place, as no record of it exists. It is likely enough that when the excitement had died away, and all the circumstances were known, it became apparent that the encounter might have been avoided by the exercise of coolness and moderation.
Not long after the affair of the 4th of March, Saules, the negro who had complained of Cockstock, was himself arrested for joining the Clackamas Indians in making threats against the life and property of Charles E. Pickett. There being no prison in which to confine him, he was permitted to go to Clatsop with his Indian wife, where he was employed about the Mission until its suspension in 1846, soon after which he was arrested on the charge of murdering his wife, but the necessary proof being wanting, he was discharged.[1] The trouble occasioned by Winslow and Saules aroused a strong prejudice against persons of African blood, which was exhibited in a communication sent by White to the secretary of war, inquiring if the emigration of negroes could not be prohibited, and in the subsequent legislation of the colonists.
As to the Indian relatives of Cockstock, they were pacified by McLoughlin paying to the widow of the chief, on White's order, some blankets and other goods,[2] and there the matter ended, so far as they were concerned.
The executive committee, however, being determined to oppose the policy and advice of McLoughlin, declared that "the idea should be hooted out of countenance, that they allowed Indians to be murdered, and paid for it with blankets." If White found it necessary to take such measures as he had taken, he should go on, and the committee would "support
- ↑ Oregon Spectator, Dec. 24, 1846.
- ↑ Pettygrove's Or., MS., 6, 7; Or. Archives, MS., 13. About 70 Dalles Indians, according to White, presented themselves as relatives of the dead chief, and demanded indemnity, according to their customs; but White showed them that as the Americans had lost two men, by their rule there would be due the Americans twice what they claimed, on which representation they consented to accept a present for the widow. Or. Ter., 36.
