Call for Cavalry in the Indian Wars
Recruiting for the First Regiment of Oregon Cavalry to serve in the ongoing conflict with the Snake Indians.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
100 Volunteers Wanted. For the First Regiment of Oregon Cavalry, to serve three years unless sooner discharged. 100 Dollars Bounty. The company will consist of one Captain, one First, and one Second Lieutenant; one First Sergeant, one Quartermaster Sergeant; one commissary sergeant, five Sergeants, eight Corporals, two Teamsters, two Farriers or blacksmiths, one Saddler, one wagoner, and seventy-eight privates. Total, one hundred enlisted men. Men will be sent to Fort Steilacoom at government expense. The Governor of Oregon, in his proclamation calling for these volunteers, says that they will be needed the coming spring on the frontiers of this State and Washington Territory, and for an expedition against the Snake Indians who have so long been mercilessly engaged in robbing immigrants and murdering our fellow citizens. Office in Olympia with Wells, Fargo & Co. Francis Henry, Recruiting officer. Olympia, W. T., Jan. 12th, 1863.
“The Snake Indians who have so long been mercilessly engaged in robbing immigrants and murdering our fellow citizens.”
This recruitment notice illustrates the brutal and violent reality of frontier expansion in the 1860s, where federal military force was used to displace Indigenous peoples under the guise of protecting settlers. It reminds us that the history of Olympia and the Pacific Northwest is deeply rooted in the state-sanctioned dispossession of Indigenous nations.
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