Tensions rise along the Oregon Trail
While early interactions between emigrants and Indigenous populations along the Oregon Trail were cordial, even friendly. There would be some fights and the occasional tribe that would steal items and livestock from emigrants, and emigrants that would shoot at Native Americans, but this was a rare exception, not a common problem. Most early emigrants were reasonably safe from tribal conflict along the trail.
This would change in the late 1850s and early 1860s as government promises to Indigenous peoples were unfulfilled. Increasing numbers of emigrants were hunting the same buffalo the tribes relied on for food. The emigrants brought diseases that Indigenous people had not yet suffered. The emigrants were depleting food sources, especially buffalo. They were carving their names into rocks and leaving debris and garbage as they tried to lighten wagon loads. The land was their home, and it was being trashed.
