The first contacts between the Rogue River Indians and white man were peaceful enough. White trappers and traders tended to respect Indian customs and traditions and dealt fairly with them. But after the Oregon Trail opened up the west, more and more white men came to the Oregon country to stay and farm the land. The gold rushes in northern California and later in central and eastern Oregon brought an even bigger flood of white men to the Oregon forests. One of the first incidents that lead to the Rogue River War occurred about 1850. Three white men and two friendly Indians were traveling to the mines. During the night, the Indians took the only gun in the party, shot a man named David Dilley, then ran off with the mules and packs. It was really a minor incident, but it was made into a major one. Captain Long and 30 men sought revenge. As with most white men, they did not distinguish which Indians were responsible. They came across some Indians camped along the Rogue River, where they killed a chief and another Indian and took two of the head chief's daughters and two men as captives.
Neither event should have sparked a whole war, but white man's indifference to distinguishing one tribe from another led to many difficulties. On one occasion, some Coquille Indians were guiding an expedition, when they led the white men to an Indian village. The expedition was decimated; only five men escaped to tell the story. Soldiers from California came to Fort Orford to avenge the massacre of the white explorers. The miners didn't know one tribe from another and didn't care. They didn't care that they were trampling through prime food gathering areas that the Indians regularly used. They fished out the streams and hunted the deer until there was nothing left for the Indians. Some caches of dried salmon, acorns, seeds, and jerked meat stored by the Indians were stolen or destroyed. They planted their crops on sites that were sacred Indian burial grounds.
