your lives.’ The Nez Percés are very much alarmed; they say,‘We have no ammunition to defend ourselves with if we are attacked.’ ”
The Oregon superintendent writes to General Wool (in command at this time of the Department of the Pacific), imploring him to send troops to Oregon to protect both friendly Indians and white settlers, and to enable this department to maintain guarantees secured to these Indians by treaty stipulations. He says that the friendly Indians are “willing to submit to almost any sacrifice to obtain peace, but there may be a point beyond which they could not be induced to go without a struggle.”
This outbreak terminated after some sharp fighting, and about equal losses on both sides, in what the Oregon superintendent calls “a sort of armistice,” which left the Indians “much emboldened,” with the impression on their minds that they have the “ability to contend successfully against the entire white race.”
Moreover, “the non-ratification of the treaties heretofore made to extinguish their title to the lands necessary for the occupancy and use of our citizens, seems to have produced no little disappointment; and the continued extension of our settlements into their territory, without any compensation being made to them, is a constant source of dissatisfaction and hostile feeling.
“It cannot be expected that Indians situated like those in Oregon and Washington Territory, occupying extensive sections of country where, from the game and otherwise, they derive a comfortable support, will quietly and peaceably submit, without any equivalent, to be deprived of their homes and possessions, and to be driven off to some other locality where they cannot find their usual means of subsistence. Such a proceeding is not only contrary to our policy hitherto, but is repugnant alike to the dictates of humanity and the principles of natural justice.
