Note 203 — JOURNAL OF TRAVELS OVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS (continued 4)

For this fort see our volume xxi, p. 278, note 73. The chief of the Wallawalla was Peupeumoxmox, or Yellow Serpent. He early came under missionary influence, and sent one of his sons to the Willamette to be educated under Methodist influences. This young man was christened Elijah Hedding, for a bishop of the church. He remained with the missionaries for over six years and acquired a command of English. In the autumn of 1844 a number of Cayuse, Nez Percé, and Wallawalla chiefs decided to visit the California settlements in order to trade for cattle. From Sutter's fort they made a raid into the interior, capturing some horses from a band of thieves. These animals were claimed by the Spanish and American settlers while the Indians maintained that they were their own property. In the course of the dispute Elijah was shot and killed. The Oregon Indians were greatly exasperated by this incident, threatening to raise a war-party against California, or to make reprisal upon any or all whites. The affair was quieted by the Hudson's Bay agent and the missionaries, but was undoubtedly one of the causes of the Whitman massacre. Yellow Serpent took no part in this latter event, but was active in the war of 1855, in which he perished while a hostage in the hands of the whites.

John Augustus Sutter was a German-Swiss born in 1803. After serving in the Franco-Swiss guards (1823-24) he came to America (1834) and embarked in the Santa Fé trade (1835-37). In 1838 he started for California, going via Oregon, the Sandwich Islands, and Alaska. Arriving in San Francisco Bay (1839) he secured from the Mexican government a concession on the Sacramento River, where he built a fort (1842-44) and named his possessions New Helvetia. In 1841 Sutter bought the Russian establishment known as Ross (see our volume xviii, p. 283, note 121), whose materials he used in fitting up his own fort. Sutter was friendly to the American cause, and received emigrants with hospitality. He aided Frémont in the revolt against Mexican authority. In 1848 gold was discovered upon his property. He profited but little by this event, however, and became so poor that he was pensioned by the California legislature. About 1865 he went East to live, dying in Washington, D. C., in 1880. H. H. Bancroft secured from Sutter, by means of interviews, a detailed narrative of his career, and the manuscript is now in the Bancroft Library, purchased for the University of California in November 1905.—Ed.