Narrative - The Treaties of 1864 - History - http://maxpages.com/modocwar/Narrative

At this point in our narrative it's probably a good idea to pause and sort of step back from events, to get a broader view of the situation. The fifties had brought significant changes to the area. The tribes of the Rogue River had been vanquished and deported to the coast. The Modocs and Klamaths and Snake River peoples had armed themselves with guns. Oregon had become a state. And, as the sixties took off, the Civil War broke out.

So much for the larger context. (Okay, this is only a sketch; I'll develop this further later, God willing.) With the advent of the Civil War troops were pulled from the west, and volunteers replaced them to protect the settlements from the Indian Menace. And this is where Charles S. Drew comes into our story.

Charles S. Drew casts a long shadow over Modoc history. Although his actual part was a small one, his "history" of the early Indian wars of Oregon was to have an influence on subsequent writers entirely out of proportion to its worth, which was negligable. Drew was a man with a vision. His vision was to build a fort in Klamath country, a fort that would protect the travellers and settlers of the region, a fort that would provide an aura of civilization to southern Oregon, a fort that would be built on land owned by Drew and his friends.

In time I hope to have a page giving more details of the course Drew and his followers elected to follow in writing pioneer history; for the moment it's enough to say that Drew, needing a menace to justify the fort he wanted to see built, put together a largely bogus history presenting the Indians of the region as that menace. The trick worked; Fort Klamath was established, and in the very place Drew selected. The damage done to relations with the Klamaths does not seem to have disturbed him in the least. Perhaps he was one of those who believed that the Indians had no more right to the lands they roamed over than the coyotes or deer they shared it with.

Local settlers were not happy with the situation; the Klamaths were complaining about the invasion of their territory and were demanding compensation at the very least. The need for a treaty was obvious, and even in the middle of the ongoing war Congress had time to set aside a small appropriation for that object. But while these legislative wheels ground slowly, events raced forward along the Oregon-California border.

The Shastas, Modocs, Klamaths, and other tribes of the region were

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The Shape of the Pioneer Histories

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