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The Washington Historical Quarterly


                               VOLUME V.
                                 1914

                       THE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
                       STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

                      UNIVERSITY STATION

                     SEATTLE, WASHINGTON




The Washington Historical Quarterly


                           Board of Editors

  CLARENCE B. BAGLEY, Seattle.
  W. D. LYMAN, Walla Walla.
  J. N. BOWMAN, Seattle.
  T. C. ELLIOTT, Walla Walla.
  FRANK A. GOLDER, Pullman.
  CEYLON S. KINGSTON, Cheney.
  EDWARD MCMAHON, Seattle.
  THOMAS W. PROSCH, Seattle.
  OLIVER H. RICHARDSON, Seattle.
  O. B. SPERLIN, Tacoma.
  E. O. S. SCHOLEFIELD, Victoria, B. C.
  ALLEN WEIR, Olympia.

                            Managing Editor

                            EDMOND S. MEANY

                           Business Manager

                           CHARLES W. SMITH

                      VOL V, NO. 1 JANUARY, 1914

                        _ISSUED QUARTERLY_




Contents


  CLARENCE B. BAGLEY           George Wilkes                           3
  LEWIS H. ST. JOHN            The Present Status and Probable
                               Future of the Indians of Puget
                               Sound                                  12
  THOMAS W. PROSCH             The Pioneer Dead of 1913               22
  W. J. TRIMBLE                American and British Treatment of
                               the Indians in the Pacific
                               Northwest                              32
  DOCUMENTS--An Indignation Meeting Over Chief Leschi                 55
  BOOK REVIEWS                                                        57
  NEWS DEPARTMENT                                                     66
  NORTHWESTERN HISTORY SYLLABUS                                       69
  REPRINT DEPARTMENT--George Wilkes: History of Oregon, Geographical,
       Geological, and Political (New York, Colyer, 1845)             72

                       THE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
                       STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

                      UNIVERSITY STATION

                          SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  Entered at the Post-office at Seattle as second-class mail matter.


                       The Washington University
                       State Historical Society

       *       *       *       *       *

                    Officers and Board of Trustees:

  CLARENCE B. BAGLEY, President
  JUDGE JOHN P. HOYT, Vice-President
  JUDGE ROGER S. GREENE, Treasurer
  PROFESSOR EDMOND S. MEANY, Secretary
  JUDGE CORNELIUS H. HANFORD
  JUDGE THOMAS BURKE
  SAMUEL HILL

             PRINTING DEPARTMENT UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

                  _Vol. V. No. 1 January, 1914_


                                  The
                    Washington Historical Quarterly




GEORGE WILKES


The republication of George Wilkes' History of Oregon, begun in the
Quarterly in October, 1906, is completed in the present issue.

In several ways the book or pamphlet is of much historical importance.
It was prepared by a journalist rather than a historian, and with
a sincere desire to give accurate information regarding the Oregon
Country and the best means of getting there, and without expectation of
gain in its publication.

At a time when railroads and railroading were in their infancy, Mr.
Wilkes was among the first to realize the importance of long and
connecting lines of rail communication, and so far as I have been
able to ascertain was the first to publicly advocate the building of
a line from the Atlantic to the Pacific by the National Government.
He argued against land grants or subsidies to private individuals or
corporations. The government ownership of the proposed road was the
central idea of part I of the book. It was published in New York in
1845. In 1847 he published another pamphlet entitled "Proposal for a
National Rail-Road to the Pacific Ocean, for the Purpose of Obtaining a
Short Route to Oregon and the Indies." The latter repeated many of the
arguments of the earlier work, in fact had little new material. Both
are exceedingly scarce at the present day.

In the preface to the book, Wilkes says: "The second part of the work
consists of a journal, prepared from a series of letters, written by
a gentleman now in Oregon, who himself accompanied the celebrated
emigrating expedition of 1843. They make no pretensions in their
style, but are merely simple, conversational epistles, which in their
familiar, offhand way, furnish a large amount of useful practical
information to the emigrant, and much interesting matter to the general
reader. The author has done scarcely more to this portion than to
throw it into chapters, and to strike from it such historical and
geographical statistics as had been drawn from other sources, and
arranged in the preceding portions of the work. These letters fell into
his hands after the adoption and commencement