Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 2/Notes by William M. Case
NOTES BY WILLIAM M. CASE.
Supplementary to his "Reminiscences," published in the September Quarterly, Volume 1, Number 3.
MR. CASE'S ACCOUNT.
TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS.
I left home on the sixteenth day of February, 1849, and arrived at San Francisco on the fourteenth of March of the same year. Made my way as best I could to Sacramento. I went from there to Coloma, on the South Fork of the American River, and started there at carpenter work. The trouble with the Indians was just this way. When the Oregonians arrived late in 1848, they found in California a great many of the old traders of all nationalities, early pioneers of enterprise, who had gone into California before the discovery of gold. The most of these had married native Indian women. They became Mexican citizens and took land grants, some of these grants containing from one to three leagues square, for the purpose of engaging in the stock business—cattle, horses, and sheep, mostly the former. In this they had been engaged for a number of years. These people went prospecting as soon as gold was discovered; found gold to a great extent, and employed the Indians to do their work; employed them by the hundreds; furnished them with pans and set them to digging and washing gold, and they paid them with calico shirts of the cheapest class, each shirt being given for an amount of gold dust equal to the weight of three silver dollars, the traders thereby realizing $48 for each shirt; and the same price for each pan.
The Oregonians on their arrival saw it was cheaper to buy shirts and sell them to the Indians than to do the digging themselves; but they lowered the price to balance the weight of two silver dollar pieces, which would be equal to $32 in gold dust. By this great affront was given to the old traders, as the Oregonians were getting the greater part of the trade and of the gold, on account of the drop in price. The Californians then, on their part, dropped the price to the weight of one silver dollar, which was followed by the Oregonians, and it was afterwards reduced as low as that of a fifty-cent piece.
Then began the next phase of the situation. When the reduction of the price of shirts began, killing of the. Oregonians began, until six Columbia River men were killed on the eleventh day of April, 1849, about thirteen miles from Coloma, on the North Fork of the American River, making a total, counting those who had been lost before, of thirty-two Columbia River men who had been murdered, supposedly by the Indians. When the news came to Coloma, the Oregonians called a secret meeting, and at once started to buy provisions and ammunition to outfit thirteen men to follow these Indians. Our little posse started, struck different trails, and were gone three days . They left a Thursday morning and returned Sunday morning following. I had been engaged at carpentering in Coloma, and as I could hardly leave my work, acted as a sort of a secret spy there, keeping my eyes open for Indians. I soon spotted a suspicious looking character. I noticed a ragged looking Indian working at a sawmill, run by Jim Marshall and Winters. The first night our thirteen men were out I noticed two signal fires on the mountains, which were watched by the Indian at the mill.
Our party returned from their hunt for the Indians, one at a time, so as not to excite suspicion. I met a couple of them, and, speaking in low tones, asked if they had found anything. They replied, "no;' that the Indians had scattered. They had followed the trail for one hundred miles—until the trail ran out. These valley Indians had strongly asserted their innocence, and laid the blame upon wild Indians from the mountains. But many suspicious circumstances had already convinced me that they were the real culprits, and now I concluded that the murders were due to them entirely, and that they had returned. I assured my comrades that the Indians were still in the valley, and upon inquiry from a Jonathan Williams, who kept a horse ranch near by, as to whether he had seen any lurking Indians in the neighborhood, he said that he had seen a few cross the river and disperse.
The party decided thereupon that these were the guilty Indians, and bought more provisions and more ammunition and started with Williams as a guide to show where the Indians crossed the river. At length they found the Indians camped at the mouth of Weaver Creek, about twenty miles from Coloma. The Oregonians rode among the Indians. They had been friendly and were not afraid of them. Our men saw at once that these were the very Indians they were looking for, and decided then and there to kill every one of them if they could. Each Oregonian had about thirteen shots a piece. I do not suppose the battle lasted more than one minute—they shot right and left and twenty-six Indians were killed. The rest surrendered, the women falling down and beginning to weep. An Oregonian named Greenwood could talk to them—he had learnt their language—and they said to him: "What have you done this for?" "For killing the Columbia River men three days ago," he answered. They acknowledged it immediately. Greenwood then asked: "What made you do it?" They began to name these California traders saying they had told them to do it, saying that they (the Oregonians) were stealing their money and giving them poor goods. The women all declared that was the way it was, and they pointed out six men who had remained from the slaughter and said that they were also implicated in the secret murder of the Oregonians.
The Oregonians took them as prisoners, but were divided as to what was to be done with them. They finally decided to take them to Coloma and submit them to Sutter, who was acting as superintendent of Indian affairs, then stationed at Sacramento, and give them trial, and be shot or hanged if found guilty.
Three of the Oregonians started back to Coloma ahead of the others and forty-three prisoners (including men, women, and children) in order to capture the Indian spy at the mill before he should have a chance to escape. As I saw them coming, I left my work under pretense of getting a drink of water and asked them if they had found the Indians. They replied: "Yes, we have them—killed twenty-six and are bringing the rest as prisoners, and now want the one at the sawmill." In about half an hour the rest came into Coloma on a run. A crowd had gathered, and now almost three hundred people were following to see what would be done with the Indians. They were all driven under a large pine tree where they dropped down with fatigue—the day being intensely hot. The one from the mill was soon brought in and as soon as the women saw him, they rose up wailing and crying, and pushed him from them out of the circle, saying: "You are no longer one of us. You have deceived us; you were going to save our husbands and now they are all killed." As the Indian women pushed him away, John Greenwood threw a lasso over his head and shoulders, but as this was done, Winters—the California trader and the Indian's employer at the mill—snatched the rope as if to free the Indian. Then a shout went up from the thirteen men, "Shoot him, shoot him, the d——d s—n of a b———, shoot him!" An Oregonian, Flem Hill, clutched Winters by the collar, saying to him: "Get out of here or you will be riddled with bullets," and cried, "Don't shoot him, boys."
They finally let all the Indians go except seven prisoners, which included the one from the mill, and these they placed in a small house where three men volunteered to keep guard over them until they could send for Sutter. A Doctor Ames (alias) volunteered to go and get Sutter. He started and brought back a letter from Sutter deputizing him (Ames) to try the Indians, ami he asked them for the keys to the house. Sutter's letter stated that as he had no United States troops he did not think it was safe for him to go up to Coloma among a lot of thieves and murderers from Oregon. An Oregonian named Hill replied to Ames, calling him by his true name: "No, we think we are just as capable of doing justice to these Indians as a man who has forsworn his oath to the United States. We won't give up the keys."
The question with these three men was, then, what to do with the Indians? The Oregonians decided to try them themselves, and told the Indians if they were found guilty they would be shot. They were to be tried under the same tree they had been driven to when they first arrived in Coloma.
A great crowd of people gathered at the house where the Indians were confined, and as soon as the door was opened the Indians appeared, taking an observation of the crowd before them. They were headed by the Indian spy from the mill, and he gazed wild-eyed as if looking for some chance of escape. "All of a sudden, with a strange scream or shout, he sprang from the door onto the ground upon all fours, and zigzagged his way right and left through the crowd, under the legs of the astonished spectators, with Smith after him with gun in hand. The spectators quickly scattered for fear of being shot, when Smith killed the spy. The other Indians instantly followed him, and were wiggling their way in the same manner. All was confusion; but finally all the Indians were killed while trying to escape except two, who fled to the mountains. The names of the three persons who had the prisoners in charge were Flem Hill, Jack Smith, and Crock Eberman.
Things went on quietly for a few days until another Oregonian was murdered about eleven miles from Coloma. Then we had to raise another army. Fifteen started out this time. They soon came to where three Indians were mining, and they immediately dispatched them. This was in accordance with an agreement made by the Oregonians that all Indians would be killed on sight until all were destroyed, or else sufficiently subdued to stop any further molestation. That same day they found eleven mining. As soon as the Oregonians were discovered the Indians fled, and were pursued until they reached a ranch owned by a Calif ornian by the name of Goff, where the Indians had secreted themselves in a cabin. They knocked at the door, but nobody replied, until somebody suggested picking the adobe out of the sides of the cabin. They did this and saw the eleven Indians inside. Some one cried, "Shoot,' and Goff asked them to wait until he got out. Before the Oregonians left the scene they killed all the Indians in this band. They came at last to the trail of a large number, whom they followed until they surprised them as the Indians were going into a swamp, where they thought the Oregonians' horses could not travel. The tall grass, however, supported the horses. I do not remember how many were killed this time, but seventy-six of that tribe perished during the entire war. All the men were killed in this last battle, and one woman. This was not done on purpose. She was lying in the grass shooting arrows, and was mistaken for a man and shot.
The Oregonians told the women to come with them to "dry diggings," about six miles from Coloma, and they would protect them and let them work. But by this time the Oregonians, who had been out over twenty-four hours with only a vest pocket luncheon, were very hungry. They stopped at the house of a rancher named Bailey and asked for beef, but were refused. In connection with this, Bailey published a letter in the Placer Times saying that the large band of Indians that had been killed by the Oregonians were his, and that they were coming to him when they were overtaken and killed by the murderers and robbers from .Oregon. A few days later, Nichols, the captain of the Oregonians at that time, saw this letter; he replied through the same paper "that it was well for Bailey they didn't know those were his Indians, or some of his oak trees would have known what went with him that morning."
The Indian women remained at the "dry diggings" referred to for a week or ten days, when they suddenly disappeared. Nobody cared for them, and probably nobody would have looked for them if it were not for a man named Smith, who had an Indian wife and child in the tribe. He started out in search of these women, and was gone almost a month when he discovered them camped in the snowy mountains, about fifty miles from Coloma. They were almost starving. He asked why they had gone there, and they said because they thought the Columbia River men could not find them there as there was no grass for the horses. They had been living on wild clover and sugar pine nuts. Smith took them all to a cattle ranch kept by a Spaniard, near Coloma, and returned to that place. He and Weimer then went to Mr. Case, saying that they knew he was a chief factor in this Indian affair (information which Mr. Case did not think was public), and asked if he would not use his influence with the rest of the Oregonians so they would allow these Indians, both men and women, to come down from the mountains, and protect them and allow them to work. Case replied that he was but one Oregonian, and, anyway, he certainly would not agree to protect the Indians if they should come down.
Finally, beef and flour were sent to the women by the California traders, who told them to eat, drink, and be merry. Such a diet they had not been accustomed to, however, and as a result of overeating of food they were not used to, took some disease, and the whole tribe—numbering altogether one hundred and fifty-two Indians—died. Smith brought his wife and child down to Coloma and buried them there, placing a cross over the graves. Weimer remarked afterward to Case, he would hate to be in those Oregonians' shoes at judgment day, but Mr. Case replied: "Why, we didn't kill your Indian women; you killed them with kindness yourselves. The tribe killed thirty-two of our men, and every Oregonian here had a brother or friend among the murdered number. There was no trouble with the Indians that year or the next.
AFFAIR WITH MEXICAN PEONS.
The last of June I started with five or six newly arrived Oregonians for Big Bar, on the Middle Fork of the American River, about fifty miles from Coloma.
Captain Whiting, with seventy-two persons, who were in prison for debt, arrived at Big Bar the same day that our party did. In order to get these persons out of prison, he had to pay their creditors an average of $2.50 apiece, and he had hired them for two years for eighteen and three fourths cents per day and board. At the end of two years he had to give bonds to the government to return them to Mexico if they wanted to go. (This is an illustration of the method employed by the Californians and Mexicans in lieu or as a further application of the Indian labor principle. These prisoners were practically bought by Captain Whiting, and had been imprisoned not for any crime, but simply for debt; and it was evident that any great extension of this plan of working the mines would have excluded free American labor entirely, and soon have made California a slave state, with a slavery like that of some of the South American countries, peonage, and even worse than the domestic slavery of the Southern States.)
We arrived at the Bar two hours before Captain Whiting's party and told the people at Big Bar, who numbered about five hundred, that a Spanish crowd was coming, and this news created much disturbance. In due time the Mexican party arrived and began to unpack. But that evening Captain Whiting and his overseers called on me and asked me to do him a favor. I replied, if it were in my power I would gladly do so. He wished me to call a meeting of the Americans and find out what the Bar said about his company of Mexicans working for him there. He added, "We were very abruptly ordered away from the Bar before we unpacked." He thought the party making this remark did so on his own responsibility, and he wished me to find out the sentiment of the Americans in regard to his party's remaining there. I told him I would do so.
This Captain Whiting was born and raised and educated in Boston, Massachusetts, and went to Mexico when he was about twenty years old and became a Mexican citizen. Case replied, "That is what you ought to have done; no man has a right to live permanently in a country without becoming a citizen of it."
To make myself well heard I climbed upon a high rock where I could be heard a great distance and called out, "Oyez, Oyez, Oyez, all American citizens come forward immediately. Important business to be attended to." I had no sooner called this way than the cry was taken up and carried at least three miles around. The meeting following was held at Squire Finley's store—Finley being from Oregon City. A chairman and secretary were duly elected. The chairman, Squire Finley, called the meeting to order and stated that Mr. Case would explain the object. I did so, which took me probably fifteen minutes. A resolution was then adopted that we indorse Governor Smith's proclamation. (This proclamation was that the coming of foreigners to California for the purpose of working the mines without any intention of becoming American citizens was strictly forbidden.) This was very necessary, as already large contracts were being made, not only in Mexico, but in Chili and other South American states for prisoners or peons, and in a short time the mines would have been overrun with this class of labor. It was only necessary that the action of Governor Smith should be indorsed by some substantial body, as his authority hardly extended to civil affairs, no regular state government having baen yet organized in California.
In order to test the sense of the meeting, Mr. Case moved that Captain Whiting be not allowed to stay here, which was carried unanimously.
Then Mr. Case moved that a committee be appointed to convey to Captain Whiting the sense of the meeting, a duty which I attempted to perform, but found it quite unnecessary, as Captain Whiting had been present at the meeting, and had watched closely all the proceedings, and the next morning he and all his debtors started to leave the mines. I also introduced a resolution that we furnish a copy of the proceedings of the meeting to the Placer Times.
This started the ball rolling, and action was taken by miners at many different bars, and within a week or ten days it was estimated that over seven thousand foreigners, mostly peons and debtors, were started from California, their masters all blaming Case.
I remained at Big Bar for forty days, then came back to Coloma, stayed there for two days, and than started for Sacramento, where I got an outfit and made my way back to Oregon. (Much of the ill-feeling that was afterwards shown toward Oregon and Oregonians by the Californians, probably had its origin in these early conflicts between the Oregonians and the California ranchers and importers of a semi-slave labor; but Oregonians in California during the mining days became the backbone of American government, and from this sprang the splendid free state.)
A circumstantial account of the beginning of state government in California is given in "Recollections of a Pioneer," Peter G. Burnett, first Governor of California, who went from Oregon to the mines in 1848.