Rogue on the Rogue River

I was doing a tour of Oregon, and I had only ever been to the Portland area, prior to finding out that Oregon had a lot of natural beauty to offer us, here in the USA, but nobody knowns about it on the East Coast- maybe that’s how the local would like it. I stumbled upon something really interesting, a river called the Rogue River, which appears to almost splits through half of Oregon, from the West coast all the way inland to about here, in Boundary Springs, winding up and down the state, not in a straight line. In total, the Rogue River spans 215 miles (346 km) in length. Naturally, after it piqued my curiosity, I wanted to experience that Rogue River, which is a major source of salmon and steelhead fishing as I learned a few days earlier, but of course is also very popular with folks wanting to go rafting and kayaking. I saw that there was an advert for a trip to sail up the ‘Wild & Scenic’ Rogue River, where I could just lean back, enjoy the sun, water, see some wildlife and just chillax for the day.  I had a long day of hiking around and walking scheduled later because I was heading to Crater Lake shortly after, so this was to just chill for a few hours and get a tan, while I tried to rest up a little.  The tour does not take you all the way to the end, which is ironically enough not that far from Crater Lake, but there were so many things to see in Oregon that I couldn’t believe this was all in the USA. I was really excited to see the ‘other USA’ and what it had to offer, but I had been out long the night before, so I was a bit tired. I thought I was going to get on the Rogue River tour and maybe fall asleep or something, so I was aiming to sit down, relax and sleep, but thankfully that didn’t happen, because what I ended up doing was JET BOATING up the Rogue River. Apparently, the trip up the Rogue River was not going to be on a cruise boat that you normally would find in rivers, but it was going to be up via what is known as a Jet Boat, and there is no way you’re going to be able to sleep on a Jet Boat. I mean, you can try, but you’re neck, butt and back are going to be destroyed afterwards. But what is jet boating?

Jet boating is when you use a high powered, slightly wider version of a speedboat that holds a small group of people to quickly cut through and navigate a body of water, normally powerful bodies of turbulent water, which what I found out that the Rogue River was, a very turbulent body of water. It’s great for being able to go east to west and back, pretty fast and can easily handle the current of the Rogue River; however, it’s not so simple to just go up a river on any kind of boat, and take a lot of skill to do so, I learned. Rapids, in general have 6 distinct classifications that are recognized the world over. The Rogue River has 5 of these classes of difficulty, depending on where you are on the river, so it can get literally rough out there but the river never goes go from riffles (easy) to rapids (hard) suddenly and people will not be thrust into complete panic when the water flow changes tempo. We elected to use Jerry’s Rogue Jets to start the Jet Boating experience, and embarked from a point at Gold Beach, Oregon, on the western coast of Oregon. The “WILD” part of the Rogue River is a 34 mile stretch of the river that is an area only accessible by human’s who are hiking to it, jet boating (like I did), and of course rafting or kayaking up the Rogue River to it.  The “WILD” part of that is what drew my attention, but there was no other group that will let you go out to this section of the Rogue River at that time, so Jerry’s operation was the easy choice since it did go out that far. My next trip, hopefully in the coming weeks, will be with Rogue River Journeys and I’ll be rafting it, and get thrown about by the Rogue River. Jerry’s Rogue Jets, however, are a collection of jet boats and some old “mail boats”, which are old forms of boats that actually STILL to deliver mail, to this day, for Agnes, Oregon. The mail boat has obviously been modified to be the jet boats with motors of speedboats. If you make it out to the Gold Coat, theyn you can that that tour I went on or a few others. There are different destinations that you can pay for, but I would suggest that you do the 104-mile (6.4 km) voyage, which brings you to the “Wilderness Whitewater” section where tour companies take on you the dangerous part of the Rogue River that is perfect for rafting and adventure! Go do that if you ever make it to this location. If you like nature, and wildlife, and a lot of both, that is your tour to take.

I mentioned “mail boat” tours were available, and they surely do still offer that route to take you the path where mail is dropped off, although not the same top notch scenery as the tour I took, it’s different because you’ll learn about Oregon history. NO, mail was not being dropped off to rich people’s houses along the river, or at least not back in 1890s, when this was the only way to get mail inland, as there were not any good established roads, or even railroad service, so transportation inland wasn’t happening liek it is today. When I heard this was how they were delivering the mail, back in 1890s, I already knew something really “interesting,” but typical, had to have happened at the Rogue River for this to be the way that mail was delivered to homes along the Rogue River, in this period of US history. I knew that Oregon was not a US state in the early 1800s, I’ll get into that briefly, and I knew that there were many Indigenous Americans in the Pacific Northwest, especially since the European descendant Americans that arrived in the US, Settlers, had not made it over to the west coast, in huge numbers until the 1850s. There was so much missing in the story being told about the “history” that one would learn on the mail boat tour, because it would not give context nor lend full truth to how Oregon came to be, related to the Rogue River. There was actually a big story there, and nobody will want to tell it, to not upset the people who are proud about the origins of “Oregon,” because it would put their knowledge and their heroes images and accomplishments in a different light. America doesn’t like truth to come out about its history, as we see with efforts to block truths about how American treated its slaves to be taught in school. So, lies are told to make folks’ ancestors look like angels, but the fact is, it only makes folks’ offspring look worse, for being so ignorant of fact. States don’t want to make their people uncomfortable with facts so many states banned any history that involves Blacks such as Idaho, which states that they ban teaching “individuals, by virtue of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin, are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin.” Who are they talking about? They’re talking about the “founding fathers” and these Settlers who invaded the USA. They are to never be questioned for their behavior towards other groups, such as African Slaves or any of the Indigenous Americans, even if they created a genocide and had the worst form of slavery every witnessed.

Reviewing history calls into question how many things today, are impacted by these catastrophic and or pivotal points in American history, but to tell the lies instead is to purposely try to make a certain people not look as angelic as they portray their history to be, and shows their hands in a lot of social issues we current face today, it can speak to character that persisted for 500 years. That being said, that doesn’t mean that people should and or would have anger for their offspring, but being honest about the history helps people move forward and past it. Otherwise, these folks are gaslighting anyone who speaks fact, and that’s not how people who wish to be respected, should operate. Hiding truths and making laws so truth cannot be discovered is dastardly and is an attempt to maintain a supremacist ideology that has existed since US was founded. People don’t want you to make the connection between folks of the past and folks today, an don’t want folks today to be ashamed of their supremacist birthright in the US, after the learn true US history without slants. That’s why I KNOW the mail boat tour will not tell the true story of what went on at the Rogue River, because it puts Oregon’s heroes, and origins, in the hot-seat, historically, and makes a lot of sense of how things turned out in the current day. Jerry’s Jet Boats is one of the very last companies that operate such mailboats, in the USA, but they will give you a glimpse of home life of the homesteaders, the European descendants who lived up and down the Rogue River. You can do that tour, and get a completely different experience than the jet boat experience, and sleep if you want to, but they will give you a history lesson if you take that tour – question is, is it the history lesson YOU WANT? The Rogue River was a source of a lot of conflict, and not just from the point of overfishing that had to get fishing banned for a short period, a few years ago, but from the overflowing of European descendants that entered Oregon. So what exactly went down on the Rogue River that made it possible for mailboats to comfortably deliver mail to European descendants who lived along the shores of the Rogue River?

Oregon had many different Indigenous tribes living there, not always at peace with each other, but each knew their territories and tried to stay in them, and when non-Indigenous people claim that the Indigenous were violent people, they cite that the Indigenous were always killing each other, which folks use to justify seeing them in a negative light and people justify European descendants killing and doing this Indigenous people wrong- much like today’s European descendant say “but Black people kill Black people so…” when a Black dies at the hand of a European descendant assailant, to deflect. That’s what “history” has done to Indigenous Americans to justify the brutality done to them, in US history, and is why they are almost entirely erased from American history in schools, as well. The stereotype of the “Rogue River Indians,” was that the tribes were only hostile to European descendants. Why would they be? That is something that immediately comes to mind. The second thing that comes to mind is that if you know the geography, and source of the conflicts along the Rogue River, then you’d know that it not exactly the path of the Oregon Trail, the trail the European descendants were assigned to traverse to get to the west, under protection of the US Army. So you wonder, what European descendants would the Indigenous people be hostile to if these tribes in question were nowhere near that Oregon Trail? If the European descendants stayed on that agreed path, and they were harmed, it allowed the full might of the US Army to murder indigenous people who disturbed the migration to the west and homesteading. The Indigenous tribes were enriching themselves with trade and the moves to the west were enriching some of them, but along the Oregon Trail, tribes were getting big bank with trade. They would not dare destroy such a situation of getting paid in favor of going to war. The only people who did attack Settlers on the Oregon Trail were the Mormons, who broke rank with the other Settlers and Government, and themselves were settlers – “well what about Settler on Settler violence?” 🤣 You’ll read a lot of accounts of Indigenous hostility toward European descendants of the newly formed US, but ironically enough, not towards actual Europeans (British, French) – I’ll get to that one, later too, because this also dispels the lies about Indigenous Americans. Why would they be friendly with one group but not with another when they all look the same to Indigenous people? The Indigenous Americans had lived along the Rogue River for more than 8,500 years, and in less than 1 year (1855-1856), things changed dramatically for their futures. Let’s tell the real story, that I learned years later, with fact, about what really happened, at the Rogue River, and expound on a few things that you probably suspected were happening, but didn’t know the details because we don’t study this in our school systems because it will offend the European descendants of today.

First, even the name Rogue River needs light shed on it. “Rogue?” Why would they name a river rogue? Doesn’t make sense, right? The French trappers, who were some of the first Europeans in the area, named it the “La Riviere aux Coquins,” which translates to “river of the Rogues.” The French were insulting the Indigenous Americans in the area, who lived all up and down the Rogue River, at the time. Many different tribes lived around the Rogue River, like those who signed all the treaties for peace to save their lives from the Settlers. There are many different tribes at the Rogue River, so who were these people talking about, calling them Rogues, and why? French people were calling the Indigenous Americans they were trading furs and such with, “ROGUES” as in a person who is “DISHONEST AND UNCOUTH, UNPRINCIPLED PERSON!” 😳 So, from the start, the judgement was there from Europeans, in a negative light, and, yet there was no conflict between then and the Indigenous Americans. The Europeans were busy trying to impose their will anywhere they went, and anyone who disagreed with, whether African Slaves or people indigenous to the Americas, or even themselves, would be killed because they chose violence, always. These are the times of the invaders and invader mentalities don’t diplomatically work through any conflict, they just plot to kill you, any time they see you, and that’s what happened, like gang members. But why were these Europeans there, in the first place, and how did they find the Rogue River anyways? When an explorer finds a river, they know there is likely wildlife that will be going to it to drink, they also know they can likely follow it and eventually make their way out of forests/jungles and to a large body of water like and ocean. Keep both points in mind, as they’ll mean a lot more in a second. We know now that the French and Brits were working their ways through the west coast, due to their Canadian conquering and it being connected to Washington state. Brits had been to Washington State and Oregon before the US Settlers came west, and the US Government had not invaded the native lands out west officially, as you see it today. In 1834, Brits came by BOATS and were already operating in Oregon, mainly trading fur, with little to no conflicts. They knew the US operated out of the east coast! So, that meant Brits and French could likely have taken the area and called it Canada, and the US would give land grants to Settlers to setup anywhere out there, and there was not roads and railroads then, so it’s a race against time to put citizens out in the west and claim the land for the US Government. Remember, the Brits were disposed of in the War of Independence, since 1776, but they were fighting proxy wars to destroy the US, which is why Brits and French funded the Confederates in the Civil War of 1861-1865.

Sure, the US had these “territories” but US didn’t have the full area guarded nor occupied, out West, and British and French were trying to make land grabs in Mexico and the Pacific Northwest! There were not maps like today, they could have stolen all that land and just said ‘this is Canada.’ So, since it was a tension filled area, British backed down a bit and Oregon was CO-OWNED by US and Britain. Didn’t know that did you? Read the Treaty of 1818, the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) was a British charter and they ran that area in the Pacific North West, especially Oregon. France was in Mexico trying to get land away from California, at the same time. So really, you had a race to fill out the USA landscape by annexing these western states for the US. The HBC didn’t want Settlers coming there, unless they were used to make money, but didn’t want the US to take over the Northwest, and sought to kill and skin any furred animal, so Settlers had no way to feed themselves, thus wouldn’t come to the Northwest. The Standing in their way of Europeans and European settlers claiming the land for Settlers, on behalf of the US, were Indigenous Americans! The biggest problem with the Rogue River is when the word of all the natural resources surrounding the length of the Rogue River, and that meant riches for these Europeans and European descendants. Humanity be damned, at that point! The Brits couldn’t stop the US expansion, too many Settlers now invaded Oregon so Brits and US signed the Oregon Treaty in 1846, to avoid full on war, establishing the 49^th parallel to separate US from British territory officially. With Oregon now annexed, it was time to pillage. So, when you think of it, the British being there in the first place, was the first problem, because the international fur trade was booming then, and Oregon was highly popular, which made Settlers go there, rather than just pass through it, to get to California. The natural resources made Oregon everyone’s target.

The first documented conflict with Indigenous Americans is ironically enough with not with British or French, but with Americans (the US Settlers who are all European descendants of course), a known trapper who came from out of the east of the US, Ewing Young. The British just ended up bringing more attention to Oregon than needed, with their trading. Young came, saw the potential in the area for fur trapping and cattle herding, and then just started killing Indigenous Americans left and right! 😳 He, and his party, would go kill Indigenous people, and he buried them so people wouldn’t know that he killed all those people, until his plot was discovered when Indigenous people of the Rogue River area, who saw part of the ground didn’t look like natural terrain, and saw something was buried there. Indigenous people dug up the ground and realized that these were indigenous people buried by Ewing Young US Settlers! This news spread among the tribes, since the 1830s, and they realized these settlers choose violence as their nature, and that stuck with the Indigenous people ever since. Oregon lies in its history telling of their hero, Young, but in the accounts by General John E Wool, Commander of the Pacific (the General who led the US Army in 1855 wars) he specifically pointed to Young, and his band of killers, and how they started the Rogue River War. Go to section “ORIGINS OF THE ROGUE RIVERS’ HATRED” of the John E. Wool letters, he tells all that the “Settlers” started the whole issue, and cites Ewing Young by name! This is official documentation by a General in that letter. Oregon revisionist histories say that it was Young’s boys, and there were drunk when they did all that killing, so they’re not to blame and Young wasn’t among them. LIES! 🤔 They want you to believe all the killing done by his people, it wasn’t sanctioned by him, and he was nowhere to be found. LIES, because this is what lead to wars surrounding the Rogue River! Also, Young and his people were a militia of thugs, they were stealing properties from Settlers, like horses, he was not an honorable man that Oregon history books like to tell, and it’s documented that he was indicted, but no one pursued him, for such activities. The Indigenous people’s way is to ‘get it back in blood,’ so Indigenous people retaliated by taking a Settler’s life and racism picked up badly over in the West from this point on, as more Europeans came to populate Oregon.

Still, most people didn’t know how to get to the area where the Rogue River is or didn’t have money to traverse the country to get to Oregon, so the violence was almost not existent because the original interactions with Indigenous areas didn’t seek to remove them from the area. This violence came after multiple years of little to no conflicts with actual Europeans who came (not US European descendant Settlers), but it let Indigenous people know that these new people were not Gods, they were something else entirely. But how the hell did this new breed of European descendant ever get there? Just like Ewing Young and his party, many parties of Settlers came from out east, to trap in the west, and there was a special path navigated by early Settlers, most famous of them was the Oregon Trail, which helped Settlers navigate from Missouri to Oregon. Remember that Lewis and Clarke made their way through in 1803, with Indigenous people’s help, and they mapped out good paths through Oregon, and this work is what made it possible to make the Oregon Trail and got Indigenous people to open to trade. Indigenous people were making good money trading, they were not trying to attack anyone by default. The Oregon Trail ushered in Settlers, to get to Utah and California too. Oregon Trail was regulated though, by the US. Army, and they had forts ready to go kill Indigenous people if they left reservations or do the rare law enforcement on some Settlers, but they were there to make a good life for Settlers to set up homesteads in case Indigenous people attacked, which they didn’t want to do because it was bad for business. This was also bad for Settlers’ business, because they were mostly criminals who wanted to live lawlessly, which results in violence, so they decided to make a NEW path to get to Oregon, and here is where the chaos came, and it put them right in conflict with the Rogue River Indigenous people. The Settlers were uncontrolled.

Setters made a bypass of the Oregon Trail, bypassing the military governance too, going into Nevada (south) and then back into Oregon (north). It’s not talked about much, in American history, but it’s 100% true and you can see it on the this map. That alternate path to get into Oregon, the backway, was called the Applegate Trail, and that crossed right through Rogue Valley. Jesse Applegate brought a militia with him in 1846 to make their way to Oregon, bypassing military, and that is how we got this Applegate Trail, and getting into the Willamette Valley, this became the new way to make it to the natural riches of Oregon, and the floodgates opened big time with entitled Settlers. The problem is they went right through many Indigenous tribes’ lands, which was not allowed, and they did not stay on the agreed upon Oregon Trail, per agreement in multiple treaties.  They certainly were not supposed to stay in Oregon. Who were these Settlers coming to Indigenous land? A lot of the invading Settlers were sex thirsty, lawless thugs, who ended up being miners and thugs you famously see in American movies and TV shows, like Deadwood, illegal encampments filled with malicious Settlers, in Indigenous land. The sex crazed and mentally deranged Settlers themes are in all of those American TV shows about these towns they formed because it’s true. Speakeasies existed in the 19th century in England, Ireland and America and the Settlers brought that and those habits of those places to US, speakeasies were not invented in 1920s (20th century) with prohibition, only popularized minus the sex work. It was a brothel and an illegal intoxicant establishment created to stay low key and to avoid detection of the law. So, in a place like Deadwood, the illegal settler town, brought the worst of the worst Settlers who were drunkard sex starved perverts. In some of them, they’d bring in animals to have sex with and make that a main show for people to pay to see. It’s where dirty thots of the time gathered too, because women were not allowed to drink alcohol, so they would also escape to speakeasies- which is why so many females today take pride in trying to bring back Speakeasies as a ‘hipster’ thing to do, to show empowerment by resistance. Someone romanticized them and wrote this, but they were not cool places, they were where bad people and perverts of all walks of life congregated, to avoid the police. That’s what you all races of perverts did, like Lew Spencer, aka DUTCH NIGGER, a Black minstrel show comedian who went to Deadwood to buy sex and allegedly marry a madam in a speakeasy. That pervert killed his real wife dead, that’s the kind of lawless, Godless men who existed there, didn’t matter the race, this is why the years after the Civil War were called the WILD WEST, it was men returning to their murderous, disgusting nature. That’s the origin of American speakeasies, where the sex pervert Settlers gathered, especially those men who came looking for gold in the multiple rushes, and this kind of person has no morals, as prostitution was the illegal activity they were trying to hide. Many of them had no sex because there were none of their women around, many of them left women behind where they came from. An untamed savage European descendant male is going to resort to having sex with humans he considered less than human, it’s documented with Black slaves and Indigenous Americans they raped as a mental warfare tool, the miners would capture Indigenous American women and rape them, often. Listen, if this were my forefathers’ history, I’d tell American History lies like we have today too, because a lot of perverts and mass murdered existed at the start of the USA- which is why today, their ancestors are doing things like banning real history that has facts pointing back to how horrible the ancestors were in the USA. You think I’m joking but American history is really European descendant mythology, in reality, and educators are tracking the states that are passing laws to ensure current day people don’t discover how disgusting their bloodlines were/are. Who bans truth that you can prove with documentation that they wrote about themselves, at the time?

This is well documented and is a sore spot of the Indigenous people to have this history washed over in favor of the telling of American history to make these Settlers look clean to the Americans, through revisionist history. The real story is Settlers, and the US ARMY did a lot of rape and murder in route to the California gold rush, which included a lot of murder in way through Oregon and you can read in the book “Exterminate Them.” The total disrespect that Natives realized by Settlers, since the 1840s let them know the kind of persons they were dealing with, so they were very angry and knew conflicts were coming, but the constant assault from Settlers is what Natives were always expecting, and the Settlers didn’t disappoint in that area. The Natives could not take their cases to anyone, they were not protected by the US Government, and any retaliation would never end up being good for Indigenous people. No one was going to put any Settlers in jail, that’s now how supremacy works so the days were numbered for the Indigenous people when gold was finally found in Oregon. The Rogue River area where I started my boat tour is called “The Gold Coast” because that was the mouth of the Rogue River where Settlers found that gold and made the Rogue River officially a target of Settlers, and US shenanigans began to see how to get to that gold.   That’s when they setup the mine to get it on the Rogue River, and this was the real beginning of the end, because this allowed Settlers to set up forts in Oregon, backed by US Government. America is now trying to go back to making up lies about real history, to paint themselves in a better light, like Florida is doing right now. Remember, even as early as the 1960s where we had Civil Rights, they’re banning that history. Remember when the 6 year old child Ruby Bridges was walking to school after school integration of Blacks being bussed to European descendant schools and all the European descendant ADULTS PELTED THE 6 YEAR OLD BLACK GIRL WITH ROCKS? Who would do something so vile, as adults to a child? Descendants of the Settlers, that’s who. So, their ancestors want to ban all knowledge of that now, in the south. This is what Americans do, it’s in the blood and that was 1960 not 1860. Now, imagine without social media or police back when they were dealing with the Indigenous people of Rogue River. 😔

When the Settlers would kill a Native, all tribes in the area lived by “an eye for and eye” so they would go kill one of you in retaliation. The stereotype of Natives became one where Settler did their typical revisionist history lies and made themselves victims, so the Natives became the aggressors when the stories were told about Settlers killing the Natives, yet history shows it was Settlers getting out of control and not being curbed by the US Government that allowed the massacres. Since 1823, the US Supreme court told European Settlers that land they “DISCOVERED” they could keep and that Indigenous Americans don’t own the land they’ve occupied for hundreds of centuries in the landmark “Discovery Doctrine”. This privilege set the stage for the savage treatment of Indigenous Americans. While many modern day liars like to lie to make their ancestors looked better than they are in history, to appear innocent, the truth is documented in US LAW!!! There are 3 landmark cases that ensured this could continue, which we know as the “Marshal Trilogy” and all 3 were about taking lands from Indigenous people as a right of a US citizen (European descendants only). The oppression was systematic! So, by the time the Settlers made it west, they had full rights, in their minds, to take whatever they “discovered” right? That is why they didn’t jail and kill Settlers for the crimes they did, politicians told all the “citizens” they could do it. Ewing Young was a God to Settlers in the West, and he led expeditions and militia to help achieve the goal of killing Indigenous people, to clear them out of the lands. Young is credited with settling those lands officially for US. These events lead to treaties with Rogue River Indigenous people giving up more land, and going to live on assigned Reservations, where they wouldn’t be able to even know the food conditions prior to going there, and most times, had no good food or harvesting conditions where they were sent.

This started a lot of bad blood, in 1853, with Superintendent of Indian Affairs Joel Palmer forcing Rogue River Indigenous people in reservations like Table Rock Indian Reservation (The Takelma and Chasta tribes) or forcing all western tribes, permanently, to the Coast Reservation. Isn’t that wild to have an office that deal with “indians.” 🤦🏾 That didn’t sit well… Because I told you who those Settlers were, well they went on the reservations to go kill Indigenous people. Leaving reservations could get you killed by the US Army, and Settlers knew this, so they constantly attacked the reservations, causing the tribes to leave them, making them targets of the US Army. That’s the American formula to take Indigenous land by treaties and put them back on reservations, on unwanted land that doesn’t have many yields in terms of food production or hunting. Reservations were normally land that Settlers wouldn’t want and had harsh Winters. There were just under 10,000 Indigenous people living along the Rogue River at the time of the conflicts, no way Settlers could beat all of those people, which is why they had to get dirty. People ask, “why would the US let the Settlers go to massacre the Indigenous Americans?” It’s the same person asking, “why would the Settlers enslaver Africans?” That is the US playbook, lets Settlers run amuck on Indigenous people, then when the Indigenous fight back, and win (most times), send the US Army with the Settler militias, to kill Indigenous people and force the rest on reservations. It’s been used over and over in every US conflict with Indigenous Americans. Well, when the mines were completely exhausted of gold, the people didn’t just leave, they had already set up encampment of Settlers, so now these people were jobless and desperate. They knew that Rogue River had salmon, even to this day it’s known for the salmon, and they had to plot to steal that land so they could make money on the salmon trade. One by one, the mines had nothing to produce, so the Settlers descended on Oregon in heavier loads looking for exploitable resources.

The Settlers were destroying the land, deforestation was huge, they over hunted/fished, etc. So, they had to find more resources, and there were expeditions to find more, which lead to many skirmished in northern California where most mines were and all up the Rogue River with other Indigenous tribes. Knowing the natural resources that existing in Indigenous land, the politicians wanted that land. All the politicians went on anti-Indigenous American campaigns to otherize Indigenous Americans to the public (racist talk you still hear in most politics today), and there it was, the buy in to get all the invaders on the same page to massacre more Indigenous Americans. The desperate, jobless, broke invaders were encouraged to form militias, for pay, to take Indigenous land when they had no other money coming in, and that is how miners converted to mobs that would actively to kill Indigenous Americans to take the land, with the blessing of the US Government. You can’t discover land that was already occupied, but you couldn’t tell that to Americans. Since Oregon was a US State, now the Settlers could continue their plot of the US supreme court settlement that produced the “Discovery Doctrine.” The invaders took over more and more or Oregon and due to slaughter like they did in the 1855 Lupton Massacre where the militias raided a village at Table Rock and killed 23 women, children and elderly people. Natives were scared and many willingly fled to avoid getting slaughtered by Settlers and the US Government. The bloodiest battle  (for the US) for the Rogue River involved heavy US Government cleared the west coast hiding spot of Indigenous Americans in the Battle of Grave Creek Hills, or Battle of Hungry Hill as you may have heard of it. However, because so many tribes lived there, the European descendants were outnumbered and US Army, aided by militias LOST that war, which is why this story is buried. The Settlers and Soldiers came together to take all that land and riches, in that battle, but were spotted before they could do the surprise attack on the Indigenous people.

The stupidity, just like the Battle of Little Bighorn., was that the Indigenous people had the upper hand by having the higher ground in the battle and had tree cover, so it was easy to pick off the European descendants. That arrogance in these battles lead to nonsensical deaths. 100 Indigenous people (Takelma) took out over 400 invading Europeans. The US never takes defeat well, and the US Army came with full force to kill the Takelma Indigenous people, backed them into a corner where they were held up, and told them get on a reservation or die! They put the Indigenous people on reservations only if they surrendered, then sending to hundreds of miles away like where the Siletz Agency and Coast Reservation still are today. They went on the reservations and stayed, and most were cleared off of the Rogue River entirely, to let the European invaders take all that land that lined the Rogue River. Those wars only broke out because the invaders wanted Indigenous people PERMANENTLY removed from where the resources were, and attacked them on reservations they were forced to, where the Indigenous people got not support of the US Army, from the Settlers, after complying with treaties to leave the Rogue River areas. 😣 The Indigenous people had to be shipped in boats out of the regions, down the Rogue River, and out to the current day Portland area, to avoid the massacres by the invaders. The US told them to leave, or they’d let the savages, the Settlers, have at the Indigenous populations. The Indigenous people had to think about their young, they’re old and their women, and the Settlers and US Army had nothing to like that to worry about, it was just all men in these attacking forces. – the Indigenous people had to give up and cede the land to the invaders. And like that, you now know who the mails were being delivered to, on those mailboats, the European and European Settler invaders- and that’s more detail than you’re going to get on that mailboat tour, because they are going to spin the story to make the invaders the heroes of this story, as a lot of people do in Oregon today.

As always, the finished products can be found on the main site of www.drunkphotography.com.