|
|
|
|
|
The Cow Creek Treaty and the treaty with the Rogue River Indians (both 1853) were the first treaties from the Oregon Territory to become law. They were ratified by the U.S. Senate on April 12, 1854 and proclaimed to be law on February 5, 1855.
Map 9: Cow Creek Umpqua Trail of Tears.
However, after the treaty became law, pre-treaty friction between Indians and white settlers continued and increased, and the Indians, both Cow Creek and Rogue Indians, resorted to warfare to protect themselves.
The settlers increasingly coveted the Indians rich river valley lands and timber, even though those resources had been ceded by the Indians in return for their right to inhabit them under the protection of the United States Army.
The army failed to protect the Indians and, as a result, the Indians thought that warfare against the white settlers was their only recourse to preserve themselves from being killed.
In November 1855, after several murderous battles, some won by the Indians, some won by the whites, the army began removing the Indians from their southwestern homelands. The Cow Creek Umpqua and some Rogue Indians were removed to the Grand Ronde reservat ion about 200 miles to the north in Oregon's Willamette Valley. The Indians were forced to walk in the cold, over snow covered ridges. By June 1856 some 2,000 Indians, Cow Creek (and Rogue), had made the trek, but many died along the way, especially the sick and elderly: creating a Cow Creek Trail of Tears.
Life on the reservation was miserable, leading to more death and despair. Reports coming back to those Indians who evaded removal convinced many that resistance and hiding in their homeland, even at the risk of death, was a better fate than reservation life.
(For more details about the Cow Creek Treaty, the Cow Creek Indian Wars, and the Trail of Tears, see the Cow Creek Story.)
<<< Homeland >>>