Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/563

Rh the priest Brouillet asked her how she liked her new husband. The conduct of these priests towards this defenseless girl has been a matter of bitter recrimination between Protestants and Catholics for years. The priests themselves never offered any explanation of their conduct; and by their silence have permitted their critics and competitors in the missionary field to place whatever construction on their acts that ordinary reason and true manhood would dictate. And here the two diverging lines of Christian civilization meet and clash again. They impinged and separated on the St. Lawrence. They proceeded on their own way across the continent and strike helmets on the Columbia. The Catholics and Canadian Frenchmen regarded the Indian as an inferior to be taught to obey orders, to believe in signs and metaphors, to trust the gowned priest who would make sure of his salvation with the Great Spirit. They did not want his lauds, they only wanted him to hunt wild animals. All this suited the imagination and the comprehension of the Indian. But the Protestant missionary and American settlers approached the native from an entirely different standpoint. The missionary would regard him as a man and a brother to be educated, enlightened, and taught a system of theology that he could not prove; and worse than all else—to quit his wild ways and go to work raising potatoes and cattle. And the American settler was to the Indian a worse enemy than the missionary. He would fence up the land to raise grain and cattle, and build towns. That meant destruction of the wild game, the cutting off of the Indians natural sources of life, and his eventual extinction. The Indian could not put these ideas in words, but his self-preservation taught him the truth. Here was the plain difference between the two rival ethical and religious systems. One would appeal to the imagination, flatter the vanity and adroitly use the simpleminded barbarian to help carry the common burden. The other would appeal to his conscience and argue with him on propositions he could not understand, take his land and fight him. One succeeded and kept the Indian quiet; the other failed and bloody wars ensued.

The course of Whitman as a man of common apprehension, as the head of a family, and the manager of the mission is difficult to explain. Dr. McLoughlin had warned him of his danger, had called his attention to the fickle character of the Indian and explained to him that the Indians would on occasion kill their own "medicine" men. The honest old Indian friend, Sticcus, whom Col. Nesmith pronounced the only Christian Indian he ever met, had warned Rev. Spalding, and told him that the Indians had decided against the Americans. Whitman and Spalding were bosom friends and Whitman knew all that Spalding knew. Many other intimations had come to Whitman, and it was plain that the Doctor and his wife were in great trouble from great peril. Then why did he not secretly send off a courier to the Willamette valley for a guard to come to his relief? He could have got it for the asking. His course revealed a strange weakness or fatuity of conduct that cannot be explained.

Why did the Indians murder their friend? Three explanations were promiment in the great excitement of the times sixty-five years ago. First, that Dr. Whitman had given poison to the Indians sick with the measles which had been brought into the country and communicated to the Indians by the American immigrants of that year; and for that many Indians had died. Secondly, that the Americans were going to take all the good lands from the Indians and pay them nothing. Thirdly, that the Indians had been incited to the bloody deed