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Show 141 ...I wish to call attention to the fact that in almost every case it is only the non-laboring tribes that go upon the war-path, and • the stubborn facts of history compel me to say that the government is largely to blame for this. The peaceable and industrious Indian has had less consideration than the turbulent and vicious. One instance in proof of this can be found at this moment in the case of the White River Utes (the murderers of Meeker) and the Utes on the Uintah Reservation. The White River Utes have just been moved to the Uintah Reservation alongside of the peaceable Uintah Utes. We feed the White River murderers and compel the peaceable Uintahs to largely care for themselves. This course induces the Indians to believe that if they are to get favors from the government they must refuse to work, refuse to be orderly and peaceable, and must commit some depredations or murder, and then a commission will be appointed to treat with them, and pay them in goods, provisions and money to behave themselves. This looks to an Indian very much like rewarding enemies and punishing friends, and gives him a singular idea of our Christian civilization and our manner of administering justice, which has so much the appearance of rewarding vice and punishing virture.-'-O This short passage indicates the reasons for the misfortunes that attended the last days of John J. Critchlow at Uintah. There was more than the inherent prejedice of the whites in the statements of the Commissioner. The White River Indians were of the attitude that it was the duty of the Federal Government to care for them. The Uintahs had seen far harder times, and the memories of starvation less than 20 years past was enough to cause 10 Ibid., p. |