A PLAN BY GENERAL PALMER The fact that Indians were known to be present along the route was never mentioned in these reports. However, we would be remiss in believing that the issue was not in the back (if not the front) of most of the minds of the supporters of the new trail. Such thoughts however, had never before discouraged those who ventured west. While white men viewed the Indian attacks on wagon trains and settlements as savage aggression, most of these attacks were nothing more than an attempt, on the Indians¹ part, to protect their ancestral lands from the invading settlers. The settlers however, did not understand that the land belonged to the Indians, mostly because it had not been ³proved up.² In the Willamette Valley the Indian problem was not much of an issue. This was mostly because ³white man¹s² epidemics had reduced the populations in previous years. Also, the Provisional Government tried to govern fairly with regard to the Indians. The greatest crisis faced by the Provisional Government, and the primary catalyst for the speedy creation of the Oregon Territory by Congress in 1848, was the Whitman massacre. The Territorial Government began its function early in 1849 with the arrival of Joseph Lane, Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs. One of his first official acts was to admonish the settlers to ³respect the rights of the Indians² with regard to land claims, but new arrivees continued to snatch up land. While treaties made by a board of commissioners in 1851 limited land claim size, they were never ratified by Congress. Increases in the number of settlers as well as increased travel associated with gold prospecting brought more frequent hostile encounters with Indians. In early 1853, Anson Dart, the second superintendent of Indian affairs, was replaced by Joel Palmer. Palmer, a man of ³compassion² believed that the creation of reservations in the Valley of the Willamette and along the Rogue River, would only postpone a solution the the Indian problem. He considered a number of plans including one that had been proposed in 1850. This plan involved gathering up the Indians in southern Oregon and resettling them in an area, east of the Cascades, where there were as yet but few settlers. He was aware that the Willamette Indians were not used to life as it would be on ³the dry side² and was under no illusion that these western Indians would be welcomed by the eastern tribes. He was also aware that the Valley Indians had no desire to move. He was however, caught between his sense of responsibility to the Indians and the increasing pressure from settlers and prospectors. Regardless, he planned to establish reservations somewhere, far away from the problems brought about by the proximity of settlers and Indians. Palmer was undoubtedly aware of the attack on the road viewers and the problems that would arise from the creation of a new route into the Willamette Valley. On June 23, 1853, he summarized his recommendations in a report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington: ³Being informed that a party of thirty or forty men was about to set out in a few days along the route of the new road from the Willamette Valley to Fort Boise, for the purpose of completing that work, yet in an unfinished state on the eastern end, I have availed myself of this safe and economical escort, to send agent J.M. Garrison to visit the Indian tribes through whose country this road passes. The consideration that these Indians have never been visited by a government officer, that they had repeatedly evinced hostility to white men passing through their country, and that a large portion of the emigration of the present season will pass that way to their destination in the southern part of our Territory, who will be subject to annoyance and injury, if not destruction, from those savages, unless speedily conciliated or intimidated, has me, without awaiting the instructions of the Indian department at Washington, which could not be obtained in time to meet the emergency, to assume the responsibility of the step referred to above.... I have directed Mr. Garrison to call the chiefs of the tribes together as opportunity may offer, and have supplied him with a few Indian goods as presents. I have also directed him to take notes on all topics of interest respecting the country and its inhabitants for the use of the department... I would call the attention of the department to the fact that a general ruthlessness and dissatisfaction exists among those tribes of Indians with whom treaties were negotiated, on account of their non-ratification. They have become distrustful of all promises made them by the United States, and believe the design of the government is to defer doing anything for them til they have wasted away. The settlement of the whites on the tracts which they regarded as secure to them by solemn treaty stipulations, results among the Indians of the valley in frequent misunderstandings between them and the settlers, and occasions and augments bitter animosities and resentments.... That these Indians cannot long remain on the reserves in the heart of the settlements granted them by treaty, even should Congress confirm those treaties, is too clear to admit of argument. Vice and disease, the baleful gifts of civilization, are hurrying them away.... If the benevolent designs of the government to preserve and elevate these remnants of the aborigines are to be carried forward to a successful issue, there appears but one path open. A home remote from the settlements must be selected for them.... Should the government adopt the plan of colonizing these tribes, the selection of a proper territory in which to place them is an important consideration, and the selection should only be made after extensive and careful exploration. With this view, I have given special instruction to agent Garrison in regard to the country through which the expedition in which he is now entering will pass.² Garrison was already a supporter of the new route across middle Oregon, for he had been a member of an unsuccessful party that went out in the spring of 1846, seeking a pass up the head waters of the Santiam River. When he received Palmer¹s directive, he immediately began making preparations for the journey to the Willamette Forks where the new road group as to gather.