New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-05-29

THE WKONGS OFTHE NEZ PEECE INDIANS.
On the second Ct the present month we.pub-
lished. for the third or fourth time, a statement
of the wrongs which the Chief Joseph band OF
Nez Perez Indians had suffered from the Gov
eminent. We charged then, rs we had charged
before, that these Indians had been treated III "a
" cruel and unjust manner 10y the Interior De-
partment which had sent them, in VIC ion of
a distinct pledge given in behalf of the Gov
eminent 10y General Miles, into the " lialarlaI
= belt of the Indian Territory, where they have
sheen forced torcmain though the climate has
killed them of ut an alarming rate To-day
we publish a letter from MI l.. l.. Stevens,
Chief CLERK of the Indian Bureau, containing a
defence of the Interior Department III this mat
ter. We are glad that somebody realizes at
last that defence Of some kind ought to be at
TEMPTED but we are unable to congratulate
Mr.. stevens on either the tone or the force Of
his effort. he substantially admits the truth Of
the charges, and cndeavors to free the Interior
Department from responsibility by saying thatit
acted on the recommendation Of the War De
parmcnt, accompanying his attempt to un-
load with some entirely gratuitous snoers at the
capacity of the latter Department to give gnod
Stevens's defence in regular order.
In giving history OF the Chief Joseph band
he says they belonged to Il class of Indians
called drcamers . who believed the "cultiva-
ton of the soil, improvements in the way Of
"schools churches, etc, were crimes, from which
d" they revolted." Yet we have before us III the
memorial of the Kansas Presbyterian Synod a
letter from an organized church of Nez Perez
Indians composing this band, signed by its pas
tor, Archie b. Lawyer, a full-blooded Nez
Perez, asking in behalf Of lis people III the
church, including ! 80 elders, for justice from
the Government. We also find in the same
memorial, adopted by the Kansas Synod this
statements "Thesc Indians were scli-support-
cling in Idaho. never accepting any ratiOns from
"thc Government but subsistng themselves en-
" tirely by modes of stock-raising and acri-
"culture.' The records Of the Indian Depart
ment are filed with testimony to the same
effect, and IL is too late Tor Mr. Stevens to
undertake TO refutc these authorities with
sweeping statement based upon no authority
at all. HIS account of the outbreak of the war
is equally faulty. He fails 70 mention that the
territory claimed by the Indians was coded to
them by formal treaty in 1870, and that they
refused to give up their rights to it when it
was proposed to take it from them in 1868
although the rest of the tribe did consent. His
account of the negotiations between Chief
Joseph and General Howard III 1876 is widely
divergent from that i'll the official records, and
his charge of barbarity and outrage by the In
dams against the whites at the opening of. the
war is now made public for the first time. 1t
would be entitled to much more weight if he
had based it on some official authority. The
report of the Board Of Indian Commissioners
for 1873 says that the war was remarkable
for the absence of acts of savage barbarty.
Mr.. Stevens says the history of the war is
too familiar to require repetition" He for
one seems to be anything but familiar with it,
and for his benefit we quote Commissioner
Kingsley's summing up of it in his report for
1878: "Joseph stands before the America
people victim of dupliclty: his confidence
"wantonly betrayed; his substance pillaged an
involuntary exile from home and kindred his
" cause lost; his people rapidly wasting by
"pestilence al object, not OF naughty contempt