Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/28

10 Thus far no greater trials had befallen the Oregon colony than those which are common to border life. Indeed, they had been spared the great calamity of most border communities—Indian warfare. For this immunity there were two principal reasons: the first, that the nations of the whole country west of the Rocky mountains were in a state of semi-vassalage to the Hudson's Bay Company, which required them to live in peace, and was generally able to control them; the second, that the Indians of the lower Columbia and Wallamet valleys were so weakened by disease as to have lost their warlike character. That there were strong and hostile tribes to the south, east, and north, among whom even the powerful British company was forced to live in forts, was true, but they usually con fined their hostilities to strangers passing through their country, and did not go abroad to attack others unless they had some injury, real or imagined, to avenge. Thus, although sometimes alarmed by insignificant quarrels amongst them, occasioned by theft or by indulgence in strong drink furnished by Americans—to their shame be it said—the Indians in the vicinity of the missions were, if worthless, at least peaceable.

To preserve this peace the fur company and the missionaries united in the purchase and destruction of a distillery and organized a temperance society, which was joined by a majority of the inhabitants irrespective of nationality, and to this influence without doubt was owing the immunity from Indian warfare enjoyed by the earliest settlers of the Wallamet valley. There were not lacking, however, examples of savage manners sufficiently brutal and explicit to cause occasional shudderings among the handful of white intruders in their midst. Hardly was the mission established in the Wallamet valley when the bachelor housekeepers were startled by the appearance of a large and powerful white man, ill-clad, and accompanied by an Indian woman, descending the river on a raft, who landed and solicited succor. It proved to be John Turner,