New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-08-25


were supplied with converts by sending
dragons into the mountains to assoc the free
heather. Yet notwithstanding this treatment,
that even to the unthinking mind" OF saw
ace mist have seemed inconsistent with the
larger truths of that Christianity delivered to
him in the same breath, il was his first and
only resistance to the Caucasian rule. Per
hans after the secularization OF the Missions he
was better treated-but we hear no more OF
"Indan outrages" He was once more pitla-
BILE and passive.
Then came the American occupation.
Brought for the first time face to face Win
that race with whom, on the authority OF
modern statesmen, he was to wage an IRE
pressible conflict he exhibited only those
passive virtues which in pioneer community
are provocative of only contempt The hand-
full of Americans scattered In remote anu
strange valleys were entirely ut MS mercy
He could at any time have overpowered them
by numbers; he could have cut oil their sup
plies. But we find him aiding and assisting
them, opening communications with weather.
beleaguered camps, sharing his scant stores with
| them, content to remain pensioner on their
rare bounty in the way of cast-off garments
casian which the South Western frontier Pc
culiarly develops-who believes thaC the
" only good Indian is dead one" was not
above availing himself OF Dlggers living
wife or sister for the comforts OIL domesticity
| and the rearing of halt-Dreeu chiiuren'
During these few years when the White popu-
lation was small and comparatively defenseless,
| there were no Indian Outrages. Ills greatest
offense was petty larceny or drunkenness.
| How he was treated-what offenses were COM
mitted against him, beyond the passive ignor-
ing of his primal rights, has not been recorded.
| There was no Digger newspaper, no Digger
representative in legislative councils. lie did
not even at that time come under the stern
surveillance of the military. Near the more
| civilized centers, and in the larger camps
made up of Eastern immigrants, he Jared bet
| ter. In the outlying camps, and along the
mountain trails he was brought into familiar
| contact with backwOodsmen, trained in
religious belief in the doctrine of extermina-
ton, with desperate men of all classes, care
less of any rights that could not be enforced
with the revolver. 1t was from these men
that he gathered his first idea of benefcent
civilization and the manifest destiny OF the
Anglo-Saxon race, as indicated by disease and
alcohol. He was shot at from the trails by
the passing teamster or poacher who wished
TO try the range of his new rifle. He was
burned out of his rancheria to furnish
amusement for languid and ennuyes miners
Nobody was ever tried for any criminal
offense to Digger no coroners jury ever
sat on his stabbed, hacked, scalped, or bull
shattered body.
And then, as in the old Mission days, he re-
taliated There is some crudeness in Indian
equity, but on the whole it is more passlonless
and less liable to error in detail than Lynch law
When good man" is killed by the whites
Digger Justice demands not the murderers
life, but the sacrifice of some equally " good !"
white man to the names OF the departed. Inc
practice of this theory gave that gratultous
and heartless aspect to all Indian retaliation,
which was the foundation for the belief IN
Indian total deprayity. The murderers on
either side were never brought to legal ac-
count each took the law in their own hands;
all alterations even those dignified by the
title of Indian wars, were reprisais and ven
dettas. The uDlucky savage's experience OF
Western civilization was limited between
the pointed revolver Of a frontiersman IN
camp and the bayonet of the soldier on the
reservation. In these ARRAYS the whtes'w
prominently distinguished for ferocity and
indiscriminate slaughter But whatever side
was guilty of the greater atrocities, the
central fact of this miserable business re-
mains that attack and reprisal were in all
cases lawless, vindictive, ungOvernable, and
utterly Ineffective to any permanent good.
That there is something radically wrong in
legislatiOn--or a want of it-that thus
allows a harmless, passive, degraded imbecile
to develop into an active fend, which slowly
but systematically incites an inferior and sub
iected race to revolt, nobody will deny, what
| ever opinion he may have of any peculiar
policy. But that there is something radically
| wrong in the apathy of thirty millions of in
telligent people regarding this fact, is equally
incontestible and infinitely more grievous. 1t
| Is scarcely three months since the country was
| thrilled by the attitude of handful of misera-
| bic creatures in the Lava Beds and the public
| press was loud in suggestion, advice, and
| criticism. Now the death sentence of Captain
Jack Will scarcely avail TO rouse for moment
| the dormant interest of the public. So
| far as public sentiment is concerned the
| entire Indian question was settled with the
| capture of this armed ragamuftin and his half
starved followers. 1t is not probable that
until another grotesquely- terrible revolution
takes place the public mind will awaken
again to grapple feebly with this problem
that holds the lives and destiny of so many
created beings in its solution. 1t is not
political question, but moral and Christian
one. 1t is possible that in the eyes of an ALI
Seeing Creator the churches of this goodly
I nd hoxyo mia 10 f,a H. flo.,