e of the
old Santa Fe trail that troops were needed to protect the stagecoaches,
emigrants, and caravans traveling that great highway. Like nearly all
our Indian wars, this trouble was precipitated by the injustice of the
white man's government of certain of the native tribes. In 1860 Colonel
A. G. Boone, a worthy grandson of the immortal Daniel, made a treaty with
the Comanches, Kiowas, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes, and at their request he
was made agent. During his wise, just, and humane administration all of
these savage nations were quiet, and held the kindliest feelings toward
the whites. Any one could cross the plains without fear of molestation.
In 1861 a charge of disloyalty was made against Colonel Boone by Judge
Wright, of Indiana, and he succeeded in having the right man removed
from the right place. Russell, Majors & Waddell, recognizing his
influence over the Indians, gave him fourteen hundred acres of land near
Pueblo, Colorado. Colonel Boone moved there, and the place was named
Booneville. Fifty chieftains from the tribes referred to visited Colonel
Boone in the fall of 1862, and implored him to return to them. He told
them that the President had sent him away. They offered to raise money,
by selling their horses, to send him to Washington, to tell the Great
Father what their agent was doing--that he stole their goods and sold
them back again; and they bade the colonel say that there would be
trouble unless some one were put in the dishonest man's place. With the
innate logic for which the Indian is noted, they declared that they had
as much right to steal from passing caravans as the agent had to steal
from them. No notice was taken of so trifling a matter as an injustice
to the Indian. The administration had its hands more than full in the
attempt to right the wrongs of the negro. In the fall of 1863 a caravan
passed along the trail. It was a small one, but the Indians had been
quiet for so long a time that travelers were beginning to lose fear
of them. A band of warriors rode up to the wagon-train and asked for
something to eat. The teamsters thought they would be doing humanity a
service if they killed a redskin, on the ancient principle that "the only
good Indian is a dead one." Accordingly, a friendly, inoffensive Indian
was shot. The bullet that reached his heart touched that of every
warrior in these nations. Every man but one in the wagon-train was
slain, the animals driven off, and the wagons burned.