Part 61 (2/2)

You will find that notwithstanding the Indian has made compacts under such circ.u.mstances as have alienated his home and the graves of his fathers, he has been almost always true and faithful to his agreements, until justified by _his_ ethics, in abandoning them on account of the _breach_ by the _other party_ to the compact.

You will find that a few bad white men, who have always swung out in the van of advancing immigration, and have without commission or authority represented the white race socially, have offered the Indian the vices, and not the virtues, of Christian civilization; and when the facts are known, you will find that these few bad white men have been the real instruments of blood and treachery, nearly always escaping unpunished, while the brave and enterprising frontiersman has unjustly borne the stigma and censure of mankind; if, surviving the tomahawk and scalping-knife, he has stood up in defence of a home, to which his government invited him.

As I proposed in the outset to _confine_ myself to facts of personal knowledge, or those well authenticated from other sources, and to write of the Indians of the North-west, and of Oregon especially, I leave it to others to review the history of other portions of the country, and, in pursuance of my own plan, I beg to introduce a witness to sustain the a.s.sertion, that civilization has refused the Indian admission on equal terms with other races,--a witness who was born and raised on the frontier line; whose whole life has been spent in Oregon; one whose statement will not be questioned where he is known,--Captain Oliver C. Applegate, who has given me, on paper, a few of the many incidents coming under his own personal observation, which he has in times past related to me around camp-fires in the wild region of the lake country of Oregon.

SWAN LAKE, OREGON, Sept. 10, 1873.

Hon. A. B. MEACHAM:--

_Dear Friend_,... A Klik-a-tat Indian, named d.i.c.k Johnson, came to my father's house in the Willamette valley, and worked for him on his farm, prior to the year 1850. In that year my father removed to the Umpqua valley, and soon after d.i.c.k Johnson, with his wife (an Umpqua), and mother and step-father, called the ”Old Mummy,” followed up and asked permission to cultivate a small portion of my father's farm. This they were allowed to do.

They cultivated these few acres in good style, and found time to labor for father and other farmers, for which they received good remuneration.

In 1852, d.i.c.k Johnson, under the encouragement of my father, Uncle Jesse, and other friends, took up a claim in a beautiful little valley about ten miles from Yoncalla, where my people resided. This place was so environed by hills that it was thought the whites would not molest d.i.c.k there. Aided by the old man and his brother-in-law, Klik-a-tat Jim, who came from the upper country to join him, d.i.c.k improved his farm in good style, built good houses and out-buildings, and fenced hundreds of acres. He was frugal, enterprising and industrious, and emulated the better white people in every way possible, and was so successful in his farming enterprises that he outstripped many of his white neighbors. His character was above reproach, and, beside sending his little brother to school, he was always seen with his family at church on the Sabbath day.

Unfortunately, there were greedy, avaricious white men living in the vicinity of d.i.c.k Johnson, who coveted his well-improved little farm. Eight of them--disguised--went to his place late one afternoon, and found d.i.c.k chopping wood in the front yard.

They shot him in cold blood, and, as his lifeless body fell across the log on which he was chopping, his step-father ran from the house unarmed, and was shot also. The women, after being beat over the heads with guns and revolvers, finally made their escape to the woods, and took refuge under the roof of a friendly neighbor.

Klik-a-tat Jim--who came from mill about the time the old man was shot--was fired on several times, some bullets cutting his clothing, but, jumping into his house at a window, he got his gun, and the cowardly a.s.sa.s.sins fled. Although there was immense excitement throughout the country when this outrage was committed, and a hundred men a.s.sembled to bury d.i.c.k Johnson and the old man like white men, as they deserved, an ineffectual attempt was made to bring the offenders to justice, and _they actually lived for years upon the farm, enjoying the benefits of poor d.i.c.k Johnson's labor_. Our laws then scarcely recognized the fact that the Indian had any rights that were worthy of respect, and this most atrocious crime had to go unpunished, thus encouraging the Columbia Indians to greater desperation under Old Kam-i-a-kin, in the war of 1866-1867. Well it would be, for the good name of the American people, if we could point to but one isolated case of this kind; but truth and candor compel us to admit, that too many Indian wars have been occasioned by the greed and ruffianism of our own race.

Many years ago, during the first Modoc war, the Klamaths say that a band of Modocs was pursued by troops from the Modoc country, out by Yainax, and to the vicinity of Silver lake, where the Modocs managed to elude their pursuers. The troops (probably a detachment of Gen. Crosby's California Volunteers), not liking to be foiled in their efforts to take a few scalps, returned by Klamath marsh, Williamson river, and Big Klamath lake, butchering in cold blood several unresisting Klamaths.

Even this did not occasion trouble with the Klamaths, many of whom tried to incite the nation to a war of revenge....

Ever truly yours,

(Signed) O. C. APPLEGATE.

To sustain the declaration that the Indian has been overmatched and outwitted in treaty council, I propose to introduce a witness whose long life on the frontier qualifies him to speak; whose great talents, and intimate acquaintance with the politics and wants of the North-west, secured him a seat for six years in the Senate of the United States, and who is now (1874) a member of Congress; one who was also a Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Oregon, and knows whereof he speaks. I refer to Hon.

James W. Nesmith. In his official report for the year 1857, page 321 Commissioners' Report, he says:--

My own observation in relation to the treaties which have been made in Oregon leads me to the conclusion that in most instances the Indians have not received a fair compensation for the rights which they have relinquished to the Government.

It is too often the case in such negotiations that the agents of the Government are over-anxious to drive a close bargain; and when an aggregate amount is mentioned, it appears large, without taking into consideration that the Indians, in the sale and surrender of their country, are surrendering all their means of obtaining a living; and when the small annuities come to be divided throughout the tribe, it exhibits but a pitiful and meagre sum for the supply of their individual wants. The Indians, receiving so little for the great surrender which they have made, begin to conclude that they have been defrauded; they become dissatisfied, and finally resort to arms, in the vain hope of regaining their lost rights, and the Government expends millions in the prosecution of a war which might have been entirely avoided by a little more liberality in their dealings with a people who have no very correct notions of the value of money or property. A notable instance of this kind is exhibited in the treaty of September 10, 1853, with the Rogue-river Indians. That tribe has diminished more than one-half in numbers since the execution of the treaty referred to. They, however, number at present nine hundred and nine souls.

The country which they ceded embraces nearly the whole of the valuable portion of the Rogue-river valley, embracing a country unsurpa.s.sed in the fertility of its soil and value of its gold mines; and the compensation which those nine hundred and nine people now living receive for this valuable cession is forty thousand dollars, in sixteen equal annual instalments of two thousand five hundred dollars each, a fraction over two dollars and fifty cents per annum to a person, which is the entire means provided for their clothing and sustenance.

When those Indians look back to the valuable country which they have sold, abounding, as it does, with fish and game and rich gold fields, it is but natural that they should conclude that the $2.50 per annum was a poor compensation for the rights they relinquished. It is true that the Government can congratulate itself upon the excellence of its bargains, while the millions of dollars subsequently spent in subduing those people have failed to convince them that they have been fairly dealt with.

Even the treaties which have been made remain, with but few exceptions, unratified, and of the few that have been ratified but few have been fulfilled.

Those delays and disappointments, together with the unfulfilled promises which have been made to them, have had the effect to destroy their confidence in the veracity of the Government agents; and now, when new promises are made to them for the purpose of conciliating their friends.h.i.+p, they only regard them as an extension of a very long catalogue of falsehood already existing....

That the Indian has been overcome by power may be established by the fact, that in the treaty council of 1855, whereby ”_The Confederate Bands of Middle Oregon_” were compelled to accept Warm Springs Reservation as a home, by the threats and presence of an armed force of the Government.

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