The Indian, however, if detected in unlawful acts, was sure of punishment under the law, no matter though he may have been incited to the deed by whiskey he had bought of white men, who vended it in violation of law. This commerce in whiskey was carried on extensively, notwithstanding the efforts of a very efficient agent to prevent it.
Men have started out on “Walker’s line,” carrying their blankets, and in a day or two they would be well mounted, without resorting to a “rope” or money to purchase with, and obtain the horses honestly too; that is to say, when they practised self-denial, and did not empty the bottles they had concealed in their packs. One bottle of whiskey would persuade an Indian to dismount, and allow the sore-footed, honest miner, who carried the bottle, to ride, no matter though the
horse may have belonged to other parties. I have heard men boast that they were “riding a bottle,” meaning the horse that bore them along had cost that sum.
Such things were common, and could not be prevented. Young “Black Hawk” learned how to speak English, and make brick, and various other arts, through the kindness of the Superintendent of the State’s Prison. These things he might never have known, but for the foresight of some fellow who disliked the fare on “Walker’s” line.
The question is asked, “What was the agent doing?” He was doing his duty as well as he could, with the limited powers he possessed. But when he sought to arrest the white men who were violators of the laws of the United States, he was always met with the common prejudices against Indian testimony, and found himself defeated. But, when he was appealed to for protection against Indian depredations, he found sympathy and support, and few instances occurred where guilty Indians escaped just punishment.
I knew the agent well, and doubted not his sense of justice in his efforts to maintain peace.—If he did not mete out even-handed justice in all matters of dispute between white men and Indians, the fault was not his, but rather that of public sentiment. When colored men were “niggers,” the Indian “had no rights that white men were bound to respect.”
He who proclaimed against the unjust administration of law so unfavorable to the Indians, in courts where white men and Indians were parties, was denounced as a fanatical sentimentalist, and placed in the
same category with “Wendell Phillips” and “Old John Brown,” whose names, in former times, were used to deride and frighten honest-thinking people from the expression of sentiments of justice and right.
I wish here to record that, although we did a large amount of business with white men and Indians, we never had occasion to complain of the latter for stealing, running off stock, or failing to perform, according to agreement, to the letter, even in matters left to their own sense of honor.
On one occasion, “Cascas,” a Reservation Indian, who was under contract to deliver, once in ten days, at Lee’s Encampment, ten head of yearlings, of specified size and quality, as per sample, at the time of making the bargain, brought nine of the kind agreed upon and one inferior animal. Before driving them into the corral, he rode up to the house, and calling me, pointed to the small yearling, saying that was “no good;” that he could not find “good ones” enough that morning to fill the contract, but if I would let the “Ten-as-moose-moose”—small steer—go in, next time, he would drive up a “Hi-as-moose-moose”—big steer—in place of an ordinary yearling. If I was unwilling to take the small one, he would drive him back, and bring one that would be up to the standard.