The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1862-12-05
"Alas /! Poor Indian !"

For some months the country has been excl
te by tales of Indian outrages in Minnesota
men shot down--women violated and led in
to captivity, and children tomahawked! The
terrible outrages of the early Indian wars ap-
peared to be reenacting. Many journals advo-
Gated the same remedy that the abolitionists
would apply to the rebclion-exterminatio
Abolition journals with their constitutional APP
petite for falsehood at once found the cause
of this Indian outbreak in the Vaccinations of
the nsecessionists!" Some did not believe this,
but notwithstanding it was generally received
as the cause of the fiendish acts of the savages.
II now turns out to be all mistake, this war
like all other wars has two sides, and that the
thieying propensitics Of the appointees of this
administration was the real cause!
We find in the Pittsburg Gasette, an impor-
tant communication from q reliable western
writer He gives the true reason OF t.is saw
age war which has depopuated a considerable
portion of prosperous young State. Let the
reader study the picture-count the cost OF
blood and treasure and put it down in the debt
or column of this administration.
But, alas, / find, upon close scrutiny, that
the foundation for the trouble lies upon far
different kind of political formation, and that
the Southern rebellion has just as much to do
with the Indian war as the mud at the State
Fmr grounds at Chicago, last fall, had to do
with the price of putty in Boston 'What,"
YOU ask i.then, is the cause2" will answer
it in as few words as possible--oishonesty--
most barefaced and u,mitgated dishoneSty-on tie
part Of the Indian agents IN the transaction Of
Mei,, business affairs. This, 1 know, is sweep
ing charge, but wilTprove it to the satisfaction
of the most doubling Thomas in Christendom.
Yon may be aware that the Sioux Indians, as
well as the North Western tribes, have a trea-'
ty with the government by which the 'Great
Father Samuel agrees to pay them, certain
sums of money, called 'annuities," and further,
the Great Father Samuel agrees to pay these
annuities in silver and gold. The Great Faith
er, Uncle Samuel, has always sent some Of his
white children with the spondulicks promptly
to the usual place of payment, to keep his faith
with his red children. Indeed he did so this
year. The Indian agents received their gold
and silver coin during the first week in June,
while there was not the least prospect of an out
break. But Just then s'legal tenders" went
down and gold went up, and the delectable ag'
ent, with an eye to the main chance, conceived
the happy thought of selling the ''yellow boys
and the red skins both at the same time. The
gold was bartered off for ''green backs" with
which they sought to make the payments. But
the dodge didn't work with the aborigines.--
They knew the difference between white and
yellow, and big and little, and between light and
heavy; but as between ''demand" and 'legal
TENDER" ''safety fund.- and ''wild-cat" they
were as ignorant as female tropicanians are of
IL g hou
had some idea of the uses of metals, but to
them all paper was alike, and only fit for gun
wads.. Of course they refused to be paid in a.
nything else. than, that which was properly their
due. The agents argued witt, them, explained