Rogue River War affidavit

Benjamin Franklin Dowell, 1821-1897, was born in Virginia. After attending law school at the University of Virginia and living for a time in Missouri, he emigrated via the Overland Trail to California, then Oregon in the 1850s. While in the West, he served in the 1st Regiment, Oregon Volunteers during the various military conflicts between white settlers and the Native population. He established a law firm in Jacksonville, Oregon and, together with his wife, owned the Oregon Sentinel newspaper.

The Rogue River War of 1855-1856 was the culmination of several years of conflict between white settlers and Native tribes in southern Oregon and northern California. The war began when self-styled volunteer soldiers attacked Native peoples in the Rogue Valley in October 1855. Clashes in nearby Northern California in the summer and autumn of 1855 and agitation by rival politicians led to an anti-Indian meeting in Jacksonville on October 7. Most of those present expressed approval of a plan put forward by a newly elected Democratic territorial representative, James A. Lupton, to exterminate Native people living off the reservation. Early the next morning, seven parties of about 115 men set out to attack Indian camps. In those attacks, Lupton and another white man were mortally wounded, and ten more were injured in the initial assault, by one report; forty Indians were killed in the first attack. One witness said half the dead were women and children.

While Native fighters continued to defend themselves against the white forces, including burning the town of Ellensburg (present day Gold Beach), the white troops continued to push forward, taking advantage of disagreements between several Native bands over whether or not to surrender. Fighting continued through May 1856. In June 1856, the remaining Native survivors were forcibly removed to coastal reservation land including what became the Grand Ronde and Siletz reservations.