Art. 8. If any one enter a field and injure the crops, or throw down the fence, so that cattle or horses go in and do damage, he shall pay all damages, and receive twenty-five lashes for every offence.
Art. 9. Those only may keep dogs who travel or live among the game. If a dog kill a lamb, calf, or any domestic animal, the owner shall pay the damage, and kill the dog.
Art. 10. If an Indian raise a gun or other weapon against a white man, it shall be reported to the chiefs, and they shall punish him. If a white man do the same to an Indian, it shall be reported to Dr. White, and he shall punish or redress it.
Art. 11. If an Indian break these laws, he shall be punished by his chiefs; if a white man break them, he shall be reported to the agent, and punished at his instance.
These laws, the agent says, he “proposed one by one, leaving them as free to reject as to accept. They were greatly pleased with all proposed, but wished a heavier penalty to some, and suggested the dog-law, which was annexed.”
In a history of Oregon written by one W. H. Gray, of Astoria, we find this Indian agent spoken of as a “notorious blockhead.” Mr. Gray’s methods of mention of all persons toward whom he has antagonism or dislike are violent and undignified, and do not redound either to his credit as a writer or his credibility as a witness. But it is impossible to avoid the impression that in this instance he was not far from the truth. Surely one cannot read, without mingled horror and incredulity, this programme of the whipping-post, offered as one of the first instalments of the United States Government’s “kind intentions” toward these Indians; one of the first practical illustrations given them of the kind of civilization the United States Government would recommend and introduce.
We are not surprised to read in another narrative of affairs in Oregon, a little later, that “the Indians want pay for being whipped, the same as they did for praying—to please the missionaries—during the great revival of 1839. * * * Some of the influential men in the tribe desired to know of what benefit
