Warm Springs Agency, Oregon.
HON. A. B. Meacham:—
My dear Sir,—Believing that the work you contemplate publishing is designed to teach the minds of men the capability of the Indian race to be morally, religiously and socially advanced; and having had the experience of a residence of some seven years among the confederate tribes and bands of Middle Oregon, as agent; and further believing that I have in some degree mastered the great problem of their civilization, I willingly contribute anything that may serve to give your readers a correct idea of the progress they have really made; and they are still going forward.
It will be necessary to go back to the time I first came among them. A more degraded set of beings I am sure did not exist on the earth, nor was the condition of most of the Indians on this coast much better.
The mind of man would not conceive that human beings could get so low in the scale of humanity as they were; and I am sure, if they had been left to the instincts of their own wild and savage natures, they could never have been so low down as they were.
God’s holy Sabbath was set apart as a day of licentiousness and debauchery. Drinking and gambling had become common. Their women were universally unchaste, and were taught to believe that lewdness was a commendable practice, or even a virtue.
Diseases and death were entailed on their posterity. The men had to submit at the point of the bayonet; the consequence was, the Indians had lost all confidence in the honesty and integrity of white men.
This state of affairs was principally owing to the military being brought into close proximity to them. Some of the officers had built houses, and were living with Indian women.
After I came here (the military having been removed previously) the Snake Indians commenced making raids on the Reservation.
I was asked “if I wished the military to protect us.” I answered, “No.” I preferred the raids of the Snake Indians to the presence of the soldiers; for I doubted if I would be able in twenty years to wipe out the evidences of the military having been amongst them; and I am sorry to say, that the agents and employés set over them to teach them had also contributed largely to their degradation.