"Indians are even more ready to listen to reason than the lawless whites."
[Fort Humboldt] [Davis, Jefferson].
Message from the President of the United States to the Two Houses of Congress, at the Commencement of the Thirty-Fourth Congress. Part II [Report of the Secretary of War].
Washington DC: Cornelius Wendell, 1855. [1-3] 4-574 pages. The Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, later the president of the Confederacy, reports to President Franklin Pierce on the status of the military in 1855, including reports on conflicts with Indians near Fort Humboldt (now located in the city limits of Eureka, California).
$200
As might be
expected, much of the volume is filled with budgets and reports from the
various bureaucracies within the army. However, of greater interest are the
reports from the field on pages 49 to 89. At the time, the United States was
actively engaged in fighting or pacifying Native Americans in the Northwest,
Oregon, and New Mexico territories, as well as in the newly admitted member of
the Union, California.
This collection of reports reproduces many dispatches
from field commanders and their dealings with Indians. As Davis notes in his
introduction, the tremendous distance separating these fields of operation and
headquarters in Washington, D.C., necessarily resulted in local commanders
having almost complete independence in their operations.
Four of the field
reports are from Fort Humboldt, located in what is now Eureka. Conditions in
the region were beginning to deteriorate-hostilities would reach their peak in
1860, with the Indian Island massacre. The army commanders, without exception,
praised the reasonableness of the Indians and condemned the violence of the
settlers.
On January 20, 1855, Major General John E. Wool, based at the Pacific
department headquarters in Benecia, California, reported that a party of
"whites, under the impression that prompt and energetic action would make
an indelible impression on the river tribes, without any general consultation
in the matter, proceeded to certain Indian ranches, and with fire destroyed
them and their contents." Wool expressed hope for a quick resolution
because the Indians "in this department are even more ready to listen to
reason than the lawless whites, who so often wantonly attack them."
A
month later, Wool reports on the efforts of Lt. Col. R. C. Buchanan, the
commander of Fort Humboldt. He found that the " 'hostile Indians,' as they
are called, had taken to the mountains; and that some of the whites, instead of
pursuing them, had banded together to exterminate the peaceable Indians, who
had given up their arms, and were living on their ranches under the promise of
protection and security." On April 11, conditions had supposedly improved,
although Wool informed his superiors that a chief named Patora, who was
"universally respected for his honesty and friendly offices toward
whites," was murdered "by a white man, who enticed him out to hunt
for the purpose." On another day, a company of volunteers "went to
one of the Indian ranches, called the Indians from their homes, shook hands
with them, and immediately afterwards, each white picking his man, numbers of
the Indians were shot. They then took away some squaws under the name of
prisoners, whom they outrageously abused."
Of course, following these acts,
the soldiers at Fort Humboldt were mostly consumed with locating and killing
the "hostile" Indians who retaliated against the volunteers. As for
the leaders of the massacre party, the fort commander "apprized (sic) [him] that
his services are no longer necessary."
Major General Wool concludes by
writing, "After suffering the greatest outrages from the whites, [the
Indians] were still ready to listen to reason, and even to take arms against
the few who, having killed several whites in retaliation, fled to the
mountains."
The volume is in very good condition in the original cloth
blindstamped with a decorative floral pattern (which is a bit incongruous given
the subject matter). There is a quarter-sized hole in the spine, which
obliterates most of the spine title, while revealing the sewn gatherings below.
Scarce in the original publisher's cloth.
$200
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