Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/9



been entrusted by the legislature of Oregon with the duty of recording the history of the early wars of the white race with the Indians of the northwest, it appeared to me eminently proper to set forth the causes in detail which led to those race conflicts. In doing this I have endeavored to "nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice," but rather to give a philosophical view of the events recorded. This is the more important because fiction and sentimentalism on one hand, and vengeful hatred on the other, have perverted the truth of history.

The Indian is a wild man; it would only be a fact of evolution to call him a wild animal on his way to be a man, provided the proper environments were furnished him. While the instincts and perceptions are acute, the ethical part of him is undeveloped, and his exhibitions of a moral nature are whimsical and without motive. Brought into contact with white men, whether of the lowest or of the highest, he is always at a disadvantage which is irritating, and subject to temptations which are dangerous. On the other hand, the white man is subject to the more subtle temptation to abuse his superiority for selfish purposes; he being in selfishness often but little, if at all, removed from the wild man.

One point to be brought out in these pages is the accountability of the government in our Indian wars, and