The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1870-04-05
Using the Army to stop Gold-Mining.

Among American gold-miners, from Frazer
River to San Diego, there is q fixed belief
that the portion of the continent richest in
gold, and most accessible to the pick, the
pan, and the arastra, is the Wind River noun.
tains. They have been prospected and
some of the adventurous men who took their
lives there with their outfits survived the
peril, came out with their hair, and at innu-
merable camp fires have told the tale which
has kindled.a fever of desire aud Of curiosity
wherever in the United States the color of
gold is seen. These mountains flank a por.
ton of the hunting grounds of the Sioux
and Cheyennes. They contain no game on
which the Indians subsist. They are merely
the park walls Of these red gentlemen's
hunting parks. Some white men in Wyo-
ming, being poor but Industrious, propose to
get TO the top Of these walls and pick for
gold. Brevet Major-Gen C. c. AUGUR says
they shant do Il. He has written to Gov
CAMPBELL Of Wyoming Territory that he has
received orders "to inform the parties con.
cerned that the Government Will not permit
its treaty obligations with the Indians to be
violated, and to advise them to abandon
their purpose, and In any event TO see that
this expedition does not 60"
A treaty between the people of the United
States and q tribe of Plain Indians which
gives to the latter the right to exclude
American citizens FROM the gold in the Rocky
Mountains cannot, in the nature of things,
have any sanction among a mining popula-
ton. The reasonablcness Of treaty with
bufialo.eating Indians fencing in for their
exclusive occupation by meridiars of longi.
tuded and parallels of latitude q portion Of
the buffalo range, would be understood by
all men, and the treaty would be observed by
most But the treaty obligations which
Gen. AUGUR speaks of would seem to indi.
cate compact by our Government with a
band of savages that the gold and silver in
the Wind River mountains shall not be taken
out for the commerce Of the world. II is a
compact that q considerable section of the
United States shall remain unexplored and
unknown toits Government and its people.
1t is compact that tho Wind River chain
shall exist as an obstruction to American
travel and commerce. For what is this com.
pact madef
1t is made TO enable a tribe of Indians to
keep preserve of wild game unscared by
white men. 1t is made to enable the males
of race which abhors agriculture, and
would sooner starve than plough and hoe,
to gorge on bufalo-hump and elk.rib; to
sleep, to dance, to paint their faces to
hutter the scalps of white women and men
taken on the emigrant trails; to Drag of the
horses they have stolen, and the enemies
they have surprised in sleep, or slain in I'M
equal battle; to overwork and beat their
women and again to gorge and again to
sleep
The common law makes contracts void
for repugnance. Bear in mind that the
Sioux and Cheyennes are Plain Indians,
as distinguished from Thickwood Indians
They never walk. They always ride They
never climb mountain save TO look off upon
a plain for game or for foe. In winter
only they camp among the foothills for
shelter from the winds. Their lives are
passed on grass. They live on the tanks of
the columns OF bufaloes in their ranges from
the Arkansas to the Saskatchewan. Grant
ing for moment that they have right to
live this life against the right of civilization
to permanently occupy the soil, are the Wind
River mountains essential TO that mode of
life 2 Eight hundred miners in Cheyenne
say they are not essential, and they are
going to march for those mountains with
mining outfits and seven hundred and fifty
rounds of ammunition per man. They do not
mean TO interfere with the Indians hunting
parks, but only to look for gold in the noun.
tains, where the Indians do not CO. 1t would
not surprise us to see Gen. GRANT make
the mistake of using soldiers to stop these
people. If were possible to teach him
political truth. we would say to him that that