settled, and the men were working without trouble or danger; he had
fallen in with a certain Major Whiting, an American by birth, who had,
however, been living in Mexico, and had even served in the Mexican army
against the United States. This Mexican officer was now bringing up from
that region a long mule train of provisions and a company of peons whom
he had taken from prison at a cost to himself on the average of but $2
each, and had contracted with them to work for him at eighteen cents a
day. Case reached the mines before him. When Whiting arrived he called
upon Case first of all to ask what was the intention of the Oregon
miners about allowing his debtors to work upon the bars. Case replied,
“I speak only for myself; but I am opposed to it.” Whiting then asked
him to call a meeting to determine the opinion of the miners. Case
complied. Mr. Finley of Oregon City happened to be chosen chairman of
this meeting, and a young man named——, secretary. The call had been made
most literally by Case’s getting up upon a high rock and shouting so as
to be heard all over the canyon, and then those that came first raised
such a cry that it could be heard for a distance of two miles up and
down, and a pistol was also fired. At such a summons, of course, the
miners came to the camp in great numbers, and upon the object of the
meeting being announced, resolutions were passed unanimously to allow no
working of the mines except by those who were American citizens and
intended to remain in the United States; thus forbidding those who were
not citizens or who came simply to work and then return to foreign
homes. In the face of this decision, Whiting, of course, was obliged to
leave, having no inclination to meet the Oregon riflemen; and took his
Mexican debtors along with him. When Case came to inform him of the
action of the meeting he showed the utmost coldness, refusing to speak
except to say that he knew their action already, having been present.
This resolution of the miners, backed by their reputation acquired as
dead-shots and no let-up, not only decided Major Whiting to leave, but
those very same resolutions forwarded to the military governor, Smith,
were issued by him as a proclamation. He believed that this was the only
way to restore and maintain order in the mines, the will of the mountain
men not being safely disregarded. A national spirit and a certain
primary justice also required that American mines and privileges for
which many millions of dollars had been paid to Mexico should be
preserved to American citizens and worked for the benefit of this
country, and not be turned over to the speculators and contractors of
the whole world.
By this proclamation the Mexican and Chelano peons were required to
return to their own country. The system of equality which the Oregonians
rudely, but rightly represented, was established. Thousands of miners in
California who never heard of this little contest which was worked out
principally by a few rugged young mountain men from Oregon, began to
enjoy thenceforth the free and equal opportunity of the California
mines, and California thus became Americanized, and in the end a great
free state. The influence of Oregon, therefore, cannot be disregarded—
although the actions of the Oregon men at the time created intense
feeling against themselves, and Mr. Case considers this the source of
the still persistent dislike of Oregon shown by Californians; which has
hardened into a sort of tradition.
RETURN HOME.
The journey overland from the Sacramento up to the Willamette was, in
1849, one long adventure; and, on three hundred miles of the distance,
that of no peaceful kind. Case had had enough of sea voyaging in going
to California, and when, in the early fall, he counted over his
earnings, amounting to about $2,800, he said that he would go home by
land. The Indians of Northern California and Southern Oregon were
hostile, being declared enemies to the whites. The Oregon men had,
during the previous autumn, built a road through, making a long detour
from the Rogue River Valley to the borders of Klamath Lake by the old
Applegate route, and thence by Lost River and Lake, the Lava Beds, and
the long plateau east of Mount Shasta, to Pitt River, and then two
hundred miles across the chain of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the
Sacramento. The Indians of this region had ever been of the wildest and
most warlike character, regarding white men as natural enemies. The
famous Modocs were a remnant of one of these tribes. The large party of
the Oregonians who had passed through the previous year had, to quite an
extent, overawed the natives, especially in the Pitt River Valley. The
party of Case consisted of only eight men, himself being chosen captain,
and they carried some $28,000 worth of dust.
Over the mountains, from the Sacramento to the Pitt River Valley, a
distance of some two hundred miles, and through the Pitt River Valley,
they proceeded in a leisurely manner, allowing their horses to graze at
will upon the wild pea vines that grew luxuriously, and thus kept them
thriving. A large number of travelers were met on the way, going to the
mines, among whom was a party of strict Presbyterians from Springfield,
Illinois, who always rested on the Sabbaths. It was almost universally
taken by new travelers of that road that the Pitt River Valley was the
main Sacramento, and they were loth to strike over the mountains as the
way required.
Later upon the journey, Major Warner was fallen in with, having a party
of one hundred soldiers, mostly Irishmen. With this officer pleasant
conversations were held. He expressed his surprise that Case should try
to go through the Indian country with but eight men, while he felt
unsafe with his one hundred. But Case replied that his party was the
best. They all knew the Indians were like snapping dogs, that would snap
and run, while Warner’s men knew nothing of Indians. The event proved
only too truly Case’s estimate. Warner with his one hundred men were
subsequently attacked and all were destroyed (W. M. C.). Warner also had
imbibed the California idea of Oregon. He once remarked to Case, “I
understand that Oregon can never be an agricultural section.” “Why?”
asked Case. “The valleys are too narrow. I am told that there are few
over a thousand yards wide—that gives no room for ranches.” “The
Willamette Valley,” said Case, “where I live is forty miles across, not
counting the foothills. That gives room for ranches.”
Emerging finally out of the Pitt River Valley and entering upon the
great plateau east of Shasta Butte, Case’s little party traveled so near
the snow of the mountain region, and it was now late September, that the
snow-banks seemed no higher above them than the tops of the trees. They
were coming to the Modoc country, and the lava beds. These last were a
great curiosity; the natural forts made by boiling and finally subsiding
little craters of not over an acre in area, and looking so much like
fortifications that many took them for the work of Indians, especially
attracted attention. Here began the forced marches. For three nights and
four days Case slept not a wink, and the distance covered during that
time was about three hundred miles. Skirting the marshy shores of Lost
Lake, where Lost River disappears, and the water is so stained with
ochre as to be a deep red; and finally crossing the natural bridge, or
causeway, and coming to the Klamath Basin; and crossing the Klamath
River where there is a series of three low falls of about two feet
high each, over some flat tabular rock formations—they finally reached
the dangerous Indian country of the Rogue River. Here occurred one
of the strangest Indian fights. Mr. Case’s party was not concerned
in this, but was a few hours behind; yet enjoyed the results of the
victory. The road at a certain point skirted along a bluff where there
were many crevices and natural hiding places, and below the road ran
the river. The wagon-way here was only just about wide enough for one
vehicle to pass. This was a natural place for the Indians to ambush a
passing party, and Case and his comrades would no doubt have suffered
and probably have been cut off entirely, if it had not been that just
before they reached this place, two other parties were passing, one
on the way to California and the other but a few hours ahead of Case
going to Oregon. The Oregon party was that of Robert Newell, consisting
of thirty men, for California. As he came to this dangerous point,
about four or five o’clock in the afternoon, Newell discovered that
there were Indians in the crevices of the rock ready to attack him.
With the capacity of a general, he divided his force so as to command
the situation. Five of his men he sent forward so as to attract the
Indians’ attention along the road and to draw their fire, but still to
keep out of reach. A reserve of seven he stationed under cover; and in
the meantime he detailed the eighteen others to pass under the shelter
of the wild plum bushes that skirted the river and faced the bluff,
and under this shelter to creep up into the very midst of the Indians,
select their men and shoot them down instantly—which would surprise and
stampede the savages, and is the true way, so says Mr. Case, to fight
the Indians.
This manouvre was executed with perfect success. The eighteen men that
crept up through the brush succeeded in falling upon the Indians in the
rocks, and were shooting them down before their presence was discovered;
and the Indians, surprised and confused, seeing white men in front and
in their midst, rushed out of their hiding places and began retreating
along the face of the bluff. But just at this time the party from
California, under Weston and Howard, arrived from the other direction,
and hearing the firing, hurried forward, and seeing the Indians pouring
out of the rocks, began discharging their rifles upon them. By this the
savages were entirely demoralized. The only space left was the river
itself, and into its tumultuous current they began to precipitate
themselves, the miners still firing upon them as they struggled in the
water, until the river ran red. The slaughter must have been very great.
Yet of all this, though but a few miles away, Case knew nothing. He
placed his camp for the night in a sink, so that any Indians creeping up
must be seen, and kept guard himself, with his ear to the ground, so as
to hear any stealthy steps approaching. He saw or heard nothing.
Nevertheless, the next morning, when one of his men went to the river
for water, he reported upon his return that there were the footprints of
as many as five hundred Indians upon the sand bar of the river, where
the night before there were none to be seen. This, Case found to be
about so, and with hands on the trigger, and hearts ready for anything,
the little company started out, expecting an ambuscade at any moment.
Case’s advice to his men was, “If we are attacked, keep close together.
If you divide up, we are lost.” But they had not gone far before they
heard a shot, and soon were greeted by the advance of Newell’s men; and
the next moment were met by Newell himself, who told them of the fight,
and that the country was full of hostile Indians; but Weston and Howard
were not far ahead, and the best thing for them was to shove forward and
overtake them. Accordingly, Case shoved forward, passing hour after hour
in the depths of the canyons, and hearing almost continually the Indians
calling to one another from the mountains—now on this side and now on
that. But still they were not attacked. They were often upon the trail
of the white men, but they, too, were shoving ahead, and not until the
Rogue River Valley was passed and the Umpqua reached, was Weston’s party
overtaken. The junction was made early in the morning. The night before,
Mr. Case, although for the third night without sleep, kept guard, and at
about 2 o’clock A. M. heard a dog baying not over a quarter of a mile
away. He knew this indicated the white men’s camp, and in fact
recognized the dog. Very cautiously approaching the camp, for fear of
being mistaken for Indians, and being fired upon, the little party
advanced and were recognized. Then the peril was over. The rest of the
journey was made more deliberately, but though now relieved of guard
duty, Mr. Case felt sleepless, and scarcely rested until some days had
passed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE NUMBER AND CONDITION OF THE NATIVE RACE IN OREGON WHEN FIRST SEEN BY
WHITE MEN.
The first estimates we have of the number of the native race in the
valley of the Columbia were by Lewis and Clark, who gained their
information while exploring the river from its sources in the Rocky
Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Based upon information derived from the
natives, their estimate was forty thousand. This was in 1805-6.
Forty years later, Rev. C. G. Nicolay, of King’s College, Oxford, and
member of the Royal Geographical Society of London, writing in support
of England’s right to the country created by the assumed moral benefits
to the natives effected by the trade influences of the Hudson’s Bay
Company—and, doubtless, with all the information that company could
furnish—estimated the number at thirty thousand, including all the
country from the California line north to 54° 40′. Noting that the
second estimate is for the wider bounds, and yet twenty-five per cent.
less, the numbers seem strongly to indicate that the native race was
rapidly decreasing between the dates mentioned.
In looking for the causes of this decrease of population of the native
race, we find at the outset diseases common to, but not very destructive
to civilized life, are, nevertheless, terrible in their effects on
people living so near the plane of mere animal life as were the natives
of Oregon—especially those of them in the largest valleys, and near the
sea,—when first seen by white men. The first American explorers received
information from the Clatsop tribe of Indians during their stay near
them in the winter of 1805-6, that some time previous to that a malady
had been brought to them from the sea, which caused the death of many of
their people. As they reached the Lower Willamette Valley, on their
return eastward, they found living evidence that the malady had been
smallpox, and the remains of capacious houses within the district—now
covered, or being rapidly covered, by the white race,—which indicated
that the disease had swept out of existence, or caused to flee the
locality, large numbers of the natives. A woman was seen by Captain
Clark in the company of an old man, presumably her father, sole
occupants of a building two hundred and twenty-five feet long and thirty
feet wide, under one roof, and divided by narrow alleys or partitions
into rooms thirty feet square. Other buildings, empty or in ruins, were
found near this. This woman was badly marked with smallpox; and from her
apparent age, and information the old man endeavored to convey, this
disease had killed many people and frightened others away about thirty
years previously.
Information received from natives by signs cannot be deemed reliable;
but no writing can be plainer than the human face marked by smallpox. We
have, then, from the journal of Lewis and Clark, traditional information
from the Clatsop natives, and in the appearance of this woman—presumably
of the Multnomah tribe—evidence of the presence of smallpox one hundred
miles in the interior; and fifty years later we have from the Yakima
chieftain, Kamiakin, at the Walla Walla council held by Gov. I. I.
Stevens, intimations that the suffering of his people from smallpox in
former times was one reason for his objection to whites’ settling in his
country.
Whatever truth there may be in these earlier traditions of the natives,
the rapid decrease of the tribes on the Lower Columbia and in the
Willamette Valley, between 1805 and 1845, and the decaying condition of
those found here at the latter date, are facts which cannot be called in
question. Those writers who are predisposed to blame the white man for
all the results of the commercial and social contact between the races
will see only the fearful and repulsive effects upon the ignorant
native—supposed to be innocent—of drunkenness and debauchery, which the
white man’s avaricious trade and licentiousness ministered to. While,
beyond question, these were destructive agencies, they, in my judgment,
never were but a small moiety of the cause of the general decay of the
race west of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada ranges, from Alaska to Lower
California. As to the licentious intercourse between the sexes, the
natives were ready and sought opportunity to participate in the
destructive commerce. And their customs, which were their only laws,
left womanhood—especially widowhood—an outcast, where she was not held
as a slave. It was a fact well known to pioneers yet living that a woman
of bright, kindly disposition, of natural intelligence, which made her a
natural leader of her sex, who was in 1840 the honored wife of the chief
of one of the strongest coast tribes, and as such styled a queen by some
writers, was in 1845 a leader and guide of native prostitutes, who
watched and followed ships entering the Columbia from the time they
crossed the bar in until they crossed out. And between opportunities of
this kind, she went from camp to camp of white settlers on the Lower
Columbia, thus seeking trade without the least sign of shame. The
customs and usages of the race, for which the leading men were
responsible, debar us of any just right to hold native womanhood
responsible for a social system which deemed a female child the best
trading property—valued high or low according to the status of the male
portion of her family. The husband bought his wife, and might, where she
did not suit, send her back to her people and claim a return of the
property given for her, ostensibly as presents.[1] This, if her family
had any pride or courage, would probably lead to trouble. A native
husband could dispose of an unsatisfactory wife. He could kill her by
personal ill-usage,[2] or keep her to labor for means to purchase and
support another wife, or as many more as his means and desires induced
him to buy.[3]
The general relations between the husband and wife among the native
races in Western Oregon were that the husband should kill the game or
catch the fish, as the subsistence was from game or fish. The dressing
of skins for clothing, the weaving of rush mats for camp covers or for
beds, the preparation of cedar bark for clothing, nets and ropes, and
the digging of roots, gathering of berries, etc., were all left to the
wife and the slaves at her command, if there were any. The husband and
wife seemed to have separate property rights as to themselves, and on
the death of either the most valuable of it, and often all of it, was
sacrificed to the manes of the dead. Sometimes living slaves were bound
and placed near the dead body of a person of importance in the tribe.[4]
Under this custom, when a leading man like Chenamus, Chief of the
Chinooks, died, the body was carefully swathed in cedar bark wrappings;
his war canoe or barge of state was used as his coffin, and his second
best canoe, if he had two, was inverted and placed over the body as a
defense against the weather or wild beasts; a small hole was made in the
lower canoe and it was placed in a slanting position to facilitate
complete drainage. No money reward would induce an Indian of the Lower
Columbia to enter and labor in a canoe that had been thus used for the
dead. Thus the best and generally all the property worth notice was
rendered useless to the living. The wife in such a case might be owner
of slaves in her own right, or of a _business canoe_, and in some cases
of a small canoe used on the Lower Columbia root gathering, or by the
husband or sons in hunting water fowl. Such a wife becoming a widow—
supposing her dead husband a chief, succeeded by a son by another of his
wives, or by a brother, unfriendly and jealous of her influence,—would
not be a totally helpless outcast. She would have the means of gathering
her own subsistence. This, however, was above the common lot of native
widows. The same custom of destroying the property of the dead prevailed
amongst natives of the Willamette Valley when the American home builders
first came; and it was a common sight to come upon a recently made grave
and scare the buzzards or coyotes from feasting on carcasses of horses
slain to the departed, the grave itself being indicated by the cooking
utensils and tawdry personal adornments of the deceased. Under this
custom there was no property left for distribution by the average
native. A chief, living with thrifty care for his family, might leave
slaves to be divided among his sons or daughters, as some few did, but
often when the heirs were sons or daughters of different mothers bitter
family feuds were a natural result, and the law of might decided. There
was no marriage record, no law to distribute fairly what might justly
belong to the widow and the fatherless, no individual ownership of land,
no definite boundaries to districts claimed by tribes. Thus the whole
polity of the native race here limited the exertions of the people to
seeking a present subsistence, or, at the most, enough to tide them over
from one season to another. Diversity of seasons has a much more
intimate relation to the food supply of the wild life than to a people
who have arrived at the agricultural stage of evolution. Many wild
animals and feathered game have sufficient of the instinct of the
passenger pigeon and squirrel of the Atlantic seaboard to induce them to
migrate from districts in which their food fails as a result of untoward
seasons and go to others where there is plenty.[5] The native tribes
west of the Cascade Range could not do that, and therefore must have
often been reduced in numbers by bad seasons, before they were known to
the white race.
The condition of the natives as to surplus food and the scarcity of
large game in the Columbia Valley, as found by Lewis and Clark, shows
that the normal season left the then population little they could spare.
The party may be said to have run a gauntlet against starvation in their
journey from the Rocky Mountains to the mouth of the Columbia. They saw
few deer, and no antelope or elk. Salmon and dogs were their chief
purchases from the Indians, and they ate of the latter till some of the
men got to prefer dog flesh to venison. The salmon grew rancid and
mouldy under the influence of the warm wet winter, and made the men
sick. Their hunters, in what was forty years later the best elk range in
Oregon, often failed to meet their daily wants, and sometimes killed
their game so far from camp that it spoiled in the woods. So that when
they learned that a whale had been thrown on the beach, at the mouth of
the Nehalem, they went thirty miles, and with difficulty succeeded in
the purchase of three hundred pounds of whale blubber.
They stayed at their winter camp until the latter part of March, 1806.
The game had left their vicinity; they exhausted the surplus of the
Indians near them, so they started on their return journey in order to
reach the Chopannish “Nation,” with whom they had left their horses,
before the natives would leave for their spring hunt for buffalo east of
the Rockies.
Under date of March 31, their journal reads: “Several parties were met
descending the river in quest of food. They told us that they lived at
the great rapids (the cascades), but the scarcity of provisions had
induced them to come down in hopes of finding subsistence in the more
fertile valley. All living at the rapids, as well as nations above, were
in much distress for want of food, having consumed their winter’s store
of dried fish, and not expecting the return of the salmon before the
next full moon—which would be on the second of May. This information was
not a little embarrassing. From the falls (The Dalles) to the Chopannish
Nation, the plains afforded neither deer, elk, nor antelope, for our
subsistence. The horses were very poor at this season, and the dogs must
be in the same condition, if their food, the dried fish, had failed.”
These considerations compelled the party to go into camp, and send out
their hunters on both sides of the Columbia, from its north bank,
opposite the quick sand (Sandy) river. Their purpose being to obtain
meat enough to last them to where they had left their horses, and this
they did, with the addition of some dogs and wapatos they were able to
secure from the natives by hard bargaining. The eight days they thus
delayed they used to good purpose. Captain Clark, acting on information
by an Indian of the existence of a large river making in from the south,
which they had passed and repassed without having seen it, because of a
diamond shaped island lying across its mouth, hired an Indian guide, and
returning down the south shore, penetrated the Multnomah (Lower
Willamette), to near the present location of Linnton, and saw evidences
in ruined buildings of a much denser population than then existed there,
and in the two hundred and twenty-five foot building already mentioned,
saw the woman marked by smallpox. Here, also, were met Clackamas and
other Indians from the falls of the Willamette.
Elk, deer, and black bear were the large game their hunters killed. Some
of the deer were extremely poor. They do not mention having seen flesh
of any kind in the hands or camps of natives, much less a successful
native hunter of such game.[6] Neither do they mention seeing a horse
west of the Cascade Range. The receiving of one sturgeon from a native
is mentioned, and some dried anchovies (smelt). But the chief wealth of
this richest part of the district—the most inviting to settlers in their
estimation of any they had seen west of the Rocky Mountains, is the
wapato—“the product of the numerous ponds in the interior of Wapato”
(Sauvie’s) Island. This was almost the sole staple article of commerce
on the Columbia.