Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-08-18
GEN. HOWARD AND THE INDIANS.

A recent telegram announces the cheering
news that General Howard is pressing the
Indians, Three days in their rear his fiery
troops with winged speed are following up the
blood thirsty savages That is pressing them
with vengence. He may get close enough
before winter sets in to fire upon them, but
it is extremely doubtful unless the Indians
should sit down and wait for him to come up.
In two pitched battles these Indian armies
have been victorious. Have boldly challenged
and put to flight and killed the flower of the
troops sent against them. Last Summer
General Custer with his command were
wiped out and not single man left to tell
the story of their butchery, and in yesterdays
dispatches we read that 8 commission has
been appointed by the United States. Govern
ment to make a treaty with Sitting Bull for
his return to the reservation with his tribe
1t is found that the advent of these hostile
Sioux into Canada may make the Northeastern
Indians fercely Jealous and that they might
make war upon sitting Bull and his band and
hence this commission 10 invite him back to
have no sympathy with any such a milk and
water policy in our dealings with the Indians
While we believe In most instances these
Indian outrages are instigated in the first
instance by the dishonesty of the whites III
their dealings with them, still when they have
been guilty of crimes deserving punishment,
we do not believe in bringing them back upon
reservations, dressing their wounds, filling
their stomachs with rations, replacing their
clothes and blankets worn out and lost in
good condition for another fray. 1t is Justice
to the living as well as to the dead that these
guilty sayages be hunted to death. But in
order to do this it is necessary to adopt
different style of tactics in pressing them
thsn those Of General Howard, three days in
their rear. For all the good that kind Of
Indian fighting does he might just well be
with his troops on the other side of the CON
tinent Howard has been led long crooked
march of several hundred miles in his search
after this Nez Perez chief Joseph. He has at
last gotten within three days Of his rear. But
Joseph has stolen back across the mountains
after whipping Gibbon and is now nearer the
Lapevia reservation than when he started.
There is something radically wrong in our
Indian policy. 1t certainly is not the fault
o. the men who have brayed the dangers and
lost their lives in their efforts to overcome
the Indians, but it is in the conduct Of the
government iii compromising with them before
they have been punished, and putting them
back upon reservations to be robbed and
instigated to the performance of new outrages
by dishonest agents. We do not believe that
these Indians can ever be civilized. The n
Y. Herald expresses very clearly the cause of
the troubles when it says:
We are all pretending to civiIize the In
dams, but they are not getting civilized. The |
government officially declares them the |
wards of the nation" and then it suffers |
rascals to cheat them and other rascals TO sell |
them arms and ammunition, and it appoints |
totally incompetent men to be their guardians |
while they are getting swindled, and keeps |
an army to shoot them if they get tired of |
work and break out This is practical des- |
cription OF the celebrated peace policy under |
which the Modocs mutinied because they |
''got tired of eating horse" and Sitting Bull |
mutinied because his people were openly !
swindled and nearly starved to death and the
Nez Perces have mutinied because they were
swindled out Of their lands which Congress
twice gave them, and from which the agents
of the peace policy were expelling them.