The New York herald., 1873-10-04


Indian Question Again Before the
World.
In the death of the four Modoc captives
upon the same gallows-tree o series of horrible
crimes has been expiated The execution at
Fort Klamath yesterday was tragedy as well
as an act of justice 1t brings before Ms vividly
the Indian question, which, if nations have
common, responsible soul, will meet us sat
compt" some time We may wiring Our hands
over the thought that as one race against
another, we have been of the robbers, murder
ers and depredators; our pitying humanity
may weep at the wrongs the red mans race
has suffered but neither tears nor
wringing of hands will avail aught
while the Indian, converted into
demon, defies civilization, and the land he
encumbers is wanted for the plough 1t is
useless to go back over the history which tells
in bloody chapters how, before the ever-reced-
ing West was cleared Of timber and
brush, that the blached plumes of the
Indian corn might dance and nod in
vast expanses, it was first necessary to
expel, to cajole, to exterminate the plumed
warriors who believed they held the forests
and the plains in fee simple from their God.
We may call it Manifest Destiny" the press
of progress, or what we please, when we wish
to apologize to our self-accusings but
it is Of oil things necessary to
recognize as fact that the Indian
has gone from the lands he once called his
and that he turns at bay in the lands
we send him to- The scene at Fort klamath
yesterday of q chief and his leading braves
strangled before the eyes Of thousand Of his
race is the result Of the unrest that rudely up
rooted associations with land and forest and
river create in a barbarian breast The ferocity
cunning and treachery which made the death Of
these Indian wretches small atonement for
the acts of their whole tribe, are facts in the
Indian character, as we have moulded it, and
not their sporadic exhibition in the lives OF a
few. 1t is the consciousness of this truth
which turns philanthropy into the condone-
ment of crime by praying pardon for what
ever offence an Indian may commit The
doctrine of cutter depravity, irresponsible for
its acts is the true formulation of what is in the
minds of the school Of Indian philanthropists
when they call the Indian "a child of nature.
They see only the gigantic wrong to the
Indian race, and are blind to the conscious
ness that the wronged are transformed into
living fends. They would let the Indians
tomahawk crash through the head Of the set
tier wife, and say that civilization had justified
the Indian. They stand with a piece of
frayed sentiment between the Indian muir
derer and justice, and they make forbear-
ance, which the Indian cannot understand, an
incentive in his mind to the committal of
additional crime. We wish all success TO q
peace policy which gives us peace, but we
cannot join in the cry for immunity to crime,
when punishment, swift and dire, is alone
what will hold the Indians hand.
It may be worth while recalling how
strangely the trouble grew which swelled into
the Modoc war. The Indians were ordered to
shift from Lost River, and they wanted to
to drive them out they went one morn
ing and murdered the settlers there. Then
the tribe fled to the fastness in the lava beds
and defed the troops sent out to reduce them.
Then overtures for peace were made, wherein
the few ragged Indians in the rocks were
treated gravely as war power by the United
States. The massacre of General Candy and
the Peace Commissioner, out of whatever we'll
spring of the Indian character it came, was, we
say, deliberately invited by the governmental
course. Possessed as it would seem, OF the
philanthropist's doctrine in part, and making
gave every encouragement to the belief of the
Modocs that they were masters Of the situa-
ton. We can now recall with sad smile the
proclamation following the murder Of Candy
and Thomas, which handed over the
Modocs to determination, root and branch.
At length the tribe, weakened by dissensions,
with characteristic treachery turned against it
SELF The Indians were all within the grasp of
the government, and the redoubtable Captain
Jack himself prisoner. The government, how
ever had long before relented, and when Gen.
eral Davis resolved to make suitable example
Of a dozen of the leading murderers his arm
was hastily stayed and trial instituted which
must have helped to make the white mans
justice still more ridiculous in the Indians
eyes, The trial was simply for the massacre
at the peace talk They were made to believe
that the murder of settlers, the shooting Of
soldiers, the robbery Of camps, were things
not carrying any penalty. With this light,
the proposition Of Captain Jack that Scar
faced Charley should be hanged in his stead
will not appear so ridiculous. They had both
equally shed the blood of the whites, and the
doomed chieftain could only wonder that dis
tinction was made, while Scar-faced Charley
will only chuckle in the cunning of his Indian
heart that the white man cannot see crime in
murder, except generals Of the army and