In the beginning, migrants found little to covet in the southeastern vastness of the Oregon Territory.
The land was arid, the natives dirt poor and the dirt itself poor in a lot of places.
"These were not horse Indians like the Nez Perce, Shoshone, Crow, and Sioux who lived on the well-watered ranges farther north and east," Bill Gulick says in "Roadside History of Oregon." "These were desert Indians who usually traveled on foot, had no buffalo in their country, and lived on roots, nuts, fish, and small game."
Decades earlier, Hudson's Bay Co. fur brigade leader Peter Skene Ogden happened on one such group and traded for some roots to feed his own near-starving crew: " . . . from their looks I presume they have nothing else to subsist on, for more starving wretched looking beings I have never beheld, in fact, reduced to skin and bones," says Ogden's journal.
These were the Snake, Paiute, Bannock. Settlers for the most part hastened by, put off by the barren state of both the landscape and those living there. But as the lush valleys west of the mountains filled up in the 1850s and '60s, the desert increasingly beckoned as a land of possibility, maybe even riches. Natives increasingly viewed migrants as interlopers and their livestock and civilized impedimenta as fair game.
"It was not their nature to attack wagon trains of any size, town, or fortified places," Gulick says. "But a stage station or a ranch house, inhabited and defended by only a few people, posed a tempting prize to them, particularly if cattle or horses were available."
"For millennia peoples of the Great Basin had supported themselves through a painstaking round of hunting and particularly gathering activities," David Peterson Del Mar says in "Oregon's Promise, an Interpretive History." "Now they were mounted riders plundering far and wide. . . .
"Organized warfare exacerbated these trends, as chiefs like Paulina became powerful leaders in battles. . . . By the time of the Civil War, the Paiute constituted a potent military force."
Not that they were particularly driven by conquest or, more properly, reconquest. They simply wanted a just piece of the new action, a fair share of what they considered theirs to begin with.
Before the Civil War, the Army responded in the ponderous way armies were prone to do. A raid would take place. A plea for help would be dispatched to Fort Boise, the nearest military post, often taking several days. By the time the Army marshaled its forces and clattered forth to the site of offense, the natives were long gone, the trail as cold as a subterranean lava cave.
Gulick quotes a disgruntled Boise editor: "The way the Army goes after Indians is like hunting ducks with a brass band."
"Far-ranging bands of warriors attacked miners, ranchers, farmers, stagecoaches, and freight wagons across much of eastern Oregon during the Civil War," says Peterson Del Mar, "both to defend their territory and to attain horses, cattle, grain, gems, blankets, and other goods."
Civilians formed militias to counter the natives without significant effect. Not until after the South's surrender did the Army once again turn attention to the West. Even that didn't do much good until Gen. George Crook -- here as a lieutenant in 1850-62 -- returned to the scene.
Next week: Fighting fire with fervor. You can reach John Terry, a retired copy editor for The Oregonian and member of the Oregon Geographic Names Board, at terryjohnf@cs.com