In the fall of 1851, a party of miners, returning from a successful gold-hunting expedition to California, encamped on an island in Rogue River. All was peace and quiet. No war, no blood, no treachery. The Indians were in joint occupation of the beautiful valley of Rogue river with the white men, whose cabins and farms dotted the more beautiful portions of the country.
After the miners have made camp two Indians visit them,—a common thing for Indians to do. They are invited to partake of the supper,—an act of courtesy never omitted in wild life,—and they accept. The day passes into night. The Indians prepare to return to their own camps. The miners object, and, through fear that they might be surprised in the night, demand that the Indians remain. The Indians remonstrate. The miners are more solicitous for them to stay, their anxiety to leave being construed as ominous of intended treachery. The Indians, also, suspecting the same thing on the part of the miners, break to run, and both of them are shot down and scalped.
The miners resume their journey. The friends of the Indians miss them. Their scalpless bodies are found on a timber drift in the river below. The Rogue-river war, with all its horrors, was the result.
That it was the most terrible that has ever devastated Oregon, let us call to the stand another unimpeachable witness,—Gen. Joel Palmer,—and we shall learn something of the reasons why it was so. Gen. Palmer, in his annual official report as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the year 1856, page 200, says in speaking of this Rogue-river war:—
In every instance where a conflict has ensued between volunteers and hostile Indians in southern Oregon, the latter have gained what they regard a victory. It is true that a number of Indian camps have been attacked by armed parties, and mostly put to death or flight; but in such cases it has been those unprepared to make resistance, and not expecting such attack. This, though lessening the number of the Indians in the country, has tended greatly to exasperate and drive into a hostile attitude many that would otherwise have abstained from the commission of acts of violence against the whites.
The avowed determination of the people to exterminate the Indian race, regardless as to whether they were innocent or guilty, and the general disregard for the rights of those acting as friends and aiding
in the subjugation of our real and avowed enemies, have had a powerful influence in inducing these tribes to join the warlike bands.
It is astonishing to know the rapidity with which intelligence is carried from one extreme of the country to another, and the commission of outrages (of which there have been many) by our people against an Indian is heralded forth by the hostile parties, augmented, and used as evidence of the necessity for all to unite in war against us.
These coast bands, it is believed, might have been kept out of the war, if a removal could have been effected during the winter; but the numerous obstacles indicated in my former letters, with the absence of authority and means in my hands, rendered it impracticable to effect it.
Continuing the subject, he further says:—