"If U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio wants a fitting achievement in his 13th term in Congress, he couldn't do better than to push a bill granting federal recognition to the Confederated Tribes of the Lower Rogue. That would be the best end to these Native Americans' quest for justice.

Like many other Northwest bands, the ancestors of today's Lower Rogue people ceded lands and resources to the United States after brief warfare in the mid-19th century. Whereas the federal government often ignored the agreements it had tricked natives into signing, in this case Congress lost the treaty entirely.

Lost is where these folk have been ever since. They have wandered in a cultural no man's land, with little but their elders' oral histories to remind them who they had been.

Having graduated from slaughter to cynicism, the government treated the Lower Rogue people with arrogant indifference. The United States articulated 'the vanishing Indian" as its official but unwritten policy, expecting natives simply to disappear. In 1954 the government withdrew its recognition of the tribe. Like most of our nation's behavior toward Native Americans, that act was just plain wrong."

Get the Story:
Editorial: DeFazio should help tribe's revival (The Coos Bay World 11/10)

Related Stories:
Confederated Tribes of the Lower Rogue seek federal recognition (11/8)