Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/45



THE INDIAN OF THE NORTHWEST 37

men was the immediate cause. Consider the following account from Harmon: 194

"Jan. 1. Indians asked if they might remain at the fort and see our Canadians drink. The Canadians began to drink and quarrel; the natives became apprehensive, and hid under the beds; they thought the white people had run mad, and ap- peared not a little surprised at the change. It was the first time they had ever seen a person intoxicated."

With this it may be well to compare a scene from the pen of Alexander Henry, Junior, 195 which, although east of the moun- tains, represents the Indian after the fire-water had been intro- duced and forced upon the Indians :

"April 30. * * * Indians having asked for liquor and promised to decamp and hunt well all summer, I gave them some. Grande Grieule stabbed Capote Rouge; Le Boeuf stabbed his young wife in the arm; Little Shell almost beat out his old mother's brains with a club, and there was terrible fighting among them. I sowed garden seed."

What a blessing had the trader sowed nothing but garden seed that thirtieth of April! There were noble men among the traders who resisted with all their might the urgency of their eastern partners that fire-water be used as the most profitable article of trade. One such was the great geographer David Thompson. He made a law of his own that no alcohol should cross the mountains in his company. He wished to be free from the sad sight of drunkenness and its many evils ; but his partners insisted that he must take it, and sent him two kegs. He deliberately loaded these upon the most vicious horse he could find, which vicious horse rubbed his load against rocks and trees until he was rid of it. Then Thompson wrote to his partners, telling them what he had done and promising to do the same with all they might send him.

To many of these generalizations there is one locality that is an exception, the region along the Columbia from The Dalles to the Cascades. Explorers and traders, going in either direction, always noted a change here. The experience of one

194 Journal: p. 196.

195 New Light: Vol. I., p. 143.