Concerning that part of his instructions to encourage missionaries as teachers among the Indians, Dart had little to say; for which reason, or in revenge for his dismissal, Spalding represented that no American teachers, but only Catholics and foreigners were given permission to enter the Indian country.[1] But as his name was appended to all the treaties made while he was agent, with one exception, he must have been as guilty as any of excluding American teachers. The truth was that Dart promised the Indians of eastern Oregon that they should not be disturbed in their religious practices, but have such teachers as they preferred.[2] This to the sectarian Protestant mind was simply atrocious, though it seemed only politic and just to the unbiassed understanding of the superintendent.
With regard to that part of his instructions relating to suppressing the establishments of the Hudson's Bay Company in Oregon, he informed the commissioner that he found the company to have rights which prompted him to call the attention of the government to the subject before he attempted to interfere with them, and suggested the propriety of purchasing those rights instead of proceeding against British traders as criminals, the only accusation that could be brought against them being that they sold better goods to the Indians for less money than American traders.
And concerning the intercourse act prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors to the natives, Dart remarked that although a good deal of liquor was con-
- ↑ This charge being deemed inimical to the administration, the President denied it in a letter to the Philadelphia Daily Sun, April 1852. The matter is referred to in the Or. Statesman, June 15th and July 3, 1852. See also Home Missionary, vol. lxxxiv. 276.
- ↑ In 1852 a Catholic priest, E. C. Chirouse, settled on a piece of land at Walla Walla, making a claim under the act of congress establishing the territorial government of Washington. He failed to make his final proof according to law, and the notification of his intentions was not filed till 1860, when Archbishop Blanchet made a notification; but it appeared that whatever title there was, was in Chirouse. He relinquished it to the U. S. in 1862, but it was then too late for the Catholic church to set up a claim, and the archbishop's notification was not allowed. Portland Oregonian, March 16, 1872.
