The Conquest: The True Story of Lewis and Clark

  XV

  _TOO GOOD TO THE INDIANS_

  Manuel Lisa had out-distanced all his competitors in the fur trade.But the voice of envy whispered, "Manuel must cheat the Government,and Manuel must cheat the Indians, otherwise Manuel could not bringdown every summer so many boats loaded with rich furs."

  "Good!" exclaimed Lisa to Governor Clark, when the fleets were tyingup at St. Louis in 1817. "My accounts with the Government will showwhether I receive anything out of which to cheat it."

  "I have not blamed you, Manuel," explained the Governor. "On thecontrary I have conveyed to the Government my high appreciation ofyour very great services in quieting the Indians of the Missouri. Itis not necessary to worry yourself with the talk of babblers who donot understand."

  "Cheat the Indians!" The Spaniard stamped the floor. "The respect andfriendship which they have for me, the security of my possessions inthe heart of their country, respond to this charge, and declare withvoices louder than the tongues of men that it cannot be true.

  "'But Manuel gets so much rich fur.'" Lisa ground out the words withscorn.

  "Well, I will explain how I get it. First I put into my operationsgreat activity,--I go a great distance, while some are consideringwhether they will start to-day or to-morrow. I impose upon myselfgreat privations,--ten months in a year I am buried in the forest, ata vast distance from my own house. I appear as the benefactor, and notas the pillager, of the Indians. I carried among them the seed of thelarge pumpkin, from which I have seen in their possession the fruitweighing one hundred and sixty pounds. Also the large bean, thepotato, the turnip, and these vegetables now make a great part oftheir subsistence. This year I have promised to carry the plough.Besides, my blacksmiths work incessantly for them, charging nothing. Ilend them traps, only demanding preference in their trade. Myestablishments are the refuge of the weak and of the old men no longerable to follow their lodges; and by these means I have acquired theconfidence and friendship of these nations, and the consequent choiceof their trade. These things I have done, and I propose to do more."

  In short, Manuel Lisa laid down his commission as sub-agent to embarkyet more deeply in the fur trade.

  "What is that noise at the river?"

  Ten thousand shrieking eagles and puffs of smoke arose from theyellow-brown Mississippi below. The entire population of St. Louis wasflocking to the river brink to greet the _General Pike_, the firststeamboat that ever came up to St. Louis. People rushed to the landingbut the Indians drew back in terror lest the monster should climb thebank and pursue them inland. Pell-mell into Clark's Council House theytumbled imploring protection.

  Never had St. Louis appeared so beautiful as when Julia and thechildren came into their new home in 1819. Clark, the Governor, hadbuilt a mansion, one of the finest in St. Louis. Wide verandas gave aview of the river, gardens of fruit and flowers bloomed.

  But Julia was ill.

  "Take her back to the Virginia mountains," said Dr. Farrar, the familyphysician. "St. Louis heats are too much for her."

  In dress suit, silk hat, and sword cane, Farrar was a notable figurein old St. Louis, riding night and day as far out as Boone's Lick,establishing a reputation that remains proverbial yet. He had marriedAnne Thruston, the daughter of Fanny.

  "Let her try a trip on the new steamboat," said the Doctor.

  So after her picture was painted by Chester Harding in that Spring of1819, Clark and Julia and the little boys, Meriwether Lewis, WilliamPreston, and George Rogers Hancock, set out for New Orleans in the"new-fangled steamboat."

  It was a long and dangerous trip; the river was encumbered with snags;every night they tied up to a tree.

  "Travel by night? Couldn't think of it! We'd be aground beforemorning!" said the Captain.

  Around by sea the Governor and his wife sailed by ship to Washington.

  "I will join you at the Sweet Springs," said President Monroe to theGovernor and his wife in Washington.

  "The Sweet Springs cure all my ills," said Dolly Madison atMontpelier.

  "She will recover at the Sweet Springs," said Jefferson at Monticello.

  But at the Sweet Springs Julia grew so ill they had to carry her on abed to Fotheringay.

  "Miss Judy done come home sick!" The servants wept.

  Something of a physician himself, Clark began the use of fumes of tarthrough a tube, and to the surprise of all "Miss Judy" rallied again.

  "As soon as I can leave her in safety I shall return to St. Louis,"wrote the Governor to friends at the Missouri capital.

  "If I should die," said Julia sweetly one day, "and you ever think ofmarrying again, consider my cousin Harriet."

  "Ah, but you will be well, my darling, when Spring comes."

  And she was better in the Spring, thinking of the new house at St.Louis. Julia was a very neat and careful housekeeper. Everything waskept under lock and key, she directed the servants herself, and wasthe light of a houseful of company. For the Governor's house was thecentre of hospitality,--never a noted man came that way, but, "I mustpay my respects to the Governor." Savants from over the sea came tolook at his Indian museum. General Clark had made the greatestcollection in the world, and had become an authority on Indianarchaeology.

  Governor Clark, too, was worried about affairs in St. Louis. Missouriwas just coming in as a State, and a new executive must be electedunder the Constitution.

  "Go," said Julia, "I shall be recovered soon now." Indeed, deceptiveroses were blooming in her cheeks.

  With many regrets and promises of a speedy return, Clark hastened backto his official duties. He found Missouri in the midst of a heatedcampaign, coming in as a State and electing a Governor. For sevenyears he had held the territorial office with honour.

  But a new candidate was before the people.

  "Governor Clark is too good to the Indians!" That was the chiefargument of the opposing faction. "He looks after their interests tothe disadvantage of the whites."

  "To the disadvantage of the whites? How can that be?" inquired hisfriends. "Did he not in the late war deal severely with the hostiletribes? And what do you say of the Osage lands? When hostilities beganPresident Madison ordered the settlers out of the Boone's Lick countryas invaders of Indian lands. What did the Governor do? Heremonstrated, he delayed the execution of those orders until they wererescinded, and the settlers were allowed to remain."

  "How could he do that?"

  "How? Why, he simply told the Indians those lands were included in theOsage treaty of 1808. He made that treaty, and he knew. No Indianobjected. They trusted Clark; his explanation was sufficient. And hismaps proved it."

  "Too good to the Indians! Too good to the Indians!" What Governorbefore ever lost his head on such a charge?

  At that moment, flying down the Ohio, came a swift messenger,--"Mrs.Clark is dead at Fotheringay."

  With the shock upon him, General Clark sent a card to the papers,notifying his fellow citizens of his loss, and of his necessaryabsence until the election was over. And with mingled dignity andsorrow he went back to Fotheringay to bury the beloved dead.

  Granny Molly, "Black Granny," who had laced "Miss Judy's" shoes andtied up her curls with a ribbon in the old Philadelphia days, neverleft her beloved mistress.

  A few days before "Miss Judy" went away, little Meriwether Lewis, theneleven years of age, came to her bedside with his curly hairdishevelled and his broad shirt collar tumbled.

  "Aunt Molly," said the mother, "watch my boy and keep him neat. He isso beautiful, Granny!"

  After her body was placed on two of the parlour chairs, Granny Mollynoticed a little dust on the waxed floor. "Miss Judy would be'stressed if she could see it." Away she ran, brought a mop, and hadit all right by the time the coffin came.

  Down on her knees scrubbing, scrubbing for the last time the floor for"Miss Judy," tears trickled down the ebony cheeks.

  "Po', po' Miss Judy. You's done gwine wid de angels."

  They laid her in the family tomb, overlooking the green v
alley of theRoanoke. Two weeks after her death, Colonel Hancock himself alsosuccumbed.

  To a double funeral the Governor came back. High on the hillside theylaid them, in a mausoleum excavated out of the solid rock.

  "De Cunnel, he done watch us out ob dat iron window up dah," said thedarkies. "He sits up dah in a stone chair so he can look down devalley and see his slaves at deir work."

  To this day the superstitious darkies will not pass his tomb.

  On his way to Washington, Governor Clark stopped again at Monticello.

  "Ah, the joyous activity of my grandfather!" exclaimed ThomasJefferson Randolph. "He mounts his horse early in the morning, cantersdown the mountain and across country to the site of the university.All day long he assists at the work. He has planned it, engagedworkmen, selected timber, bought bricks. He has sent to Italy forcarvers of stone."

  Out of those students flocking to consult Jefferson had grown theUniversity of Virginia. Books and professors were brought fromEngland, and the institution opened in 1825.

  Martha Jefferson's husband, Thomas Mann Randolph, was Governor ofVirginia now, but the sage of Monticello paid little attention. Allhis talk was of schools,--schools and colleges for Virginia.

  "Slavery in Missouri?" Clark broached the discussion that was ragingat the West.

  Instantly the sage of Monticello was attentive.

  "This momentous question, like a firebell in the night, awakened andfilled me with terror. It is the knell of the Union. Since Bunker Hillwe have never had so ominous a question." He who had said, "Pensacolaand Florida will come in good time," and, "I have ever looked on Cubaas the most interesting addition which could be made to our system ofStates," had corresponded with the Spanish minister concerning a canalthrough the isthmus, and sent Lewis and Clark to open up a road toAsia,--Jefferson, more than any other, had the vision of to-day.

  Governor Clark went on to Washington.

  Ramsay Crooks and Russell Farnham of the Astor expedition werequartered at the same hotel with Floyd of Virginia and Benton ofMissouri.

  Beside their whale-oil lamps they talked of Oregon. Benton was writingfor Oregon,--he made a noise in all the papers. John Floyd framed abill, the first for Oregon occupancy.

  Missouri was just coming in as a State. The moment Benton, her firstSenator, was seated, he flew to Floyd's support.

  "We must occupy the Columbia," said Benton. "Mere adventurers mayenter upon it as Aeneas entered upon the Tiber, and as our forefatherscame upon the Potomac, the Delaware, and the Hudson, and renew thephenomenon of individuals laying the foundation of future empire. Uponthe people of eastern Asia the establishment of a civilised power uponthe opposite coast of America cannot fail to produce great andwonderful results. Science, liberal principles, government, and thetrue religion, may cast their lights across the intervening sea. Thevalley of the Columbia may become the granary of China and Japan, andan outlet for their imprisoned and exuberant population."

  Staid Senators smiled and called Benton a dreamer, but he and Floydwere the prophets of to-day.

  For thirty years after Astor had been driven out, England and her furcompanies enriched themselves in Oregon waters. For thirty yearsBenton stood in his place and fought to save us Oregon. From thebedside of the dying Jefferson, and from the lips of the living Clark,he took up the great enterprise of an overland highway to India.

  When Governor Clark came sorrowing back to St. Louis with the littleboys, Missouri was a State and a new Governor sat in the chair, butthough governors came and governors went, the officer that had heldthe position through all the territorial days was always called"Governor" Clark. As United States superintendent of Indian affairsfor the West, Governor Clark now became practically autocrat of theredmen for life.

  "If you ever think of marrying again, consider my cousin Harriet."

  More than a year Governor Clark "considered," and then the most notedcitizen of St. Louis married the handsome widow Radford.

  "From Philadelphia she haf a wedding trousseau," said the vivaciousCreole girls, drinking tea in their wide verandas. "She haf de majestylook, like one queen."

  From the home of her brother, James Kennerly, the fun-loving Harrietof other years went to become the grave and dignified hostess in thehome of the ex-governor.