Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/351



THE ROGUE RIVER WARS. 333

that they had been ratified by congress, although with some amendments to which they gave their assent with evident reluctance. One of these allowed other tribes to be placed on their reservation an intrusion which the jealous nature of the Indian resents with bitterness; another, consolidated all the Rogue-river tribes in one an equally offensive measure for the same reason.

Palmer had intended to remove the Indians of the Wallamet valley east of the Cascades, but found them un willing to go, and the Indians on the east side of the mountains unwilling to receive them on account of their diseased condition. As this was a reasonable ob jection from a civilized point of view, he gathered them upon a reservation called the Grand Rond, in the county of Polk, to the infinite disgust of the settlers in that district. But Palmer was a man who took his own way about things, and as he did his work thoroughly, without pother, those from whom he derived his authority seldom meddled with him. If he was arbitrary, he was generally in the right, and it saved a deal of trouble to give him the management. He had much ado to secure and keep worthy agents, on account of the small amount allowed them in salaries so small indeed as to offer an argument for, as well as an inducement to peculation. He had, however, at the different agencies such men as Philip F. Thompson, E. P. Drew, Nathan Olney (who succeeded Parrish), R. R. Thompson, W. W. Raymond, William J. Martin, and Robert Metcalf. S. H. Culver was superseded on the Rogue- river reservation by George H. Ambrose; and Ben Wright was appointed to the charge of the tribes on the southern coast.

No treaties, other than the informal and temporary agreements made by Dr. White under the provisional government, had ever been made with the tribes of east ern Oregon or Washington; nor had the subject been ap proached when 1. 1. Stevens, the newly appointed governor of Washington crossed the country at the head of an ex-