Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/13

 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 5 ment is trying to civilize the Indians, when in fact there is no such intention. They are put upon reservations, where goods and rations are occasionally doled out to them, for the reason that it is cheaper to do that than to fight them. The agricul- ture and mechanics supposed to be taught on the agencies is all a pretense. Such things figure largely in the agency re- ports to the Indian Bureau at Washington, but they are in the main fanciful. The whites work and the Indians look on. The Umatilla Reservation is large enough for a county, and has in great part a fine rich soil, which should tempt any- body to agricultural pursuits. But you will find that the Government has been raising crops for the lazy, blanketed Indians to eat. You will not find the Indian of fiction and philanthropy at the Umatilla, though you may see some of the murderers of an eminent man who tried in vain to teach them Christianity and the white man's pursuits, Dr. Marcus Whitman. He sacrified his life mainly in their interest and I shall assume there is nothing to show for it. My advice is, not to spend your time experimenting where others, after long trying, have failed. Go and do something for yourself. ' ' The manner of my distinguished friend was earnest and his logic seemed to be good, but they only whet my curiosity to know if there had been any honest, earnest effort to advance the Indian, and if so, if the same means which had raised the white man from a barbarism as intense as that of the In- dian, must fail when applied to the latter. I was not alto- gether unacquainted with Indians and their character, for I had frequently met them while crossing the plains, and dur- ing my residence in Oregon and Washington had traded with them, and sometimes depended upon them for food and di- rections, very important to me in this new country. It may seem strange, but I considered them human beings capable of modification and improvement. On the morning of the 5th of October, 1862, I left Salem on the north bound stage with as many passengers as could be crowded into it, myself on the seat with the driver. The ground being deeply saturated by the unusually heavy rains,