Editors True Californian:
    In view of the fact that mutual murders are of frequent occurrence between the Indians and whites, wherever the races are in proximity, and as there is reason to believe much if not all might be avoided if the Indians were more fully protected in their natural rights, and proper means adopted to restrain the evil-disposed of both races.
    To effect this it is necessary to press the subject upon the attention of the government and the people at large. Private war should be forbidden, and all, without distinction, should be protected by the civil law. Heretofore the Indian has not had much occasion to respect our laws or esteem our justice, for he has often felt their severity to punish, and but rarely their power to redress. Hence his wrongs and his religion alike prompt him to retaliate, and circumstances often leave him no alternative but to subject victims to his vengeance, who as individuals were innocent of offense.
    We, as a people, have despoiled them of their heritage; we have taken possession of all the pleasant valleys of the Pacific, and soon we shall occupy the pleasant places of the interior; and, therefore, as a people having honor, magnanimity and Christian principle, we are bound to give them an equivalent in thorough protection in the means of support, and ample facilities for progress in the arts and civilization. It is a great mistake, which some try to propagate, viz: That Indians will not improve, and they are doomed to perish from the earth, and that the races cannot live in peace contiguous to each other.
    The fact that they learn our language, adopt our dress, and imitate our manners, and when furnished with motive and means soon adapt themselves to the labors of the mine, the mechanic, or the farmer; they also soon learn the value of money and the modes of commerce; all of which proves the reverse of a too current opinion. Mr. Hervey, of Oregon City, formerly an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company, informed me that on one occasion he had a thousand acres of wheat and only three men. The harvesting was done, and well done, by Indians.
    And as for peace, Dr. McLoughlin, who has been a trader for fifty years, and [for] twenty-two of which he was Superintendent for the Company, informs me that although their commerce extended from the coast to the headwaters of the Columbia and the Sacramento, yet in all that time they had no wars or serious difficulties with the Indians. "But," said he, "we administered impartial laws." And when this is uniformly done, it is well known the Indians are proud of the white man's friendship and patronage, and willingly submit to the guidance of his superior intellect.
    It does by no means follow, that because the Indian tribes have to a great extent perished before the march of civilization, therefore they always will. It only proves that the proper means have not been taken to prevent it, and when a more philanthropic policy is pursued, it will not be the case.
    The wars in Oregon and California, which are yet scarcely brought to a close, may be purely attributed to the mischief-making policy of Squatter Sovereignty. Numbers of a floating population have pursued a course alike inimical to justice and the true interests of the country, on the plea that they could, and had a right to, do as they chose, and thus the great object of good government--the preservation of life and liberty--has been cast aside, and violence and outrage substituted to a dreadful degree.
    The unfortunate Indians are the special victims of this class of men, for whatever they do of a warlike character, no matter though it be in just retaliation or an act of self-defense, it is generally published as an act of aggression, of murder or massacre on the part of the Indians, whilst they have no means of access to the public ear. Whatever their enemies choose to say or do must be endured in silence, or suffer the punishment due only to the vilest criminals. I write this in hope that benevolent persons everywhere will interest themselves to inquire into the cause, whenever difficulties occur, and expose to public censure the conduct of those who would oppress the poor, or take advantage of the ignorant. We should do this not only as a matter of justice to the Indian but as a matter of self-interest to ourselves. Wars are destructive and costly--we might prevent them. Protect and civilize these outcasts, and they will contribute to our glory and strength. Neglect doing this, and we allow the growth of violence and wrong, which will fill the land with mutual robbery and outrage. Nothing is more true than that if the rights of any class are neglected, the rights of all others are in jeopardy, and the only permanent safety consists in universal justice.
    Respectfully yours,                        JOHN BEESON.

Memorial.

Respectfully
    John Beeson

Chapinville, Litchfield Co., Conn.

Hon. R. B. Cowen
    Dear Sir
        I have just read in the New York Times the enclosed slip in regard to a war upon the Modoc Indians. Permit me to ask whether it would not be just and proper for government to stop that war until the facts in the case are fully known.
    I ask this question because I have had much personal and painful experience with the class of men who get up Indian wars in that section of country. I located within three miles of "Ashland" (the place mentioned in the slip) in 1853 and soon became acquainted with the horrible cruelties practiced upon the Indians.
    In 1855 three men came to my house with a paper for my signature to the effect that the Indians were robbing and murdering the settlers and appealing to the government to allow a volunteer company to be equipped for a campaign against them. I knew that the charges against the Indians was false, and I told the parties so; their answer was that "We can make more money by a war on the redskins than we can by digging for gold." So they got up a war and a subsequent claim on government for six million five hundred thousand dollars, which I believe has all been paid for carrying it on, although Gen. John E. Wool and Joel Palmer (Indian agent) allowed officially that it was got up by a class who were the disturbers of the peace and unworthy of the name of men.
    From that time to the present I have good reason to believe that there are living plenty of people in California and Oregon who are ready to circulate the foulest falsehoods against the Indians merely to gratify their own depraved propensities.
    I have no interest in writing this but a love of justice and a deep sympathy for the poor oppressed Indians, in proof of which I refer you to ex-Commissioner Dole of the Indian Department who allowed me an appointment which I then refused to accept because I knew that the Indian political ring was too strong for me to do any good except in an independent capacity. But relations are now changed, and as my name and position is known all over Oregon and generally throughout the country I believe that it would have a good moral effect upon all classes for me to be one of a commission to investigate the cause of this reported raid by the Indians in Oregon.
    I can give you a long list of honorable names who have more or less sympathized with me in behalf of the Indians at different periods during the last eighteen years, among whom are
And most of the members of the U.S. Indian Commission, whose records show that I originated. I had many interviews with President Lincoln, who assured me that as soon as the pressing contingency of the war was settled, "The Indians should have his first attention and that he would not rest until I was satisfied with the justice that they should have."
    Please send to my address at your earliest convenience the report of the Indian Department.
NARA Series M234 Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs 1824-81, Reel 617 Oregon Superintendency, 1872, frames 59-62


To the Editor of the Tribune.
    SIR: It is reported by telegraph that Capt. Jack and his band of 25 braves have resolved to die with their rifles in their hands, thus practically repeating the saying with our Revolutionary fathers, "Give us liberty, or give us death!" And when passion and prejudice subside, and a truthful history is written, future generations will esteem Capt. Jack as a hero and a patriot equal to any on the page of history. The idea of "savage treachery," attached to him on account of shooting Gen. Canby and the Peace Commissioners, will have no weight when the provocation and all the circumstances are duly considered. That massacre was but the natural sequence of the attempts to poison the Modocs by Capt. Ben. Wright, 20 years ago, the details of which have been given in the Tribune.
    In 1853 the writer of this traveled through the Modoc country, and became a resident in Southern Oregon, not far from the scene of the present Modoc War. The settlement of the country had then only just begun, and, with many others, I went there with the understanding that the government had made treaty provision for the Indian; but we soon found out our mistake. The war of races had begun, and the spirit of the golden rule was extinct. To shoot Indians and take their women and horses and children for menial servitude was reputable, and the man who killed the greatest number claimed the most honorable distinction. In regard to the poisoning of Ben. Wright, about which there has been so much dispute, I was informed by Dr. Ambrose, who in 1855 was agent for the Indians in Rogue River Valley, that Ben. Wright with 15 white men and two Indian interpreters went among the Modocs and invited them to assemble to make a treaty of peace. A good number (about 400) of their chiefs and others with their squaws and little ones collected together. He caused seven oxen to be killed and roasted, and seasoned with strychnine, and then invited the Indians to partake of the feast, but as one of the interpreters had discovered the fiendish plot, he gave information to the chiefs of his people, and they wisely refused to eat. The murderers being defeated in one way accomplished their object in another. This is but one out of many similar cases known to the writer in which Indian chiefs met as peace commissioners to negotiate treaties for their respective tribes, and were deliberately murdered by so-called Christian men. So frequently was this the case that Capt. Jack had just reason to believe that treachery was the white man's rule, and not the exception. There were facts connected with the shooting of Gen. Canby and Thomas which, when properly considered, will do much to modify our judgment. if not to clear Capt. Jack from guilt and blame for the sad result.
Chapinville, Conn., May 7, 1873.
New York Daily Tribune, May 29, 1873, page 3


    Public notice was given yesterday that a meeting would be held in the evening at the large hall of the Cooper Institute "for the purpose of protesting against the killing of Indians by lawless men, and to consider a plan by which justice and peace could be preserved on all our borders." Invitations had been sent to 300 clergymen of this city asking them to be present and take part in the discussion. When the hour arrived reporters from all the morning journals were present ready to take notes of the proceedings, but owing to some mysterious influence not one of the 300 ministers of the gospel was present, and the audience consisted of a mere handful of men and women, forming a ridiculously small group just in front of the platform. For a time the few that were present seemed disposed to laugh at what appeared to be such a farce, but they found out soon after that Mr. Beeson, the prime mover, had some very interesting facts to relate. It was also ascertained that those facts reflected very strongly against the present Administration, and this was enough to account for the absence of all the pastors. But Mr. Beeson, although running over with facts from which a great deal of the secret history not only of the Modoc War but of a good many other "scrimmages" with the Indians might be obtained, has not the tact of getting them before the public. He had given a long speech prepared in manuscript, and when he was in the midst of the most interesting part of it he came to a dead stop, and after a long and embarrassing pause, during which he fumbled over his papers, he remarked that his manuscripts had become disarranged, "but that he could speedily get them in order again as soon as he got home."
    Mr. Beeson had lived among the Indians in the West for many years, and for a long time was the neighbor of Captain Jack, the Modoc chief. [Neither is true.] He would assert at the outset that the American Indians, however uncivilized, were in most respects a noble race. They had never made war against the whites without some cause. They were not aggressive but revengeful. The speaker gave circumstantial accounts of some of the raids and massacres perpetrated by Ben Wright and his gang, and told how Grant's government agents had stolen the supplies intended for distribution among the Indians. As for the Modoc tribe, no nation ever had a better cause for declaring war. Those Indians, instead of being allowed to remain in peace on the reservation which by right belonged to them, had been driven from place to place, and they finally found themselves on a territory which was almost barren, there being a frost every day in the year, and this after they had built huts and settled down three times in as many different places. During the minor conflicts caused by these invasions Captain Jack's father was killed, or murdered, as well as numerous chiefs and warriors. The whites had resorted to every kind of low device to entrap and slaughter the redskins, and the speaker has no doubt that Captain Jack, who was the rightful representative of the Modoc nation, thought he was fighting in perfect accord with the rules of the white foe when he decoyed General Canby and the commissioners with a white flag and then shot them down. The Modoc chief had made up his mind that he must kill or be killed. The thieving, treacherous agents sent out to Oregon by the government were wholly and solely responsible for this deplorable massacre, as well as for the evils preceding and following it. Mr. Beeson said that on several occasions white men who were contemplating a raid upon the Indians had urged him to join them. They always began by sending false reports to the government, alleging that the Indians were becoming very belligerent and that a military defense was necessary. After getting the approval of the government they would go out and slaughter Indians for pastime, while they stole the money appropriated by the government and plundered whenever the opportunity was afforded. When these murderers came to him they told him that he could make more money joining them and raiding on the Indians than he could in mining or anything else.
    Mr. D. W. Kilbourne, who had lived for thirty-seven years among the Indians, also testified to the statement that the red men were always peaceable if left alone.
    A committee of three was appointed to present a memorial to President Grant, beseeching his interference to stop these murders.
New York World, July 1, 1873, page 5


    The following letter to this paper contains statements which many who are familiar with the treatment of the Indians and who are unprejudiced will readily believe. If true, they palliate, if indeed they do not justify, the recent action of the Modocs. It may be added that they do not rest alone on our correspondent's authority, since it is known that several of the Indian commissioners have made similar assertions. Our correspondent says:
    As your paper has spoken kindly of the Modocs, and has not joined in the cry of vengeance and extermination, I thought you would value a few facts pertaining to them.
    While in New York last week, attending a peace meeting at Cooper Institute, I had the pleasure of seeing and conversing with John Beeson, a venerable old man of warm heart and sincere manners, who is well known in New York as "Father Beeson." Mr. Beeson said to me: "I have a farm in Rogue River Valley, Oregon, not far from the place where Capt. Jack and his men have taken refuge. I have lived in that western country twenty years. [He was absent in the East for seventeen of them.] I have known Capt. Jack since he was a small boy. [When Kintpuash was a small boy, Beeson was still living in Illinois. Captain Jack is never known to have visited the Rogue Valley. Beeson never met or saw him.] He is a marked man and would be picked out anywhere among Indians or white men as a superior man. He is a full-blooded Indian, is short of stature, broad shouldered, has a broad, high forehead, thin lips, clear eyes and a nose that is slightly aquiline. He is no talker, but thinks much. He is not treacherous, but has been maddened by oppression. I don't want a better neighbor. I tell you, sir, the Indians, the Modocs, have been most shamefully and cruelly treated. The Modocs were naturally peaceable and friendly.
    "But as long ago as 1842 that portion of Oregon was in the same condition that Kansas was in 1856. The territory was filled with border ruffians, who was trying to make a slave state of it. Children of the Indians were stolen and sold into slavery--a good-sized boy was sold for three hundred and fifty dollars. Because the Indians resented these outrage they were set upon by the whites, then their land was wasted, and they were driven from one place to another. To get rid of them a most villainous and unheard-of piece of strategy was resorted to. In 1842 a company of whites, under lead of Ben Wright, undertook to make peace as they called it with the Modocs. Their real object was to get their land away. The Modocs were not to be cheated, so Wright and his men got up a great feast. Seven oxen were slaughtered. All the arsenic that could be bought was secured--a druggist who sold the arsenic told me this himself--and the carcasses of the oxen were poisoned. Some half-breeds and interpreters, knowing the fact, communicated it to the Modocs; so when they came to the feast they refused to eat until their entertainers had  partaken. This led to talk, and the whites, finding they could not induce the Indians to eat, fell upon them and massacred forty Indian warriors, among whom was Capt. Jack's father. Capt. Jack supposed that the recent interviews with Canby and the peace commissioners were only preliminary to a similar massacre, and acted accordingly." Such is Father Beeson's story. If these statements are true, it would seem that Capt. Jack and the Modocs have more right to experience the sympathy and kindness of the government than to feel its power.
Groton, June 16.
Grant County Herald, Lancaster, Wisconsin, July 24, 1873, page 2  All the known--and very contradictory--accounts of the Ben Wright massacre are transcribed here. It seems the arsenic was purchased, but not used.





    FATHER BEESON, the Indian's friend, in a letter from Oregon, expressing his appreciation of our publications, writes: "I have spent twenty-five years and a fortune in behalf of justice for the Indians and have not yet got it. And if I had another fortune I would willingly spend it for the promotion of this prior object (referring to the education of the people in sexual subjects and heredity). I now see that the whites cannot be just toward the Indians until they learn to be just to themselves--their wives and children. I consider," says Father Beeson, "that right conception and right antenatal surroundings are the first necessities for true progress."
Evening Bulletin, Maysville, Kentucky, August 1, 1882, page 1


    Pursuant to call, a number of the citizens of Jackson County opposed to the building of the new courthouse met at Central Point last Saturday. E. K. Anderson called the meeting to order and nominated C. Magruder for chairman and W. A. Wilshire of Ashland for secretary, who were elected. He then addressed the meeting and closed by introducing John Beeson of Wagner Creek.
    Mr. Beeson continued at some length, upholding the action of Judge Day, who he said was an honest man, a faithful official, and a pioneer who came to the rescue of our young country when it was in peril. He said that, moreover, he had been elected six years ago with the express understanding that he was in favor of a new courthouse, but had yielded to his colleagues in office (who thought the old one could be repaired), and that he had repeatedly been censured for not carrying out the wishes of those who placed him in office. While he himself was opposed to building a courthouse, under the circumstances he thought the action of Judge Day [was] entitled to more praise than blame from the fact that the old courthouse had so many air holes that some would be sweating against a hot stove while those in the rear would be freezing from the cold draft. Many jurymen had thus taken cold, and one person's death is supposed to have resulted therefrom. He therefore moved to compromise the matter instead of censuring anybody. He said that there were several thousand dollars on hand to lay the foundation of the building, and by the time more is needed the railroad will be here to assist in paying the rest, and it is not likely that there will be one cent's extra tax.
"The Mass Meeting," Democratic Times, Jacksonville, September 29, 1882, page 2


    John Beeson of Wagner Creek was in town this week, looking after the interests of a medical institute he hopes to organize here.
"Personal Mention," Democratic Times, Jacksonville, October 13, 1882, page 3


    RELIGIOUS.--A discourse will be given in the Methodist church at this place next Sunday morning at 11 o'clock, by John Beeson. Text: "As a man soweth that shall he also reap." At night he will give an answer from both a biblical and scientific standpoint to the text "If a man die, shall he live again?"--Job. On Monday night he will speak in the hall of the Champions of Honor on the question: "Is whiskey of use to the sick?"
Democratic Times, Jacksonville, December 1, 1882, page 3


    John Beeson will give a discourse on the "use of whiskey and vaccination for the prevention of disease" at the Wagner Creek school house next Sunday at 11 o'clock.
"Here and There," Democratic Times, Jacksonville, December 15, 1882, page 3


    FROM FATHER BEESON.--This veteran friend of the Indian writes from Phoenix, Oregon, under date of April 3, as follows: "I am very glad to get the numbers of The Council Fire sent me recently, as I can now post up on the work you are doing. I earnestly hope that the time is not far off when you will not have to publish this paper at a loss. You are doing great good and ought to be sustained. Would it not be a good idea to call a national mass meeting of the friends of the Indians and thus bring the matter before the public in a prominent way?"
The Council Fire and Arbitrator, February 1883, page 61


    John Beeson of Wagner Creek, 80 years old, dropped all the corn in the planting of a ten-acre patch and kept up with the plow. How's that, small boys?--Tidings.
"Here and There," Democratic Times, Jacksonville, May 25, 1883, page 3


    Warren Howard, who has been suffering with a severe attack of inflammatory rheumatism, informs us that he has been thoroughly cured by John Beeson of Wagner Creek, who operates with electricity.
"Here and There," Democratic Times, Jacksonville, June 15, 1883, page 3


    John Beeson, the spiritualist, is holding seances at the residences of his friends on Wagner Creek.
"Here and There," Democratic Times, Jacksonville, February 1, 1884, page 3


    The fact that Women have, by a law of Nature, an equal share in the production of our Race, is a proof of their natural right to an equal share in its national, as well as in its family government.
    It is because men have monopolized this right of Women, that, today, our nation suffers, like a family bereaved of its mother.
    It is not in the masculine nature to know all the details that are needful to sustain the weak, and relieve the suffering, neither have men the same amount of intuitive forethought to provide for emergencies.
    Another fact stares us in the face--
    Our barns are full; we have cattle upon a thousand hills; we have millions scattered over the country, with hundreds of tons of silver and gold coin in our national vaults.
    We have also forests to clear; swamps to drain; roads to make, with abundance of work of every description, and ample means for all the people to live in comfort.
    But, with all these, we have pining want filling our insane asylums, pauper houses, and prisons--moneyless tramps on every road, and thieves in all the walks of life, so that life and property is everywhere in peril.
    Ten years ago, Wendell Phillips said:
    "Unjust monopoly of the rightful homes of the Indians, has caused the slaughter of a million people, and the cost of a thousand million dollars."
    This fact, in connection with our late civil (horrible) war, proclaims the curse of monopoly; and the very graves of our buried soldiers, show us the need of our mothers in the council chambers of our nation.
    We had six candidates for President of the United States--yet, only one of three was likely to have been elected.
    Blaine goes for protective tariff, which means monopoly for a few and poverty for the many.
    Cleveland is for free trade, without one word for free Women; or for the means by which the working chaps may enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuits of happiness; or for the protection of the Indians from lawless outrage.
    Butler is thorough in his anti-monopoly--he recognizes the equal rights of all Mankind, and will sustain the noble sentiments uttered by Thomas Paine--Author hero:
    "The World is my Country, all men are my Brothers--to do good, is my Religion."
Talent, Oregon.
The Watchman, Chicago, December 1884, page 2


    TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.--The subscriber is informed that good citizens affirm that his adverse course prevented the payment of their just claims for volunteer services in war against the savages. He therefore invites all such persons to give him a written statement of the amount due. Or if they prefer give it in some one of the meetings which posters will advertise to be held at Talent, Ashland, Phoenix and Jacksonville. And if arbitrators mutually chosen decide their claim is just he will pay it out of the million dollars (more or less) which distinguished members of Congress will press on the next session to pay for his 25 years volunteer service in behalf of national justice for all the people without regard to race, creed or sex.
Oregon Sentinel, Jacksonville, March 21, 1885, page 3


    I have read in THE WATCHMAN of August 1884 about the skinning and cutting up of living animals by Anatomists.
    And, that 40,000 dogs, cats, horses, and other animals are thus tortured, annually, in Europe, and a great many in America.
    The question arises--is this wholesale cruelty necessary for Science?
    I do not hesitate to say, NO.
    For none ought to be Physicians or Surgeons, but natural experts in Psychometry, and Clairvoyance who can see, at a glance, what needs to be done, and how to do it, with sympathies so acute that they will not occasion suffering, nor even witness it--only to give relief.
    No human being can deliberately torture a brute without blunting his moral senses, and utterly unfitting him for the right treatment of the human sick.
    Even butchers, who kill animals for food, without needless torture, are, by common consent, regarded as having lost the finer feelings of manhood, hence, in England, no butcher is allowed to sit on a jury trial.
    .And in Japan, all of that vocation are obliged to live in a separate street in their respective cities.
    It is a well-known fact, that after young students have become accustomed to dissect the quivering, living flesh of brutes, they acquire a relish to show their skill on humans, and thus make many victims for premature graves, or, to hop about on wooden legs--who, but for Professional vanity, might be, today, alive and well.
    Physiology, and the laws of life and health, together with the everyday social duties, should be a part of common school education, so simplified that all could understand them.
    Sickness would, then, be rare; crimes would cease; Surgeons and Armies would not be needed: police and prisons might be given up.
    The first step for this result is a more practical observance of the rule--to do unto others (even brutes), as we would have them do unto us--every act of our lives should be squared by this rule.
    Then, the question would not be, how can I make the most money--but, how can I do the most good?
    Mothers, as well as fathers, would, then, wield their gentle, loving influence in the Nation's government, as well as in the family: and every one would fill the right place for which Nature had prepared them.
    Thus, the horror of horrors--Vivisection--with the proclivities for cruelty and murder, which its practice begets, would be known only as appendages of the Dark Ages of the Past.
    Oh! that woman, with more tender and purer instincts, would protest against cruelty to brutes, as a sure means to lessen the pains which manv of them are made to feel--the world would be better for it.
Talent, Oregon.
The Watchman, Chicago, July 1885, page 3



    RELIEF FOR JOHN BEESON.--We are glad to learn that the matter of relief for John Beeson has been presented before the President and Cabinet, and that it is possible to have a satisfactory settlement without being brought again before Congress. We have known Father Beeson for a quarter of a century, and something of the work he has performed and sacrifices he has endured in behalf of the badly treated Indians. Through his able and friendly arbitration the government has been saved much trouble and expense, and difficulties have been averted that would have resulted in the great destruction of life and property. He has been the true and almost only unfailing friend of the Indian on this coast--especially of the northern and central tribes. Now in his old age, and when he can be serviceable to his humble words only with his pen--which is still a power for good--he finds himself reduced to poverty's extreme. It is right that his wants should be relieved, and his last days made comfortable. It must come soon or it will be too late. We sincerely trust that the President and Cabinet may extend the needed relief, as they no doubt have the power to do, in many ways--by appointment or otherwise--and the people of this coast will say Amen.--Golden Gate.
Democratic Times, Jacksonville, December 25, 1885, page 1






    During the Rogue River war of 1855-6, a man named John Beeson attracted a good deal of attention by writing letters to the newspapers attacking the whites and defending the Indians.
    Beeson was a foreigner by birth, but a naturalized citizen of the United States, who had in 1853 come from Illinois to the Rogue River Valley. He said in his letters that the Indians were a friendly, hospitable and generous race, and that the war of 1853 and the one then raging were justifiable on the part of the Indians and atrocious on the part of the whites--and he supported his views by quotations from United States officers and Dr. John McLoughlin.
    He lampooned the Democratic Party of Oregon, was censorious toward Governor Curry and his advisers, and exceedingly unjust to the people of Southern Oregon. In short, he made himself hated by practically all the whites.
    Beeson then began writing for the San Francisco Herald, and, the fact becoming known that he was aiding in the spread of the prejudice already created against the people of Oregon by the military reports of such men as General Wool and some of his subordinate officers, public meetings were held to express indignation.
    Invited to one of them, in Southern Oregon, without notification of the purpose, Beeson had the mortification of having read one of his letters to the Herald, which had been intercepted for the purpose, together with an article in the New York Tribune supposed to emanate from him, and of listening to a series of resolutions severely condemnatory of him. He wrote of this meeting:
    "Fearing violence, I fled to the fort (Fort Lane) for protection, and was escorted by the U.S. troops beyond the scene of excitement."
    Beeson published a book of 143 pages in 1853, called "A Plea for the Indians," in which he boasted of the protection given him by the troops, "who," he said, "seemed to regard the volunteers with contempt."
    Apparently finding his subject acceptable to some classes, he followed up the "Plea" with "A Sequel," containing an "Appeal in Behalf of the Indians; Correspondence with the British Aboriginal Aid Society; Letters to Rev. H. W. Beecher, in Which Objections Are Answered; Review of a Speech by the Rev. Theodore Parker; A Petition in Behalf of the Citizens of Oregon and Washington Territories for Indemnity on Account of Losses Through Indian Wars; An Address to the Women of America," etc.
    In addition Beeson delivered lectures on the "Indians of Oregon" in Boston, where he advocated his peculiar views.
    At one of these lectures he was confronted by a citizen of Washington Territory.
    The Statesman of Dec. 23, 1853, contained an article to the effect that in a meeting addressed by Beeson at the Cooper Institute, New York, he was confronted and his assertions disputed by Captain Fellows of Oregon. This was Albert M. Fellows, one of the four organizers on July 4, 1852, of the First Congregational Church of Salem, who had been a member as first lieutenant of Company F, mounted volunteers, mostly from Marion County, in the Yakima War of 1855-6. When Bennett was killed in battle, Lieutenant Fellows was raised to the position of captain. Bennett, as most readers know, was one of the three Salem men who were the discoverers of gold in California; built the famous Bennett House, where the Masonic temple, Salem, now stands, was one of the earliest steamboatmen on the upper Willamette, and in other ways was a leader of affairs in early Oregon.
    It was said that in 1860 Beeson was about to start a paper in New York City, to be called the Calumet.
    In 1863 he endeavored to get an appointment in the Indian Department, but, being opposed by the Oregon senators, failed. He certainly would fail. B. F. Harding was at that time junior senator from Oregon, and had been the last territorial secretary of state; held the last-named office while the Yakima and Rogue River Indian wars were being fought, and of course knew what a fool, if not a scoundrel, Beeson was.
    The senior U.S. Senator was J. W. Nesmith, who was colonel of volunteers in the Yakima War and a captain and interpreter in the 1853 Rogue River War, and had fought the Rogues before; and knew more about Indians by actual experiences than Beeson could have imagined in his wildest dreams; experiences dating back to the covered wagon train journey of 1843. Of course, with that opposition, Beeson failed ingloriously in getting the job he sought.
R. J. Hendricks, "Bits for Breakfast," Statesman Journal, Salem, January 13, 1934, page 4


    Being a pacifist in the face of war was never easy, a lesson made painfully clear to John Beeson after his arrival in Southern Oregon in 1853.
    At the time, that part of the territory was a tinderbox of racial tensions. Outsiders were encroaching in ever-greater numbers, and the Indian population wasn't taking it lying down.
    Unlike their counterparts in the Columbia and Willamette basins, whose numbers had been decimated by diseases introduced by outsiders, tribes in the Umpqua, Rogue and Klamath river basins were healthy and determined to cling to their homelands.
    Had the Indians been confronted with only a few settlers farming their land, the situation might have been less volatile. But discovery of gold in the region brought hordes of miners intent on riches and not about to let anything or anybody hold them back.
    "Rogue River Indians had reason to be anxious about their situation," Nathan Douthit notes in his account of the conflicts there, Uncertain Encounters, Indians and Whites at Peace and War in Southern Oregon 1820s-1860s (Oregon State University Press 2002). "Some white miners had begun prospecting on the Rogue River and its tributaries in areas understood to be reserved to the Indians … and white settlers threatened Indian food resources."
    The upshot was a string of atrocities on both sides leading up to the 1855-56 Rogue River War, which pitted the Indians against the miners and a hodgepodge militia while the U.S. Army, territorial Gov. Joseph Lane and Indian Supt. Joel Palmer worked feverishly to impose some equitable solution.
    In 1853, Beeson, along with wife Ann Welborn and their only surviving son, Welborn, moved into this volatile mix via the southern route of the Oregon Trail. The Beesons had emigrated from England in 1830 and spent 19 years farming in LaSalle County, Ill., where Welborn was born in 1836.
    In Illinois, Douthit says, John Beeson "was a temperance-reform lecturer; he also helped fugitive slaves escape to the north on the underground railway. He was known in LaSalle County as a radical abolitionist."
    In Oregon, the Beesons first concentrated on their homestead in the Talent area. Details of their family life we owe to a daily journal Welborn began keeping at age 15.
    "In March (1854)," Douthit relates, "the Beesons continued their work of splitting rails and building fence. They also helped their neighbors with plowing. By mid-March they planted potatoes, corn, melons, onions, tomatoes, and other 'garden stuff.' … The summer months brought forth a bountiful harvest of wheat, potatoes, and garden crops."
    It was a seemingly idyllic life, untouched by the conflict smoldering at their doorstep. Even when war broke out in fall 1855, the Beesons appeared largely unaffected.
    They "celebrated Christmas by going to a neighborhood dance," Douthit says. "The next day Welborn took his mother for a sleigh ride over three inches of new snow."
    But as reports of bloodshed reached them, the family's sense of right asserted itself.
    "Welborn Beeson's expression of support for the abolition of slavery suggests the moral foundation of the Beeson family's pro-Indian sympathies," Douthit says. "The Beesons found that injustice toward Indians paralleled the injustices of slavery."
    John Beeson publicly expressed his distaste for the way Indians were treated.
    "It is a fact there are far more murdered Indians than Indian murderers; and when the whole truth is known, I believe it will appear that Indians are less savage than some who assume to be civilized," he said in a letter to the New York Tribune.
    "I do not see under the circumstances how they could have done different or better … for practically they have only exclaimed with our own noble sires, 'Give us liberty or give us death.' And for this they have been denounced as not only savages, but as 'varmints' and demons unfit to live.…"
    On May 23, 1856, Welborn's journal says, "There was an Indignation meeting at the school house against Father on account of his being opposed and writing & talking against the present Indian war … I am afraid Father will have to leave this country … some would about as leave kill him as an Indian just because he has spoken the truth …"
    The next day, John Beeson, learning a group of vigilantes was out to get him, fled first to the shelter of Fort Lane, and then to the East. He remained in exile 10 years.
    "Beeson thought that people who feared and hated Indians could be persuaded otherwise by an appeal to their Christian moral values," Douthit says. "Finally, realizing his error, he was forced to flee for his life because he could no longer trust his neighbors and Christian friends even to respect his rights as a free citizen."
    In the East, Beeson lectured on behalf of the Indians and published a pamphlet, "A Plea for the Indians, with Facts and Features of the Late War in Oregon."
    "Men are roaming all over the Indian country, abusing and killing the unprotected natives, until terror and natural instinct compel them to unite for mutual aid and protection," reads one passage.
    "For more than 50 years our people had traveled and trafficked all through the Indian country, and had met with general kindness and protection from the Natives. It was not until the Whites had become numerous, and grossly abusive, that the Indians, from necessity, resisted further aggressions."
    Although he visited his family from time to time, Beeson considered it safe to return to his homestead permanently only after the Civil War and his wife's death on Dec. 23, 1867. He died at age 85 on April 21, 1889. His grave in Stearns Cemetery near Talent is marked with the simple inscription:
    "Pioneer and Man of Peace."
Oregonian, Portland, March 23, 2003, page 11E