31

Conflict at Pistol River

BEAVER BOARD INFORMATION

During the early 1850s hundreds of miners and settlers poured into southwest Oregon and onto Indian lands staking claims and establishing farms. The clash of cultural attitudes toward the ownership and use of natural resources led to the Rogue River Indian Wars of 1853-56.

War came to the coast in March of 1856, when the Tu-tu-tuni attacked Ellensburg, a settlement at the mouth of the Rogue River (present-day Gold Beach). A party of 34 armed civilians, led by vigilante George H. Abbott, raced northward along the coast from Crescent City, California in advance of regular army troops dispatched to assist survivors who had assembled just north of Ellensburg at Fort Miner. Local Chet-less-chun-dunn villagers responded with armed resistance near this site holding the party at bay behind driftwood for several days until army troops arrived. This conflict led to the tracking and killing of those Indians who participated in the battle. A few Chet-less-chun-dunne still reside in communities along the Oregon and northern California coast.

FACT BLOCK

LOCATION:
Pistol River
Curry COUNTY

GPS COORDINATES: 42.27885,-124.40446

SPONSORED BY:
Oregon Travel Experience

beaver board text CODED AS:
WHITE SUPREMACY ACKNOWLEDGMENT
-
multicultural
-
"...1850s hundreds of miners and settlers poured into southwest Oregon and onto Indian lands staking claims and establishing farms; this resulted in a major war."
32

Cow Creeks
- A Tale of Strong Recovery -

BEAVER BOARD INFORMATION

The story of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians is a tale of perseverance and strong recovery in the face of great loss. Epidemics and hostilities with miners let to large population declines. The tribe entered into a treaty with the United States in 1853, and ceded nearly 800 square miles for less than three cents an acre. This treaty left them without access to traditional hunting and gathering areas or a land base to build upon. Despite a treaty with the U.S. Government – one of Oregon’s first – clearly defining boundaries of their homelands, a federal program of Indian removal attempted to forcibly remove the Cow Creeks to reservations in northwest Oregon.

Many members eluded capture by hiding in remote parts of the region – seven core families maintained a continuous presence in the area. The U.S. Government ceased pursuing them by the 1870s, and tribal families began to gradually emerge from hiding.

The 1853 treaty provided for various services that the U.S. Government disregarded for nearly 130 years. The Cow Creeks sued the United States for restoration of federal recognition in 1982, and a monetary settlement of $1.25 per acre for lands ceded (1855 prices) was awarded in 1984. The tribe placed the entire settlement in an endowment account using interest earnings for economic development and tribal programs.

In 1992, the Cow Creeks began a substantial economic development program in Canyonville with economic self-sufficiency as their goal.

FACT BLOCK

LOCATION:
Oakland
Douglas COUNTY

GPS COORDINATES: 43.47599,-123.320081

OTIC TOPIC:
Indian Tribes

SPONSORED BY:
OTIC

beaver board text CODED AS:
white supremacy acknowledgment
-
MULTICULTURAL
-
federal program of Indian removal attempted to forcibly remove the Cow Creeks to reservations in northwest Oregon.

The historical marker was coded as "acknowledges white sumpremacy" due to the recongition that settlers brought and spread disease, and then dispossed the Cow Creek of their land through a treaty.

Although the treaty stipulated a protected homeland and services from the federal govnrement, U.S. officials refused to follow through on its commitment and expelled Indigenous people  to other reservations before being forced to recognize the original terms of the treaty in the 1980s.
33

Cutoff to the Barlow Road

BEAVER BOARD INFORMATION

https://oregontic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Cutoff-Barlow-Rd.jpg
Samuel K. Barlow established a wagon road in 1845-46 from The Dalles across the Cascade Range. Many Oregon Trail emigrants preferred the new road to the perilous Columbia River route, which had claimed many lives. The Barlow Road allowed emigrants to drive wagons to the Willamette Valley for the first time.

By 1848 many overlanders left the Oregon Trail soon after crossing the John Day River on a Cutoff to the Barlow Road through what is today Sherman County. Although emigrants complained of a scarcity of water and firewood, the cutoff was relatively easy until the cayon of the Deschutes River. Riley Root made the trek in 1848 describing the ordeal as ‘almost as difficult of descent and ascent, as the valley of Sinbad the sailor, with nearly precipitous rocks, from 1000 to 15000 feet high on every side…’ The balance of the Barlow Road across the Cascade Range was equally arduous.

Despite its difficulty, Barlow’s Road was a success and the Cutoff shortened the distance to settlements in the Willamette Valley ever more. The ‘shortcut’ also contributed to the settlement of Sherman County, which later became known as the ‘Golden Land’ because of all the fields of golden grain.

FACT BLOCK

LOCATION:
Grass Valley
Sherman COUNTY

GPS COORDINATES:
45.35525,-120.78583

OTIC topic:
Historic Routes
(part of the oregon trail)

beaver board text CODED AS:
NO WHITE SUPREMACY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
-
no multicultural information