LETTER OF GENERAL HARNEY.
HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF OREGON.
Fort Vancouver, W.T., June 3, 1859.
SIR:-I have the honor to inclose, for the information of the general-in-chief, an interesting report from the Rev. P.J. De Smet, describing the country of upper Washington Territory, in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains, now occupied by various Indian tribes.
This report is valuable from the rare advantages Father De Smet possessed for many years, in his position as missionary among those tribes, to obtain accurate information of the country; and his purity of character will always give respect and importance to his statements.
The description he gives of the upper Clarke's Fork, the St. Mary's or Bitter Root valley, the valley of Hell's Gate Fork, the upper valleys on the headwaters of Beaver River, and the Kootenays country, in connection with his suggestion of collecting the remnants of the Indian tribes in Oregon and Washington Territories in that region upon a suitable reservation, is well worthy the serious consideration of the Government.
The country spoken of will not be occupied by the whites for at least twenty years: it is difficult of access, and does not offer the same inducements to the settler that are everywhere presented to him on the coast.
The system adopted in California of placing large numbers of
Indians upon a single reservation, and causing them to adopt summarily the habits of life of the whites, failed in consequence of the abrupt transition brought to bear upon these simple and suspicious people. The plan proposed by Father De Smet is not open to this objection: it places the Indians in a country abounding with game and fish, with sufficient arable land to encourage them in its gradual cultivation; and by the aid of the missionaries at present with them, that confidence and influence will be established over their minds, by degrees, as will induce them to submit to the restraints of civilization, when the inevitable decree of time causes it to pass over them.
From what I have observed of the Indian affairs of this department, the missionaries among them possess a power of the greatest consequence in their proper government, and on which cannot be acquired by any other influence. They control the Indian by training his superstitions and fears to revere the religion they possess, by associating the benefits they confer with the guardianship and protection of the Great Spirit of the whites. The history of the Indian race on this continent has shown that the missionary succeeded where the soldier and civilian have failed; it would be well for us to profit by the lessons its experience teaches, in an instance which offers so many advantages to the white as well as to the red man, and adopt the wise and humane suggestion of ather De Smet.
I am, sir, very respectfully,
Your most obedient servant,
W.S. HARNEY,
Brigadier-general commanding.
ASSISTANT ADJUTANT-GENERAL,
Headquarters of the Army, N.Y. City.