Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/11

KECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. you will likely conclude that he should be retained. John S. White, superintendent of farming operations, has been there long enough to become well acquainted with the Indians, and can render you valuable service. There is a large and well as- sorted stock of annuity goods, in boxes and bales, at the agency, and it is getting along towards the time of year when the Indians will need them. There is no record in this office, showing the names and numbers of the individuals composing the three tribes, Cayuses, Walla Wallas, and Umatillas, gath- ered there, and, of course, a census must be taken first, and if you are reasonably expeditious it will be mid- winter before they get their blankets/' Mr. Rector finished as be began, by saying, "I shall give you no written instructions as to the management of the agency and you will consider yourself free to use your own judgment. ' ' It may be well to state that I was at that time wtoolly unacquainted with the art and science of conducting an Indian agency. I had been led to suppose from my reading, however, that the Government had established the agency system for the double purpose of introducing the aborigines to civiliza- tion and whether more or less successful in it, to divert them by such means from the chase and the war path. As to the method of keeping accounts with the Government I knew nothing. To be sure, I had heard that it was by abstracts and vouchers, and I learned from various sources that by means of them: an agent upon a salary of $1,500 a year had been known to accumulate for himself very much more. The question was asked of Horace Greeley, how an agent, upon such a salary, could in four years get forty thousand dollars, to which he answered with grave simplicity, "It is above my (arithmetic." Of course, I knew there were imperfections in the system and suspected the ordinary amount of unfaithful- ness in officers, but in the main I supposed the good intentions of the General Government were fairly well carried out. My faith was not built so much upon knowledge of what had been done, as upon the character of the men who had been