Shadows of Shasta

Shadows of Shasta is a classic American history text by Joaquin Miller that deals with the plight of Native Americans. Why this book? Because last year, in the heart of the Sierras, I saw Native American women and children chained together and marched down from their cool, healthy homes to degradation and death on the Reservation. At the side of this long, chained line, urged on and kept in order by bayonets, rode a young officer, splendid in gold and brass, and newly burnished, from that now famous charity-school on the Hudson. These women and children were guilty of no crime; they were not even accused of wrong. But their fathers and brothers lay dead in battle-harness, on the mountain heights and in the lava beds; and these few silent survivors, like Israel of old, were being led into captivity--but, unlike the chosen children, never to return to the beloved heart of their mountains. Do you doubt these statements about the treatment of the Native Americans? Then read this, from the man--the fiend in the form of man--who for years, and until recently, had charge of all the Indians in the United States