The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1859-01-01
50 90 A YEAR, IN ADVANCE.
Prom the Missouri Democrat.
THE INDIANS OF THE PLAINS.

l.7 Prom the Missouri Democrat. @z
THE INDIANS OF THE PLAiSA
At the distribution Of annuity goods to
the Cusanches, kowas and Apaches du-
ring the summer; the United States govern
mcnt furnished to those Indians, rs we are
advised, from six to eight hundred very su-
perior rifles. Upon receiving them the
tribes boasted that they would Herewith bs
enabled to s'rub out" tho white settlers Of
the Texan frontier and revenge their late
defeat in that quarter. That they will do
so, former experience does not permit Us
to question:; that they haze not done SO vet
can only result from u yigilant guard or
from fear Of troops stationed there 70 repress
incursion. But what scene does it present?
One department at Washington is increasing
its estimate to millions Of dollars to main
tain posts along the southern border, and
the other is assembling the savages at tho
center to thrust arms Of deadly half ounce
calibre into their murderous hands. Some.
time since, great complaint arose from the
military officers in command Of forts in the
interior at the custom prevailing in the In
dian Bureau of furnishing its agents With
the old fashioned. single barrella.l. a:.s-
lock, northwest guns, AS they were called,
for distribution along with the beads, bra =
verics and blankets stipulated. But in
controversy on this subject the agents re-
torted to the officers, that the guns were
far more likely to explode and kill the In
dians than to do any harm to objects at
which they were aimed, and sonc personal
knowledge Of the character Of the arms thus
distributed, enables Us to testify that the
agents were right and the officers wrong
They generally shot backwards, going off 4
by the way of the tube. But this matter of
supplying new American rifles to the most
hostile tribe of the Plains is a feature in the
Circumlocuton Office for which we were
not prepared, and which, but for unim-
peachable testimony, even now We could
scarcely credit. That weapon in the hands
Of the Indian soon becomes far more fatal
than the government rife in the hands OF
the soldier, and thus the war parties, which
before would flee the presence of well-arm-
ed immigrants OIL. detached bodies of troops,
feel themselves enabled both to ambush
them without fear, and to meet them in
open ground with sense Of decided supe-
riority. Nor is this all. As if it were not
enough to arm and equip these Arabs, who
scour the land from Arkansas to Chihua-
hua with their rowing commissioners Of
robbery, they must also forspoth be congre-
gated en- ,nasse upon the great line of con-
trail travel to New Mexico and the Pacific,
at the very season Of the year when misra-
ton stretches across the Great Plains
Not soldier is stationed along that line
from the Missouri to the lIuerfano-from
the Rocky Mountains to the western settle
ments. The distance is more than six
hundred miles, with no defences, no points
of safety, no retreat in case of pursuit or
surprise. The two forts that formerly ex-
listed there, one ut the Crossing, and ono
at Walnut creek, have both been broken
up and dismantled, without care for the
1t is the course, too, of tho
largest trade that fits out in the warehouses
of Independence or Kansas City, and with
the coming spring, thousands upon thou.
ands Of men will be trudging along there,
bound for the gold fields Of the far Vest
Yet it is on this important highway that all
these marauding savages are annually con-
gregated and kept in suspense for months
waiting for annuity goods, while helpless
travellers pay the penalty Of their III humor
or worse. We venture the assertion that
the average of extortlon committed by tho
Camanches alone on the trains last year
will exceed one hundred dollars each -
Sugar, coffee, tobacco, ammunition, what
ever they fancy they will have, and the
teamster is often glad to escape with o shirt
on his back. and the owner to avoid s,am-
pede of all his animals. Rob Roy never
levied black mail with more assurance than
90 these vagabond scoundrels-the pets of
the Department at Washington. At times,
too, they trespass even farther still-men
are murdered, children stolen, women in
suited and there is no help near. Shall VIZ
speak Of treaties? What do they care for
treaties, and can any old fogy in Office tell
the article of the treaty they have not vio-
lted over and over again? 1t is only n
stupid farce this thing of sending year after
year wagon loads Of pnehbeck and scarlet
tincry to propitiate their good will. On the
it renders them inSolrnt as the
receivers of tribute always are, and what is
worse gives them excuse for collecting where
they can turn their insolence to profitable
account BY plunderins all who pass. Wo
submit, therefore. in behalf Of the people Of
the West, who, more than all others are in
terested in this matter. that Government far
from putting the rife in their hands, shall
take measures at once to stop this bloody
practice: that instead Of eongregating them
upon the great central avenue to the Pacific,
it shall gather them elsewhere remote from
the line Of travel, and that it shall take ad
vance measures to patrol the Upper Arkan.
sas, the Canadian and the kaw rivers, with
movable columns that may give safety to
the vast migration which will pour nlooe
these routes at the FIRST green growth Of
grass in the spring. Let it collect the Kio-
was at Beaver Creek, the Apaches in New
Mexico, and the Camanches on the frontier
of Texas. Disperse, rather than unite these
predatory bands. There will be fever in
attendance and less to pay when thus COM
PEELED to take their annuties amongst those
from whom they now chiefly take their
scalps. 1t will put them under police, and
that, too, in the vicinity Of military posts
where they can be watched. II they must
be paid, pay them in detail, " guns must
be furnished let them have George Laws
old Inuskets, which ws believe never vet
did any harm to living mortal. And if tho
army is to be put en- roate upon tho Plains
to guard something, let the people who 90
for,hto build commonwealth that will
soon dispense with protection, and not the
obscene harens of Utah, or the election
precincts Of Kansas.
FIRST cot RrTN OHIO.
The FIRST civil court held in the North.
| west, wns that Of the Court Of Common
Pleas Of Washington county, at Marietta,
September I'd, 1888, by Rufus Putnam and
Benjamin upper, presiding Justices. The
court was opened with pomp. A process.