A Tragic Tale of one of Oregon's First Peoples
Written: Oct 13 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Not bogged down with intellectual posturing; good telling of a tragic tale
Cons: Needed more dates; the real ending is left off
The Bottom Line: A good reminder of why we should be good neighbors
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| Rocketgirl's Full Review: Stephen Dow Beckham - Requiem for a People: The Ro... |
This book by Stephen Dow Beckham was originally published in 1971. Evidently its publishers feel it still has enough relevance that it has been reprinted several times most recently in 1996. It is published by a university press, the Oklahoma University Press in Norman, Oklahoma. Books published by colleges tend to be stuffy and are usually footnoted to death to make overly sure that no one's intellectual property rights are violated. Fortunately, though this book does give proper credit where credit is due, the footnotes do not take up half of each page, leaving only half of the page for the meat of the story. For its relatively short length, the book is packed full of facts.
The "Rogue" Indians is really a collection of several different bands that live in the Rogue River area of southwestern Oregon. The chapters chronicle the lives of the Indians as they were before white men came, but the bulk of the book is dedicated to the impact the arrival of the white men had. It then takes the story right up through the various skirmishes and wars that the Indians fought just to retain their land. And as with many stories of this type, the end result is that the Indians are forced to live on a reservation, 150 miles away from their homelands.
As with many others the Indians lived and traded with the fur trappers and mountain men with no problem, due to mutual respect. What caused the conflict here was the influx of the miners to the area. The miners had little regard for those who were there first. They chopped down the trees they depended on for acorns. They plowed up their fields full of camas bulbs. They ruined streams with mine tailings. And wondered why the Indians felt forced to retaliate.
The troubles escalated into each side battling each other in retaliation for some previous outrage. At least three different times agreements had been reached between the army and the Indians for peace, but the miners and other settlers kept spoiling it. Even in the end, when the Indians agreed to gather to be taken to the reservation, some hotheaded volunteers who did not want the "war" to end without a battle attacked unsuspecting Indian men and women in their canoes, where they had no defense.
Though the author isn't a wizard of words, he still tells the story with enough passion to instill real sympathy for the Rogues. He also provides just enough to detail to understand the sequence of events, but not so much that you are trying to figure out what is going on. About the only real complaint I had in this area is that the author did not use enough dates to make it totally clear in my mind which events happened in which order.
The book is written completely as a narrative, with no invented dialogue, so could have been a slow read. Fortunately, it is not, since the paragraphs are kept to reasonable length and the facts are told in a story telling fashion. There are also numerous quotes from people who were actually there, which lends realism to the tale. There are several pictures too, mainly of the white soldiers. I felt the book could have been helped with a few more maps.
After the war was over the Indians were taken to the Siletz Reservation on the Yamhill River. The book unfortunately does not tell the rest of the story of what happened to the Rogues after they went to the reservation. It does tell that some of them were forced to walk 125 miles to the location. I have read that the conditions there were terrible and that many died from disease. I think I have read that these tribes were basically "wiped out" from the wars and reservation living, but I didn't get that information here. I would have liked to know the rest of the story.
If you are interested in the history of the west and in particular its Native American people, you should enjoy this book. It is too bad it is a sad tale, like many of them are, but the author does a good job explaining the circumstances and providing a lesson for the future. I highly recommend it.
Recommended:
Yes
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Rocketgirl
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Member: Beth
Location: Tri-Cities, WA
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So many books, so little time.
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