Requiem for a People: The Rogue Indians and the Frontiersmen
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By Stephen Dow Beckham
With a new introduction by the author
1996. 5-1/2 x 8-3/4 inches. 232 pages. Illustrated. Bibliography. Index.
ISBN 0-87071-521-6. Paperback, $16.95.
Table of Contents
Introduction
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Stephen Dow Beckham's classic history of southwestern Oregon's Rogue River Indian wars is
the only complete record of the region's Native Americans and the destruction of their ages-old
lifeways in the 1850s. It tells of the penetration of their land by fur seekers, explorers, overland
emigrants, and miners. The book identifies the ecological consequences of these incursions and documents
the efforts of the Indians to hold on to their old villages and food resources.
Requiem for a People opens with sketches of the Rogue country--a rugged landscape of
mountains and river canyons--and describes the traditional lifeways of its first people. Throughout his
study, Beckham strives to relate the Indian view of the tragic history which unfolded with the boom of
gold rush and the scramble for donation land claims. Ninety-five hundred strong when
Euro-Americans first began to settle on their land, the Indians fell victim to the forces of these
newcomers-their diseases, vices, tools, technology, and prejudice. Within six years, only two thousand survived.
In addition to chronicling this painful story, Beckham identifies the consequences of
white settlement and mining. What had been a land of abundance -- fields rich with seeds and lilies,
wild game, timber, and streams filled with life-sustaining fish -- endured significant upset, driving
the Indians from their homes and to the brink of starvation. The book also confirms the failure of
federal Indian policy in Oregon, a dismal record of wars, ineffective treaties, and extension of
"trust responsibility" to the natives.
Requiem for a People was first published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1971 and is
still the only scholarly treatment of this subject. Twenty-five years later, the Oregon State University Press is proud to
add this popular and acclaimed volume to its
Northwest Reprints series.
About the Author
Stephen Dow Beckham is the Dr. Robert B. Pamplin, Jr., Professor of History at Lewis and
Clark College. He has written several books on Northwest history and folklore, and is the editor of
Many Faces: An Anthology of Oregon Autobiography, a volume in the
Oregon Literature Series.
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