My Home State is One Hundred and Fifty today!
Oh and just in case you might not know, those Native folks on the cover... they have nothing to do with Oregon... but Classics Illustrated #72 was the only comic I could find with the word "oregon" the cover.
-Swinebread
4 comments:
As far as I know, the only real "Indian Wars" that took place in the Oregon Territory involved the Modoc tribe to the south. Most of Oregon's native tribes were peaceful and, except for a few isolated massacres, were able to coexist with the white settlers until they were either driven from their land by force (e.g. the Nimíipuu, or "Nez Perce") or wiped out by disease until the devastated remnants were quietly scooped off to reservations (e.g. just about all the others). However, the Modoc, along with the closely-related Klamath in what is now southern Oregon and northeastern California, were quite aggressive and warlike. They fought each other almost constantly until the white man showed up. Then they started the habit of making treaties with settlers and trading with them only to turn around and start massacring them for no apparent reason. (Naturally, the settlers did their best to avenge those killings, more or less evening the score.)
Finally, the U.S. government pressured the Modocs, Klamaths, and other tribes into signing a treaty relocating them to the Klamath Reservation. The Modocs rebelled almost instantly, refusing to share land with the Klamaths. The result was the short but bloody Modoc War.
Of course, the native Americans on that comic cover don't look anything like Modocs or any of the Oregonian tribes for that matter. Their dress is that of plains tribes.
But whatever...
Happy birthday, Oregon!!!!!
We live in a good state. Happy 150th Aw-ree-gone.
Okay, I forgot to mention the Rogue River Wars (1855-57 or thereabouts). The hostilities were clearly started by white gold prospectors, and the Rogue River tribes wound up on the worse end of the stick, but that didn't stop the U.S. government from using it as an excuse to force all the Rogue River and Oregon Coast tribes onto reservations (hence the modern Confederated Tribes of the Siletz, Grande Ronde, and Coos/Lower Umpqua/Siuslaw).
Shh! States don't like to be reminded how old they are! ;o)
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