“The strangest feature of this state of affairs,” agent Neighbors wrote in 1857, “is the fact that, at the same time that those bands of Camanches … are depredating on our citizens, waylaying our roads, destroying our mails to El Paso, &c., an agent of your department is distributing to them a large annuity of goods, arms, and ammunition on the Arkansas river.” That, Neighbors seethed, “is arming them, and giving them the means more effectually to carry on their hostile forays.”
