The Mammoth Book of the West (11 page)

Whatever the preparedness of the overlanders or their mode of travel, there were common hazards and fears. Deep rivers were always a tribulation. The oxen, mules and accompanying cattle had to swim for it. Wagons were converted into crude boats by a sheath of watertight rawhide or tarpaulin stretched around the body, or – if timber was plentiful – were floated across on rafts. Some rivers had to be crossed many times. The Mullan Road in Montana required that the St Regis be traversed 19 times in six miles. Accidents were common: between 1840 and 1860 around 300 overlanders died by drowning.

Water. In one way or another, it ruled the emigrants’ lives. There was either too much of it, or too little. Kansas in a wet spring bogged down hundreds of wagons. The dry stretches of the High Plains under a blazing sun caused tormenting thirst. The cholera which struck down so many hundreds of pioneers at the crowded wells of the Platte was borne by water. So too were other infectious diseases. The trails were marked by graves their length long.

But the biggest fear of the overlander was not disease – it was the Indian. Yet this was a fear more imagined than real.

Initially, at least, Indians were more helpers than scalpers along the trail. Marcus Whitman’s Great Migration
of 1843 was trailblazed in parts by an Indian guide. When the Stevens–Murphy party of 1844 pushed their wagons beyond the Humboldt Sink, they were following the directions of Truckee, a Paiute Chief, in whose honour the route became named. Indians were especially valued for river crossings; an 1846 guidebook penned by J. M. Shively even went as far as to state that “you must hire an Indian to pilot you at the crossings of the Snake River.” Overlanders happily placed wagons, persons, beeves and beasts in the care of the Sioux at the Platte and Laramie Rivers.

The Indians were quick to learn the White man’s pecuniary ways. And drove hard bargains. When crossing horses over the Columbia River, the Chinook were apt to stop in mid-stream to demand more payment to finish the job. The Native Americans were especially wily when it came to the selling of horseflesh. As one overlander, James Payne, put it in 1850: “Plenty of Indians and pretty ponies today; we tried to make a trade with them, but you can’t cheat them in horses.” By 1852 the Sioux were asking as much as $125 per horse. The trade was particularly profitable when the Indians had stolen the self-same horse from another overlander. Such sharp practice was common enough to merit cautions in more than one overland guide.

As payment for services rendered, Indians took money, but preferred the tangibly useful. Ammunition, guns, knives, blankets and clothes were popular. Whiskey was much sought after. One traveller, Alonzo Delano, reported that the first request of the Sioux near Ash Hollow was for “firewater”. Delano believed that the Indians would trade anything for it, even horses. Overlanders, though, tended to avoid passing the bottle over. When they did, the result, complained one disapproving emigrant, was “brawling and such a noise!”

Yet White–Indian mutual aid soon gave way to hostility.
The Native Americans were dismayed by the sheer numbers of Whites trekking through their lands, and felt heavily the threat posed to their way of life. The overlanders scared away or wantonly slaughtered game, especially buffalo, overgrazed the prairie, exhausted the water supply, fired grasslands by accident or design, and depleted the precious tree stocks. As compensation, from 1843 the Indians began to demand a tribute from the passing trains for safe travel through their lands. A number of tribes also erected toll bridges over streams. Most travellers viewed these Indian tributes and tolls with disgust. What irked them was not so much the money but the idea that the Red man had any rights over the White man. In such a circumstance, refusing payment and brandishing arms was a sore temptation. Violent confrontations became commonplace. The Pawnee toll at Shell Creek was a particular hotspot, with something like a battle occurring there in May 1852, after the Indians tore down their bridge in protest at toll refusals. One group of emigrants rebuilt the bridge and pushed on across, declining to make the due payment. The next day, the Pawnee demanded a toll from another party, who likewise refused to pay the 25 cents per wagon asked. The emigrants rushed the bridge in their wagons – only to find that the Pawnee had cut a hole in its centre, which they had camouflaged with brushwood. The lead wagon fell straight through to the water, and shooting started. The Pawnee had the worst of it with nine killed. They were back soon after, but with retaliation, not tolls, in mind. Subsequent overlanders paid the price in plunder for those who rushed the Pawnee bridge at Shell Creek.

Emigrants refused the toll, preferring to fight than to pay. Indians took revenge on later caravans, and indignant overlanders complained. Newspapermen scented a suitably shocking story of Indian depredations. When this
was published White citizens requested military protection. The spiral of hostility was precise and unyielding in its rising. In such an atmosphere, relations between White Americans and the tribes could only become strained.

Even so, there was remarkably little White blood shed. Most of the fatalities occurred, contrary to myth, not on the plains but west of South Pass, with the Applegate route to Oregon being a particularly deadly stretch of trail. Indians hesitated to attack well-disciplined trains (especially when drawn up in a circle), so most engagements took the form of ambushes on individuals or running skirmishes. Sizeable slaughters did occur, though. An entire train of 23 or more overlanders was wiped out at Tule Lake in 1847. Five years later, 14 emigrants were killed and mutilated at Lost River, and 22 at “Bloody Point” near Tule Lake. At midday on 20 August 1854, approximately 30 Snake Indians attacked a small five-wagon train after a dispute over a horse. Only two (who feigned death) of the 20 persons in the train, most belonging to the family of Andrew Ward, escaped. Another group of emigrants stumbled into the massacre, and lost one of their number, before retreating. When volunteers from Fort Boise rode out late to bury the bodies, they found a nightmarish scene. The emigrant children had been burned alive, the women raped, one with a piece of hot iron. Much of the tomahawk mutilation of the women had apparently been done by Snake squaws.

The tragedy caused a chorus of White rage. The editor of Portland’s
Weekly Oregonian
demanded that the authorities “either exterminate the race of Indians, or prevent further wholesale butcheries by these worthless races resembling human form.” When Bannock and Shoshoni Indians attacked the Otter–Van Orman train on 9 September 1860 the rage reached a crescendo. Exactly what befell the
eight-wagon Otter–Van Orman train is uncertain, but it was a rare instance of Indians engaging an encircled train. After withstanding the Indians for several days, the emigrants abandoned the train during a lull in the fighting. Four discharged soldiers travelling with the train took to their horses and galloped off, leaving the rest of the party to their fate. Around 18 were cut down by Indians, including Mrs Abigail Van Orman, four of whose children were abducted. Another 18 emigrants escaped, to wander starving and lost. Jacob and Joseph Keith reached the Umatila Indian Agency on 2 October. Twelve others were found near the Owyhee River – about 90 miles from the initial attack – where they had been subsisting in part on the flesh of dead companions.

As Abigail Van Orman and others discovered to their dread and to their cost, sometimes the Indian menace was real. Even so, such souls were unlucky to die by an Indian’s hand. According to historian John Unruh only 362 overlanders were killed by Indians between 1840 and 1860, out of an overall death toll on the trail of 10,000. Where blood flowed, it tended to come from Native American bodies. (The settlers probably inflicted 426 violent deaths on the Indians.) The usual form of Indian retribution was not an arrow but a sneaky pilfering of horses, mules and just about anything else on four legs. Writing to his wife in 1849, Henry Page penned words which summed up the typical overlander’s experience of Indians: “We are & shall not be, in any danger of our lives from Indians – the only trouble is to keep them from stealing . . .”

Indian attack or no, it was a wonder and an achievement to have crossed overland to the Pacific. Many emigrants
understood that they were taking part in one of the great happenings of history, and dutifully put quill to diary. Nearly 800 such pioneers’ diaries have been found and preserved. William E. Taylor’s is a classic, laconically listing the suffering, awe, boredom, travail and excitement of going the “plains across”. Taylor went overland to California in 1846 with the Craig–Stanley party, one of the first to take wagons over the Sierras:

Monday April the 20th 1846 We this day lef home for Oregon and proceeded 5 [15?] miles to Elk horn whare we got some work done on our waggon Our company consisting of Craig Shreve and myself

Tuesday, the 21. We Left at 10 O’clock and Standlly’s wagon Broak 2 miles from Elk horn whare we continued all night

Wed. 22. Left at 12 O’clock after having finished all the repares our waggon proceeded about 3 miles This day one of our Crowd (Shreve) took his [
illegible
] Mr. Lad Joined us

Th. 23. went 12 miles

Friday 24. passed plattsburg travailed 12 miles

Sat. 25 traveled 20 miles

Sund. 26. got to St. Josephs, traveled 3 miles

Monday 27 Tuesday 28 we remained at St. Josephs

Wen. 29 we Left St. Josephs went to parrots ferry 5 miles above town. Weather fair wind high

Th 30 Remained In Camp Wind prevents us from Crossing

May 1 Crossed over the river which was very hig for the season we find an abundance of grass for the oxen

2 Remained in camp

3. Struck our tents and proceeded to wolf River whare we had some difficulty in getting over went 14 mils

4. Started Early passed the Iowa Agency, distance 25 [miles]

5. Left camp Early travled 15 miles

6. We overtook 18 waggons at the Nemihaw River crossed over found 6 wagons encamped making 27 waggons and 50 men. A view from the prairie hills of this Little River is very sublime and beautiful it Surpasses any thing I have yet seen

7 we traveled about 20 miles the road verry undulating and the Land of the Richest kind Scarcely any timber or Water Some symptoms of discord in camp owing to all not being present at the Election of officers

8 we travel
^d
over Level wet prairie 18 ms

9 we traveld 2½ miles Crossed one fork of the Blue. Staid all day found we were wrong

10 Changed our course Crossed over the other fork of Blue came to Independence trail we are ahead of all distance 16 miles

11 traveled 14 miles Camped in a small grove on a tributary of Blue

12 Camped on Horse Creek 7 miles

13 Travailed 7 miles Camped on Blue

14 Camped on Sandy a tributary of the Blue after travling 20 miles

15 Camped on the blue 16 miles verry warm The Mercury stands 76 at noon in the shade

16 traveld up Blue 16 miles Stanley killed a deer Mercury Stood at 86 at noon in the shade

17 traveled 4 miles

18 we went But 2 miles owing to the indisposition of Mrs Munkerass who brough an increase in to the emigration

19 travailed 8 miles

20 traveled 16 up Blue

21 Arrived at the Nebraska, travailed 17 miles

22 to day we saw a party of pawnees some hunters
quite friendly distance 18 miles

23 traveld 8 miles

24 traveld 20 miles Saw and killed some Buffalo

25 traveled 18 miles thousands of Buffalo

26 Traveled 18 A sevier h[a]il storm in the Evning.

27    ″      16 miles quite Cool Mercury at 57

28    ″      23 another hail Storm Reached the South fork of platt

the 29 travaled 16 miles first used the excrement of the Buffalo for fuel

30 Crossed the South fork which is one mill wide with an average depth of 18 inches dis. 12 miles this evening we had the most sevier storm I ever saw

31 Lay by all day owing to incessant Rain and intense Cold with Some Snow Tem. 48 Fah[renheit]

June the first today there was quit a snow storm passed over to the Ash hollow distance 25 miles Tem. 38 deg. Fah.

2 Staid here all day

3 went 10 miles Camped out of the Rain Tem. 57 deg

4 travelled 20 miles Saw wild horses

5 travaled 20 miles. Came in sight of Castle Rock also the Chimney Rock Crossed Sandy

6 passed the Chimney Rock dist. 25 miles

7 passed Scotts Bluff Beautiful Scenry dist 18 miles

8 Company divided distance 19 miles

9 Travelled 15 miles Temp. 90 deg of Fah

10 Went 7 miles came to Laramie. Tem. 100 deg of Fah

11 Lay By. mercury at 100 Fah.

12 travelled 20 miles through the Black hills Camped on the Bitter Cotton Wood a Smal Stream

13 Came 20 miles camped on horse Shoe Creek

14 camped on Butte creek distance 20 miles

15 camped on Black Creek dist 20 miles Red Rock

16 travelled 18 miles camped on deer creek

17 traveled 16 miles Tem 90 deg of Fah.

18 Came to the Crossing of platt not fordable met some Return emigrants Tem. 81 deg. of Fah.

19 Remained trying to cross our Cattle

20 Do Do 16 more waggons Came up

21 got all over Rafted the waggons Swam the Cattle

22 passed the Red Butt[e]s dist 12 miles a good Spring

23 Came to the Willow Spring distance 20 miles

24 20 miles Braught us to the Rock Independence

25 Passed the Kenion on Sweet water saw mountain sheep travelled 16 miles

26 Went 18 miles, passed a party of men

27 traveled 25 miles Thousands of buffalo

28 Lay By all day

29 Traveled 20 miles a plain view of the wind River mountains Covered with snow Bad roads Some Sick

30 Came to the South Pass at 16 miles

July the 1 23 miles Braught us to Little Sandy extremely sterile country in sight of eternal snow on the Bear River mountan

2 Broak a waggon a man sick dist 10 miles Camped on Big Seany [Sandy] Mr L W Hastings visited our camp