Authors: Anna Lee Waldo
The U.S. soldiers become acquainted with the Luisena and Digger Indians that had lived at or near the mission since the Spanish occupation in 1795. These Indians were coerced into serving as slaves for the Spanish and built the first adobe buildings of the mission. By 1822 the Franciscans were in charge of the mission. The Padres encouraged the Indian men to continue raising grain, grapes, figs, olives, and oranges, tending thousands of head of cattle, sheep, along with goats, pigs, horses, and mules. All the food and livestock raised belonged to the Franciscans. The Indian women were encouraged to weave the wool, use dyes, and sew for the mission personnel. They were so adept at pottery making that most of their products were used in the kitchens of the mission. The Indians were not abused by the Franciscans as they were under the Spanish, but they still often went hungry and died young of pneumonia andtuberculosis. In exchange for their hard labor, they were closely disciplined into a submissive mode of behavior. The Padres baptized them, married them, and buried them.
14
Suddenly in 1826 the Indians were proclaimed Mexican citizens. As such, they had no obligations to the Franciscans. They were given title to small plots of land, but they floundered and were not able to live as a group without an authority figure. There were no leaders among the Indians because such assertiveness had been drilled out during all the years of being slaves to the Spanish and subservient to the Padres. The Indians had become lazy and fought among themselves, using their meager Spanish reals to buy whiskey.
The Indians were even more perplexed when the U.S. military took over the mission in 1846. At first the soldiers looked down on these sickly, destitute people. However, they were given medical treatment whenever they asked for it. Gradually the Indian men began working around the army camp—feeding, watering, and caring for the horses and livestock. Then some worked in the fields and orchards. The women worked as housekeepers, cooks, laundresses, and seamstresses. All the Indian workers were paid for their labors in cash or in livestock or other foodstuffs. This was dignified treatment they had never experienced before. The old people appreciated this unusual freedom and security and began to practice traditional customs and hold religious festivities. The young people mixed the old ways with the Christianity they had learned from the Franciscans.
Jean Baptiste understood these people. The poor Digger Indians were related in language and cultural practices with the Shoshoni, so that he could talk with them, and through the Diggers he was able to communicate with the Luisena people. He understood their need for tribal cohesiveness and a sense of identity. He began a school for the children. In November of 1847 Jean Baptiste was given a release from his civilian guide obligation to the military so that he could take an appointment as Alcalde at the San Luis Rey Mission. This meant that he acted as a kind of mayor, justice of the peace, and magistrate for the Indian community. At the same time, a friend of Jean Baptiste’s, Captain Hunter, was ap-pointed by Kearny to be the Sub-Indian Agent for this Southern District. Jean Baptiste and Captain Hunter worked well together on behalf of the Indians.
Another year went by, and Jean Baptiste was more than content with the work he was doing in his school and with the Indian people. He was certain he was bringing about a healthy understanding between the Indians and the soldiers. Thus, he was taken completely by surprise when he learned that he was implicated with an Indian rebellion. It was a false accusation. He had no previous knowledge of unrest at the Mission of San Luis Rey. Nonetheless, he was forced to resign.
15
Porter wrote that Baptiste resigned as Alcalde “because of white dissatisfaction arising from his policy of treating the Indians too kindly.”
16
As the Alcalde, Jean Baptiste wrote an order on April 24th, 1848, which stated that “a fair settlement” for an account of $51.37½, owed by an Indian to the general store and dram shop owner, Don Jose Aut. Pico, could be worked off at the rate of 12½ cents a day.
17
Anderson pointed out that this also may have been a reason for Jean Baptiste’s resignation. Jean Baptiste was obligated to sentence these people to slavery if they worked for only 12
½
cents a day to pay a debt, since the debt became greater all the time if there was a wife and children to support. A man like Jean Baptiste, with integrity, high principles, and moral convictions, would resign.
18
On July 24, 1848, the Civil Governor of California, Richard B. Mason, received a report from Colonel J. D. Stevenson, who was Commander of the South Military District. The report stated that Jean Baptiste Charbonneau had nothing to do with the planned uprising, but being “a half-breed Indian of the U.S. is regarded by the people as favoring the Indians more than he should do, and hence there is much complaint against him.” Stevenson went on to suggest that the expenses of Jean Baptiste’s office be paid from the Civil Fund because “Alcaldes are not paid.” Jean Baptiste’s friend, Captain Hunter, put in his resignation at this time. He was given a six months’ leave of absence.
19
Jean Baptiste and Captain Hunter went prospecting for gold together in the Sacramento Valley. Jim Beckwourth and Tom Buckner found the two on the banksof the Middle Fork of the American River, a place known as Murderer’s Bar, panning for gold.
20
The 1860 U.S. Census of Placer County, California, listed: J. B. Charbonneau, male, age 57, born in Missouri, P.O., Secret Ravine. Secret Ravine was ten miles from the town of Auburn, California. In 1861 the Directory of Placer County listed a John B. Charbonneau as a clerk in the Orleans Hotel, at Auburn.
Five years later on the editorial page of the
Placer Herald,
Auburn, California, for July
7,
1866 was the following article:
J. B. Charbonneau—Death of a California Pioneer.
—We are informed by Mr. Dana Perkins, that he has received a letter announcing the death of J. B. Charbonneau, who left this country some weeks ago, with two companions, for Montana Territory. The letter is from one of the party, who says Mr. C. was taken sick with mountain fever, on the Owyhee, and died after a short illness.Mr. Charbonneau was known to most of the pioneer citizens of this region of country, being himself one of the first adventurers (into the territory now known as Placer County) upon the discovery of gold; where he has remained with little intermission until his recent departure for the new gold field, Montana, which, strangely enough, was the land of his birth, whither he was returning in the evening of life, to spend the few remaining days that he felt was in store for him.
Mr. Charbonneau was born in the western wilds, and grew up a hunter, trapper, and pioneer, among that class of men of which Bridger, Beckwourth, and other noted trappers of the woods were the representatives. He was born in the country of the Crow Indians—his father being a Canadian Frenchman, and his mother a half breed of the Crow tribe. He had, however, better opportunities than most of the rough spirits, who followed the calling of trapper, as when a young man he went to Europe and spent several years, where he learned to speak, as well as write several languages. At the breaking out of the
Mexican War he was on the frontiers, and upon the organization of the Mormon Battalion he was engaged as a guide and came with them to California.
Subsequently upon the discovery of gold, he, in company with Jim Beckwourth, came upon the North Fork of the American River, and for a time it is said were mining partners.
Our acquaintance with Charbonneau dates back to ‘52, when we found him a resident of this county, where he has continued to reside almost continuously since—having given up frontier life. The reported discoveries of gold in Montana, and the rapid peopling of the Territory excited the imagination of the old trapper, and he determined to return to the scenes of his youth. Though strong of purpose, the weight of years was too much for the hardships of the trip undertaken, and he now sleeps alone by the bright waters of the Owyhee.
Our information is very meager of the history of the deceased—a fact we much regret, as he was of a class that for years lived among stirring and eventful scenes.
The old man, on departing for Montana, gave us a call, and said he was going to leave California, probably for good, as he was about returning to familiar scenes. We felt then as if we met him for the last time.
Mr. Charbonneau was of pleasant manners, intelligent, well read in the topics of the day, and was generally esteemed in the community in which he lived, as a good meaning and inoffensive man.”
A
report of Jean Baptiste’s death also appeared in the
Butte Record
of Oroville, California, July 14,1866. The
Owyhee Avalanche
in Ruby City, Idaho, June 2,1866, stated:
Died.
—We have received a note (don’t know who from) dated May 16, ‘66, requesting the publication of the following:At Inskip’s Ranche, Cow Creek, in Jordan Valley, J. B. Charbonneau aged sixty-three years—of pneumonia. Was born at St. Louis, Mo.; one of theoldest trappers and pioneers; he piloted the Mormon Brigade through the Lower Mexico in ‘46; came to California in ‘49, and has resided since that time mostly in Placer County; was en route to Montana.”
Reprinted by permission of the publishers, The Arthur H. Clark Company, from
The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West
, edited by LeRoy R. Hafen, with “Jean Baptiste Charbonneau,” by Ann W. Hafen, Vol. I, 1965, p. 205.
Gertrude Inskeep Ropp of Yakima, Washington, pointed out in 1980 that the Inskeep (Inskip) Stage Station, the old Ruby Ranch and home, is located at the mouth of Cow Creek and Jordan Creek, near Danner, Oregon. Mrs. Ropp’s grandfather, Oliver Wilton Inskeep, owned the Stage Station, ranch, and home in Jordan Valley. Even today there are wagon wheel marks where the original toll road ran from Ruby City, Idaho, to Winnemucca, Nevada. Danner, which used to be called Ruby City, is three miles north of U.S. 95 and fifteen miles west of Jordan Valley, Malheur County, Oregon.
21
In 1966 Chris Moore wrote:
Local legends tell of a half breed, presumably Charbonneau, and two soldiers and two children being buried there, all before the turn of the century…. Probably Charbonneau’s grave is the earliest of the five as the station was established in 1865…. It was rescued from complete oblivion several years ago by S. K. Skinner, a Jordan Valley rancher, who stopped a county roadgrader as it was plowing into the west end of the graves. He and his wife have done considerable research locating Charbonneau’s grave and hope to see it suitably marked and protected before it is completely obliterated.
22The Danner burial ground lies next to the Inskip Station fortification, stagecoach stables, rock corrals, and a rock-enclosed well.
23There was a wooden marker, put in place by local schoolchildren, indicating the grave believed to be Jean Baptiste Charbonneau’s. It was carved with the words: “Charbonneau—RIP—Baptiste, Son of Sacajawea 1805–66.” Nearby was another large sign erected by the Jordan Valley, Oregon, Commercial Club. This wooden marker read:
Grave of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, February 11, 1805
Born to Sacajawea and Toussaint Charbonneau Interpreters for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Guide, Trapper, Miner, World Traveler, Scholar, and Politician. In the Spring of 1866 he set out for the mines of Montana, contracted pneumonia and died here, Inskip’s Ranch, May 16, 1866.
J. V. Commercial Club
24
On August 17, 1971, a large wooden board became the Jean Baptiste Charbonneau Monument and Marker. William Clark Adreon of St. Louis, the great, great grandson of William Clark, was the dedication speaker on this Inskip site. The legend on the marker is:
Oregon History
Jean Baptiste Charbonneau
1805–1866
This site marks the final resting place of the youngest member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Born to Sacajawea and Toussaint Charbonneau at Fort Mandan (North Dakota) on February 11, 1805. Baptiste and his mother symbolized the peaceful nature of the “Corps of Discovery.” Educated by Captain William Clark at St. Louis, Baptiste at age 18, traveled to Europe where he spent six years, becoming fluent in English, German, French and Spanish. Returning to America in 1829. He ranged the far west for nearly four decades, as mountain man, guide, interpreter, magistrate and forty-niner. In 1866, he left the California gold fields for a new strike in Montana, contracted pneumonia enroute, reached “Inskip’s Ranche,” here, and died on May 16, 1866.
25
S
acajawea was more than seventy-five winters. Her skin was dark, dry, and wrinkled. She seemed shapeless beneath her smoke-stained leather tunic. She was like the shale behind her tepee, the thinly stratified structure eroded by weather and pushed earthward with slumping. The many snows weighed heavily on her back, and when she walked, she was like a three-legged horse, pushing along first with her burled cedar stick to steady her thin legs, all bone and hide.
She visited from one tepee to another, from one village to another, and inside Fort Bridger. She gossiped with Shoshoni women, Bannock women, once in a while with an Arapaho woman who did not recognize her as an enemy. The women exchanged wit and wisdom. She was known by all. Many a frantic mother came to her tepee flap in the dark of the night begging for some healing herb or ointment for a sick child. Chief Washakie came to smoke silently with her and consult on important matters, such as the white men building roads into the Shoshoni land or what to do with the Shoshoni men who hunted the white men’s cattle as if they were buffalo in the valley.