The Cockstock incident was an altercation between indigenous peoples and settlers in the Willamette Valley. It originated as a dispute between Cockstock, a native, and James D. Saules, a free black settler.[1] On 4 March 1844, conflict erupted between Cockstock's party and settlers; with Cockstock and two white settlers dying. The event has been called "the most significant occurrence of violence"[2] in the Oregon Country between indigenous peoples and settlers prior to the Cayuse War.
In the aftermath of the violence, white settlers feared that black settlers could insult local indigenous peoples enough to provoke an uprising. The Cockstock incident influenced the adoption an 1844 black exclusion law that banned black settlers from living in the Oregon Country.[3] Historian Thomas McClintock has written that the connection between the Cockstock incident and the Exclusion Law is "unquestionable".[4]