184 F. G. YOUNG. equitable principles," etc., etc. 92 Still even in these cases there were meagre fractional reimbursements and trying de- lays. 93 When petitions were presented for the settlement of the claims incurred in putting down the uprising of 1855-6 Congress from the start pursued a different tack. 94 There 92 The following is the text of the act of Congress for the settlement of the claims due to the clash with the Rogue River Indians in 1853: "An act to authorize the Secretary of War to settle and adjust the expenses of the Rogue River Indian War: Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled, that the Secretary of War .be, and he is hereby author- ized and directed to adjust and settle, on just and equitable principles, all claims for services rendered in the late war with the Rogue River Indians in Oregon, known as the Rogue River Indian War, according to the muster rolls of the same ; also for subsistence, forage, medical stores and expenditures, as well as for any other necessary and proper supplies furnished for the prosecution of said war; and that, on such adjustment, [the same shall] be paid out of any moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated. Passed July 17, 1854. Public Laws of the United States, First Session, Thirty-third Congress, 1853-54. On July 31, 1854, Congress appropriated $15,000 for the payment of claims for property destroyed during the war closed by the treaty of September 10, 1853." This is the war provision for the cost of which is made in the act of July 17. A clause in the treaty closing it stipulated that out of the $60,000 I>aid for Rogue River Valley, with the exception of one hundred square miles on the north side of it reserved for the Indians, $15,000 should be reserved for indemnity for losses of property by the settlers during the war. The $15,000 appropriation was a ratification of that clause. 93 This appropriation of $15,000 sufficed for a "thirty-four and thirty-seven hundredths per cent' 1 payment on the appraisal of the losses actually sustained. Many of the claimants failed to receive this pitiful payment, and, in 1872, the balance of the appropriation for this purpose was illegally turned back into the treasury, where it remained for ten years longer before, by the labors of several attorneys and an order of Secretary Fairchilds, it was placed back to the credit of the claimants. And then the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and the Secre- tary and Auditor of the Treasury were unable to find the original report of the commissioners of awards, refusing to pass (pay) any claim without it, or with- out an act of Congress. However, at length, * * the original report was discovered, and the claims all settled thii-ty years after the war." Victor's Early Indian Wars of Oregon, p. 320. 94 Section II of "An act making appropriations for certain civil expenses of the Government," passed August 18, 1856, provided as follows: "And be it further enacted, That the Secretary of War be directed to examine into the amount of expenses necessarily incurred in the suppression of the Indian hostil- ities in the late Indian War in Oregon and Washington, by the territorial govern- ments of said Territories, for the maintenance of the volunteer forces engaged in said war, including pay of volunteers, and that he may, if in his judgment it be necessary, direct a commission of three to proceed to ascertain and report to him all expenses incurred for the purposes above specified." Public Laws of the United States, First Session, Thirty-fourth Congress, 1855-6.
