Colonel Boone Gets Judge Wright's Enmity. Lincoln Appoints Col. A.G.
Boone Indian Agent. Arrangements Are Made With Commissioners For Indian
Annuities. Mr. Haynes Sends Troops to Burn Out Colonel Boone.
Driving from Bent's Old Fort to Boonville, Colorado, was usually a
pleasant drive for me. After I quit the Long Route and took up the
Denver Branch, I made my home with Colonel A.G. Boone, who is a great
great grandson of the immortal Daniel Boone.
President Lincoln was inaugurated in March, 1860, he saw Major Filmore
of Denver, Colorado, paymaster of the army, who was in Washington during
the last of March after the inauguration. He asked him if he knew of a
good man, capable of going among the Indians to make treaties with them,
so that transportation could cross the plains without escorts. Major
Filmore told the President that he knew Colonel A.G. Boone to be a
fearless man, that he was not only fearless, competent and capable, but
that no other man could do the work as efficiently as Colonel Boone,
because the Indians were so friendly disposed toward him. Lincoln said:
"Major, I wish you would see this Colonel for me, immediately. Give him
funds to come to Washington at once, for I want to have a consultation
with him on this 'Indian question.'"
Colonel Boone went to Washington, as arranged, and gave President
Lincoln his views on the subject under consideration. Colonel Boone, in
company with the President of the United States, went to the Board of
the Indian Commissioners. After talking over the various ways of
handling Indians, and giving his opinion of the different ways to
accomplish a safer journey across the plains without encountering
hostilities from Indians--he asked the Commissioners, and President,
what it was they particularly desired him to do? They told him that they
had sent for him to find out from him what he would do. They told him
they wanted him to sketch out how he would first proceed to such a task.
"Well," Colonel Boone replied, "do you want to give the Indians any
annuities, or what would be called annuities--quarterly annuities of
clothing, provisions, etc., and if so, how much, and so on?" The
commissioners made a rating. After considerable figuring, submitted
their figures to Boone's consideration. Upon looking the figures over,
Boone told them to cut those figures half in two. They thought they had
figured as closely as Boone would think expedient, and rather feared the
amount they had first allowed each one was too small. Colonel Boone
said: "If you figure the weight of the product you send them, you will
find it will take a good many trains to transport it yearly." Said he:
"Not only cut it in two, gentlemen, but cut it into eighths. Then
perhaps you can be sure to keep your agreement with them."
As to agreements, Indians are still, and have always been most
particular about living up to them. Personally, I would not make an
agreement with an Indian, however trivial, that I did not mean to carry
out to the letter. They have always been with me most careful to comply
with the terms of their contracts.
Colonel Boone was made Indian Agent, but President Lincoln told Colonel
Boone that he could not furnish him very many soldiers as escort on
account of the war. Mr. Boone told him he did not want an army, but that
he did want about three ambulances and the privilege of selecting his
own men to go with him.
Arrangements were then made to forward to Fort Lyon blankets, beads,
Indian trinkets, flour, sugar, coffee and such other articles of
usefulness as is generally found in settlement stores or commissaries.
When Colonel Boone told President Lincoln that he did not care for an
army of soldiers for escort, the President seemed astonished, and asked
him how he dared go down the Arkansas River without a good escort. Boone
told him that it was his idea that he would be safer with three men, the
ones he selected to go with him, viz.: Tom Boggs, Colonel Saint Vraine,
Major Filmore and Colonel Bent than he would be with a thousand soldiers.
The first thing Boone did was to send out runners to have the Indians
come in to Big Timbers, on the Arkansas River, where Fort Lyon is now
located. There Colonel Boone began his negotiations with the Indians
that opened up the Santa Fe Trail to such an extent that traveling was
less dangerous and expensive.
In the second place, Colonel Boone and his party proceeded to Fort Lyon
and at once began negotiations with the Indians as per his contract with
the Indian Commissioners and President Abraham Lincoln.
When they arrived at the place appointed where the agency was to be
established, there were camped about thirty thousand Indians with their
Indian provisions, buffalo meat, venison, antelope, bear and other wild
meats, and John Smith and Dick Curtis, who were the great Indian
interpreters for all the tribes. The Comanches, Kiowas, Cheyennes,
Sioux, Arapahoes, Acaddas, and other tribes, with Colonel Boone, arrived
at a complete understanding, and for about two years the Indians were
kindly disposed toward the Whites, or as long as Colonel Boone's
administration as Indian Agent existed. Any one then could cross the
plains without fear of molestation from the Indians.