As the whites became more numerous they began to crowd the Indians back
more and more, never at anytime willing to concede that the Indians
had any right to any thing that they wanted, until the Indians began
to rebel at being drove from their homes, where they had lived for
thousands of years. Whenever they made the least resistance, the whites
were up in arms, until finally the Humboldt Indians were moved to a
reservation at Smith River and kept there for a time, among the Smith
River Indians. The Smith River Indians were not friendly with them, not
treating them kindly and many of them died there for the want of food
as they did not know the country and could not gather food supplies.
When some of them would go out to get fish or gather supplies the
Smith River Indians, being jealous of them, would follow and kill them,
and the soldiers would never say a word or reprimand them and only
laugh at them. They had no medicine case when sick and had no way of
treating the sick ones in their way. They had no sanitary provisions
and could not keep themselves clean, which they were strict in their
own homes. The young girls had no rights with the soldiers or white men
and were diseased, and if an Indian made any objection to the white
man’s treatment, they were in return kicked and abused, and often
killed, in this way many of them died at Smith River.
The Klamath Indians called Crescent City, Caw-pay, and Smith River,
He-na, and all the Indians are one tribe and they call them He-nas,
but sometimes designate the certain part in which they live, by
calling them Caw-pay Indians, So after they had been kept on Smith
River reservation for awhile, they were driven like a lot of hogs,
only with less care as to whether they lived or died, to the Klamath
River Reservation, which extended from the Pacific up the Klamath River
for a distance of twenty miles, extending out one mile on either side
of the river. When they were driven to the Klamath River Reservation
they were treated by the lower Klamath Indians in a more humane way,
as a part of the Klamath Indians were good to them and tried to see
them get something to live on, and would doctor the sick ones, helping
them as much as they could, that is, a certain part of them would.
They kept the ones that were disposed to be unfriendly to the poor
Humboldts from doing them harm, yet many of them died while on the
Klamath. After keeping them for a while the order came to move them to
the Hoopa Indian Reservation, which is situated on the Trinity River,
and comes down the Trinity to its junction with the Klamath River, and
into Humboldt County; so the Humboldts were gathered together again
by the soldiers, and were kicked and clubbed, the children thrown
into boats, and when killed they were cast into the river. While this
murdering was going on, the head men of the lower Klamath Indians,
went to the Humboldts and told them to make a break and run and hide
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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