Chronicles of Camp Wright, Part I [pp. 24-32]

28 Chronicles oj CamA Wn~ht. [July
nesses of the mountain, and thus corn- Valley had threatened to wipe out the Inpelled to starve or steal, we should hear of dians on the Reservation; that they had
no depredations at all. come there armed for the purpose, and that
"I shall now proceed to mention some of he had been compelled to call in the emthe acts of tbe whites toward the Indians by ploye's to protect the Indians, and had
way of showing clearly the ability of the serious notions of arming the Indians in
former to protect themselves, and as con- their own defense." In still another case,
stituting part of the history of the present an armed party looking for lost stock in
condition of military affairs in this district. the mountains, "attacked every village of
"The Yukas are now a miserable tribe Indians they came upon and massacred
of naked, starved, Digger Indians, inhabit- some two hundred or more," men, women
ing the country between the North and and children.
South Eel Rivers. They live upon and cul- Several more massacres and personal
tivate the reservation in Round Valley, and atrocities practiced upon Indians, are realmost every farmer in the valley has a lated; and Major Johnson's report closes
number of them, whom he employs as ser- as follows:
vants, and who have either been brought "I have endeavored to put a stop to
from the mountains or from the reservation. the aggressions of the whites against
These Indians are worked and packed, and the Indians, but without effect. They
but scantily, if at all, clothed and fed seem bent upon their extermination, and so
Many of them at the reservation have been long as they continue their indiscriminate
officially reported to me as almost in a starv- slaughter, the Indians will occasionally reing condition, and hardly able to get out taliate by killing some stock. Large numbers
to procure roots and clover, their usual diet." of the Indians have died. The combined
The report goes on to narrate in full a effects of hard work, disease, starvation
case in which whites attacked an unarmed and the attacks of the whites, will soon
and unsuspecting settlement of Yukas, on cause them to disappear entirely, without
the mere suspicion that they had taken the aid of a volunteer company, to expedite
some missing stock, and massacred some the work of destruction."
forty of them. Again, on the previous "I also enclose two counter-memorials,
New Year's, certain whites "armed with numerously signed by persons known to be
rifles and revolvers, went to the several among the most reliable residents of Round
farms upon which Yuka Indians were em- Valley."
ployed as servants, and in cold blood killed Colonel Henley, Superintendent of Insome forty or fifty of them. They directed dian affairs for California, took exception
the ranch owners to select such Indians as to this and to a subsequent report, made
they did not wish killed, and they would by Major Johnson, and published a refutal
kill the rest I have not heard that in the columns of the San Francisco Nationany reason was assigned for the massacre, al under date of February 5th, i86o. Colbut have understood that it was a sort of onel Henley having made, in his letter, cerNew Year's frolic." In another case some tain aspersions on Major Johnson's courage
twenty Indians on the Reservation were and veracity and others to the same effect
shot upon suspicion of having killed stock. to the discredit of Lieutenant Dillon, they
"The precaution had been taken in this were answered, in the absence of these two
last massacre to disarm the Indians and officers, by Lieutenant W. P. Carlin, 6th
burn their bows and arrows." "The agent United States Infantry, commanding at Fort
informed me that the citizens of Round Weller, who having first submitted his re