Читать книгу Lost Worlds of 1863. Relocation and Removal of American Indians in the Central Rockies and the Greater Southwest онлайн
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One of the first contacts between the Owens Valley and Fort Tejon came in August 1858 when a delegation of Paiutes visited the Sebastian Indian Reservation. As the Indian Agent J. R. Vineyard reported, “The people of that region [Owens Lake], so far as I can learn, number about 1500. The delegation asked assistance to put in crops next season, also someone to instruct them in agriculture, etc … . I gave them presents of clothing and useful implements, and sent them back to their people, with the promise of transmitting their request to the great chief [President Buchanan?].”37 The promise evidently was not enough to preserve the peace as violence continued the next year, perhaps augmented in part by the participation of fugitive Indians from the Tule River who supposedly joined their Paiute cousins in the Owens Valley.
Apparently, the loss of stock in the Santa Clara and San Fernando Valleys was large enough that, for unknown reasons, it was believed that the Paiutes and California refugees at Owens Lake were responsible. In any case, the horse thieving in southern California was significant enough that Captain John “Blackjack” Davidson wrote to his commanding officer on May 1, 1859, that “… I have ascertained conclusively that these marauding Indians are from Owen’s [sic] Lake, about 200 miles above here, on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, and I most respectfully recommend an expedition against them into their homes.” The Post Adjutant at Fort Tejon agreed with him and Davidson soon after led a punitive expedition which was sent out from Fort Tejon to Owens Valley on July 21 of that year.38