Story

Indian Wars

The Oregon Donation Land Act meant that non-Indians could stake a claim to land no matter whether Indians lived on it or not. No consent was needed. No treaties were necessary.

Indians were pushed out, villages were burned. Indians were sometimes killed in cold blood. Many of the non-Indians fighting the Indians were irregular Volunteers operating independently of the regular Army and all established authority. These volunteers often planned their raids in taverns and were well fueled with alcohol.

Events left the Indians little choice but to fight for what was justly theirs.

June 1851 Seventeen Rogue Indians were killed at Port Orford, on the coast. Rogue Indians attacked the U.S. Army in the Rogue River Valley. Seventeen Indians died, 33 more were killed later, before the Army moved on, taking 30 women and children prisoner.

August 1852 starving Rogue Indians raided a settler's cabin killing two men.

August 6, 1852 fearful settlers in Jacksonville Oregon hung two innocent Shasta Indian men, and later hung a seven-year-old Indian boy, among shouts of "hang him, hang him, exterminate them."

August 23, 1852 General Joseph Lane and a band of settlers killed 15 Rogues and wounded several more. Four non-Indians died.