The Fort Lane Archaeology Project:Historic Context

	Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology

Fort Lane was constructed following the signing of the Treaty of September 10, 1853 that established the short-lived Table Rock Indian Reservation for the Indian people of the interior Rogue River valley. White settlement had accelerated in southern Oregon following the discovery of gold in the region in 1850, and clashes between Takelma, Latgawa, Shasta, and Athabaskan people and the gold miners and early pioneers of the valley were frequent. Violence accelerated in the late summer of 1853, prompting Joseph Lane and newly appointed Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs Joel Palmer to negotiate the Table Rock Treaty. The reservation, the first established in the Pacific Northwest, encompassed Table Rock and ran along the north side of the Rogue River from Evans Creek to Little Butte Creek and north the Umpqua/Rogue divide. Today’s Sam’s Valley was named after Chief Sam, a signer of the treaty, and reflects his tenure on the reservation. Fort Lane was occupied by two companies of the U.S. Army’s 1st Dragoons under the command of Captain A.J. Smith, and was used by the Army to maintain peace between the pioneers and the Indians. The Indian sub-agent for the interior Rogue River valley also maintained his office in or near the Fort.

Brevet Major General John Wool and his staff, 1847. In the 1830s, General Wool had been court martialed for opposing President Andrew Jackson and his military superiors over the removal of the Cherokee Indians. Wool distinguished himself during the Mexican War, and later, the 1st Dragoons at Fort Lane were under the command of Wool's headquarters in Benecia, California. Fort Lane was supplied from Benecia, where goods were shipped to Cresecent City by boat and then overland by pack train via the Applegate Valley to Fort Lane. In the Rogue River War of 1855-5 General Wool would earn the wrath of the pioneers of the Rogue River Valley pioneers for condeming the actions of citizen militias and advocating for the rights of the Indians. (daguerroeotype is published in The Mexican-American War 1846-1848 by Philip R. Katcher, Osprey Publishing, London.)

Dragoon uniforms, 1854. Dragoons were mounted infantry, and the precurser to the cavalry. The 1st Dragoons stationed at Fort Lane later became the 1st U.S. Cavalry regiment. (Illustrated by Henry Ogden in the 1880s for the Army Quartermaster Department, and published in Bluecoats: The U.S. Army in the West, 1848-1897, by John P. Langellier, Greenhill books, London.)	Fort Lane was constructed following the signing of the Treaty of September 10, 1853 that established the short-lived Table Rock Indian Reservation for the Indian people of the interior Rogue River valley. White settlement had accelerated in southern Oregon following the discovery of gold in the region in 1850, and clashes between Takelma, Latgawa, Shasta, and Athabaskan people and the gold miners and early pioneers of the valley were frequent. Violence accelerated in the late summer of 1853, prompting Joseph Lane and newly appointed Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs Joel Palmer to negotiate the Table Rock Treaty. The reservation, the first established in the Pacific Northwest, encompassed Table Rock and ran along the north side of the Rogue River from Evans Creek to Little Butte Creek and north the Umpqua/Rogue divide. Today’s Sam’s Valley was named after Chief Sam, a signer of the treaty, and reflects his tenure on the reservation. Fort Lane was occupied by two companies of the U.S. Army’s 1st Dragoons under the command of Captain A.J. Smith, and was used by the Army to maintain peace between the pioneers and the Indians. The Indian sub-agent for the interior Rogue River valley also maintained his office in or near the Fort. Brevet Major General John Wool and his staff, 1847. In the 1830s, General Wool had been court martialed for opposing President Andrew Jackson and his military superiors over the removal of the Cherokee Indians. Wool distinguished himself during the Mexican War, and later, the 1st Dragoons at Fort Lane were under the command of Wool's headquarters in Benecia, California. Fort Lane was supplied from Benecia, where goods were shipped to Cresecent City by boat and then overland by pack train via the Applegate Valley to Fort Lane. In the Rogue River War of 1855-5 General Wool would earn the wrath of the pioneers of the Rogue River Valley pioneers for condeming the actions of citizen militias and advocating for the rights of the Indians. (daguerroeotype is published in The Mexican-American War 1846-1848 by Philip R. Katcher, Osprey Publishing, London.) The U.S. Army and the Indian agents used Fort Lane and Fort Orford to prosecute this final phase of the Rogue River Wars over the winter and spring of 1855-1856. Native American people were confined to these military reservations after either surrendering or after being captured in battle. In January of 1856, Indians began to be marched from Fort Lane over the Oregon-California Trail or shipped from Fort Orford by steamer to the Grand Ronde and Siletz Agencies on the Coast Reservation. Removal was completed following the surrender of Tecumtum, Cholcultah, and Lympe and their people at the Big Bend of the Rogue River that May. By the fall of 1856, Fort Lane was abandoned as the majority of the Takelma, Latgawa, Athapaskan, Tututni, Coos, Coquille, and Umpqua people of southwest Oregon had been removed to the Coast Reservation.
During 1854 and the first half of 1855, the federal officials at Fort Lane were engaged in the administration of the Table Rock Reservation. In the fall of 1855, increasing tensions between the pioneers and the Indians exploded following the destruction of an Indian village and the massacre of its inhabitants by a citizen militia led by James Lupton, a man who had recently been elected southwest Oregon’s first representative to the territorial legislature. In the aftermath, Native American people either gathered at Fort Lane for protection, trusting to the agreements of the Table Rock Treaty, or, effectively chose to declare war on the pioneers. Under the leadership of Chiefs Tecumtum (a.k.a ‘John’), Cholcultah (a.ka. ‘George’), and Lympe, many Indians proceeded down the Rogue River, burning cabins and killing pioneers. Under pressure from Oregon citizens and the Territorial Government, General John Wool, the commander of the Army of the West, and Joel Palmer, Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs, ordered their subordinates to round up the Indians of southwest Oregon for eventual removal to the Grand Ronde and Siletz Agencies on the Coast Reservation then being established on the northern Oregon coast. Major General Andrew Jackson Smith, commander of Fort Lane. Smith was a 38 year old Captain when he oversaw the construction of Fort Lane in the fall, 1853. Although he had graduated 36th from a class of 45 from West Point in 1834, he later distinguished himself during the Civil War.
The Fort Lane Archaeology Project Fort Lane: Research Fort Lane: Fort Archaeology Fort Lane: The Jennison Cabin