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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Alas, the good life was not to last. First, the fine citizens of Canyon City, a mining town a short distance from the northwestern corner of the reservation, had petitioned the Office of Indian Affairs. Evidently, the governor of Oregon and others asserted that the Paiutes had no claim to the western side of the reservation, and that the Harney Lake basin and nearby meadows should be used by cattlemen and not Indians. Then, in 1876, Parrish was removed ostensibly because he was not a practicing Christian and religious societies, like Mormons and Methodists, were to manage the reservations for the Indian service. Enter practicing Christian William V. Rinehart, an ex-miner and Indian fighter who, unlike Parrish, could not be accused of “soft-heartedness” toward the Indians. Not humane like Parrish, he was a man of violent temper who regarded Indians as the enemy. His major goal was to push the Paiutes out of Malheur and allow the whites to encroach on what was once their newly promised land. After the harvest of 1876 when the deduction of past expenses for rations and clothing left the Numu with very little pay, Egan and the others knew that Rinehart was purposely pushing them out of the Malheur Reservation. Some went to Fort Harney, while others followed Old Winnemucca to the Steens Mountains south of Malheur Lake.⁹¹