When our party was at “Independence Rock,” in 1850, and no Indians had disturbed the passing travellers, near where we were then, we “laid over” a day, and within the time a man came into camp and boasted that he had “knocked over a buck at a distance of a hundred yards,” and when the query was made as to the whereabouts of his game he produced a bloody scalp. He gave as an excuse that the Indians had frightened an antelope he was trying to kill, and that he shot the Indian while the latter was endeavoring to get away. Is it unreasonable to suppose that the friends of the murdered Indian, when he came not to the lodge at nightfall, would hunt him up, and that, when his brother or friend saw his scalpless head, he should avow to avenge his death?
Doubtless he did avenge both himself and his tribe, and he may have slain many innocent persons in retaliation for this foul deed.
As to the cause of the Indian troubles on the
Humbolt river, during the summer of 1850, I know nothing. Probably they originated in some lawless act similar to the one above described. In September following I loaned a rifle to a miner who was going out on a prospecting tour. On his return he proposed to buy it, saying that “it was a good one, he knew, because he tried it on an Indian, shooting from one bluff to another; and,” said this civilized white man, “I dropped him into the river, and he went where all good Injuns go.”
Later in the season two friendly Indians came into the town of “Bidwell’s Bar,” and, although no evidence was produced against them, they were arrested on “general principles,” it was said; and while threats were made of hanging them on “general principles” too, better counsels prevailed, and they were placed in charge of a guard, who were to convey them to “Long’s Bar,” and turn them over to the sheriff to be held for trial.
The guard returned in a short time, and reported that the prisoners had “slipped down a bank and were drowned.” It was, however, understood that they were killed by the guard “to save expense.” Following this accident several white men were murdered by Indians, it was said, although the murdered men, it was evident, had met death through other instrumentality than bows and arrows.
A company was raised to go out and punish the offenders. On their return they reported grand success in finding Indian rancheros, and in the wholesale butchery they had committed. Do you wonder that twenty or thirty white men were riddled with arrows within a short time, after such manly conduct, by the brave butchers of Indian women and children?
I have not at hand the data from which to mention in detail the various Indian wars that harassed the miners of California. Suffice it that they were of frequent occurrence, and, indeed, continued until the mountain bands of Indians were broken up. If the truth could be heard from the lips of both the living and the dead, we should hear many things unpleasant to the ears of white men as well as Indians, and, perhaps, discreditable to both. I doubt not such revelation would support the declaration I here make,—that bad white men have always been the instigators of the bloody deeds through which so many innocent persons have passed on to the other life.
The proofs are not wanting in almost every instance in support of this statement. That the Indian is vindictive, is true; that he is brave, cunning, and inhuman to his enemies is also true; but that he is faithful to his compacts, whenever fairly dealt with, is not less true.