But in this year there appeared at rendezvous two gentlemen, who had accompanied
the St. Louis Company in its outward trip to the mountains, whose object was not the
procurement of pleasure, or the improvement of science. They had come to found
missions among the Indians; the Rev. Samuel Parker and Rev. Dr. Marcus Whitman;
the first a scholarly and fastidious man, and the other possessing all the boldness,
energy, and contempt of fastidiousness, which would have made him as good a
mountain leader, as he was an energetic servant of the American Board of Foreign
Missions.
The cause which had brought these gentlemen to the wilderness was a little incident
connected with the fur trade. Four Flathead Indians, in the year 1832, having heard
enough of the Christian religion, from the few devout men connected with the fur
companies, to desire to know more, performed a winter journey to St. Louis, and there
made inquiry about the white man's religion. This incident, which to any one acquainted
with Indian character, would appear a very natural one, when it became known to
Christian churches in the United States, excited a very lively interest, and seemed to
call upon them like a voice out of heaven, to fly to the rescue of perishing heathen
souls. The Methodist Church was the first to respond. When Wyeth returned to the
mountains in 1834, four missionaries accompanied him, destined for the valley of the
Wallamet River in Oregon. In the following year, the Presbyterian Church sent out its
agents, the two gentlemen above mentioned; one of whom, Dr. Whitman, subsequently
located near Fort Walla-Walla.
The account given by Capt. Bonneville of the Flatheads and Nez Perces, as he found
them in 1832, before missionary labor had been among them, throws some light on the
incident of the journey to St. Louis, which so touched the Christian heart in the United
States. After relating his surprise at finding that the Nez Perces observed certain
sacred days, he continues: " A few days afterwards, four of them signified that they
were about to hunt. ' What!' exclaimed the captain, 'without guns or arrows; and with
only one old spear ? What do you expect to kill ?' They smiled among themselves, but
made no answer. Preparatory to the chase, they performed some religious rights, and
offered up to the Great Spirit a few short prayers for safety and success; then having
received the blessing of their wives, they leaped upon their horses and departed,
leaving the whole party of Christian spectators amazed and rebuked by this lesson of
faith and dependence on a supreme and benevolent Being. Accustomed as I had
heretofore been to find the wretched Indian reveling in blood, and stained by every vice
which can degrade human nature, I could scarcely realize the scene which I had
witnessed. Wonder at such unaffected tenderness and piety, where it was least to have
been sought, contended in all our bosoms with shame and confusion, at receiving such
pure and wholesome instructions from creatures so far below us in all the arts and
comforts of life.
"Simply to call these people religious," continued Bonneville, "would convey but a faint
idea of the deep hue of piety and devotion which pervades their whole conduct. Their
honesty is immaculate, and their purity of purpose, and their observance of the rites of
their religion, are most uniform and remarkable. They are certainly more like a nation of
saints than a horde of savages."
This was a very enthusiastic view to take of the Nez Perce character, which appeared
all the brighter to the Captain, by contrast with the savage life which he had witnessed
in other places, and even by contrast with the conduct of the white trappers. But the
Nez Perces and Flatheads were, intellectually and morally, an exception to all the
Indian tribes west of the Missouri River. Lewis and Clarke found them different from any
others; the fur traders and the missionaries found them different; and they remain at
this day an honorable example, for probity and piety, to both savage and civilized
peoples.
To account for this superiority is indeed difficult. The only clue to the cause is in the
following statement of Bonneville's. "It would appear," he says, " that they had imbibed
some notions of the Christian faith from Catholic missionaries and traders who had
been among them. They even had a rude calender of the fasts and festivals of the
Romish Church, and some traces of its ceremonials. These have become blended with
their own wild rites, and present a strange medley, civilized and barbarous."
Finding that these people among whom he was thrown exhibited such remarkable traits
of character, Captain Bonneville exerted himself to make them acquainted with the
history and spirit of Christianity. To these explanations they listened with great
eagerness. "Many a time," he says, "was my little lodge thronged, or rather piled with
hearers, for they lay on the ground, one leaning over the other, until there was no
further room, all listening with greedy ears to the wonders which the Great Spirit had
revealed to the white man. No other subject gave them half the satisfaction, or
commanded half the attention; and but few scenes of my life remain so freshly on my
memory, or are so pleasurably recalled to my contemplation, as these hours of
intercourse with a distant and benighted race in the midst of the desert."
It was the interest awakened by these discourses of Captain Bonneville, and possibly
by Smith, and other traders who happened to fall in with the Nez Perces and Flatheads,
that stimulated those four Flatheads to undertake the journey to St. Louis in search of
information; and this it was which resulted in the establishment of missions, both in
western Oregon, and among the tribes inhabiting the country between the two great
branches of the Columbia.
The trait of Indian character which Bonneville, in his pleased surprise at the apparent piety of the Nez Perces and Flatheads, failed to observe, and which the missionaries themselves for a long time remained oblivious to, was the material nature of their religious views. The Indian judges of all things by the material results. If he is possessed of a good natural intelligence and powers of observation, he soon discovers that the God of the Indian is but a feeble deity; for does he not permit the Indian to be defeated in war; to starve, and to freeze ? Do not the Indian medicine men often fail to save life, to win battles, to curse their enemies? The Indian's God, he argues, must be a good deal of a humbug. He sees the white men faring much better. They have guns, ammunition, blankets, knives, everything in plenty; and they are successful in war; are skillful in a thousand things the Indian knows nothing of. To be so blest implies a very wise and powerful Deity. To gain all these things they are eager to learn about the white man's God; are willing to do whatever is necessary to please and propitiate Him. Hence the attentiveness to the white man's discourse about his religion. Naturally enough they were struck with wonder at the doctrine of peace and good will; a doctrine so different from the law of blood by which the Indian, in his natural state, lives. Yet if it is good for the white men, it must be good for him; at all events he is anxious to try it.
That is the course of reasoning by which an Indian is led to inquire into Christianity. It is
a desire to better his physical, rather than his spiritual condition; for of the latter he has
but a very faint conception. He was accustomed to desire a material Heaven, such a
world beyond the grave, as he could only imagine from his earthly experience. Heaven
was happiness, and happiness was plenty; therefore the most a good Indian could
desire was to go where there should forevermore be plenty.
Such was the Indian's view of religion, and it could be no other. Until the wants of the
body have been supplied by civilization, the wants of the soul do not develop
themselves: and until then the savage is not prepared to understand Christianity. This
is the law of Nature and of God. Primeval man was a savage; and it was little by little,
through thousands of years, that Christ was revealed. Every child born, even now, is a
savage, and has to be taught civilization year after year, until he arrives at the
possibility of comprehending spiritual religion. So every full grown barbarian is a child
in moral development; and to expect him to comprehend those mysteries over which
the world has agonized for centuries, is to commit the gravest error. Into this error fell
all the missionaries who came to the wilds that lay beyond the Rocky Mountains. They
undertook to teach religion first, and more simple matters afterward--building their
edifice like the Irishman's chimney, by holding up the top brick, and putting the others
under it. Failure was the result of such a process, as the record of the Oregon Missions
sufficiently proves.
The reader will pardon this digression--made necessary by the part which one of the
gentlemen present at this years rendezvous, was destined to take in the history which
we are writing. Shortly after the arrival of Messrs Parker and Whitman, rendezvous
broke up. A party, to which Meek was attached, moved in the direction of the Snake
River head-waters, the missionaries accompanying them, and after making two camps,
came on Saturday eve to Jackson's Little Hole, a small mountain valley near the larger
one commonly known as Jackson's Hole.
On the following day religious services were held in the Rocky Mountain Camp. A
scene more unusual could hardly have transpired than that of a company of trappers
listening to the preaching of the Word of God. Very little pious reverence marked the
countenances of that wild and motley congregation. Curiosity, incredulity, sarcasm, or a
mocking levity, were more plainly perceptible in the expression of the men's faces, than
either devotion or the longing expectancy of men habitually deprived of what they once
highly valued. The Indians alone showed by their eager listening that they desired to
become acquainted with the mystery of the " Unknown God."
The Rev. Samuel Parker preached, and the men were as politely attentive as it was in
their reckless natures to be, until, in the midst of the discourse, a band of buffalo
appeared in the valley, when the congregation incontinently broke up, without staying
for a benediction, and every man made haste after his horse, gun, and rope, leaving
Mr. Parker to discourse to vacant ground.
The run was both exciting and successful. About twenty fine buffaloes were killed, and
the choice pieces brought to camp, cooked and eaten, amidst the merriment, mixed
with something coarser, of the hunters. On this noisy rejoicing Mr. Parker looked with a
sober aspect: and following the dictates of his religious feeling, he rebuked the
sabbath-breakers quite severely. Better for his influence among the men, if he had not
done so, or had not eaten so heartily of the tender-loin afterwards, a circumstance
which his irreverent critics did not fail to remark, to his prejudice; and upon the principle
that the "partaker is as bad as the thief," they set down his lecture on sabbath-breaking
as nothing better than pious humbug.
Dr. Marcus Whitman was another style of man. Whatever he thought of the wild ways of the mountain-men he discreetly kept to himself, preferring to teach by example rather than precept; and showing no fastidious contempt for any sort of rough duty he might be called upon to perform. So aptly indeed had he turned his hand to all manner of camp service on the journey to the mountains, that this abrogation of clerical dignity had become a source of solicitude, not to say disapproval and displeasure on the part of his colleague; and it was agreed between them that the Doctor should return to the states with the St. Louis Company, to procure recruits for the promising field of labor which they saw before them, while Mr. Parker continued his journey to the Columbia to decide upon the location of the missionary stations. The difference of character of the two men was clearly illustrated by the results of this understanding. Parker went to Vancouver, where he was hospitably entertained, and where he could inquire into the workings of the missionary system as pursued by the Methodist missionaries. His investigations not proving the labor to his taste, he sailed the following summer for the Sandwich Islands, and thence to New York; leaving only a brief note for Doctor Whitman, when he, with indefatigable exertions, arrived that season among the Nez Perces with a missionary company, eager for the work which they hoped to make as great as they believed it to be good.