Sovereigns of Themselves:
A Liberating History of Oregon and Its Coast
Volume VII
Abridged Online Edition
Compiled By M. Constance Guardino III
  And Rev. Marilyn A. Riedel
July 2008 Maracon Productions

Historians M. Constance Guardino III and Rev. Marilyn A. Riedel

I offer thanks to my friends, relatives, and ancestors whose strength of purpose
led me to my own. A special thanks to my co-author,
Rev. Marilyn A. Riedel, for her deep love and dedication to me and this project.
Without her tireless effort and selfless interest,
this liberating history of Oregon would never have been written.

Chapter 38: Cow Creek Umpqua

 The story of the Cow Creek Umpqua (Nahankhuotana) is the story of a peaceful people who were faced with an invasion by a society that was overwhelmingly hostile, greedy and destructive of the Indian way of life.
 It is the story of the clash between two distinct cultures, two distinct civilizations. The outcome was hardly in doubt, since the invasion was simply the next wave of a repetitive process that had been going on relentlessly for 300 years as non-indian settlers spread out across the continent, obliterating Indian groups along the way.

(1) William Prior Thomason (2) Ellen Furlong Crispen (3) Susan Nonta Thomason
Photographs Courtesty of Julie Hendricks
 Thomason Tribal Cemetery

 The attitude of the thuggish throng toward the Indians of Oregon, the Cow Creeks included, can best be summed up by quoting the standard history book for Oregon school children for over 20 years in the early 1900s:

The Indians of the Oregon country represented various stages of savage and barbarian culture...[none] of them possessed even the rude beginnings of civilization. They were always poor, hungry and miserable. They had bows and arrows...but beyond that stage They had not progressed. Those were truly savage men.

Utmost Good Faith Law 1787

 In 1787, the US Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, which contained a section titled the Utmost Good Faith law, which asserted:

The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their land and property shall never be taken from them without consent; and in the property rights and liberty, they never shall be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity shall from time to time be made for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them.

 The Organic Act of 1848 created the Oregon Territory, extended the Utmost Good Act to Oregon Territory, and confirmed all Indian land titles in the territory. The Indian lands were not to be taken from them without their consent. The Oregon Donation Land Act of 1850 granted 320 free acres to all settlers in Oregon over 18 years of age.
 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.
 In two years conditions were established that would lead to an inevitable clash over valuable land with precisely those Indians whose property and land claims were supposedly protected by the Utmost Good Faith law. The 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. The land-grab was on, to the dismay of the Cow Creeks.
 Also in 1850, a removal plan was hatched to remove all Indians from Western Oregon, including the Cow Creeks. The office of the Superintendent of Indian Affairs was created to carry out the removal plan.

Cow Creek Umpqua Treaty 1853

 The Cow Creeks became the first Oregon Treaty Tribe on September 19, 1853 after one day of negotiation with Chief Miwaleta.
 Chief Miwaleta counseled the Cow Creeks to avoid warfare and sought a peaceful solution to the troubles that arose with non-indian settlers. they ceded their homeland to the US Government for the grand sum of $12,000, 2.3 cents per acre, to be paid over a 20-year period.
 At the same time, the government was selling similar land to settlers for $1.25 per acre. In the 20th Century the amount of this payoff was to become the main point of contention between the Cow Creeks and the US, as the descendents of the original signers sought justice in the Court of Claims.

Cow Creek Band of Umpquas
Photographs Courtesy of Julie Hendricks

For and in consideration of the cession and relinquishment contained in article first, the US agree to pay to the aforesaid band of Indians [Cow Creek Umpquas], the sum of $12,000, in manner to wit: $1,000 to be expended in the purchase of 20 blankets, 18 pairs of pants, 18 pairs of shoes, 18 hickory shirts, 18 hats or caps, three coats, three vests, three socks, three neckerhandchiefs, 40 cotton flags, 120 yards prints, 100 yards domestic, one gross buttons, two pounds thread, ten paper needles.

 The treaty left the Cow Creeks no land, no place to live, no protection. They became fugitives within their own territory. They were hunted down, some were murdered and others driven out.

Trail of Tears 1856

 In 1854, the Oregon Territory Legislature passed it illegal to sell guns or ammunition to Indians.
 By then the Cow Creeks had been drawn into the Rogue Indian Wars to help their cousins to the south. In 1854, Superintendent Palmer visited several bands of Umpqua Indians, and he reported:

I found many of them wretched, sickly and almost starving... They said, truly, they were once numerous and now few and weak; that they had always been friendly to the non-indians, and desired them to occupy their lands; that they wanted but a small spot on which they might live in quiet. Many of their number they said had been killed by non-indians, in retaliation for wrongs committed by Indians of other tribes, but they had never offered violence in return.

 Shortly after the Cow Creek Umpqua treaty was signed, Chief Miwaleta died. The Cow Creek Umpquas were led into the Rogue River Wars by Chief Miwaleta's successor. As a result, the government canceled its treaty obligation.
 In September 1855, hostilities broke out again as volunteers moved to exterminate or remove all Cow Creek Umpqua and Rogue River Indians. Hard fighting ensued and many Rogues took refuge along Umpqua River where they and the Cow Creeks were rounded up and held against their will.
 Although the Cow Creek Umpqua Treaty of 1853 called for a reservation, it existed for only about two years.
 In 1856, these Indians were removed from the area and marched some 150 miles northwest to the Grand Ronde Reservation on the Yamhill River.

Restoration 1982

 On December 29, 1982 a bill, PL 97-391, signed by Pres. Ronald Reagan, granted federal recognition of the Cow Creek Band of Umpquas. It was the culmination of legislative work by tribal members beginning in the early 1900s. This legislation, led by Congressman Jim Weaver, Senators Mark O. Hatfield and Bob Packwood, began a new era for the tribe. In 1987, Congressman Peter DeFazio steered legislation through Congress, PL 100-139, which protected tribal funds and enrollment.

(1) Adalaide Rainville (2) Eleanor Dumont (3) Louis Pariseau
(4) Mary LaChance (5) Susan McGinnis-Rondeau (6) Tom Rondeau
Photos Courtesy of Julie Hendricks

 In 1985, the tribe purchased 28 acres on I-5 in Canyonville which gained full reservation status in 1986.
 In 1989, Umpqua Indian Development Corporation was formed strictly for the purpose of economic development, and with a board comprised of tribal members and community leaders.
 With a direct loan from the Bureau of Indian Affairs the Bingo Center on the reservation was constructed, opening April 30, 1992, employing 40 people, about a quarter being tribal members. During 1992, the tribe negotiated the first tribal/state gaming compact in Oregon allowing the use of video terminals. It was signed by Governor Barbara Roberts and tribal chairwoman Sue Crispen Shaffer on October 2, 1992, and approved by the Department of Interior on November 20, 1992.
 The tribe employs 15 people in the administrative offices, focusing on cultural resources, health, education and youth development, and looks forward to future economic projects, not timber dependent, that will promote business and employment for both the tribe and local communities.
 In 1993, the South Umpqua Historical Society, Inc. published the Articles in a completely new format to commemorate centennial celebrations for the cities of Riddle and Myrtle Creek.
 The following are edited excerpts from Riddle's Articles pertaining to the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua and the Rogue River Indian Wars of 1855-1856.

Cow Creek Valley 1851-1861

 In 1920, when George Washington Riddle (1839-1927) was 80 years old, he wrote a series of articles for The Riddle Enterprise relating his memories and experiences of crossing the Great Plains, helping his family establish Glenbrook Farm, and participating in the Indian War that followed. In his recollections of the first months of the Riddle family living in Cow Creek Valley nearly 150 years ago, Riddle speaks of the "mutual understanding and liking" that endured during the lifetime of Chief Miwaleta and his father, William H. Riddle. Those early pioneers and Chief Miwaleta formed the framework for a partnership between two cultures that will carry on into the 21st Century.

Chief Miwaleta

 George W. Riddle's first meeting with the Cow Creeks was in the latter part of October 1851, when his father with his family moved onto a donation land claim, or what is now known as Glenbrook Farm.
 At that time his family consisted of his mother, Maximilla Bouseman, his father, William H. Riddle three sisters, one a window with a child two years old, and four brothers, one older and two younger than himself, a sister of his mother’s, a spinster, and an orphaned cousin, a non-indian girl 11 years old at the time; and in addition, two young men who drove ox teams. George Riddle was not quite 12 years old then. He recalls that the family arrived at their destination at about three o'clock in the afternoon and camped under the oak tree that now stands in the yard immediately north of the Glenbrook Farm. In a very short time their camp was surrounded by Indians who seemed to come from every direction. This caused the family no alarm. They came from curiosity—the elderly Indians, women, children and all came to the number of a hundred or more. They were curious about everything—the children were objects of interest, many of them never having seen a white child. A cook stove was set up and a fire started in it, which excited their wonder and curiosity. One young man came in contact with the hot stove pipe on his naked shoulder which caused him to leap and yell, but evoked uproarious laughter on the part of the crowd. The Indians, although friendly and good-natured, were crowding so closely about the camp that Maximilla and her daughters were unable to prepare the evening meal, and this situation proved embarrassing.
 At that time the Riddles heard the words "Miwaleta, Miwaleta" and a hush fell upon the crowd as an Indian appeared whose presence and appearance showed that he was one in authority. He was a man 60 or 70 years old, about six feet tall, of heavy build, with full, round face, at least as George remembered him, with none of the gnarled features that characterize the motion picture Indian. The Indians seemed to regard him with reverence, more than fear. William advanced to meet him, and by signs made the chief understand that he wanted the Indians to stand back out of the way, which they did, forming a circle around the family’s camp where they seated themselves upon the ground or squatted upon their heels. Maximilla offered the chief a chair, which he declined, but seated himself upon his blanket on the ground. William proceeded to tell him by signs that we had come to live there, that he would build a house. Neither of them could speak a word that the other could understand, but they seemed to arrive at the mutual understanding and liking that endured during the lifetime of Miwaleta.
 During the sign language conference, an incident occurred which in a way illustrates the character of Miwaleta, and greatly impressed Maximilla. A very handsome Indian boy detached himself from the crowd and came near the chief, stretching himself at full length on his stomach near the chief. This Indian boy, George learned afterwards, was a son of Miwaleta's son, who was dead. The old man's hand went out and rested on the boy's head. Maximilla knew from that that he was a good-intentioned Indian. At the close of the sign interview, William offered the chief food, which he accepted, giving a portion to the boy. The Indian boy, who was named Sam, and young George were afterwards boon companions, and in a few months had learned the Chinook jargon, Sam learning a great many English words while George learned Sam's native tongue; and through this medium, with Sam and George as interpreters, a perfect understanding was had between the Chief Miwaleta and William Riddle, it being understood that any overt act of the Indians should be referred to the chief but so far as the Riddles were concerned, there never was any trouble of any consequence.
 In 1851, Miwaleta was the chief of five bands of Umpqua, all of whom comprised about 200 individuals, by far the strongest tribe of the Umpqua Valley. They spoke the same language as the Rogues, or Indians as far south as the Siskiyous. But the Rogues were the hereditary enemies of the Miwaleta, and they termed all the Southern Indians "Shasta."
 The bands were divided about as follows, and each band and chief has the name of the locality where they made their home: All the north side of the creek in Cow Creek Valley was Miwaleta's and the Indians numbered about 75. The south side of the creek was Quintiousa, the chief took the same name, and was sometimes called Augunsah, the name of the country of the South Umpqua, east of Canyonville; the Quintiousas were about 50 strong. The Targunsans were about 25. Their chief was called Little Old Man. And in the Cow Creek country east of Glendale was a band of 25 or 30 whose chief was known as Wartahoo. In addition to the above there was a band known as the Myrtle Creeks, about 40 in number, whose chief was not known to George Riddle. There were three of their number who were always making trouble. Curley, who was large and powerful, Big Ike, and Little Jim.
 All the Umpquas north of Myrtle Creek spoke a different language and were considered a different people, although they had more or less intercourse.
 Over the Myrtle Creek, Targunsaw, Wartahoo and Quintiousa bands, Miwaleta was the head chief, and although there was often trouble between these bands, they held together against the Shasta and the Rogues.
 Sam related to George some of the battles and the mighty deeds of his grandfather, Miwaleta, and at one time the chief showed Lomtu his war dress when he was present. The dress was made of two large elk's skins dressed soft, but left as thick as possible, then laced down th sides so to hang loose about the body and leave the legs and arms free, the thickest part of the skins were back and front and were impenetrable for arrows. The elk skin armor was ornamented with aboriginal paints forming figures and designs of which George didn’t remember the meaning. He didn't remember seeing the chief wearing headdress, but had seen the younger Umpquas wear headdresses that seemed more for ornament than protection. In wartime they wore a single white feather from the tail of a bald or white headed eagle that was snow white.
 Miwaleta's war dress showed evidence that it had been of practical use, being pitted all over where arrow points had struck it, and the chief's arms, face and head showed many scars, which they claimed were made in the wars with the Shasta.
 It has always been a question in George Riddle's mind whether Miwaleta had a genuine friendship for the non-indians or was wise enough to know the hopelessness of opposition. That he always counseled peace and was able to restrain his people from going to war with whites, we had ample evidence.

Miwaleta Gives Oral History of Tribal Wars

 In the fall of 1852, a young white man, a mere boy, wantonly stabbed a Cow Creek youth, who lingered a few weeks and died. The whiteboy was hastily gotten out of the country and the Umpquas conciliated.
 Runners from the Rogue River tribes who came to induce the Cow Creeks to join them in a war against the non-indians, and a great council it was. At this council George witnessed a sample of Indian oratory. When he arrived at the scene the Rogues had evidently submitted their petition, and Chief Miwaleta was making a reply. The older members of the tribe were seated in a large circle, women and young boys forming the outer circle. The chief was also seated and talked without gesture in a moderate but oratorical tone. The Rogues sat in perfect silence, and the elders of Miwaleta's people occasionally gave grunts of assent or approval. George Riddle, in company with Indian youth his own age, listened to the chief for some time the day he commenced to talk. He was there on the day following, the chief was still talking, and was informed by the boys that he continued to talk until he fell asleep. Just what the chief could find to say in such a long talk was explained to George by the Indian Boys. It appears that the history and legends are committed to memory and handed down from father to son through their chiefs. In this case Chief Miwaleta was reciting to the delegates the history of their tribal wars and remonstrating with some of his own people who were inclined to listen to the Rogues and join them in a war on the non-indians. The counsel of Miwaleta prevailed, and when the Rogues went on the warpath, Miwaleta's band encamped near our house and remained at peace.

Cow Creek La Crosse

 On their arrival in Cow Creek Valley, George and his brother Abner were soon on good terms with the Indian Boys of their age, of which there were about a dozen, and every minute of their spare time they were engaged playing ball, swimming, hunting or fishing. Indian boys were enthusiastic ball players. They had a ball game played something like La Crosse. In this game they used a wooden ball about one and a half inches in diameter and played with a stick flattened and crooked at one end to drive the ball. The point in the game was to drive the ball past and between the goal posts at the opposite ends of the field. The ball was put in play in the center of the field by tossing the ball in the air, and then it could be played upon with the crooked sticks. This game was mostly played by the older tribesmen one tribe or band against another, and on these games they would stake all their worldly possessions and when the ball was put in play, there was action for spectators. Football or basketball—both combined could not compare with this Indian game with about 20 young men on a side stripped to the breech clout and scattered over the field to intercept the ball and drive it through their opponents's goal. At times the interference would be terrific and the young men's skins would glisten with perspiration. It was in the summer of 1852 that the Cow Creeks engaged in this game for several days, in which contest the Miwaletas were opposed by the other small bands.

George Riddle and Indian Sam Visit Portland

 Among the Indian boys was a grandson of Chief Miwaleta, a youth about George Riddle's age. The two were great chums. Sam was his constant companion in George's grouse hunts, and he soon learned to handle Riddle's rifle and was proud of the accomplishment.
 Sam was a bright, handsome lad and learned to speak English quickly. While on their hunts they would give the English and the Cow Creek name for every bird or animal that they saw.
 On one of William Riddle's trips to Portland with ox teams Sam went along. Portland at that time was a small town, and they camped on the riverbank near Morrison Street, turning their oxen out to graze among the stumps and timber. During the evening they discovered a small steamboat coming down from Oregon City. The boat's engine was a high-pressure kind, and was like one of the kind Lincoln told about that operated on the Sangamon River that had a ten-horsepower whistle and a six-horsepower boiler. The Riddles, including Sam, went to the water's edge to see the old boat come down, which with a loud exhaust and shower of sparks presented a terrifying sight to Sam. On its nearer approach he grasped Sam by the arm trying to get him away. About this time the boat's engineer turned all steam on the siren. This was too much for Sam and he ran for it. The Riddles found him in one of the wagons, a badly scared little Indian. After George had explained to him what it was, he wanted to forget it. On his return to Cow Creek Valley, Sam had many things to relate to his tribesmen.
 George recalled those good old days when he would be off to the mountains with his rifle and followed by a half dozen Indian boys. He was the chief; he had the only gun. Sometimes he would allow an Indian Boy to shoot grouse which would fill him with pride and joy. The Cow Creek youth were a great help. Their keen eyes would spy out the grouse. Their blue color harmonized so well with the green foliage of the fir trees it made them difficult to find and when shot they would flutter down the steep mountain sides; but the Cow Creek youth would retrieve the game in short notice and would carry all the game which would be from ten to 20 birds for a full day's hunt. When the party returned to Glenbrook Farm, Maximilla would give the young men some bread and sometimes some of the game. Those were happy days for both non-indian and Indian boys.
 The winter of 1852-1853 was a very severe one for Oregon. The snow was two feet deep in the valley and remained for a month or more. Pack trains were held up and miners and settlers in Jackson County were soon without supplies, especially bread stuff. Beef, without salt, was the principal food—salt was said to have been exchanged for its weight in gold dust, while flour was any price that might be demanded.
 By the summer of 1853 the country began to present the appearance of permanent homes. Fields were fenced, all with split rails laid in worm fashion; two flouring mills had been established, one at Roseburg and one at Winchester, which were patronized by settlers from 40 miles away; also two sawmills, one at Myrtle Creek owned by Moses T. Dyer, and one at Canyonville owned by David Ransome. These mills were of the up-and-down saw variety but were able to cut enough lumber for flooring for cabins.
 There are many things of which the history of Indian Wars make no mention at all and others of importance that have the slightest mention. There has also been a disposition on the part of historians, especially Frances Fuller Victor's The Early Indian Wars of Oregon (1894), to exaggerate and also to excuse the wrongs perpetrated upon the Indians by non-indians.
 The Indians the Riddles found in the Cow Creek Valley had not come in contact with the non-indians, living as they did, remote from the line of travel between California and Oregon. Some of them had not seen a non-indian man, and a non-indian child was an object of great interest. They possessed few guns and no horses and had few of the implements or clothing used by civilized peoples, and what they possessed had been traded to them by the Klickitat who had made occasional visits to the Umpqua Valley. The Klickitat were a nomadic tribe whose home was somewhere north of the Columbia. They were traders and sometimes called the "Jews of the Indian tribes." The Klickitat had also taught the Cow Creeks a few words of Chinook jargon which was soon improved upon by the aid of a Chinook dictionary.

Cow Creek War 1852

 The Indians in Cow Creek Valley were divided up into groups or families and each had their headmen or chiefs, but all seemed to acknowledge Miwaleta as the head chief. His band occupied the north bank of Cow Creek with winter quarters at Cow Creek Falls and that part of the valley was called Miwaleta, the chiefs always taking the name of the locality.
 The second most numerous band of Cow Creeks made their homes on Council Creek, and their leader was Chief Quentiousa, who also claimed control of the Indians at Canyonville and South Umpqua. They were called Taraunsal.
 A small band that we called Myrtle Creeks were closely related to the Quintiousas. These bands would stand together against outside enemies, yet they had feuds among themselves. Minor offences were often settled by payment of damages.
 George Riddle observed that revenge appeared to be characteristic of all Indians. If an Indian was killed by another it was incumbent upon the near relative of the dead to avenge his death.
 Early in the spring of 1852 three Myrtle Creeks, Curley, Big Ike, and Little Jim, made themselves notorious. Curley wore long wavy hair and was a large powerful warrior and the leader. They would stalk into a settler’s cabin and demand food.
 Curley wantonly killed an Indian woman, cut off her head and placed it on a stake near the body in the grove near the Umpqua. The woman was a sister of a young man the settlers called Charley—a member of the Miwaleta band.
 Charley was undersized and weak physically, but it was up to him to kill big Curley. We often loaned Charley a gun to hunt deer, for which he would bring a share of the venison, but for arms he carried a bow and arrows, while Curley carried a good gun and had often threatened Charley, making fun of his bow and arrows. Charley related his troubles to the Riddles and had aroused Maximilla's sympathy, but the family would not loan him a gun with which to kill Curley.
 Indian Curley, with his two companions, Big Ike and Little Jim, went to Glenbrook Farm one time when the men were away and, as was their custom, stalked into the house and demanded food. George was at home with a broken arm caused by jumping from a wagonload of poles to urge his ox team up a steep bank. In jumping his foot had slipped and in falling he had struck his left arm across a rock, breaking the bones above the wrist.
 Seeing his arm in splints Curley seized hold of him pretending he would break his arm again, and hurting him cruelly. George rushed into the kitchen and grabbed a butcher knife with which to do battle with the big brute, but Maximilla stopped him. He was then 12 years old, but he supposed he thought that armed with a dull butcher knife he could fight an entire nation. So it can be seen that the non-indian settlers did not discourage Charley when he declared that some day he would kill Curley.
 Late that summer Charley, with a small family, including two boys, Sam and John, who were grandsons of Chief Miwaleta, were camped on the south bank of Cow Creek. The camp was enclosed with willows, leaving an opening for entrance. Curley, coming along alone in a spirit of bravado, walked into the hut leaving his gun at the entrance, seated himself and ordered food to be brought him. The two boys were out hunting and Charley was alone except for women and children of the family, Curley no doubt holding his weakness in contempt. Charley, burning with his wrongs and the insults that had been heaped upon him for months, succeeded in reaching Curley's gun first and shot him dead. Charley, thinking that Big Ike and Little Jim, Curley’s comrades, would be near, ran to his tribe for protection. He reached the Riddle house, five miles away, almost exhausted and rushed into the house saying: "Nika mimaluse Curley. Kloshe mika pot--latch shirt (I have killed Curley. Give me a shirt)." Maximilla Riddle, from kindness or thinking he had earned a calico (trade) shirt, promptly gave him one.
 Within a few hours after the killing, runners had reached all the friends on both sides of the quarrel. Quintiousa's band espoused the cause of the Myrtle Creeks and the Riddles were soon in the midst of a genuine Indian War with Cow Creek dividing the two hostile bands.
 The Miwaletas were soon organized undera young leader, Chief Jackson. Their first effort was to find the boys, Sam and John, who would return from their hunt on Ash Creek unsuspecting and would fall into the hands of the enemy. Sam was George's chum among the Cow Creek youth and the Riddles were anxious on their account. Night had come on. The Riddles could hear the war cries of the Indians with occasional gun shots. It was about 11 o'clock at night that Jackson, with his party, returned with the young men safe, Sam giving George his eagle yell to assure him of his safety.
 Yells of defiance could be heard from both sides all night long. Early the next morning the Miwaletas were assembled on the riverbank in front of the Riddle home and Chief Quintiousas on the high ground on the opposite side of the river. About 200 yards distant on our side of the river were two round log buildings near the river bank. In one of these George had his gun, with one white eagle feather, as a head ornament.
 The bands appeared about equally divided, 40 on a side. A brave on one side would advance in front of his party, go through a war dance challenging the other side to combat individually or collectively, and wind up with a war whoop. The challenge would be accepted by a young brave on the opposite side so far a speech and war dance was concerned.
 At one point Tyee Tom, a young leader of the Curley faction, left his band on the hill, rushed down to the riverbank, which brought him within gunshot from our side, and yelled his challenge, which was accepted by my chum, Sam, who rushed to the bank, dropped on his knee and proceeded to rest his gun on a stick that all Indian Boys carried to steady his gun. Sam shouted in English: "God damn you, Tom, I kill you now." Tom, seeing he was about to be shot, dodged behind some brush and ran for it. This was accepted as a great victory for our side and the whole band danced and yelled.
 At this stage of the war, Chief Miwaleta took his platform on the riverbank and delivered an oration, no doubt advising peace, and was answered by the elderly chief from the other side, and a kind of armed neutrality seemed to be patched up and a few days afterward, Charlie, the slayer of Curley, died suddenly from hemorrhage of the lungs, brought on, no doubt, by his five-mile run after shooting Curley.

Massacre at Grave Creek 1851

 During the summer of 1851 it was rumored that there was a non-indian child among the Cow Creeks.
 Cpt. Remick A. Cowles, with a party of men visited Quintiousas camp on Council Creek to investigate. On making the object of their visit known, Tipsu Bill, armed with a rifle and followed by an Indian woman and an Indiangirl about eight years old presented themselves, and by sign language stated that the Indian woman was his wife and that the little girl was their child. On examination, the whites were satisfied that the child, although lighter than the average Cow Creek, was unmistakably Indian.
 Tipsu Bill was not a native Cow Creek, but was adopted by the tribe. His homeland was somewhere near Butte Falls in Jackson County and he was likely a Molalla, and on account of tribal conflicts had migrated to the Umpqua country. With him had come, besides his wife and children, a younger brother about 15 years old named Jack, and an elderly man named Skunk, and a family, about ten in all.

The White Exterminators

 Tipsu Bill was a very striking appearing Cow Creek—tall, straight, powerful. Cpt. Cowles relating the incident of the while child examination said that Tipsu was the personification of courtesy, coolness and courage, giving the non-indians the opportunity to look at the child, but giving the impression that "I am here with my gun to defend my family with my life." Tipsu Bill made his home with the Miwaleta band and during the Rogue River War of 1853 was encamped near the Riddle homestead. George related this fact to show further how Tipsu Bill lost his life in connection with the massacre of the Grave Creeks, of which A. G. Walling's History of Southern Oregon gives an account. It appears that after the treaty had been signed by Gen. Joseph Lane and his officers with the Rogue River chiefs, Joe and Sam, there developed a desperado class of non-indians the Cow Creek settlers called exterminators, that generally wreaked their vengeance upon some helpless bands of Indians that had no evidence of no less an authority than Judge Matthew P. Deady to prove that a fearful outrage was perpetrated at Grave Creek after the armistice was agreed upon. Deady wrote:

 At Grave Creek I stopped to feed my horse and get something to eat. There was a house there called the Bates House, after the man who kept it... Bates and some others had induced a small party of peaceable Indians who belonged in that vicinity to enter into an engagement to remain at peace with the whites during the war which was going on at some distance from them and by way of ratification of this treaty invited them to partake of a feast in an unoccupied log house just across the road from the Bates House, and while they were partaking, unarmed, of this proffered hospitality the door was suddenly fastened upon them and they were deliberately shot down through the cracks between the logs by their treacherous hosts. Nearby, and probably a quarter of a mile this side I was shown a large round hole into which the bodies of These murdered Indians had been unceremoniously tumbled. I did not see them for they were covered with fresh earth.

 The above account agrees in most particulars with the account George Riddle had from Jack, a brother of Tipsu Bill, and two Grave Creek youths who made their escape and made their home with the Cow Creeks for two years afterward.
 It appears that after the Grave Creeks were rounded up in the log house as related by Judge Deady they were informed that their lives would be spared on condition that they would bring in the head of Tipsu Bill, who was encamped on Grave Creek a few miles below the Bates House, with his small band and engaged in hunting deer, Tipsu Bill being the only able-bodied man of the party. The Grave Creeks, thinking to save their own lives, detailed part of their band to bring in Tipsu Bill's head.
 They found Tipsu Bill in his camp, who being at peace and unsuspicious of visitors, they treacherously shot and carried away his head to their unscrupulous non-indian captors, supposing they would soon be released, but in this they were soon undeceived, for they were all shot down as related by Judge Deady.
 The two Cow Creek youths came in sight while the shooting was going on and, sensing the difficulties, ran for it. The exterminators turned their guns on the young men and hit one of them in the heel, but they made their escape.
 The number of Indians killed in the log house was nine and was all the able-bodied men of the tribe. Tyee Taylor, with two others had been hung at Vannoy Ferry in December 1852 on a trumped-up charge of having murdered seven prospectors on Lower Rogue River. No evidence of the men being murdered was ever found and the reasonable supposition is that the prospectors had simply moved on to some other locality. It was claimed that Tyee Taylor had in his possession a small amount of gold dust and that when he saw that he was about to be executed, confessed to the killings, which is not in keeping with Indian character.
 The family of Tipsu Bill, after the killing, returned to Cow Creek and made their homes with Miwaleta's band until the beginning of the War of 1855-1856.

Tipsu Bill's Family Sent to Grand Ronde

 The supposed non-indian child was named Nellie and was sent to the Grand Ronde Reservation in Yamhill County with a lot of women and elderly Indians who were found hidden away in the mountains on the head of Rice Creek. Nellie grew up to be a famous beauty and many stories came back about her connection with prominent men. Jack, a young brother, lived with the Riddles for over a year doing all kinds of farm work George had gone out hunting with him in the mountains for a week at a time. He seemed to have no animosity against the whites for the death of his brother, but many times he said he would have to kill the two young Grave Creeks when he quit work for the Riddles; he wanted William Riddle to give him a rifle that he had used hunting while with the family. William refused to give Jack a gun, but gave him a horse instead.

A. G. Walling's Account of Southern Oregon Indian Wars Bigoted and Xenophobic

 Historians of the Indian Wars of Southern Oregon are traditionally too ready to find excuses for the outrages committed upon Native Americans. The writer of Walling's History of Southern Oregon was disposed to be fair, but was often misled into making false statements. Here is a sample:

 Throughout the spring and the first part of the summer of 1853 little was heard of the depredations of the savages. Only one incident seemed to mar the ordinary relations of white man and native.
 The event referred to was the murder of two miners, one an American, the other a Mexican, in their cabin on Cow Creek, and the robbery of their domicile, and as a matter of course, the deed was laid to Indians and probably justly, for the Indians along that creek had a very bad reputation.

 George Riddle wrote that the killing of the two men as stated above was absolutely false, especially as to being on Cow Creek. Such an event would have been indelibly impressed upon his mind. Another curious circumstance, he reflected, was that the names of the miners were not given.
 He thought it strange that stories so vague would be written into history, but that is still the case. Walling's History of Southern Oregon further states, referring to the Cow Creeks:

 They were of the Umpqua family but had independent chiefs and were far more fierce and formidable than the humble natives of the Umpqua Valley proper. They had committed several small acts of depredation on the settlers of that vicinity, such as attempting to burn grain fields, outbuildings, etc., but had not it appears, entered upon any more dangerous work until the killing referred to. The unfortunate Grave Creek band allowed themselves to be mixed up in the affair and suffered ill consequences.

 Further on the history states:

 The total number of Grave Creek Indians who were killed in consequence of their supposed complicity in the acts and in the so-called murder on Galice Creek previously spoken of was 11... The Grave Crees tribe was rapidly becoming extinct.

 And, as a matter of fact, they were extinct so far as able-bodied males were concerned except for the two young men that took refuge with the Cow Creeks.

Massacre on Wilson Creek

 It was about a month after the massacre of the Grave Creek band that a party of men professing to be prospectors, 14 in number, visited our valley, making their camp across the small creek at about 100 yards from where the Glenbrook farmhouse now stands. These men were from Josephine County and no doubt were some of the same persons who participated in the slaughter of the Grave Creeks and other Indians. The day following their arrival a part of their company went up Cow Creek on the south bank of the stream about four miles from our house. They found a small camp of Indians—one very old rheumatic man, a brother of old Chief Miwaleta, one woman, and one little girl about three years old. The old man and the woman were shot down. A sick Indian that was some distance from the camp hid and witnessed the murders. There was also an Indian Boy named John out hunting, who returned a short time after the non-indians had departed and finding his family murdered and their camp burned, made his way to the Indians’ main camp on Wilson Creek. The little child was brought down alive, of which Maximilla Riddle immediately took charge. The men had found the child's beaded buckskin suit that they insisted on keeping, but were prevailed upon to give it up.

Myrtle Creeks, Canyonvilles and South Umpquas Retaliate

 These vicious non-indians acknowledged the wanton killing, throwing off all disguise and said they were Indian exterminators from Rogue River, and immediately assumed to take charge of Cow Creek Valley. They placed a guard on the mouth of the canyon, where they met one of the Riddle's neighbors, Green Hearn, who with Chief Jackson, attempted to go to the scene of the murder, driving them back, leveling their guns at Hearn as well as the Indian. This massacre caused a great deal of indignation and apprehension among the non-indians. Would they retaliate by wreaking vengeance on the settlers during the afternoon? All were notified of the horrendous murders, and during the night Indian runners had notified all the scattering bands; Myrtle Creeks, Canyonvilles and the South Umpquas were all assembled.
 Early the next morning the whole band of Indians, about 40 or 50 in number, appeared on the opposite side of the river from Glenbrook Farm, with the Riddle's neighbor, John Catching, among them. The non-indian exterminators seized their guns and rushed to the bank of the river. William Riddle got ahead of the desperados to prevent them firing, while Catching was in front of the Indians. The non-indians retired to their camp at the foot of a large pine about 60 yards from the riverbank. The Indians came straight on and soon completely surrounded them, forming a circle within 20 feet of the tree, with Catching and my father inside the circle. The non-indians did not seem to have any desire for a pitched battle with so many Indians, who seemed to want to make a showing of force, and to demand reparation for the wanton wasting of their people. During the Pow Wow there were tense moments. Young Tyee Tom was principal spokesman for the Indians and used every invective at his command in English, Chinook jargon, or his native tongue in denouncing the cowardly acts of the exterminators. He told them they were cowards—that they could kill an elderly man and a woman, but would not fight a warrior. One of the exterminators retorted: "You talk brave—you are four to one." At this Tyee Tom called out an equal number of warriors, saying: "Come on, we will fight you man for man."
 The Cow Creeks held those desperados from early morning until noon. During the six hours neither side relaxed their hostile attitude for a moment.
 The non-indians, although not coward, knew that their lives would pay for any hostile move, and the Indians also knew that battle with non-indians would be disastrous to them. The desperados agreed to leave the country and not return, and John Catching prevailed upon the Cow Creeks to submit their grievances to Indian Agent Joel Palmer, who was due to arrive in a few weeks to treat with the tribe which was accomplished during the fall.

Cow Creek Reservation 1853

 Late in the afternoon the Indians had dispersed, the desperado band of murders struck camp and departed, going up Cow Creek. The following morning George was allowed to go with Chief Jackson to the scene of the killing. Following the trail of the non-indians at Copper Flat they came to their campfire still burning. If they had met with the non-indians there was no doubt that Jackson would have been in real danger.
 They were on foot and George had an opportunity to witness the caution with which an Indian approaches danger. When they saw the smoke of the campfire they took advantage of every clump of brush, scanning every inch of ground ahead of us. Finally they discovered a coyote near the camp. Jackson at once straightened up, taking the trail, trusting to the sagacity of the coyote not to be in proximity of the non-indians.
 Upon arriving at the destroyed Indian camp, a gruesome sight presented itself. The murdered woman had been thrown upon a drift heap of logs and was half burned up. The elderly Indian had made his way into the river before they had finished him and he lay partly out of the water on some rocks. George was at this time 13 years old and looked upon these Indians as our friends. His youthful emotions were expressed in tears. His Indian companion, with the stoicism of his race, viewed the scene without a word, and although this murder was one of the causes of the Cow Creeks taking the warpath two years later, they never held the settlers accountable.
 Early in the spring of 1853, the remnants of Miwaleta's band scattered to the hills. More than one-half of them had perished of the fever during the winter. George and Abner were not allowed to go near the Indian camp at Cow Creek Falls for fear of contagion. It appeared that his Indian chum Sam had contracted the fever before the Indians left their winter quarters and had tried to follow, but was too weak and had been left to his fate. When this was reported to him, he obtained permission to go in search of him. He found Sam on Wilson Creek lying by a log alone. When he reported this to Maximilla, she consented for him to bring Sam to Glenbrook, where the family gave him every care, and for a time they thought he might recover, but after lingering about three months he died. Sam, during his illness was patient and grateful, but like all his race was a fatalist. He had made up his mind that he would not get well, and it is said that when an Indian loses hope of recovery he is sure to die.
 After Sam got so weak and emaciated, George could carry him out under the shade of the trees where he could look at the mountains. At one time he said: "We will never hunt up there (pointing to Old Piney Mountain) any more. I will soon be gone." During Sam's sickness George was nurse, and when he died George was chief mourner; also undertaker and sexton. He buried his companion under some young pines on the banks of Cow Creek.
 George recalled a young man, a kind of a runabout among the Indians, broke into the cabin of a settler named Chapin at Round Prairie and stole a lot of clothing. Cpt. Cowles came to Miwaleta's camp and reported the theft. The thief was apprehended with some of the clothing, his arms tied behind a tree, and was given a thorough whipping by the Indians.
 Another time an Indian whose home was near Galesville, stole a horse and log chain from a traveler, came through the mountains, his horse and chain in the timber and showed up in Quintiousa's camp, the non-indian man coming to Glenbrook in search of his horse. William Riddle reported the matter to Chief Miwaleta, who immediately sent his young men out, who soon struck the trail and found the horse and chain, the Indian making his escape to his own band.
 At this time no treaty had been made with the Cow Creeks. Gen. Joel Palmer, superintendent of Indian affairs for the Oregon Territory, at the solicitation of the settlers, had paid them a visit and promised to return, but before he did the epidemic broke out in Chief Miwaleta’s camp, and the old leader was among the first to succumb.
 In September 1852, Palmer negotiated a treaty with the Indians, meeting them on Council Creek.
 At the treaty all the Indians were assembled from Canyonville, Myrtle Creek and Galesville and to organize them Palmer asked them to elect a head chief and a sub chief at this election. Puintiousa was chosen head chief and his son, Tom, sub chief, passing over Jackson, the son of Miwaleta, much to the dissatisfaction of the remnant of that band.
 In the treaty the land lying west of Council Creek and south of Cow Creek extending some distance back in the mountains was set apart as a reservation.
 Three log houses were built in the grove where the council was held. These houses were about 18 feet square of unpeeled fir logs with flue through the center of the roof so that the Indians could live in their Primitive style by making a fire in the center. These cabins were only occupied by Quintiousa’s band, the others preferring their huts at their old homes.
 A field of about 20 acres was fenced that fall and planted to wheat which the Indians harvested the following summer. The next fall they were furnished oxen and plowed and seeded the field themselves and for two years after the treaty there was nothing occurred to seriously disturb the peace although there were many small grievances.
 The settlers' hogs multiplied and rooted up the camas fields. The Indian dogs which followed the squaws, worried the hogs and the settlers shot the dogs and as is always the case—even among civilized neighbors—the hogs and the dogs were a source of trouble.

Hangings and Killings Incite Cow Creeks

 When the Rogues went upon the warpath against the white men in the fall of 1855, the wise counsel of Chief Miwaleta was forgotten and youthful Tyee Tom carried his people into the war, joining their hereditary enemies, the Rogues, against the white men. From this war in 1855 and 1856, there was not a full-grown Native American male who survived. One, a boy, John, a grandson of Chief Miwaleta, is said to have acted as messenger between white men in their preliminary arrangements for a treaty at the close of the war.
 Many causes led up to this. Once authority gives the cause of the wars as the "encroachment of a "superior race" upon an inferior race."
 In 1852, a young man, a son of Chief Wartahoo, was hung at the William Weaver place. It was claimed that he had insulted a young white woman by an indecent gesture. Within four hours he was hung. This might have been considered justified from a non-indian point of view at the time, but to the Cow Creeks, the boy’s fault would not compare with the treatment.
 At another time a Cow Creek youth went south with a pack train, and leaving the train, was on his way home when he was stopped by white men that were at a trading post on Wolf Creek. It is probable that the men were drinking, as there was always plenty of whiskey at these houses along the road. At any rate there was a chance to have some fun by hanging an Indian boy, so the youth was placed upon a horse, a rope was put around his neck and attached to a limb of a tree. At this point in the proceedings the proprietor of the house rushed out crying: "Hold on, that Indian owes me six bits." The hanging was delayed until the melancholy brave produced the money and paid his debt, and finding he had a dollar left asked that it be sent to William Riddle. When these business matters were concluded the horse was driven from under the Indian boy and the handing was completed. When the facts of this affair became known that trading post was given the name of the Six Bit House by which it was known afterwards.
 These hangings and killings together with the treacherous slaughter of the Grave Creek and the murder of Tipsu Bill by the Grave Creek at the instigation of the non-indians; also, the murder of the old man and woman near our home, and numerous other slaughter of Indians in Josephine County at the time of peace and of Indians not involved in the short war of 1853—all these outrages were known to the Cow Creeks and made them ripe to enter into the hostilities against the invading population when the general outbreak of the Rogues came in 1855.

Butte Creek Massacre 1855

 The Rogue River Indian War of 1855-1856 was an indiscriminate slaughter of a band of helpless Indians on Butte Creek near The banks of the Rogue.
 These Indians were a part of chiefs Sam and Joe's band, who by a treaty with Gen. Joseph Lane in 1853 had been settled upon a reservation on the north bank of the Rogue River, around Table Rock, and during the two years after the treaty there had been no authentic charges of wrong doing on the part of the treaty Indians. But there had been trouble with non treaty Indians, most of which originated between the miners and Indians in Siskiyou County, California, and small bands of Indians inhabiting the mountains west of Ashland.

Table Rock on the Rogue River
Photo Courtesy of Julie Hendricks

  On October 7, 1855, a company of non-indians from the mines around Jacksonville and led by Maj. Lupton surprised a helpless band of women, old men and children, killing them. The number has been variously stated.
 Cpt. Andrew Jackson Smith of the Regular Army, stationed at Fort Lane, visited the scene of the slaughter on the day of its occurrence and reported to the War Department that there were 80 old men, women and children. Others fixed the number of 30.
 Of the non-indians engaged in this business—about 40—Lupton was mortally wounded by an arrow that penetrated his lungs from which he died, and one other man slightly wounded.
 It seems strange that 40 non-indian warriors could be so lost to all sense of justice and humanity as to engage in a slaughter of helpless old Indian men, women and children. But there was a feeling of insecurity among the pallid people of the Rogue River Valley, and a desire that the Indians might be removed, and a fear that the Indians might be aroused to avenge their own wrongs. There was some outspoken sentiment against the outrages committed against the Indians, but when the Indians retaliated within two days by a general slaughter of non-indians, the Indian sympathizers were very unpopular.
 The massacre of the Indians on Butte Creek occurred on the morning of October 7, 1855. On the 9th and 10th the country between Gold Hill and Galesville on Upper Cow Creek, a distance of 50 miles, was ablaze. Only a few houses, where settlers hastily assembled and defended were left standing. Over 30 non-indians were killed on the 9th. The Indians had selected the sparsely settled districts on which to revenge the Butte Creek Massacre. At the time of these happenings, the Riddles were in deep distress at the sickness of George's little sister, Clara, the youngest of the family. He was called home to Roseburg.
 On October 10th, Henry Yokum arrived at Glenbrook with information that the Indians were sweeping north, killing and burning and had killed two men at Galesville and at that time had that place surrounded. The Indians had not been seen near the Riddle farm for two days, a sign of possible danger. George rode Yokum's horse to the Indian camp to ascertain what They were doing. He found their camp on Council Creek abandoned, but continuing on up the creek, he was met by some Indian boys whom he had not seen for several months.
 The Indians were camped close to the creek further up in the timber. They evidently were holding a council. George could hear that one of them was making a speech and they no doubt at that time were conferring runners from the Rogues.
 In a very short time some of the older Indians came out to where George was talking with the boys and he could see that they were not in a friendly mood.  "Whose horse is that?" the Indians asked.
 "Henry Yokum's," George replied.
 "What do you want?"
 "My sister wants a squaw to come and do some washing."
 "Klat-a-wa (go)," the Cow Creeks ordered him.
 This was unusual. They had always shown the greatest friendliness to the Riddle family at their camps. They repeated their demand for George to "hy-ak klat-a-wa (quick go)."
 George left, and when he reported his experience to his parents there were several of their neighbors at their house, and it was concluded that the neighborhood was in imminent danger of an attack by the Cow Creeks.
 Early in the afternoon, Clara passed away. Immediately afterwards the neighbors who were at Glenbrook went hastily to their homes, and loaded what they could of their effects into wagons, abandoned their homesteads, and drove to William Weaver's place that afternoon.
 A state of alarm prevailed when the details of the massacres between Gold Hill and Cow Creek were made known, and the settlers were anxious about what action the Cow Creeks would take. That there were hostile Rogues with them was certain. The settlers of Cow Creek Valley acted upon the principle that "self-preservation is the first law of nature" in deserting their homes. The alarm spread all over Southern and Western Oregon. Settlers in the Willamette Valley caught the infection. Alarmists at Salem and Portland were devising means of defense, and in Washington County the Methodists place a stockade around their church. A safety meeting was held at Corvallis because it was believed 300 Cow Creeks were said to have come north to the Calapooia Mountains and threatened the lives of all. Alarm spread like wildfire and even the number of Indians was magnified, as the number of Cow Creek warriors would not have exceeded 25, and probably not one of them had been north of the Calapooia Mountains in their lives.
 After Clara was buried on October 11, Maximilla Riddle volunteered to go to the Cow Creek camp to induce them to come to Glenbrook for a conference. She went on horseback across the river to the camp where George had seen the Indians the day before and found it deserted. On her return home, coming out of the timber and crossing Council Creek some Indians, seeing who it was, showed themselves on the side of the mountain toward Heckler Flat. Maximilla rode up to them and inquired for the aging Chief Quintiousa. They told her that the chief was "sick tumtum (heart sick)" and did not want to see a non-indian.
 Maximilla told them that the settlers wanted to be friends with them, and she wanted them to come over and talk with William and the neighbors, telling them who was there. The Indians had great confidence in Cpt. Cowles, one of the party, I. B. Nichols was the only settler that the Indians harbored a grudge against. This was on account of his hired hand striking the chief with a club for which Quintiousa demanded a horse. Nichols refused to give him a horse, thus wounding his pride as well as his head.
 Maximilla Riddle obtained a promise from young Tyee Tom to come for a talk and a short time afterward, Tom, followed by about a dozen of his young braves in full war regalia and armed, appeared on the Riddle side of the river, halting just across the small creek near the stone spring house at Glenbrook, where William met them. Cpt. Cowles, with some of the men, were posted in a log house and other of the men in a hewed log dwelling that served as a fortress in itself and commanding a view of the council and 60 yards distance. I. B. Nichols was requested to keep out of sight on account of his unsettled difficulty with Quintiousa and his son, Ed.
 At the conference, William Riddle stated the desire of the settlers for the Indians to remain at peace and to camp near Glenbrook until the troubles in the Rogue River Valley were over, and offered protection.

Tyee Tom's Oratory

  Tyee Tom was spokesman for the Cow Creeks. He did not question William Riddle's sincerity and admitted that he had always been fair and just with them but questioned his ability to protect them. Tom acknowledged that they had been promised an agent to protect them but that he had never appeared. He pointed out that they had remained at peace during the Rogue River War of 1853, but "me-sah-chee (malicious)" non-indians had killed one of their men and a woman when they were at peace. In fact, Tyee Tom, in a quite eloquent manner, recited their grievances since the coming of the non-indian invaders; the cowardly massacre of the Grave Creeks; the killing of Tipsu Bill; and many other outrages. He admitted that the Rogues had been among them and informed them of the massacre of the Rogues, at Butte Creek, four days previous, and that the Indians believed that the non-indians meant to exterminate them whether they remained at peace or not; and that they were going to join the hostile Rogues and die fighting.
 The young chief did not express animosity towards the settlers, but throughout the conference expressed the conviction that the Indians were in fact doomed to be exterminated, but that they would in deed die fighting.
 Tyee Tom himself was killed in the Olalla battle and it was reported that out of all the able-bodied young men of the Cow Creeks, but one Indian boy, survived the war. That was John, one of George Riddle's hunting companions. He was afterwards known on the Siletz Reservation as Citizen John Hill (1828-1910).

Tyee Tom Joins the Rogues

 While the conference was proceeding between Tyee Tom and William Riddle, Israel Boyd Nichols (1824-1893), although warned not to appear, approached the scene of the Pow Wow. When a short distance from the Indians he was discovered by Quintiousa's son Ed, who immediately dropped upon his knees, taking aim at Nichols. Before he could fire Tyee Tom seized his gun and commanded him to desist. There is no doubt that Nichols escaped death by a hair's breadth. He saw Ed's attempt to shoot, but did not falter. I. B. Nichols had met with heavy losses at the hands of the Indians—had lost an entire pack train and their loads by Rogues and had narrowly escaped with his life. He had never had any trouble with the Cow Creeks until the episode with Ed and his going to the council at the time was to show the Indians that he was not afraid to meet them.
 When Tom and his band retired with the avowed intention of joining the hostiles they were never seen again in the Cow Creek Valley.

The Belle of Grand Ronde

 Within days after these occurrences, two companies of volunteers were raised in what now comprises Douglas County. Cpt. Samuel Gordon's company mustered in at Roseburg, in which I. B. Nichols and young William Riddle enlisted, and in about ten days after the Indians had disappeared, I. B. Nichols, with a few men, were quartered in the Riddle home, and soon after a stockade was built around another house. For at least ten days the homes in the valley were deserted and probably entirely at the mercy of the Indians, yet not one thing was disturbed, confirming that they had no desire to harm the settlers who had lived in contact with them throughout the past four years.
 During the winter of 1855-1856, the Riddles lived at Roseburg, William caring for his blacksmith business and Maximilla keeping boarders, with George as assistant.

  Those were stirring times. Volunteer companies were passing through Roseburg to the to the Rouge River Country. Col. William J. Martin made his headquarters at Roseburg. It was here that he issued his celebrated order to "take no prisoners," yet he soon had a lot of prisoners, but not of Indian warriors.
 It appears that when the Cow Creeks went on the warpath their old men, women and children were hidden away in the canyons of the mountains. A band of these—between 30 and 40 in number—were hidden on the head of Rice Creek near Dillard. These refugees would steal out to pilfer from abandoned homes. Finally a few of the settlers assembled and calling Lazarus Wright of Myrtle Creek, a celebrated grizzly bear hunter, to their assistance, tracked the prowlers to their camp. They were so securely hidden that they were in the midst of the camp before they discovered them, and to their surprise found more Indians than they expected and of a different band from what they expected to find, but found that the Indians were Cow Creeks and quite willing to surrender. These Indians were turned over to Col. Martin who had them brought to Roseburg, where George Riddle recognized old friends. He had learned a great deal of the Cow Creek language, and was then employed as interpreter and instructed to ascertain where the warriors of the tribe were, but they, if they knew, would not tell. The captives were housed in an annex to a carpenter shop. As a spy, George was instructed to spend the night under a workbench where he could listen to their conversation. He could hear the names of absent warriors mentioned, but no locality that he understood.
 On the following day Col. Martin had two Cow Creek youth, aged 12 or 14, brought to a room in the hotel. Among the men present was Cpt. Daniel Barnes, aid to Col. Martin. One of these Indian girls was Nellie, the daughter of Tipsu Bill who was murdered by the Grave Creeks, in the futile attempt to save their own lives and the supposed white-child mentioned earlier. George was directed to ask them where the Indians were, but could get no answer but "wake-tum-tux (don't know)." The young Indian women could speak Chinook jargon and could understand English. Cpt. Barnes undertook to put them through the third degree, but could get no information from them.
 Col. Martin had with him a sword—the property of Gen. Lane, one that had been surrendered to him by the Mexican General Antonio Loópez de Santa Anna (1794-1876) in the Mexican War 1846-1848. It was a beautiful sword with gold hilt, scabbard elaborately engraved. Finally Cpt. Barnes pretended to become enraged, seized Nellie, thrust her into the corner of the room, assumed his fiercest look (he was a large bewiskered man), enough to strike terror to the heart of the beautiful Indian maid, and addressed her in jargon, "Kah mika kon a wa Tillicum (Where are your menfolk)?"
 Nellie gave no answer.
 Drawing the sword and rushing at her as though to thrust it through her he said "Al-ta-mi-ka wa-wa pe-mi-ka mamook mem-a-loose mika (Now talk or I will kill you)."
 But Nellie, isolated in a room with a half a dozen fierce-looking soldiers, the point of the sword at her breast, did not show fear by the batting of an eye or a quiver of the lips. The well-staged attempt to frighten these young women to tell of the whereabouts of the warriors was an utter failure, reinforcing the fact that the Indians could be demoralized by a surprise attack, but as prisoners they could not be intimidated to confess anything.
 While being held prisoner near Dillard, a bachelor became infatuated with Nellie and begged with tears to be allowed to adopt or keep her and have her educated, to which Col. Martin turned a deaf ear. The man, who was ridiculed by his associates, made no secret in expression his grief and genuine attachment for the Indian maid, who one day became the Belle of the Grand Ronde Reservation, her beauty romanticized all over Oregon.
 The Cow Creek remnant of elderly men, women and children were finally placed on the Grand Ronde Reservation in Yamhill County.

Rice Family Attacked By Hostiles

 After the Battle of Hungry Hill, Cpt. Gordon's company of Douglas County volunteers was stationed near Cow Creek Falls, and the settlers gained confidence that they would not be molested by the Indians and began to move freely about the valley to look after their homes and stock, with most of them remaining forted up at the Riddle place.
 Tracks of Indians appeared near the home of the Russells, who with two sons, were at their cabin. When the Russells discovered the Indians, they evacuated their cabin immediately. The Indians, having no desire to injure the Russells, did not follow them on their two-mile run to safety, and left their home unmolested.
 Some time in December a band of hostiles composed of Cow Creeks and Rogues attacked the Rice family near Dillard, that was followed by a fight on the Olalla. Frances Fuller Victor's The Early Indian Wars of Oregon (1894) gives a meager account of this Indian raid. After narrating the disposition of the volunteer forces, it says:

 But the companies were not permitted to remain in quarters. During the absence of the volunteers early in December some roving bands of Indians were devastating the settlements on the west side of the South Umpqua, destroying 15 houses whose inmates had been compelled to refuge in the forts.

 George Riddle cites this as an example of what "will pass on down to future generations as history," and recounts a more complicated series of events.
 A man named Yell, who had some cattle grazing in the Boomer Hill district, went out one day alone to look after his stock, going over the mountains by way of "section four," following the trail around by what was then known as pole corral or Boomer Hill. On top of the ridge west of the Ledgerwoods, Yell discovered a band of Indians in a grove of small oak trees about 300 yards away. The discovery was mutual. Yell turned right and dashed across the steep gulch, while the Indians rushed to head him off. Yell, thanks to his sure-footed horse, reached the top of the ridge leading to the valley ahead of the Indians, who were firing at long range. Yell, urging his horse down a rocky ridge, his saddle slipping onto his horse's withers, had no time to stop to adjust his saddle but got behind the saddle and rode to the stockade, a very much demoralized man. It appeared there were none of Cpt. Gordon's company available to go in pursuit, so I. B. Nichols immediately organized about eight men to join in the pursuit and was on the Indians' trail before noon the next day. In the meantime the Indians had passed over the mountains and camped on Rice Creek within half a mile of the Rice family residence. On the following morning they discovered smoke, evidently coming from the Indians' campfire.
 On seeing the smoke the Rices were apprehensive and sent their 14-year-old son, Sylvester, to inform their neighbors. It appears that Sylvester, on arriving at the Umpqua River, about a mile and a half from their home, found the canoe was on the opposite side of the river and failing to secure help from that quarter, turned and ran to the home of his grandfather O. L. Willis. The Rice and Willis homes were both situated in narrow valleys with a high steep ridge between and about one mile apart on a direct line, but over three miles around by wagon road. After the Willis family had made their preparations for defense one of the sons, Albert Willis, went on horseback to see what the result of the attack had been. Coming in sight of the Rice home from an open hillside he was warned by the Rices to go back; that some of the Indians might still be lurking in the vicinity. Albert, in returning home by the wagon road, was fired upon by the Indians, but rode through a hail of bullets without a scratch.
 Harrison's brother, Austin, went to higher ground to get a better view of the smoke. He was fired upon by the Indians, receiving a rifle bullet in his arm, shattering the bone. At the same time the Indians were firing at Sylvester who was running, the bullets whizzing all around him. After he had gotten well away, he dropped to the ground and removed his shoes that he might run faster. Austin Rice managed to get into the house, which was a small weather-boarded affair situated near the bank of a creek with lower ground between and the main bank about 50 feet on the opposite side from the house.
 The Indians soon surrounded the house, firing into it from all sides. Harrison Rice, aided by the 16-year-old Indian lad who lived with them, returned the fire and managed to keep the hostile Indians from approaching the house. Several times Indians with torches would rush from the creek side of the house, but would be met with gunfire that sent them back. The Indians had torched the barn, carpenter shop and all out buildings, and the house was riddled with bullets. That none of the family was hit was on account of the forethought of the Indian boy.
 The Rice family always expressed a deep sense of gratitude to the Indian boy, believing that his help saved their lives. What was remarkable about this boy was that only a few weeks before his whole family and tribe had been cruelly murdered by a surprise attack of exterminators. The Indian boy's family was of the Umpqua or Olalla tribe, had no connection with the hostiles, and did not speak the same language. The Indian boy was one of four that escaped the massacre and remembering that the Indians had always been kindly treated by the Rices, went to them for protection.
 After the fusillade the Indians slackened their firing but remained around the house for several hours, firing occasional shots and attempting to torch the house.
 Before noon, the Indians disappeared. No doubt their lookout discovered the approach of the Nichols party, who on reaching the Willis farm, were informed of the attack.

Tyee Tom Killed at the Battle of Olalla Creek

 Reports of the attack upon the Rices soon reached Roseburg and cause some excitement. The settlers in the Brockway and Olalla districts deserted their homes and concentrated for mutual protection. The sheriff of the county, Patrick Day, hastily organized a few men and went to the rescue. At Olalla they were joined with the Nichols party and late at night the Indians were located, encamped on the west bank of Olalla Creek.
 They had swung around from the Rice-Willis settlement, following about the same route that the road now runs from Dillard to Camas Valley. Finding all houses deserted they had helped themselves to their contents and had secured a lot of horses on which to pack their loot. They evidently did not expect to meet with opposition. Their raid seemed to be for the purpose of foraging more than to kill and destroy. They had chosen a place for their camp between a large fallen tree and the creek, the log lying parallel with and about 50 feet from the creek.
 Sheriff Day assumed command of the minute men, about 20 in all, and in the vicinity were about the same number of volunteer members of Cpt. Buoy's company. During the night a consultation was had and a plan of attack was agreed upon. Cpt. Buoy's men were to cross Olalla Creek on a foot log and take a position on the opposite side of the creek from the Indian camp and await the attack by the sheriff’s men. The plan was a good one, and if it had been carried out to the letter they would have had the Indians between two fires.
 Day’s men took their position on the hillside in a fringe of young oaks, about 200 yards from the Indians with open ground between, where they lay for an hour or more awaiting the coming of daylight to make their surprise attack.
 The Indians seemed to be having a jolly time—had big campfires and were baking bread by wholesale—their laughter reaching the waiting men on the hillside.
 Before it was daylight some of the horses the Indians had rounded up came up near the men. A couple of Indians came up after the horses, one of them coming near Pat Day who became excited on thinking that they would be discovered, fired, missing the Indian, and spoiling all their plans.
 I. B. Nichols, sizing up the situation, called on the volunteers to come on and charge, which they hesitatingly did. The men charged down the slope reserving their fire until they reached the log. The Indians had fired upon their charging foe without reserve which gave the non-indians the advantage when the fighting was over the top of the log. One man was wounded in the stomach while running in a stooping position, making an ugly wound, but not penetrating far under the skin.
 The battle continued for over 30 minutes, with the Indians finally giving way, wading the creek, which was at flood, and came up to their armpits.
 Cpt. Buoy's men did not arrive until the Indians had all made their escape except one, Tyee Tom, who was found dead in the edge of the creek, and no doubt, there were several wounded Indians.
 During the following summer, George Riddle found rags tied on bushes where trails parted that he surmised were put there for wounded Rogues not familiar with the country to follow.
 The hasty firing of Sheriff Day before it was light enough to shoot accurately, and the failure of Cpt. Buoy's men to reach the designated point in time, saved the Indians from almost total annihilation.

The Battle of Middle Creek

 Among the efficient organizations of 1855-1856 was Cpt. James Burns' infantry company.
 This was a small company. Cpt. Burns was employed scouting through the mountains usually with four or five men. Their business was to locate the Indian camps that were laid away in the mountains.
 About six weeks after the Battle of Olalla Cpt. Burns, with three or four men, located the Indian camp at a point now known as Camp B in Cow Creek Canyon. At that time Cow Creek Canyon was almost an unexplored country, yet there was a well-defined Indian trail from Cow Creek Valley over the mountain to Middle Creek and over another to the Indian camp.
 When Cpt. Burns discovered the Indians early in the morning, a dense fog covered the canyon. He was so close to them that he could hear their voices and smell the smoke from their fires.
 When Cpt. Burns made his report, Col. Martin immediately assembled all the available forces at Glenbrook—in all about 400 men, composed of Cpt. Gordon's, Cpt. W. W. Chapman's, Cpt. Joseph Barley's and some detachments of other companies. Something over three weeks was spent in assembling this small army, and much of this time was spent in drilling the men, which was, to say the least, highly absurd. With his own old "nose" loading gun the manual of arms was no benefit to him.
 During the assembling of this army the Riddles moved back from Roseburg to Glenbrook, William remaining in Roseburg to conduct his blacksmith business.
 The stockade had been placed on two sides of the Riddles' log house, the stockade projecting past a corner on each side so as to have a clear view on every side and holes were made between the logs upstairs, from which to fire their rifles.
 From the preparations made by Col. Martin, he must have thought that he was going out to attack the whole hostile tribes and their numbers were always exaggerated. The Indians at Camp B at that time might have numbered 40, judging from the number of huts left by them.
 When Col. Martin's preparations were finally made his army was marched over the mountains to Middle Creek, the first day about eight miles, and on the next day they marched over the mountains from Middle Creek to the Indian camp. They found the camp but no Indians. With all the preparations and noise of two days march, the Indians were fully advised of their approach and simply faded away into the many timbered rocky gulches of the mountains.
 Col. Martin had marched his army down the mountain to the deserted Indian camp and there was nothing left to be done but to march his army back up the mountain the way he had come. But the volunteers were not to get out of the mountains without casualties.
 About one mile from the Indian encampment there was a beautiful prairie of a few acres, almost level land on the side of the mountain and with convenient water. Cpt. Joseph Bailey obtained permission to encamp there during the night and pitched his camp under some trees, the ground dropping off into a steep timbered gulch immediately from the camp.
 Bailey took no precautions but allowed his men to build bonfires around which they were engaged in wrestling and having a good time. The Indians approached the camp from the timbered side of the bluff, firing into the crowd of men assembled around the fire. John L. Gardner was instantly killed and Thomas S. Gage mortally wounded, expiring the following day.
 Returning from the expedition, the dead whiteboys were carried upon litters and were left at the Riddle house. Gardner was interred in the Riddle family cemetery, and Gage's body was taken to Brockway for internment.
 During the evening, after the return, when several of the officers were stopping at the Glenbrook, and discussing the events, some of them suggested that it was too dangerous for families to remain where they were. Maximilla lost patience and addressed them about as follows: "You gentlemen seem to forget that those two boys back there are lying dead through your incompetence, and as to leaving my home again, all I ask of you is to leave my boys with me, and we will take care of ourselves."
 A few days after the above occurrences Cpt. Gordon's company was discharged and a new company was organized with Edward Sheffield as captain, in which William II was enrolled.
 The events narrated above have no mention in either F. F. Victor's or A. G. Walling's Oregon histories although the entire northern battalions were engaged for nearly a month. If they could only have exchanged a few shots with Indians, Victor's The Early Indian Wars of Oregon (1894) could have described a great battle in which several hundred Indians were engaged and uncounted Indians murdered, etc.

Fort Sheffield

 After the return of the expedition to the bend of Cow Creek the volunteers were sent mostly to the meadows on Rogue River. Cpt. Sheffield's men were assigned to Cow Creek Valley under the command of Lt. Samuel S. Burton. With this detachment were George Riddle and his brother William.
 Two very large oak trees were felled and the limbs cut and arranged to enclose Lt. Burton's camp is referred to in some history books as Fort Sheffield.
 George and his brother were detailed to stay at home for the protection of the family and were allowed to assist in planting crops, but his arrangement did not last long.
 Indians were reported to be in the vicinity of Olalla. Lt. Burton immediately called his scattered army of 20 men to assemble at Fort Sheffield and make his detail for the expedition. To his great disappointment, George was omitted from this detail because he had left his horse at Glenbrook.
 When the party left camp he resolved that he would not be left behind. He was 16-years-old, very tall for his age, and as a mountaineer he felt himself equal to any one in the volunteer service. So he ran to Glenbrook, about two miles distant, and on arriving home he found that the horse he expected to get was in use by someone and away from the farm, so, knowing the trail the party would take, he started to overtake them on foot, and knowing the most direct route, he ran up through Hannum Gulch over Jerry Flat and on the east end of Nickel Mountain.
 He overtook the party just as they approached the top of the mountain. When he came in sight he was completely exhausted. When his brother William saw him he came back and allowed George to ride his horse to the top of the mountain where Lt. Burton had halted, and proceeded to bawl him out. The men pleaded for George and Lt. Burton finally yielded and the men throughout the trip gave him rides on their horses.
 Lt. Burton's men made their first camp on the John Byron ranch on the south fork of Olalla Creek. There they found the Indian signs which consisted of some squaw tracks where they had been digging some potatoes that had been left.
 The camp was under an open shed. That is, there was a roof, but no side walls. In this shed a large fire was built, while George was placed on guard about 100 yards from camp. It was raining and half snowing. He was thinly clad without an overcoat and he envied the boys around the campfire. The horses were grazing near the creek bank some distance from where he was stationed, when all at once there was a snort and a stampede. The men around the fire went out from the circle of light and threw themselves on the ground thinking there were Indians, and calling to George to know what caused the stampede. George had not seen anything, but thought it might be Indians. At any rate the fire was snuffed for the night. He was left on guard for several hours, Lt. Burton saying that he would teach the young man to obey orders.
 Burton was an illiterate man, incompetent as an officer, a big bluffer, and there was little discipline in his detachment.
 On the following day, the volunteers went over some mountains to a point south of Camas Valley. They found no Indians, but the hunting was excellent. Elk and deer were plentiful. Here they camped several days, killing plenty of deer, but no elk, and if there were any Indian in the vicinity they were kind enough not to molest Lt. Burton's detachment, and if it had not rained so continuously they would have had a very pleasant trip.
 On this expedition, George's shoes entirely gave out, so he made himself a pair of moccasins out of fresh deer skins, hair side in. The moccasins served him well except on the hillsides in the wet grass where the bottoms would turn to the top.
 The expedition returned to Fort Sheffield without casualties, for which they were indebted to an old mule named Lizzie for smelling the Indians as they were sneaking up to the men sitting around that big campfire.

Chapter 39: Southern Oregon Indian Wars

 Most American history has been written as if history were a function of the white culture—in spite of the fact that well into the 19th Century the Indians were one of the principal determinants of historical events. Those of us who work in frontier history are repeatedly nonplused to discover how little has been done in regard to the one force bearing on our field that was active everywhere... American historians have made shockingly little effort to understand the life, the societies, the cultures, the thinking and the feeling of the Indians, and disastrously little effort to understand how all these affected white men and their societies.

South Pass 1846

 Like the Indians of the northern interior those in Southern Oregon faced non-indians traversing their lands between the Willamette settlements and California. The numbers of non-indians were to increase with the opening of a new route from the East bringing them into the Willamette Valley. In 1846 Jesse and Lindsay Applegate, Levi and John Scott, and 11 other men searched out a route into the valley as an alternative to the trail from Fort Hall to The Dalles and down the Columbia. In June, following an old Indian Trail, the party crossed the Calapooya Mountains into the Umpqua watershed. Farther south the Rogues, keeping them under surveillance, fired at them ineffectively on June 26 with dew-moistened muzzle-loading rifles. After the party crossed the Rogue at the California Trail crossing (near Grants Pass), large numbers of Rogues came from hiding to taunt them as they made their way up the Rogue. When they had harassed them out of the vicinity, the Indians turned their attention to taunting another party of non-indian travelers. Along the Oregon-California border near the foot of the Siskiyou Mountains, which the California Trail crossed, the Applegate party broke east through unexplored country via Green Springs.
 In the Lower Klamath Lake region in Northern California, Modoc smoke signals warned Indians of the passage of the pallid party. The Modoc still smarted from losses that they sustained two years earlier in the Lower River-Tule Lake country in a fight with the better-armed Bill Williams party, who had brushed with various Indians throughout the American West. Now the Modoc were greatly agitated thinking the Applegate men had come to punish them for an attack that they had made on Col. John C. Freémont's camp on Upper Klamath Lake only a few nights before, when Lt A. H. Gillespie had brought Freémont a dispatch stating that his services were needed in the US-Mexican War. In the attack on Freémont's party three of his Indian guides were killed, but the famous frontiersman Kit Carson escaped. Gillespie reported that nine Klamath were killed when the Freémont party attacked a Klamath tribes and destroyed their village. That those killed were perhaps innocent of the attack on the party was of little moment to it.
 The Applegate party moved east to the Humboldt (Nevada) section of the Fort Hall-California branch of the Immigrant Road, following this route to Fort Hall, where it was hoped Oregon-bound immigrants would be induced to travel down the California road before breaking westward on the South Road blazed for them by the Applegate party. Critics of the route condemned it because it traversed a desert "as dry and blasted, as if it had just been heaved upon from some infernal volcano."
 Reaching Humboldt River on its return, the Applegate party led a train of 150 invading immigrants to the Willamette. As they rolled in their wagons via Robert and Blue Rock Springs, they discovered the original inhabitants to be as volcanic as their land. At Clear Lake in California, then called Lost, or Modoc, Lake, the Modoc swooped down early one morning on the immigrant camp, shouting and waving blankets, stampeding cattle and horses over wagons, and tearing down tents. The Modoc pierced the body of one white with over two dozen arrows. The immigrants hurried on. Near Tule Lake, where the meadows were narrowed by bluffs gashed by gullies, and thickened with tules, about 300 warriors in a trench that they had dug, waiting for the travelers to pass through the place. As the pallid party approached the braves waved blankets and stampeded stock firing volleys of poisoned arrows at the trespassers through their lands. As the arrows were no match for the immigrants' muzzle-loading rifles, the overpowered Indians were forced to seek refuge in nearby hills. They returned to the scene of the fight on hearing the anguished cries of one of their captured warriors. Whites had viciously fed him red pepper. Fighting resumed and continued all day. Pools of the blood of the slain—many of whom were Indians—dotted the grisly scene, which was known thereafter as Bloody Point. Carnage lay strewn there for years. Travelers of South Road were warned of the danger along the route by the words "Look out for the Indians" scrawled on bleached cattle skulls.
 Although about 5,000 non-indianss immigrated in 1847, only 80 wagons traversed the South Road. The Klamath, Modoc, and Rogues continued harassing immigrants, sending them hurrying to the Willamette Valley instead of settling on the lands of their ancestors.
In 1978, Bill McCluskey of Toledo, a descendent of early Oregon settlers wrote:

 At the time of the Rogue River War (1855-1856), Isaac Leabo, an early Elk City settler, had about 19 acres of land cleared in the Grants Pass region.
 One day, while Leabo was clearing land with the children helping him—Hannah driving the wheel oxen and Noah the lead ones—the were surrounded by the chief and 11 warriors in full war paint. Leabo sat down on the beam of the plow and pulled the two children down on his knees. He talked to the chief and wanted to know why they were being visited, explained that he'd always been friendly and had paid the Indians for his land—with two cuetons (horses) and two blankets! The chief said that they had always been friends and that his people would not bother their friend, and that Isaac and his family would be "safe" from them.
 During the war, the Leabo children frequently saw painted warriors in the woods but were never molested.

The few land grabbers who settled on the south side of the Calapooya Mountains at the northern rim of the forbidden country might have suffered attacks by its rightful owners if the Klickitat War commander and his stalwarts, who were armed with Hudson's Bay Company guns, had not colluded with the enemy and forayed south to fight the Rogues.

Klickitat War with Calapooya 1839

 The Klickitat also sold guns to Southern Oregon Indians, stole their women, and buffered non-indian squatters from the attacks of other Indians. Around 1839, crossing the Columbia, the Klickitat overran the Willamette Valley, killing game in defiance of the weakened Calapooya, whom they boasted they had taught to ride and hunt. Shortly before 1841 in Kings Valley they had defeated the Calapooya in a skirmish, although outnumbered. They rented lands from the Calapooya, trading horses and other things to them for hunting grounds and privileges. They were known to have established depots for collecting furs and to have levied tribute from conquered aboriginal tribes. Their restlessness propelled them into hunting grounds as far west as Oregon's Coast Range.
 The Klickitat are credited with trading non-indian clothing to the five-tribe, 200-member Upper Umpqua (Etnemitane) in the area of the south fork of the Umpqua teaching them words of the Chinook jargon. They helped non-indians less from love than from love of gain. Klickitat men hired out as farm hands, and sometimes sold the services of their women to non-indian settlers, in hopes that the land-grabbing horde would let them continue hunting in the Willamette Valley and let them keep a small tract that they claimed on the west side of the river at the head of the valley.
 Anthropologist Edward S. Curtis wrote that the Klickitat made war

...not only against their tribal enemies, but for hire.. [they] were paid in women and beads. Parties of the Klickitat sometimes crossed the Columbia to aid the "river dwellers" (Chinookans) in their warfare against the Shoshoni.

When a non-indian came among the Klickitat around 1845, they asked him his intentions. When told that he intended to settle, the Klickitat chief retorted, "You can if you don’t meddle with us." In 1851, the Klickitat living in Oregon numbered nearly 600.

Cayuse War 1847-1849

 In early 1848 the Indians of Western Oregon were threatening to the pallid population than usual. Many young non-indians of that region had joined militia outfits fighting the Cayuse far from that place. Word spread through the valley that Tyee Crooked Finger, a Molalla, was angered at non-indians (especially Frémont for his attack on the Molalla's allies, the Klamath) and that Crooked Finger had gathered a force of 150 Klamath, Umpqua, Rogues, Atsugewi, Achomawi, and Modoc to strike a blow in the valley that year. In response some settlers and sell-out Indians ambushed a force of combatant Molalla and other Indians who were advancing along Butte Creek, in present-day Marion and Clackamas counties in Oregon. The Molalla had been joined by some Klamath, possibly Upper Klamath, who had been residents for several years of the Willamette Valley. The Klamath had traversed the Klamath Trail to the Silverton country, east of present-day Salem, to camp with the Molalla. After they arrived, non-indians ordered them to leave the area. When they refused, the non-indians, on March 5, 1848, attacked their camp on Abiqua Creek, killed two of them, and the next day killed seven fleeing warriors, one of whom was the warrior woman Kaitchknoa, who was armed with a bow and arrow. Two other women were wounded. One account placed the Indian losses at 13 dead and one wounded. Only one non-indian was wounded. Much controversy raged over the Battle of Abiqua. Some hostiles called it "justifiable" action to remove "dangerous" Klamath from the Willamette Valley.

Apserkahar Relieves Miners of Gold Dust 1850

 After placer mining on California streams, the new Oregonians returned home with a little dust to seek their fortunes on the lands that they had abandoned for the gaudy glitz and glitter of gold. Along their homeward route the Rogues, in the spirit of retributive justice, sometimes appropriated their properties. After they had relieved one such group of their gold pouches, the goldmongers requested Oregon Territorial Gov. Joseph Lane (1801-1881) and a 15 member party of pallid people with Klickitat Chief Quatley and ten of his warriors traveled in June, 1850, to Rogue River Valley to retrieve the gold they had stripped from the bowels of the earth.

Joseph Lane (1801-1881)

On the south bank of the river, the governor and his party were met by armed Rogues, specifically the Takelma, a nation that was divided into two major tribes: the Dagelma, or "those living alongside Rogue River," and the Latgawa, or "those living in the uplands." One band was under Tyee Apserkahar. Ordered to return the gold, the Takelma, who had thrown the golddust away, delivered only empty pouches, believing them to have been the only things of value. At a critical point in the confrontation Tyee Apserkahar signaled his warriors to arms. Tyee Quatley and his stalwarts perhaps felt that they had little to lose in this action against the Rogues because the Klickitat were encroaching more heavily on the lands the Klamath and Rogues as the land-grabbing horde began to disrupt Klickitat hunting grounds on the Willamette Valley. At this time Tyee Apserkahar was so impressed with Lane's bold action and with his extraction of a peace from the Rogues that he asked him if he might not take his name. He was granted permission to take only Lane's first name, Joe. In exchange the Indians presented Lane with a Modoc slaveboy.
 After this event involving the Lane party, Tyee Quatley in 1851 expressed to Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Anson Dart, a wish to extend the Klickitat hunting grounds southward rather than have them forced to return to their ancestral homelands in the interior north of the Columbia. Their wish was granted, for, with the increasing hostility of original people below the Columbia, the Klickitats in 1855 were forced to remove to their ancestral homelands, although they pleaded their rights and exerted their claims in white courts.
 The confrontation involving Lane, the Klickitat and the Rogues did nothing to improve relations between the many Rogue River tribes and the non-indians. It did not take long for the indigenous population to learn that the lust for gold sent moilers' running like quicksilver globules from panned-out Sacramento streams to all corners of the American West. The Indians of Northern California and Southern Oregon were among the first to feel the impact of that invasion.

Rogue River War 1850-1856

 Early in 1851, gold was discovered on Shasta River, and thousands were attracted into Northern California. Provoked by the incursions, the Rogues laid aside their treaty with Lane to increase their attacks on alien intruders traversing their lands. They killed a number of packers and one of their victims was Cpt. James Stuart, who was with a detachment of regulars that Maj. Philip Kearney led from Fort Vancouver to Benicia on San Francisco Bay. The ten-day fight began on June 17, a few miles up the Rogue from Table Rock, about ten miles north of present-day Medford. Stuart was felled by an arrow. Lane came down to join in the fighting, in which 50 Indians were reported killed or wounded. Kearney took 30 women and children prisoners, and Lane delivered them to Oregon Territorial Gov. John P. Gaines (Aug. 18, 1850-May 16, 1853). A few years earlier the natives had had but few firearms; now they had accumulated several. The increase augured more trouble for the future.

Visionary Wilbur Fisk Meets the Lower Rogues 1850

 The Lower Rogues (Tututni) were finding their ancestral homelands invaded. In September, 1849, the ship William G. Hagstaff, bound from Astoria to San Francisco, foundered as she tried to enter the Rogue for water. The Indians burned her, but salvaged her chain plates to make knives. The next year the Samuel Roberts landed on the Lower Rogue. About 35 passengers were aboard under Methodist clergyman Wilbur Fisk (1792-1839), "an old genius full of enthusiasm and brandy." They tumbled ashore, eager to acquire land. One passenger described the Rogues who met them as "about five feet tall, with low foreheads and an expression of inveterate duplicity, and ... incarnation of every savage vice." The Rogues had pierced noses, from which they suspended ornaments of "everything that tickled their fancy." The Rogues swarmed around the vessel, offering bows, arrows, pelts, baskets, mussels, fish, berries, and any other possessions in exchange for beads, trinkets, and fire-damaged cutlery. They confronted expeditions from off the Samuel Roberts with much gesticulation, whooping, and pointing of arrows. Their actions, accentuated by their fighting appearance, made the visionary feel unwelcome.

Battle Rock 1851

 Along the Southern Oregon Coast the confrontations continued. At dawn on June 10, 1851, natives gathered for a war dance to ready themselves to challenge party of pallid people who had landed with cannon the previous day at Battle Rock at Port Orford. The invaders were from the ship Sea Gull, under Capt William V. Tichenor. They had come to lay out a townsite and search eastward through the Coast Range. After the ship sailed off, the Indians attacked those who had disembarked, firing arrows at them on the rocks. Most of the missiles passed over the heads of the squatters. The Indians then rushed the rocky beachhead on which the tiny party held its ground. After a brief skirmish, in which 20 Indians were reported killed, the Indians retreated to plan a counterattack. Some days later they returned, reinforced in numbers and harangue from Tyee John, they broke into a prolonged yell and then swarmed down the bank, across the beach and up a narrow path to the driftwood breastworks. The hostiles fired their cannon into the breastworks, forcing the Indians to retreat. From behind the rocks and trees the warriors arched their arrows into Battle Rock. During the night the invading party stole away, eventually reaching Willamette River. Later 70 armed men returned to Battle Rock with Tichenor. Among them were William G. T'Vault, who set out with a party from the coast eastward over the Coast Range to meet the Oregon-California Road. On Coquille River, T'Vault and his an attack by the Coquille, who were enraged at trappers and miners corrupting their women and at squatters plugging their game trails, felling trees, and digging up their lands. They may well have recalled their traditional tale of a wrecked Russian whaler crew in 1830, whom they believed had carried a disease that raced through their villages at that time, but the illness may have been only an outbreak of intermittent fever.

Battle Rock at Port Orford 1938
Photo Courtesy of Julie Hendricks

  On September 14, Dart arrived at Port Orford to persuade about 500 Coquille and Rogues to cede their lands to the government. Within a few weeks he concluded two treaties with them. The troops dispatched to Port Orford were reinforced for two planned expeditions: One against non treaty Coquille on the north side of their river and the other to survey a route across the Coast Range to the Oregon-California Road. On November 5, the Coquille exchanged shots with the military party under Col. Silas Casey, and on November 22 they lost 15 killed and many wounded in a 20-minute fight with the troops.

Donation Land Law 1850 Depletes Indian Land Base by Six Million Acres

 The land-grabbing horde represented the greatest threat to the original people's safety and security. They illegally occupied ancestral homelands as they had Indian lands on previous American frontiers, aided by generous government land policies. Nowhere were the government's policies more generous than in Oregon Territory (1848-1859) after Congress's enactment of the Donation Land Law in 1850. Under its provision half-sections of land were granted to white men (including half bloods) if they were over 18 years of age, were citizens or had declared their intention of becoming so before December 1, 1851, their wives were granted a half-section also. White men 21 years of age and over and their wives were each granted 160 acres if they settled between December 1, 1850, and December 1, 1853. In Western Oregon the Donation Land Law appropriated 2.5 million acres from the Indians' land base. Designed to encourage and reward settlement of the Pacific Northwest, the laws were extraordinarily disastrous to the region's aboriginal population and violated the American principle of government that individuals' lands should not be taken from them without their consent. Not even fur traders had made such demands on the Indians' lands.

Only Soil-Tillers Fit for Earthly and Heavenly Rewards

 Quickening the white horde's exploitation of Indian lands was their failure to find a unity between themselves and nature. In their haste to exploit, non-indians believed that only soil-tilling hard work fitted one for rewards in this and the other world. Although concerned with things of the spirit, the ancient ones were also deeply concerned with their own physical survival in a delicately balanced environment, which the encroaching squatters and their tools could easily disturb. Nevertheless, the Indians found themselves unwittingly drawn into the non-indian pattern of survival; they scarred the earth themselves on a limited scale by planting and harvesting crops at various places in the Pacific Northwest. In so doing they were careful not to disturb the bones of their ancestors. In 1852, Indians on the South Umpqua became angry when a thoughtless thug, more interested in bushels than in bones, plowed up a field containing their dead.

Massacre at Bloody Point 1851

 When they saw what the non-indian economy was doing to the Indians of the Willamette Valley, Indians in other places vowed to resist the process. In 1851, the Paiute rushed a sleeping immigrant camp at Bloody Point, where the South Road ran between overhanging cliffs near Tule Lake. At dawn they killed 35 men, women and children, wounding others and appropriating $18,000 worth of property. If the Paiute had not then been warring against the Nez Perceé, and the Rogues against the Klamath, they would have been more free to attack non-indian travelers and protect their mutual interests.
 Gov. Lane and the Oregon territorial delegate to Congress, Samuel R. Thurston, were without authorization to conclude treaties with the Indians for title to their homelands—only to give them presents and to obtain their friendship. They proposed forcing the Indians off their ancestral homelands west of the Cascades to east of that range. White men, denying the reality of the proposal, called this unscrupulous policy "colonization." Some of them honestly believed it essential to "safeguard" and "protect" the Indians they proposed to move. For most land-grabbers, however, it was a segregation policy to rid their communities of an unwanted indigenous population. To the Indians, who were keenly aware of the intruders' motivations, it was a form of genocide.
 The aboriginal tribes in the region to which they were to be removed—the Yakima, Cayuse, and others—feared that an influx of Indian brothers and sisters from the west of the Cascades into their semiarid country would upset the land-man ratio, which was more delicately balanced there than in the Willamette Valley. They also feared that an influx would bring venereal and other diseases.
 Targeted for removal by the territorial government, the Willamette Indians had no choice but to meet the three-man commission headed by Gaines authorized to deal with them for the sale of their lands. The commission in May 1851, treated with the Santiam, Tualatin,Yamhill and Lakimuit tribes of Calapooya and with two Molalla tribes—all of whom surrendered their valley homelands. The occasional whites and half-bloods who urged the Indians to make no deals with their foe were thorns in the flesh of the non-tribal treaty makers in the valley, as elsewhere. In early August, Dart, assisted by Rev. Henry Spaulding and Rev. Josiah L. Parrish, concluded ten treaties at Tansy Point in Clatsop country with Indians living near the mouth of the Columbia. As noted above, they had concluded two other treaties at Port Orford and one with the Clackamas (Guithla'kimas) of the Willamette Valley. By their treaties the Willamette Indians surrendered lands from Oregon City south to Marys River in Benton County.
 The treaties involved a total of $91,300, which was to be paid to the native population in ten annual installments of clothing, flour and other groceries, other goods, and small amounts of money. In exchange, the non-indians received an estimated six million acres of land.

So Much Down and So Much Junk

 The government in the 1800s had a rather unique way of "purchasing" land from Indians. It was: so much down, usually a small portion of the purchase price, and so much junk per year in the form of cloth, clothing, useless implements, some food and occasionally a horse. Few clothes got to the Indians, less food and the implements could be counted on to be of the poorest quality.
 In his published journal, All Quiet on the Yamhill, Royal A. Bensell noted:

 Provisions for the Indians amount to a few "spuds" and a little wheat issued every Monday to each head of family. Just now, and for some time to come, the agent will answer a supplication for "muck-a-muck [food] after this style, Nika halo muck-a-muck [I have no food]." Poor Indians, this is your reward for trusting the "Boston men."

 The government didn't carry out its promises to the Indians. Lack of food, cheating by the Indian agent, exorbitant prices charged to the Indians, and no improvements for their welfare were among the broken promises to those living on the reservation. For this tragic farce, the Indian had given his/her valuable land.
  Charles R. Tuttle makes this observation:

 That the Indians as nations have been shamefully treated is an unwelcome truth. The solemn engagements into which they have entered with their great father (president) have, for the most part, received greater respect and compliance from the Indians, who were generally forced to make them, than from the government, which, in nearly every case, dictated its own terms. And yet, after all, it seems to have been within the scope of a divine providence that the Indians of North America should vanish before civilization. Nor does the writer believe that any policy of the US government, no matter how deeply fraught with forces calculated to foster and perpetuate this dying race, could have saved them from the extermination which they have already suffered. It is, however, a stigma upon out national honor, that the decline and rapid disappearance of the Indians is so heavily freighted with unnecessary cruelty.

 The government had even built a grist mill inside the agency, and then let it rot. If the Indians wanted flour, they had to tramp across the mountains to Kings Valley to get it at Rowland Chambers' mill. More than one squaw carried 100 pounds of flour back home over the rugged hills.

Kings Valley, the Site of Rowland Chamber's Grist Mill, 1962

 Here, as elsewhere, the women do all the hard work and are really the "hewers of wood and the drawers of water," and ancient squaws will carry an incredible load. Last winter, Litchfield & Company hired squaws to pack flour to Fort Yamhill from Kings Valley, distance 35 miles, over an awful road. Each squaw carried her two sacks, weighting 50 pounds each! When loaded heavily, whether in numbers of singly, they chant a monotonous or melancholy tune, really saddening to hear.

 Ironically, personnel at the fort appeared to have plenty of time for drilling, cutting firewood, wondering how to get enough to eat, or drinking to forget it all.
 Historian Ina Curtis noted:

 The great problem of officers in dealing with enlisted men was caused by whiskey. A small allowance of this liquor was given the men at their meals, but they wanted more. The whiskey sellers who located their establishments just outside the fort's limits were more than willing to supply it. The men used all sorts of stratagems to get it back into fort with them. When caught, the penalty was severe.
 In his journal,