Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-08-16
TRUTH ABOUT THE BANNAcKs.
Rev. w. 8. Rainsford Says the Blame
IN ON the White Settlers.

Rev. w. 8. Rainsford Says the Blame
IL ON the White Settlers.
Rev. w. s. Rainsford seHds the New
York Post the following comment on the
Bannack Indian scare: "All who know
what our frontier life is and what are the
relations Of the settlers and miners to the
Indian will appreciate the force and truth
Of your article In the Evening Post of Au-
gust 2. have spent the best part of seven
summers and autumns in the mountain re-
gions where still the Utes, Bannacks and
Shoshones are accustomed to hurt, and 1
venture to say that It is scarcely possible
to exaggerate the case the Indians have
against the frontiersmen. When we speak
Of the frontiersman we are apt to conjure
up before cur Imagination a picture fanci-
full and untrue to the last degree. As the
Indian meets him, he krows him to his
sorrow, mir g times out of ten, to be a
bloodthirsty scoundrel. There are. OF
course, quiet, reaceehle, law-abiding citi-
zens in those regions; but sheriff's posse
Is not composed of these. Rather to 1t
flock the least successful hangers-on of
the mining camp and the ranch men who
have failed in the east. I can speak from
a very considerable knowledge of the class
and I d. not hesitate to say that nowhere
in the land could there be found a class
less fitted to deal Justly with the Indians.
II have had unusual opportunities to ex-
anime into the causes of three four
SOC allied Indian outbreaks; in one and all
of them the facts are pretty much as you
outline them in this Bannack affair. They
have in many CT ses been deliberately
planned by the whites, who wanted land
ponies or government contracts. Expedi-
lions have been secretly undertaken to
force the Utes into outbreak. In one case
a courty official offered me Ute ponies for
sale, and when I pointed to the Indian
marks and asked how he got them, then
out came the whole story, it never occur
ring to rim that it was a practical confess
SIGN of perjury on is part. A party had
been made up of Just such mining camp
bummers as I have referred to as plentiful
on the fl ontier. A night attack had been
made on a peaceful encampment Of In
dams; several had been killed and hun
dreds of pcEies stolen. These latter were
hawked round the country.
LAS to the game question, the whole
thing Is transparent humbug. Any sports
man who knows the west will bear me out
when l. sa it is the professional skin hum
ter that wipes game out. None is SO de-
Structive to game as the settlers them
selves: none SO utterly regardless of the
game laws. Near this same Jackson's
Hole have seen the carcasses of seven
teen elk, killed by a blow on the head with
snow drift Their hides were not even
taken, ana for food purposes they were
utterly ueelesS. The Indians cannot sub
siSt on their present beef rationS; they
must exc it out by fall hunting. They have
for years hunted without let or hindrance;
nor is their presence in those sparsely set
tied regions as destructive to game or as
the very common nomadic white man. This
last Bannack scare is but one more sicken-
ing and diSgraceful addition to shame
fully wicked story"