Page:The Whitman Controversy.pdf/16

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

11

tion of the most unscrupulous patriot of the Union, I challenge conquest to bring my prediction and its power to the test by imposing the Atlantic tariff on the ports of the Pacific." So Governor Simpson made his journey to study the fur trade and study politics, and he accomplished both.

Second—In speaking of Mr. Farnham seeing Dr. Whitman's wagon at Fort Boise in 1837 (1839), she says: "Farnham remarks that it was left here under the belief that it could not be taken through the Blue Mountains. But, fortunately for the next that shall attempt to cross the continent, a safe and easy passage has lately been discovered by which vehicles of the kind may be drawn through to Walla Walla. The italics are my own and are used to point out that the first suggestion of a safe and easy road to the Columbia river came from a member of the Hudson's Bay Company, whereas Spalding and Gray affirm and re-affirm that the company put every possible obstacle in the way of wagon travel."

What the evidence is that any member of the Hudson's Bay Company suggested a safe and easy passage for wagons to the Columbia river is what I can not see. Mr. Farnham has been styled an ardent American. He had no connection with the company. Neither in this quotation from him or in my edition of Farnham can I find any evidence that any member of that company told him of this easy passage. Mr. Farnham revised, finished and published his work after he visited Dr. Whitman.

Third—I again quote: "He (Dr. Whitman) had been six years in the Cayuse country without either having benefited or conciliated the Indians." This is a broad assertion. Istikus, a Cayuse chief, was conciliated and benefited, so that in 1843, at Dr. Whit man's request, he aided as guide to the immigrants from Fort Hall to Walla Walla; it was such a permanent conciliation and benefit that in the war of 1855-6, according to Col. T. R. Cornelius, "he furnished us scouts, which were of great use to us, and often also furnished us with provisions when we most needed them." He also rang his little bell and called his band together to worship God as long as he lived. (See Eell's History of Indian Missions, pp. 64, 237). According to Senator Nesmith, he had a clear idea of Christianity. (See his Pioneer Address, 1875). A recent Protestant movement among the descendants of those with whom he labored, now on the Umatilla Reservation, and which has resulted in a Presbyterian church of considerable numbers, is attributed by those Indians to Dr. Whitman's teachings, who say they have