Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/11



INDIAN WAR IN WASHINGTON 3

missionaries and settlers. In their fewness and weakness they did not attract much attention until 1842-43. The Indians could see by that time that these white men were different from those of the Company. The new men took to them- selves large tracts of land, a mile square; they had stores of their own ; ships came to them ; they were visited by agents of a distant government ; as their numbers increased they organized and assumed charge and control of the country. The Indians were amazed. In their loyalty to the Company they did not like to see these things. There is no question that if a war had arisen between the United States and Great Britain at that time, the Hudson's Bay Company could have enrolled on the British side every Indian in what later became the Territory of Washington; nor can there be doubt that the Indians wondered why the fur company did not expel or exterminate the troublesome Americans in the earlier days, when they were able so to do, as Indian tribes all over the continent did with other Indians when the latter encroached upon the par- ticular territory claimed and partially occupied by the tribes referred to.

As the years went on, and the Americans became more numerous and more aggressive and bold, they crowded the natives and hampered them. Rumors came to the Indians of what had occurred between the races two thousand miles and more to the east, and how their people had been subjugated, and destroyed or driven out. They could see that the story thus told them was being repeated in the Willamette Valley. More white men came to Oregon than they supposed, in the beginning, were in the world, and they heard of still more planting themselves in Utah and California. White men crossed the Indian lands, killed the game, and in some cases abused the tribespeople. Soldiers followed, warships, gold- miners and finally the office-holders of a new Territory.

Of these latter Isaac I. Stevens was chief and foremost. He was not only the first governor, but superintendent of Indian affairs as well. He was instructed to make .treaties