Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/242

 234 ' T. W. DAVENPOKT. . OREGON SUPERINTENDENTS. Of the several superintendents of Indian affairs for Oregon with whom I became acquainted and had some knowledge of their work, only two of them, Joel Palmer and Anson B. Meachem, claimed to have any faith in the Indian as a pro- gressive being. The others, Nesmith, Geary, Hector and Huntington, were competent to superintend the machinery of the several agencies in their department, but without any intent, begotten either of Christian duty, scientific curiosity or altruistic feeling, of trying the effect of civilizing stimulus upon him. They were content to perform their official duties satisfactorily to the Washington authorities, to their own fellow citizens, and keep the Indians off the war path. Al- though at times unsuccessful in all these objects, they did fairly well and received no severe censure from the Oregon people. In truth, the Oregonians were alike deficient in faith as to the progressive nature of the Indian ; at least, they were not inclined to waste time and money in trying experi- ments. Philosophers of a critical turn of mind might still adhere to the opinion that the Indian under proper tuitional conditions would respond as other races had done, but the ordinary observer might well be pardoned for skepticism in that respect. And looking at the humiliating results of mis- sionary work in the Willamette Valley by devoted men and women who preceded the pioneers and with no other purpose than that of civilizing and Christianizing its aboriginal in- habitants, we should not wonder at the incredulity of the Oregon people as to the practicability of any further attempts in that direction. They were simply faithless as the result of experience and there are no patent reasons for being otherwise. In the year 1851, nearly a score of years after the arrival of the first missionaries in the Willamette, which was the principal seat of their enterprise, only a few wandering, dis- eased and degenerate remnants were left of the once powerful tribes that reveled in that veritable Garden of Eden, contain- ing at least 6,000 square miles. What there was in such an out-