Copyright 2000 - 2003 - Janine M. Bork
This page is part of the
Union County, OR AGHP
CHAPTER XXI.
(1836.)
Settlement of Oregon - Internal Condition of the Territory - Its Elements of Colonization - Native Population, Number, Distribution, Characteristics, Disposition, or Relation to the Several White Races Present.
THE Canadian-French settlement on French Prairie, in the Willamette valley, the erection of a mill and farmhouses by Dr. John McLoughlin at Willamette Falls (now Oregon City), and the cultivation of small tracts near the Hudson's Bay Company posts at Vancouver and the Cowlitz, had been the only attempts at settlement hitherto made. Oregon occupancy had been restricted to exploration and prosecution of the fur and Indian trade. Henceforth the country is to become the home of American men and women and children. Its occupants, - settlers, - are to develop its resources, clear its vast forests, cultivate its valleys and prairies, and transform the region into American communities and states.
Heterogeneous elements enter into its colonization, diverse in character and purpose, yet all operating within the same period. For years each maintained an individuality, - worked out its peculiar or particular mission.
Present in Oregon at the dawn of American settlement were its native population, the Hudson's Bay Company with its trading-posts, establishments, trading and trapping parties, holding almost exclusive possession of the country, - individual or independent enterprises impotent to gain a foothold by reason of its vigilant and crushing competition. Here were also retired servants of the company, who were taught to regard themselves as its tenants for land by them cultivated, whose loyalty to the company still continued. Here and there, one who had never been in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had either dropped out of and remained after the expedition to which he had been attached had abandoned the country, or some trapper or sailor, who had drifted in from the Rocky Mountains or California. Then came the missionary colonies, and finally immigration proper, - American settlers seeking homes. Such was Oregon at that period. In brief, general terms must be considered: I. The native population; II. British subjects, viz., officers and employés of the Hudson's Bay Company, and its discharged servants, chiefly Canadian French; III. A class who may be styled the independent element, - trappers, traders and sailors never in the service of the Hudson's Bay company; IV. The missionary stations; V. The immigrants, or American settlers.
The Indian bands or tribes adopted their names from a river, island, bay or other natural feature of the country which constituted or gave identity to their vicinage. Although sometimes combined under one great chief, yet legitimate recognition of authority or clearly defined tribal boundaries did not exist. Their crude form of government was patriarchal. Blood asserted its claim for chieftainship, and also for recognition as medicine man. These offices of rank continued in families, and descended
from father to son. The relation of members of bands to each other, or between different bands, were social rather than political. Combinations resulted from accident or caprice rather than tribal ties or mutuality of grievance. War sometimes continued until a well-defined tribe became destroyed,- its identity lost, - its survivors merged into another nation. Their language was stilted in idea, and of complicated structure. Words had no stable or uniform signification; they differed in pronunciation and meaning not only between bands, but were widely dissimilar in significance as used by individuals of the same band. The race was vagrant. If fishing, their haunts were the seas, bays and river; if berrying, they sojourned upon the plains; if hunting or trapping, the banks of the streams or forests were their abiding places. They pitched their camp wherever necessity prompted. They were homeless, landless, ungoverned except by a few traditional customs, or where one, by superiority of will, exacted respect or provoked fear. Hostility between rival bands necessitated chieftains, many of whom were born leaders, some orators of great power, strategists of ability.
They sought now knowledge, required not skilled labor, were content to manufacture their own utensils, - weapons, useful in war or in securing game and fish. Nothing indicated a purpose to establish homes, or to cultivate the soil, to acquire or to confer value upon land by its occupancy or use.
The fur traders utilized them as trappers and hunters. So valuable was the Indian and fur trade, that it created the greatest competition between the great trading companies of Great Britain, Canada and the United States.
The occupancy of the territory west of the Rock Mountains which should, in accordance with the spirit of the Joint-Occupancy Treaties of 1818 and 1827, have been shared by the citizens of the United States and subjects of Great Britain, was really, after 1821, sole and exclusive by the Hudson's Bay Company. Citizens of the United States who endeavored to participate in this trade and to obtain a foothold in the territory were foiled in every effort, supplanted in every enterprise.
In 1832, some Oregon Indians had expressed their desire to be taught about God. Their condition seemed to endow them with peculiar claims to sympathy. The religious world became alive to their spiritual needs; and missionary organizations vied with each other in efforts to establish missions west of hte Rocky Mountains. Missionary colonies were introduced as factors in Oregon occupancy and settlement. The effect upon the native race of hte presence of the two civilizers, trading and teaching, is an interesting problem. Certain castes effectually conciliated the native population, permanently retained their good will, and secured their steady loyalty and entire subserviency. The American, whether trader, missionary or settler, was not so successful. Of him, the Indian was suspicious, was hostile to his presence in the territory.
The Hudson's Bay Company had no occasion to acquire lands, nor to abridge the Indian's haunts. Profitable trade depended upon the continuance of peace, - peace among the Indians, and peace between the Whites and Indians. The officers followed alike the dictates of policy and humanity, cultivated the friendship of the Indian, and encouraged their employés to assimilate with and thereby gain moral control over him. Under the Hudson's Bay Company rule, the country throughout its vast area was safely traveled by its single and unarmed white employés; at every Indian camp the company's men found shelter and welcome.
The American settler was not
less friendly disposed to the native, the American missionary as disinterested
as the French or Canadian priest; yet, to the Indian mind, it
was apparent that American occupancy meant settlement. It demanded the transformation of the wilderness into American homes. It involved the destruction of those elements which give to a region all its value as regarded by the Indian. To effect this purpose, the American needed to appropriate land, and to exclude others. The necessary concomitant of American settlement ws the banishment of the Indians from their customary haunts. Game, their main subsistence, retired before its forward march. An aggressive civilization drove before it the Indian himself, dissipating on its onward movement his very means of sustenance. While really guiltless of depriving the Indian of anything he owned, yet American occupancy, expelling the native, lessened his means of acquiring subsistence.
Settlement of any country inhabited by Indians necessitates conflicts. The savage insists that the wilderness shall so remain; the settler gives heed tot he first great command, "to subdue the earth and replenish it." The first cultivation of the earth in Oregon had been immediately followed by the introduction among the Indians of that dreadful destroyer of their race, fever and ague. It has become axiomatic that, with the advance of white settlement, the Indian race disappears or decreases. Tribes most powerful when Lewis and Clark visited the country had dwindled to mere bands, preserving only their tribal name. This decrease cannot be attributed to wars between hostile tribes; for comparatively few had lost their lives at the hands of the white race, or the wars maintained by the Whites against them. Fever and ague, small-pox, measles, dysentery, diseases of the lungs, contagious diseases, have been the scourges before which the native population have withered away since the advent of the white race, and the introduction of the customs and vices of a so-called superior civilization.
Since 1829, five-sixths of the Indians upon the Columbia river had been destroyed by fever and ague. The great mortality may in a great measure be attributed to the absurd Indian treatment of disease. When the fever had reached its highest stage, the victim plunged into the cold river and remained immersed until the fever was allayed; the chill which followed was usually fatal. In that year the shores of the streams were strewn with native dead; villages were depopulated; and entire tribes vanished. Indian authority asserts that this disease had been unknown to the Indians, - unknown in the country, - until the year which marks the occasion of the first plowing in Oregon (1). The courage which proved so fatal that year (1829) to the Indian race extends along the upper coast and as far south as California.
The Aborigines comprised about seventy bands or tribes, who may be thus classified:
South of the Columbia river and west of the Cascade Mountains
. . . 2,500
North of the Columbia river and west of the Cascade Mountains
. . . 7,600
East of the Cascades, who may be properly called Indians of the plains
16,900
____
27,000
These differed in their habits of subsistence and language, and are claimed to have been separate communities. In geographical divisions limited by natural boundaries, such as mountain chains, rivers and bays, the tries closely assimilated; and tribal distinctions were but faintly defined. As a rule, the Indians east of the Cascade Mountains were a nation of horsemen, their wealth consisting in horses. Man, woman and child were mounted as they moved from place to place. Their entire use for the horse was for traveling and moving camp; that great friend of man was never used by them in agriculture or other labor. Hunting was the main dependence of the Indians
(1) Missionary Journal,
Rev. S. Parker, 1835, page 178.
of the plains; fishing was an incident. West of the Cascade Mountains, the Indians subsisted principally by fishing, although those more remote from the bays and river made hunting a considerable pursuit. All gathered roots and berries, with which the territory abounded. As those Indians who crossed the Rocky Mountains and hunted buffalo were of the highest type, - the bravest warriors, - so, among the western Indians, those who in their canoes braved old ocean to capture the whale were the most warlike and formidable. The coast tribes are of moderate intelligence, dirty, insolent, deceitful, passionate, superstitious, addicted to gambling, and grossly libidinous. These qualities are less marked in the interior nations. The Sahaptan family, including the Walla Wallas, Nez Perces, Cayuses and Shoshones, are similar to the Indians east of the Rocky Mountains, - cold, taciturn, high-tempered, warlike and fond of hunting (1). They were very superstitious. In their primitive condition, they had no well-defined idea of a Supreme Being. There is not in any dialect of an Oregon tribe a synonym for the word or idea of God (2). They recognize the presence of a "great Sprit," who controls and regulates important events; who would become displeased with their shortcomings, and would visit on them misfortune as punishment. there was an "Evil Spirit," to whom was attributed all the evils to which they were subjected, which were not the merited punishment for having provoked the anger of the "Good Spirit." They were believers in a future state of existence, in which they would enjoy to an increased degree the peculiar pursuits which in this life had conferred pleasure.
Gambling was the universal ruling passion, manifested by horse-racing, foot-racing, athletic exercises, trials of skill and in games of chance. Theft was so prevalent a habit, that its extent and universality alone depended upon the opportunity for gratification.
Subjects of difference were always referred to their chief; if beyond his capacity, if any principle was involved, the question would be submitted to a white man. They deferred to the white race; simple-minded, ignorant, they looked up to the whit man who had come among them, - whom they had learned to know and fear. This characteristic largely accounts for the jealously and hostility of the Indians to American settlers. Two white races with adverse interests were present in Oregon. From early in the present century, the Indians had been acquainted with the hostility of interests between the Americans and British, or, as they were distinguished by the natives, "Bostons" and "King Georges," at which time those distinctive appellations had originated. Not only two white races were present, engaged in trade, but there were, also, two adverse and hostile systems of religious belief, the teacher of each struggling to gain supremacy over the Indian mind. How aptly the scriptural aphorism - "No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other: - defined the attitude of the Indian population towards the British and American occupants of Oregon, - towards the Catholic and Protestant missionaries laboring therein.
For many years, the Indian west of the Rocky Mountains had become accustomed to the Hudson's Bay Company's rule. They had learned to depend on the posts for many of hte necessaries of life. Many of their women were wives of servants of the company; and a bias for the British, by whom they had been treated with uniform justice, was strong, as it was natural. Constituted as in the Oregon Indian, prejudice against, and suspicion of, the rival white race, the American settlers, was the natural consequence of that allegiance he had learned so thoroughly, and now so willingly accorded to the officers of the Hudson's Bay company, their servants and employés.
(1) Indians
of Northwest America, - Hale's Northwest America.
(2) Ibd.