Columbia Democrat And Bloomsburg General Advertiser

Operations Against the Navajoe Indians.

Full and interesting dispatches have been received at the War Department from Brigadier General James H. Carleton, commanding the Department of New Mexico, respecting the operations against the Navajoe Indians Among the dispatches are reports from Colonel C. Carson, commanding First Regiment New Mexico Volunteers, well know as the "Kit Carson" who accompanied Fremont in his expedition over the Rocky Mountains to California, and who commanded the expeditions against the Navajoes during the past summer. He has been very successful in his operations against this war-like tribe, killing and dispersing large numbers of their warriors. The report of General Carleton recommends the establishment of a reservation forty miles square; at the Bosque Redondo, far down on the plains, for the Navajoes, where these Indians will not come in contact with settlers. With regard to this tribe, he says:

"They have no Government to make treaties. They are a patriarchal people. One set of families may make promises, but the other set will not heed them.-- They understand the direct application of force as a law. If its application be removed, that moment they become lawless This has been tried over and over again, and at great expense. The purpose now is never to relax the application of force with a people that can no more be trusted than you can trust the wolves that run their mountains To gather them together, little by little, on to a reservation away from the haunts and hills and hiding places of their country, and then be kind to them; there teach their children how to read and write; teach them the arts of peace; teach them the truths of Christianity. Soon they will acquire new habits, new ideas, new modes of life. The old Indians will die off, and carry with them all latent longings for murdering and robbing. The young ones will take their places without these longings, and thus, little by little, they will become a happy and contented people, and Navajoe wars will be remembered only as something that belongs entirely to the past.-- Even until they can raise enough to be self-sustaining you can find them cheaper than you can fight them."