Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/115

Rh from day to day as to what course they should pursue against the white men. The burden of all their fears and complaints were against the Americans; and was summed up in the belief that these white men would come more and more every year and finally take all their lands and hunting grounds from them; that they were even now killing and driving away all the deer, and that after a while the Indians would have nothing to eat and must die. The Yakimas, Cayuses, Walla Wallas and some of the Spokanes advocated killing off all the Americans at once. The Nez Perces, Wascoes, Umatillas and Klickitats opposed this course, saying that the white men had good guns to fight with and would easily kill off the Indians who had but a few guns and must fight mostly with bows and arrows.

After this council broke up, Timotsk came down to Vancouver and got employment of Dr. McLoughlin as a boatman in which work he continued for many years. He speaks of McLoughlin as a good man, a father to everybody, whites and Indians alike. As soon after this council had broken up and the measles broke out among the Indians at the Whitman mission. Dr. Whitman and family were massacred, 'Whitman would have been killed all the same if no sickness had occurred, as he was blamed by the Indians for going back over the mountains and bringing more white men out to Oregon. The Cayuses made it plain at the council that they would go on the war path and kill all the whites they could. And that is what they did do.

During the Indian war of 1855 and 56 Portland was the supply point for all the forces in the field against the Indians in the Columbia river valley. Volunteers and U. S. Regulars were frequently marching through the streets on their way to the front. A general military camp and headquarters was maintained in East Portland and the U. S. officers with the Oregon volunteer officers, Colonels Nezmith, Kelly and Cornelius, were frequently seen on the streets marching the volunteer forces through the streets armed with muskets, yagers, shot guns, etc., and clad according to their own private wardrobes, making Portland look exceedingly warlike. Little Phil Sheridan, then a Lieutenant, but afterwards the greatest cavalry leader of the Union army, that ended the Rebellion, was among the fighters of the early day, but his budding greatness and national fame was then never imagined.