| OCR Text |
Show I REPORT OF TUE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIBS. XlII ~moffendingt eamsters who were passing the agency. On the 23d of Norember the perpetrator of this deed was arrested and handed over to the ci\-il authorities through the instrumentality of the ageut., mithont resistance or opposition. On the same day, as an outcome of the escite-ment and bitter feeling resultiqg from this arrest, another Bannoclr, a. friend of the prisoner, shot and killed the agenor butcher, Alesautler Rhodan. Troops were immediately called for. On the 20th of December, Colo-nel Smith, of the Fourteenth Infantry, arrived at the agency, and on the 9th of January, 1675, the murderer of Rhodan was arrested by the military at a point some sixty miles, distant from the agency; subse-qne11tl. y he was tried and hanged. The excitement and threatening demonstrations on the part of the Bannocks consequent upon this arrest were such that Oolonel Smith, re-enforced by cavalry, on the lGth of January surrounded two Bannock villages at the agency and captured 53 warriors with 32 guns ancl about 300 ponies. The prisoners, except the father and two brothers of the murderer, were released, afhr adulonition by Colonel Smith, and were suffered to return to their people, and in April the captured ponies, being of bat little ralne, were returnedto them. The arms, although worthless, \rere retailled. Their best arms had been secreted and their raluablo ponies moved to places of safety before the military surrounded their eaiup. The failure of this attempt to disarm and dismount the Bannocks serrecl to aronse and exasperate the Iudians, and wa8 followe~la, s the agent preclicted that it would be, by retaliation as soon as the grass was in condition to few1 the Indian ponies. lfeantime the cavalrx, on the 18th of Jannary, ret.urued to Fort D. A. Russel, and on the 5th of May the illfantry also left, with the esception of one officer and twentytwo men, entirely too small a force to restrain or intimidate the malcontents. The situahion of affairs at t,he Fort Hall Agency, between the time of the arrest of the Indian who shot the two teamsters and the cornmence-ment of tlre Bannock war, may learued by the follo~vingte legrams: H a n n ~ u n n ~ aOF~ sT EE A R ~ , AD~ ~YLV-GEX~ROAY~FI?C~E , I RTnslLingtoa, iVocentbw 27, 1877. Lient. Gctt. PlrEaln~s, Chicago, Ill.: I~ldiaat~b ~ttta t Ross Fork, near Forb Hdl, I<laho,h as reported to Seeretar)- of Ia-terior that, since shaotiug of Alsxa,n<ler RLoda,n, Barnrocks haye been vex? bohl atid 1 t,llreatening, atxl that there is danger of ontlrreak at any time. Beef eoutrrctor nuable 1 tol~iiremeutu dt.li1-er beef at axenor. Couma~ndinno moar at Hall lrav firn!isBe~ls cvca I - " (7) man, all he ran qx>re. Secretary of W:ir iwa wfel~e<nlm tter, wit,It req~~etshta t one hlm<lred( 100) troops bo sent imme<liljatelr.; tar1 Geuoralof thnA~~l ;cvle xiresyon to sen11t 1l:it fi)rce at mi-lie& TH031AS M. VINCENT, Baabtnnt Adflrlant-Gene8.d. |
