Continue to Stand in the Gap: Douglas County
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| Umpqua River, Douglas County, OR |
We now move south into the South West Region of
Oregon, comprised of Douglas, Coos, Curry, Josephine, and Jackson Counties. This
region includes the extreme southern coastline bordered on the south by
California. Josephine and Jackson Counties lead us, ultimately, into the Outback
of Lake, Harney, and Malheur Counties. But that will come later.
This week we are looking at Douglas County, just south
of Lane and stretching from the Umpqua National Forest in the east to
Winchester Bay and Reedsport on the coast. Like Lane, it is a large county, one
of the ten largest in the state.
Roseburg is the county seat.
Douglas County is governed by a three-member Board of
Commissioners who are elected to four-year terms and paid a salary. Currently,
they are Tom Kress (chair), Chris Boice, and Tim Freeman.
The District Attorney is elected to a four-year term. The
current DA is Rick Wesenberg who was sworn into his fourth term in
January, 2021. The County Clerk is Dan Loomis, who has lived in the county
for 26 years.
The County Sheriff is John Hanlin. This fall, the Douglas County Sheriff’s
Office added two new school resource officers to increase the safety of
students in the Roseburg School District.
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| Douglas County, OR |
Moving
into the South West Region of Oregon brings up thoughts of the Rogue River
Indian Wars of 1855-56 that ended with the tribes of Southern Oregon being
moved onto reservations. The beginning battle of the Rogue Wars was The Battle
of Hungry Hill which began on October 31, 1855. For about 150 years no one knew the exact
location of this conflict until a Southern Oregon University archaeologist,
Mark Tveskov, researched more and then found physical evidence (musket balls)
to place it southwest of Roseburg in the wilderness. They are keeping the exact
location a secret at this time. Is it in Douglas County? Not sure. Earlier
researchers thought it was just over into Josephine County, but now the
location has been located more to the north.
Information
about this battle was scarce, even at the time. It took place in the wilderness
with no telegraph or photos available, and – more to the point – it resulted in
a defeat for the U.S. Army and the local militia. They were somewhat reluctant
to talk about it.
In
November, a professor of anthropology at OSU, and a member of the Confederated
Tribes of Grand Ronde, David G. Lewis, released a book, Tribal Histories of
the Willamette Valley. I have just started reading it, but, while his focus
is on the tribes further north, he does give deeper insight into the situation
in Southern Oregon as well as the rest of the state.
He
writes that the Oregon natives went to war in protest of their food and lands
being taken with no compensation. This was true all across the state, as well
as Douglas County and Southern Oregon.
These lands were still not purchased, and the Indians still
owned them under international and United States land laws and policies that
recognized Aboriginal land claims. The Northwest Ordinance (1787) stated that, “Of
utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the Indians; their lands and
property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and, in their property,
rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed.”
It
is human nature to want to appear in a good light. Like the U.S. Army survivors
of the Battle of Hungry Hill who didn’t want the world to know they’d been beaten
by a band of “savages,” history has glossed over the fact that our early
pioneer settlers in Oregon were granted homesteads to land that was still owned
– by our own laws and by international law – by the original inhabitants.
Continue to pray for Douglas County and the injustice that was committed in our very early days.
PS: For those interested, the Oregon Strategic Prayer Call meets Friday by Zoom at 12:00 pm to pray for Oregon. This week includes prayer for Douglas County. We begin logging on at 11:30 am.
Zoom Link: www.zoom.us/j/
Zoom Cloud Meetings app on Smartphone (download from your app store): Meeting ID: 5419997777 and password: 999777
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