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 assassins fled. Although there was immense excitement throughout the country when this outrage was committed, and a hundred men assembled to bury Dick 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 Dick 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 unsurpassed 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.