1835. The rendezvous of the Rocky Mountain Company seldom took place
without combining with its many wild elements, some other more civilized
and refined. Artists, botanists, travelers, and hunters, from the busy
world outside the wilderness, frequently claimed the companionship, if
not the hospitality of the fur companies, in their wanderings over
prairies and among mountains. Up to the year 1835, these visitors had
been of the classes just named; men traveling either for the love of
adventure, to prosecute discoveries in science, or to add to art the
treasure of new scenes and subjects.
But in this year there appeared at rendezvous two gentlemen, who had
accompanied the St. Louis Company in its outward trip to the mountains,
whose object was not the procurement of pleasure, or the improvement of
science. They had come to found missions among the Indians; the Rev.
Samuel Parker and Rev. Dr. Marcus Whitman; the first a scholarly and
fastidious man, and the other possessing all the boldness, energy, and
contempt of fastidiousness, which would have made him as good a mountain
leader, as he was an energetic servant of the American Board of Foreign
Missions.
The cause which had brought these gentlemen to the wilderness was a
little incident connected with the fur trade. Four Flathead Indians, in
the year 1832, having heard enough of the Christian religion, from the
few devout men connected with the fur companies, to desire to know
more, performed a winter journey to St. Louis, and there made inquiry
about the white man's religion. This incident, which to any one
acquainted with Indian character, would appear a very natural one, when
it became known to Christian churches in the United States, excited a
very lively interest, and seemed to call upon them like a voice out of
heaven, to fly to the rescue of perishing heathen souls. The Methodist
Church was the first to respond. When Wyeth returned to the mountains in
1834, four missionaries accompanied him, destined for the valley of the
Wallamet River in Oregon. In the following year, the Presbyterian Church
sent out its agents, the two gentlemen above mentioned; one of whom, Dr.
Whitman, subsequently located near Fort Walla-Walla.
The account given by Capt. Bonneville of the Flatheads and Nez Perces,
as he found them in 1832, before missionary labor had been among them,
throws some light on the incident of the journey to St. Louis, which so
touched the Christian heart in the United States. After relating his
surprise at finding that the Nez Perces observed certain sacred days, he
continues: "A few days afterwards, four of them signified that they were
about to hunt. 'What!' exclaimed the captain, 'without guns or arrows;
and with only one old spear? What do you expect to kill?' They smiled
among themselves, but made no answer. Preparatory to the chase, they
performed some religious rites, and offered up to the Great Spirit a few
short prayers for safety and success; then having received the blessing
of their wives, they leaped upon their horses and departed, leaving the
whole party of Christian spectators amazed and rebuked by this lesson of
faith and dependence on a supreme and benevolent Being. Accustomed as I
had heretofore been to find the wretched Indian reveling in blood, and
stained by every vice which can degrade human nature, I could scarcely
realize the scene which I had witnessed. Wonder at such unaffected
tenderness and piety, where it was least to have been sought, contended
in all our bosoms with shame and confusion, at receiving such pure and
wholesome instructions from creatures so far below us in all the arts
and comforts of life.
"Simply to call these people religious," continued Bonneville, "would
convey but a faint idea of the deep hue of piety and devotion which
pervades their whole conduct. Their honesty is immaculate, and their
purity of purpose, and their observance of the rites of their religion,
are most uniform and remarkable. They are certainly more like a nation
of saints than a horde of savages."
This was a very enthusiastic view to take of the Nez Perce character,
which appeared all the brighter to the Captain, by contrast with the
savage life which he had witnessed in other places, and even by contrast
with the conduct of the white trappers. But the Nez Perces and Flatheads
were, intellectually and morally, an exception to all the Indian tribes
west of the Missouri River. Lewis and Clarke found them different from
any others; the fur-traders and the missionaries found them different;
and they remain at this day an honorable example, for probity and piety,
to both savage and civilized peoples.
To account for this superiority is indeed difficult. The only clue to
the cause is in the following statement of Bonneville's. "It would
appear," he says, "that they had imbibed some notions of the Christian
faith from Catholic missionaries and traders who had been among them.
They even had a rude calender of the fasts and festivals of the Romish
Church, and some traces of its ceremonials. These have become blended
with their own wild rites, and present a strange medley, civilized and
barbarous."
Finding that these people among whom he was thrown exhibited such
remarkable traits of character, Captain Bonneville exerted himself to
make them acquainted with the history and spirit of Christianity. To
these explanations they listened with great eagerness. "Many a time," he
says, "was my little lodge thronged, or rather piled with hearers, for
they lay on the ground, one leaning over the other, until there was no
further room, all listening with greedy ears to the wonders which the
Great Spirit had revealed to the white man. No other subject gave them
half the satisfaction, or commanded half the attention; and but few
scenes of my life remain so freshly on my memory, or are so pleasurably
recalled to my contemplation, as these hours of intercourse with a
distant and benighted race in the midst of the desert."
It was the interest awakened by these discourses of Captain Bonneville,
and possibly by Smith, and other traders who happened to fall in with
the Nez Perces and Flatheads, that stimulated those four Flatheads to
undertake the journey to St. Louis in search of information; and this it
was which resulted in the establishment of missions, both in western
Oregon, and among the tribes inhabiting the country between the two
great branches of the Columbia.
The trait of Indian character which Bonneville, in his pleased surprise
at the apparent piety of the Nez Perces and Flatheads, failed to
observe, and which the missionaries themselves for a long time remained
oblivious to, was the material nature of their religious views. The
Indian judges of all things by the material results. If he is possessed
of a good natural intelligence and powers of observation, he soon
discovers that the God of the Indian is but a feeble deity; for does he
not permit the Indian to be defeated in war; to starve, and to freeze?
Do not the Indian medicine men often fail to save life, to win battles,
to curse their enemies? The Indian's God, he argues, must be a good deal
of a humbug. He sees the white men faring much better. They have guns,
ammunition, blankets, knives, everything in plenty; and they are
successful in war; are skillful in a thousand things the Indian knows
nothing of. To be so blest implies a very wise and powerful Deity. To
gain all these things they are eager to learn about the white man's God;
are willing to do whatever is necessary to please and propitiate Him.
Hence their attentiveness to the white man's discourse about his
religion. Naturally enough they were struck with wonder at the doctrine
of peace and good will; a doctrine so different from the law of blood by
which the Indian, in his natural state, lives. Yet if it is good for the
white men, it must be good for him; at all events he is anxious to try
it.
That is the course of reasoning by which an Indian is led to inquire
into Christianity. It is a desire to better his physical, rather than
his spiritual condition; for of the latter he has but a very faint
conception. He was accustomed to desire a material Heaven, such a world
beyond the grave, as he could only imagine from his earthly experience.
Heaven was happiness, and happiness was plenty; therefore the most a
good Indian could desire was to go where there should forevermore be
plenty.
Such was the Indian's view of religion, and it could be no other. Until
the wants of the body have been supplied by civilization, the wants of
the soul do not develop themselves: and until then the savage is not
prepared to understand Christianity. This is the law of Nature and of
God. Primeval man was a savage; and it was little by little, through
thousands of years, that Christ was revealed. Every child born, even
now, is a savage, and has to be taught civilization year after year,
until he arrives at the possibility of comprehending spiritual religion.
So every full grown barbarian is a child in moral development; and to
expect him to comprehend those mysteries over which the world has
agonized for centuries, is to commit the gravest error. Into this error
fell all the missionaries who came to the wilds that lay beyond the
Rocky Mountains. They undertook to teach religion first, and more simple
matters afterward--building their edifice like the Irishman's chimney,
by holding up the top brick, and putting the others under it. Failure
was the result of such a process, as the record of the Oregon Missions
sufficiently proves.
The reader will pardon this digression--made necessary by the part which
one of the gentlemen present at this year's rendezvous, was destined to
take in the history which we are writing. Shortly after the arrival of
Messrs. Parker and Whitman, rendezvous broke up. A party, to which Meek
was attached, moved in the direction of the Snake River head-waters, the
missionaries accompanying them, and after making two camps, came on
Saturday eve to Jackson's Little Hole, a small mountain valley near the
larger one commonly known as Jackson's Hole.
On the following day religious services were held in the Rocky Mountain
Camp. A scene more unusual could hardly have transpired than that of a
company of trappers listening to the preaching of the Word of God. Very
little pious reverence marked the countenances of that wild and motley
congregation. Curiosity, incredulity, sarcasm, or a mocking levity, were
more plainly perceptible in the expression of the men's faces, than
either devotion or the longing expectancy of men habitually deprived of
what they once highly valued. The Indians alone showed by their eager
listening that they desired to become acquainted with the mystery of the
"Unknown God."
The Rev. Samuel Parker preached, and the men were as politely attentive
as it was in their reckless natures to be, until, in the midst of the
discourse, a band of buffalo appeared in the valley, when the
congregation incontinently broke up, without staying for a benediction,
and every man made haste after his horse, gun, and rope, leaving Mr.
Parker to discourse to vacant ground.
The run was both exciting and successful. About twenty fine buffaloes
were killed, and the choice pieces brought to camp, cooked and eaten,
amidst the merriment, mixed with something coarser, of the hunters. On
this noisy rejoicing Mr. Parker looked with a sober aspect: and
following the dictates of his religious feeling, he rebuked the
sabbath-breakers quite severely. Better for his influence among the men,
if he had not done so, or had not eaten so heartily of the tender-loin
afterwards, a circumstance which his irreverent critics did not fail to
remark, to his prejudice; and upon the principle that the "partaker is
as bad as the thief," they set down his lecture on sabbath-breaking as
nothing better than pious humbug.
[Illustration: VIEW ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER.]
Dr. Marcus Whitman was another style of man. Whatever he thought of the
wild ways of the mountain-men he discreetly kept to himself, preferring
to teach by example rather than precept; and showing no fastidious
contempt for any sort of rough duty he might be called upon to perform.
So aptly indeed had he turned his hand to all manner of camp service on
the journey to the mountains, that this abrogation of clerical dignity
had become a source of solicitude, not to say disapproval and
displeasure on the part of his colleague; and it was agreed between
them that the Doctor should return to the states with the St. Louis
Company, to procure recruits for the promising field of labor which they
saw before them, while Mr. Parker continued his journey to the Columbia
to decide upon the location of the missionary stations. The difference
of character of the two men was clearly illustrated by the results of
this understanding. Parker went to Vancouver, where he was hospitably
entertained, and where he could inquire into the workings of the
missionary system as pursued by the Methodist missionaries. His
investigations not proving the labor to his taste, he sailed the
following summer for the Sandwich Islands, and thence to New York;
leaving only a brief note for Doctor Whitman, when he, with
indefatigable exertions, arrived that season among the Nez Perces with a
missionary company, eager for the work which they hoped to make as great
as they believed it to be good.