CALL FOR AID.
667
Dalles he found in charge Alanson Hinman,[1] with his wife and child.
Besides Hinman there were Perrin Whitman, Dr Henry Saffarans, and William McKinney and wife, of the late arrivals. To none of these persons did the messenger breathe a word about the massacre, not even to Hinman, who accompanied him to Vancouver to procure medicines for the sick about the Dalles, until they were below the Cascades, so careful was he not to spread any excitement amongst the natives before means could be taken to rescue the prisoners.[2]
- ↑ Hinman was formerly of the state of New York. After coming to Oregon in 1844, he married a Martha Gerrish, whose father, an immigrant of 1845, resided in the Tualatin plains. Hinman was teacher in the Oregon Institute for a short time, but seems to have been engaged by Whitman to take charge of the station purchased from the Methodists at the Dalles.
- ↑ Much capital was made out of this circumstance by the anti-Hudson's Bay writers, including Gray, who attempts to show that the intention of McBean was to allow the Indians to kill off those who were at the Dalles. The result showed that the caution used was justifiable and necessary. Had he alarmed the people at the Dalles, it would have informed the natives of what had happened, and have delayed him on his errand, whereas he was in the greatest possible haste to reach headquarters before the Dalles Indians should hear what the Cayuses had done. Gray points out that a letter written by Hinman to Abernethy after reaching Vancouver was dated December 4th, while a letter from Douglas to Abernethy was not written until the 7th; making it appear that Douglas had delayed 3 days to inform him, while the truth was that Hinman did not learn the news till the 6th, and that his letter is wrongly dated. As it appears in the Oregon Spectator of Dec. 10, 1847, from which Gray must have copied it, the date is Nov. 4th, more than 3 weeks before the massacre occurred, which should have been corrected, as the month was wrong as well as the day. No time was lost either at Walla Walla or Fort Vancouver in acquainting the governor with the situation. The correspondence in full is contained in the Or. Spectator, Dec. 10, 1846, and in Gray's Hist. Or. Other authorities on the subject of the massacre are the A. B. C. F. M. Annual Report, 1848, 239–44; Californian, April 19, 1848; Kane's Wanderings, 317–22; Marshall's Christian Missions, ii. 266–7; Sandwich Island News, ii. 54–5; Deady's Hist. Or., MS., 2; Ford's Road-makers, MS., 32; Johnson's Cal. and Or., 183–4; Kip's Army Life, 32; Walla Walla Statesman, Feb. 9 to April 13, 1866; Evans, in Trans. Or. Pioneer Assoc., 1877, 35–6; Atkinson's Or. Colonist, 5; Crawford's Nar., MS., 160–3. Brouillet's Authentic Account of the Murder of Dr Whitman and other Missionaries by the Cayuse Indians of Oregon in 1847, and the Causes which Led to that Horrible Catastrophe, is a pamphlet of 108 pages, in reply to a statement appearing in the Oregon American reflecting harshly on the Catholic priesthood in general, and the priests of the Umatilla camp particularly. It is not without the usual misrepresentations of sectarian writings, but is in the main a correct statement of events. A second edition, with some slight additions, was printed at Portland in 1869. Its first appearance, under the head of Protestantism in Oregon, was in the Freeman's Journal in 1853; being put in its present form in 1869. See also Catholic Magazine, vii. 490; Mullan's Top. Mem., 7; S. F. Daily Herald, June 1, 1850.
