A History of Oregon, 1792-1849

“The Catholic Priests and the War – ‘A Catholic Citizen’ attended to

“To the Editor of the Oregon Argus:

“Sir, – For the past month I have noticed several virulent articles in each issue of your paper, all tending to impress upon the minds of your readers the idea that the Catholic priests were the head and front of the present Indian difficulties; and being fearful that your constant harping upon that one subject might render you a monomaniac, I am induced to submit to your Argus eyes a few facts in relation to the conduct of the Catholic priests prior to and during the present war. In your issue of the 8th inst., I find an article based upon the following extract from the official report of Colonel Nesmith: —

“‘With sundry papers discovered in the mission building, was a letter written by the priest, Pandozy, for Kamaiyahkan, head chief of the Yankama tribe, addressed to the officer in command of the troops, a copy of which is communicated with this report. There was also found an account-book kept by this priest Pandozy, which is now in the custody of Major Raines. This book contains daily entries of Pandozy’s transactions with the Indians, and clearly demonstrates the indisputable fact that he has furnished the Indians with large quantities of ammunition, and leaving it a matter of doubt whether gospel or gunpowder was his principal stock in trade. The priest had abandoned the mission, but it gave unmistakable evidence of being cared for, and attended to, during his absence, by some Yankama Indian parishioners.’

“You then proceed with great sang froid to pride yourself upon the correct ‘position’ which you took about a month previous, relative to the above subject, and presuming upon the safe ‘position’ which you thus assumed, you say the priests have in a measure prompted the Indians to the late outbreak! A bold presumption, truly, when we find the puny evidence which you have to back your ‘position.’ You further assert as a fact, ‘that in this, as in the Cayuse war, these priests have been detected in the very act of conveying large quantities of powder in the direction of the camp of the enemy.’ This, sir, is a fact which emanated from your own disordered imagination, as during the Cayuse war no priest was ever detected in any such a position, and you know it; but then, it must be recollected that a little buncombe capital does not come amiss at this time, and if you can make it off of a poor priest by publishing a tissue of groundless falsehoods against him, why even that is ‘grist to your mill.’”

“The foregoing is a portion of a communication which appeared in the Standard of December 13, over the signature of ‘A Catholic Citizen.’ The writer of that article, in endeavoring to blind the eyes of his readers, and his pretending to correct us in reference to certain statements we had made concerning a few things connected with the present Indian war, as also the Cayuse war of 1848, in which the Catholic priests had by their intercourse with the savages created more than a suspicion in the minds of the community that they were culpably implicated in the crimson character of these tragedies, wisely intrenched himself behind a fictitious signature. He has thereby thrown the responsibility of some three columns of pointless verbiage, flimsy sophistry, and Jesuitical falsehoods, upon the shoulders of an irresponsible, intangible, ghostly apparition, probably very recently dismissed from some sepulcher at Rome, or from the carcass of an Irishman just swamped in the bogs of Ireland.

“Seven or eight weeks have now elapsed since we called upon this Roman Catholic citizen to emerge from his hiding-place among the tombstones, and if he was really incarnate, with a body of flesh and bones, such as the rest of us have, to throw off the mask, and not only give us a full view of his corporeal developments, but also to send us a copy of the book by which he cleared Pandozy, and justified himself in issuing, from his sweat-house Vatican, his bull of excommunication against us.

“We have thus far ‘harked’ in vain for a sound ‘from the tombs.’ Like a true Jesuit, that loves darkness rather than light, he not only still persists in keeping his name in the dark, and keeping the ‘book’ we rightfully called for in the dark, but attempts to enshroud the whole subject in total darkness, by making up his own case from such parts of Pandozy’s book as he chooses to have exposed, and then thrusting the whole manuscript into a dark corner of his dark-colored coat, and in order to darken what light we had already shed in upon the dark nest of Jesuits, among the dark-skinned and dark-hearted savages, he most solemnly denies as false the most important of the dark charges we made against them, and then, after ‘darkening counsel’ by a whole column of ‘words without knowledge,’ by which, like the cuttle-fish, he darkens the waters to elude the hand of his pursuer, and then, under cover of all this darkness, he dodges into his dark little sweat-house, and issues his terrible bull consigning us to a very dark place, where the multitudes of dark Jesuits that have gone before us have doubtless made it ‘as dark as a stack of black cats.’ But what makes the case still darker is, that while ‘Catholic Citizen’ refuses to expose his personal outlines to our ‘Argus eyes,’ but intimates that as he is a member of the Catholic Church, and of the Democratic party, if we let off a broadside upon either of these societies, and wound either of their carcasses, the one bloated on the blood of saints, and the other on the juice of corn, we shall of course inflict a material injury upon him, upon the principle that ‘when one of the members suffers, all the members suffer with it;’ we say, that in view of the fact that after ‘Catholic Citizen’ has claimed to be a member of both these organizations, the Corvallis organ of the Sag Nichts and Jesuits has whet the razor of authority, and lopped him off, as a heterodox member, and consigned him to the fires of damnation, because ‘Catholic Citizen’ has intimated that the two bodies were not identical, thus wisely enveloping him in a dark cloud, and translating him far beyond the reach of our guns, makes the case terribly dark indeed.

“‘He (Catholic Citizen) displays the cloven foot of either direct opposition to the Democratic organization, or sore-head-ism and disaffection with that organization. – We can hardly conceive that the author of that communication is a Catholic, or a friend of the Catholic Church.’ —Statesman of Dec. 25.

“Thus it will be seen that the editor of the ‘organ’ takes him by the top tuft, and applies the ‘rapin hook’ to his neck as a heretic, and not a genuine Catholic, because of his ‘sore-head-ism and disaffection with the Democratic organization,’ thus unequivocally asserting that the church and the clique are identical, or so closely identified that in placing himself in opposition to the one, he proves that he is not a friend of the other. Now whether the action of the organ has been from a malicious desire to ‘bury him out of our sight’ as an ‘unfruitful branch’ of the Catholic and Democratic trunk, or whether he intended in mercy to wrap him up in his Nessean shirt, and hide him from our view by denying to him the only earthly position he assumed, it matters not particularly to us. We shall probably teach him, or his ghost, in due time, a lesson which we long since whipped into the tough and slimy hide of the biped who controls the Statesman, and which he and his ilk would do well to read in the welts that checker his back, before they make their onslaughts upon us, viz., whenever we state a thing to be true, you may rest assured that it is so, and by calling it in question, you may be sure you will provoke the proof. We are not of that class of lying editors who make false charges which they are not able to sustain, and we have never yet vouched for the truth of a statement, and been afterward compelled to back out of it. Whenever we make a mistake, on account of bad information, we are sure to make the correction as soon as we are apprised of it, whether the statement affects the character or interest of friend or foe, or neither.

“Your vile innuendo, that we wished to make a little buncombe capital off a poor sniveling priest, is readily excused, knowing as we do your impressions from associating with political comrades who neither yield to nor expect justice or decency from their political opponents; and presuming also that the moment you stepped your foot upon American soil, with your little budget of Irish rags, some demagogue put a loco-foco hook into your nose, and led you off to the political pound to learn your catechism, so fast that the remaining half of the nether extremity of your old swallow-fork made a right angle with your stalwart frame. We know very well what sort of lessons you have learned out of that catechism; how you have been duped to believe that the principles of Jefferson and other old sainted Democrats were still cherished by the designing demagogues who have taken you in tow; how we who oppose this office-hunting party are ‘down upon Catholics and foreigners’ simply because they are such; and how you had only to put in the ‘clane dimocratthic ticket’ to insure yourself great and glorious privileges. Under this sort of training, it is not surprising to us that you not only expect us to persecute you to the full extent that a priest is sworn to ‘persecute’ heretics, but that you are constantly in fear that the ‘Noo Nothins’ will soon be ladling soup from a huge kettle that contains your quarters boiled up with Irish potatoes.

“We were not led to make the remarks we did in reference to the priests because they were Papists, but because we had reason to believe they were traitors to our government, and were identified with the savages in the present war. If Methodist, Presbyterian, or any other Protestant clergymen had rendered themselves equally obnoxious, we should probably have given our opinion at the time, that they deserved to be brought out of the Indian country, with all their ‘traps,’ to undergo a trial before a jury for their lives.

“But, sir, to one of your falsehoods: —

“‘You further assert as a fact, “that in this, as in the Cayuse war, these priests have been detected in the very act of conveying large quantities of powder in the direction of the camp of the enemy.” This, sir, is a fact which emanated from your own distorted imagination, as during the Cayuse war no priest was ever detected in any such a position, and you know it.’

“Now, sir, we did not suppose that there was a man green enough in all Oregon (excepting, perhaps, the Statesman) to call our statement in question. We happen to be an old Oregonian ourself, and profess to be pretty well posted in reference to many occurrences which will make up the future history of this lovely yet blood-stained land. The proof of our assertion we supposed could be come at by our file of the Spectator. The fact was still vivid in our memory. At the date of this transaction (August 21, 1848), there were three papers printed in the Territory: The Free Press, an 8 by 12 sheet, edited by G. L. Curry, present governor of Oregon, and the Oregon Spectator, a 22 by 32 sheet, edited by A. E. Wait, Esq., both published at Oregon City; besides a semi-monthly pamphlet, printed in the Tualatin Plains, and edited by Rev. J. S. Griffin. Although all of these papers at the time spoke of the transaction referred to, we believe none of them, excepting the Spectator, contained the official correspondence necessary to make out our case. We supposed, and so did many others, that all the old files of the Spectator were long since destroyed, excepting the imperfect one in our office. When ‘A Catholic Citizen’ called our statement in question, we, of course, referred to our ‘file’ for proof, but to our astonishment this particular paper was missing, although the immediate preceding and succeeding numbers were all there, embracing the whole summer of 1848. The missing number was accidentally (?) misplaced, of course, and the proof of that transaction supposed to be beyond our reach. By the kindness of a gentleman we have been furnished with the desired copy from his own file.” (See official note and letter as previously quoted.)

“Now, will ‘A Catholic Citizen’ contend that our statement, in reference to the ‘large quantities of powder,’ is not fully covered by ‘seven or eight hundred pounds of powder, fifteen hundred pounds of lead, and three boxes of guns.’

“A man who can unblushingly utter such a falsehood as he has been guilty of, to create a public sentiment in favor of these priests, is below contempt, and we feel our task of exposing him to be truly humiliating. We have branded this goat with an L – , which will stick to his hide as long as Cain carried his mark; and we now turn him out to browse for a while with B., who wears about a dozen of the same brands, under the pain of which we have sent him off howling. ‘A Catholic Citizen’ may feed on ‘ferrin’ till we get time to clap the same brand to him again, when we shall tie him up to the post and again scorch his wool.”

In reference to the article, as quoted from the Oregon Argus, it is not certainly known who “Catholic Citizen” is, but the impression is that the production is from the pen of Hon. P. H. Burnett or Sir James Douglas, and not impossible from Robert Newell, with such assistance as he could obtain.

If from either of those gentlemen, he may have been correctly informed as to the real owners of the munitions, but we can hardly believe Mr. Douglas or Newell would lay themselves liable to the falsehood charged upon them, as they were in the country, and must have known of the facts in the case. Mr. Burnett was in California, and may have been misled by his informant. Be that as it may, the munitions were found on their way into the Indian country in charge of the priests, and the remarks of the editor of the Argus, W. L. Adams, Esq., shows the true history of the times, and the continued effort of the Jesuits and their neophytes to continue the Indian wars, to prevent the Protestant missionary stations from being reoccupied and the settlement of the country by the Americans, as intimated by Father Hoikin, in his letter to his society in Brussels.

Our provisional army did not capture a single murderer or prominent Indian engaged in the massacre, though many of them were known to have been frequently with the priests and at Fort Wallawalla. Neither the priests, McBean, nor the indescribably sympathizing Sir James Douglas made the least effort to bring the murderers to justice. A part of them were given up by the tribe, – tried and hung at Oregon City under the Territorial government of the United states, Judge Pratt presiding. In the trial, the same influence was used to get the murderers acquitted that had instigated and protected them in the commission of the crime.

The discovery of gold in California took place before our troops had all returned; the universal excitement in relation to it caused the desertion of a large portion of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s men, and almost an abandonment of the fur trade in the country for the time. They, however, still kept up the semblance of fur trade; and, at the expiration of their parliamentary license in 1858, withdrew to British Columbia and Vancouver Island to repeat upon their own people what they have practiced so successfully and so long upon the Americans.

There is, connected with this foreign company, a sort of Jesuitical suavity of manner and boasting propensity that naturally deceives all who come within its influence.

All its titles and little performances of charity are sounded forth with imperial pomposity. The man that does not acknowledge his obligations to it for being permitted to remain in the country previous to the expiration of its parliamentary license, is considered ungrateful by it, and by such as are blind to its infamous practices.

CHAPTER LXIV

Missions among the Western Indians. – The Cœur d’Alêne Mission. – Protestant and Catholic missions compared. – What the American Protestant missionaries have done for the country and the Indians. – Extent of their influence, progress, and improvements. – Patriotism of Dr. Whitman.

Any person who has read the previous pages of this volume will not charge us with being ignorant of missionary operations on our western coast. Though we were but eight years connected in mechanical and business relations with them, still we have never lost sight of their labors, or their intellectual, moral, religious, political, or physical operations, nor of their personal conduct, or their adaptation to the work assigned them. We have spoken plainly our views, and impressions of the character, conduct, and influence of all prominent men in the country. Our main object has been to introduce the reader to the people of Oregon at the time in which they were acting in a public capacity. The private morals of the country have only been incidentally drawn out by reference to a petition sent to Congress, signed by the Rev. David Leslie, in 1840. In that document Mr. Leslie does himself and the country an injustice, by asserting that “theft, murder, infanticide, etc., are increasing among them to an alarming extent” (Senate Doc., 26th Congress, 1st Session, No. 514). Those charges Mr. Leslie no doubt sincerely thought to be true at that time, from the occurrence of the two most serious crimes about the time he wrote. But such crimes were by no means common.

It is often asked, What good have the missionaries done to the Indians? If this question applied alone to the Jesuit missionaries, brought to the country by the Hudson’s Bay Company, we would say unhesitatingly, None at all. What few Indians there are now in the country that have been baptized by them, and have learned their religious catechisms, are to-day more hopelessly depraved, and are really poorer and more degraded than they were at the time we visited them twenty-two years since, looking carefully at their moral and pecuniary condition then and now. In proof of which we give the following article: —

“Cœur d’Alêne Mission

“The old Mullan road from the Bitter Root or Missoula River to the Cœur d’Alêne Mission, shows to the traveler little evidence that it was once explored, laid out, and built by a scientific engineer. Decayed remnants of bridges are scattered all along the Cœur d’Alêne and St. Regis Borgia rivers; excavations have been filled up by the débris of fallen timber; huge bowlders that have rolled down the mountain side, constantly crumbling masses of slate, and huge chasms, worn or torn by the furious progress of the streams swollen by the melting snows and spring rains, obstruct entirely the passage of vehicles of all kinds, and render the passage of pack and saddle horses almost impossible. In the distance of eighty miles, you cross these two rivers one hundred and forty-six times, climb the precipitous sides of numerous mountains, continually jumping your horses over fallen timber, and filing to the right and left to avoid the impassable barriers which the mountain tornadoes have strewn in your way. The gorges, through which the road sometimes winds to avoid the mountains of rocks that close in even to the edge of the main stream, are narrow, and so completely shaded, that the rays of the sun have never penetrated, and one everlasting cold chill dampness prevails. Our party were halted for an hour in one of those passes to allow the passage of a herd of two hundred Spanish cattle, and, although when we emerged from the cañon we found the sun oppressively hot, I do not remember ever to have suffered more from cold in any climate or in any altitude. The oppressiveness seemed to spring from something besides the mere temperature. We found but one living thing in those narrow cañons, and that was the most diminutive of the squirrel species. There was no song of birds or whir-r-r of partridge or grouse. It had the silence of the cold, damp grave.

“After arriving within six miles of the mission, the cañon of the Cœur d’Alêne opens out to about four miles in width, and you come suddenly to Mud Prairie, – a broad, open park, with here and there a solitary pine, and the ground covered with a heavy growth of swamp grass, which stock will only eat when nothing better can be obtained. Two hours more, and the mission, with its stately church (so it appears in the mountains), suddenly presents itself to view.

“Dilapidated fences are passed, rude Indian houses made of ‘shakes,’ fields of wheat and vegetables overrun with weeds, and at last, making the one hundred and forty-sixth crossing of the river, you halt your hungry and jaded horses in front of the rudest piece of architecture that ever supported a cross or echoed to the Ave Maria of the Catholic faith. Rude though it is, when we consider the workmen by whom it was constructed and the tools employed, the feeling of ridicule and smile of contempt will give way to admiration of the energy and (though I think mistaken) zeal which sustained the Jesuit fathers during what was to them, at that time, a most herculean labor. The building is 46 by 60 feet, and 30 feet posted, and was two years in process of construction. The workmen were two or three Jesuit priests, assisted by a few Indians, and the reverend fathers showed me a saw, an auger, an ax, and an old jack-plane, their only tools. It is situated on a little elevation from the main valley. On the left is the dwelling of the fathers, and still to the left is the storehouse, hospital, workshop, and building for the sick and crippled recipients of their benefactions. Around the slope of the elevation are scattered Indian huts and tepees, and at its base lies the resting-place of departed Indians who had died in the faith and gone to the hunting-grounds of the Great Spirit. In front of all, the Cœur d’Alêne, seemingly satisfied with the havoc which its furious progress had made, runs slowly and sluggishly along. The interior of the church is a curiosity. Here you see the marks of an unfortunate stroke from a clumsy ax-man; there a big Indian had sawed a stick of timber half off in the wrong place; in another spot, a little Indian had amused himself boring holes with the auger, while the joints ‘broke’ like a log-house before chinking. I was told that in its original construction there was not a nail used; but lately some efforts have been made to smooth down the rough exterior by the addition of cornice and corner-boards.

“The priests are very jealous of their claims to the territory around the mission, and regard the unlimited control of the Indians as a right which they have acquired by their self sacrificing labors, and as a duty on the part of the Indians in return for the salvation of their souls and absolution from their sins. For my part, from an acquaintance with twelve tribes of Indians, among whom the gospel has been preached, and the forms, mysteries, and ceremonies of the Catholic Church introduced, I have failed to see a soul saved, or one single spark of Indian treachery, cruelty, or barbarism extinguished. The lamented General Wright thrashed the murdering propensities of the Cœur d’Alêne Indians out of them. The balance of their virtues – stealing, drinking, and supreme laziness – they possess in as large a share as they did before the heart of Saint Alêne was sent among them. I would like to give a favorable portrait of this mission and its occupants, if I could. I would like to say that the reverend fathers were neat, cleanly, intelligent, hospitable individuals, but there are too many who travel that road, and it would be pronounced false. I would like to say they were sowing the seed of civilization and cultivating it successfully in the untutored mind of the poor red man, but truth forbids. I would at least be glad that they urged upon the Indians to obey the laws of this government and respect the property of its citizens, but must leave that task to some one who has never bought of them horse meat for beef, and traveled for days on foot, because they would not, from pure deviltry, sell him one horse out of a band of two or three hundred. I say not these things with any reference to the Catholic Church or its belief, nor am I forgetful of what I have read of the Jesuits of St. Bernard and their acts of humanity; but for the filthy, worthless, superannuated relics of Italian ignorance, who have posted themselves midway between the extremes of Pacific and Atlantic civilization, acknowledging no law save that of their church, I have not the slightest particle of respect, and believe with an old packer, ‘that it was a great pity General Wright had not carried his threat into execution, and blown the den over the range.’”21