Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/584



The military forces of Col. Gilliam had not been able to capture the mur- derers of Dr. Whitman, nor to force the Cayuses into a decisive battle ; but they had succeeded in breaking up the existing tribal community of the Cayuses and scattering them far and wide from the Columbia to California and from the Cascade mountains to the Rockies ; and everywhere the Cayuse had gone he was a preacher of murder and destruction of the white men, telling how they had been driven away from their lands, homes and graves of their fathers. It was a hard case to meet, and the Cayuse war was substantially the parent of all the other Oregon Indian Wars.

ROGUE RIVER WARS

Whether justlj- or unjustly, the community of tribes and families of Indians inhabiting the southwest corner of the state, and classed by the Ethnologists as the Shastan, Takelman and Athapaskan families, commenced their inter- course with the white man under the reputation of being a bad lot ; so bad that they were named the "Rogues;" and the disreputable appellation attached to their beautiful river. The author is aware that some writers claim that the river got its name from red or "rouge" clay found along its banks, and with which the Indians always painted themselves before going into battle. But as he has been up and down the river from its source in Mt. McLoughlin to its discharge into the Pacific ocean at Gold Beach, and never saw or heard of any such red or "rouge" clay, the unfortunate name will stick to the river long after the last rogue of an Indian has departed to the happy hunting grounds beyond this vale of tears. The unimaginable titanic forces concealed in the crust of our little globe of an earth never produced anywhere on its surface a more beautiful home for a nomadic race of men than is to be found in the clustered valleys of the Umpqua, Rogiie river, Illinois, Applegate, Klamath, Scott and Shasta, with their intervening timber and picturesque mountains. Having been all over that region, and knowing of all the hatred with which the early miners and settlers regarded the native Indian owners of that land, yet the impartial judge might well be justified in paraphrasing and applying to the Rogue River Indian wars the famous speech of Tom Corwin (senator from Ohio) on the Mexican war, and say, " If I were an Indian as I am an Amei-ican, I would welcome the white men with bloody hands to hospitable graves."

To comprehend the historical lesson of the Indian wars, or any war, the reader should "put himself in their place." The Indian had been living in these beautiful valleys, untouched by the hands of man, for thousands of years. His untutored mind seeing God onlj^ in clouds, or hearing Him only in the wind, could no more comprehend the white man's desire for land to dig gold out of, or produce food from, that he could explain the apparent daily round of sun, moon and stars. Lee, Whitman, Walker and Spalding had laboriously sought to enlighten that untutored mind in the Cayuse and Nez Perce, and in a little measure prepared the Indian to comprehend the white man. But the Rogue River Indian had received no such light ; and all he knew of the white man was as an uninvited intruder on his peaceful home, a taker of his land and game

THE CENTENNIAL HfSTORY OF OREGON 393

without liis coiiseut or without even asking for it ; aud so from the very hrsl it was war to the knife, and knife to the hilt between the two oecupiers of those val- leys. •

When -Joseph Ijjiui', tlir lirst yovernor of Oregon under L'nited States author- ity, reaehed Oregon City on ilareh 2, 184!J, he found the Cayuse war practically ended by Governor Abernethy and the provisional government troops. Whit man's murderers had been captured but not yet ti'ied for the murder. The desultory border warfare between the miners and settlers of Southern Oregon had been going on for years as occasion offered to attack emigrant trains, or parties passing between Oregon and California. Gold had been discovere«' be- fore Lane reaehed Oregon, and he quickly sized up the importance of peace with the Indians of the Southern Oregon valleys, through which the gold seekers must pass and repass with their pack trains and treasure. A party of gold miners returning from California had been attacked at Rocky Point on Rogue river and barely escaped with their lives into the woods, while the Indians seized their camp outfit and poured all their gold dust into the river. Governor Lane was not a man to halt between two opinions, and quicklj- calling to his aid fifteen ex- perienced white men and taking along with him also Klickitat Indian Chii'f Quatley and fifteen of his warriors, the expedition set out for Rogue river valhy in May, 1850. Reaching the neighboi-hood of the Indian village at Sam's Valley not far from Rock Point about the middle of June, 1850, Lane sent a message to the Indian chief to come to his (Lane's) camp for a talk, as he had come to make a