when Otis made a formal recommendation in writing that the permission given by Meacham should be withdrawn, and they directed to go upon the reservation, the order not to be given before September; that in case of their refusal the military could put them upon it in winter, which was the most favorable season for the undertaking. Otis further recommended placing Jack and Black Jim on the Siletz reservation, or any other place of banishment from their people, giving it as his opinion that there would be no peace while they were at liberty to roam, without a considerable military force to compel his good behavior. In order to make room for the Modocs, and leave them no cause of complaint, he proposed the removal of Otsehoe's band of Shoshones, together with Wewawewa's and some others, to a reservation in the Malheur country.[1] The same recommendation was made to Canby on the 15th of April.
While these matters were under discussion, the long-delayed order arrived from the commissioner of Indian affairs at Washington to remove the Modocs, if practicable, to the reservation already set apart for them by the treaty of 1864, and to see that they were protected from the aggressions of the Klamaths. Could this not be done, or if the superintendent should be unable to keep them on the reserve, he was to report his views of locating them at some other point which he should select.
Odeneal wrote to the new agent at Klamath, L. S. Dyar,[2] and to Commissary Applegate to seek an
- ↑ I make the above recommendations, he said, after commanding the military districts of Nevada, Owyhee, and the districts of the lakes, successively since December 1867. Odeneal's Modoc War, 22.
- ↑ Dyar was the fourth agent in three years. Lindsey Applegate was incumbent from 1864 to 1869, when Knapp was substituted to secure the fair treatment of the Indians, which it was then supposed only military officers could give. But Captain Knapp was more complained of than Applegate, because he endeavored to get some service out of the Modocs in their own behalf. John Meacham was then placed in office for one year, when J. H. High, former agent at Fort Hall, supplanted him. Klamath agency being under assignment to the methodist church for religious teaching, L. S. Dyar was appointed through this influence. All of these men treated the Indians well.
