RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 369 acquiescence in the march of civilization. The Indians said, in substance, "This is our country and we have a right to do as we please with our country. We do not invade the white man's country, but he comes and takes ours and demands that we shall live as he does. We answer him, No, No. Let him stay in his own country and leave us to do as we please. ' ' A historian writes that ' ' Stevens felt fully that here was the crisis but it could not be explained to the Indians.* They held a view irreconcilable with the new conditions. He desired them to understand that the Americans were willing to give them the same, or even better opportunity than their own people, but the country could not be closed to settlement. He had not, neither had the government itself, the power to check the American settlement of the country. His measures were as a protection to the Indians. ' ' There is other evidence that he told them more upon the same subject ; that the large region they had been living in could not be kept as a game preserve for any people, that it must be cultivated and afford a living for more people than could get a living on it by hunting and fishing, and as they were not accustomed to agriculture the government would help them to begin and send white men to teach them, which is more than is done for white men. The Governor seemed to be doubtful as to their ability to under- stand, but I think he was unduly faithless. Peu-peu-mox-mox saw a difference between goods and the earth. He said,
- ' Good and the earth are not equal. Goods are for using on the
earth." Evidently he had a vague perception that the earth is the primal source of all goods, which is a platitude among political economists. The Governor made a good beginning and should have gone into details and a rationale of the movement he was inaugurating, for such would have been more easily comprehended than generalities. A dull Indian
- Learning that Governor Stevens' son Hazard had written a life of his
father, I sent him a copy of this page relating to the big council, and the Oregon historian's account of it, to which the biographer replied that his father explained everything fully to the Indians and had no doubt as to their understanding of the situation. T. W. D.
