The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-04-17

The reported massacre of a large number of
Indians, who were encamped at various points
around Humboldt Bay, demands the prompt at
tention of the Government. 1t is said that these
unfortunate and unoffending people were set upon
by different bands of white men, on the morning
of the 25h Of February, and murdered whilst
sleeping in imagined security Men, women and
children shared the same miserable fate and the
atroclous affair is rendered, if possible, still more
dlsgraceful by the fact that two of the camps
whose inmates were thus butchered, we're pitched
within mile Of fort garrsoned by our soldiers
We should be glad to find some excuse for doubt
ing the truth of this story, but as it seems to be
well authenticated, and rs we have been furnished
by unimpeachable witnesses, with the details of
similar occurrences happening within few
years rast in the same part of the
country, we cannot refuse credence to this
last report. 1t is of course impossible to
magnify the enormity of this crime, or the inElmy
OF It's authors, and we presume it to be scarcely
necessary for any one to urge upon the authorities
within whose jurisdiction this bloody deed was
committed, the duty of sparing neither expense
time nor trouble in bringing its perpetrators to JUS
to mete out retributon to the guilty parties in
this particular instance. Provision must be made
for the protection of the Indians in the future
or we will before long be called on to
blush for further outrages like those with
which the inhabitants of the Pacific coast
are already unhappily familiar. 1t is an inds-
putable fact that the killing of an Indian, is
regarded by the frontier settlers of California and
of Oregon and Washington Territories as an
affair of little moment. Careless of his own
life, the backwoodsman holds that of the
aboriginal owner of his Clearing" to be of inf
Intestinal Importance. He can "wipe OUT as he
terms it, red-sllin-papoose, squaw or warrior
with less conjunction than he sometimes mani
tests at the needless killing of buffalo calf or an
unweaned iawn. There is not the slightest ex-
aggeration in this statement. There is hardly an
officer of our army who has been stationed for
any length of time at the outlying posts in the
western wilderness, who cannot call to mind one
or more butcheres perpetrated in the neighbor-
hood by white men; or who has not heard some
hardened ruffian coolly boast of the murders he
had deliberately committed. The Indian who has
revenged a real or fanced wrong by taking the
life of a settler, is instantly demanded for trial.
and if the Chief demurs to his surrender it is en-
forced by squadron of dragons. Scant Justice
is accorded the unfortunate wretch, when his
civilized foes sit in judgment him, and
he ia pretty sure of a short shrift and a
speedy ending. But for the white hunter who
returns to his cabin with reeking scalp dangling
at bis belt, there is very different greeting. His
companions admire and emulate his proves, and
the tribe which should venture to demand his
punishment would be put off with eyasive answers,
if its complaint was not altogether disregarded.
The wrongs the red-men endure are many and
grevous' though they bear them, for the most part,
silently We hear of them from time to time,
and dismiss them with brief expression of dis
appreciation But the press records continually
some fresh Indian outrage against the neonle nm
our frontiers, and rings with clamorous anneals
from the latter for redress or revenge. There was