Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/589



THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OK OREGON ;j'.)5

I'or the prisoners in tlu^ fiice of ;ill this taeit opposition, aiid in Ihr I'jiee of the J'ear of the Jiidiaii Chiefs th;it they iniglit themselves lie pnnishcd if they yiehled to tlie white Ciiief 's (lein.-iinl. But i)i'otesting their own innoceuee while pleading that the nuirders were more tiuui eondoned fof ]>y Ihe idlling of Indians by white men in California, they suri-endered to the une«iuivocal demand of a single white man. That was a great triumph of moral over brute force, represented by the personality, culture and intellectual powers of Ogden.

Now shift the scene from the Umatilla to Rogue River. The Rogue River Indians had been robbing and killing inoffending white men passing through their country for more than twenty years, and had escaped any punishment for their savage brutalities. The first man in authority, and tbe first man of any station to appear on the scene and demand a settlement was Joseph Lane, then territorial governor. The Rogue River Indians knew no more about Lane or his ofiScial position than they knew about Christopher Columbus. To them Governor Lane was only a man like any other white man. That he was the big chief they had only his word for it. And yet he calls them in for a council — 150 warriors, half of them armed, with their big chief, sullen, unyielding, demanding war and swift killing of all white men. And yet, with his slender force of thirty men, half of them Indians, and surrounded by the savages, he boldly arrests their chief before their eyes, binds him a prisoner, and then with his own single weapon proceeds to knock their bows, arrows and guns out of their hands, in- dignantly dismisses the council, ordering the Indian army to begone and not return for two days — and they obey his orders and leave their chief in his hands without an efi'ort to release him. The feat of Governor Lane was greater than that of Ogden : for he had twenty times as many Indians in his presence to deal with ; he had not the prestige of the great fur company to back him, and he of- fered no ransom of presents or plunder to secure peace. And yet he, by sheer force, of his own demonstration and natural superiority over the red men, forced the Rogue Rivers into a peace treaty that was observed for more than a year.

After making this treaty. General Lane passed on down to California and engaged in gold mining, having learned that he was to be, as it turned out that he was, sujierseded as governor of Oregon by the api)ointnient of John P. Gaines as governor.

In 1850 Congress passed an Act to extinguish the Indian title to all lands west of the Cascade mountains, and President ]Millard Fillmore appointed Anson P. Dart superintendent of Indian affairs for Oregon. A commission was also created by congress consisting of the newly appointed Governor Gaines, Alonzo A. Skinner and Beverly S. Allen, to make treaties with the Indians west of the Cascades. Superintendent Dart soon had plenty of trouble. For without any- body being able to point out the exciting cause of it, during the latter part of 1850 and the summer of 1851 there was a general outbreak of the Indian war spirit from the Snake river region down to the California line. Many persons blamed the troiible upon the instigation of the ^Mormons, and others upon the general unrest of the Indians by the increasing settlements of the white people. The latter cause was all-sulificient. The Indian could see that he could not com- pete with the white man : and that he must become subject to him or go down in the contest, and he resolved to fight first. On the Oregon trail throug