Page:The American Catholic Historical Researches, vols. 16 and 17.djvu/219

197 At Fort Hall, the emigrants were in doubt whether or not to attempt to take their wagons to the Columbia. Their pilot, John Gantt, left the party at that point and went to California. Whitman advised them to take their wagons along and said the route was practical. His advice was followed and he was employed and paid to pilot the train to the Columbia. Jesse Applegate's share of this expense was $45. Whitman piloted the train to the eastern foot of the Blue Mountains, when he left it in charge of Sticcas, or Istikus, a Cayuse chief wh6 had met them at Fort Hall, and who conducted it safely over those rugged mountains, the pioneers having to cut the timber off the route for nearly or quite thirty miles.

The facts disprove the claim that Whitman saved Oregon to the United States. In stating them no reflection is cast upon him or his character, but his historians are shown to be unworthy of the slightest consideration. Whitman was an earnest, courageous, perservering man, who did his best to teach the Indians his form of Christianity, and the rudiments of civilization. That he failed is no reason for doubting his zeal or ability. To make Christians of pagan Indians, or even of pagan white people, is the laborious work of generations. In no single instance within the knowledge of the writer, has any nation or tribe of heathen people been made Christians in one generation. Civilization, as we understand the word, is a state to which no tribe of Indians has yet arrived.

Dr. Whitman was a good American, as nearly all of the first immigrants to Oregon were. But he was a most bigoted Protestant. He could see no good in anything Catholic, though two of his warmest admirers, McLoughlin and Burnett, became Catholics after forming his acquaintance, five and three years respectively, before his death, which both sincerely mourned. He was a Just man, when his prejudices against Catholics did not interfere with his Judgment. The claims made by his historians cannot be made out from his writings. As a missionary, and as a cit zen, he helped colonize Oregon, and by piloting the emigrants in 184B from Fort Hall to the Columbia, he rendered valuable service to the country, opening a road over the most difficult part of the route between the Missouri and Columbia rivers, thus completing a road to the Pacific.