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<DIV>One day in November a man rode down to the ferry landing on the opposite bank of the river. He rode a horse that was steaming wet with sweat that lathered and streaked across his shoulders and flanks. We were living then in the house that Father had built on the very brink of the river, so that we might be near the ferry, and we saw the man stop at our gate and heard him call to Father and the boys.</DIV>
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<DIV> The picture of that little group is clear in my memory, the upturned faces, and the stranger leaning down from his saddle, his bridle rains held tightly in his one hand while with the other, he pointed toward the high Cascade Range Mountains, but it was to something far beyond them that the stranger was pointing. It was toward Wa-i-i-lat-pu, and before night had come, every man of our family except Father, was following the directions of his pointing finger, not only our boys, but every able bodied man in our country was riding to the rescue of fifteen or twenty young women held prisoner in the Cayuse Indian Village, and to avenge the brutal massacre of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman and many others, who were at the Mission.</DIV>
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<DIV> But all that has been written many times. There are many printed versions, some of them quite contradictory. A great deal of jealousy existed among the Methodist, Presbyterian and Catholic Missions. While this, of course, had nothing at all to do with the massacre, itself, it did undoubtedly have influence upon the various accounts of it. These pages are only concerned with that part of it that came to me directly from the lips of children, who were spared and young women, who were carried away and held for a time in the Indian Village. Miss Bewely, who taught our school was one of these girls.</DIV>
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<DIV> So all of our boys and most of our few neighbors,went at once when the news was carried to us. The Cayuse Indians were bloodthirsty and savage, with a degenerate half-breed to act as "go-between" and tell them of plots and wrongs. </DIV>
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<DIV> Dr. Whitman had given the Indians medicine when scarlet fever was raging among them. Many of them died, and the half-breed told them that he had heard the Missionaries plotting to kill them all off, that the white people might have all that great country to themselves. He told them that the Doctor's medicine was poison.</DIV>
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<DIV> I learned to know and understand the Indian as few people were able to understand them even in those early times. I know that they were crafty, cruel and altogether untrustworthy. I was only a child and I learned to talk to them in their own tongue, I learned to speak it as well as they spoke it themselves. I was about them a great deal and I heard and understood many things that were not intended for me, and I know and can say positively that I never saw an Indian that was helped in any way whatsoever by the Mission influence.</DIV>
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<DIV> The terrible butchery at the Whitman Mission was a fair illustration of this. The killing was not done by the savage tribe as a whole, but by the very Indians that Doctor Whitman taught and fed and trusted. All that was ever done in the way of converting those savages, was money, time and lives wasted. I knew and loved Dr. Whitman. I knew that he gave everything in human power even his life, itself, and I know that it was a vain and useless sacrifice. When the Doctor sat at the Mission house table, measuring out the powders for Te-lo-kite's sick child, he knew that his time was measured to the very last grain of sand in the glass. The treacherous Indians struck him before he had arisen from his chair. The slaughter was begun. Miss Bewely told me about it and she stood beside him when he was killed. Eliza Spaulding told me about it. She was only twelve. She caught her little apron and pulled it over her face, she could not bear to see them kill her. She waited for a time for the blow of the tomahawk then pulled the apron aside, they seemed to have overlooked her, as a matter of fact, their grievance was not against the children. I do not remember that any of them were killed.</DIV>
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<DIV> Many of the Indians loved and were loyal to individuals. It was the Mission work as a whole that I have in mind when I say that the Indians were in no way benefitted.</DIV>
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<DIV> My Father got on well with our Indians. If he made them a promise, he kept it. If he promised a sack of wheat or a beating, the Indian who knew him, was morally certain that he would get it. Our Indians, however, were quite unlike the inland tribes. They were indolent, glad to escape anything that savored of work, even trouble took some effort. The men often beat their squaws, but beyond that, they were quite peaceable.</DIV>
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<DIV> Although the Indian trouble throughout the Northwest seemed to center about the various Missions, there was a general unrest brewing everywhere. So it was decided to send someone to Washington to ask the Government to send troops to us.</DIV>
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<DIV> Joe Meek was finally chosen to go. He was said to be a cousin of President Polk. He had been in the country a long while even when we came. He had an Indian wife and a family of half-cast children. He was a typical soldier of fortune, tall, handsome and well educated. Shortly after his return, he came to our house. I remember hearing him tell about his trip and his visit to his cousin, the President. He told of a dinner given in his honor. There were many distinguished guests present. He told us that they asked him to carve the turkey. He asked "Will you have a backwoods carve" of course they would. So he took the big bird in his hands and tore it apart. I listened and laughed with the rest, I was only a little girl, but it shocked me and I did not think as well of him. I have a feeling now, that it was probably not altogether true.When I first saw Mrs. Whitman, she was on her way to the Mission at Walla Walla and had Joe Meek's little daughter, Helen, with her. Helen was later sent east to be educated. She was unusually gifted and her Father was always very proud of her.</DIV>
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<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><B>Walt Davies<BR>Cooper Hollow Farm<BR>Monmouth, OR 97361<BR>503 623-0460 <BR></B><IMG SRC="cid:X.MA1.1085063471@aol.com" title="" height=93 alt="" width=72 border=0 DATASIZE="2892" ID="MA1.1085063471"></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>