Chapter V INDIAN—PIONEER CONFLICT AND THE STORY OF ISHI
Conflict—prolonged, tragic, and violent—flared during the period when Europeans wrested control of North America from the native Indian. In viewing the struggle between Indian and white man, feelings run high even today.
What was it when Custer’s contingent was wiped out?—when the Modocs inflicted such heavy losses on the American troops?—when the Navajo, Sioux, and others made their devastating raids on wagon trains and pioneer settlers? These were just as much a part of the war as were the exploits of Rogers’ Rangers, the indiscriminate slaying of Indian men, women, and children in the Yahi caves on Mill Creek, and the annihilation of large segments of Atsugewi and Yana tribes cornered at points northwest of the present Lassen Volcanic National Park area. War is never a pretty thing. Was the hit and run killing of white people by Indians any less defensible morally than white man’s atrocities against the Indians, or, for that matter, than commando raids and atomic bombings of today? Our viewpoint on such matters in the past has all too often been that might makes right, since we have always been on the winning side. Until very recently we have followed the biased opinion of the colonists and pioneers of these United States: whenever we won, it was a glorious and righteous victory, but if the Indian emerged victorious, it was regarded as a dastardly massacre. It is a viewpoint readily understandable where a person’s loved ones are involved—but not justifiable.
Our veterans of recent wars will vouch for the fact that white man’s wars can be primitive and violent when life and limb are at stake. We are hardly in a position to criticize the “cruel and sneaking” fighting methods of the Indians. Was it not use of Indian fighting methods which was so valuable to us in defeating the British in the colonial war for independence?
Indians fought in the only way they knew—and a disheartening losing fight it was for them with bows and arrows against rifles. For each gain in weapons and technical know-how the Indians made, the whites made many. True, it cost Americans much in the way of lives, anguish, and money, but how small were these losses in comparison to those of the Indians. American Indians, the undisputed owners of this continent for thousands of years, were not only nearly exterminated, but in the end we took virtually all of their land by force and with it took away the means of self support as well without “due process of law”. We denied the Indian the right of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”—the very things for which we as a nation stand. In all fairness, however, it should be stated that in recent years modest monetary retribution has been made by the U.S. Government to some of the surviving descendants.