Dear Friend,... A Klik-a-tat Indian, named Dick Johnson, came to my father’s house in the Willamette valley, and worked for him on his farm, prior to the year 1850. In that year my father removed to the Umpqua valley, and soon after Dick Johnson, with his wife (an Umpqua), and mother and step-father, called the “Old Mummy,” followed up and asked permission to cultivate a small portion of my father’s farm. This they were allowed to do. They cultivated these few acres in good style, and found time to labor for father and other farmers, for which they received good remuneration.

In 1852, Dick Johnson, under the encouragement of my father, Uncle Jesse, and other friends, took up a claim in a beautiful little valley about ten miles from Yoncalla, where my people resided. This place was so environed by hills that it was thought the whites would not molest Dick there. Aided by the old man and his brother-in-law, Klik-a-tat Jim, who came from the upper country to join him, Dick improved his farm in good style, built good houses and out-buildings, and fenced hundreds of acres. He was frugal, enterprising and industrious, and emulated the better white people in every way possible, and was so successful in his farming enterprises that he outstripped many of his white neighbors. His character was above reproach, and, beside sending his little brother to school, he was always seen with his family at church on the Sabbath day. Unfortunately, there were greedy, avaricious white men living in the vicinity of Dick Johnson, who coveted his well-improved little farm. Eight of them—disguised—went to his place late one afternoon, and found Dick chopping wood in the front yard. They shot him in cold blood, and, as his lifeless body fell across the log on which he was chopping, his step-father ran from the house unarmed, and was shot also. The women, after being beat over the heads with guns and revolvers, finally made their escape to the woods, and took refuge under the roof of a friendly neighbor.

Klik-a-tat Jim—who came from mill about the time the old man was shot—was fired on several times, some bullets cutting his clothing, but, jumping into his house at a window, he got his gun, and the cowardly assassins fled. Although there was immense excitement throughout the country when this outrage was committed, and a hundred men assembled to bury Dick Johnson and the old man like white men, as they deserved, an ineffectual attempt was made to bring the offenders to justice, and they actually lived for years upon the farm, enjoying the benefits of poor Dick Johnson’s labor. Our laws then scarcely recognized the fact that the Indian had any rights that were worthy of respect, and this most atrocious crime had to go unpunished, thus encouraging the Columbia Indians to greater desperation under Old Kam-i-a-kin, in the war of 1866-1867. Well it would be, for the good name of the American people, if we could point to but one isolated case of this kind; but truth and candor compel us to admit, that too many Indian wars have been occasioned by the greed and ruffianism of our own race.

Many years ago, during the first Modoc war, the Klamaths say that a band of Modocs was pursued by troops from the Modoc country, out by Yainax, and to the vicinity of Silver lake, where the Modocs managed to elude their pursuers. The troops (probably a detachment of Gen. Crosby’s California Volunteers), not liking to be foiled in their efforts to take a few scalps, returned by Klamath marsh, Williamson river, and Big Klamath lake, butchering in cold blood several unresisting Klamaths. Even this did not occasion trouble with the Klamaths, many of whom tried to incite the nation to a war of revenge....

My own observation in relation to the treaties which have been made in Oregon leads me to the conclusion that in most instances the Indians have not received a fair compensation for the rights which they have relinquished to the Government.

It is too often the case in such negotiations that the agents of the Government are over-anxious to drive a close bargain; and when an aggregate amount is mentioned, it appears large, without taking into consideration that the Indians, in the sale and surrender of their country, are surrendering all their means of obtaining a living; and when the small annuities come to be divided throughout the tribe, it exhibits but a pitiful and meagre sum for the supply of their individual wants. The Indians, receiving so little for the great surrender which they have made, begin to conclude that they have been defrauded; they become dissatisfied, and finally resort to arms, in the vain hope of regaining their lost rights, and the Government expends millions in the prosecution of a war which might have been entirely avoided by a little more liberality in their dealings with a people who have no very correct notions of the value of money or property. A notable instance of this kind is exhibited in the treaty of September 10, 1853, with the Rogue-river Indians. That tribe has diminished more than one-half in numbers since the execution of the treaty referred to. They, however, number at present nine hundred and nine souls.

The country which they ceded embraces nearly the whole of the valuable portion of the Rogue-river valley, embracing a country unsurpassed in the fertility of its soil and value of its gold mines; and the compensation which those nine hundred and nine people now living receive for this valuable cession is forty thousand dollars, in sixteen equal annual instalments of two thousand five hundred dollars each, a fraction over two dollars and fifty cents per annum to a person, which is the entire means provided for their clothing and sustenance.

When those Indians look back to the valuable country which they have sold, abounding, as it does, with fish and game and rich gold fields, it is but natural that they should conclude that the $2.50 per annum was a poor compensation for the rights they relinquished. It is true that the Government can congratulate itself upon the excellence of its bargains, while the millions of dollars subsequently spent in subduing those people have failed to convince them that they have been fairly dealt with.

Even the treaties which have been made remain, with but few exceptions, unratified, and of the few that have been ratified but few have been fulfilled.

Those delays and disappointments, together with the unfulfilled promises which have been made to them, have had the effect to destroy their confidence in the veracity of the Government agents; and now, when new promises are made to them for the purpose of conciliating their friendship, they only regard them as an extension of a very long catalogue of falsehood already existing....

General Harney, before the House Committee on Military Affairs, to-day, gave his opinion that if the Indians were treated fairly there would never be any difficulties with them. He had known but two instances in which they ever violated the treaty stipulations, and in these the Indians were to be excused, for the treaties had grown old before they were sought to be enforced, and the chiefs and head men who made them were all dead. The troubles with the Indians were principally caused by fraudulent agents and by whiskey dealers.

In the fall of 1851, a party of miners, returning from a successful gold-hunting expedition to California, encamped on an island in Rogue River. All was peace and quiet. No war, no blood, no treachery. The Indians were in joint occupation of the beautiful valley of Rogue river with the white men, whose cabins and farms dotted the more beautiful portions of the country.

After the miners have made camp two Indians visit them,—a common thing for Indians to do. They are invited to partake of the supper,—an act of courtesy never omitted in wild life,—and they accept. The day passes into night. The Indians prepare to return to their own camps. The miners object, and, through fear that they might be surprised in the night, demand that the Indians remain. The Indians remonstrate. The miners are more solicitous for them to stay, their anxiety to leave being construed as ominous of intended treachery. The Indians, also, suspecting the same thing on the part of the miners, break to run, and both of them are shot down and scalped.

The miners resume their journey. The friends of the Indians miss them. Their scalpless bodies are found on a timber drift in the river below. The Rogue-river war, with all its horrors, was the result.

In every instance where a conflict has ensued between volunteers and hostile Indians in southern Oregon, the latter have gained what they regard a victory. It is true that a number of Indian camps have been attacked by armed parties, and mostly put to death or flight; but in such cases it has been those unprepared to make resistance, and not expecting such attack. This, though lessening the number of the Indians in the country, has tended greatly to exasperate and drive into a hostile attitude many that would otherwise have abstained from the commission of acts of violence against the whites.

The avowed determination of the people to exterminate the Indian race, regardless as to whether they were innocent or guilty, and the general disregard for the rights of those acting as friends and aiding in the subjugation of our real and avowed enemies, have had a powerful influence in inducing these tribes to join the warlike bands.

It is astonishing to know the rapidity with which intelligence is carried from one extreme of the country to another, and the commission of outrages (of which there have been many) by our people against an Indian is heralded forth by the hostile parties, augmented, and used as evidence of the necessity for all to unite in war against us.

These coast bands, it is believed, might have been kept out of the war, if a removal could have been effected during the winter; but the numerous obstacles indicated in my former letters, with the absence of authority and means in my hands, rendered it impracticable to effect it.

A considerable number of the Lower Coquille bands had been once induced to come in, but by the meddlesome interference of a few squaw men and reckless disturbers of the peace, they were frightened, and fled the encampment. A party of miners and others, who had collected at Port Orford, volunteered, pursued, and attacked those Indians near the mouth of Coquille, killing fourteen men and one woman, and taking a few prisoners. This was claimed by them as a battle, notwithstanding no resistance was made by the Indians.

That while hunting for two Indians who had committed some offence, we fell in with Ben Wright, who, learning from a squaw with whom he was living that the Indians had taken that course, he, with a band of Shastas, had started in pursuit and intercepted and captured them. We came in together, and took the Indians to Scott valley, and there gave them a fair trial, proving their identity by both white men and Indians, and the Indian testimony and their own story, all of which was received in evidence. One was found guilty, and the other acquitted and set at liberty. Our present superintendent of public instruction, Professor G. K. Godfrey, was one of the jury. During our absence the people remained under great excitement, as all kind of rumors were afloat; and our company was so small, and I had started into a country inhabited by hordes of wild Indians, and those of Siskiyou mountain and Rogue-river valley notoriously hostile and warlike. Old Scar-face, learning of the difficulty at Rogue river, contrary to advice given him when we left, had come out from the caÑon, appeared on the mountain lying east of Y-re-ka, as the Indians afterward told me, for the purpose of letting the whites know the trouble, as the roads were guarded by the Indians on the mountains, so that travellers could not pass. As soon as he was seen, a wild excitement ensued, and a company started in pursuit. Scar-face, seeing the danger, fled up the Shasta valley, on foot, his pursuers after him, well mounted. After a race along the hills and through the valleys for about eighteen miles, he was finally captured and hung upon a tree, at what is now called Scar-face Gulch.

We had got out of provisions, and when, at the mouth of Salmon river, we made known our destination to the chief, Euphippa, he took his spear and caught us some fish, but would take no pay.

In 1854 or 1855 there was one more excitement in Scott’s valley by the whites fearing an attack from the Indians, from the fact that they had held a dance and gone back into the hills. Here it may be well to state a custom among all those upper country Indians, which, not being generally understood by our people, has led to much difficulty. It is, at the commencement of the fishing season, and at its close, they hold what is called a fish-dance, in which they paint and go through all the performances of their dances at the opening and closing of war. They also hold a harvest dance, when the fruits and nuts get ripe, but this is of a more quiet character, more resembling their sick dance, when they try to cure their sick by the influence of the combined mesmerism of a circle of Indians, in which they are in many instances very successful. But to return to my subject. Hearing of the gathering of the whites, and knowing the danger to our people and property if a war was then inaugurated, I got on my horse and rode to the place of rendezvous. After consulting, it was determined to fall upon the Indian camp at about daylight next morning, as it was thought that at that hour they could be mostly killed and easily conquered. I returned to my house, took my young Indian, Tom, and started, by a circuitous trail in the mountains, for the Indian camp, and before morning had them all removed to a safe place. In a few days all fears were quieted and harmony restored without the loss of any lives or destruction of property. About this time a young Indian from Humbug creek, visiting the Scott-valley Indians, had stopped at an emigrant camp and stolen two guns. Word was brought to me. I sent for Chief John, and required him to bring the guns and Indian, which he did. I tied and whipped the Indian, and then let him go. Late in the fall, afterwards, I was sitting near the top of the mountain back of my house, witnessing a deer drive by the Scott-valley Indians on the surrounding hills, when I heard a cap crack behind me in a clump of small trees. Getting up and immediately running into the thicket, I discovered an Indian running down the opposite slope of the mountain. I returned to my house, and sent Tom after Chief John, and from him learned that when he left, this Humbug Indian was there. I directed him to bring him to my house, which he did next morning. The Humbug Indian told me it was not the first time he had tried to kill me, but that his gun had failed him, and now that he and all the Indians thought that I had a charmed life. I gave him a good talk, which impressed him much, and then unbound him, and told him to go and do well thereafter. He was never known to do a bad act afterward, but was finally killed by the Klamath-lake Indians, about a year afterwards.

Learning of the difficulty, and judging the Indians were not wholly to blame, I proposed to Lieutenant Bonicastle, then stationed at Fort Jones, and Judge Roseborough to accompany me, and with Tolo, another Indian, to visit their company, and arrange terms of peace. We went and spent two days with them before arriving at a solution of the difficulty. During this time they several times pointed their guns at us with a determination to shoot, but as often were talked into a better turn of mind, and finally agreed to go and live at Fort Jones, and remain in peace with the whites. The third day thereafter was settled upon for their removal, when Bonicastle was to send a company of soldiers to escort and protect them. In the next day a white man, who had a squaw at the cave, went out, unknown to us, and told the Indians he was sent for them, and thereupon they packed up and started for Fort Jones with him, one day ahead of time agreed upon. On their way in at Klamath river, about twenty miles from Yreka, they were waylaid, and their chief, Bill, shot from behind the brush and killed. They kept their faith, nevertheless, and came in, when I explained it, so they were satisfied. This was known to the Modocs, and they talked of it on our last visit to the cave. Occasionally thereafter I was applied to only on matters of trifling moment and easily arranged, until my appointment to the Indian superintendency, in the summer of 1863, for the northern district of California. In this narration I have passed over several Rogue-river wars without notice, as I had nothing to do with them; also the Modoc war of 1852, which took place whilst I was away at Crescent City; therefore all I know of that was hearsay; but I know it was generally known that Ben Wright had concocted the plan of poisoning those Indians at a feast, and that his interpreter Indian, Livile, had exposed to the Indians, so that but few ate of the meat, and that Wright and his company then fell upon the Indians, and killed forty out of forty-seven and one other died of the poison afterward. There is one of the company now in the county who gives this version, and I heard Wright swearing about Dr. Ferrber, our then druggist (now of Valejo), selling him an adulterated article of strychnine, which he said the doctor wanted to kill the cayotes. That the plan was concocted before they left Yreka defeats the claim now made for them, that they only anticipated the treachery of the Indians. Schonchin was one of the Indians that escaped, and in late interview then he made this as an excuse for not coming out to meet the commissioners. The story of the Indian corresponds so well with that I have frequently heard from our own people, before it became so much of a disgrace by the reaction, that I have no doubt of the correction in its general details. At the time others, as well as myself, told Wright that the transaction would at some time react fearfully upon some innocent ones of our people; but so long a time had elapsed that I had concluded that matter was nearly forgotten by all, and nothing would come of it, until the night of my second visit in the cave, when Schonchin would get very excited talking of it as an excuse for not going out. The history of that night you have probably seen as it was given by an article in the “Sacramento Record” and “San Francisco Chronicle,” for which paper he was corresponding; he was made wild; he was with me the whole time after.[5] A final peace was made with the Modocs, but the year is now out of my mind; but about 1857 or 1858 they came to Yreka with horses, money, and furs to trade and get provisions and blankets. On their way out they were waylaid at Shasta river, as was claimed by Shasta Indians, and seven killed, robbed and thrown into the river. Many of our citizens thought white men were connected with this murder, and it is probably so. The Shasta Indians retreated; they claim that but few of their people were engaged in the massacre, but it was mostly done by the white people, in their negotiations for peace in the spring of 1864, mentioned hereafter.

I wanted to quit fighting. My people were all afraid to leave the cave. They had been told that they were going to be killed, and they were afraid to leave there; and my women were afraid to leave there. While the peace talk was going on there was a squaw came from Fairchild’s and Dorris’s, and told us that the peace commissioners were going to murder us; that they were trying to get us out to murder us. A man by the name of Nate Beswick told us so. There was an old Indian man came in the night and told us again.

The Interpreter. That is one of those murdered in the wagon while prisoners by the settlers.

Captain Jack (continuing). This old Indian man told me that Nate Beswick told him that that day Meacham, General Canby, Dr. Thomas, and Dyer were going to murder us if we came to the council. All of my people heard this old man tell us so. And then there was another squaw came from Fairchild’s, and told me that Meacham and the peace commissioners had a pile of wood ready built up, and were going to burn me on this pile of wood; that when they brought us into Dorris’s they were going to burn me there. All of the squaws about Fairchild’s and Dorris’s told me the same thing. After hearing all this news I was afraid to go, and that is the reason I did come in to make peace.