understanding that inscrutable law of nature which makes it fatal to the dark races to encounter the white race;[1] or if they perceived its effects, not knowing that the white men were as ignorant as themselves of the cause.
When the mission Indians found that a disease which they could not control had been introduced among them, they became greatly alarmed and excited, as did also the natives on Puget Sound, to which district the measles had spread.[2] Being a white man's disease, the Indians thought a white doctor should be able to cure it. In fact, they were witnesses to the fact that the white patients generally recovered, while their own did not. That they were much to blame for the fatal results in many cases, was true.[3] Being
- ↑ 'The experience of a century had shown that the indiscriminate admission of civilized men as traders in the territory of the Indians is destructive to the morals of the former, and not only the morals but the existence of the latter.' Edinburgh Review, July 1845, 238. See also Tribune Almanac, 1846, p. 19; Darwin's Voyage round the World, 435–6; McCulloch's Western Isles, ii. 32; Gibbs, in Powell's Geog. Sur., i. 239.
- ↑ 'In 1847 the measles prevailed at Nisqually. A fugitive Indian from the Swinomish country brought intelligence to Nisqually that the Swinomish, believing that the whites had brought the measles to exterminate them, were coming to massacre the whites. At the time there were no stockades or bastions at Nisqually, but orders came from Fort Vancouver to erect the usual defences. The scattered white settlers on the Sound became timid, and the Indians consequently more forward and troublesome. Hostile demonstrations were made while the stockades and bastions were being erected, but nothing serious resulted.' Tolmie's Hist. Puget Sound, MS., 30–1.
- ↑ 'In the winter of 1847–8 the measles overran the country. It was of a very malignant type, and the natives suffered from it severely. Dr Whitman, as a medical man, naturally endeavored to mitigate the ravages of the disorder; but notwithstanding his efforts many deaths took place among his
the wagons, daring the drivers or the young lads of the train to fight, seemingly ambitious to rival the white people in boxing and wrestling. One wagon thus intruded on contained a woman, whose half-grown children were all down with the measles, and the driver of the team also, an active young fellow, was in the height of the fever, though still compelled to drive. Seeing him so annoyed the woman ordered him to stop the team and wrestle with the Indian as desired, and to blow his hot breath in the Indian's face to give him the measles. Whether that particular Indian died in consequence is not known; probably the woman was unaware of the danger, and only wished to have him punished for the trouble he gave, but if the Indian died his friends would be apt to believe that some evil influence was purposely worked upon him, as in this case there indeed had been. In Mission Life Sketches, 41, written, I judge, by Mr Perkins, of the early Dalles mission, there is a complaint of the effect of settlement on mission operations, which is no doubt well founded, even though the new-comers should consist of missionaries only. The result of mingling the races in Oregon is conclusive evidence of its mischievous effects.
