Among the An-ko-me-nums, or Flathead Tribes of Indians of the Pacific CoastCrosby, Thomas
History
Among the An-ko-me-nums, or Flathead Tribes of Indians of the Pacific Coast
Crosby, Thomas
Indians of North America -- Missions; Salish Indians
For years these wretched, deluded people have visited our towns, our
mining and lumbering and fishing camps, bringing their bright-eyed,
happy little girls with them, and after having made a lot of money
in this foul method, have returned to make a great potlatch and
ostentatiously give away hundreds of dollars of their ill-gotten gains.
One child that we knew of refused to go with her parents for this
purpose. When they tried to compel her, she said, “You can go. I will
not go if you kill me,” and then she ran to the woods. After they had
left she made her way to the missionary and sought protection.
Another child of about twelve years of age, who refused at first to
follow a life of sin, was visited by a great rough fellow who, with his
hand full of money and with promises of fine clothes and trinkets and
sweets, coaxed her and finally prevailed upon her to come and live with
him.
A large number of girls were sold in this way from one of our mission
schools by their cruel heathen parents and friends, at prices ranging
from fifty to one hundred dollars each. Some of these poor children
came to the mission-house at midnight, almost broken-hearted, and said
to the missionary, “Please will you not take me in. They are going to
sell me as a slave, and I don’t want to go.”
We reasoned with their parents and heathen relatives, but our efforts
were vain. We went to the cabins of the white men and expostulated with
them, and were driven out with fiendish curses and told that it was
none of our business.
“POOR LITTLE QUEE-LAWT!”
On one occasion I found three poor women by the roadside near the
sawmill at Nanaimo, all helplessly drunk. It seemed of daily
occurrence in those days to see women drunk. With these poor creatures
was a little girl, Quee-lawt by name. She was one of the brightest and
most attractive of our little scholars. When she first came to school,
like some others of the children, she was very scantily clad, but by
the kindness of some good ladies this little maid was neatly clothed,
and because her forehead had not been flattened as much as some others,
she was pleasing in appearance. She learned to read nicely and could
sing very sweetly, and we had great hopes of a bright future for her.
But alas! poor Quee-lawt had been led astray by these sinful women, and
by some low, degraded white men had been robbed of her purity, made
drunken and defiled. And here we saw her, all besmeared with dirt and
filth--drunk, drunk.
Poor Quee-lawt! the terrible drink and the vile treatment she had
received were too much for her. She was carried home to the old chief’s
house and died that night. Oh, what a sad, sad, pitiful sight it was!
Poor little Quee-lawt! Will not a just God lay at the door of those
wretched white men the murder of this child?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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