The mountains are partly covered with forests of pine and fir, valuable for commercial and building purposes. The streams are rapid, with bold shores, abounding in latent power, waiting for the time when labor and capital shall harness its cataracts to machinery, whose music will denote the transformation process going on in the forest of the mountain; the fleeces from the plain, and in the cereals they contain, in embryo, for better use than shading herds of cattle and Indian horses, or its fleeces made traffic for traders and shippers, who enrich themselves by taking them in bulk and returning in manufactured exchanges; or for its fields to lie dormant and idle, while commerce invites and starving people clamor for bread they might be made to yield.
True, its almost unbroken wilderness, echoing the call of cougar or cayote (ki-o-te); its tall grass plains, tangled and trembling with the tread of twenty thousand horses; its valleys decked with carpets of gorgeous flowers,—fit patterns for the costumes of those who dance thereon,—or speckled with baby farms, belonging to red-skinned ploughmen, or shaded by the smoke of council wigwams; its waters sometimes shouting, as if in pain, while hurrying headlong against the rock, or, laughing beneath the balm-wood trees at the gambols of its own people, or, divided into an hundred streams, go rushing on, still playing mirror for the smiling faces of the youths, whose hearts and actions take pattern after its own freedom; true, indeed, that this lovely spot of earth seems to have been the special handiwork of the Almighty,
who had withheld from other labors the choicest gems of beauty, that he might make a paradise, where youth could keep pace with passing years, until the change of happy hunting-grounds should be noted only by the wail of weeping widows, or sighs of sorrowing orphans.
’Twas to this Indian paradise that Homli returned from his summer visit, his heart laden with new feelings of pride; for he had been recognized as a man. If he did not then begin to enjoy the realization of his hopes, there were reasons why he did not that few have understood.
Born to a wild, free life, possessed of a country such as few over enjoy, with a channel of commerce traversing his home; brought in constant contact with white men, some of whom, at least, he found to be soulless adventurers, ever ready to take advantage of his ignorance of trade; confused and bewildered by the diversity of opinions on political and religious subjects; witnessing the living falsehood of much of civilized life; but half understanding the ambitions of his “new heart,” or the privilege he was entitled to; with the romance of his native education in matters of religion, its practical utility to satisfy his longings that reached into the future, or to meet the demands of conscience, where duty led him, or anger at insult drove him; the performance of its ceremonies, connecting social with religious rites,—added to these the power that his red brethren who were yet untouched by the finger of destiny, and were luxuriating in idle, careless life, enhanced by the sight of the hardened hands and sweating brows of those who sought to find admission to circles where labor insures
reward; confused when witnessing the enforcement of laws “that are supposed to be uniform in operation,” by the outrageous partiality shown; treated with coldness and distrust, because of his color; envied of his possessions, to which he had an inalienable right, by deed from God, and confirmed by the government of the United States; compelled to hear the constant coveting of others for it, and to hear government denounced because it did not rob him of his home; to see distrust in every action toward him; his manhood ignored, or crushed by cruel power; his faith shaken; treated as an alien, even in his birthplace; taunted with the threat that when he planted his feet on higher plains, he should be crowded off, or forced to stand tottering on the brink; his fears aroused by the threats he overheard of being finally driven away; of speculations on the future towns that should spring up over the graves of his fathers, when he was not there to defend them,—added to all these discouragements the oppressions of his would-be teachers, in moral ethics and religion; demanding his attendance on ceremonies that were intangible, incomprehensible, to his mind, made more unbearable by the tyranny of his red brethren, growing out of their recognition of church-membership, and the consequent arrogance, even contempt, with which they spoke of his religious habits and ceremonies; unable to reconcile the practices of these people with the precepts of their priest; ostracised from those, who, while untouched by the hand of Christianity, had mingled voice and prayer with him in wilder worship; finding friends among white men, whose hearts were true, but who, instead of soothing his troubled feelings by patiently
teaching him charity and liberal-minded views touching matters of religious practice of his Catholic friends and their ministers, would pile the fagots on the burning altar ’twixt him and them, increasing distrust, making the breach wider, thus becoming alienated from the other chiefs, How-lish-wam-po, of Cayuse, and We-nap-snoot, of the Umatillas, and those of their tribes who had been led, by ministrations of priest and chief, to the solemn masses of the church: if then Homli failed to be a “white man” in heart, on whom does the responsibility rest?
I have not dealt in fiction, but have stated the circumstance plainly, the truth of which will not be questioned by those whose personal knowledge qualifies them for passing judgment, unless, indeed, it be those whose minds have been trained to run in narrow, bigoted grooves, whose hearts have never felt the warming influences of the high and pure love for truth that characterizes a noble Christian manhood, and whose measure of right is made by the petty and selfish interest of himself, who, with the judgment of a truckling demagogue, barks for pay in popular applause or political reward.
For the present, I leave my readers to chide Homli for his failure, if, indeed, they can, with the facts before them. As to the responsibility, I shall discuss the subject fully and fearlessly on some future page of this work, where the argument for and against the several “policies” may be made and applied in a general way in the consideration of the subject of “Indian civilization.”