resolutions and protests ad arbitrium et propositum. Another man, Samuel R. Thurston, an emigrant of 1847, displayed indications of a purpose to make his talents recognized. In the course of proceedings A. L. Lewis, of Vancouver county, offered a resolution that the superintendent of Indian affairs be required to report,[1] presently asking if there were an Indian superintendent in Oregon at all.
The governor replied that H. A. G. Lee had resigned the superintendency because the compensation bore no proportion to the services required, and that since Lee's resignation he had performed the duties of superintendent, not being able to find any competent person who would accept the office. In a second communication he reported on Indian affairs that the course pursued had been conciliatory, and that the Indians had seemingly become quiet, and had ceased their clamor for pay for their lands, waiting for the United States to move in the matter; and the Cayuse murderers had not been secured. With regard to the confiscation of Indian lands, he returned for answer
- ↑ He wished to know, he said, whether the superintendent had upon his own or the authority of any other officer of the government confiscated to the use of the people of Oregon any Indian country, and if so, why; if any grant or charter had been given by him to any citizen or citizens for the settlement of any Indian country, and if so, by what authority; and whether he had enforced the law prohibiting the sale of liquor to Indians. 'A. Lee Lewis,' says Applegate, 'a bright young man, the son of a chief factor, afterward superintendent of Indian affairs, was the first representative of Vancouver district.' Views of Hist., MS., 45. Another British subject, who took a part in the provisional government, was Richard Lane, appointed by Abernethy county judge of Vancouver in 1847, vice Dugald McTavish resigned. Or. Spectator, Jan. 21, 1847. Lane came to Oregon in 1837 as a clerk to the Hudson's Bay Company. He was a ripe scholar and a good lawyer. He lived for some time at Oregon City, and afterward at Olympia, holding various offices, among others those of clerk of one branch of the territorial legislature of Washington, clerk of the supreme and district courts, county auditor, and clerk of the city corporation of Olympia. He died at The Dalles in the spring of 1877, from an overdose of morphine, apparently taken with suicidal intent. He was then about sixty years of age. Dalles Mountaineer, in Seattle Pacific Tribune, March 2, 1877.
treating for wild lands in the territory, or for holding treaties with the Indian tribes for the purchase of lands,' all of which was very apparent. But Mr Applegate introduced the counter resolution 'that if the doctrine in the resolution last passed be true, then the powers of the Oregon government are unequal to the wants of the people,' which was of course equally true, as it was only provisional.
