Renewal of Indian Difficulties.
Renewal of Indian Difficulties.

RENEWAL OF INDIAN DIFFICULTIES.

    We fear the Missouri Democrat has not been reading the State Journal with its accustomed care of late, on the Indian question. If it had it certainly would not fall into such a stupid blunder as to assert that "the Indian agents seem to be very busy in getting up another war on the frontier." It is not the Indian agents but the contractors, and traders, and Indian plunderers generally who get up these Indian wars. For a while the Democrat joined in the general western howl for an Indian war, but studying over the sensible position taken by the State Journal, alone of the western, at least of the Kansas press, it finally came to the conclusion that an Indian war was not a paying investment, and consequently, joined with us in the advocacy of a humane christian, peace policy. That policy prevailed in the appointment of an able and conscientious commission with the worthy head of the Indian Bureau as president of the commission, aided by such men as Gen. Sherman and Senator Henderson, who are prominent and influential members of the commission. They have saved the Government untold millions of dollars, and the loss of hundreds of lives by their wise, humane and christian policy.
    Hearing of a temporary difficulty at Fort Lamed, the Democrat blunders into a statement as untrue as it is unjust that "the Indian agents seem to be very busy in getting up another war on the frontier." Now, so far from the Indian agents being engaged in this war-making business, they have from the start, been the firmest and strongest advocates of peace, and have always tried, not always discreetly and prudently perhaps, to maintain peacable relations between the Indians and the Government and the people of the frontier. Col. Wynkoop is agent, we believe, of the Cheyennes. Will the Democrat please inform us what he has done to stir up this war? Has he not always been a firm and consistent advocate of peace with the Indians? Had Gen. Hancock listened to him he would not have committed that grave blunder, which every military man considers a great, if not inexcusable blunder, the burning of the Cheyenne village. No doubt Gen. Hancock will to-day admit with the frankness of the true soldier that it was a grave blunder and can find a palliation if not a full apology for the act, from the fact that he acted upon incorrect advices, which he deemed to be sufficient. Col. Wynkoop plead and protested against the act and predicted a war as the result. The war came; but happily terminated after many lives had been lost and immense amounts of property captured and destroyed by the Indians.
    By referring to its telegraphic columns of the same date with the declarations quoted above the Democrat would have found the origins of the difficulty in the following. It reads:
    "It is believed here that the cause of the recent difficulty at Fort Lamed, Kansas, with the Cheyenes, Arrapahoes, Kiowas and Camanches, was in consequence of an order of the department to Agent Wynkoop to withdraw the annuity goods promised these Indians last year by the Indian Peace Commissioners. Agent Wynkoop protested against the order, and said it would force the Indians to war. General Sheridan was satisfied these Indians did not intend mischief. They were destitute and hungry, and complained of the non-fulfillment of the treaty."
    Indeed the Democrat itself in the very article from which we have quoted, after making the false charge it does, states the true origin and the cause of the difficulties. It says:
    "It is notorious that the renewed disturbance springs in part, if not altogether, from from the failure of Congress to make provision thus far to carry into effect the engagements of the Indian Commission. It is not strange that the Indians, who supposed the Commission to be fully empowered to make permanent treaties with them, regarded the failure of the government to comply with the arrangements made as an act of bad faith."
    We hope we shall hear no more statements from so respectable a paper as the Democrat about Indian Agents getting up Indian wars. It sounds too much like the idiocy of a good portion of the Kansas presses. When the Democrat desires to denounce Indian contractors, thieves and plunderers generally it need only copy from the State Journal, for no articles on the Indian question have been copied so generally as one which we wrote about a year and a half ago on the contractors and thieves, and certainly no paper is quicker to denounce this [s]peculation and plunder than this journal.


Source:

Unknown, "Renewal of Indian Difficulties," The Daily Kansas State Journal, Lawrence, Kansas, Saturday Morning, 25 July 1868, Vol. IV, No. 7, p. 1, col. 2.

Created August 26, 2003; Revised August 26, 2003
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