Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/600



in their hands) "that they had ropes to hang every trooper, the soldiers not being worth the powder and ball to shoot them ; ' ' and occasionally a rope would be hung out on a bush and Captain Smith was told to come out and hang him- self. All sorts of insulting epithets in tolerable English were hurled at the sol- diers from the nearest fringe of timber. This terrible strain continued until four o'clock the second day of the battle, when one-third of Smith's command was killed and wounded. About sundown the Indians held a council, and rely- ing on the exhausted condition of the white men planned to charge Smith's camp with the whole force. "It was an hour never to be forgotten" — says the letter of one of the soldiers — " a silent and awful hour, in the expectation of speedy and cruel death." Suddenly an infernal chorus of yells burst forth from John's camp, the whole Indian army joining in one blood-curdling roar of demoniac fury; they rushed upon Smith's poor camp from all sides. The life of every white man hung in the balance ; and the yelling, and savage thirst for the white man's blood had prevented the Indian chief from discovering that at that same instant Captain Augur, responding to Smith's call for aid, had silentlj^ crept through the surrounding timber, and as the Indians charged down upon the beleagured whites Augur's men rushed upon the rear of the In- dian attack firing at short range and then charging with the bayonets, and the battle was over in fifteen minutes, the Indians wildly fleeing in all directions, abandoning their camp entirely. Thus ended May 28, 1856, the last battle of Chief John and the Rogue Rivers.

Chief John was a very unusual Indian. He is described as a bolder, braver and stronger man mentally than any chief west of the Cascade mountains. When dressed in white men's costume he might have been easily taken for a hard working, sun burnt farmer of the western states. A good likeness of him is given upon another page. With slight resistance after his last battle he, with all his warriors, came in and surrendered to Captain Smith, and Joel Palmer, Svipt. of Indian affairs, on June 1, 1856, thus ending the Rogue River Indian wars for all time. The final result was that about 2,700 Indians old and young were removed from the Southern Oregon country to the Siletz and Grande Ronde Reservations, and shoAving that before the war commenced there must have been an Indian population of fuUj' 5,000 in that region. Many minor events, bloodj^ reprisals, and isolated murders from both sides have been recorded, but Avhich have not been referred to, but which are well worth pre- serving. These have been collated by the Hon. Wm. M. Colvig, and given to present day readers in an address by him to the reunion of Indian war veterans at Medford on July 26, 1902 ; and all of this Indian war historj' compiled in the above address, and which has not been already recorded herein, will now be given and credited to the careful work of Mr. Colvig.

The first recorded fight between the Indians and whites in any portion of southei-n Oregon occurred in 1828 when Jedediah S. Smith and seven other trap- pers were attacked by the Indians on the Umpqua River, and fifteen of the whites were slain, only Smith and three of his companions escaping. The next fight of which we have any account was in June, 1836, at a point just below the Rock Point Bridge, where the barn on the W. L. Colvig estate stands. In this fight there were Dan Miller, Edward Barnes, Dr. W. J. Bailey, George Gay, Saunders, Woodworth, Irish Tom, and J. Turner and Squaw. Two trappers were killed.

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