We Who Survived - 5 Oscar Canfield and Matilda Sager Fultz

Oscar Canfield

April 17

One of the families that survived the massacre almost completely were the Canfields. Mr. Canfield, believing that his wife and children would be safe from the Indians, decided to go to give the warning and possibly get some help from those at Lapwai, the place where the other minister, Mr Spalding, Eliza's father, had his mission. He managed the 130 mile trip without too much trouble, and then went with that group when they joined us on January 1st after we had been rescued from the Indians who were holding us hostage, and when we took the trip down the river to Ft. Vancouver.

I sent two letters, one to the Canfield family in California and the other to their son Oscar in Idaho. Here is his reply.

 

April 7, 1880

Spokane Prairie, Kootenai, Idaho

Dear Mr. Young,

Thank you for your letter. I was only nine but I do remember you vaguely from the time at the mission. It would be very nice to meet you again if that is possible.

Regarding getting together, my brother, Albert, who was only two at the time of the massacre and his family have decided to move to be near us. They have booked on the Colombia, a brand
new steamboat which will be docking in Portland on July 26th this year. I have agreed to go to meet him there and help him with the rest of the journey, as he is not a well man. Would it be possible for us to meet up at that time? I would also like to see any of the other survivors if any live close enough to the area.

I have already been back in that area once since it all happened. I wanted to thank the Indian who helped my father. Here is the story.

My father who was born and raised in Vermont made the decision to move us to the West coast, because he was dissatisfied with the cold climate of Iowa, the first place he settled in. He had
received a letter from a friend who was in one of the earliest emigrations to Oregon, (which took 10 months to get to him as it came via Cape Horn to New York and eventually found its way to Iowa) and he told him about the mild climate, the fertile soil and abundance of fish and game. So upon receipt of this letter he decided to move us to Oregon. If he had known what was before him, he says he would never have undertaken the journey. Yet he never regretted the move and ever thanks the Providence that brought him to the Pacific Coast. He was bound for the Willamette Valley, but Dr. Whitman, who needed a blacksmith and teacher, met the wagon train at Pendleton and induced
him and Mr. Saunders to come to the Mission. We arrived there just two weeks before the massacre, so we didn't know many of the people there very well, much less the Indians. We hadn't even unloaded our wagons properly when it happened.

On the day of the massacre, my father was helping dress the beef that had just been slaughtered, some Indians were sitting on a rail watching them. When the shooting started in the house, the
Indians near him dropped their blankets and started shooting too. Father ran to the wagon and picked up Albert, our youngest, while I ran out of the blacksmith shop and picked up Sylvia. About 20 shots were fired at my father, but only one hit him in the back, and he still carries the bullet with him.

In the adobe building, we went up into the attic, and the Indians seem to forget about us, as they never came to search for us. That night, father and mother talked the situation over, and decided that the best thing was for him to try to escape and make his way to Lapwai Mission in Idaho, where the minister, Mr. Spalding lived. This would give them the warning, and they could also send help to us here. He was sure that the women and children would be safe, or he would never have left us. He left that night, but only went to where he still had a view of the mission. He said that if he saw anything untoward in the morning, he would return to help us, but as it was clear, he made his way onward.

He knew the route from a Nez Indian whom he had made some rings for and he followed the trail by night and hid in the daylight. After about five miles, he reached an Indian camp where he was given the first food he had eaten. The Indians had not heard of the massacre. He offered the chief a buffalo robe if he would take him on a horse to the crossing of the Snake River. He gladly accepted. At the river, he gave his vest to Chief Timothy for taking him across the river in a canoe. He was the first to reach Lapwai with the news for Mrs. Spalding and she sent some Indians back to try to help with the situation.

In the meantime, the Chief Factor of Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver Mr. Peter Ogden had heard of the massacre, and set out to rescue the rest of us who were being held hostage by the Indians and take us to safety, as I am sure you remember. He bought our freedom with a handful of items. Once the Indians agreed to let us go, we had to go about 20 miles to Fort Walla Walla. We
were frightened the whole time of being attacked. When we reached there, we were turned over to the charge of Mr. Ogden. The Indians were very agitated and it was thought the fort itself was in
danger, so we were armed with guns and told not on any circumstances to let any Indians in. Mr. Ogden had also sent Nez Percé Indians to the Spalding mission in Lapwai to bring my father and the others back.

It was New Year's day '48 when we got in boats organised by the Hudson Bay company and set off to Fort Vancouver. We stopped at The Dalles and Cascades with the men carrying the boats on their
shoulders (I expect you were one of those) and the rest of us walked. Soon after reaching Oregon City, my mother gave birth to her baby, but it lived only a few days.

My father went back as part of the volunteer group who wanted to chase the Indians and find those responsible and have them brought to justice. He stayed there till July and then the next year we took a ship south to California and most have been in that area ever since.

When I went North last time and found Chief Timothy, who was the first Christian convert Mr. Spalding had made amongst the Nez Perce Indians, who had rowed my father on that fateful day. I
offered to pay him the going rate for what he did, but he refused and said that Dr. Whitman was his good friend, and that my father also was his friend, so he did not want payment for what he had done. But I gave him a gold piece anyway, and some tobacco, and I send him a jar of tobacco each year now, as a special thank you.

So you ask what my views were on the Indians. Well, there were some good ones like Chief Timothy and some bad ones. Some of the ones who did the worst of the slaughter were never caught -
but of those that were caught and hanged, I think most of them were involved in some way. And so I don't think that it was unjust that five of them should pay for the lives of 14 of us.

Do let me know what you think of my idea of meeting up in July.

 

Yours sincerely,

Oscar Canfield
 

Matilda Sager Fultz

April 20

I was very pleased to get Oscar's letter, and immediately wrote back, offering him and his brother and his family accommodation with us for the end of July, when they arrive. I told him I would try to ascertain from the Kimball family survivors who live in the Astoria area if they would be interested in also meeting up at that time, and wait to hear from them.

I also recently heard back from Catherine Sager's sister Matilda.

 

April 10, 1880

Henley, Sissouyou, California

Dear Mr. Young,

Thank you for your letter of July 7th. Yes, as you say, I have had a full life with many heart aches. After losing my first husband, Mr. Louis Hazlett, our house burned to the ground with all of our possessions in it, and then I got struck with arthritis, but I managed to get over it.

I had already heard from my sister, Catherine that you were likely to write to me, and I am very interested in helping you with your research.

You did ask if I could suggest any reasons as to why it happened. We lived with all of those Indians for over three years, and I thought I knew most of them quite well. But we were not encouraged by Mother Whitman to learn their language or have dealings with them. I knew that they were very upset by how many of their kind were dying of measles compared to how many of us were dying - and felt that there had to be some significance in the situation. They were ignorant of things like hygiene and had poor health before the measles came, so no doubt that would have had an effect. Their standard treatment for illnesses was a sweating followed by going into the freezing cold river, which could not really have done them any good, and they continued to do that, even after the medicine that
Father Whitman gave them. I must admit that the sweathouses were good for arthritis and some other illnesses, but were of no use at all for measles and smallpox. Father Whitman mainly used cayenne pepper as a treatment and practised blood letting. 

The Indians' resistance to disease would have been lower than ours. But I have read about the situation and how people are questioning how it was that 50% of them died at our mission - while
perhaps only 10-15% of them died in the other nearby Indian tribes, also infected with measles, who presumably would have had the same bad diet and hygiene and immunity and probably the same sweat bath treatments too. Only one of us whites died of the measles during that period of time, compared to their near 200. I'm not counting my sister, Louise or Helen Meek who died after the massacre, because they might well not have died if Father and Mother Whitman had been there to care for them. They suffered from lack of water and care during the siege, which no doubt contributed to their deaths.

We loved Dr. Whitman, who treated us like we were his own children, and he was a good man. I am sure that he was not deliberately poisoning the Indians, as had been claimed by them.

I do remember when two important Indians had died and the Indians  ventured to intimate that the
Doctor had killed them by his magical power, in the same way as they had previously accused their own sorcerers and killed them for it.

But perhaps there was something in Father Whitman's medical treatment of them that differed from what others were using, and when he thought he was doing good, he was in fact making them
worse. I only put this as a possibility, and I must say my sisters do not agree with me on this. I have heard that the Indians thought that the poison he gave them was a white powder. It may well have been strychnine that he was treating them with, which is a white powder, either straight or prepared as nux vomica. Tartar Emetic (antimony) looks like a white powder. Father Whitman was probably using both of these, as the standard treatment for measles at the time was tartar emetic  used on the eruptions from the measles. Also strychnine was prescribed as a treatment for dysentery, which accompanied the measles outbreak. But strychnine was not thought of as a poison, but a miracle cure. And the important thing was getting the dose right. If he saw that a normal dose did no good, he might have thought that a higher dose might be more effective. And if someone is dying, a medical person is, in my opinion, justified in doing what he can to save the person, even if it does involved a degree of experimentation. But he knew full well that the Cayuse Indians believed they were justified in killing a tewat, if the medicine man failed in his job, and their relatives died as a result. And on the day of the massacre, Chief Tiloukaikt's third child had died - so he was certainly very upset over that.

I do very much regret that the trial was handled so badly - and the Indians didn't even get a chance to put their point of view. Kiamasumkin maintained his innocence all along, and I am pretty sure that what he said was correct. I certainly never saw him at all on the main day of the massacre, and although he was around in the days after that, he was never one who harmed us in any way. The
others who were hanged were guilty of supporting at the very least - but not as much so as Joe Lewis, who escaped. He was the worst of the bunch. And Edward, the Chief's son, also did much and was never punished by law. I understand that both he and his brother, Clark, were killed by Joe Lewis when they were asleep en route to see if they could get aid from the Mormons. He cut their throats and took their horses and provision.  

I spend much of my time these days working with Indians here in California, and trying to help them adjust to the white way of life. They were very hard done by - with us coming in and taking over the land, and destroying their traditional way of life. But now that the situation is what it is, they must be helped to get along with us, and learn from our ways, so that they can survive. I only hope the good parts of their culture will not be lost in the meantime.

Please keep in touch with me regarding a possible get together, and ask any other questions that come to mind in the meantime.

 

Yours sincerely,

Matilda Sager Fultz