Chapter I: Ethnological Introduction (2)

In 1506-8, Juan de Solis with Pinzon continued the search
of Columbus, along the coast of Yucatan and Mexico, for a
passage through to the southern ocean. The disastrous
adventures of Alonzo de Ojeda, Diego de Nicuesa, and Juan
de la Cosa, on the Isthmus of Darien, between the years
1507 and 1511, brought into more intimate contact the steel
weapons of the chivalrous hidalgos with the naked bodies of
the savages. Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, after a toilsome
journey across the Isthmus in 1513, was rewarded by the
first view of the Pacific Ocean, of which he took
possession for the king of Spain on the twenty-fifth of
September. The white sails of Córdova Grijalva, and Garay,
descried by the natives of Yucatan and Mexico in 1517-19,
were quickly followed by Cortés and his keen-scented band
of adventurers, who, received by the unsuspecting natives
as gods, would have been dismissed by them as fiends had
not the invasion culminated in the conquest of Mexico.
During the years 1522-24, Cortés made expeditions to
Tehuantepec, Panuco, and Central America; Gil Gonzales and
Cristobal de Olid invaded Nicaragua and Honduras. Nuño de
Guzman in 1530, with a large force, took possession of the
entire northern country from the city of Mexico to the
northern boundary of Sinaloa; and Cabeza de Vaca crossed
the continent from Texas to Sinaloa in the years 1528-36.
Journeys to the north were made by Cortés, Ulloa, Coronado,
Mendoza, and Cabrillo between the years 1536 and 1542.
Hundreds of Roman Catholic missionaries, ready to lay down
their lives in their earnest anxiety for the souls of the
Indians, spread out into the wilderness in every direction.
During the latter part of the sixteenth century had
place,--the expedition of Francisco de Ibarra to Sinaloa in
1556, the campaign of Hernando de Bazan against the Indians
of Sinaloa in 1570, the adventures of Oxenham in Darien in
1575, the voyage round the world of Sir Francis Drake,
touching upon the Northwest Coast in 1579; the expedition
of Antonio de Espejo to New Mexico in 1583; Francisco de
Gali's return from Macao to Mexico, by way of the Northwest
Coast, in 1584; the voyage of Maldonado to the imaginary
Straits of Anian in 1588; the expedition of Castaño de Sosa
to New Mexico in 1590; the voyage of Juan de Fuca to the
Straits of Anian in 1592; the wreck of the 'San Agustin'
upon the Northwest Coast in 1595; the voyage of Sebastian
Vizcaino towards California in 1596; the discoveries of
Juan de Oñate in New Mexico in 1599, and many others.
Intercourse with the natives was extended during the
seventeenth century by the voyage of Sebastian Vizcaino
from Mexico to California in 1602; by the expedition of
Francisco de Ortega to Lower California in 1631; by the
journey of Thomas Gage from Mexico to Guatemala in 1638; by
the voyage round the world of William Dampier in 1679; by
the reckless adventures of the Buccaneers from 1680 to
1690; by the expedition of Isidor de Otondo into Lower
California in 1683; by the expedition of Father Kino to
Sonora and Arizona in 1683; by the expeditions of Kino,
Kappus, Mange, Bernal, Carrasco, Salvatierra, and others to
Sonora and Arizona in 1694-9; and by the occupation of
Lower California by the Jesuits, Salvatierra, Ugarte, Kino,
and Piccolo, from 1697 to 1701. Voyages of circumnavigation
were made by Dampier in 1703-4; by Rogers in 1708-11; by
Shelvocke in 1719-22, and by Anson in 1740-4. Frondac made
a voyage from China to California in 1709.

The first voyage through Bering Strait is supposed to have
been made by Semun Deschneff and his companions in the year
1648, and purports to have explored the Asiatic coast from
the river Kolyma to the south of the river Anadir, thus
proving the separation of the continents of Asia and
America. In 1711, a Russian Cossack, named Popoff, was sent
from the fort on the Anadir river to subdue the rebellious
Tschuktschi of Tschuktschi Noss, a point of land on the
Asiatic coast near to the American continent. He there
received from the natives the first intelligence of the
proximity of the continent of America and the character of
the inhabitants; an account of which will be given in
another place. In 1741, Vitus Bering and Alexei Tschirikoff
sailed in company, from Petropaulovski, for the opposite
coast of America. They parted company during a storm, the
latter reaching the coast in latitude fifty-six, and the
former landing at Cape St Elias in latitude sixty degrees
north. The earliest information concerning the Aleutian
Islanders was obtained by the Russians in the year 1745,
when Michael Nevodtsikoff sailed from the Kamtchatka river
in pursuit of furs. A Russian commercial company, called
the Promyschleniki, was formed, and other hunting and
trading voyages followed. Lasareff visited six islands of
the Andreanovski group in 1761; and the year following was
made the discovery of the Alaskan Peninsula, supposed to be
an island until after the survey of the coast by Captain
Cook. Drusinin made a hunting expedition to Unalaska and
the Fox Islands in 1763; and, during the same year, Stephen
Glottoff visited the island of Kadiak. Korovin, Solovieff,
Synd, Otseredin, Krenitzen, and other Russian fur-hunters
spent the years 1762-5 among the Aleutian Islands,
capturing sea-otters, seals, and foxes, and exchanging,
with the natives, beads and iron utensils, for furs.

[Sidenote: OCCUPATION OF CALIFORNIA.]

A grand missionary movement, growing out of the religious
rivalries of the two great orders of the Catholic Church,
led to the original occupation of Upper California by
Spaniards. The work of Christianizing Lower California was
inaugurated by the Jesuits, under Fathers Salvatierra and
Kino, in 1697. When the Jesuits were expelled from Mexico
in 1767, their missions were turned over to the
Franciscans. This so roused the zeal of the Dominicans that
they immediately appealed to Spain, and in 1769 obtained an
edict, giving them a due share in the missions of Lower
California. The Franciscans, thinking it better to carry
their efforts into new fields than to contend for
predominance at home, generously offered to cede the whole
of Lower California to the Dominicans, and themselves
retire to the wild and distant regions of Upper California.
This being agreed upon, two expeditions were organized to
proceed northward simultaneously, one by water and the
other by land. In January, 1769, the ship 'San Carlos,'
commanded by Vicente Vila, was dispatched for San Diego,
followed by the 'San Antonio,' under Juan Perez, and the
'San José,' which was unfortunately lost. The land
expedition was separated into two divisions; the first
under Rivera y Moncada departed from Mexico in March, and
arrived at San Diego in May; the second under Gaspar de
Portolá and Father Junípero Serra reached San Diego in
July, 1769. Portolá with his companions immediately set out
by land for the Bay of Monterey; but, unwittingly passing
it by, they continued northward until barred in their
progress by the magnificent Bay of San Francisco. Unable to
find the harbor of Monterey, they returned to San Diego in
January, 1770. In April, Portolá made a second and more
successful attempt, and arrived at Monterey in May.
Meanwhile Perez and Junípero Serra accomplished the voyage
by sea, sailing in the 'San Carlos.' In 1772, Pedro Fages
and Juan Crespi proceeded from Monterey to explore the Bay
of San Francisco. They were followed by Rivera y Moncada in
1774, and Palou and Ezeta in 1775; and in 1776, Moraga
founded the Mission of Dolores. In 1775, Bodega y Quadra
voyaged up the Californian coast to the fifty-eighth
parallel. In 1776, Dominguez and Escalante made an
expedition from Santa Fé to Monterey. Menonville journeyed
to Oajaca in New Spain in 1777. In 1778, Captain Cook, in
his third voyage round the world, touched along the Coast
from Cape Flattery to Norton Sound; and in 1779, Bodega y
Quadra, Maurelle, and Arteaga voyaged up the western coast
to Mount St Elias. During the years 1785-8, voyages of
circumnavigation were made by Dixon and Portlock, and by La
Pérouse, all touching upon the Northwest Coast.

French Canadian traders were the first to penetrate the
northern interior west of Hudson Bay. Their most distant
station was on the Saskatchewan River, two thousand miles
from civilization, in the heart of an unknown wilderness
inhabited by savage men and beasts. These _coureurs des
bois_ or wood-rangers, as they were called, were admirably
adapted, by their disposition and superior address, to
conciliate the Indians and form settlements among them.
Unrestrained, however, by control, they committed excesses
which the French government could check only by
prohibiting, under penalty of death, any but its authorized
agents from trading within its territories. British
merchants at New York soon entered into competition with
the fur princes of Montreal. But, in 1670, a more
formidable opposition arose in the organization of the
Hudson's Bay Company, by Prince Rupert and other noblemen,
under a charter of Charles II. which granted exclusive
right to all the territory drained by rivers flowing into
Hudson Bay. Notwithstanding constant feuds with the French
merchants regarding territorial limits, the company
prospered from the beginning, paying annual dividends of
twenty-five and fifty per cent. after many times increasing
the capital stock. In 1676, the Canadians formed the
_Compagnie du Nord_, in order the more successfully to
resist encroachment. Upon the loss of Canada by the French
in 1762, hostilities thickened between the companies, and
the traffic for a time fell off. In 1784, the famous
Northwest Company was formed by Canadian merchants, and the
management entrusted to the Frobisher brothers and Simon
M'Tavish. The head-quarters of the company were at
Montreal, but annual meetings were held, with lordly state,
at Fort William, on the shore of Lake Superior. The company
consisted of twenty-three partners, and employed over two
thousand clerks and servants. It exercised an almost feudal
sway over a wide savage domain, and maintained a formidable
competition with the Hudson's Bay Company, with which they
were for two years in actual war. In 1813, they purchased,
from the partners of John Jacob Astor, the settlement of
Astoria on the Columbia River. In 1821, they united with
the Hudson's Bay Company; and the charter covering the
entire region occupied by both was renewed by act of
Parliament. In 1762, some merchants of New Orleans
organized a company which was commissioned by D'Abadie,
director-general of Louisiana, under the name of Pierre
Ligueste Laclède, Antoine Maxan, and Company. Their first
post occupied the spot upon which the city of St Louis is
now situated; and, under the auspices of the brothers
Chouteau, they penetrated northwestward beyond the Rocky
Mountains. In 1808, the Missouri Fur Company was formed at
St Louis, consisting of the Chouteaus and others; and an
expedition under Major Henry was sent across the Rocky
Mountains, which established the first post on the Columbia
River. Between the years 1825 and 1830, the Rocky Mountain
Fur Company of St Louis extended their operations over
California and Oregon, but at a loss of the lives of nearly
one half of their employés. John Jacob Astor embarked in
the fur trade at New York in 1784, purchasing at that time
in Montreal. In 1808, he obtained a charter for the
American Fur Company, which was, in 1811, merged into the
Southwest Company. In 1809, Mr Astor conceived the project
of establishing a transcontinental line of posts. His
purpose was to concentrate the fur trade of the United
States, and establish uninterrupted communication between
the Pacific and the Atlantic. He made proposals of
association to the Northwest Company, which were not only
rejected, but an attempt was made by that association to
anticipate Mr Astor in his operations, by making a
settlement at the mouth of the Columbia River. In 1810, the
Pacific Fur Company was founded by Mr Astor, and an
expedition dispatched overland by way of St Louis and the
Missouri River. At the same time a vessel was sent round
Cape Horn to the mouth of the Columbia; but, their
adventure in that quarter proving unsuccessful, the
company was dissolved, and the operations of Mr Astor were
thereafter confined to the territory east of the Rocky
Mountains.

[Sidenote: THE GREAT NORTHWEST.]

Samuel Hearne, an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, was
the first European to reach the Arctic Ocean through the
interior of the continent. He descended Coppermine River to
its mouth in the year 1771. The Upper Misinipi River was
first visited by Joseph Frobisher in 1775. Three years
later, one Peter Pond penetrated to within thirty miles of
Athabasca Lake, and established a trading post at that
point. Four canoe-loads of merchandise were exchanged by
him for more fine furs than his canoes could carry. Other
adventurous traders soon followed; but not long afterwards
the inevitable broils which always attended the early
intercourse of Europeans and Indians, rose to such a height
that, but for the appearance of that terrible scourge, the
small-pox, the traders would have been extirpated. The
ravages of this dire disease continued to depopulate the
country until 1782, when traders again appeared among the
Knisteneaux and Tinneh. The most northern division of the
Northwest Company was at that time the Athabascan Lake
region, where Alexander Mackenzie was the managing partner.
His winter residence was at Fort Chipewyan, on Athabasca
Lake. The Indians who traded at his establishment informed
him of the existence of a large river flowing to the
westward from Slave Lake. Thinking thereby to reach the
Pacific Ocean, Mr Mackenzie, in the year 1789, set out upon
an expedition to the west; and, descending the noble stream
which bears his name, found himself, contrary to his
expectations, upon the shores of the Arctic Sea. In 1793,
he made a journey to the Pacific, ascending Peace River,
and reaching the coast in latitude about fifty-two. The
first expedition organized by the British government for
the purpose of surveying the northern coast, was sent out
under Lieutenants Franklin and Parry in 1819. During the
year following, Franklin descended Coppermine River, and
subsequently, in 1825, he made a journey down the
Mackenzie. In 1808, D. W. Harmon, a partner in the
Northwest Company, crossed the Rocky Mountains, at about
the fifty-sixth parallel, to Fraser and Stuart Lakes. The
accounts of the natives given by these travelers and their
companions are essentially the same, and later voyagers
have failed to throw much additional light upon the
subject. John Meares, in 1788, visited the Straits of Fuca,
Nootka Sound, and Cook Inlet; and, during the same year,
two ships, sent out by Boston merchants, under Robert Gray
and John Kendrick, entered Nootka Sound. Estevan Martinez
and Gonzalo Haro, sent from Mexico to look after the
interest of Spain in these regions, explored Prince William
Sound, and visited Kadiak. During the same year, the
Russians established a trading post at Copper River. In
1789, Joseph Billings visited the Aleutian Islands, and the
Boston vessels explored the Eastern coast of Queen
Charlotte Island. In 1790, Salvador Fidalgo was sent by the
Mexican government to Nootka; and Monaldo explored the
Straits of Juan de Fuca. In 1791, four ships belonging to
Boston merchants, two Spanish ships, one French and several
Russian vessels touched upon the Northwest Coast. The
Spanish vessels were under the command of Alejandro
Malespina; Etienne Marchand was the commander of the French
ship. The 'Sutil y Mexicana' entered Nootka Sound in 1792;
and during the same year, Vancouver commenced his
explorations along the coast above Cape Flattery. In
1803-4, Baron Von Humboldt was making his searching
investigations in Mexico; while the captive New Englander,
Jewett, was dancing attendance to Maquina, king of the
Nootkas. Lewis and Clark traversed the continent in 1805.
In 1806, a Mr Fraser set out from Canada, and crossed the
Rocky Mountains near the headwaters of the river which
bears his name. He descended Fraser River to the lake which
he also called after himself. There he built a fort and
opened trade with the natives. Kotzebue visited the coast
in 1816; and the Russian expedition under Kramchenko,
Wasilieff, and Etolin, in 1822. Captain Morrel explored the
Californian coast from San Diego to San Francisco in 1825;
Captains Beechey and Lütke, the Northwest Coast in 1826;
and Sir Edward Belcher in 1837. J. K. Townsend made an
excursion west of the Rocky Mountains in 1834. In 1837,
Dease and Simpson made an open boat voyage from the
Mackenzie River, westward to Point Barrow, the farthest
point made by Beechey from the opposite direction, thus
reaching the _Ultima Thule_ of northwestern discovery. Sir
George Simpson crossed the continent in 1841, Fremont in
1843, and Paul Kane in 1845. Kushevaroff visited the coast
in 1838, Laplace in 1839, Commodore Wilkes in 1841, and
Captain Kellett in 1849. Following the discovery of gold,
the country was deluged by adventurers. In 1853-4,
commenced the series of explorations for a Pacific railway.
The necessities of the natives were examined, and remnants
of disappearing nations were collected upon reservations
under government agents. The interior of Alaska was first
penetrated by the employés of the Russian-American Fur
Company. Malakoff ascended the Yukon in 1838; and, in 1842,
Derabin established a fort upon that river. In 1849, W. H.
Hooper made a boat expedition from Kotzebue Sound to the
Mackenzie River; and, in 1866, William H. Dall and
Frederick Whymper ascended the Yukon.

I have here given a few only of the original sources whence
my information is derived concerning the Indians. A
multitude of minor voyages and travels have been performed
during the past three and a half centuries, and accounts
published by early residents among the natives, the bare
enumeration of which I fear would prove wearisome to the
reader. Enough, however, has been given to show the
immediate causes which led to the discovery and occupation
of the several parts of this western coast. The Spanish
cavaliers craved from the Indians of the South their lands
and their gold. The Spanish missionaries demanded from the
Indians of Northern Mexico and California, faith. The
French, English, Canadian, and American fur companies
sought from the Indians of Oregon and New Caledonia,
peltries. The Russians compelled the natives of the
Aleutian Islands to hunt sea-animals. The filthy
raw-flesh-eating Eskimos, having nothing wherewith to tempt
the cupidity of the superior race, retain their primitive
purity.

[Sidenote: CUPIDITY AND ZEAL.]

We observe then three original incentives urging on
civilized white men to overspread the domain of the Indian.
The first was that thirst for gold, which characterized the
fiery hidalgos from Spain in their conquests, and to
obtain which no cruelty was too severe nor any sacrifice of
human life too great; as though of all the gifts vouchsafed
to man, material or divine, one only was worth possessing.
The second, following closely in the footsteps of the
first, and oftentimes constituting a part of it, was
religious enthusiasm; a zealous interest in the souls of
the natives and the form in which they worshiped. The
third, which occupied the attention of other and more
northern Europeans, grew out of a covetous desire for the
wild man's clothing; to secure to themselves the peltries
of the great hyperborean regions of America. From the south
of Europe the Spaniards landed in tropical North America,
and exterminated the natives. From the north of Europe the
French, English, and Russians crossed over to the northern
part of America; and, with a kinder and more refined
cruelty, no less effectually succeeded in sweeping them
from the face of the earth by the introduction of the
poisonous elements of a debased cultivation.

Fortunately for the Indians of the north, it was contrary
to the interests of white people to kill them in order to
obtain the skins of their animals; for, with a few
trinkets, they could procure what otherwise would require
long and severe labor to obtain. The policy, therefore, of
the great fur-trading companies has been to cherish the
Indians as their best hunters, to live at peace with them,
to heal their ancient feuds, and to withhold from them
intoxicating liquors. The condition of their women, who
were considered by the natives as little better than
beasts, has been changed by their inter-social relations
with the servants of the trading companies; and their more
barbarous practices discontinued. It was the almost
universal custom of the employés of the Hudson's Bay
Company to unite to themselves native women; thus, by means
of this relationship, the condition of the women has been
raised, while the men manifest a kinder feeling towards the
white race who thus in a measure become one with them.

The efforts of early missionaries to this region were not
crowned with that success which attended the Spaniards in
their spiritual warfare upon the southern nations, from the
fact that no attention was paid to the temporal necessities
of the natives. It has long since been demonstrated
impossible to reach the heart of a savage through abstract
ideas of morality and elevation of character. A religion,
in order to find favor in his eyes, must first meet some of
his material requirements. If it is good, it will clothe
him better and feed him better, for this to him is the
chiefest good in life. Intermixtures of civilized with
savage peoples are sure to result in the total
disappearance of refinement on the one side, or in the
extinction of the barbaric race on the other. The downward
path is always the easiest. Of all the millions of native
Americans who have perished under the withering influences
of European civilization, there is not a single instance on
record, of a tribe or nation having been reclaimed,
ecclesiastically or otherwise, by artifice and argument.
Individual savages have been educated with a fair degree of
success. But, with a degree of certainty far greater, no
sooner is the white man freed from the social restraint of
civilized companionship, than he immediately tends towards
barbarism; and not infrequently becomes so fascinated with
his new life as to prefer it to any other. Social
development is inherent: superinduced culture is a
failure. Left alone, the nations of America might have
unfolded into as bright a civilization as that of Europe.
They were already well advanced, and still rapidly
advancing towards it, when they were so mercilessly
stricken down. But for a stranger to re-create the heart or
head of a red man, it were easier to change the color of
his skin.