Page:Oregon Native Son volume 2.djvu/253

{{rh|122|OREGON NATIVE SON. that at least they were not averse to cultivating the soil.

In March, 1884, I wrote Mr. Smith, asking him about the truth of this story, and in a letter dated April 16th, the same year, he replied: "In regard to the representations made concerning me to which you refer I can only say it is almost entirely a fabrication. Ellis, the name mentioned, I had nothing to do with. I know not who is referred to by that name, unless it be a young Indian who had been at the Red River school, and proved to be a worthless fellow. I did hear of his stirring up the people against the missionaries, but he had nothing to do with the land where I was located, there were two petty chiefs — Hu-sin-me-la-kin and Um-tam-lai-a-kin — who claimed the land where I was. I never negotiated with them or any other ones, in regard to the land. I went there with their knowledge, and according to their wish. There was no opposition to my plowing, or anything of the kind. All that story has not the shadow of truth in it. I went to Kamiah in the spring of 1839, plowed several acres the next spring, and raised a crop, without any opposition from any one. In the autumn of 1840 these two chiefs above mentioned came to me and demanded pay for the land. I refused to comply with the demand, when they ordered me to leave it. I told them I would go. Then they ordered me to leave the next day. I told them, 'No, I will go when I get ready.I accordingly wrote to Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding. Dr. Whitman was soon there, Mr. Spalding afterward. . Nothing special was done by them among the Indians; they talked it out among themselves after the Doctor and Spalding were gone. These two chiefs found that all the other Indians were against them, and, so, after a few days, these two came and wished to take back what they had said. Then everything became quiet and we stayed through the winter. I might have continued, but my wife's health by this time had become such that it seemed absolutely necessary to make a change on her account."

Mr. Spalding's journal confirms the above facts in almost every particular. This was published in 1886, in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a paper to which Mrs. Victor has access.

All that Mrs. Victor says on pages 24. 29 and following, about Mr. Parker's promising that ships loaded with Indian goods and agricultural implements, with which to pay them for their lands, rests on the same unreliable evidence of John Toupin. not written down at the time, nor until thirteen years after Mr. Parker's visit.

I wish also to quote another sentence in the book—not to disprove it, but to show the style and animus of the author. On page 37 she speaks of the officers of the American Board at Boston as "highly-proper, clean-shaven, decorous Presbyterians."

On page 31 I find: "Added to other trials. Dr. Whitman was worried by demands from the Home Board that the Oregon missions should be made selfsupporting." I call for proof of this. While the Board may have hoped for such from their missions in due course of time, it never expected or demanded from them that they should be self-supporting during the early years of their existence, especially those located among the Indians. Aly father, an associate missionary of Dr. Whitman, never mentioned such a request, and no record of the proceedings of the Board have ever been found that will substantiate the statement.

There is no evidence, as stated on page 32, that these missionaries expected to hold their "good homes" and receive large or any donations of land from the government in the event of treaties being made by it with the Indians. The members of the missions gave themselves to the work they sought to accomplish, and they knew that if their lands on which their missions were situated were alloted to any one, they would go to the Board, and not to themselves as individuals. This has been the policy of the Board wherever it established missions throughout the world. {{nop}}