responsible men to go into the wilderness with fire water to debauch the Indian, rob him of his peltries, ruin his wife and scatter corrupting diseases. It was inevitable that the weaker race would go down, or take an inferior position before the all-conquering Saxon. The Acts of Congress show that throughout the whole period called "The Century of Dishonor," the American people through their representatives in Congress provided ample means and necessary regulations (sufficient for honest men) to deal justly and humanely with all the Indian tribes. But it was the dishonesty of politics, the infernal corruption and dishonesty of Indian agents and their train of henchmen and hangers-on, robbing the Indians of the bounties of the government and corrupting and poisoning every element of their primitive life and ways, pushed on year after year for generations of men that wrought the monumental shame that disgraced the nation.
Why were there no Indian wars in the dominions of the Hudson Bay Company, a region as large as the United States? Because that company was a business government managed upon business principles and could not afford to have wars. If they allowed the Indians to have whiskey they would not go out and hunt for furs. And besides that, if the Indian got drunk he was incapacitated for work and business. If an Indian committed some offense the company did not go out and shoot down the first Indian met. The company did not wage war on Indian women, or allow white men to debauch Indian wives. A stolen article had to be returned, and a tribe harboring a thief was cut off from trade. If an Indian murdered a white man, his tribe was told that they had nothing to fear, but the murderer must be hunted up and surrendered for punishment. Justice was demanded, and nothing more than justice. And in all the vast empire the Hudson Bay Company ruled, there was no mountain fastness too far away, no forest deep enough, nor rocky cave dark enough to hide the felon from their justice, and not one single red man but the criminal himself, had anything to fear. Under this just and inexorable policy, criminals were tracked for thousands of miles and brought back for punishment. And had the United States adopted and rigidly enforces such a policy as this against both Indian and white men, and offered reasonable recompensation and provision for lands needed! for settlement, there would have been but few wars or troubles with the Indians. For the errors and mistakes of- public administration, the crimes and injustice of Indian agents, and the outrages of lawless border men, there was sure to come sooner or later a reaction against the injustice to the Indian and the dishonor of the nation. And revived and stimulated by the preaching of such evangelists as Peter Cartwright, and Lorenzo Dow, who traversed the western States in every direction, and more powerfully influenced public sentiment than any other agency, religious people were aroused to action and moved to make liberal provision for sending missionaries to distant Oregon to convert the Indians.
And about that time, in the year, 1832, occured the incident of the four native Indian chiefs going to St. Louis to get "the white man's book of Heaven." This pathetic advent from distant wilderness appealed forcibly to the sentimental feelings of all classes of people. There are several versions of the story. In one case it was the Flathead Indians of the Bitter Root mountains; in another the Nez Perces, of the Columbia; going in one story to the Catholic Priests of St. Louis, and in another to Captain Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. There is no doubt of the truth of the occurrence; and that these pious seekers of the gospel did reach St. Louis and spend a winter there, where two of them died, another dying on his way back to the mountains, while the remaining chief lived to return and report to his people.
This incident was heralded far and wide through the press, published in every pulpit and powerfully wrought up the feeling of religious people who felt condemned for the neglect of the poor heathen in the American wilderness. Hall J. Kelley, who will be fully noticed later on, took up the subject, as it was
