Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/581

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MURDER BY CAPTAIN JACK.
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and his people passes to go where they pleased, which boast he was able to confirm.[1] At length Jack precipitated the necessity of arresting him by going upon the reservation and killing a doctor, who, having failed to save the lives of two persons in his family, was, according to savage reasoning, guilty of their deaths. It is doubtful if an Indian who had lived so much among white people believed in the doctor's guilt; but whether he really meant to avenge the death of his relatives or to express his defiance of United States authority, the effect was the same. By the terms of the treaty the government was bound to defend the reservation Indians against their enemies. Ivan D. Applegate, commissary at Camp Yainax, made a requisition upon the commander at Fort Klamath. to arrest Jack for murder, the effort to do so being rendered ineffectual by the interference of Jack's white friends in Yreka.[2]

Lieutenant Goodale was relieved at Fort Klamath in 1870, by Captain James Jackson, 1st United States cavalry, with his company, B. Knapp had also been relieved of the agency on the reservation by John Meacham, brother of the superintendent, who on being informed of the murder on the reserve instructed the agent to make no arrests until a conference should have been had with Jack and his lieutenants, at the same time naming John Meacham and Ivan D. Applegate as his representatives to confer with them.[3]

  1. Says Jackson: He carries around with him letters from prominent citizens of Yreka, testifying to his good conduct and good faith with the whites. Many of the settlers in the district where he roams are opposed to having him molested. Military Correspondence, MS., Aug. 29, 1871. This was true of some of the settlers on the six-mile tract, who feared to be massacred should his arrest be attempted. How well they understood the danger was soon proved.
  2. The following is a copy of a paper carried around by Jack: 'Yreka, June 26, 1871. Captain Jack has been to Yreka to know what the whites are going to do with him for killing the doctor. The white people should not meddle with them in their laws among themselves, further than to persuade them out of their foolish notions. White people are not mad at them for executing their own laws, and should not be anywhere. Let them settle all these matters among themselves, and then our people will be in no danger from them. E. Steele.' Applegate's Modoc Hist., MS.
  3. Lieut R. H. Anderson, in Military Correspondence, MS., Aug. 4, 1871; H. Com. Rept, 98, 257–67, 42d cong. 3d sess.