46 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
Of the Indian population of Oregon nothing new can be said. The "Nez Perces" are described as receiving advantageously the suggestions of Mr. Spalding with regard to the cultivation of their fields and rearing their cattle and horses. No diffi- culties or wars among the tribes of any consequence have re- cently occurred. A fracas between the Cowlitzes and Chinooks took place while I was in the river, in which a young Chinook was killed, but the parties are mutually too feeble to make their quarrels a matter of any general interest. It was only among these two remnants of tribes, besides the Clatsops and the Cal- lapooiales, that we had an opportunity of making any observa- tions, and what I say on this subject will be understood as relating exclusively to them. The old and melancholy record of their decline must be continued. Destitution and disease are making rapid havoc among them ; and as if the proximity of the white man were not sufficiently baneful in its insidious destruction of these unhappy people, our countrymen killed two by sudden violence and wounded another in an uncalled for and wanton manner during the few months of my sojourn in the country. The only penalty to which the perpetrators of these different acts were subjected was the payment of a blanket or a beef to their surviving kindred. Public opinion, however, sets very strongly against such intrusions upon the degraded red man, and perhaps a year hence it may be strong enough to hang an offender of this kind. It is clearly the duty of our government to look promptly into the necessitous conditions of these poor Indians. Their number is now very small : of the four tribes I have named, there are probably altogether not over five hundred, old and young, and these are scattered in lodges along the river, subject to the intrusion of the squatter. If their situation could but be known to the humane citizens of the United States, it would bring before the government endless petitions in their behalf. As a matter of policy, like- wise, it is indispensable that measures should be taken to get a better acquaintance with these as well as the mountain tribes ; they are perfectly familiar with the difference between Amer-
