by Don Berry
Some of Smith’s party, apparently, had told the Indians "something about territorial Claim, and that they (the Americans) would soon possess themselves of the Country." The Indians’ surprise was that HBC should interfere "in aiding and assisting People that evinced evil intentions toward (them)."
McLeod notes that this political talk
makes the Natives about us very inquisitive not having heard such a thing before, and we avoid giving them any information, and treat the subject with derision. M' Smith when told of this, observed that he did not doubt of it, but it was without his knowledge and must have been intimated to the Indians through the Medium of a Slave boy attached to his Party, a Native of the Wullamette.
The Umpquas on the upper river got together a few more of the animals—a total of twenty-six—and the party moved on. Ten days brought them to the Kelawatset village. It had rained incessantly throughout the journey, and they reached the village in a virtual cloudburst.
The Kelawatsets olfered no trouble; they turned over 588 beaver skins, 43 otter, and 4 sea otter. Sundry articles were also returned: beads, traps, guns, and what not.
After about a week, during which the goods were trickling in, McLeod turned his party downriver again, to the mouth of the Smiths River and the site of the massacre. Here were eleven skeletons. In his movements around the country this gentle Christian Smith was leaving behind him too many deposits of this kind.
Of the missing four there was no sign; and they were never able either to confirm or to discredit the rumor that said they were in custody among. the "Cahoose." Whatever the case, none was ever heard from again.
After burying the remains of Smith’s party, the HBC brigade moved north up the coast, collecting various other articles from the bands they met..The final total was near 700 beaver skins and 39 horses; the great majority of skins, but only a pitiful remnant of the herd of animals Jedediah had hoped to sell in the mountains.
On November 10—back on the upper Umpqua on the return journey to Fort Vancouver—McLeod picked up a few more trivia; including, by some indeterminate miracle, the journals of both Smith and Harrison Rogers. Why the natives had preserved these for five months is impossible to say; perhaps they thought there was medicine involved in those odd worm trails across the paper. If there was, it was a historian’s medicine, because without these papers our knowledge of Smith’s activities would rest on hislaconic reports to General Clark; a prospect almost too abysmal to contemplate.
IV
McLeod's returning party, with the recovered plunder, reached Fort Vancouver sometime during the week of December 14-22. Smith found an interested observer newly arrived on the scene: George Simpson, governor-in-chief of all the territories of HBC in America.
Simpson (who was thirty-six at the time) was in charge of one of the largest commercial enterprises in existence. While naturally subject to the policy decisions of the Governor and Committee, Simpson’s authority in the field was unchallenged. He was the boss; he knew it, liked it, and did a good job of it. He was no glad-hander, no one-big-happy-family man. When Simpson’s hand came out you didn’t extend your own, you ducked. This whirlwind of energy was presently engaged in the process of revitalizing the entire Columbia Department; a complex organization of posts and activities that extended from the Rockies to the Pacific and from the 42nd parallel north to anywhere you want to name.
When the McLeod—Smith party came in, their welcome was not entirely wholehearted. John McLoughlin was, in fact, astonished to see his brigade leader back. The intention had been for McLeod to continue south on a trapping run toward the "Bonaventura." Now he was back-in the middle of December—and the fall hunt of the Southern Expedition was nonexistent. This was directly attributable to Smith, of course, for whose sake the brigade had gone off chasing willow-o’-the-wisps on the coast. Mr. Smith’s appearance had proved decidedly expensive, through not only the use of the party but the loss of all expected returns for the season.
The Honerable Com would remain Honerable about it, of course. But they didn’t have to like it. Simpson took over the handling of relations with Smith, and on December 26 put down on paper, in the form of a letter, the gist of previous discussions: "in order to guard against any misapprehension . . . our communications . . . should be in writing instead of Verbal."
Simpson reviewed the circumstances of dispatching McLeod’s party and managed to imply that there was good reason to believe Smith’s party had brought the disaster on themselves. (McLeod had been told by the Indians that they had received reports of the American party "conducting themselves with hosti1ity" toward the tribes they met coming north, '. . . for which,” Simpson remarks, "it appears there were some grounds.")
He then explained that the loss of the Southern Expedition’s fall hunt had subjected HBC "to an expense of exceeding £1000 independant of the loss of Profits we had reason to calculate on.”
Had you been in the condition of discussing terms with us we should as a matter of course have insisted on your defraying the expenses, that the recovery of your property might have occasioned to us, but you was not in that condition consequently nothing was said on the subject, and altho’ we are well aware that either in Law or Equity we should be fully entitled to Salvage, we make no claim thereto, on the contrary place the property which we have recovered at your disposal without any charge or demand whatsoever.
Smith, in one of their previous conversations, had made several proposals regarding the disposition of the recovered goods. One of these related to thirty-eight horses, which had been left at a camp on the Umpqua. Smith proposed to turn these over to HBC. In return they were to provide him with an equal number at their Walla Walla post upriver. He proposed to leave horses and furs at Walla Walla while he returned to the mountains to meet his partners at the 1829 rendezvous. During the summer he would then return to Walla Walla and pick up his goods.
This arrangement was not possible; according to Simpson, they had no horses at all, and would need five times as many as they had any hope of collecting. As an alternative, Simpson said:
. . . in order to accomodate you we are willing to take [them] off your hands at 40/Stg head, which is a higher price then we ever pay for Horses and the same we charge to our Servants & Trappers, but if you are not satisfied with that price, they are still quite at your disposal.
He strongly advised against Smith’s notion of proceeding immediately to Walla Walla with his furs, because of the danger involved:
We altho’ perfectly acquainted with every Indian . . .rarely venture to send a party even with Letters, and with property never less than from 30 to 40 men; such a measure on your part would therefore in our opinion be sporting with Life or courting danger to [the point of] madness; which I should not consider myself justified in permitting without pointing out to yourself and followers in presence of witnesses the desperate hazards you would thereby run.
In this passage, I think, lies the key to this entire exchange: the not-quite casual phrase "in presence of witnesses."
With this phrase, Simpson almost inadvertently reveals his major preoccupation in the affair. Despite his protestations of pure concem for Smith’s welfare, Simpson is even more alive to the political implications of the situation. He is profoundly aware of the tendency of the American trappers to blame every conceivable misadventure on HBC.2
With this letter to Smith ("to guard against any misapprehension”)—Simpson is also guarding against any possible future accusation against HBC. In part this is also responsible for his constant reiteration of the great sacrifices the company has made on Smith’s behalf.
This is surely an exaggerated concern for American good will; it is doubtful that HBC was terribly worried about the opinion American trappers had of them. But, again, We encounter here the long view so characteristic of the Honourable Company. This same winter Simpson wrote London that he was confident HBC had nothing to worry about in the way of settlers in the Oregon territory, (This was because Smith's trip had revealed s
o many obstacles in the way of travel.) In Simpson’s opinion the main factor was the huge outlay of capital, which he thought no one would risk for such a tentative return. He felt, in short, "perfectly at ease unless the all grasping policy of the American Government, should induce it, to embark some of its National Wealth, in furtherance of the object."
It seems to me reasonable, however, that a man of George Simpson’s acuity would be perfectly aware of a strange national characteristic of Americans: our easy ability to become emotionally inflamed over an objectively unimportant event, even to the point of considering it sufficient cause for war. A righteous indignation has always been our national pleasure, much as horse thievery was among the Absaroka. Given a cause célébre—that is, an injury to one of our citizens which captured the national imagination—the American government might well be pressured into embarking some of that National Wealth.
It would be ridiculous to suppose that Simpson sat down and considered the situation in those terms and wrote his letter accordingly. (I make no such supposition here, and the above musings are not by any means to be attributed directly to Simpson.) But two puzzling questions—the exaggerated concern for Smith’s welfare and the insistence on witnesses and records—are partially explained by such a hypothesis. I think it highly likely that Simpson was motivated by a clear understanding of the possible consequences should Smith be ill treated, and was aware that those consequences might well be out of all proportion to the event itself.
Whether the above conjecture is correct or not, it is certainly true that Simpson's arrangement with Smith was generous in the extreme. On first examining these letters one is misled as to the actual extent of Simpson's generosity by the terms in which it is phrased. He simply cannot deny himself the pleasure, as Dale Morgan has it, of "rubbing Jedediah’s nose in that generosity":
You are well aware that we have already experienced much inconvenience incurred many’ sacrifices, and exposed the Concern to heavy loss through our anxious desire to relieve, assist and accommodate you we are willing nevertheless to do whatever else we can without subjecting ourselves to further loss or expense .... I shall now suggest what I conceive to be the safest course you can pursue ....
Your Beaver which is of very bad quality the worst indeed I ever saw having in the first instance been—very badly dressed & since then exposed to every storm of Rain that has fallen between the Month of April & the 22nd Inst. [December] consequently in the very worst state of Damage, I am willing to take off your hands at 3 Dollars p Skin payable at 30% sight3 on Canada, which I conceive to be their full value at this place, and your Horses I will take at £2 Stg p Head payable in like manner. But if these terms are not satisfactory to you the Furs may be left here until you have an opportunity of removing them & the Horses are at your disposal where you left them
[on the Umpqua].
In either case yourself and followers shall be made welcome to a continuance of our hospitality while you choose to remain at our Establishment—and if agreeable you shall be allowed passage free of expense to Red River Settlement with me in the course of next Spring & Summer from whence you can proceed to St Louis . . . or you may accompany our Snake Country Expedition next Autumn by which means you will in all probability have a safe escort until you fall in with your people.
Jedediah received this letter, replied the same day, and had further conversations with Simpson. Even though his own letter has been lost, the contents are easily inferred from
Simpson’s reply to it:
I beg it to be distinctly understood that we do not lay claim to, nor can we receive any remuneration for the services we have rendered you, and indemnihcation for the losses we have sustained in assisting you, nor any Salvage for the property we have recovered for you, as whatsoever we have done for you was in duced by feelings of benevolence and humanity alone. . . your distressed situation . . . the lamentable melancholy fate of your companions . . . [etc.] I beg to assure you that the satisfaction we derive from these good offices, will repay the Hon. Hudsons Bay Comp amply for any loss or inconvenience.
Smith accepted Simpson’s offer of passage to HBC’s Red River settlement, and a little later, also accepted his offer to buy the furs.4
Simpson then drew on the company’s agent at Lachine for £550. 2s. 6d. Halifax currency payable to the firm of Smith Jackson & Sublette. For some reason this draft appears to have been canceled and a new one issued in March, 1829, for £541. Os. 6d. Halifax currency, or $2369.60.5
***
Smith spent the remainder of the winter as the guest of Fort Vancouver. Many Americans were to be cast in this role in years to come, but as yet it was a novelty. From Smith the HBC officials were able to garner a good deal of information, about both the terrain through which he had come and sentiment in the United States. They liked the report of Smith’s journey better than he had liked the traveling; the enormous physical barriers seemed to preclude any
emigration from the States.6
The problem of possible American emigration to the Oregon territory was occupying more than one person in this narrative; and, strangely, though they were on opposite sides of the fence, their statements were nearly identical and nearly simultaneous.
In a letter to his superiors in London Simpson referred to the problem and said that Smith had, on his present journey, "discovered difficulties which never occurred to their minds, and which are likely to deter his Countrymen from attempting that enterprise."
At almost the same moment, General William Ashley was writing his own opinion to Senator Benton:
Three or four thousand people are ready to emigrate to the country as soon as a military establishment for Their protection is made .... I feel assured it will be an act of humanity to suppress any Thing of the kind at this time. They have not the least conception of the misery they would lead their families to by such an act.
Two thousand miles apart, the Britisher and the American were reaching similar conclusions. But the first surgings of the tide of emigration were beginning to be seen, and in another fifteen years the tide would begin to flow.
The exchange of information was not one-sided, of course. For the second time in four years Jedediah Smith had the free run of an HBC post; and moreover, the main depot of the entire Columbia Department. While enjoying the hospitality of Dr. McLaughlin, Smith was able to pick up a tremendous amount of valuable data simply by using his eyes.
It was obvious to him that Fort Vancouver was no temporary trading depot: "every thing," he writes, "seemed to combine to prove that this fort was to be a permanent establishment?
And this was the old Fort Vancouver; before Smith left in the spring he watched the beginning of work on a new post some 200 yards from the river (the old one was three quarters of a mile away).
A year after his return to the mountains, Smith wrote a complete description of the fort as he had seen it. In part:
Twelve pounders were the heaviest cannon . . . The crop of 1828 was seven hundred bushels of wheat; the grain full and plump, and making good flour; fourteen acres of corn, the same number . . . in peas, eight acres of oats, four or five acres of barley, a fine garden, some small apple trees and grape vines. The ensuing spring eighty bushels of seed wheat were sown; about two hundred head of cattle, fifty horses and breeding mares, three hundred head of hogs, fourteen goats, the usual domestic fowls. They have mechanics of various kinds...(a list follows)...a good saw mill . . . a grist mill .... They had built two coasting vessels [the Broughton, sloop, 30 tons, and
the Vancouver, about 60 tons], one of which was then on a voyage to the Sandwich Islands. No English or white woman was at the fort, but a great number of mixed blood Indian extraction, such as belong to the British trading establishments, who were treated as wives; and the families of children taken care of accordingly. . ,
It is interesting to note a difference between this and other Smith Jackson & Sublette communications to the government: whereas their previous notes of information
on the West had been addressed to General William Clark, as superintendent of Indian affairs, this one was not. The recipient was the Honorable John H. Eaton, Secretary of War.
The purpose of the report becomes manifest in its closing sections:
The inequality of the convention with Great Britain `in 1818 is most glaring and apparent, and its continuance is a great and manifest injury to the United States. The privileges granted by it have enabled the British to take possession of the Columbia river, and spread over the country south of it; while no Americans have ever gone, or can venture to go on the British side. The interest of the United States and her citizens engaged in the fur trade require that the convention of 1818 should be terminated, and each nation confined to its own territories [the implicit assumption here being that the joint-occupancy territory belongs to the United States] . . .there are other considerations requiring the same result. These are, the influence which the British have already acquired over the Indians in that quarter, and the prospect of a British colony, and a military and naval station on the Columbia. Their influence over the Indians is now decisive. Of this the Americans have constant and striking proofs, in the preference which they give to the British in every particular ....
As to the injury which must happen to the United States from the British getting the control of all the Indians beyond the mountains, building and repairing ships in the tide water region of the Columbia, and having a station there for their privateers and vessels of war, is too obvious to need a recapitulation.
And if the letter seems a bit belligerent, Jedediah had at least the good grace to acknowledge his treatment:
. . . it is an act of justice to say, also, that the treatment received by Mr. Smith at Fort Vancouver was kind and hospitable; that personally, he owes thanks to Governor Simpson and the gentlemen of the Hudson’s Bay Company, for the efiicient and successful aid which they gave him in recovering from the Umpqua Indians a quantity of fur and many horses, of which these Indians had robbed him in 1828.
