Newspaper Article
Contributed by: Kristin Windbigler of Blocksburg
The Business of Kidnapping Indian Children
This article appeared December 26, 1860 in the Humboldt Times.
HO THERE:---Reports reach us that parties in a remote portion of the county are engaged in the business of kidnapping Indian children and disposing of them to families in the towns and settlements, receiving such a sum of money as may be agreed upon between the high contracting powers, in each instance from thirty to fifty dollars, according to the "trouble" incurred in obtaining possession of the children. It is intimated---and upon pretty good authority---that stratagem and sometimes force, is made use of to capture the children, the consent of the children and their relatives being considered of but little importance. What amount of force or cunning is required to obtain possession of these little savages we do not pretend to say; but any one who has lived long on this portion of the Pacific coast does not need to be told that Indians do not, as a general practice, willingly consent to have their children taken to a distance to reside amongst strangers. Let us have no more of this business.
The law of last winter which provides for the apprenticeship of "vagrant Indians" is perhaps well enough when strictly complied with, but does not contemplate the establishment of a domestic slave trade. Those of our citizens who desire to apprentice Indians under the State law, should carefully scrutinize the manner in which they are separated from their tribe, and offered to them as servants.
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