The hydraulic press., 1859-05-07
The Aydraalie 2ress.
B. p. AVERY. EDITOR.
A Plea for the Poor Diggers.


We have been repeatedly shocked of late
at meeting a paragraph which briefly re-
cords the fact, that the people of Tehama
county, or portion Of them-let US hope a
small portion-having suffered much from
the depredations of Indians upon their stock,
have hired men to hunt them like wild ami
mails, paying these valiant warriors GER
tain amount for each scalp obtained, or on pre-
sentation of some other satisfactory evidence
that they have performed their sanguinary
agreement The -blooded inhumanity of
this proceeding mi ght well shock every person
in whose breast there fingers the smallest
sense of justice or a single spark Of manly
feeling. But it is excelled in atrocity by a
recent occurrence which is published by the
Red Bluff Beacon. A party of citizens went
from Antelope in pursuit of Indians who had
stolen a number of horses from that vicinity
Upon discovering the Indians an indiscrm-
mate slaughter began, fourteen of the mis-
erable creatures being killed, and nearly all of
these ,cere ,romen and children, only one chuck"
being killed and two wounded. The Beacon
is not willing to believe that such bastard
ly massacre of the innocent and helpless was
knowingly committed but hopes it was rather
the result of some accident, or of the impos-
discerning the difference between men and
women. If nothing similar had occurred in
California before, we might think it was not
Intentional; but it is not the first time that
the wretehed Diggers have been the victims
of wanton butchery. Ever since the first
rush of gold-seckers to the State, the poor
Indians have deen subject to just such bar
barous treatment. Because, after being
driven from their pleasant villages on the
banks of rivers and deprived of their fish
and game, they would sometimes retaliate by
stealing stock, they have been repeatedly
attacked, their huts and winters supply of
acorns and seeds consumed by fire, the wo-
men and children shot down before their
eyes and themselves either slain or forced to
flee further into the mountains, there to
starve or drag out a miserable existence amid
strange and uncongenial scenes. The mas
sacrc chronicled so Indignantly by the Bea-
was at least the result of criminal careless
ness. Just heaven! Think of Americans
butchering women and children! and that, too,
in retaliation for the theft of few horses!
Is there no protection for thesepoor wretches,
who were once lords Of the soil which we
now rcddcn with their blood and strew with
the ashes of their homes? Who gives their
destroyers authority to pursue and extermi-
nate? Shall the power of the State be cx-
deaf ear turned to the cries of our own alb
origines? In our opinion the men of Teha-
ma have no right, legal or otherwise, to punish
Indian thieves as they have done, whether
they slay women and children or not. The
weakness and degradation of the California
Indian afford no justification for such bru-
tality, but constitute the best reason why it
should not be permitted. If the same exer-
tions that are made to punish-that is, to
kill the Indians, were directed to collecting
them andplacing them on reservations, cattle
stealing would be efficiently stopped, and
the reputation of the State saved from a
damning disgrace. AS long as the Indians
are at large they will steal, whether periodi-
cally punished by fire and steel or not, be-
cause compelled to it by their necessities.
Beside bloody determination of them there
is, then, no alternative but to gather them
all upon the reservations, and maintain
sufficient force to keep them there. Better
this, at any cost, than constant repetition
of such dastardly acts as we have condem-
ned above.