Page:How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon.djvu/239

 CHAPTER XI.

THE MASSACRE AT WAIILATPUI.

In all the years since the terrible tragedy at Waiilatpui, historians have been seeking to find the cause of that great crime.

Some have traced it to religious jealousies, but have, in a great measure, failed to back such charges with substantial facts. It seems rather to have been a combination of causes working together for a common purpose.

For nearly half a century, as we have seen in the history of Oregon, the Indians and the Hudson Bay Company had been working harmoniously together. It was a case in which civilization had accommodated itself to the desires of savage life. The Company plainly showed the Indians that they did not wish their lands, or to deprive them of their homes. It only wanted their labor, and in return it would pay the Indians in many luxuries and comforts. The Indians were averse to manual labor, and