IV.
OUTRAGES COMMITTED ON INDIANS BY WHITES.
In Captain Bonneville’s narrative of five years spent in the Rocky Mountains are many instances of cruel outrages committed by whites upon Indians.
“One morning one of his trappers, discovering that his traps had been carried off in the night,took a horrid oath that he would kill the first Indian he should meet, innocent or guilty. As he was returning with his comrades to camp, he beheld two unfortunate Root Diggers seated on the bank, fishing; advancing upon them, he levelled his rifle, shot one on the spot, and flung his bleeding body into the stream.
“A short time afterward, when this party of trappers were about to cross Ogden’s River, a great number of Shoshokies, or Root Diggers, were posted on the opposite bank, when they imagined they were there with hostile intent; they advanced upon them, levelled their rifles, and killed twenty-five of them on the spot. The rest fled to a short distance, then halted and turned about, howling and whining like wolves, and uttering most piteous wailings. The trappers chased them in every direction. The poor wretches made no defence, but fled in terror; nor does it appear from the accounts of the boasted victors that a weapon had been wielded by the Indians throughout the affair.”
There seemed to be an emulation among these trappers which could inflict the greatest outrages on the natives. They chased them at full speed, lassoed them like cattle, and dragged them till they were dead.
At one time, when some horses had been stolen by the Riccarees, this same party of trappers took two Riccaree Indians prisoners, and declared that, unless the tribe restored every horse that had been stolen, these two Indians, who had strayed into the trappers’ camp without any knowledge of the offence committed, should be burnt to death.
“To give force to their threat, a pyre of logs and fagots was heaped up and kindled into a blaze. The Riccarees released one horse and then another; but, finding that nothing but the relinquishment of all their spoils would purchase the lives of the captives, they abandoned them to their fate, moving off with many parting words and howlings, when the prisoners were dragged to
