Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/138

128 whether travelers, settlers, or gold hunters, feared and hated them, and oftentimes the transient classes, animated by fear, killed the wild man on sight with as little compunction of conscience as they would have felt at killing any wild animal. The Indians, on their side, without taking into account that they had been the aggressors in the first instance, revenged themselves by massacres in the white settlements, and war became necessary. That has been the history of the subdual of the American continent from the Atlantic to Pacific, let apologists on either side say what they will.

It has been charged upon the Oregon people that they provoked Indian wars by wilfully wronging in various ways the innocent natives. That the charge is untrue is clear when it is remembered that, situated as they were for years, without protection, they dared not, had they desired, offer violence to the natives. It is true that the presence of the Hudson's Bay Company while it was in power restrained the Indians and the white men as well. It was after the arrival of the United States government officers that wars became unavoidable, the necessity increasing from year to year in the manner just referred to.

The rifle regiment, having proven a disturbance to the people rather than a protection, was removed in 1851 to California, the Oregonians believing that if armed they could protect themselves at less expense to the government than that required to transport and supply regular troops. This probably was a wrong move, for it placed the settlers and the natives in opposition to each other as they had not been before. Hostilities opened by the Rogue River Indians gathering to attack a division of the riflemen under Major Kearney on its way to California, and exploring for a road that would avoid the Umpqua canyon. Kearney attacked them in a fortified position at Table Rock, and was compelled to fall back