In Elijah White's Letter:
The chief Feathercap "acknowledged his opinion that the mill was burnt purposely by some disaffected persons toward Dr. Whitman. I spoke kindly," etc.[1]
In Spalding's quotation:
The chief Feathercap "acknowledged it as his opinion that the mill was burnt purposely by some disaffected persons toward Dr. Whitman. The mill, lumber, and a great quantity of grain was burnt by Catholic Indians, instigated by Romanists, to break up the Protestant mission, and prevent supplies to the oncoming emigration by Dr. Whitman."[2]
Here is a deliberate interpolation in an official document of the year 1843 to manufacture evidence of a knowledge of Dr. Whitman's plans as represented by Spalding, and of such malignant hostility on the part of the Catholics as would render plausible his accusations in regard to the Whitman massacre. Again, where Dr. White quotes an old chief as saying in regard to the conference he was holding: "Clark pointed to this day, to you, and this occasion; we have long waited in expectation; sent three of our sons to Red River School to prepare for it," Spalding changed the last clause to "sent three of our sons to the rising sun to obtain the book from Heaven," thus manufacturing first-hand confirmation of the story of the Indians who came to St. Louis for the Bible.[3]
- ↑ Ten Years in Oregon: Travels and Adventures of Doctor E. White and Lady, etc., Ithaca, N. Y., 1850, 191; and Gray's Oregon, 229.
- ↑ Exec. Doc. 37, 13.
- ↑ Cf. Ten Years in Oregon, 185, and Gray's Oregon, 225, with Exec. Doc. 37, 13. On the story of this visit of the Flathead Indians, see p. 105. In his text of this letter of White's, Spalding made a great number of minor alterations. Spalding was an Indian Agent on the Umpqua River in 1851. Anson Dart, Supt. of Indian Affairs in Oregon, asked to have him superseded for neglect of duty. (House Exec. Docs., 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., vol. ii. pt. 3, p. 472.) Spalding then wrote the American Home Missionary Society that Dart had made a treaty "with the tribes of the Middle District, an article of which provides that no American (i.e., Protestant missionary) shall ever again enter their country." He describes his
