Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/260



16

state, independent, but poor and loyal. What might have happened, under so much provocation, had gold been dis covered two or three years earlier, the speculative mind may conceive. But in all its memorials Oregon had ever professed its attachment to the federal government, on which it still humbly waited.

On the fourteenth of August the act was passed which brought Oregon under the operation of United States laws. General Joseph Lane was appointed governor, and with Meek, who was given the appointment of marshal of the territory, urged to hasten to his field of dut}^ where he arrived March 2, 1849, and issued his proclamation on the following day, giving Oregon one day under President Polk, who had been elected on the " fifty-four-forty-or- fight " sentiment of the democracy in 1844, and therefore desired this honor.

Lane, by virtue of his office, was also superintendent of Indian affairs, and applied himself at once to the settle ment of minor difficulties occurring near the settlements on the south side of the Columbia, and to the restoration of peace between the Klickitats and Walla Wallas who were at enmity on the north side. Early in May a more serious danger arose from a design formed by Patkanim, chief of the Snoqualimichs, to capture Fort Nisqually of the Hudson's Bay Company, and to drive away or kill off the American settlers at the head of the sound. The plan was cunningty laid, after the Indian manner, to capture the fort first, and. secure the ammunition therein, after which the rest would have been easy. In order to obtain an entrance, and disarm suspicion, the Snoqualimichs pretended some occasion for hostilities against the Nis- quallies, a harmless band employed by the Puget Sound Agricultural Company as herdsmen, and appeared near the fort in their war paint. Patkanim insinuated himself inside the stockade, ostensibly to have a gun mended; really, it was believed, to give a signal. At the same time a party of Americans approached the gate of the fort, and