Indians of North America -- California -- Fiction; Indians of North America -- Government relations -- Fiction
The water here, as the hot season came on, was something dreadful. It
was slimy with alkali. Little black worms knotted and twisted themselves
together at the bottom of the cup, like bunches of witch-woven
horse-hair. The Indians were dying of malaria. They were burning up with
the fever. And this was the only water these people, who had been used
to the fresh sweet snow-water of the Sierras, could have.
What could they do? They appealed to the officers. They were answered
with insult: "You must get used to it. You must get civilized."
These dying Indians began to fight and quarrel among themselves. Ah,
they were very wicked. They were quarrelsome as dogs; almost as
quarrelsome as Christians!
This was a small Paris in siege. It was Jerusalem surrounded by Titus.
Down there, dying as they were, a savage Simon and a degenerate John, as
in Jerusalem of old, led their followers against each other, even
across their dead that lay unburied in the mouldy death-pens and about
their dark and narrow doors, and slew each other as did God's chosen
people when besieged by the son of Vespasian.
Then the men in brass and blue turned the cannon loose on the howling
savages, and shot them into silence and submission.
John Logan, Carrie and little Stumps, about this time had been brought
with others from the mountains to the Reservation. Logan insisted on
keeping the two children at his side and under his protection. He was
laughed at by agents, and sub-agents.
He was kept chained. He was assigned to a strong hut with gratings
across the window--or rather the little loop-hole which let in the
light. The guards were kept constantly at his door. He was entered on
the books as a very desperate character, a barn-burner, and possible
murderer. And so night and day he was kept under the constant watch of
the soldiers with fixed bayonets. True, he was soon too weak to lift his
manacled hands in strife. But nevertheless he was kept chained and
doubly guarded in the little hut with gratings at the loop-hole.
Would he attempt to escape?
There were many broken fragments of many broken tribes here. Tribes that
had fought each other to the death--fought as Germans and French have
fought. And why not, pray? Has not a heathen as good a right to fight a
heathen as has a Christian to fight a Christian? The only difference is,
we preach and profess peace; they, war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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