The Story of the Bitter Root
done a good deal in the way of cultivating the lands and making the valley a more desirable home. They complained that the schoolmasters, blacksmiths, carpenters, and farmers promised them in the treaty of 1855 had never been sent into the Bitter Root Valley; and all the speakers concluded by the declaration that they claimed the Bitter Root Valley as their home and were wholly unwilling to leave it. They, however, affirmed their steady friendship for the whites and disclaimed any hostile intentions, declaring themselves willing to suffer, peaceably, whatever the Government should put upon them, but that they would not go to the reservation."
But as an officer of the Government commissioned to execute a law already enacted, General Garfield was not in a position to discuss with the Indians the ethics of the situation. It became necessary to inform them that the question was, not whether the order was just or unjust, but, to quote his words, "whether they had decided to disobey the order of the President and the act of Congress." Moreover, he realized, as these Indians could not, the utter futility of an appeal from the decision of the Department; a fertile valley certainly would not be cleared of white men in order that the provisions of an Indian treaty might be fulfilled. And he foresaw, as they could not, the pathetic hopelessness of a long-continued struggle to maintain their homes in this valley if they resisted the command to move.
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