PART I.

True Causes of the Massacre at Wailatpu.

I prove, first, that remote causes of the massacre existed long before the arrival of the bishop of Walla-Walla and his clergy; and, next, I will show what the causes, both remote and immediate, have been.

CHAPTER I.

Existence of Remote Causes.

I say that remote causes of the evil existed long before the arrival of the bishop and his clergy, and I prove it by the following circumstances and statements:

I. Mr. McKinlay, the intimate friend of Dr. Whitman, has been for four or five years in charge of Fort Walla-Walla. During his stay there, being aware of the evil dispositions of the Indians towards the Doctor, he warned him very often that he was in danger; that the Indians hated him, and that he had better go away, because he was afraid they would kill him. Since he left the fort, he has not ceased to advise him every year to leave Wailatpu, telling him that, if he persisted in remaining there, the Indians would certainly kill him sooner or later.

II. Some years ago Dr. McLaughlin, then governor of Fort Vancouver, and of all the establishments of the Hudson's Bay Company west of the Rocky mountains, judging, by some difficulties which Dr. Whitman had had with the Indians, that it was dangerous for him to stay any longer among them, wrote to him to urge him to leave his mission, at least for some time, and to come down to the Willamette, telling him that he feared the Indians would kill him if he should persist in remaining among them under such circumstances. A copy of that letter can be seen in the journal of Fort Vancouver.

III. Mr. R. Newell, speaker of the legislature of the Territory, who lived many years with the Nez Percés, and who had an opportunity of knowing the Cayuses well, often said to Dr. Whitman, during these last years, that he ought to leave Wailatpu, because the Indians hated him and would kill him. He told me himself, speaking of Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding, that he was astonished they had stood so long. "Mr. Spalding would have been killed long ago, said he, if it had not been for his wife, who was very much liked by the Indians.'

IV. Dr. Bayley, also a member of the legislature of the Territory, warned in like manner Dr. Whitman, as a friend, to clear away from the Cayuses, because, if he did not, they would kill him.

V. Messrs. J. Douglass and P. S. Ogden, both chief factors of the Hudson's Bay Company, at Fort Vancouver, together with the most part of Dr. Whitman's friends, had been for a long time trying every year to induce him to come down to the Willamette for his safety.

VI. Last spring (1848) Mr. Joel Palmer, the Indian agent and

commissary general for the troops, and one of three commissioners appointed to treat for peace with the Indians, said in my presence, at Fort Walla-Walla, that he and the other commissioners had found about the Doctor's house many letters, which proved that even in 1845 he was considered as being in danger.

VII. Ill treatment had been received at different times previously by Dr. Whitman, Mr. Spalding, Mr. Gray, and Mr. Smith, as is evident from the statements of Messrs. Toupin, Gervais, and McKay that are found below.

VIII. Mr. Spalding says in his writings: "The months of deep solicitude we have had, occasioned by the increasing menacing demands of the Indians for pay for their water, their wood, their air, their lands! * * * * We have held ourselves ready to leave the country whenever the Indians, as a body, wished it. * * * * Dr. Whitman twice during the last year called the Cayuses together, and told them if a majority wished he would leave the country at once.

** Dr. Whitman held himself ready to sell the Wailatpu station to the Catholic mission whenever a majority of the Cayuses might wish it. * * * * When they (the Indians) returned from California two years ago, after the death of the son of the Walla-Walla chief, several meetings were held to consider whether Dr. Whitman, myself, or some other American teacher should be killed as a set off for Elijah."

IX. The same Mr. Spalding said, on the 31st of August, 1847, to Dr. Poujade, (see his statement below :) "The Indians are getting worse every day for two or three years back; they are threatening to turn us out of these missions. A few days ago they tore down my fences. And I do not know what the Missionary Board of New York means to do. It is a fact we are doing no good. When the emigration passes the Indians all run off to trade, and return worse than when we came amongst them."

X. Dr. Whitman had declared many times during the two last years that he wished to leave; that he knew the Indians were ill-disposed towards him, and that it was dangerous for him to remain among them; that for a couple of years he had done nothing for the teaching of the Indians, because they would not listen to him. He said last fall (1847) that he would leave certainly in the spring for the Dalles, where he had already bought the Methodist mission. went so far then as to ask Mr. McKay to pass the winter with him for fear of the Indians, and seemed disposed to exchange his place at Wailatpu for another one in the Willamette.-(See Mr. McKay's statement below.) Mr. Spalding declared also last winter (1847) that for three or four years he had ceased to teach the Indians, as they refused to hear him. (See Mr. Gervais' statement below.)

He

XI. From a letter of Dr. White, Indian agent, written in 1845 to the Indian department at Washington, it is evident that at that time the whole colony was in a terrible fright, expecting that all the Indian tribes of the Walla-Walla country would massacre the Americans who were on their lands, and next would come down upon the Willamette settlement and destroy the whole colony.

XII. In spite of the enthusiasm that had signalized the first years H. Ex. Doc. 38-2

of the establishment of his mission, Mr. Spalding was complaining, even as early as 1840, that he had but very little hope in the dispositions of the Nez Percés. (See Mr. Spalding's letters printed in the report of the American Board of Missionaries for Foreign Missions, published in 1842.)

XIII. A missionary of the Spokans, writing to Dr. Whitman as early as 1839, has said: "The failure of this mission (the Spokan mission) is so strongly impressed upon my mind that I feel it necessary to have cane in hand and as much as one shoe on ready for a move. I see nothing but the power of God that can save us.

These facts and statements prove clearly, I think, that there existed among the Indians, long before the arrival of the bishop of WallaWalla and his clergy, strong causes of dissatisfaction against the Protestant missionaries and the Americans in general, and that they formed a leaven that had been fermenting for several years.

CHAPTER II.

True causes, both remote and immediate, of the massacre.

I am now going to show what the true causes, both remote and immediate, of the massacre have been. They will all be found in the following documents, to which I would invite the serious attention of the reader:

Mr. John Toupin's statement in 1848: "I have been seventeen years employed as interpreter at Fort Walla-Walla" says Mr. Toupin, and I left that fort about seven years ago. I was there when Mr. Parker, in 1835, came to select places for Presbyterian missions among the Cayuses and the Nez Percés, and to ask lands for those missions. He employed me as interpreter in his negotiations with the Indians on that occasion. Mr. Pombrun, the gentleman then in charge of the fort, accompanied him to the Cayuses and the Nez Percés.

"Mr. Parker, in company with Mr. Pombrun (an American) and myself, went first to the Cayuses upon the lands called Wailatpu, that belonged to three chiefs-Splitted Lip, or Yomptipi, Red Cloak, or Waptachtakamal and Pilankaikt. Having met them at that place, he told them that he was coming to select a place to build a preaching house to teach them how to live, and to teach school to their children; that he would not come himself to establish the mission, but a doctor or a medicine-man would come in his place; that that doctor would be the chief of the mission, and would come in the following spring. 'I come to select a place for a mission,' said he, but I do not intend to take your lands for nothing. After the doctor is come there will come every year a big ship loaded with goods to be divided among the Indians. Those goods will not be sold but given to you. The missionaries will bring you ploughs and hoes to learn you how to cultivate the land, and they will not sell but will give them to you. "From the Cayuses Mr. Parker went to the Nez Percés, about 125 miles distant, on the lands of the Old Button, on a small creek which empties into the Clear Water, at seven or eight miles from the actual

mission. And there he made the same promises to the Indians as at Wailatpu: Next spring there will come a missionary to establish himself here, and take a piece of land; but he will not take it for nothing; you shall be paid every year; this is the American

fashion.'

"In the following year, 1836, Dr. Whitman arrived among the Cayuses, and began to build. The Indians did not stop him, as they expected to be paid, as they said.

"In the summer of the next year, 1837, Splitted Lip asked him where the goods which he had promised him were; whether he would pay him, or whether he wanted to steal his lands. He told him if he did not want to pay him, he had better go off immediately, because he did not want to give his lands for nothing. This has been told me very often by the Indians at that time.

"In the winter of the ensuing year, 1838, as Splitted Lip's wife was sick, he went to the doctor one evening and told him: Doctor, you have come here to give us bad medicines; you come to kill us, and you steal our lands. You had promised to pay me every year, and you have been here already two years, and have, as yet, given me nothing. You had better go away; if my wife dies, you shall die also. I happened to be present in the house when he spoke so, and I heard him.

"I very often heard the Indians speaking of new difficulties, relative to the payment of their lands, arising from year to year. They constantly told the doctor to pay them, or else go away; and the doctor always persisted in remaining there without paying them, saying that the Indians were talking lightly, and that they would do him no harm. He let them have ploughs, but those only who had good horses to give him, as they said.

"The Indians often complained that the doctor and his wife were very severe and hard to them, and often ill-treated them, which occasioned frequent quarrels between them and the doctor.

"One day the doctor had a great quarrel with the Indians, on account of some of their horses that had damaged his grain, and was very ill-treated by them. They insulted him; covered him with mud; plucked out his beard; pulled his ears; tried to throw his honse down; snapped a gun at him twice, and aimed at him the blow of an axe, which he avoided by turning his head aside.

"A short time afterwards he started for the United States, telling the Indians that he was going to see the great chief of the Americans, and that when he would return he would bring with himself many people to chastise them; and the Indians had been looking to his return with a great anxiety and fear.

"Mr. Spalding established his mission among the Nez Percés in the same year (1836) as Dr. Whitman among the Cayuses.

The following year, 1837, he decided to send Mr. Gray to the United States with a band of horses to exchange them for cattle. Three Indian chiefs started with Mr. Gray, viz: Ellis, the Blue Cloak, and the Hat. When at the rendezvous, their horses' feet began to fail. Ellis then observed to his companions that they could not continuc the journey, their horses being unable to stand the trip,

and that they would die on the road. Then he and the Blue Cloak returned back, while the Hat went on with Mr. Gray. Ellis and the Blue Cloak arrived in the fall at the mission of Mr. Spalding, who got very angry when he saw them back, and said that they had caused a great damage to the whole nation, and that they deserved severe punishment. He then condemned each of them to receive fifty lashes, and to give him a good horse. He could not take Ellis, who had too strong a party; but the Blue Cloak having come one evening with the others to prayer, Mr. Spalding saw him, and commanded the Indians to take him; and as no one would move, the young chief, Nez Percé, or Tonwitakis, arose with anger, took hold of the Indian, and tied him up, and then said to Mr. Spalding: Now, whip him.' Mr. Spalding answered him: No, I do not whip; I stand in the place of God-I command; God does not whip-he commands.' 'You are a liar,' said the Indian chief; 'look at your image, (pointing to an image hanging on the wall, which Mr. Spalding had made for the instruction of the Indians;) you have painted two men in it, and God behind them with a bundle of rods to whip them. Whip him, or if not, we will put you in his place, and whip you.' Mr. Spalding obeyed, whipped the Indian, and received from him the horse that he had exacted.

"The third chief, who had followed Mr. Gray on his journey to the States, was killed on the way by the Sioux or the Pawnees. When Mr. Gray returned in the ensuing year, (1838,) Ellis seeing that he was alone, and learning that his companion had been killed, went to Mr. Spalding, and said to him: Hear me; the Hat, who accompanied Mr. Gray, has been killed; if we had gone with him we should have been killed too; and because we returned back, refusing to follow him, you wished us to be flogged; you, then, intended that we should be killed also.' The Indians then met together, and kept all the whites who lived at the station blockaded in their house for more than a month. I was then sent three times by Mr. Pombrun to the Nez Pérces to induce them to set the missionaries and their people at liberty, observing to them that it was not the fault of Mr. Gray, if the Indian chief had been killed; and it was at my third trip only that I could induce them to accept tobacco, in sign of peace, and to retire.

"About the year 1839, in the fall, Mr. Smith, belonging to the same society as Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding, asked Ellis permission to build upon his lands for the purpose of teaching the Indians, as the other missionaries were doing, and of keeping a school. Ellis allowed him to build, but forbade him to cultivate the land; and warned him that, if he did, the piece of ground which he would till should serve to bury him in. In the following spring, however, Mr. Smith prepared his plough to till the ground; and Ellis seeing him ready to begin, went to him and said to him: 'Do you not recollect what I told you? I do not wish you to cultivate the land.' Mr. Smith, however, persisted in his determination; but as he was beginning to plough, the Indians took hold of him and said to him: Do you not know what has been told you, that you would be digging a hole in which you should be buried?' Mr. Smith then did not persist any longer, but said to them: 'Let me go, I will leave the place;'