OCR Text |
Show 33 San Pete, Parvain-all Indian say, 'No fight Mormon or Merecats more.' If Indian kill white man again, Wakara make Indian howl." The calumet of peace was again handed around, and all the party took a smoke. The council was then dissolved. Gov. Young intended to visit all the settlements south, to Harmony City. Wakara told his excellency that "he and his chiefs would accompany him all the way and back, as a bodyguard." Grosepine, Ammon, Squash-head, Wakara and his wife, Canoshe and his wife, and about thirty Indian young men, all mounted on splendid horses got ready to accompany the Governor's party. During the day, a great many presents were distributed among the tribe. ' The lengthy passage quoted above shows the same pattern, the same rhetoric, and many of the same relationships that existed between native people and their European conquerors in earlier encounters. They were overawed and forced to capitulate in the face of superior force. In his famous speech made during the course of the Walker War, Brigham Young said: I want to say a few words on Indian character. When one tribe of Indians are at war with another, if a few sally out.and kill a warrior of the opposite party, that tribe will watch their opportunity, and perhaps go and kill men, ^omen, and children of the other tribe; they do not care whom they kill, if they can kill any of the tribe. This has been taught from age to age. The inhabitants of the United States have treated the Indians in like manner. If but one person, of only a few, were guilty of committing a depredation upon a white settlement, they have chastised the whole tribe for the crime, and would perhaps kill those who would fight and die for them. But no mercy can be shown the ^poor Indians-no: "We will kill the whole of you if we can," instead of hunting out those who had committed the depredation, and chastising them according to their desserts. We must shun this practice, and teach them that the man who TIbid. , pp. 193-194. |