a depth of two miles, or 12,800 acres, is worth $25 an acre ($320,000). Going above the fort plain, and so on to the commencement of the claim, two miles above the saw-mill on the Columbia River, say a distance of six or seven miles and back three miles, or about 13,500 acres, should be worth from $10 to $15 per acre” ($135,000, at $10, his lowest estimate). “The remainder of the claim is worth from $1.50 to $3 per acre.” It being 128,580 acres, at $1.50 per acre, $192,580. This would make for the Vancouver property, as claimed, and several witnesses have sworn the value to amount, as per summary of a chief factor’s testimony—
Forthe fort, buildings, farm and mill improvements$500,000„1,920acresof land about the fort at $250peracre480,000„3,200„below the fort, at $100„„320,000„12,800„on lower plain, at $25„„320,000„13,500„above the saw-mill, at $10„„135,000„128,580„balance of claim, at $1.50„„192,580
(Note)
This gives us the sum of $1,947,580 in gold coin, as the value of the possessory rights of the honorable the Hudson’s Bay Company to Fort Vancouver and its immediate surroundings.
This chief factor’s oath and estimate of the property is sustained by the estimates and oaths of three other chief factors, amounting to about the same sum. This one, after answering in writing, as appears in his cross-examination, twenty sworn questions affirming to the facts and truth of his knowledge of the claims and business of the company, etc., is cross-questioned (Interrogatory 477), by the counsel for the United States, as follows: “Can you not answer the last interrogatory more definitely?” The 476th interrogatory was: “Have you not as much knowledge of what the company claimed in this direction as any other?” The answer to the 477th interrogatory is: “Referring to my answer to the last interrogatory, it will be at once seen thatI have no personal knowledgeas to what land the company actually claimed on that lineor any other, as regards the land in the neighborhood of Fort Vancouver. This answer embraces even the present time.”
There are several American witnesses introduced to prove this monstrous claim, and to show the reasonableness and justness of their demand. I will give a specimen of an answer given by one of them. After estimating the amount of land in a similar manner to the witness above referred to, calculating the land in four divisions, at $50, $10, and$1.25 per acre, and 161,000 acres amounting to $789,625, without any estimate upon the buildings or improvements, the following question was put to him: “Have you any knowledge of the market value of land in the vicinity of Vancouver, at any time since 1860?”
Ans.—“I only heard of one sale, which was near the military reserve; I think this was of 100 acres, and I understand brought $100 an acre. I heard of this within the last few months, but nothing was said, that I remember, about the time when the sale was made.”
From the intelligence and official position of this American witness, we are forced to the conclusion that the enriching effects of old Hudson’s Bay rum must have made him feel both wealthy and peculiarly liberal in estimating the possessory rights of his Hudson’s Bay Company friends.
There is one noticeable fact in relation to quite a number of the witnesses called, and that have testified in behalf of the company’s claim. It is their ignorance—we may add, total ignorance—of the general business, profits, and policy of the company. This remark will apply to every witness whose deposition has been taken, including their bookkeepers and clerks in London, and their chief factors in Oregon. Dr. McLaughlin seems to have been the only man upon this coast that knew, or that could give an intelligent account of its policy or its proceedings.
The whole Hudson’s Bay Company concern appears like a great barrel, bale, or box of goods, put up in London, and marked for a certain district, servants and clerks sent along with the bales, and boxes, and barrels of rum, to gather up all the furs and valuable skins they can find all over the vast country they occupy, then bale up these furs and skins and send them to London, where another set of clerks sell them and distribute the profits on the sale of the furs.
As to the value of the soil, timber, minerals, or any improvements they have ever seen or made in the country, they are as ignorant as the savages of the country they have been trading with.This ignorance is real or willful.The oaths of the two witnesses to which I have referred show this fact beyond a doubt, they having been the longest in the service, and attained a high position, and should know the most of its business and policy.
There is one other American witness that has given his testimony in the case of Puget Sound Agricultural Companyv.United States. He came to this country in 1853. In cross-interrogatory 55, he is asked: “In your opinion, did not the agents of this company afford great protection to the first settlers of this section of country by the exercise of their influence over the different Indian tribes?”
Ans.—“In my opinion, the officers of the company, beingeducated gentlemen, have always exerted whatever influence they might have had with the Indians to protect the whites of all nations in the early settlement of the country.”
This opinion is expressed by a gentleman having no knowledge of the policy and proceedings of the company in relation to all American settlers previous to his arrival in the country. He concludes that because he, in his official transactions, having no occasion to ask or receive the company’s protection, was treated kindly, all others must have been, as the company’s officers were, in his opinion, “educated gentlemen.”
In answer to this last official American gentleman and his officious opinion, as expressed on oath in this case, I will quote a statement, under oath, of one of our oldbed-rocksettlers, who came on to the west side of the Rocky Mountains in 1829, twenty-four years previous to the last witness, who pretends to know so much.
Int. 7.—“What influence did the Hudson’s Bay Company exercise over the Indians in the section where you operated, with reference to the American trappers and traders? State such facts as occur to you in this connection.”
Ans.—“The Hudson’s Bay Company exercised a great influence over the western Indians; that is, the Cayuses, Nez Percés, Flatheads, and Spokans, and others through these; they had no influence over the Indians east of the Rocky Mountains at all, and away south they could do almost any thing with the Indians. I know of one party that was robbed by order of one of the Hudson’s Bay Company men, the commander of Fort Wallawalla (Wallula); the party was robbed, and the fur brought back to the fort and sold. I was not with the party; that was my understanding about the matter; and that was what the Indians said, and what the whites said that were robbed.” (A fact known to the writer.)
Int. 13.—“Was it not generally understood among the American trappers that the Hudson’s Bay Company got a very large quantity of Jedediah Smith’s furs, for which he and they failed to account to the company to which they belonged?” (Objected to, because it is leading, immaterial, and hearsay.)
Ans.—“It used to be said so among the trappers in the mountains,” (and admitted by the company, as no correct account was ever rendered.)
Int. 14.—“If you remember, state the quantity which was thus reported.” (Objected to as before.)
Ans.—“It was always reported as about forty packs.”
Int. 15.—“Give an estimate of the value of forty packs of beaver at that time.”
Ans.—“Forty packs of beaver at that time, in the mountains, was worth about $20,000. I do not know what they would be worth at Vancouver.”
Int. 16.—“State whether the dispute about this matter was the cause of the dissolution of the firm of Smith, Jackson & Sublet, to which you refer in your cross-examination.” (Objected to as above.)
Ans.—“I do not know; that was the report among mountain men.”
With these specimens of testimony on both sides, I will venture a general statement drawn from the whole facts developed.
About the time, or perhaps one year before, the notice that the joint occupancy of the country west of the Rocky Mountains was given by the American government to that of the British, the Hudson’s Bay Company, as such, had made extensive preparations and arrangements to hold the country west of the Rocky Mountains. This arrangement embraced a full and complete organization of the Indian tribes under the various traders and factors at the various forts in the country.
The probability of a Mexican war with the United States, and such influences as could be brought to bear upon commissioners, or the treaty-making power of the American government, would enable them to secure this object. In this they failed. The Mexican war was successfully and honorably closed. The Hudson’s Bay Company’s claims are respected, or at least mentioned as in existence, in the treaty of 1846, that the 49th parallel should be the boundaryof the two national dominions.
On the strength of their supposed possessory right, they remain quietly in their old forts and French pig-pens, take a full inventory of their old Indian salmon-houses, and watch the progress of American improvement upon this coast, till 1863, when the American people are in the midst of a death struggle for its civil existence. They then for the third time “water” this monstrosity under the name of “‘The International Financial Society, limited,’ are prepared to receive subscriptions for the issue at par of capital stock in the Hudson’s Bay Company, incorporated by royal charter, 1670,” fixing the nominal stock of the Hudson’s Bay Company at £2,000,000; and taking from this amount £1,930,000, they offer it for sale under this new title in shares of £20 each, claiming as belonging to them [i. e., the Hudson’s Bay Company] 1,400,000 square miles, or upward of 896,000,000 acres of land, and, after paying all expenses, an income of £81,000 in ten years, up to the 31st of May—over four per cent. on the £2,000,000. This vast humbug is held up for the English public to invest in,—a colonization scheme to enrich the favored shareholders of that old English aristocratic humbug chartered by Charles II. in 1670.
In the whole history of that company there has never been any investigation of its internal policy so thorough as in the present proceedings. In fact, this is the first time they have ventured to allow a legal investigation into their system of trade and their rights of property. They have grown to such enormous proportions, and controlled so vast a country, that the government and treasury of the United States has become, in their estimation, a mere appendage to facilitate their Indian trade and financial speculations. From our recent purchases of Russian territory, it becomes an important question to every American citizen, and especially our statesmen, to make himself familiar with so vast an influence under the British flag, and extending along so great an extent of our northern frontier. Should they establish, by their own interested and ignorant testimony, their present claims, there will be no end to their unreasonable demands, for they have dotted the whole continent with their trading-posts. They claim all that is supposed to be of any value to savage and civilized man. The English nation without its Hudson’s Bay Company’s old traps and hunting-parties would have no claim west of the Rocky Mountains, yet, for the sake of these, it has almost ventured a third war with our American people in sending from its shores, instead of land pirates, under the bars and stars, the red flag of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The two flags should be folded together and laid up in the British Museum, as a lasting monument of British injustice.
I apprehend, from a careful review of all this testimony of the forty-one witnesses who were on the part of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the forty-two on the part of the United States, that the whole policy of the company has been thoroughly developed; yet, at the same time, without a long personal acquaintance with their manner of doing business, it would be difficult to comprehend the full import of the testimony given, though I apprehend the commissioners will have no very difficult task to understand the humbuggery of the whole claim, as developed by the testimony of the clerks in London and the investigation at head-quarters. As to the amount of award, I would not risk one dollar to obtain a share in all they get from our government. On the contrary, a claim should be made against them for damages and trespass upon the American citizens, as also the lives of such as they have caused to be murdered by their influence over the Indians.
The telegraph has informed us that the commissioners have awarded to the Hudson’s Bay Company, $450,000, and to the Puget Sound concern, $200,000. We have no change to make in our opinion of thecommissioners previously expressed, as they must have known, from the testimony developed in the Puget Sound concern, that that part of the claim was a fictitious one, and instituted to distract the public and divide the pretensions to so large an amount in two parts. That the commissioners should allow it can only be understood upon the principle that the Hudson’s Bay Company were entitled to that amount as an item of costs in prosecuting their case.
No man at all familiar with the history of this coast, and of the Hudson’s Bay Company, can conscientiously approve of that award. Our forefathers, in 1776, said “millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute,” which we consider this award to be,—for the benefit of English duplicity and double-dealing, in the false representations they made at the making of the treaty, and the perjury of their witnesses.
Quotation from Mr. Swan.—His mistake.—General Gibbs’ mistake.—Kamaiyahkan.—Indian agent killed.—I. I. Stevens misjudged.
Quotation from Mr. Swan.—His mistake.—General Gibbs’ mistake.—Kamaiyahkan.—Indian agent killed.—I. I. Stevens misjudged.
The gigantic fraud of slavery fell, in our own land, in the short space of four years; but that of this company—holding and destroying as many lives as the African slave trade—holds its own, and still lifts its head, under the patronage of a professed Christian nation; and claims to be an honorable company, while it robs and starves its unnumbered benighted Indians, and shuts up half of North America from civilization. At the same time it has obtained $650,000 for partially withdrawing its continued robberies of the American Indians within the United States, after implanting in the savage mind an implacable hatred against the American people.
While we have our own personal knowledge on this point, we will give a quotation from Mr. Swan’s work, written in 1852, page 381, showing his views of the subject, which are mostly correct; but, in speaking of the trade of the Americans and of the Hudson’s Bay Company, he says: “The Indians preferred to trade with the Americans, for they kept one article in great demand, which the Hudson’s Bay people did not sell, and that was whisky.”
In this Mr. Swan is entirely mistaken. The Hudson’s Bay people always had liquor, and let the Indians have all they could pay for, as proved by their own writer, Mr. Dunn. (See12th chapter.) Mr. S. continues: “Reckless, worthless men, who are always to be found in new settlements, would give or sell whisky to the Indians, and then, when drunk, abuse them. If the injury was of a serious nature, the Indian was sure to have revenge; and should he kill a white man, would be certainly hanged, if caught; but, although the same law operated on the whites, I have never known an instance where a white man has been hanged for killing an Indian.” This has been my experience, Mr. Swan, for more than thirty years, with the Hudson’s Bay Company, or English. When a white man kills an Indian, the tribe, or his friends, are satisfied with a present, instead of the life of the murderer. It has been invariably the practice with the Hudson’s Bay Company to pay, when any of their people kill an Indian, and to kill the Indian murderer; not so when an American is killed. SaysMr. Swan: “The ill-feelings thus engendered against the Americans, by this, and other causes, was continuallyfanned and kept alive by these half-breeds and old servants of the company, whose feelings were irritated by what they considered an unwarrantable assumption on the part of these settlers, in coming across the mountains to squat upon lands they considered theirs by right of prior occupancy.The officers of the companyalso sympathized with their old servants in this respect, and adeadly feeling of hatred had existedbetween these officers and the American emigrant, for their course in taking possession of the lands claimed by the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, and other places on the Sound and the Columbia River; and there is not a man among them who would not be glad to have had every American emigrant driven out of the country.” It is unnecessary to add examples of this kind to prove to any reasonable mind the continued hostility of that company, and all under its influence, to the American government and people.
Can their friendship be bought by paying them the entire sum they claim? We think not.
Whatever sum is given will go to enrich the shareholders, who will rejoice over their success, as an Indian would over the scalp of his enemy. Theimplacable hatred will remain, and nothing but extermination, or a complete absorption of the whole continent into the American republic, will close up the difficulty, and save a remnant of the Indian tribes. This, to some, may not be desirable; but humanity and right should, and will, eventually, prevail over crime, or any foreign policy.
The American people are taunted by the Roman Jesuits and English with having driven the Indian from his lands, and having occupied it themselves; but how is it with the English? While the American has attempted to gather the Indians into convenient communities, and spent millions of dollars to civilize and better their condition, the English nation, as such, has never given one dollar, but has chartered company after company of merchants, traders, and explorers, who have entered the Indian country under their exclusive charters, or license to trade, and shut it up from all others. They have, in the profitable prosecution of their trade, so managed as to exterminate all surplus and useless Indians, and reduce them to easy and profitable control. Should one of their half-breed servants, or a white man, attempt to expose their system, or speak of their iniquitous policy, a great hue and cry is raised against him, both in England and America, and he must fall, either by a misinformed public or by savage hands, while they triumphantly refer to the ease with which they exercise absolutecontrol over the Indians in their jurisdiction, as a reason why they should be permitted to continue their exclusive occupation and government of the country. Thus, for being forced partially to leave that portion of Oregon south of the 49th parallel, they presumed to make a claim against our government three times larger than the whole capital stock of the two companies combined.
This hue and cry, and the public sentiment they have continued to raise and control, has its double object. The one is to continue their exclusive possession of, and trade in the country, the other is to obtain all the money they can from the American government for the little part of it they have professedly given up.
It will be remembered that in the investigation of their claims, and the depositions given, it was stated that Forts Okanagon, Colville, Kootanie, and Flathead, were still in their possession in 1866; that Wallawalla, Fort Hall, and Boise were given up because they were prohibited by the government from trading ammunition and guns to the Indians. This means simply that the last-named posts were too far from their own territory to enable them to trade in these prohibited articles, and escape detection by the American authorities. The northern posts, or those contiguous to the 49th parallel, are still occupied by them. From these posts they supply the Indians, and send their emissaries into the American territory, and keep up the “deadly hatred,” of which Mr. Swan speaks, and about which General Gibbs, in his letter explaining the causes of the Indian war, is so much mistaken.
There is one fact stated by General Gibbs, showing the continued combination of the Roman priests with the Hudson’s Bay Company, which we will give in this connection. He says: “The Yankamas have always been opposed to the intrusion of the Americans.” This is also a mistake of Mr. Gibbs, as we visited that tribe in the fall of 1839, and found them friendly, and anxious to have an American missionary among them. At that time there had been no priest among them, and no combined effort of the company to get rid of the American missionary settlements. Kamaiyahkan, the very chief mentioned by General Gibbs as being at the head of the combination against the Americans, accompanied us to Dr. Whitman’s station, to urge the establishment of an American mission among his people.
General Gibbs says, that, “as early as 1853, Kamaiyahkan had projected a war of extermination. Father Pandosa, the priest at Atahnam (Yankama) mission, in the spring of that year, wrote to Father Mesplie, the one at the Dalls, desiring him to inform Major Alvord, in command at that post, of the fact. Major Alvord reported it to General Hitchcock, then in command on this coast, Hitchcockcensuredhim as analarmist, and Pandosa wascensuredby his superiors, who forthwith placed a priest of higher rank over him.”
The next year, Indian agent Bolon was killed, and the war commenced. How did General Hitchcock learn that Pandosa, a simple-hearted priest, and Major Alvord were alarmists? The fact of the censure, and placing a priest of higher rank over Pandosa at the Yankama station (the very place we selected in 1839 for an American station), is conclusive evidence on this point.
“The war of extermination,” that General Gibbs, in his mistaken ideas of Hudson’s Bay policy and Indian character, attributes to the policy of Governor I. I. Stevens, was commenced in 1845. At that time, it was supposed by James Douglas, Mr. Ogden, and the ruling spirits of that company, that all they had to do was to withhold munitions of war from the Americans, and the Indians would do the balance for them.
The Indian wars that followed, and that are kept up and encouraged along our borders, and all over this coast, are the legitimate fruits of the “DEADLY HATRED” implanted in the mind and soul of the Indianby the Hudson’s Bay Company and their allies, the priests. There is an object in this: while they teach the Indians to believe that the Americans are robbing them of their lands and country, they at the same time pretend that they do not want it.
Like Bishop Blanchet with the Cayuses, they “only want a small piece of land to raise a little provisions from,” and they are continually bringing such goods as the Indians want; and whenever they are ready to join their forces and send their war-parties into American territory, this company ofhonorable English fur tradersare always ready to supply them with arms and ammunition, and to purchase from them the goods or cattle (including scalps, in case of war between the two nations) they may capture on such expeditions.
The more our government pays to that company, or their fictitious agent, the more means they will have to carry on their opposition to American commerce and enterprise on this coast. Should they obtain but one-third of their outrageous claim, it is contemplated to invest it, with their original stock, in a new company, under the same name, Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company, and to extend their operations so as to embrace not only the fur, but gold and grain trade, over this whole western coast.
Will it be for the interests of this country to encourage them? Let their conduct and proceeding while they had the absolute control of it answer, and prove a timely warning to the country before such vampires are allowed to fasten themselves upon it.
Review of Mr. Greenhow’s work in connection with the conduct and policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company.—Schools and missionaries.—Reasons for giving extracts from Mr. Greenhow’s work.—Present necessity for more knowledge about the company.
Review of Mr. Greenhow’s work in connection with the conduct and policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company.—Schools and missionaries.—Reasons for giving extracts from Mr. Greenhow’s work.—Present necessity for more knowledge about the company.
As stated by General Gibbs, Mr. Greenhow has given us a complete history of the discovery of Oregon. At the point where he leaves us the reader will observe our present history commences. We did not read Mr. Greenhow’s very elaborate and interesting history till ours had been completed in manuscript. On reading it, we found abundant proof of statements we have made respecting the policy of the British government to hold, by the influence of her Hudson’s Bay Company, the entire country west of the Rocky Mountains that was not fully occupied by the Russian and Spanish governments.
This fact alone makes our history the more important and interesting to the American reader. Mr. Greenhow, upon pages 360 and 361 of his work, closes the labors of the eleven different American fur companies with the name of Captain Nathaniel Wyeth, and upon these two pages introduces the American missionaries, with the Roman Jesuits, though the latter did not arrive in the country till four years after the former.
On his 388th page, after speaking of various transactions relative to California, the Sandwich Islands, and the proceedings in Congress relative to the Oregon country, he says: “In the mean time, the Hudson’s Bay Company had been doing all in its power to extend and confirm its position in the countries west of the Rocky Mountains, from which its governors felicitated themselves with the idea that they had expelled the Americans entirely.”
Page 389. “The object of the company was, therefore, to place a large number of British subjects in Oregon within the shortest time, and, of course, to exclude from it as much as possible all people of the United States; so that when the period for terminating the convention with the latter power should arrive, Great Britain might be able to present the strongest title to the possession of the whole, on the ground of actual occupation by the Hudson’s Bay Company. To these ends the efforts of that company had been for some time directed. The immigration of British subjects was encouraged; the Americans were byall means excluded;and the Indians were brought as much as possible into friendship with, and subject to, the company, while they were taught to regard the people of the United States as enemies!”
In a work entitled “Four Years in British Columbia,” by Commander R. C. Mayne, R. N., F. R. G. S., page 279, this British writer says: “I have also spoken of the intense hatred of them all for the Boston men (Americans). This hatred, although nursed chiefly by the cruelty with which they are treated by them, is also owing in a great measure to the system adopted by the Americans of removing them away from their villages when their sites become settled by whites. The Indians often express dread lest we should adopt the same course, and have lately petitioned Governor Douglas on the subject.”
Commander Mayne informs us, on his 193d page, that in the performance of his official duties among the Indians, “recourse to very strong expressions was found necessary; and they were threatened with the undying wrath of Mr. Douglas, whose name always acts as a talisman with them.”
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 Companyadmirably 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 therumthey had traded with us on Saturday.——Tuesday, April 26.—Great many Indians on board.——Traded a number of skins. They seem to likerumvery much.——May 4.—They were alldrunk; 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 ofrum.——July 11.—They traded a quantity ofrumfrom us.”
“In the treatment of the aborigines of these countries, the Hudson’s Bay Companyadmirably 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 therumthey had traded with us on Saturday.——Tuesday, April 26.—Great many Indians on board.——Traded a number of skins. They seem to likerumvery much.——May 4.—They were alldrunk; 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 ofrum.——July 11.—They traded a quantity ofrumfrom us.”
The KingstonChronicle, a newspaper, on the 27th of September, 1848, says: “The Hudson’s Bay Company have, in some instanceswith 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.
In the narrative of the Rev. Mr. King, it is stated that “the agents of the Hudson’s Bay Company are not satisfied with putting so insignificant value upon the furs, that the more active hunters only can gain a support, which necessarily leads to the death of the more aged and infirm by starvation and cannibalism, but they encourage the intemperate use of ardent spirits.”
Says Mr. Alexander Simpson, one of the company’s own chief traders: “That body has assumed much credit for the discontinuance of the sale of spirituous liquors at its trading establishments, but I apprehend that in this matter it has both claimed and received more praise than is its due. The issue of spirits has not been discontinued by it on principle, indeed it has not been discontinued at all when there is a possibility of diminution of trade through the Indians having the power to resent this deprivation of their accustomed and much-loved annual jollification, by carrying their furs to another market.”
This means simply that Mr. Greenhow and all other admirers of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s manner of treating Indians have been humbugged by their professions of “humanity and policy.”
We are inclined to return Mr. Greenhow’s compliment to the Rev. Samuel Parker in his own language, as found on the 361st page of his work. He says: “Mr. Samuel Parker, whose journal of his tour beyond the Rocky Mountains, though highly interesting and instructive, would have been much more so had he confined himself to the results of his own experience, and not wandered into the region of history, diplomacy, and cosmogony, in all of which he is evidently a stranger.” So with Mr. Greenhow, when he attempts to reconcile the conduct of the Hudson’s Bay Company with “humanity,” and admires their policy, and gives them credit for honorable treatment of “Indians, missionaries, and settlers,” he leaves his legitimate subject of history and diplomacy, and goes into the subject of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s moralpolicy, to which he appears quite as much a “stranger” as Mr. Samuel Parker does to those subjects in which Mr. Greenhow found him deficient.
But, notwithstanding we are inclined to return Mr. Greenhow’s compliment in his own language, his historical researches and facts are invaluable, as developing a deep scheme of a foreign national grasping disposition, to hold, by a low, mean, underhanded, and, as Mr. Greenhow says, “false and malicious course of misrepresentation, the country west of the Rocky Mountains.” There are a few pages in Mr. Greenhow’s history that,—as ours is now fully written, and we see no reason to change a statement we have made,—for the information of our readers, and to correct what we conceive to be an erroneous impression of his relative to our early settlements upon this coast, we will quote, and request our readers to observe our corrections in the history or narration of events we have given them.
“Schools for the instruction of their children, and hospitals for their sick, were established at all their principal trading-posts; each of which, moreover, afforded the means of employment and support to Indians disposed to work in the intervals between the hunting seasons.”
“Schools for the instruction of their children, and hospitals for their sick, were established at all their principal trading-posts; each of which, moreover, afforded the means of employment and support to Indians disposed to work in the intervals between the hunting seasons.”
Says the Rev. Mr. Barnley, a Wesleyan missionary at Moose Factory, whose labors commenced in June, 1840, and continued till September, 1847: “A plan which I had devised for educating and turning to some acquaintance with agriculture, native children, was disallowed,——it being very distinctly stated by Sir George Simpson, that the company would not give them even a spade toward commencing their new mode of life.”
Says Mr. Greenhow: “Missionaries of various sects were encouraged to undertake to convert these people to Christianity, and to induce them to adopt the usages of civilized life, so far as might be consistent with the nature of the labors in which they are engaged; care being at the same time taken to instill into their minds due respect for the company,and for the sovereign of Great Britain; and attempts were made, at great expense, though with little success, to collect them into villages, or tracts where the soil and climate are favorable to agriculture.”
Mr. Barnley says: “At Moose Factory, where the resources were most ample, and where was the seat of authority in the southern department of Rupert’s Land, thehostilityof the company (and not merely their inability to aid me, whether with convenience or inconvenience to themselves) was most manifest.”
Another of the English missionaries writes in this manner: “When at York Factory last fall (1848), a young gentleman boasted that he had succeeded in starting the Christian Indians of Rossville off with the boats on a Sunday. Thus every effort we make for their moral and spiritual improvement is frustrated, and those who were, and still are, desirous of becoming Christians, are kept away; the pagan Indians desiring to become Christians, but being made drunk on their arrival at the fort, ‘their good desires vanish.’ The Indians professing Christianity had actually exchanged one keg of rum for tea and sugar, at one post, but the successive offers of liquor betrayed them into intoxication at another.”
The Rev. Mr. Beaver, chaplain of the company at Fort Vancouver, in 1836, writes thus to the Aborigines Protection Society, London, tract 8, page 19:—
“For a time I reported to the governor and committee of the company in England, and to the governor and the council of the company abroad, the result of my observations, with a view to a gradual amelioration of the wretched degradation with which I was surrounded, by an immediate attempt at the introduction of civilization and Christianity, among one or more of the aboriginal tribes; but my earnest representations were neither attended to nor acted upon; no means were placed at my disposal for carrying out the plan which I suggested.”
“For a time I reported to the governor and committee of the company in England, and to the governor and the council of the company abroad, the result of my observations, with a view to a gradual amelioration of the wretched degradation with which I was surrounded, by an immediate attempt at the introduction of civilization and Christianity, among one or more of the aboriginal tribes; but my earnest representations were neither attended to nor acted upon; no means were placed at my disposal for carrying out the plan which I suggested.”
Mr. Greenhow says, page 389: “Particular care was also extended to the education of the half-breed children, the offspring of the marriage or the concubinage of the traders with the Indian women, who were retained and bred as much as possible among the white people, and were taken into the service of the company, whenever they were found capable. There being few white women in those countries, it is evident that these half-breeds must, in time, form a large, if not an important portion of the inhabitants; and there is nothing to prevent their being adopted and recognized as British subjects.
“The conduct of the Hudson’s Bay Company, in these respects, is worthy ofcommendation; and may be contrasted most favorably withthat pursued at the present day by civilized people toward the aborigines of all other new countries.”
“The conduct of the Hudson’s Bay Company, in these respects, is worthy ofcommendation; and may be contrasted most favorably withthat pursued at the present day by civilized people toward the aborigines of all other new countries.”
It is a most singular fact, that while Mr. Greenhow was writing the above high commendation of the conduct and policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company, in relation to their treatment of Indians and missionaries under their absolute control, that that company were driving from their posts at Moose Factory and Vancouver, their own Wesleyan and Episcopal missionaries, and doing all they could to prevent the settlement or civilization of the Indians, or allowing any missionary intercourse with them, except by foreign Roman Jesuits, and were actually combining the Indians in Oregon to destroy and defeat civil and Christian efforts among the Indians and American settlements then being established in the country. Page 390, Mr. Greenhow further says: “The course pursued by the Hudson’s Bay Company, with regard to American citizens in the territory west of the Rocky Mountains, was equallyunexceptionableandpolitic. The missionaries and immigrants from the United States, or from whatever country they might come, were received at the establishments of the company with the utmost kindness, and were aided in the prosecution of their respective objects,so far and so long as those objects were not commercial; but no sooner did any person, unconnected with the company, attempt to hunt, or trap, or trade with the Indians, than all the force of the body was turned against him.”
The statement in the last part of the foregoing paragraph can be attested by more than one hundred American hunters and traders, who have felt the full force of that company’s influence against them; as also by missionaries and settlers on first arriving in the country. But Mr. Greenhow says: “There is no evidence or reason to believe that violent measures were ever employed, either directly or indirectly, for this purpose; nor would such means have been needed while the company enjoyed advantages over all competitors, such as are afforded by its wealth, its organization, and the skill and knowledge of the country, and of the natives, possessed by its agents.” This is simply an assertion of Mr. Greenhow, which our future pages will correct in the mind of any who have received it as truth. It is unnecessary to pursue Mr. Greenhow’s history of the Hudson’s Bay Company respecting their treatment of American or English missionaries or American settlers; the statements we have quoted show fully his want of a correct knowledge of the practices of that company in dealing with savage and civilized men. We only claim for ourselves close observation and deeply interested participation in all that relates to Oregon since 1832, having been permitted to be present at the forming of its early civil settlement and political history. This work of Mr. Greenhow’s appears to be peculiarly political as well as strongly national, and in the passages we have quoted, with many other similar ones, he seems to us to have written to catch the patronage of this foreign English corporation, which, according to his own showing, has been an incubus upon the English, and, so far as possible, the Americans also. While he shows his utter ignorance of their internal policy and history, his researches in the history of the early discoveries on this western coast are ample And most useful as vindicating our American claim to the country. But as to its settlement and civilization, or its early moral or political history, as he says of Mr. Samuel Parker, “in all of which he is evidently a stranger.”
Our reasons for giving the extracts from Mr. Greenhow’s work are—
1st. That the reader may the better understand what follows as our own.
2d. To avoid a future collision or controversy respecting statements that may be quoted from him to contradict or controvert our own, respecting the policy and practices of the Hudson’s Bay Company, which, Mr. Greenhow says, page 391, “did no more than they were entitled to do. If the Americans neglected or were unable to avail themselves of the benefits secured to both nations by the convention, the fault or the misfortune was their own, and they had no right to complain.” If this is true, as against the American, what right has the Hudson’s Bay Company to complain and ask pay for what had been rendered worthless to them by the American settlement of the country?
“The hospitable treatment extended to them [American citizens] by the agents of the Hudson’s Bay Company was doubtless approved by the directors of that body; and all who know Messrs. McLaughlin and Douglas, the principal managers of the affairs of that body on the Columbia, unite in testifying that the humanity and generosity of those gentlemen have been always carried as far as their duties would permit. That their conduct does not, however, meet with universal approbation among the servants of the company in that quarter, sufficient evidence may be cited to prove.” He quotes John Dunn’s book, chap. 12.
Mr. Greenhow wrote his history with the light then existing,i. e., in 1844. About that time Dr. McLaughlin was called to an account by the directors of the Hudson’s Bay Company, in London. He explained to them his position, and the condition of the Americans, who came to this country both naked and hungry, and that, as a man of common humanity, he could do no less than he did. The directors insisted upon the enforcement of their stringent rule, which was, to starve and drive every American from the country. He then told them: “If suchis your order, gentlemen, I will serve you no longer.” As to Mr. Douglas, we have no such noble sentiment to record in his behalf; he belonged to that English party called by Mr. Greenhow “Patriots.” He says: “There were two parties among the British in Oregon, thePatriotsand theLiberals, who, while they agreed in holding all Americans in utter detestation, asknavesandruffians, yet differed as to the propriety of the course pursued with regard to them by the company. ThePatriotsmaintained, that kindness showed to the people of the United States was thrown away, and would be badly requited; that it was merely nurturing a race of men, who would soon rise from their weak and humble position, as grateful acknowledgers of favors, to the bold attitude of questioners of the authority of Great Britain, and her right, even to Vancouver itself; that if any attempts were made for the conversion of the natives to Christianity, and to the adoption of more humanized institutions (which they limited to British institutions), a solid and permanent foundation should be laid; and for that purpose, if missionaries were to be introduced, they should come within the direct control of the dominant power, that is, the British power, and should be the countrymen of those who actually occupied Oregon, etc. TheLiberals, while admitting all that was said on the other side, of the character of the Americans, nevertheless charitably opined that those people should not be excluded, as they possessed some claim, ‘feeble, but yet existing,’ to the country, and until ‘these were quashed or confirmed, it would be unjust and impolite’ to prevent them from all possession;that these missionaries, though bad, were better than none; and that good would grow out of evil in the end, for the Americans, by their intercourse with the British,would become more humanized, tolerant, and honest.”
As most of the above sentiment relative to the two English parties in the country appears to be quoted by Mr. Greenhow from some author, it would be interesting to know who he is; still, the fact is all that is essential to know, and we have reason to believe and know that the sentiments expressed were entertained by the controlling authority of the company in London and in Oregon; and that Messrs. Douglas and Ogden, and the Roman priests under their patronage, acted fully up to them as Roman and British Jesuits, there is no question; and under such circumstances, it is not surprising that the immigration from the United States in 1843, ’44, and ’45, should increase that feeling of hostility and hatred of the American settlement and civilization in the country.
We do not propose at present to speak of the action of the American Congress relative to Oregon, but, as will be seen, to connect and bringinto our own history such allusions of Mr. Greenhow as serve to illustrate and prove the several propositions we have stated respecting the early history of its settlement, and also to prepare the reader to understand in a manner the combined influences that were ready to contest any claim or effort any American company or citizen might make for the future occupation of the country.
It will be seen that no company of settlers or traders could have succeeded, having arrived in advance of the American missionaries. They were unquestionably the only nucleus around which a permanent settlement could have been formed, eleven different American fur companies having commenced and failed, as will be shown; and although Mr. Greenhow seems to regard and treat the American missionary effort with contempt, yet impartial history will place them in the foreground, and award to them an honorable place in counteracting foreign influences and saving the country to its rightful owners.
It will be seen by the preliminary and following remarks and narrative of events, and by a careful study of all the histories and journals to which we have had occasion to refer, or from which we have quoted a statement, that the forming, civilizing, and political period in our Oregon history is all a blank, except that the Hudson’s Bay Company were the patron saints, the noble and generous preservers of the “knaves” and “ruffians” that came to this country to rob them of their pious and humane labors to civilize their accomplished native “concubines.” That, according to their ideas, the missionaries, such as came from the United States, “though bad,” could become “humanized,tolerant,” and even “honest,” by associating with such noble, generous, tolerant, virtuous, and pure-minded traders as controlled the affairs of that company, under the faithfully-executed and stringent rules of the honorable directors in London.
At the present time there is an additional important reason for a better understanding and a more thorough knowledge of the influences and operations of this British monopoly than formerly. Notwithstanding they have been driven from Oregon by its American settlement, they have retired to British Columbia, and, like barnacles upon a ship’s bottom, have fastened themselves all along the Russian and American territories, to repeat just what they did in Oregon; and, with the savage hordes with whom they have always freely mingled, they will repeat their depredations upon our American settlements, and defeat every effort to civilize or Christianize the natives over whom they have any influence.
Six generations of natives have passed away under their system of trade and civilization. The French, English, and Indians beforeour American revolution and independence could not harmonize. The French were driven from their American possessions and control over the Indians, and peace followed. The Indians, English, and Americans can not harmonize; they never have, and they never will; hence, it becomes a question of vast moment, not only to the Indian race, but to the American people, as to the propriety and expediency of allowing the English nation or British or foreign subjects to further exercise any influence among our American Indians.
Mr. A. H. Jackson estimates the expense of our Indian wars, since 1831 to the present time, at one thousand millions of dollars and thirty-seven thousand lives of our citizens, not counting the lives of Indians destroyed by our American wars with them. If the reader will carefully read and candidly judge of the historical facts presented in the following pages, we have no fears but they will join us in our conclusions, that the Monroe doctrine is irrevocably and of necessity fixed in our American existence as a nation at peace with all, which we can not have so long as any foreign sectarian or political organizations are permitted to have a controlling influence over savage minds. A Frenchman, an Englishman, a Mormon, a Roman priest, any one, or all of them, fraternizing as they do with the Indian, can work upon his prejudices and superstitions and involve our country in an Indian war—which secures the Indian trade to the British fur company. This is the great object sought to be accomplished in nearly all the wars our government has had with them.
One other remarkable fact is noted in all our Indian wars, the American or Protestant missionaries have been invariably driven from among those tribes, while the Roman Jesuit missionaries have been protected and continued among the Indians, aiding and counseling them in the continuance of those wars. It is no new thing that ignorance, superstition, and sectarian hate has produced such results upon the savage mind, and our Oregon history shows that a shrewd British fur company can duly appreciate and make use of just such influences to promote and perpetuate their trade on the American continent.