At the time Parker made his selection of Waiilatpu he was alone, except so far as he was surrounded by Indians, who overtook him and his Nez Percé guide, and continued with him out of curiosity or interest. To these he undoubtedly communicated his intention of founding a mission at this spot, and probably obtained their sanction, as they were eager to have a mission established among them. There is nothing, however, in his account of his journey, which indicates that he offered the Cayuses, whose country it was, anything in payment for the land, or that the subject was discussed. On the contrary, having no interpreter with him, he mentions a difficulty in communicating with the Indians; and there is no evidence that at this time the Cayuses set any value on land required for an individual farm. It seems to have been taken for granted that there was to be a mission for the benefit of the Indians, and not of the missionaries.[1]
- ↑ In Brouillet's Authentic Account of the Murder of Dr Whitman, 23, is a statement by John Toupin, which must be taken with allowance. Toupin, who was interpreter at Fort Walla Walla from 1824 to 1841, first avers that Mr Parker made the selection of the mission station in 1835, which is not possible, as during this journey he proceeded to Fort Vancouver with the delay of only one day to arrange for his passage down the river. This might have been simply an error in date, did not Toupin go on to say that Mr Parker in company with Mr Pambrun, an American, and himself as interpreter, went first to Waiilatpu, a place belonging to three chiefs of the Cayuses where he met them by appointment to select a site for a mission for Whitman, who, he told them, would come in the 'following spring'—whereas, if the error was in date, it would have been the following autumn that he promised them that they would see Whitman. From the Cayuses, says Toupin, Parker went to the Nez Percés, about one hundred and twenty-five miles distant, on a small creek emptying into the Kooskooskie, or Clearwater, seven or eight miles from the place afterwards chosen for the Nez Percé mission, where he made the same promises. '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.' The facts as given by Parker show that the only occasions when he could have been at Waiilatpu were those when he was alone with a chance company of Indians, and without an interpreter. So important a circumstance as a formal meeting of himself with the chiefs and interpreter, witnessed by Pambrun, and an American, would not have gone unmentioned, when so slight a fact as a ride with Pambrun to the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers is carefully recorded; therefore it would seem that the story of Toupin was invented to serve a purpose; and that Parker, who was so careful of his word, did not promise the Cayuses payment or annual rent for their land.
