Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/43

 RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 35 became commander of the Department of the Columbia. I make this note that you may form some idea of the ordeal I was going through when the incident occurred about which you were desirous of knowing some minor details. G. B. c. Learning that the Hon. L. T. Barin, of Portland, was a soldier at the fort in that period, I consulted him personally and learned particularly as to the execution. He was Captain of the Guard that took the Indians to the scaffold and sur- rounded it until the drop fell. He said that while the smaller Indian was singing a low-toned, mournfully monotonous death song the taller one made a speech in which he denied commit- ting any crime which would confine a white man, and de- manded that he be set at liberty. We had a lengthy conver- sation, in which he said that the soldiers at the fort understood the case thoroughly and the unanimous expression was that the execution was unlawful, unnecessary and without any shadow of excuse. Almost every day something occurred to show the predatory instincts of human beings and how the presence of an inferior order of civilization, like an Indian reservation, contributes to acts of outlawry. Bad white men and bad Indians, the lower specimens of both races, provoke a continual disturbance, and race prejudice, inflamed by the memory of past grievances, tends to bring on a general conflict. Such is the philosophy that explains the predisposing phases of our Indian wars. Although the reservation system of managing the Indians has been quite generally condemned by the American people, I am of the opinion that for us it was a necessity. They claimed the land upon which they lived and roamed, and the claim was certainly good if possession gives any right. It was as good as ours, and hence, the only rational and just way to get peaceable possession was to treat with them for such lands as were needed for settlement and cultivation. Joint occu- pancy by peoples so different in language, religion, habits of life and social tendency could mean nothing less than continual warfare. The mistake of the Government was not in admitting the title of the Indian to the country occupied by them, but in