Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier/Chapter 32
CHAPTER XXXII.
1847. A full account of the horrors of the Waiilatpu massacre, together with the individual sufferings of the captives whose lives were spared, would fill a volume, and be harrowing to the reader; therefore, only so much of it will be given here as, from its bearing upon Oregon history, is important to our narrative.
The day following the massacre, being Tuesday, was the day on which Mr. Spalding was met and warned not to go to the mission, by the Vicar General, Brouillet. Happening at the mission on that day, and finding the bodies of the victims still unburied, Brouillet had them hastily interred before leaving, if interment it could be called which left them still a prey to wolves. The reader of this chapter of Oregon history will always be very much puzzled to understand by what means the Catholic priests procured their perfect exemption from harm during this time of terror to the Americans. Was it that they were French, and that they came into the country only as missionaries of a religion adapted to the savage mind, and not as settlers? Was it at all owing to the fact that they were celibates, with no families to excite jealous feelings of comparison in the minds of their converts?
Through a long and bitter war of words, which followed the massacre at Waiilatpu, terrible sins were charged upon the priests—no less than inciting the Indians to the murder of the Protestants, and winking at the atrocities of every kind committed by the savages. Whether they feared to enter into the quarrel, and were restrained from showing sympathy solely by this fear, is a question only themselves can determine. Certain it is, that they preserved a neutral position, when to be neutral was to seem, if not to be, devoid of human sympathies. That the event would have happened without any other provocation than such as the Americans furnished by their own reckless disregard of Indian prejudices, seems evident. The question, and the only question which is suggested by a knowledge of all the circumstances, is whether the event was helped on by an intelligent outside influence.
It was quite natural that the Protestants should wonder at the immunity from danger which the priests enjoyed; and that, not clearly seeing the reason, they should suspect them of collusion with the Indians. It was natural, too, for the sufferers from the massacre to look for some expression of sympathy from any and all denominations of Christians; and that, not receiving it, they should have doubts of the motives which prompted such reserve. The story of that time is but an unpleasant record, and had best be lightly touched upon.
The work of death and destruction did not close with the first day at Waiilatpu. Mr. Kimble, who had remained in the chamber of the Doctor's house all night, had suffered much from the pain of his broken arm. On Tuesday, driven desperate by his own sufferings, and those of the three sick children with him, one of whom was the little Helen Mar Meek, he resolved to procure some water from the stream which ran near the house. But he had not proceeded more than a few rods before he was shot down and killed instantly. The same day, a Mr. Young, from the saw-mill, was also killed. In the course of the week, Mr. Bulee, who was sick over at the mansion, was brutally murdered.Meanwhile the female captives and children were enduring such agony as seldom falls to the lot of humanity to suffer. Compelled to work for the Indians, their feelings were continually harrowed up by the terrible sights which everywhere met their eyes in going back and forth between the houses, in carrying water from the stream, or moving in any direction whatever. For the dead were not removed until the setting in of decay made it necessary to the Indians themselves.
The goods belonging to the mission were taken from the store-room, and the older women ordered to make them up into clothing for the Indians. The buildings were plundered of everything which the Indians coveted; all the rest of their contents that could not be made useful to themselves were destroyed. Those of the captives who were sick were not allowed proper attention, and in a day or two Helen Mar Meek died of neglect.
Thus passed four or five days. On Saturday a new horror was added to the others. The savages began to carry off the young women for wives. Three were thus dragged away to Indian lodges to suffer tortures worse than death. One young girl, a daughter of Mr. Kimble, was taken possession of by the murderer of her father, who took daily delight in reminding her of that fact, and when her sorrow could no longer be restrained, only threatened to exchange her for another young girl who was also a wife by compulsion.
Miss Bulee, the eldest of the young women at the mission, and who was a teacher in the mission school, was taken to the Umatilla, to the lodge of Five-Crows. As has before been related, there was a house on the Umatilla belonging to Tan-i-tan, in which were residing at this time two Catholic priests—the Vicar-General Brouillet, and Blanchet, Bishop of Walla-Walla. To this house Miss Bulee applied for protection, and was refused, whether from fear, or from the motives subsequently attributed to them by some Protestant writers in Oregon, is not known to any but themselves. The only thing certain about it is, that Miss Bulee was allowed to be violently dragged from their presence every night, to return to them weeping in the morning, and to have her entreaties for their assistance answered by assurances from them that the wisest course for her was to submit. And this continued for more than two weeks, until the news of Mr. Ogden's arrival at Walla-Walla became known, when Miss Bulee was told that if Five-Crows would not allow her to remain at their house altogether, she must remain at the lodge of Five-Crows without coming to their house at all, well knowing what Five-Crows would do, but wishing to have Miss Bulee's action seem voluntary, from shame perhaps, at their own cowardice. Yet the reason they gave ought to go for all it is worth—that they being priests could not have a woman about their house. In this unhappy situation did the female captives spend three most miserable weeks.
In the meantime the mission at Lapwai had been broken up, but not destroyed, nor had any one suffered death as was at first feared. The intelligence of the massacre at Waiilatpu was first conveyed to Mrs. Spalding by a Mr. Camfield, who at the breaking out of the massacre, fled with his wife and children to a small room in the attic of the mansion, from the window of which he was able to behold the scenes which followed. When night came Mr. Camfield contrived to elude observation and descend into the yard, where he encountered a French Canadian long in the employ of Dr. Whitman, and since suspected to have been privy to the plan of the murders. To him Mr. Camfield confided his intention to escape, and obtained a promise that a horse should be brought to a certain place at a certain time for his use. But the Canadian failing to appear with his horse, Mr. C. set out on foot, and under cover of night, in the direction of the Lapwai mission. He arrived in the Nez Perce country on Thursday. On the following day he came upon a camp of these people, and procured from them a guide to Lapwai, without, however, speaking of what had occurred at Waiilatpu.
The caution of Mr. Camfield relates to a trait of Indian character which the reader of Indian history must bear in mind, that is, the close relationship and identity of feeling of allied tribes. Why he did not inform the Nez Perces of the deed done by their relatives, the Cayuses, was because in that case he would have expected them to have sympathized with their allies, even to the point of making him a prisoner, or of taking his life. It is this fact concerning the Indian character, which alone furnishes an excuse for the conduct of Mr. McBean and the Catholic priests. Upon it Mr. Camfield acted, making no sign of fear, nor betraying any knowledge of the terrible matter on his mind to the Nez Perces.
On Saturday afternoon Mr. C. arrived at Mrs. Spalding's house and dismissed his guide with the present of a buffalo robe. When he was alone with Mrs. Spalding he told his unhappy secret. It was then that the strength and firmness of Mrs. Spalding's character displayed itself in her decisive action. Well enough she knew the close bond between the Nez Perces and Cayuses, and also the treachery of the Indian character. But she saw that if affairs were left to shape themselves as Mr. Camfield entreated they might be left to do, putting off the evil day,—that when the news came from the Cayuses, there would be an outbreak.
The only chance of averting this danger was to inform the chiefs most attached to her, at once, and throw herself and her family upon their mercy. Her resolution was taken not an hour too soon. Two of the chiefs most relied upon happened to be at the place that very afternoon, one of whom was called Jacob, and the other Eagle. To these two Mrs. Spalding confided the news without delay, and took counsel of them. According to her hopes, they assumed the responsibility of protecting her. One of them went to inform his camp, and give them orders to stand by Mrs. S., while the other carried a note to Mr. Craig, one of our Rocky Mountain acquaintances, who lived ten miles from the mission.
Jacob and Eagle, with two other friendly chiefs, decided that Mrs. S. must go to their camp near Mr. Craig's; because in case the Cayuses came to the mission as was to be expected, she would be safer with them. Mrs. S. however would not consent to make the move on the Sabbath, but begged to be allowed to remain quiet until Monday. Late Saturday evening Mr. Craig came down; and Mrs. Spalding endeavored with his assistance to induce the Indians to carry an express to Cimikain in the country of the Spokanes, where Messrs. Walker and Eells had a station. Not an Indian could be persuaded to go. An effort, also, was made by the heroic and suffering wife and mother, to send an express to Waiilatpu to learn the fate of her daughter, and if possible of her husband. But the Indians were none of them inclined to go. They said, without doubt all the women and children were slain. That Mr. Spalding was alive no one believed.
The reply of Mrs. S. to their objections was that she could not believe that they were her friends if they would not undertake this journey, for the relief of her feelings under such circumstances. At length Eagle consented to go; but so much opposed were the others to having anything done which their relations, the Cayuses, might be displeased with, that it was nearly twenty-four hours before Eagle got leave to go.
On Monday morning a Nez Perce arrived from Waiilatpu with the news of what the Cayuses had done. With him were a number of Indians from the camp where Mr. Camfield had stopped for a guide, all eager for plunder, and for murder too, had not they found Mrs. Spalding protected by several chiefs. Her removal to their camp probably saved her from the fate of Mrs. Whitman.
Among those foremost in plundering the mission buildings at Lapwai were some of the hitherto most exemplary Indians among the Nez Perces. Even the chief, first in authority after Ellis, who was absent, was prominent in these robberies. For eight years had this chief, Joseph, been a member of the church at Lapwai, and sustained a good reputation during that time. How bitter must have been the feelings of Mrs. Spalding, who had a truly devoted missionary heart, when she beheld the fruit of her life's labor turned to ashes in her sight as it was by the conduct of Joseph and his family.
Shortly after the removal of Mrs. Spalding, and the pillaging of the buildings, Mr. Spalding arrived at Lapwai from his long and painful journey during which he had wandered much out of his way, and suffered many things. His appearance was the signal for earnest consultations among the Nez Perces who were not certain that they might safely give protection to him without the consent of the Cayuses. To his petition that they should carry a letter express to Fort Colville or Fort Walla-Walla, they would not consent. Their reason for refusing seemed to be a fear that such a letter might be answered by an armed body of Americans, who would come to avenge the deaths of their countrymen.
To deprive them of this suspicion, Mr. Spalding told them that as he had been robbed of everything, he had no means of paying them for their services to his family, and that it was necessary to write to Walla-Walla for blankets, and to the Umatilla for his horses. He assured them that he would write to his countrymen to keep quiet, and that they had nothing to fear from the Americans. The truth was, however, that he had forwarded through Brouillet, a letter to Gov. Abernethy asking for help which could only come into that hostile country armed and equipped for war.
Late in the month of December there arrived in Oregon City to be delivered to the governor, sixty-two captives, bought from the Cayuses and Nez Perces by Hudson's Bay blankets and goods; and obtained at that price by Hudson's Bay influence. "No other power on earth," says Joe Meek, the American, "could have rescued those prisoners from the hands of the Indians;" and no man better than Mr. Meek understood the Indian character, or the Hudson's Bay Company's power over them.
The number of victims to the Waiilatpu massacre was fourteen. None escaped who had not to mourn a father, brother, son, or friend. If "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church," there ought to arise on the site of Waiilatpu a generation of extraordinary piety. As for the people for whom a noble man and woman, and numbers of innocent persons were sacrificed, they have returned to their traditions; with the exception of the Nez Perces, who under the leadership of their old teacher Mr. Spalding, have once more resumed the pursuits of civilized and Christianized nations.
The description of Waiilatpu at the present time given on the following page, is from "All Over Oregon and Washington" by the author of this book.
"Waiilatpu is just that—a creek-bottom—the creeks on either side of it fringed with trees; higher land shutting out the view in front; isolation and solitude the most striking features of the place. Yet here came a man and a woman to live and to labor among the savages, when all the old Oregon territory was an Indian country. Here stood the station erected by them: adobe houses, a mill, a school-house for the Indians, shops, and all the necessary appurtenances of an isolated settlement. Nothing remains to-day but mounds of earth, into which the adobes were dissolved by weather, after burning.
"A few rods away, on the side of the hill, is a different mound: the common grave of fourteen victims of savage superstition, jealousy, and wrath. It is roughly inclosed by a board fence, and has not a shrub or a flower to disguise its terrible significance. The most affecting reminders of wasted effort which remain on the old Mission-grounds are the two or three apple-trees which escaped the general destruction, and the scarlet poppies which are scattered broadcast through the creek-bottom near the houses. Sadly significant it is that the flower whose evanescent bloom is the symbol of unenduring joys, should be the only tangible witness left of the womanly tastes and labors of the devoted Missionary who gave her life a sacrifice to ungrateful Indian savagery.
"The place is occupied, at present, by one of Dr. Whitman's early friends and co-laborers, who claimed the Mission-ground, under the Donation Act, and who was first and most active in founding the seminary to the memory of a Christian gentleman and martyr. On the identical spot where stood the Doctor's residence, now stands the more modern one of his friend; and he seems to take a melancholy pleasure in keeping in remembrance the events of that unhappy time, which threw a gloom over the whole territory west of the Rocky Mountains."