Daily national Democrat., 1858-12-19
The Indian Reservations.

! ! PVh tHc hccls ol thls ruinOf, tnere comes al
announcement, by the Washington CORES
pondent of the Alta, to the effect that JOIN
Nugent will be appointed Indian Agent il
place of Col Henley, who is to be removed
for alleged extensive frauds The charges
against "the old war-horse," as lac used to
be called, are supported, it is said. by the
athdavits of respectable citizens. One
man" says the correspondent above alluded
to, "swears that he sold Henley eleven hun
dred dollars worth of material, for which he
was requested to sign a voucher in blank.
This voucher was afterwards filled up for
more than sir thousand dollars and presented
here for settlement We suppose that, if
such fraud has been committed in one in
stance, it has been committed in many more
Indeed, it has been whispered for sometime,
in certain sections of the State that large
contracts for beef supplied to the Reserva-
tions have been nothing more than vast
swindles upon the Government, the beef be.
ing furnished at one price and the Govern.
ment charged at another, the Federal officials
pocketing the difference. For instance, the
official agrees to pay the contractor ten thou
sand dollars fora certain amount of beef and
then charges the Government $4,000. He
pays the contractor his ten thousand and
pockets the balance. We say these things
have been whispered, but not having known
them to be true, we have refrained from
mentioning the existence Of the rumors, and
should not now do so had it not transpired
that such charges have been officially made
at Washington by parties authorized to in.
quire into the matter. 1t is quite customary
to intimate suspicious of the integrity of men
in lucrative and responsible positi, ms, and
too frequently serious injury is done to
mans reputation without sufficient cause or
just foundation. We hold it, therefore, to be
the duty of the press to be well satisfied of
the truth of such intimations before it so far
ventures upon the sanctity of private char
acter as to give them currency. The Atlas
remarks further:
The animal report from the Indian Office will
be made by General Denver, and its leading fea-
ture will be the exposure of the present bad man.
agement of our Indian matters on the Pacific
coast and more particularly in California. The
Government here is exceedingly dissatisfied at
the way in which things have been managed on
the California reservations. These reservations
were designed to be self supporting system, and
so they were in their beginning; but now they
have become vast teleemosynary establishments for
the support OF pets and paupers. Even hunters,
herdsmen, fishermen, and gUideS are employed
for the Indians and every imaginable expense in
CURED which could tend to swell the expense or
degrade the service. Such being the state of the
case, Secretary Thompson will 60 to the other ex-
treme and apply the knife rather deeply for the
good of the service. The reservations will not be
abandoned, but very large portion
Of the employees will be turned adrft.
So far as the turning any marauders upon the
public treasury adrift may be concerned, it is
right, but whether the total abolishment of
the Reservation system is the true policy is
we are inclined to think, very doubtful. No
other plan could be substituted that we can
now think of, that would work half so well.
In the event of closing out the Reservations,
the Government would be benecessitated either
% turn the Indians loose upon the country,
% become Struggling vagabonds beggars,
md petty depredators, or apportion each
indian certain amount of land, vesting in
lim the title, not transferable to any white
person, or, indeed, any other party, and go
forcing him to cultivate his ground or take
the chances of starving, if he did not choose
to work. This latter plan would undoubtcd-
!
ly be the cheapest that the Government could .
adopt, but it would fail in one important res
pect. The Indians would lack the superyi-
rory and compulsory care which they now
have on the Reservations, and would in the
great majority of cases, from disinclinaton
to work or ignorance of the manner in which |
to proceed, at once abandon their patches of
ground and take to tht ir strolling and vaga-
bond life or their horse and COW stealing
business in the mountains. This would oper-
ate greatly to the prejudice of the whites, for
they would not only be shut out from settling
the lots of land individually apportioned to
the Indians-as they are already shut out |
from settling the land included in the Res.
ervations-but they would lose all the bene.
fits now accruing from the keeping of the
Indians within their own limits and the pre-
vention of the usual depredations committed
upon property by these people when left to
themselves, to say nothing of the nuisance
and trouble in the cities and towns, and on
the ranches, of miserable, begging and pau
per population. The plan will not work,
and it is idle to talk of it. Were the Indians
more civilized, it would without doubt oper
ate admirably. In the course of time, after
thorough training upon the Reservations, it
is very likely that the present system might
safely be abandoned and the plan of ind.
yidual apportionment Of the sell be prudent
ly substituted
The fault, we opine, is one which is not
radical in the system itself, but entirely ow.
ing (if the charges against Mr.. Henley and
others be true,) to the want of an honest ad. |
of it. Put honest men in charge
of these Reservations, and give them an
honest Superintendent, and the Reservation
policy will fulfill all the expectations origi
nally entertained of it. The Reservations
can be made to furnish, by the labor of the
Indians, and proper economy, an ample sub
sistence for every man, woman and child !
ocated upon them, raising a sufficient sur
plus ; of staple agricultural products to
purchase all other articles, whether of food |
4 II