agency. The quarterly expenses of the Siletz reservation,
which the Indians found so undesirable, were over one
hundred thousand dollars, a large part of which sum was
expended in improvements. The agent, R. B. Metcalf,
found his pay to be so meager as to offer no inducement
for him to remain ; though he did remain, and come out
at the end of four years with forty thousand dollars.
These apparent abuses were known by and complained of among the Indians before they came to the ears of the people. The superintendent was powerless to prevent it, und finally resigned before congress had made good the obligations entered into between him and the Indians, a new superintendent, A. F. Hedges, being appointed in his place. This was also a source of disquiet among the In dians, who had looked upon Palmer as the representative of a powerful government, whose office was permanent like that of one of their own chiefs. Hedges remained in office but a few months, when he also resigned, and J. W. Nesmith was appointed.
The constant cry of the Indians from the first was that they were homesick, and longed to return to their native country. Rogue-river Sam and others complained that they had been deceived in the matter of their land in southern Oregon; that by the treaty of 1853 the Table Rock reservation had not been sold to the government, but that they had been driven away from it by the war; iind that Captain Smith, Superintendent Palmer, and the agents, had promised them they should return to it when the war was ended. Then why were they not permitted to go back, now that there was no more war? They did not like the country they were in; it was cold, sickly, and destitute of game. They might as well be killed as die of disease on the reservation.
They even suspected the agent of attempting to kill them by poison, such was the effect of the food furnished them, added to other causes of disease, namely, venereal infection, change of climate, indolence, and over-eating.
