may use it, but it is ours. You make the rails, but we want some of them.”
Captain Jack’s people recalled the understanding on the day of peace-making. The quarrel grew warm, and Agent Knapp was appealed to, by Captain Jack, to settle the difficulties. This was one of the turning-points of a history that is reeking with blood.
Capt. Knapp was an army officer who had been assigned to duty as Indian agent. That he was a brave soldier, and had made a good record, is beyond question. In his official dealings with the Indians he was honest, I doubt not. He is the only agent that has ever had charge of Captain Jack’s band since the fall of 1864.
Captain Jack and his friends have published to the world that they were starved and cheated by Government agents while on Klamath Reservation in 1870.
I believe the assertion wholly unfounded. Agent Knapp came to the work having no heart in it; no knowledge of the Indian character; no faith in them or their manhood; no ambition to elevate them. It is not to be wondered at that he took but little pains with them beyond seeing that rations were issued,—which I believe was done promptly.
The position was unsought and undesirable, and one he wished to vacate. Had Capt. Knapp been every way qualified for this duty; had his experience given him knowledge of Indian character; had he sought the position, or been selected for it on account of his fitness for this kind of labor, and had his heart been in it; had he been fired with an ambition to do good, by elevating a poor, unfortunate race,—he would have exercised more patience when appealed to by
Captain Jack in February, 1870, for redress; he would have prevented all these bloody chapters in Indian history.
Had Agent Knapp promptly interfered, tempering his action with justice, by punishing Link-river Jack for annoying the Modocs, then the Modoc rebellion would have been prevented.
When Captain Jack appealed to Agent Knapp, the latter refused to admit Jack within his office, heard his complaints impatiently, and sent him away with orders to “go on with his work;” “that he would make it all right.”
Jack returned to his home, and, naturally enough, the quarrel was renewed. The Link-river Klamaths, having received neither reprimand nor punishment, were emboldened, and became more overbearing than before.