Page:Oregon Native Son volume 2.djvu/251

Rh Commissioners for Foreign Missions founded no missions north of the Columbia and east of the Cascade mountains, all being south and east of that river. The one at Waiilatpu (Dr. Whitman's), was 25 miles east of it; the Lapwai mission (Mr. Spalding's) not less than 100 miles east; the Tshimakani mission (Messrs. Walker and Eells), about 30 miles east and about 75 miles from the fort of the Hudson's Bay Company at Colville, instead of 40 miles as Mrs. Victor has it. The Kamiah mision (Mr. Smith), was also east of that river. None of these missions were established in 1837, as she writes. Waiilatpu and Lapwai missions were founded in 1836, the one at Tshimakani in 1838, and that at Kamiah in 1839. Reckoning the course of the Columbia geographically as west, which is generally so construed, it would be said that all these missions were located south of the river, never north.

Again, Dr. Whitman was not "superintendent" of these missions. The affairs of these missions were settled in annual or special meetings of the missionaries, and were determined by a majority vote of each missionary present. Dr. Whitman's vote counted as one. and the vote of each missionary present counted the same. Dr. Whitman is also erroneously styled "superintendent" on pages 27. 28, 29, 30 and 37.

These missions were not "Presbyterian missions," notwithstanding the historian's statements. Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding were Presbyterians and Messrs. Walker, Eells and Smith were Congregationalists. The American Board which supported them was sustained by gifts from the Congregational, Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed churches, and was a union society. The two latter denominations have since withdrawn their support from it, so that now it is distinctly Congregational. This misleading statement appears again on page 40.

Again, on page 26. the books says: "A. B. Smith, the year after his arrival with Gray's party, was sent to establish a mission upon the lands of Chief Ellis, at Kamiah, east of Lapwai. To do this he had permission, but was forbiden to cultivate the land. After being at Kamiah one year Smith made some preparations to till a small field, but Ellis reminded him that he had been warned not to do so. 'Do you not know,' he asked, "what has been told you, that you would be digging a hole in which you would be buried?' At this he desisted, but the following year made another attempt, and was again reminded, when he made no more such efforts."

Mrs Victor does not give her authority for the statement, but the original is given in Brouillet's "Protestantism in Oregon," on authority of an interpreter's statement that the Indians told him so; that is, Rev. Brouillet says that John Toupin says that the Indians said it was so. Mrs. Victor, however, could not rely on Toupin's statement wholly, as she found mistakes in it, so she changed his statement some, for he added after the word "buried": "Thereupon Mr. Smith said, 'Let me go, and I will leave the place,' and he started off immediately. That circumstance has been related to me by the Indians, and soon after I saw Mr. Smith myself at Fort Walla Walla. He was on his way to 'ancouver, where he embarked for the Sandwich Islands, from whence he did not come back any more."

Mrs. Victor knew that if she accepted this latter statement it would make Mr. Smith leave in 1840, whereas he did not leave until 1841. so she puts in another year and lets him again try to cultivate the ground.

The fact was that, according to Mr. Spalding's journal of that time, which I now have, Mr. Smith had a garden in 1839, not waiting until 1840, as Mrs. Victor says, and he taught the Indians to cultivate the land, for the annual report of the American Board for 1843, says that at Kamiah, the station formerly occupied by Mr. Smith, but now vacant, a large addition has been made during the last year or two to the amount of land tilled by the Indians. This shows