The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1873-05-01
The Indian Question.

To the Editor of the Standard:
A few days ago the General of the Uni
ted States Army telegraphed Gen. Gil
lem: "You will be fully justified in their
utter determination" This was in refer
ence to the Modoc Indians. Why was
electricity called into requisition to
hasten the promulgation of this Draco-
nian order? The press tell US that four
or five ignorant barbarians, called Digger
Indians, had treacherously murdered
Gen. Candy and DR.. Thomas.
l believe in capital punishment, and
in the law as given to Noah. "Whoso-
ever sheddeth mans blood, by man shall
his blood be shed; for in the image of
God made he man.
And the cowardly perpetrators of the
perfdious murder of Candy and Thomas
ought, in my judgment, to be hanged as
high as Haman. But are these filthy,
lazy, lizzard-eating Digger Indians the
only murderers we have in our land? If
so, we should be exceedingly thankful
In the New York Tribune of March, 1870,
[ read the following, and l have never
seen it contradicted, and therefore take
it to be true: About the year 1880, a
white trader near Council Bluff finding
himself cheated in fur trade by some
Pawnees, loaded horse with the clothes
of a man who had died of the smallpox
his way rejoicing Two or three months
afterwards Col. Dougherty (the famous
Indian agent for so many years beyond
the Mississippi) with his troop visited
this village for the purpose of making the
annual settlement For miles along the
prairie scattered human bones were
bleaching in the hot August sun; as he
came nearer the bodies swelled and pu-
trefying, of the more recentsYictims were
lxr 81 IL 80
water courses, where the poor wretches
had crept in their agony of thirst. In
the village itself there was the silence of
death. Out of thirty villages visited by
Dougherty that summer only two had es-
capped. Naturally q massacre of the
whites followed the next winter; and
again of course this was succeeded by
still more bloody slaughter of the Indi-
ans by the Government troops"
| In the winter of 1870 and 1871 we had
a massacre of the Piegan Indians by Col.
Baker in which age nor sex were spared.
| But why enumerate instances, nine-tenths
of our Indian difficulties are brought
about by the acts and conduct of unprin-
cipled white men, for gain or revenge.
| There may be grain of truth in the sus-
| picions of the correspondent that sus-
pected Capt. Jack of being three-fourths
white. The Indian is proverbially treach-
cEOuS. EOlAb nave We IOb u1OG MIN Will
his own weapon2 / have no hesitation
in saying that if all the cruelties commit
ted by the barbarians and heathenish In
dian, were gathered and put into the
scale with those committed upon him by
his pale-faced brother, that the Indians
would instantly kick the beam. 1t is
true that the Indian scalps his victim;
but has not his straight dark hair dan
gled as trophy at the waist of the white
roan2 tho Snl1iapS 0f fbio
much boasted Christian country taken
the red mans scalp? Has not his squaw
and pappoose been stabbed and strangled
by those wearing the uniform of the
United States? We raise means and
send the missionary to spread the gospel
and religion among the heathens OF other
lands, and to mildly stay the Hindoo
mother from casting her infant into the
waves of the Sacred River" but when
the heather of our own country commits
murder, the hue and cry is raised for
the utter determination of the whole
tribe, old and young, male and female.
the innocent as well as the guilty; and
the cry goes over the land that the peace
policy" of the Government is failure, as
regards the Indians.
We for generations prosecuted one
race among us, and had to wash away the
stain with the blood of nearly half mill,
ion of our fellow-citizens. Ought we not
to learn something by experience2 If
nations sin will not the punishment fol-
low?
A few. days ago at Grant Parish, La,
occurred o massacre in which over one
hundred mon were murdered. The per-
petrators of this wholesale murder were
white men. The murderers in this case
ought to be punished, and that with or
by the extreme penalty of the law But
who would justify the ''utter extermina-
tion" Of the white race Of Grant Parish,