Very many who were persuaded to pass on to the lower country, felt rather hard at the doctor at the time, for not allowing them to stop. I thought myself he was over anxious. He is not to be blamd for the number of Americans that were wintering at his station, if any blame is to be attachd to this circumstance, but there is none, plainly because a number of Americans’ wintering at Waiilatpu had nothing to do in bringing about the massacre. To insinuate otherwise, is a base slander upon the American character. That such insinuations, however, have gone forth, I am aware, but it is for no other purpose than to divert public attention from the true causes, and fasten it upon what was not the cause. If Americans were the cause, why were all the Americans killd? while the Catholics, down to the smallest child, were spard, caresd and permitted to dwell among the murderers to this day unharmed, and even now are commencing new stations among the Indians, while the last families of our American missionaries are being removd from the country by an escort from the army? The insinuation is as base and cruel as it is absurd.
There were also at the station three others who claimed to be Roman Catholics, names, Nicholas Finley, Joseph Stanfield, Jo Lewis. The two latter were in the employ of Dr. Whitman. Joseph Stanfield, a Canadian, had crossed the mountains in ’46, had been in the employ of the doctor from that time. At his trial before Judge Wheeler two of the widows testified that Stanfield told them that he knew in the morning that the massacre was to take place that day. On being taken by the sheriff, he attempted to secrete a watch which belongd to one of the widows, also considerable money belonging to one of the murdered young men. Jo Lewis came into the country with the last emigration, at least from Fort Hall. Much uncertainty hangs about this individual. To the mission he claimd to be an Indian, born in Canada, of the Catholic faith, brought up in the state of Maine, had spent some time in California. Among the Indians he passd himself as a Chenook of the Catholic faith,—said that formerly the Americans (Protestants as understood in most instances of late by the word _Suyapu_) by ships brought poison to the lower country with a view to destroy all the Indians. Vast multitudes were destroyd, as their old men very well recollect—referring doubtless to the small-pox and measels which raged throughout the territory some 35 or 40 years ago. He, being a small child, was reserved by the Americans taken to the States, where he had grown up, ever mindful of his native country, and anxious to return to his own people. He told the Indians that he took particular notice of the letters of the Dr. and myself, from this country, told them that some of these letters spoke of this vast country every way desirable for settlements, its healthy climate, its rich soil, the bands of horses. Some of the letters calld for poisons by which we could sweep off the Indians, and make way for the Americans. In accordance with this request, he said, several bottles of poison had been brought over by the last emigration, which had caused many deaths among the immigrants, and was the cause of the sore sickness and frequent deaths among the Indians, and would soon kill them all if the Dr. and his lady and myself were not removd. This I receivd from Stikas in his lodge 24 hours after the butchery had taken place.