A History of Oregon, 1792-1849: Drawn From Personal Observation and Authentic InformationGray, W. H. (William Henry)
History
A History of Oregon, 1792-1849: Drawn From Personal Observation and Authentic Information
Gray, W. H. (William Henry)
Frontier and pioneer life -- Oregon; Oregon Territory -- History
While we have our own personal knowledge on this point, we will give a
quotation from Mr. Swan's work, written in 1852, page 381, showing his
views of the subject, which are mostly correct; but, in speaking of the
trade of the Americans and of the Hudson's Bay Company, he says: "The
Indians preferred to trade with the Americans, for they kept one article
in great demand, which the Hudson's Bay people did not sell, and that
was whisky."
In this Mr. Swan is entirely mistaken. The Hudson's Bay people always
had liquor, and let the Indians have all they could pay for, as proved
by their own writer, Mr. Dunn. (See 12th chapter.) Mr. S. continues:
"Reckless, worthless men, who are always to be found in new settlements,
would give or sell whisky to the Indians, and then, when drunk, abuse
them. If the injury was of a serious nature, the Indian was sure to have
revenge; and should he kill a white man, would be certainly hanged, if
caught; but, although the same law operated on the whites, I have never
known an instance where a white man has been hanged for killing an
Indian." This has been my experience, Mr. Swan, for more than thirty
years, with the Hudson's Bay Company, or English. When a white man kills
an Indian, the tribe, or his friends, are satisfied with a present,
instead of the life of the murderer. It has been invariably the practice
with the Hudson's Bay Company to pay, when any of their people kill an
Indian, and to kill the Indian murderer; not so when an American is
killed. Says Mr. Swan: "The ill-feelings thus engendered against the
Americans, by this, and other causes, was continually _fanned and kept
alive by these half-breeds and old servants of the company_, whose
feelings were irritated by what they considered an unwarrantable
assumption on the part of these settlers, in coming across the mountains
to squat upon lands they considered theirs by right of prior occupancy.
_The officers of the company_ also sympathized with their old servants
in this respect, and a _deadly feeling of hatred had existed_ between
these officers and the American emigrant, for their course in taking
possession of the lands claimed by the Puget Sound Agricultural Company,
and other places on the Sound and the Columbia River; and there is not a
man among them who would not be glad to have had every American emigrant
driven out of the country." It is unnecessary to add examples of this
kind to prove to any reasonable mind the continued hostility of that
company, and all under its influence, to the American government and
people.
Can their friendship be bought by paying them the entire sum they claim?
We think not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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