“All evil thoughts and deeds,
Anger, and lust, and pride
The foulest, rankest weeds
That choke Life’s growing tide!”
--_Longfellow._
There were difficulties in the way of the evangelization and education
of these poor people other than that of their heathen customs and
peculiar language. Low, wicked white men were constantly hanging around
the different camps, smuggling whiskey among the people, and using
every wicked means to lead the women and children astray.
It was not an uncommon thing for these poor blind heathen parents and
relatives to sell their little daughters to the white men for the
basest of purposes. We went to the magistrates and asked if it was
allowable to sell slaves in this country. The magistrate replied, “Oh,
no; why certainly not.” But when we explained to them the nature of the
slavery, they would stammer a little and with feigned indifference they
would claim that it was an Indian custom and form of marriage which
they would not interfere with.
Referring to slavery, it is true that from earliest times the Indians
kept slaves. In all their wars the men and boys were either scalped or
taken as slaves. When women were taken it was usually to increase the
number of slaves or wives of the chief.
Years ago, Governor Simpson, visiting Fort Stickine, Alaska, says:
“We met here fully four or five thousand people. One-third of the
population were slaves. Many who were born slaves were treated in the
most cruel way.”
Chiefs from the far north, to keep up this cruel system, would travel
away to the south in their large war canoes, and for the most trivial
thing would pick a quarrel with a tribe, fight, take away many slaves,
and, going back to the north, sell them to enrich themselves, or would
keep some of them as their own servants or slaves.
No value was put upon the life of a slave. They would shoot them down
at a moment’s notice. In the dreadful incantations of the sorcerers
or medicine men, the accusation of witchcraft was easily fixed upon a
slave, and he was sacrificed without mercy. In the north, when raising
the large houses of the chiefs, it is said that every large post had a
slave buried under it to hold the post in place, and often at the great
potlatches a chief would slaughter a number of slaves to show how rich
a man he was.
In time, of course, some were incorporated into the tribe, and,
forgetting their own language, remained among their one-time captors.
In some cases, after years of absence, the instinctive longing for
home and friends would lead them to take all chances of recapture, and
after enduring great hardships to find their way back to their native
village, where they were welcomed as from the dead.
Much of the old-time slavery was passing away when the missionary came,
but a slavery in a new and more horrible form was being established.
The advent of thousands of white men, miners and lumbermen, many of
whom were vicious and depraved, brought temptation to their doors.
The Indian’s love of display, and his ambition to be considered of
importance, which found expression in his giving of great feasts and
potlatches, led him to seize any ready and easy means of gain.
At one time among the Indians, as among all heathen people, the girls
were counted of little value. If they grew up they were to become the
burden-bearers of their masters of the other sex. An Indian mother has
been known to take her little baby girl out into the woods and stuff
its mouth with grass and leaves and leave it to die. And when asked why
she did so, she would say, “I did not want her to grow up and suffer as
I have suffered.”
But heathenism crushes out a mother’s love and turns the heart to stone
and changes a father into a foul, indifferent fiend. And so when the
miners came the natives willingly sold their daughters, ranging from
ten to eighteen years of age, for a few blankets or a little gold, into
a slavery which was worse than death.
For years these wretched, deluded people have visited our towns, our
mining and lumbering and fishing camps, bringing their bright-eyed,
happy little girls with them, and after having made a lot of money
in this foul method, have returned to make a great potlatch and
ostentatiously give away hundreds of dollars of their ill-gotten gains.
One child that we knew of refused to go with her parents for this
purpose. When they tried to compel her, she said, “You can go. I will
not go if you kill me,” and then she ran to the woods. After they had
left she made her way to the missionary and sought protection.
Another child of about twelve years of age, who refused at first to
follow a life of sin, was visited by a great rough fellow who, with his
hand full of money and with promises of fine clothes and trinkets and
sweets, coaxed her and finally prevailed upon her to come and live with
him.
A large number of girls were sold in this way from one of our mission
schools by their cruel heathen parents and friends, at prices ranging
from fifty to one hundred dollars each. Some of these poor children
came to the mission-house at midnight, almost broken-hearted, and said
to the missionary, “Please will you not take me in. They are going to
sell me as a slave, and I don’t want to go.”
We reasoned with their parents and heathen relatives, but our efforts
were vain. We went to the cabins of the white men and expostulated with
them, and were driven out with fiendish curses and told that it was
none of our business.
“POOR LITTLE QUEE-LAWT!”
On one occasion I found three poor women by the roadside near the
sawmill at Nanaimo, all helplessly drunk. It seemed of daily
occurrence in those days to see women drunk. With these poor creatures
was a little girl, Quee-lawt by name. She was one of the brightest and
most attractive of our little scholars. When she first came to school,
like some others of the children, she was very scantily clad, but by
the kindness of some good ladies this little maid was neatly clothed,
and because her forehead had not been flattened as much as some others,
she was pleasing in appearance. She learned to read nicely and could
sing very sweetly, and we had great hopes of a bright future for her.
But alas! poor Quee-lawt had been led astray by these sinful women, and
by some low, degraded white men had been robbed of her purity, made
drunken and defiled. And here we saw her, all besmeared with dirt and
filth--drunk, drunk.
Poor Quee-lawt! the terrible drink and the vile treatment she had
received were too much for her. She was carried home to the old chief’s
house and died that night. Oh, what a sad, sad, pitiful sight it was!
Poor little Quee-lawt! Will not a just God lay at the door of those
wretched white men the murder of this child?
We could only wish that this vile blot upon the character of our fair
province were wiped away. But still it continues. Some of the finest
tribes on the Coast have for years been following this awful practice,
until whole bands have been practically wiped out, and their only
monument is a forest of totem poles raised in many cases with the money
secured from this dreadful slavery.
Recently the provincial press has drawn attention to what they term
the “slave traffic in girls” among the Kwa-kwulths of Cape Mudge and
surrounding country.
From the reports thus circulated we gather that these people have been
making the practice of selling their girls to white men and others for
immoral purposes. At a recent potlatch, held in January, 1906, a number
of girls were sold at prices ranging from $300 to $1,200. The latter
figure was paid by an Indian for a particularly attractive girl whom he
planned to take with him to the various lumber camps for the purpose
of gain. “It is proverbially true,” says one writer, “that the Indians
have no convictions or sentiments that cannot be easily overcome by
greed of gain or power. Their chief and only object--that is, the
men’s--is to become great and powerful amongst their own people, and
as the possession of money is the quickest road to power and the
assumption of pride, some of these men to secure money, and secure it
easily, have for years been selling their women.”
“Surely the Government,” continues this same writer, “will not allow
this state of affairs to exist any longer. By means of these women
diseases are spread amongst our young men, and disasters too terrible
to speak of must follow this indiscriminate dealing in the bodies and
souls of these Indian women.”
With this whole matter are involved the questions of Indian barter
marriages and the potlatch, customs which, the missionaries know,
are linked with heathenism, and which present some of the greatest
difficulties to be met with in Christianizing and civilizing the Indian
tribes of the Coast.
In our judgment, if a law were enacted similar to one which was put in
force in the State of Washington some years ago, compelling any white
men living with Indian girls or women to marry them, or else the women
must leave and return to their own people, we would to a large extent
clear the country, as they did on the other side of the line, of this
dreadful evil.
The Indians, as well, should be compelled to give up their “barter
marriages” and conform, as every one else must, to our Canadian
marriage laws, and thus the greatest difficulty in the way of the
suppressing of this evil would be removed.
On account of the prevalence of this traffic in Indian girls, many
of the early missionaries were led to establish “Girls’ Homes” for
the rescue and further protection of these poor victims of this awful
system.