Eureka daily sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1871-1887, 1880-01-07


A Cheyenne dispatch under date Of the
4th instant relates the following horrors
attending the captivity of Mrs. Meeker and
daughter and Mrs. Price:
Now that the Ute delegation under Ouray
and their prisoners are en-route east
through southern Colorado, the following
from the Cheyenne Leader Of this date will
explain whether they are liable to reach
their destination if the people Of Colorado
can intercept them. The letter is to the
Pueblo C~hieftain:
GREELEY (Col.), December 80, 1879.
To the Editor of the Chieftain-DEAR
SIR: l arise from my sick bed to state q
few facts which you and the people Of Col
orado demand. We three captiyes OF the
Utes MRS. Price, myself and daughter,
were all interviewed separately, being put
under oath by the officers OF the Govern
ment to tell the whole truth Of our treat
ment by the Indians, and if they had out
ragged our persons, and each one of us gave
in our testimoney in answer in the afirma-
tive against the Indians. / gave in my
testimony for the use OF the Government,
to do with it just as they should see fit.
There was nothing said about it being sup
pressed on either side. I just simply gave
my testimony to the Government officers,
innocently supposing they knew their duty
and would do it. / also thought 1 had
done all that belongs to me to do by tell
ing these officers the sickening and most
humilisting misfortune that can befall a
woman, and il they and the Interior De-
partment have not done their duty by the
people OF Colorado it is they who are to
blame and not /. On arriving at my home
in Greedy | found myself completely bro
ken down in mind and body, and nave had
q long spell Of severe sickness, from which
l am just recovering. Yours, truly,
Mn. N. G. MFEKER.
This direct evidence from Mrs. N. c..
Meeker, that herself. daughter and Mrs.
Price were outraged by the hostile Utes.
has awakened the peopls to a proper sense
OF the enormous crimes committed by the
hostiles. The people had hoped and were
prepared to believe that the persons Of the
female captives remand unharmed; but
the truth is out in full. md the indignation
is strong and wide spread. 1t seems for
tuitous that Mrs. Meeke's letter was first
published in Pueblo. for the Government
designs transporting the Indians over the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Road, in
order to escape the fury Of q prospective
moi in Denver. But we mistake the tenn
per OF the Southern Colorado people il
they do not capture the hostiles il the band
under General Hatch and kill them Instant
ly. 1t is not improbable that the publica-
ton OF Mrs. Meeker's letter in Pueblo at
this time involves an intention to post the
people and bring about the desired results.
Newspaper men here have long known Of
the inside history of the captivity OF me
women, but refrained from using the
same in Difference to the women themselves.
But now that Mrs. Meeker has made pub
lie the story OF her terrible wrongs, there
can be no harm in telling it all. Immedi-
ateiy after captivity the woman were forced,
under threats OF torture and slow death, to
yield to the lust Of their hideous captors.
The women, suffered untold agony on &C.
count Of the murder Of their husbands and
fathers, were dazed and b~ewildered, and
were powerless to resist. Poor old Mrs.
Meeker, over sixty years Of age, and suffer-
ing from q fresh wound in the rear portion
OF her thigh, became the victim Of Doug
lass, who afterwards boosted of his protect
ing care. Josephine Meeker was held by
Persune. and Mrs. Price by johnson. The
unbearable indignities were simply aug
mented by other Utes, friends of the three
mentioned. In the hellish outrage the
bucks were assisted by squaws. These wo-
men savages seemed to gloat over the hor-
rors perpetrated upon the white captives
OF their own sex. During their captivity
the suffering of the three women were in
describably horrible. The hellish tends
renewed their crimes time and time again,
The poor women feared they would never
be delivered from a thraldom worse than
death, for death is ~unsciousness, while
their existence was . living death and an
earthly hell every day. As if all this were
not sad enough, the woes Of young Jose
phine are increased by . condition that is
believed to be horrible in the extreme.
Female acquaintance say that q know
ledge thereof causes q shudder to rack the
frame OF every n who hears the sad tale.
Under all these circumstances would moi
the iynching Of the guilty hostiles be justi-
hableY Would men-men in whom pull
safe the generous throb of humanity-stop
In the work Of exterminating these beings
who are worse than the brntes Of the Jungle,
although Of ''the human form divine (?)"
Judge Lynch has already sufficient evidence
to condemn the guilty ones with General
Hatch, and we hope to have the extreme
pleasure OF recording their death by the
hands Of indignant citizens. Lynching is
but their just due. and we think 1t is their
doom.