urging the missionaries at Chemakane to leave the country becomes questionable. They may have thought it for the best. And in order to be perfectly logical, Superintendent Lee, when he arrived at the Dalles, notified the Catholics, who were beginning a station at that place, that it was desirable that no more missions should be established until the presence of United States troops in the country should render such efforts safe and judicious.[1] The bishop of "Walla Walla had previously asked permission of the governor to return to his charge, but Abernethy had taken no notice of the application. Was the removal of the Protestant mission a measure to prepare the way for the suppression of the Catholic missions? If so it effected nothing, for Rosseau stayed at the Dalles as a settler, cultivating a land claim, but refraining from teaching the Indians, as ordered by the superintendent; and the Oblate fathers who had abandoned the Yakima country on the breaking-out of the war soon returned thither, while Bishop Blanchet, being prevented from going to the Umatilla, attended the Cayuses en route as they wandered about the country.[2] When called upon by the Indian agent, Henry Saffarans, to answer the charge of violating orders, he appears to have replied in a manner satisfactory to the agent, who apologized for troubling him, acknowledging that it was not to be understood that a house or a farm meant a missionary establishment, or that it was a violation of orders for a man to attend to his religious duties in his own domicile.[3] And in this manner they prevailed and held their ground. Blanchet does not conceal his satisfaction that the war resulted in the total overthrow of the Presbyterian missions, "and had the effect
- ↑ This letter was addressed on the outside to 'Rev. Mr Rosseau,' and on the inside to 'Messrs Blanchet, etc.' Or. Spectator, July 13, 1848.
- ↑ Blanchet's Cath. Church in Or., 173.
- ↑ Brouillet's Authentic Account, 83-4. An anecdote is told by P. W. Crawford, illustrative of the suspicious temper of the people. The blacksmith at Vancouver and an American named Buell were employed all winter making axes for the use of the hunters and trappers, but which 'the settlers would have it were battle-axes!' Narrative, MS., 149.
