Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/204

118 Bay Company in Oregon. They did not come specially to teach or preach to Indians; but they did both teaching and preaching to the natives as occasion offered, with great success, and baptized large numbers into the Catholic church. The ceremonials, vestments and ordinances of the Catholic services appealed to the eye and imagination of the Indian far more effectively than the plain preaching and singing of the Protestant ministers.

The work of Father De Smet among the Oregon Indians is entitled to be specially mentioned. He did not even come to the Oregon country' through any connection with the church or Catholic teachers in Oregon. Whatever influences operated to bring De Smet into the Oregon country were such as were set in motion by the Iroquois Indians. These Indians were the most intelligent of their race. They were great travelers; most of the men could speak the French language, and in this way they were able to make their way easily enough from tribe to tribe from the St. Lawrence entirely across the continent wherever they could find French trappers or Indians friendly to such trappers. During the Revolutionary war, the entire tribe to about ten thousand warriors fought with the British, for the British, and were whipped and overthrown as an organized tribe when the British were driven out of the American colonies. On this account they inherited and maintained a hostile disposition to all American people. There were a large number of these roving Iroquois in Oregon at the time the Protestant missionaries came here, most of them in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company as trappers or fighters of the native Indians. One of them by the name of Oskononton, while in the employ of the company on the Cowlitz, got into trouble for some outrage on a Cowlitz woman, and was killed by her friends. His boon companions reporting this to Fort George as an unprovoked murder, Peter Skene Ogden was sent out with thirty Iroquois to investigate the trouble, and on arriving at the Cowlitz camp the Iroquois mercenaries opened fire on the Cowlitz Indians without orders from Ogden, and twelve innocent men, women and children were wantonly murdered in cold blood. Other instances of the cruel, reckless and worthless character of these Iroquois could be given in Oregon history. And when they went hunting religious teachers as they did for a tribe they did not belong to and had no right to represent, they were only carrying out their character as busy-bodies; and went to St. Louis because they knew of the existence of French priests at that place with whom they could readily explain the object of their visit. They knew all about the "Black Robes" from the St. Lawrence to Oregon, and could on occasion preach and pray, and like the devil "cite Scripture for his purpose." The Iroquois were troublemakers wherever they went; and there is nd doubt that it was these old-time enemies of the Americans, to gratify their ancient grudge, fomented and incited the bloody conspiracy that ended in the murder of Dr. Whitman and all the other victims of the Whitman massacre.

Father De Smet answered the call of the Flatheads as carried to him or his superior at St. Louis by the Iroquois, and not the call of the four Flathead chiefs who visited General Clark at St. Louis eight years prior to the visit of the Iroquois. But no matter for that, De Smet went, and he is first heard of on his way to Oregon at the fur traders rendezvous, already described, on Green river in Utah. Here he preached and held services for the first time on his great mission to Oregon on July 5, 1840. Here he was met by large numbers of the