wawewa, which ended by their declining to go upon the Klamath reservation as requested, because Crook, who could have persuaded them to it, declined to do so,[1] for the reason that he believed that Meacham had promised more than he would be able to perform.
Early in November Meacham held a council with the Indians assembled at Camp Warner under Otsehoe, a chief who controlled several of the lately hostile bands, and persuaded this chief to go with his followers upon the Klamath reserve. But the war department gave neither encouragement nor material assistance, although Otsehoe and other Indians about Warner Lake were known to Crook to be amongst the worst of their race, and dangerous to leave at large.[2]
True to his restless nature, Otsehoe left the reservation in the spring of 1870, where his people had been fed through the winter. They deserted in detachments, Otsehoe remaining to the last; and when the commissary required the chief to bring them back, he replied that Major Otis desired them to remain at Camp Warner, a statement which was true, at least in part, as Otis himself admitted.[3]
Otsehoe, however, finally consented to make his home at Camp Yainax, so far as to stay on the reser-
- ↑ 'I did not order them to go with Mr Meacham, for the reason that I have their confidence that I will do or order only what is best and right, both for themselves and the government.' Military Correspondence, Dec. 7, 1869.
- ↑ 'Among these bands,' says Gen. Crook, 'and those near Harney, are some as crafty and bad as any I have ever seen, and if they are retained in the vicinity of their old haunts, and the Indian department manages them as they have other tribes in most cases, they will have trouble with them.' Military Correspondence, March 4, 1809.
- ↑ 'I do not remember giving any Indians permission to stay here, but I have said that if they came I would not send them back, because they said they could live better here. I shall, however, advise the Indians to go over and see Mr Meacham, in the hope that he will rectify any neglect or wrong that may have been done them.' Otis to Ivan D. Applegate, in Military Correspondence, July 18, 1870. Applegate, in reply, says that the Indians were well fed and well treated during the winter, but that crickets had destroyed their growing grain, and Meacham's arrival had been delayed, owing to the tardiness of the Indian department in the east, besides which reasons, sufficient to discourage the unstable Indian mind, Archie McIntosh, one of the Boisé Indian scouts, had been making mischief on the reservation, by representing that Otsehoe was wanted with his people at Camp Warner.
