INDIAN AFFAIES. 359

expressing the sentiments and purposes of the mem bers, and to appoint a committee to draft a platform for the anti-slavery party, to be reported to an ad journed meeting to be held at Corvallis on the 31st of October. 27 This was the beginning of a move ment in which the Argus played an important part, and which resulted in the formation of the republican party of Oregon. It was the voice crying in the wilderness which prepared the way for the victory of free principles on the Northwest Coast, and secured to the original founders of the Oregon colony the entire absence of the shadow and blight of an insti tution which when they left their homes in the States the earliest immigrations determined to leave behind them forever. With regard, however, to the progress of the new party, before it had time to com plete a formal organization, events had occurred in Oregon of so absorbing a nature as to divert the public mind from its contemplation.

I have already spoken of the round of visits which Indian Superintendent Palmer made in 1854, about which time he concluded some treaties none of those made by Gaines ever having been ratified- -with the Indians of the Willamette Valley. 28 It was not until October that he was able to go to the Indians of south-

27 The committee were John Conner, B. F. Whitson, Thomas S. Kendall, Origen Thomson, arid J. P. Tate. Or. Argus, July 7, 1855. The members of this first anti-slavery meeting of Oregon were Origen Thomson, H. H. Hicklin, T. S. Kendall, Jno. K. McClure, Wm T. Baxter, Wilson BJain, Jno. McCoy, Samuel Hyde, W. L. Coon, Wm Marks, W. C. Hicklin, H. F. McCully, David Irwin, John Smith, Isaac Pest, J. VV. Stewart, G. W. Lam bert, J. B. Forsyth, J. M. McCall, John Conner, Thos Cannon, B. F. Whit- son, W. C. Johnson, Hezekiah Johnson, J. T. Craig, D. C. Hackley, S. R. McClelland, Robert A. Buck, Samuel Bell, J. P. Tate, U. H. Dunning. Alfred Wheeler, Samuel Colrer, D. H. Bodinn, W. C. Garwood, D. Beach, Charles Ferry, J. F. Thompson, Milton B. Starr. Or. Argus, July 7, 1855.

28 A treaty was made with the Tualatin band of Calapooyas for their land lying in Washington and Yamhill counties, for which they received $3, 300 in goods, money, and farm tools; also provisions for one year, and annuities of goods for twenty years, besides a tract of 40 acres to each family, two of which were to be ploughed and fenced, and a cabin erected upon it. Teach ers of farming, milling, blacksmithing, etc. , were to be furnished with manual- labor schools for the children. The provisions of all of Palmer s treaties were similar.