Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/24

6 Not so the missionaries, who selected a site for their habitation in the fertile Wallamet valley, and began teaching as best they could a nomadic race, already infected with the poison of scrofula. The outcome was what might have been expected. They soon had, to use their own language, "more children in the graveyard than in the schoolroom"; for Indian youth, accustomed to freedom of movement, of air, and a certain diet, could not long withstand the influence of unaccustomed labor, confinement in a crowded house, and different forms of food. Besides, there was sickness among teachers as well as children, induced by the malaria arising from turning up the rich soil of the valley in opening the mission farm. In place of the Indians, however, a few white adventurers found their way to the valley.

Under these circumstances what should be done? Go back whence they came and abandon their undertaking? No; indeed no! Lee had sent home such a report in the beginning as caused the church to reënforce him in the third year with a fuller complement of teachers women a physician, and mechanics, who came by sea. Other reports were sent home of the beauty and fertility of the country, and the arbitrary demeanor of the British residents towards American citizens, which found their way to Washington. Then came a government agent in the character of a private citizen to confirm these rumors, who encouraged the missionaries to found a colony, and helped them to procure cattle from California to stock the grassy plains of the Wallamet. Following Slacum's report to the government was a petition gotten up among the missionaries, who had attached to their colony the few Americans led by adventure into the country, all of whom signed the petition for protection from the tyranny of the Hudson s Bay Company, which, it was contended, had no rights the United States was bound to respect on the south side of the Columbia, where its dependents had already seized upon a large tract of fertile prairie. So well did they pre-