The Indian.
We reprint the following from the N. Y. Tribune, as giving the best and most consecutive account of the reported outbreaks among the Indians of Oregon, Washington Territory and Idaho, which we have been able to find. It ascribes the origin of the difficulty to the lack and scantiness of appropriations for the Indian Service. We do not vouch for the exactness of the report. It accords with the dispatches received from day to day:
The last report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs shows that the savage tribes of Idaho and Eastern Oregon, which are taking part, more or less, in the present war, number about 7,400 souls. They are capable of sending into the field 2,500 warriors; and the telegraph dispatches, printed above, indicate that about that number of savages have already joined the two great war parties which are menacing the settlements of that region, and with which a heavy battle may be fought any day now by the troops under command of General Howard. The census of the tribes is as follows:
| Fort Hall Agency | Bannocks, Shoshones | 1,507 |
| Lemhi Agency | Sheepeaters, Bannocks, Shoshones | 940 |
| Idaho Indians, not under an agent | Pend d’Oreilles, Kootenais | 600 |
| Grande Ronde Agency | 819 | |
| Malhewr Agency | Piutes, Snakes | 759 |
| Umatilla Agency | Walla-Wallas, Cayuses, Umatillas | 849 |
| Roving Indians on the Columbia, renegades, etc. | 2,000 | |
The Indians at these agencies have been kept in a state of constant agitation for more than a year by the singular delay of Congress in making appropriations for the Indian service, and by the scantiness of the appropriations when made. For the Malhewr Agency in Oregon, the Indians of which have gone to war, the appropriation was $50,000 in 1873, and $40,000 for the two successive years; but in 1876 it was reduced to $25,000, and in 1877 to $20,000. The agent begged that if Congress intended to persist in this course it would build a saw and grist-mill for the Indians, but it was not done. At the Fort Hall and Lemhi Agency in Idaho, where the present uprising began, the Indians were nearly starved by the government. About 500 had to leave Fort Hall to hunt up a subsistence for themselves; and last May the agent at Lemhi was studying how to remove the band to a new location, to protect it from the government. The outbreak on the part of the Nez Percès, a year ago, did not affect these Indians at the time. They all remained quiet and loyal, but they have had their own troubles since, and have grown impatient at the failure of the government to feed them.
The present outbreak began the latter part of May, when Buffalo Horn, a noted scout, took out 200 Bannocks, and camped in the lava beds between Big Camas Prairie and Snake River, in the southern part of Idaho. The news of this rising spread over Idaho and Eastern Oregon very quickly, and, in a fortnight’s time, all the Indians of that region were in a state of excitement, and began raiding the valleys and driving off and killing stock by the hundred head. The United States troops in that region consisted of a few companies of cavalry and infantry, scattered about the two territories at the military posts. This was an insufficient protection, and the citizens of Boise City, in Idaho, Walla-Walla, in Oregon, Camp Harney and elsewhere, formed themselves into volunteer companies for active operations. About June 1, Colonel Bernard, with seventy cavalry and twenty citizens, started on a forced march to Big Camas Prairie. The Indians did not await them there, but began moving westward along Idaho River in straggling bands, dining off the stock and killing occasional settlers on the march. Howard sent orders at once to Bernard to return, which he did, pursuing the Bannocks into the Owyhee country in the southeast corner of Oregon. One incident of this movement on the part of the Indians was a fight between seventeen citizens and about 100 Indians, about June 6, in which two volunteers and eight Indians were killed.
A concentration of Indians took place in Southeastern Oregon, and, on June 23, Bernard came upon a camp of them 1,500 strong. He had only 200 men, but he surprised the camp, routed it and chased the band for ten miles. A large number of Indians were killed. Bernard lost four killed and three wounded. The savages retreated to Stein’s Mountain. General Howard arrived on the field after the fight, with Miles and Downey, having marched forty-five miles a day to catch up with Bernard. From Stein’s Mountain the Indians moved northward toward Camp Harney and Canyon City. They attacked neither place, but concentrated on John Day River, where they are in camp, 1,500 strong, according to the dispatches printed above.
The other band of hostile Indians is on what is called Camas Prairie, north of the Salmon river, in Central Idaho, the scene of the outbreak by Joseph’s band of Nez Percès last year. The dispatches just received state that this party is composed chiefly of Snakes, and is about 1,000 strong.
The Klamaths at the agency in Southwestern Oregon began to commit depredations about June 25. The band then numbered about 800.
—Some of those most intelligent in Indian affairs believe that a general Indian war is an impossibility, unless the General Government shall adopt some strangely unwise and hostile policy. Even then the various tribes would not unite, but fight independently, so much stronger are their mutual antipathies and feuds than their hatred of the whites.