Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/144



services received, the latter view was the one generally adopted by the Protestant missionary class, and which has prevailed, almost uncontradicted, to the present time.

There was one great cause for the massacre of Waiilatpu underlying all others, which was the neglect of congress to keep faith with the people who settled Oregon. For many years the promise had been held out, that if these people would go to Oregon the United States government would protect and reward them. It had done neither. They were living on Indian lands that had never been treated for, and to which they had no title. They had not one government gun or soldier to protect two thousand miles of road. They had no government, except a com pact among themselves. Neither Dr. Whitman s threat nor Dr. White's promises had been fulfilled to the Indians, and they had no cause to believe they ever would be. Even without the provocation of having lost a third of their tribe by white men s disease, if not by poison crimi nally administered, as they believed, the conditions all pointed to an Indian war, for which the United States, and not the people of Oregon, should have been held responsible.