established a mission at Kamiah, obtained the assent of Ellis to build a house on his land, but was refused permission to cultivate the ground, Ellis telling him that if he dug a hole in the earth it should serve for his grave. In the spring of 1840 Smith made an attempt to plough, but was interrupted by the savages with the same threat, when he desisted, and soon after went to the Hawaiian Islands, the station Kamiah being abandoned.[1]
This much is the account of the Catholic authorities, and Gray does not deny it, although, having the means of knowing, he should have done so, if not true. But the Presbyterian missionaries were habitually reticent concerning their troubles with the savages, probably because they were reluctant to confess their failures to the religious world.[2]
Yet in truth there was little to be ashamed of in a lack of success in such a field of labor. For the
- ↑ Wilkes mentions meeting A. B. Smith and wife at Fort Vancouver in 1841, at which time it was said that they were leaving Oregon on account of Mrs Smith's health. He also learned from Smith that there were no natives in the neighborhood of Kamiah to demand a station. Nar., iv. 354. But Smith, in his correspondence, declared Kamiah to be 'the most eligible spot for a station in the whole country. Three fourths of a year, autumn, winter, and spring, the people remain here permanently.' Boston Miss. Herald, Aug. 1840, 326. Gray attempts to show that Smith left the Nez Percé Mission because Spalding was 'ambitious and selfish,' and jealous of the superior ability of his coadjutors. Hist Or., 211. But again Smith writes in August 1839, in a tone to show that he is not a saguine missionary: 'No longer can we be borne along by the current of popular favor among this people. The novelty of having missionaries among them is now gone, and we must work against the current as much as in any other heathen country. In future it will be uphill work.' Boston Miss. Herald, 328
- ↑ In this the example was set by the mouth-piece of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the Boston Missionary Herald, a monthly magazine, containing the proceedings of the missionary board and its foreign correspondence. Its publication began in 1805. It was seldom that a letter from its correspondents was published as written. The most favorable side of the subject was presented in an abstract of the communication; and where no favorable side could be found, the correspondence was practically suppressed. I have carefully searched the files which should contain the denial or confirmation of certain incidents related by Catholic writers as reflecting on the Protestants, without finding the most distant allusion to those events; but do find, nevertheless, sufficient evidence confirming the troubles of the missionaries with the Indians to justify belief in the incidents as related by writers who might otherwise be suspected of giving too partisan a tone to their statements. I say that it was the custom for eastern missionary journals wilfully to misrepresent the facts in order that the income from the supporters of missions might not be lessened.
