LIBRARY ANNEX 2 Mt^ |?orfe £>tate College of Agriculture ^t Cornell Wlnibttsitp Htfiaca. B. S. iCtbrarp STUDIES IN HISTORY, ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC LAW EDITED BY THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Volume XCVI] [Number 1 Whole Number 217 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC 1838-1846 BY JAMES CHRISTY BELL, Jr., Ph.D. ' When thy star of 0estmy declineth, seek a new influence in a distant region.' " — Cathbkine Stewart, New Homes in tht IVest (Nashville, 1843). nam ^ork COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SELLING AGENTS New Yokk; Longmans, Green & Co. London : P. S. King & Son, Ltd. 1921 Columbia Mtnvst&tt^ FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE Nicholas Munay Butler, LL.D., President. Munroe Smith, LL.D., Professoi of Roman Law. E. R. A. Seligman, LL.D., Professor of Political Economy. J. B. Uoore, LL.D., Professor of International Law. W. A. Dnnning, LL.D., Professor of History. F. H. Giadings, LL.D., Professor of Sociology. J. B. Clark, LL.D., Professoi of Political Economy. H. R. Seager, Ph.D., Professor of Political Economy. H. L. Bloore, Ph. D., Professor of Political Economy. F. J. B. Woodbridge, LL.D., Dean. W. R. Shepherd, Ph.D., Professor of History. J. T. Shotwell, Ph.D., Professor oi History. V. G. Simkhoyitch, Ph.D., Professor of Economic History. H. Johnson, A. M., Professor of History. S. McC. Lindsay, LL.D., Professor of Social Legislation. W. D. Guthrie, A.M., Professor of Constitutional Law. C. J.H. Hayes, Ph.D., Pro- fessor of History. A. A. Tenney, Ph D., Assistant Professor of Sociology. R. L. Schuyler, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History. R. E. Chaddock, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Statistics. D. S. Uuzzey, Ph.D., Professor of History. T. R. Powell, Ph.D., Professor of Constitutional Law. H L. McBain, Ph.D., Professor of Municipal Science. B. B. Kendrick, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History. C. D. Hazen, Ph.D., Professor of History. W. F. Ogburn, Ph. D., Professor of Sociology. Dixon R. Fox, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History. W. W. Rockwell, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Church History in Union Theological Seminary. F. J. Foakes Jackson, D. 1).' Professor of Christian Institutions in Union Theological Seminary. SCHEME OF INSTRUCTION Courses are offered under the following departments: (i) History, (2) Public Law and Comparative Jurisprudence, (3) Economics, (4) Social Science. The Faculty does not aim to offer courses that cover comprehensively all of the sub- jects that are included within the fields of its interests. GENERAL COURSES General courses involve on the part of the student work outside of the classroom ; but no such course involves extensive investigation to be presented in essay or other form . History, twenty-one general courses. Public Law and Comparative Jurisprudence , twelve general courses. Economics, thirteen general courses. Social Science, seven general courses. 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Ten or more Cutting fellowships of jSiooo each or more, four University fellowships of JJ650 each, two or three Gilder fellow- ships of I650 — f 800 each, the Schiff fellowship of {600, the Curtis fellowship of S600, the Garth fellowship of $650 and a number of University scholarships of {150 each are awarded to applicants who give evidence of special fitness to pursue advanced studies. Several prizes of from $$0 to $250 are awarded. The library contains over 7cx>,ooo volumes and students have access to other great collections in the city. 1 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC 1838-1846 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014054849 Cornell university Library F 880.B42 opening a highway »» »!;,?,, S^^ 3 1924 014 054 849 STUDIES IN HISTORY, ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC LAW EDITED BY THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Volume XCVI] [Number 1 Whole Nnmber 217 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC 1838-1846 JAMES CHRISTY BELL, Jr., Ph.D.' ' When thy star of Pestiny declineth, seek a new Influence in a distant region/ " —Catherine Stewart, New Homes in thi Wett (Nashville, 1843). COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SELLING AGENTS New York; Longmans, Green & Co. London : P. S. King & Son, Ltd. 192 1 Copyright, 1921 BY JAMES CHRISTY BELL So THE PIONEERS WHO "FORMED THE BROADIST, LONGEST AKD MOST BEAUTIFUL ROAD IN THE WHOLE WORLD — FROM THE UNITED STATES TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN" PREFACE At the close of the Revolution, the western boundary of ihe new Republic of the United States was fixed as the Mississippi River. To this was added by purchase, in 1803, the Louisiana Territory, with indefinite western boundary. In 181 8 the northern boundary of this new acquisition was made the forty-ninth parallel of latitude west as far as the Rocky Mountains. At the same time, Great Britain agreed to the joint occupancy and use of the Oregon Territory, and, in 1819, Spain ceded all territorial claims she might have in the Americas, north of the forty-second degree of latitude. Thus the Oregon country became for the United States the cttily territorial approach, short of conquest, to the Pacific Ocean, where the commerce of New England was already well established. It remained, however, a matter of latent interest to the people of the lusty young republic. For a considerable period after 1819, the energies of the frontiersmen were fully absorbed in developing their glori- ous natural empire in the great valley of the Mississippi. The filling-up process was very slow, however, and lands even a little removed from routes of communication were not taken up. In 1840, the occupied parts of the Mississippi Valley were slight, indeed, as compared with the present day. It was the period anterior to the time when canals and railways, trolleys and passable wagon or motor roads, made accessible the great stretches of country lying away from the larger rivers. The politics of the day were almost exclusively concerned ■with internal, or local and personal questions. There was 7] 7 8 PREFACE [S only brief conflict on the principles of the Federal Govern- ment. Small agrarian interests dominated the government ;, and once the hands of the big eastern financiers were tied by the destruction of the United States Bank, there was no one to control the amount and kind of speculation. Eagerly, the populace of small means and no credit turned to this wild game. By 1839, the bubble of internal paper expansion had burst; and, in a few years, the times were such that the old frontiersmen, and many others, began to feel the pinch of depression more keenly than they cared to endure. The monetary chaos particularly had been aggravated by the responsiveness of the government to the will of its people, and, in the absence of political foresight and strong leadership, the people were left to devise their own remedy. All became " land poor," and at once began to cast about for relief, in varitms forms of external expansion. " The breeders of mules and horses and hogs cry out, ' Let us have Texas, right or wrong! ' ", wrote a Democratic hench- man, in 1844. Texas was promptly annexed, Oregon set- tled, California conquered, and the area of the United States- enlarged by one third. The people went off on another mad. career of speculation, discovering new glories in the West,, greatest among them, gold. It was a career that was not cut short until the rise of a crucial issue between the States brought civil war. The present monograph has grown out of a wish for more light on one early phase of this expansion. It pur- poses to study the hopes and fears and ideas of a definite and, in its way, articulate group of the American community — that body of farmers and mechanics in whose families- the tradition of westward migration was imbedd«i through several generations after their first coming to the Virginia mountains. These ideas are to be studied in relation to cer- 9] PREFACE 9 tain factors which Hmited in some ways the existence of the pioneers, and in others opened new opportunities for their development. The aspirations of the men and women who undertook the long journey across the mountains are treated from the standpoint of social history, which is meant to be some- thing more than narrow political, personal, or economic history. The pioneers were few in numbers, their hopes and fears much aroused, their long and tedious trip accom- plished without insuperable difficulty. They were sober, hard-headed, industrious people, fairly well-ofif in their homes along the Mississippi. The solution of their troubles, found by fleeing westward from the difficulties confronting them, will appear, when seen in the light of the conditions environing their lives, a wiser, more conserva- tive, and far-isighted one than has been supposed by the learned, from that day to the present. The pioneers fore- saw all the later developments of transportation, market- ing, and agriculture, which have helped to consolidate into a nation the people spread over this continent. Their undertaking was neither irrational nor mysterious. An idea was conceived, a plan devised, and an agitation worked up. This seized the imagination of a few, who undertook to translate their desires into action. The pioneers opened a road across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coast — the preface to territorial expansion — ^because they wished to realize the benefits from its geographical position in opening a new market for agricultural produce, and because they could not await but must have a hand in making their own destiny. The agitation for expansion, however, soon outran the plan, became frantic, went off to war; the side-show, as usual attracted the crowd, and, behold, the United States gained a continent before its farmers won a stable market for their produce. 10 PREFACE [lO Acknowledgment of help always generously given is due primarily to Professor William Archibald Dunning, to my friend and boyhood teacher, Mr. Robert Alston Stevenson, and to my friend, Mr. Oscar Ross Ewing, who have read and criticized the manuscript; and to the staff of the American History Room of the New York Public Library, where most of the work has been done. My thanks are also due to Professor Dixon Ryan Fax ; to the authorities of the Methodist Mission House and the American Bible Society, in New York City, for permission to consult their records; to Mr. E. Eberstadt, a dealer in rare books, for the loan of many works not otherwise available; and, for various suggestions, to Miss K. B. Judson, of the New York State Library, as well as to the staffs of the Library of Congress, the libraries of Columbia and Harvard Uni- versities, the New York, Massachusetts, Mis$ouri, and Oregon Historical Societies, and the Bancroft Collection in the University of California Library. Miss Anne Moore has most kindly checked my citations. I have enjoyed four visits to the Oregon territory, and have talked of this work with many to whom I am deeply grateful for the aid given me. J. C. B., Jr. YoNKERs, N. Y., October, 1920. CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I Discovery and Exploitation, 1785-1813 15 CHAPTER II Diplomacy Determines the Status of Oregon, 1818-1824 28 CHAPTER III British and American Fur Traders, 1813-1840 4S CHAPTER IV Missionary Colonists, 1834-1843 68 CHAPTER V Spread of the Oregon Fever, 1838-1843 91 CHAPTER VI Agrarian Discontent in the Mississippi Valley, 1840-1845. ... 116 CHAPTER VII The Journey to the Western Coast, 1843-1846 132 CHAPTER VIII Settlement in the Willamette Valley, 1840-1846 152 CHAPTER IX Conclusion; The Interplay of Sentimental and Economic Forces. . 180 APPENDIX "Oregon Saved" 193 Bibliographical Note 203 II] II LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS I. Mount Hood and the Dalls of the Columbia . . Frontispiece (From Warre, J. H., Sketches in North America, London, 1849) Opposite pige II. Fort Bridger 66 A post for repair and supply of the wagon trains erected on Black's Fork of Green River by Jim Bridger, trapper. (From Fremont's Report) III. The Willamette Valley 86 (From Warre, J. H., op. cit.) IV. Independence Courthouse 104 Now Kansas City, Missouri; the starting point of the Santa Fe, California and Oregon roads. (From Meyer's CMiversum) V, Crossing the Platte 138 The earliest emigrants used the fords, in the quicksands of which more than one wagon with its team disap- peared. (From Fremont's Report) VI. Oregon City in 1844 160 The American settlement at the Falls of the Willamette. (From Warre, J. H., op. cit.) VII. Map of Western North America At end First published in 1846 13] 13 CHAPTER I Discovery and Exploitation 1785-1813 In the beginning was the Northwest Coast of America. The Northwest Coast remained for many years almost un- known to the incurious people of the European commercial nations. Spanish and Russian and English navigators touched infrequently along the whole of its forbidding line, yet did not seek to explore it carefully. Franciscan friars with military aid undertook the settlement from Mexico of Upper California, after 1769, and, while the American Revolution was in progress, established a line of missions along the King's Highway between San Diego and San Francisco Bays. Navigators sent by the Viceroy of Mexico touched along the coast as far north as latitude 58°; and Russians from the Asian shore knew the Alaskan coast down to latitude 56°. So far as commerce was concerned, these men made only landfalls, and dis- covered little of interest to their nationals, except the Rus- sians, nor were their findings widely published.^ The English Government sent Captain James Cook to the Pacific upon a series of famous voyages of discovery, in the years 1775 to 1780; and when his reports were made public it became known that not only was this bleak coast rich in sea otter, but that the skin brought a very high price in the China market.^ 1 Greenhow, R., History of Oregon and California (Boston, 1SI44), passim ; Coxe, Wm., Account of the Russian Discoveries between Asia and America (London, 1787), p. 337, et seq. 'Cook, Capt. James, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean (London, 1785), vol. ii, p. 296. 15] IS l6 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [l6 At once English and Portuguese merchants resident in China sent ships to trade with the native Indians of the Northwest Coast, and others were quick to follow. Be- tween 1785 and 1787, " expeditions were fitted out from Canton, Macao, Calcutta, and Bombay in the East, London and Ostend in Europe, and from Boston in the United States," and by 1792 there were twenty-nine vessels from seven different countries engaged in this trade.^ For nearly forty years, tmtil the sea otter were almost extinct, it was prosecuted with varying success. During the Napoleonic wars Americans were left in sole enjoyment, and several of the largest New England mercantile fortunes of the early nineteenth century were built up in the trade.^ The trade was three-cornered : firearms, axes, pots, blan- kets, and trinkets composed the outward cargo to be ex- changed for furs, which were taken to China, as 'America could offer little else save specie of value in the East. In China, silks and other manufactured goods were obtained for the homeward voyage. The profits of a three years' cruise were considerable, especially so to the Americans, who were shut out of the English colonial system.^ 'Hunt's Merchants' Magazine (New York, 1845), vol. xiv, p. S34; Vancouver, Geo., A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean (iLondon, 1798), vol. iii, p. 498. Home ports were, England, 6, Bengal, 2, Canton, 3, America, 7, Portugal, 2, France, i, Spain and Mexico, 8. 2 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, vol. xiv, p. 536. For statistics vide, 29th Cong., 1st iSess. House Rept., no. 35 ; Forbes, A., and Green, J. H., Rich Men of Massachusetts (and ed., Boston, 1852), pp. 51, 64. The subject of American expansion in the Pacific down to 1844 is well covered by Latourette, K. iS., The History of Early Relations between the United States and China (New Haven, 1917), Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, Transactions, vol. xxii. 'D'Wolf, John, A Voyage to the North Pacific (Cambridge, 1861), p. 1416. A voyage of two and a half years yielded a profit of $100,000 on an investment of $35,000; cf. Myers, Captain John, Life. Voyages and Travels CLondon. 1817), p. 70. I7J DISCOVERY AND EXPLOITATION ij By 1 82 1, missionary inta-est in the spiritual condition of the natives of the coast had been aroused; and, in 1827, the American Board of Comiriissioners for Foreign Mis- sions considered establishing a mission and small secular colony, with a view to " the planting of Christian institutions on the shores of the Pacific." Two years later they sent a minister from the Sandwich Islands Mission on a tour of inspection, with this object in view, but took no further action until 1834/ In the course of a very few years the merchant skippers learned all the essential geographical features of the North- V. est Coast, so that they were able to communicate them to the expedition sent by the British Admiralty, under Cap- tain George Vancouver, to continue the work of Cook. In 1792, this navigator met the Ship Columbia, Gray, Master, of Boston, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and learned that the mouth of the long-sought " River of the West " lay between bold headlands, in latitude forty-six degrees. The river, which was to take its name from Captain Gray's vessel, was charted by Vancouver on this expedition. He also charted the whole coast far northward, although, curiously enough he missed the entrance of the only other large river in the whole extent of fifteen degrees of latitude. This river was later explored by Simon Fraser, whose name it bears. The merchant captains who traded along the coast found the bar of the Columbia River rather dangerous, and, con- sequently, they carried on the major part of their trade in the many beautiful sounds and deep, land-locked bays which characterize the coast northward from the magnific- ent Puget Sound. Their trade was a transitory affair, the natives coming to the ship anchored off shore in canoes, and 'Green, Jonathan S., Journal of a Tour on the Northwest Coast of America in the year t8s9 (New York, 191S). passim. 1 8 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [i8 being allowed on deck in small ntuilbers at a time. The ships wintered, to repair their gear and construct small boats, either at the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands, or at Nootka Sound on Vancouver's Island. The traders never explored the interior or formed any permanent settlements. They found geographical conditions and the information derived from Vancouver's surveys sufficient for their opera- tions; but they did not consider the wonderful harbors in the terms of present-day commerce, which employs them as the terminals of transcontinental railways. The success of the coasting trade had hardly been estab- lished when the northern interior was explored from the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, by the individual in- itiative' of an intrepid Scotchman, Alexander Mackenzie, a partner in the Northwest Company of Montreal fur traders. Quite accurate information concerning the country west of the mountains was available from the Indians on the western plains, and had attracted the attention of traders, who pushed into the old French country west of Lake Superior soon after the peace of 1763 had put an end to the French Empire in America.^ These Montreal traders found an easy water route from Lake Superior northwest to the middle Avaters of the rivers flowing into Hudson's Bay, and were soon competing with the sluggish Hudson's Bay Company. The English Com- pany held exclusive privileges of trade in all that great Northwest territory, and were supposed to have explored it in return for their charter; but, with a single exception, had never left the shore of Hudson's Bay. The Montreal traders were men of energy and daring, however, and, in spite of a very long route by which their goods were * Carver, Jonathan, Travels through the Interior Parts of North America, in the Years 1766-1768 (Dublin, 1779), p. 542. Henry, Alex- ander, Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories between the Years 1760 and 1776 (New York), 1809), p. 324, These journalists are not to be taken without reservations. ip] DISCOVERY AND EXPLOITATION jg brought up, they built forts on the rivers and lakes right to the Rocky Mountains, and successfully defied the Hudson's Bay Company to enforce its monopoly. It was in 1789 that Alexander Mackenzie of the North- west Company, one of the ablest and boldest men in the history of discovery, floated down the river which bears his name to the Arctic Ocean. Two years after his re- turn, he set out to cross the continent through the low Peace River Pass, and in 1793 arrived upon the Pacific, in latitude 50° 20". He reached the ocean by trail, having been compelled to abandon a river on the west of the mountains, which ran south through awful canyons. With only a small party, and without the help of government, Mackenzie not only traversed the northern part of the con- tinent in two directions, but showed that its western slope, at least in the North, was a very rugged and difikult cotintry for traders to exploit. An even more important result of these journeys was the proof they offered of the non-exist- ence of the long sought practicable Northwest Passage be- tween the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.^ For the next fifteen years the 'Nor'westers were busily engaged in their trade east of the mountains, and did no more exploring until they again began to extend their field of operations. It was in 1807 that Simon Fraser, one of the wintering partners, followed down the river which bears his name, (the same which Mackenzie had tried to explore,) in the hope that it might be the River of the West. He proved both that it was not the Columbia, and that its deep and awful canyons were unnavigable almost the entire distance to tidewater, which it reaches in latitude forty-nine degrees.* Fraser did not go quite down to its mouth, which 'Mackenzie, Sir Alexander, Voyages from Montreal to the Pro/sen and Pacific Ocean (London, 1801), passim. •Masson, L. R., Les Bourgeois 'de la Compagnie du Nord Ouest (Quebec, 1889-1890), premiere serie, pp. 96-108. JO OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [20 /ancouver had missed, though the city named from the naval jfficer stands there. Not until 1824 was the river's delta-like nouth explored and soimded, when the British Government isked the fur traders to get information relative to its possible use as a harbor for commerce. '^ In the same year as Eraser's exploit, David Thompson, istronomer and explorer of the Northwest Company, whose ichievements equaled those of Mackenzie, crossed the Mountains from the north fork of the Saskatchewan to the ipper waiters of the Colimibia. Here he spent the next five l^ears trapping, trading and exploring, in a confused, rug- jed country of high, narrow ridges, running almost due lorth emd south. In the course of time he discovered the jest pass to be a high one from tihe Athabasca to the Columbia, which became famous as the route of overland ;ommunication before the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. However, it was not imtil after American rivals »tablished a port at the mouth of the Columbia that Thomp- son went all the way down the river ; but to him alone be- longs the credit of exploring its whole northern system, and [)art of the present map of Western Canada is based upon [lis surveys.^ 'Great Britain^ Papers relative to the negotiation between Great Britain and the United States concerning boundaries (London, n. d. [826?), pp. 70, 71. 75, 76- ' Tyrrell (ed.), Thompson's Narrative of His Explorations in Western America (Toronto, 1916) ; Coues (ed.), Henry-Thompson Journals (New York, 1897) ; Elliott (ed.), "David Thompson's Journeys n the Spokane Country," Washington Historical Quarterly, vols, viii-ix. rhompson in> 1814 completed a large map for the Northwest Company >f its territories, which is published by Tyrrell. His scientific data have lot been pubUshedi, and hiis government was so ignorant of his work that it never based any territorial claims thereori', although he took [>ossession of the Northern Columbia system in the name of Great Britain and founded the first trading posts on its waters. The simplest jLCCount of his journeys is found in Burpee, L. J., The Search for the Western Sea (London, 1908), pt. iii, ch. vi. 21 ] DISCOVERY AND EXPLOITATION 21 The President of the United States initiated the second expedition that penetrated the Oregon interior; and by this term is meant the whole region west of the Rocky Moun- tains, now comprising the states of Oregon, Idaho, and Washington, with parts of Wyoming and Montana, and most of the province of British Columbia. Thomas Jeffer- son, exponent of American democracy, dreamt often of the western edge of his continent; so, when the opportunity came to explore the little known land beyond the mountains, he hastily put aside all theories of the powers of government, and squarely met the fact of expansion. Even before the purchase of Louisiana was consummated, the President set on foot plans for a number of expeditions to explore its distant confines. The most considerable of these, under Captains Lewis and Clark of the army, was sent by the route of St. Louis fur traders up the Missouri River to its head, with instructions to find, if possible, a " direct and practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce," ^ as well as to learn all about the plants, animals, rocks, and natives of the country trav- ersed. Before the Rockies had been reached. Captain Lewis wrote to Mr. Jefferson some information gleaned from the Indians about a large and rapid river, which runs from South to North, along the foot of the Rocky Mountains on the west side : and that this river passes at a small distance from the three forks of the Missouri. That the country between the mountains and the river is broken, with a number of barren sandy hills, irregularly distributed over its surface as far as the eye can reach.^ 'Thwaites, R. G. (ed.), Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806 (New York, 1905), vol. vii, p. 248. • Discoveries Made in Exploring the Missouri, Red River and Washita, by Captains Lewis and Clark, Doctor Sibley and William Dunbar (Natchez, 1806), p. 60. 22 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [22 Some details filled in, this fact of a desert condition is all the expedition ever learned of the geography of the country- drained by the great southern affluent of the Colombia. Lewis and Clark were absent three years on their mission (1804-5-6), traveling leisurely, and collecting an enormous amount of scientific data about the country traversed.' Much of this time was spent in the tangled Rocky Moun- tain system, searching unavailingly for a pass practicable for commerce between the two great rivers. A'fter touch- ing the headwaters of many tributaries on the western slope, the explorers eventually went down to the main stream by way of the Rooskooskee (Qearwater) branch of the Snake, which joins it near its confluence with the Columbia. They continued down to the sea, where they wintered, without examining the fertile valleys just inside the coast range, and returned by the route they had come from the divide. Thus it appears that their expedition traversed the wide Columbia valley in an east and west direction without ex- ploring either branch of the main river, which runs north and south, except where in its lower course it breaks through the Cascade range. Therefore, while these explorers gathered much data interesting to scientists, the results of the expedition were almost negative as far as commercial exploitation and settle- ment were concerned. They learned, indeed, that the de- sert region was rich in beaver, but without game, for which salmon was a poor substitute, as food. They adopted the Indian mode of travel on horseback through this desert, but did not find any easy route by which to reach it from ' It is quite characteristic of America that the complete information gathered by this expedition was not published for an hundred years. Vide, Thwaites, R. G. (ed.), op. cif, Quaife, M. M. (ed.), The Jour- nals of Captain Meriwether Lewis and Sergeant John Ordway, Wisconsin State Historical Society Collections (Madison, 1916), vol. xxii. 23] DISCOVERY AND EXPLOITATION 23 east of the mountains/ So, the government explorers left the positive side of their task to be carried out by the fur traders, who were vitally interested in such knowledge, and who transmitted their knowledge to the emigrants. The first trading establishment to be attempted at the mouth of the Columbia was the beginning of a log house by Captain Winship of Boston, in 1810. A rise of the river flooded him out, and he did not return, fearing he would be unable to compete with the Astor enterprise.^ John Jacob Astor, fur merchant, was for many years the successful rival of the Canadians in the Great Lakes country. In 181 1, he initiated a large and well conceived plan to exploit the Columbia River country by means of a principal post on tide water, with smaller tributary posts in the in- terior. It was the establishment of Astoria which brought David Thompson of the Northwest Company down the river, and which, in spite of its admirable conception and the power with which it was sustained, became a commercial failure and later a diplomatic wrangling-point.^ Refusal of the government to back a commercial enter- prise, poor location, loss of the supply ship, and inexper- ienced personnel, were the causes of failure of A'stor's en- terprise. When the superintendent heard, in 181 3, of war between the United States and Great Britain, he sold the ^History of the Expedition under Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, etc. (Biddle edition, Philadelphia, 1814), chs. xv-xxiv. To understand their wanderings, see the map in Thwaites, R. G., op. cit., or Wheeler, O. D., The Trail of Lewis and Clark (New York, 1904). 'Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, vol. xiv, p. 202; cf. Bancroft, H. H., Northwest Coast (iSan Francisco, 1884), vol. ii, pp. 130-136. * Irving, W., Astoria (Philadelphia, 1836) ; Franchere, Gabriel, Narra- tive of a Voyage to the North West Coast of America (New York, 1834) ; Cox, Ross, Adventures on the Columbia River (London, 1831) ; Ross, Alexander, Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River (London, 1849); Coues, E. (ed.), Henry-Thompson Journals. 24 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [24 post and all goods of trade to a representative of the North- west Company, and remained with many of his men on the Columbia, in the employ of that company. Shortly there- after, an English sloop-of-war put in to the river and cap- tured Astoria as an enemy post, witib an appropriate carouse. In 1 81 8 it was returned to the possession of the United States, with further ceremony, in accordance with the terms of peace; and in these simple facts diplomats found material for much inconclusive argument as to rights of sovereignty over the territory. Thereafter the Nor'westers had to rely on American ships to carry f urS to China, since the North- west Association, not being a Royal Chartered Company but a Canadian organization, was outside the British mercantile system.^ However, the British remained dominant in all the Oregon country until after 1840. But though the Aster enterprise was a commercial failure, its members rendered a notable service in exploring that still unknown region which lay just south of the Lewis and Qark route. A party was sent overland by this route, in i8ii, from St. Louis, to meet a ship with the trading goods from New York at the mouth of the Columbia, Before they had gone far up the Missouri, however, they were diverted therefrom by three trappers, who the year before haid been driven over to the head of Snake River by the always hostile Blackfeet. These fur trappers represented that if the party would leave the Missouri at the Arickara villages (Grand River), and travel on horseback southwest over the plains, they would cross the mountains to the south of the Blackfoot territory, in a country more open and with more game than that passed through by Lewis and Clark. This the party did, touching the Green (Colorado) River, and reaching a tributary of the Snake in considerably better time than ' Hunt's Merchants' Mag., vol. xiv, p. 536. 25] DISCOVERY AND EXPLOITATION 25 they could have made against the river current, " having travelled from the Missouri about 900 miles in 54 days." ^ On the Snake they gladly exchanged their horses for canoes, and with high hopes started on a voyage which quickly became a disaster, for the river dropped from its high plateau into a boiling canyon entirely unnavigable.^ Forced to abandon water travel, they made the best of their way down both banks of the river, until stopped by the deep gorge in which it breaks through the Blue Mountains. At length some found horses and the trail, and crossed this range before winter set in, but the others, delayed by sick- ness, were caught in the snow, and did not reach Astoria until spring. Returning in mid-siunmer of 1812, the party on horse- back followed the Indian trail across the Blue Mountains, and kept along the bank of the Snake to a stream, which led them over an easy divide to Bear River, the principal inlet of Great Salt Lake. They continued southeast up this river, to avoid troublesome Indians, then turned north, back to the Columbia watershed, and eventually southeast again, to the head of Green River. Gradually swinging due east over wide sandy uplands, they at last came upon the Sweet- water branch of the Platte, where they wintered before pursuing their journey down that river to the Missouri and St. Louis.* 'The sources for this most important journey are an extract from the Missouri Gazette, May IS, 1812, in Brackenridge, H. M., Views of Louisiana (Pittsburgh, 1814), pp. 297-302, and Irving's Astoria (Tacoma edition, New York, 1897, annotated by Dr. E. Coues, in New York Public Library). • Irving does not tell us how they came to make this mistake, nor what information they had from the Indians, but we may presume it was due to the fact that all were more accustomed to travel in the forests about the 'Great Lakes, and were still seeking an overland route by rivers. •The routes are traced out on the map in Chittenden, H. M., The History of the American Fur Trade of the Far West (New York, 1902). 26 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [26 Both the outward and 'return journeys of this party re- quired a long time, for not only were its members inexper- ienced in travel on the western deserts, but they spent much time in trying to find a practicable and easy route across the continental divide. This most important work they accomplished; for, although they missed the South Pass of the later Oregon road, they actually traversed ahnost the whole length of this route at one time or another, and reported, that a journey across the continent of North America might be performed with a wagon, there being no obstruction in the whole route that any person would dare to call a mountain, in addition to its being much the most direct and short one to go from this place [St. Louis] to the' mouth of the Columbia River.^ Before narrating the negotiations by which the interna- tional status of this great, newly opened region west of the Rockies was determined, it is as well to pause a moment to summarize the results of exploration. Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, American, and English visited the Northwest Coast of America, most of them after 1785, when the results of Cook's voyage had be- come known, and had attracted the attention of the com- mercial world. The honor of discovering the mouth of the Columbia, the only large navigable river on the whole coast, belongs to a Boston merchant skipper, while the survey of the coast was carried out by the British Admiralty. So there was made known to the world a wild and inhospitable coast line, broken in the south by a great river, and in the north by numerous islands and deep soimds, which reached far inland amongst wooded and snowcapped mountains. The interior of the northern part was penetrated from the 1 Brackenridge, op. cit, p. 298. This optimistic opinion was con- firmed by the fur trader, Andrew Henry, ibid., p. 96. 27] DISCOVERY AND EXPLOITATION 27 east by the intrepid explorers of the Canadian North West Company, who found a country rugged with mountains and drained by many swift rivers, only one of which proved to be navigable. This river, the Columbia, flowed south through a big in- terior basin which lay between the Rockies and a range of mountains called the Cascade. In the north, tiie river ran past precipitous mountains, but where it met another great river coming from the south the country was almost wholly a desert. This southern affluent of the Columbia, which was explored chiefly by Aimerican fur traders, ran its entire course through the desert, but its deep canyon was found to be unnavigable. All who descended the Columbia through the Cascade Mountains became aware of a wide, wooded valley south of the river, lying between these moimtains and the coast range. Through all this great basin and along the coast the beaver were found in great abundance, and it was the skin of this animal for which men came to trap and trade. It was through thfe individual initiative and courage of the fur traders that this great new land was opened to the eyes of others. They were the first whites to people it, though they nowhere founded settlements of any perman- ency. So, in the course of twenty years, or by 181 3, the fur traders had nearly completed the work of exploration, and had, in addition, added greatly to the fund of scientific and geographic knowledge. It remained for them to fill in the details, to tread out the roads, to demonstrate through years of experience that the means of commercial intercourse must be that of pack-horse and wagon rather than river luvigation. It remained for them also to make known the alluring prospects of a delightful and curious region, be- fore a host of farmers should see stretching out before them the path of destiny which they called the road to Oregon. CHAPTER II Diplomacy Determines the Status of Oregon 1818-1824 While the War of 181 2 was still in. an indecisive state, commissioners of the United States and Great Britain met at Ghent, in the summer of 181 4. By reason of European conditions, coupled with the cost in time, money, and blood, of winning a victory, they agreed to a treaty which decided only that the relationship of the two countries should be under the status of peace rather than that of war. " The real causes of the war received no mention in the treaty; the settlement of disputed points raised by the war was postponed. But peace and a peaceful solution of contro- versies had been obtained, in itself a triumph." ^ The compromise which made possible this justly cele- brated peace was the proposal by the American delegates of the doctrine of a return to the status ante helium^ which was applied to territorial questions in the following Ijmguage : " Art. I. All territory, places, and possessions whatso- ever, taken by either party from the other during the War, or which may be taken after the signing of this Treaty, . . shall be restored without delay . . . .'" Less than six months after the conclusion of the treaty I Ford, W. C, " The Treaty of Ghent, and After," Wisconsin State Historical Society Proceedings, 1914 (Madison), p. 99. •/fcid., p. 95. •United States, Treaties, Conventions, etc. (Washington, 1910). p 613. 28 [28 ' 29] THE STATUS OF OREGON 29 the United Stat^ notified Great Britain that the Columbia River trading post was one of those places which were to be restored, but the press of other matters prevented action until 1817. In that year the American Government sent the sloop Ontario to the Pacific, charged, among other duties, with receiving the restitution of the trading estab- lishment founded by the Pacific Fur Company in 1 8 1 1 . Mr. J. B. Prevost, Agent of the State Department, was sent upon the same mission jointly with Captain Biddle of the Ontario, under the following instructions, drawn up by Richard Rush, and dated September 25, 181 7: He will thence [from Peru] proceed to the River Columbia, with a view to assert there the claim of sovereignty in the name and on behalf of the United States, by some symbolical, or other appropriate mode, of setting up a claim to national au- thority and domination, but no force is to be employed by Captain Biddle if, in the attempt to accomplish this object, any unexpected obstructions should occur.^ Mr. Prevost and the Captain had a dispute while at Valparaiso, and the latter sailed to perform his mission alone. Prevost followed, a few months later, on a British sloop which had been designated for this service, and, on the sixth of October, 181 8, received in writing restoration of " the possession of the establishment at Fort George," the name given by the English to Astoria.^ The American ' American State Papers, Foreign Relations (Washington, 1832, et seq.), vol. iv, p. 854. The United States had not previously asserted a claim here, since this would be "in opposition to the Spanish Claim to the Western Coast of America south of that of Russia," and could not be done "without a contest unseasonable and premature." Smith to Adams, May 5, 1810, Am. St. Papers, For. Rel, vol. v, p. 440. ' Cf. Greenhow, R., op. cit., p. 309, and Am. St. Papers, For. Rel., Tol. iv, pp. 852-856, for papers relating to restitution of the Columbia River Post. 30 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [30 agent having accomplished his mission, then sailed away, leaving friendly memories among the Canadians, who were to remain for a consideraible period the sole white occupants of the territory. Thus was the first claim of the United States to any portion of the Oregon country asserted, but no mention was made of its extent, nor was it grounded upon other factors than that of restitution of a place which had been captured in the late war. While discussing the subject of the Ontario's voyage to the Pacific with Mr. Rush, in February, 1818, Lord Cast- lereagh intimated to that gentleman that Great Britian had a claim of dominion over the territory in question. However, he did not xmfold the nature of the claim, al- though he did admit the right of the United States to be the party in possession while treating of title.^ This con- cession to the language of the Treaty of Ghent was made with a view to denying the right to the soil " upon which the American settlement must be considered as an encroach- ment." ^ Castlereagh proposed that the question of right be submitted to arbitraton, but J. Q. Adams, then Secre- tary of State, preferred direct negotiations, and it was there- fore joined with other questions relating to fisheries, trade, and boundaries, in a discussion which resulted in the Con- vention of 1 81 8 with Great Britain. In opening these niegotiations, Adams felt a certain hesitancy about allowing the subject to be discussed, be- cause of its " minuteness " in relation to the immediate in- terests of either nation; but he nevertheless took the oppor- tunity to intimate to Great Britain that she could afford to base her policy toward the United States upon very liberal lines. His instructions to Mr. Rush, the Minister at liie Mm. St. Papers, For. Rel, vol. iv, p. 853. * Schafer, Joseph, " British Attitude toward the Oregon Question," American Historical Review, vol. xvi, p. 284. 31 ] THE STATUS OF OREGON 3 1 Court of St. James, would, if it were possible to bestow a title of endearment upon an Adams, entitle him to be known as the " Father of Oregon." Rush was directed to suggest that, from the nature of things, if in the course of future events it should ever become an object of serious importance to the United States, it can scarcely be supposed that Great Britain would find it useful or advisable to resist their claim to posses- sion by systematic opposition. If the United States leave her in undisturbed enjoyment of all her holds upon Europe, Asia, and Africa, with all her actual possessions in this hemisphere, we may very fairly expect that she will not think it consistent either with a wise or a friendly policy to watch with eyes of jealousy and alarm every possibility of extension to our natural dominion in North America, which she can have no solid interest to prevent, until all possibility of her preventing it shall have vanished.^ As the Convention of 1818 set up a status in which the Oregon country was to remain for nearly thirty years, it is as well to state the claimsi put forward on each side, and the facts adduced to back them up. From the beginning of the negotiation the question of territory west of the " Stony " Mountains was closely interwioven with what Wcis felt to be the more important and older question, namely, the northwest boundary and its extension to the Rockies so as to define the northern limits of Louisiana.'' Finding that the British were insistent upon thus intermingling separate issues, the Americans proposed the extension of the line (the 49fh parallel of latitude), already agreed upon as the ^ Am. St. Papers, For. Rel, vol. iv, p. 854; Reeves, J. iS., American Diplomacy under Tyler and Polk (Baltimore, 1907), p. 217, rightly comments that " there was something of an absurdity in the idea that the United States would leave undisturbed the British possessions in Europe, Asia, and Africa." ' Am. St. Papers, For. Rel, vol. iii, pp. 165, 185. 32 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [32 boimdary east of tlie motmtains, to the Pacific. They did not assert that the United States possessed a perfect title to the region, but that they had a claim good against Great Britain to the whole basin of the Columbia River. This claim was based upon the discovery of the river at its mouth, and the first exploration " from its sources to the ocean by Lewis and Clark," as well as upon first settlement of the territory. Against this formidable if inexact state- ment of facts, the British only urged rights of discovery derived from the voyages of her navigators, and certain purchases alleged to have been made from the natives south of the Columbia prior to the American Revolution. How- ever, they intimated that the Columbia River would be a convenient boundary, as each nation could use the harbor at its mouth."^ In this stage of its development there was no object in pressing seriously the question of territorial sovereignty. The Oregon country, however great its potential value, was of no immediate use to any one except the fur traders, and the interests of these could be preserved by postponing settlement of the territorial question and allowing both governments to spread upon the record their respective claims to the territory in question.^ It was accordingly */6td., vol. iv, p. 381. These arguments well illustrate the inaccurate information upon which the opinions of a generation were to be formed regarding this country. The British appear to have been ignorant of the work of David Thompson upon the northern branch of the Columbia, and of the fact that his trading posts were the first to be established upon its waters; while the American assertion of its exploration from its source is not clear in view of the maps provided by Lewis and Qark, who well knew that they had not explored either of its larger branches. It is perhaps as well that the American pretension to the Columbia basin was not acknowledged by the British in return for an acknowledgment of the superiority of their claims to the coast, as this would have denied the United States access to the excellent harbors on Puget Sound. */6W., vol. iv, p. 378. 33] THE STATUS OF OREGON 33 agreed " that the country on the northwest coast, claimed by either pafty, should, without prejudice to the claims of either, and for a limited time, be opened for the purpose of trade to the inhabitants of both cotmtries." ^ On this adjustment of one of the minor questions of the negotia- tion, Castlereagh commented prophetically, " Time will do much more than we can," in which opinion Albert Gallatin, one of the American negotiators, concurred.^ At the very moment of these discussions in London, Adams was engaged in a negotiation with the Spanish Minister in Washington, designed to compel Spain to cede the Floridas to the United States. In the treaty issuing from this negotiaition, the question of the eastern boundary of Mexico was also settled. After a protracted discussion, in which views were exchanged with considerable heat, owing to the vigorous and high-handed action of General Jackson in suppressing the annoyance of those renegades who took refuge in Florida, a Treaty of Friendship, Cession of the Floridas, and Boundaries was concluded February 22, 1819. In this treaty the northern boundary of Mexico was fixed as the forty-second parallel from the source of the River Arkansas to the South Sea.^ By a further stipulation in the same article of the treaty. His Catholic Majesty also ceded to the United States, " all his rights, claims, and pre- tensions to any territories east and north of the said line." These pretensions were soon to be used by the United States to strengthen her claim upon the Oregon country. Meanwhile, another and greater power attempted to ex- pand her colonial system upon the Pacific. For many years the Russians had maintained settlements on the mainland '■Ibid., vol. iv, p. 381. U. S. Treaties, Conventions, etc., p. 632, Convention of 1818. ' Diary of lames Gallatin (New York, 1916, 2nd ed.), p. 133. ' U. S. Treaties, Conventions, etc., p. 1653, Treaty with Spain of 1819. 34 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [34 and islands of the Northwest Coast, far to the north, which had grown out of the voyages in those parts made by her navigators and traders. The southernmost of these Rus- sian settlements was founded in 1799, at Sitka, in latitude 57° 30'. Moreover, other trading settlements had been formed by Russians, one on the Sandwich Islands, and the other on the mainland just north of San Francisco Bay, in 1814. These had attracted the notice of Judge Prevost, the agent sent to receive the restitution of Astoria, and aroused speculations in his mind upon the intentions with which they had been formed.^ His speculations were not un- justified, for on September 4/16, 1821, the Russian Government annotmced an Ukase, in which were put forth extensive pretensions to the exclusive trade, fisheries, and navigation of the Northwest Coast, from Bering Sea south to the fifty-first degree of latitude.^ As such pretensions were derogatory of the existing trade upon that coast of the nationals of both the United States and Great Britain, these countries at once made representa- tions at the Russian court. So similar were the interests of the two countries in the matter that Adams intimated to Canning, the British Foreign Minister, the desirability of holding a common language in negotiation with Russia. He, however, coupled with it suggestions relative to dem- arcation of the territory and future settlements entirely un- acceptable to Great Britain, and, in the end, the negotiations at St. Petersburg proceeded separately, terminating in a fruitful conclusion for the United States in the Conven- tion with Russia of April 5/17, 1824.* By this Convention Mm. St. Papers, For. Rel, vol. v, p. 436; vol. iv, p. 855. ' Ihid., vol. iv, p. 857, text of Ukase. Cf. correspondence of the Russian Ministers in Washington, 1818-18125, in Am. Hist. Rev., vol. xviii, pp. 309-345. 537-562- * U. S. Treaties, Conventions, etc., p. 1512. 35] THE STATUS OF OREGON 35 the United States secured not only the acknowledgment of the right of free navigation on the Pacific, which was of great importance in the days of exclusive colonial systems, but the delimitation of Russian territorial claims in North America at latitude 54° 40'. Thus was the northern limit of the pretensions of the United States definitely estaWished for the first time. Simultaneous with this negotiation there proceeded at London a prolonged discussion of several of the outstanding questions between the governments of Great Britain and the United States. sAmong these was the question of the respective claims of the two countries to the Northwest Coast. However, the discussion closed without result in the form of a treaty or other arrangement. As the whole of the claims of the two countries were stated fully in the simultaneous discussion at St. Petersburg and London of 1823-4, and no new matter thereafter adduced, it is proper to present them here in some detail. Adams, instructing Mr. Middleton, our Minister to Rus- sia, noted that English, French, Portuguese, and American citizens had for years been carrying on a trade with the .natives of the Northwest Colast "that was neither clan- destine nor unlawful nor irregular," as had been imputed by Russia. In view of the fact that the United States was hdr to the Spanish claims north of latitude 42°, Adams proposed an agreement with Russia of the same import as that of 1 818 with Great Britain, which had established a status of joint occupancy in the country for the purposes of trade only, without prejudice to the claims of any of the parties. In this connection he asserted that the right of the United States on the Pacific Ocean between latitudes 42° and 49° was unquestionable, being founded on acquisition of the Spanish right of discovery,^ as well as the Atnerican dis- 'The voyages of the Spaniards, many of them made by direction of 36 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [36 covery both by sea and land of the Columbia River and the settlements at its mouth. This territory [he said] is to the United States of an import- ance which no possession in North America can be of to any European nation, not only as it is but the continuity of their possessions from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, but as it offers their inhabitants the means of establishing hereafter water communication from the one to the other. Adaims conceived that a possession on the American Con- tinent could be of no use or importance to Russia for any other purpose than that of traffic with the natives, and this end would be attained by his present ofifer, which was made even though " we concede much more than be obtain." '^ This ofifer, with its seeming generosity, because it asked no quid pro quo, was in reality a subtlety of diplomacy; for nearly two thirds of the trade in that northern region to which the Russians had thus far confined their activities * was controlled by Americans, who were not likely to meet dangerous rivalry, if the Russians came south, upon equal terms. The sugg'estion, however, was not accepted by the Russian negotiators. The firm arguments of Middleton eventually prevailed upon them, nevertheless, for he suc- ceeded in the negotiation in spite of the unwillingnes's of the Russians to admit the principle that the Pacific was to the Mexican Viceroy rather than the Home Government, were rarely published, as were those of the great British navigators. This increased not only the difficulties of the American diplomats, but also added to the confusion due to misinformation which marks all the Oregon con- troversy. Greenhow, in his History of Oregon and California, has made a very complete study of these voyages, largely from manuscript sources at Madrid. ' Am. St. Papers, For. Rel, vol. v, p. 437. Instructions to Middleton, July 22, 1823. * Ibid., vol. V, p. 451. 37] THE STATUS OF OREGON 37 be considered free and open to the commerce of each nation, or to accept the limitation of their pretensions to exclusive trading privileges upon the northwest coast of America/ With regard to Russian territorial pretensions, Adams did not use such mild language. Although he was willing to agree to a boundary line in latitude 5S" as the limit of the respective claims of the two countries, he seized the opportunity to voice in no uncertain terms a policy de- signed to support the Ainerican principle of non-interven- tion by rendering the occasions for the exercise of objection- able acts of interference less liable to occur. He reviewed the jealousy excited at the Spanish Q>urt by the attempt of Russia, in 1789, to found settlements on the Northwest Coast south of latitude 61", where Spain alone had claimed an exclusive right, and the Russian disclaimer, in 1790, of any intention of interfering with Spanish claims. Then, noticing that Spain had been compelled the same year by Great Britain in die Nootka Sound Convention to recede from her pretension to exclusive possession, Adsims observed that the Russians had recently formed a settlement in the Sandwich Islands, and another on the coast of California, within a few leagues of San Francisco.^ If the motive of these establishments [he said] was to lay the foundation for an exclusive territorial claim of Russia to the Northwest Coast, down to the very borders of California, and founded thereon, to assert exclusive rights of trading with the natives of the Northwest Coast, and to navigation and fishery in the Pacific Ocean, it is time for the nations whose rights and interests are affected by this project effectually to interpose. There, perhaps, can be no better time for saying, frankly '/6«f., vol. V, pp. 457-469. 'The settlement on Bodega Bay, California, was maintained for a number of years thereafter, but motives therefor other than trade were never made apparent. 36 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [38 and explicitly, to the Russian Government, that the future peace of the world, and the interest of Russia herself, cannot be promoted by Russian settlements upon any part of the American Continent. With the exception of the British estab- lishments north of the United States, the remainder of both the American continents must henceforth be left to the manage- ment of American hands. ^ This S'tatement derived great strength from its frankness, and was effective. On April 5/17, 1824, Russia concluded a convention with the United States, in which it was agreed that in any part of the great ocean, commonly called the Pacific Ocean, or South Sea, the respective citizens or subjects of the high contracting powers shall be neither dis- turbed nor restrained either in navigation or in fishing, or in the power of resorting to the coasts upon points which may not already be occupied, for the purpose of trading with the natives. Furthermore, Russia agreed that henceforth she would make no establishment south of latitude 54° 40', while the United States undertook to make none to the north of that line.^ The instructions to Mr. Rush, Minister at London, bore the same date as those to Mr. Middleton, and contained much the same language. In asserting the American ter- ritorial claim to Great Britain, Adams renewed all the arguments used in 181 8, andj in addition, he called atten- tion to the fact of the restoration of Aistoria, and dwelt with especial emphasis upon the weight of the American claim derived from the contiguity of the waters of the Cblumbia and Mississippi river systems. He spoke of trade and fisheries as " the only useful purpose " of the * For the genesis and development of the Monroe Doctrine, see Moore, J. B., Principles of American Diplomacy (New York, 1918), ch. vi. = U. S. Treaties, Conventions, etc., p. 1512, Treaty with Russia of 1824. 39] THE STATUS OF OREGON 39 North-west Coast at that time, and stated that he could not imagine that " in the present condition of the world, any European nation should entertain the project of settling a colony " there. He even " pointed the finger of nature " at the establishments his country would found in that far- off land, and grasped at the Nootka Sound Convention of 1790 to show that navigation was free in the Pacific, while the extinction of the exclusive rights of Spain through the independence of her colonies had a necessary consequence " that the American Continents, henceforth, will no longer be subjects of Colonization." ^ When these pretensions of the United States, which had grown since 1818 into claims of abs:olute sovereignty over the whole area west of the Rockies, from latitude 42° " at least as far up as 51°," were presented by Rush they were met by total denial. " Great Britain considered the whole of the unoccupied parts of America as being open to her future settlements in like manner as heretofore." ^ She had successfully contested the exclusive claims of Spain, and she would not now concede those of the United States, which rested so largely on the same facts. Britain did not admit the validity of discovery by a private citizen as founda- tion for a national claim to a whole river system, while her surrender of Astoria was in fulfillment of treaty stipulation, and did not affect questions of right. Moreover, her sub- jects had formed settlements on the river coeval with, if not prior to, that at its mouth. Against the claim arising from the voyages of the Spaniards, Great Britain asserted not only earlier discoveries by her own navigators, but the invalidity of a perfect title therefrom, owing to the relin- '., vol. V, p. 447, Adams to 'Rush, July 22, 1823. ritain's contest with 'Spaini vide Manning, Sound Chntroversy (Washington, 1905), Am. Hist. 40 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [40 quishment by Spain of exclusive title in the Nootka Con- vention of 1790.^ To prove priority of discovery, the negotiators turned to comparing the voyages of early navi- gators, xmtil Rush was forced to fall back upon what Hiunboldt calls the apocryphal voyage of Juan de Fuca, who was supposed to have discovered, in 1592, the strait that bears his name.' 'Canning pointed out the logical difficulty in the fact that the various claims of the United States were mutually exclusive of each other,* those based on discovery by Ataericans being in derogation of those by Spaniards, although by this time he was aware the dispute could not be settled by logic. Statesmen and diplomats were grasping at straws, so the British turned to " the more tangible and acknowledged grounds of Use, Occupancy, and Settlement," which had been enjoyed by the North- west Company solely for a decade past in the Colimibia River valley.' Enough has now been said to indicate that the " discussions, which grew into length, . , . terminated without any change of opinion on either side." ° Since we have in the discussions of 1823-1824 all the claims, together with the facts and arguments upon which they were based, of bolth Great Britain and the United States to the Oregon country, it will not be necessary to follow the course of diplomacy further. Within a few years the United States had asserted far-reaching claims to a stretch of practically unoccupied land upon the North- ' Great Britain, Papers Relative to the Negotiation between Great Britain and the United States, Concerning Boundaries (I^ndon, n. d.), p. 4- These papers were compiled for the private use of the Cabinet in the discussion of 1826-7. Cited hereafter as " Boundary Papers." 'Am. St. Papers, For. Rel., vol. v, p. 556. •Great Britain, Boundary Papers, p. 6. •Great Britain, Boundary Papers, p. 10. *Am. St. Papers, For. Rel., vol. v, p. 551. 41 J THE STATUS OF OREGON 41 west Coast, had inherited by treaty stipulation the rights and claims of a great colonial power, and had secured the limitation of the pretensions of another power of the first magnitude to this same coast. As a result of her diplomacy, the Oregon country had come to be defined as that part of the North American continent lying west of the Rocky Moimtains to the Pacific Ocean, between latitude 42° and 54° 40'.^ Very full and frank discussions had taken place with the only other power having claims to that region. However, that power had potential interests based on con- tiguity, which were similar and equal to those of the United States. Therefore, as no adjustment could be reached, a status of joint occupancy had been agreed upon for a period of ten years, which at the expiration of that time was ex- tended indefinitely.'' Clearly, the prediction of Rush, in 1818, that the question of rights would be found full of difficulty was coming true. It is not in the genius of either nation readily to yield what it believes itself entitled to; and however strong our convictions of the just foundations of the whole of our claim on that coast and its interior, the conviction of Great Britain in the stable nature of her right, that interferes so materially with ours, is not less decided and unequivocal.^ As not only were rights in conflict, but the arguments back of them were open to endless contradiction and elaboration on each side, there were only two courses left open by which a settlement could be secured. Either the dispute could be settled by war, or the genius for compromise of the Anglo- ' The claim as high up as 60° was sometimes asserted. ' U. S. Treaties, Conventions, etc., p. 643. Convention with CJreat Britain of 1827. • Rush, R., Memoranda of a Residence at th-e Court of London (Philadelphia, 1833, 2nd ed.), p. 409- 42 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [42 Saxon race might enter upon the scene as a kind of Deus ex Machina. As Professor Moore well says of the grounds on which the United States and Great Britain based their pretensions to the Oregon Territory, " the case appears to have been eminently one for diplomatic compromise." ^ This latter is precisely what happened, for both sides were ever willing to compromise their pretensions, if only their essential interest could be safeguarded. The United States, although withholding it from her first projects in negotiation, stood ready, from 181 8 onward, to divide the territory by prolonging the boundary line between her- self and the British territories from the Rockies to the Sea. Great Britain, to whose fur trade the free navigation of the Columbia was essential, would bring tlie same line west from the mountains to the middle of this river, and down its channel to its mouth in the Sea.^ The settlement as finally made in 1846 extended the boundary by the 49th degree of latitude from the mountains to the middle of the channel between Vancouver Island and the mainland, and down thait to the Sea by the Strait of Fuca, tliereby giving rise to a question as to what was the channel, which was finally determined by arf>itration, in 1872. The treaty of 1846 also granted free navigation of the Columbia to the citizens and subjects of each nation, so that both were established upon the South Sea in positions contiguous to their eastern territories, and of nearly equal natural advant- ages.* 'Moore, J. B., History and Digest of International Arbitrations (Washington, 1898), vol. i, p. 200. Cf. iSchafer, J., op. cit., p. 294, et seq., and Moore, J. B. (ed.), The Works of James Buchanan (Philadelphia, 1908- 1911), vol. v, p. 190. 'The respective suggestions for compromise are laid down on the map accompanying this monograph. •From the letter of Governor J. H. Pelley of the Hudson's Bay 43] THE STATUS OP OREGON 43 This is not the place to retell the story already well told elsewhere,'^ or how that final compromise came to be made. The appearance of the Deus ex Machina was obscured for a while by a rather dense fog of internal politics. However, at no time, in spite of much bellicose talk in Congress, was there any reason or any powerful cohesive interest in either country favoring war instead of compromise. For a period of twenty-eight years from 181 8, the Oregon country existed under the status of joint occupancy, open alike to the traders of Great Britain and the United States, and awaiting the coming of a time when a new interest requiring the definition of real property rights should make compro- mise both advisable and necessary. Thus time did more than the diplomats, and the prediction of Lord Castlereagh was fulfilled. The whole controversy was overlaid with a confusion of argument which it is fortunate the statesmen on neither side really believed. " If the puerile ceremonies which the Europeans call taking possession, and if astrono- mical observations made on a recently discovered coast, could give rights of property, this portion of the new con- tinent would be singularly pieced out and divided among the G>mpany to Mr. Canning, dated December 9, 1825, and Governor Simpson's replies to some questions of Canning, dated December 31, 1825, printed in Great Britain, Boundary Papers, pp. 65, 71, it is clear that great importance was attached to the Columbia Valley; yet it is equally evident from these ■documents and from the " report of Chief Trader M'Millan's Survey from the Columbia to Frazer's River," dated December 31, 1824, and from " Journal of Alexander M'Kenzie, while exploring the mouth of Frazer's River, in 1825 " {ibid., pp. 70, 75) that the British Government was at this time contemplating the eventual necessity of accepting the compromise offered by the United States. 'Moore, J. B., op. cit., vol. i, pp. 196-336; Reeves, J. S., op. cit.; Schuyler, R. L., " Polk and the Oregon Compromise," Political Science Quarterly, vol. xxiv, pp. 443-461 ; Shippee, L. B., " Federal Relations of Oregon," Oregon Historical Quarterly, vols, xix, xx; Schafer, J., " British Attitude toward the Oregon Question ", Am. Hist. Rev., vol. xvi. 44 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [44 Spani£Lrds, English, Russians, French, and Americans." ' But the issues which the statesmen saw were fundamental to the sound interests and future growth of two very powerful and determined, peoples. These issues were hand- led with firmness, and with large vision, and were carried to a peaceable and just conclusion. Before turning from the diplomatic aspect of our story, however, attention should be more strongly drawn to an additional achievement of John Quincy Adams and his associates. These men through many years, congressional speeches to the contrary notwithstanding, fostered and pro- tected the right of the United States to a free expansion westward to the Ocean. But they did more than this, for by boldness and determination they completed a work already begun by Great Britain in freeing the South Sea of the pretensions of national exclusiveness which had so hampered American sea trade since the Revolution. Though negative, this was in itself an accomplishment of moment, which historians of Oregon have often overlooked. Had not this battle been fought and won, the pioneers treading the dustry prairie roads could not have dreamed of white sails upon a Pacific Ocean. ' Humboldt, Alex, von, Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain (London, 181 1), vol. ii, p. 385. CHAPTER III British and American Fur Traders 1813-1840 The story must now turn back to the year 1813, which, it will be recalled, was said to have ended the period of dis- covery and exploration. By that year the Northwest Com- pany was firmly established in the Oregon country as suc- cessor to the Astor enterprise, and was for the first time" in a position to reach forward toward that large future which had been laid out by the far-seeing explorer. Sir Alexander Mackenzie, in 1801. Although Mackenzie had never actually been on the Columbia River, he had directed attention to the fact that whatever course may be taken from the Atlantic, the Columbia is the line of communication from the Pacific Ocean pointed out by nature, as it is the only navigable river in the whole extent of Vancouver's minute survey of that coast. ... By opening this intercourse between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and forming regular establishments through the in- terior, and at both extremes, as well as along the coasts and islands, the entire command of the fur trade of North America might be obtained from latitude 48° to the pole, except that portion of it which the Russians have in the Pacific. To this may be added the fishing in both seas, and the markets of the four quarters of the globe.^ But these markets were not then open to the partners associated in the Northwest Company, for they were sub- * Mackenzie, Alexander, Voyages from Montreal, etc., p. 411. 45] 45 46 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [46 jects of Great Britain. Others of His Majesty's subjects already possessed exclusive privileges in the four quarters of the globe, the old colonial system not having been destroyed by the American Revolution. For this reason the furs gathered upon the Northwest Coast and its interior found their way to Canton in American bottoms.^ The Northwest Company was a Canadian partnership of hardy men who had fallen heir to the fur lands of the French about Lake Superior. By their individual initiative they had pushed their trade into the far plains, the vast, sweep- ing forests, and over the distant, tumbled mountains of the northwestern part of the continent. In doing this they conceived that they had not only done His Majesty a great public service, but that they had acquired a right by prior possession to those territories,^ which their king had granted a hundred and thirty years previously to The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay.' The partners of the Northwest Company had grown up in the trade leading cou/reurs-des-hois and their half-breed descendants into dis- tant places. Moreover, they made those discoveries which the king had enjoined upon the Adventurers of England as part pajmient for their charter. These latter had adven- tured their money only, reljring upon hired servants to do the trading for them, and the servants, with a single ex- ception,* had scarcely gone west of the shores of Hudson's Bay. In short, though the Scotchmen of Montreal, by reason of daring and a physical superiority over the Englishmen, ' Greenhow, Robert, History of Oregon and California, p. 266. * Mackenzie, op. cit, p. 408. ' Willson, B., The Great Company (Toronto, 1899), App. *Heame, Samuel, A Journey from Prince of Wales Fort in Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean (London, 1795), passim. 47] BRITISH AND AMERICAN PUR TRADERS 47 had discovered half a continent and created a valuable trade, they nevertheless felt a certain inferiority to their rivals, who had a financial and legal position, with aU the attendant advantages. For this reason Alexander Macken- zie attached to liie recital of his discoveries a full history of the fur trade out of Montreal, together with an eloquent appeal for the union of the two companies. According to Mackenzie, individual initiative had shown, " the non-existence of a practicable passage by sea, and the existence of one through the continent," which might be made the means to national advantage in trade. Experience, however, has proved that this trade, from its very nature, cannot be carried on by individuals. A very large capital, or credit, or indeed both, is necessary, and, conse- quently, an association of men of wealth to direct, with men of enterprise to act, in one common interest, must be formed on such principles, as that in due time the latter may succeed the former, in continual and progressive succession.^ Under the privileges of the Hudson's Bay Company charter, he thought the trade might be carried on with a very superior degree of advantage, both private and public. For some reason the negotiation which Mackenzie must have been conducting in London did not have material results outside of his brilliant and interesting narrative pubUshed in 1801. His suggestions remained in abejrance for twenty years, until experience and bloodshed caused the British Government to urge acceptance of his views. For a time the Hudson's Bay Company continued a narrow scale of operations along the shores of its bay, and kept its rivers tightly closed to the goods of the Nor'westers who were casting longing eyes at these streams, which would give so much shorter routes to the scene of their operations 1 Mackenzie, op. cit, p. 408. ^.8 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [48 in the great plains and forests of the northwest. Nor did the Hudson's Bay Company ever try to enforce their monopoly against the Nor'westers, who were poachers upon territory which had been granted to the Company. The Company allowed its servants to be beaten, robbed, and insulted by the traders and halfbreeds of their poaching rivals. However, as long as war lasted and Napoleon shut off the continental markets, the Great Company complained only of losses due to being compelled to hold furs which they could not dispose of at a profit.^ With the approach of peace, the gentlemen of the Hud- son's Bay Company began to show signs of a more active interest in the future of their territories. The Scottish Lord Selkirk for some nine years had been endeavoring to interest the Company in a proposal to colonize part of their territories. However, it was not until he had purchased his way into the Company, which by 1810 was beginning to feel the pinch of war both financially and in the difficulty of obtaining servants, did he find any readiness on its part to consider the advisability of a change in its methods. As the location on the Red River selected for the settlement* was the point where the Nor'westers prepared their pem- mican * from the buffalo, and as it was clear that the colony ' It is doubtful if the Company could have enforced their legal privi- leges, for the British Government in its desperate situation would hardly have found it wise to antagonize a great Canadian interest at the behest of Englishmen who would take no advantage therefrom. On this point the historian of the Great Company, from whose pages the story of this rivalry is extracted, is strangely silent. As he tells it, the Canadians appear to be very aggressive, which characteristic, though natural to these men, was rarely exercised without some provocation. Cf. Willson. B., op. cit., chs. xxviii-xxxii. ' On the eastern side of the prairie ; almost the present site of the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba. ' Pemmican is a preparation of protein and fat, universally used »s food in the north country when game becomes scarce. 4^] BRITISH AND AMERICAN PUR TRADERS 45 would be used to harass the Nor'westers' trade, the whole scheme aroused the prompt opposition of the active agents in London of the Northwest Company. It was two years before the settlers of Lord Selkirk's expedition even reached their destination, while another two years passed before the settlement showed signs of any permanency. In the meantime, both sides had been playing the familiar trick of commercial rivals, of enticing away each other's em- ployees; but, in 181 5, when the colony seemed established, the Nor'westers turned to stronger measures to check what they considered " an invasion of their himting grounds." In 1813, the Northwest Company built Fort William,^ on the north shore of Lake Superior, as Grand Portage, their former entrepot, proved to be within the territory of the United States. From this place the scheme was laid for the destruction of the Red River settlement. Two of the partners were assigned in 1814 to conduct a propaganda of fear, despair, and the hope of reward, among the ignorant colonists at Red River, who were Scotch and Irish peasants. Then, in the following year, it was a comparatively easy matter for these partners, with the help of a few half- breeds, to incite a riot, in the course of which the settle- ment was ruined, its loyal inhabitants dispersed, and its governor sent to Montreal, a prisoner. Lord Selkirk was not the same stamp of man as his asso- ciates; but followed up in person his colonizing venture, which was a philantropic enterprise near his heart. The Governor General of Canada, being friendly to the power- ful fur merchants of the Northwest Company who resided in his capital, refused military support to Lord Selkirk. However, the latter found the means to attain his end ready at hand in the shape of three German regiments that had ' Fort William is to-day a modern city, where the grain of western Canada is trans-shipped from rail to water carriage. ^O OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [50 been shipped to America by Great Britain in the fall of 1 814, in preparation for an attack, which the British hoped would bring them victory, in the War of 181 2. Upon their demobilization in Canada, some hundred of these men were engaged by Lord Selkirk to join his colony on the Red River, where the settlers had again congregated, apparently not knowing what else to do. The Hudson's Bay people had been active in cleaning out several of the prairie posts of their rivals. These had retaliated by seizing some of the English Company's property, and were collecting their half-breed forces from the distant north and west. Events were moving so rapidly that any, even the simplest, incident might have a bloody termination. Such is what happened when the half-^breeds rode in vindictive mood upon the set- tlement, shot the govemoi-, June 19, 1816, during an alterca- tion, and compelled the settlers by threats of dire results to take canoes for Hudson's Bay. The rejoicing of the Nor' westers at Fort William was short-lived, as the Earl of Selkirk, on his way from Canada to his settlement, soon arrived with his ex-soldiers before the gates of this, the principal post of the Montreal traders. He seized the post and the papers of the concern, and sent the partners to Hudson's Bay as prisoners, from whence they were transferred to Montreal by ship. The Eai'l re- joiced that he had performed a national service in suppress- ing banditti and murderers, but in Montreal the Nor'west partners were released, and publicly acclaimed. The Gover- nor General of Canada was required to establish the statits quo ante, and an intermittent series of outrages and depreda- tions continued until, in 1819, the agents of the Northwest Company in London petitioned the interference of His Majesty. In truth, the British Government had too long neglected its distant territories, and suffered a commercial concern gij BRITISH AND AMERICAN FUR TRADERS 51 to usurp its own proper function of the enforcement of legal rights. Its weight was, therefore, at last exerted upon the Hudson's Bay Company, and the death of Lord Selkirk, in 1820, made possible the reconciliation and union of the two companies, sanctioned by act of Parliament ^ upon nearly the same lines as laid down by Alexander Mackenzie twenty years before. This account of the strife of the two trading companies upon the Red River of the North has been given at some length, because it is the real history of Oregon during the period. The Columbia River country lay almost dormant and unprofitable under the Nor'west regime between 1813 and 1 82 1, and its trade remained unextended.^ During this ■time American fur traders were busy exploiting the Missouri River country, and kept out of the Columbia valley ; nor did Astor renew his enterprise upon the western slope of the Rockies. So, this region, wonderfully rich in furs, open to the citizens and subjects of the United States and Great Britain on equal terms, remained untouched by the citizens of the one at a time when the subjects of the other sent the new superintendent of the reinvigorated Hudson's Bay Company to examine the possibilities of the Oregon Territory, in which they found themselves so favor- ably situated.' This man, George Simpson, the active field head of the reorganized Company, journeyed overland, in the spring of 1824, to Fort George, in company with Chief Factor John McLoughlin, who was to be placed in control of the Com- pany's affairs on the Pacific. In compliance with the wish 1 I & 2 Geo. IV, 66. (1821). 'Q)x, Ross, Adventures on the Columbia River, vol. ii, pp. 51-2. ^ Great Britain, Boundary Papers, p. 65, letter of Gov. Pelley to Mr. Canning, December 9, 1825. This letter is also published in Oregon Historical Quarterly, vol. xx, pp. 27-33 ; cf. pp. 331-334- 22 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [52 of the British Foreign Secretary, these gentlemen abandoned the estabhshment of Fort George (Astoria), which lay at the mouth of the river, on the south bank, and erected a new post on the north bank, a hundred miles inland, which Governor Simpson named Fort Vancouver.^ This point was considered " so well adapted for agricul- tural pursuits, that, in the course of two or three years, it may be made to produce sufficient grain and animal provi- sions to meet not only the demands of our own trade, but to almost any extent that may be required for other pur- poses." Furthermore, possession of this place, and a right to the navigation of the Columbia were thought " to be quite necessary to our carrying on to advantage not only the trade of the upper parts of the Columbia River, but also that of the country interior, from the mouth of Fraser's River, and the coasting trade, all of which can be provisioned from this place." " Under McLoughlin's guidance, Fort Vancouver soon grew into a post second only to that of York Factory, on Hudson's Bay. Here were maintained not only a large farm for the production of grain, cattle, hogs, and dairy produce, but also grist and lumber mills, and a blacksmith's shop for the repair of traps and other implements of the trade. Here, too, were the warehouses where the goods were received from the ships that came each year from London, and stored while awaiting trans-shipment either up river, or to the smaller vessels used in the coasting trade.' Other warehouses held the peltries brought from the interior or the northern coast to be repacked for the voyage to London or China. ' Ibid., p. 65. • Ore, Hist. Quart., vol. xx, p. 65. • The Company sent out the steamer Beaver, said to be the first 'of its kind on the Pacific, as it could run further up the narrow bays than could sailing vessels. 23] BRITISH AND AMERICAN FUR TRADERS 53 A place which is the center of a great trade may be ex- pected to become also the center of the social life which necessarily accompanies man wherever he goes, and its character to be in some measure a reflection of the early train- ing of its leaders. Most of the women were Indians, from the wife of the Chief Factor down to the companion of the humble voyageur. Social status was strictly maintained; a school became necessary within a few years ; and hospital- ity to the travellers who visited the place in increasing numbers was extended with a large friendliness, but al- ways in accordance with their bearing and station in life/ Governor Simpson reported in 1824 that the Company had thirteen posts west of the Mountains, and that furs were procured both from the natives and from expeditions which travelled on horseback along the Willamette, Snake, and other rivers, trapping and trading, south to the very boarders of California.^ The trade yielded between £30,000 and £40,000, annually, and was yet in its infancy, no attempt having 'been made as yet to enter the rich, dense forests be- tween the Columbia and the Fraser JRivers, which the Gov- ernor caused to be explored with this in view. Of Ameri- cans there had been no evidence since 181 3, save a few who had straggled across from the sources of the Missouri, during the last season.* 1 A convenient account of Fort Vancouver is found in Parker, Rev. Samuel, Journal of an Exploring Tour (Ithaca, 1838), p. 186 ff. An earlier report is that of Jedidiah S iSmith, who remained eight months at Fort Vancouver, 1828-9, in 21st Cong. 2nd Sess. Sen. Doc, no. 39, pp. 22-23. ' See Journals of the Snake Country Expeditions of Alexander Ross, 1824 P. iS. Ogden, 1828-29, John Work, 1830-31, edited by T. C. Elliott, in Ore. Hist. Quart., vols, x, xi, xiii, xiv. 3 Great Britain, Boundary Papers, pp. 6s, 70-75, Reply of Gov. Simpson to some questions of For. Sec. Canning, dated December 31, 1825 ; Ross, A., Journal oi—Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. xiv, p. 385. 54 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [54 These Americans were not stragglers, however, but a party led by a young man who, in a few years, was to make explorations into the region west of the Rockies as bold and important as those of Alexander Maxdcenzie. His name was Jedidiah S. Smith, and he came from the Missouri to the headwaters of Snake River, in pursuance of a well-laid plan of his employer, General William H. Ashley, the fur trader of St. Louis. Since iSio, various Americans, some of French and Spanish extraction, had been carrying on a small trade along the upper Missouri, with indifferent success, due to the fact that the Indians of this region favored the Canadian traders, and also to the fact that the largest and most im- portant tribe, the Blackfeet, was extremely hostile.^ In the year 1822, Ramsey Crooks, one of Astor's old men who had made the overland journey toi Oregon, and who was still in his service in the American Fur Company, came down to St. Louis to establish there a long contemplated western branch of that concern. The northern branch, at Michili- mackinac on Lake Superior, had always been tlie rival of the St. Louis people on the headwaters of the Mississippi. There were several other adventurers in the same field of operations on the upper Missouri, who, in the course of a few years, were absorbed by Astor's Comany. To meet this strong competition. General Ashley, who had gone into partnership with Andrew Henry, in 1822, in what came to be known as the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, was compelled absolutely to change his method of con- ducting the business. Formerly he had followed the cus- tom of obtaining his furs by trade with the Indians at posts along the Missouri, and sending them down to St. Louis in keel boats. By 1824, after two years of disastrous ^Chittenden, H. M., The American Fur Trade of the Far West, chs. iv-vi ^g] BRITISH AND AMERICAN FUR TRADERS 55 experience with treachery and accident, he had adopted the method of mounting his young men on horseback, and send- ing them off in well-eqtiippel parties, under capable leader- ship, to live off the country, and to do the actual trapping themselves.'^ Four mighty rivers flowed from the region he essayed to enter: the Columbia, the Colorado, the Rio Grande, and the Missouri. However, this country was more accessible by way of the route up the Platte River valley, the river not being navigable, than by the Missouri. Therefore, he abandoned boats and the Missouri altogether, and sent out his goods by pack train, up the Platte valley to the moun- tains. Soon, however, he realized that wagons could be used on this route, as the returning Astorians had pointed out some years before, and he sent a four-pound wheeled cannon as far west as the Great Salt Lake, in 1826.* His successors later used wagons almost exclusively for the transport of goods from the hustling little towns of Weston and Independence, Missouri, on the frontier, at the great bend of the river. These towns did a thriving trade with Santa Fe, in Mexico, and with the mountain Rendezvous in the heart of the Rockies just across the continental divide. The Rendezvous was the meeting-place of the caravan from St. Louis and the parties of trappers who remained the year round in the Rocky 'Mountains. It was held in July of each year, in a valley that had been previously designated, and was a place for debauch, as well as for replenishment of equipment. General Ashley, having made a fortune, retired from the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, in 1826, and the business was carried on by Smith, Jackson, and Sublette, until 1830, when they were succeeded by others. Sublette went into ' Wyeth, N. J., Correspondence and Journals (Eugene, 1899), p. 74. ' 2ist Cong, and Sess. Sen. Doc, no. 39, p. 7. ^6 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [56 partnership with Robert Campbell of St. Lotus, for the purpose of supplying the goods which he himself took out to Rendezvous. This 'business of the " equipper," as it was called, soon came to be more profitable than that of trap- ping, and in the hands of the supply-men lay the whole control of the policy of the American fur trade in the Rocky Motmtains, — to what end will appear later. The goods traded at Rendezvous each July for beaver consisted of the usual Indian trinkets and paint, blankets, hardware, cooking utensils, traps, axes, firearms, and ammu- nition, with a little sugar, cofifee, and chocolate, and enough liquor for a two weeks' spree. These were sold at " moun- tain prices" to Indians, company employees, and fur trap- pers, alike; — usually on credit which served to bind one and all to the will of the equipper. Upon leaving Rendez- vous, the trappers went ofip north, west, and south, in small detachments, to the life of wild adventure which they loved. They lived entirely off the country, since game was plenti- ful almost everywhere; there was always just enough grass along the water-courses to forage their animals; and when wood for fuel could not be found, they used the bois de vache of the buffalo. At night they hobbled the horses, and slept under the open sky : thus were the necessities of living sup- plied by the generous hand of Nature.^ The trappers wintered in the numerous " holes," as the small circular valleys of the Rocky Moimtains are called, with the Indians, amongst whom they took wives. Here they would spend the long evenings by collecting in some of the most spacious lodges and entering into debates, arguments, and spinning long yarns, until mid- night, in perfect good humor, and I for one, [wrote one of the trappers,] will cheerfully confess that I have derived no little benefit from the frequent arguments and debates held in what 'Russell, Osborne, Journal of a Trapper (Boise, 1915), p. 37. 27] BRITISH AND AMERICAN PUR TRADERS 57 we termed " The Rocky Mountain College," and I doubt not but some of my comrades who considered themselves classical scholars, have had some little added to their wisdom in the assemblies, however rude they might appear.^ The college, however, was not in constant session, as can be seen from the following note taken from the diary of a Hudson Bay trader, P. S. Ogden, made while wintering on the upper Snake : " By the arrival of the Americans, we have a new stack of cards in camp, eight packs. Some of the American trappers have already lost upwards of $400." ^ Very early in the exploitation of the mountain fur re- gions, extensive explorations of the whole country west to the shores of the Pacific were made by responsible leaders of the St. Louis trade, so that these equippers were always in possession of that detailed information concerning the possi- bilities and the difficulties of the region, upon which any such trade must be based. In 1825, General Ashley him- self attempted to float down the Green (Colorado) River in a boat from his Rendezvous, and got a considerable dis- tance before being satisfied that the lower part of the river was not suitable for his exploitation. From Hudson's Bay Company trappers he learned something of the country about Salt Lake and to the westward, but the Americans were not satisfied until they had explored it themselves. In 1829, Joshua Pilcher of the Missouri Fur Company made a journey from Bear Lake north to Fort Colville on the upper Columbia, and came east with the Hudson's Bay Company express, by way of Athabasca Pass, for the ^Ibid., p. 41. " Ore. Hist. Quart,, vol. xi, p. 374. " These winters in Brown's Hole are somewhat like winters among the mountains of New England, in the effects they produce on the rise and progress of the art of all arts — the art of love." Farnham, T. J., Travels i,n the Great Western Prairies (New York, 1843), p. 109. 58 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [58 purpose of ascertaining " the attractions and capabilities for trade " of the Columbia River country.^ In discussing his explorations, mider the caption, " Passes through the Mountains," Pilcher said : The most erroneous ideas prevail upon this head. The Rocky Mountains are deemed by many to be impassable, and to pre- sent the barrier which will arrest the westward march of the American population. The man must know but little of the American people who supposes they can be stopped by any- thing in the shape of mountains, deserts, seas, or rivers, and he can know nothing at all of the mountains in question to suppose that they are impassable. I have been familiar with these mountains for three years, and have crossed them often, ... I have, therefore, the means to know something about them, and a right to oppose my knowledge to the suppositions of strangers. I say, then, that nothing is more easily passed than these mountains. Wagons and carriages may cross them in a state of nature with little difficulty, and with little delay in the day's journey. Some parts are very high ; but the gradual rise of the country, in the vast slope from the Mississippi to the foot of the mountains, makes a considerable elevation with- out perceptible increase, and then the gaps and depressions let you through almost upon a level. This is particularly the case opposite the head of the Platte, where I crossed in 1827. . I have crossed here often, and always without delay or diffi- culty. It is, in fact, one of the best passes, and presents the best overland route from the valley of the Mississippi to the mouth of the Columbia, and would follow the Platte and Lewis' (Snake) River.- '21 Cong. 2trd Sess. Sen. Doc, no. 39, pp. 7-13. This entire subject has recently been covered by Dale, H. C, The Ashley-Smith Explora- tions and the Discovery of a Central Route to the Pacific, i822-iSi9 (Cleveland, 1918) ; see especially Ashley's long letter of December I. 1825. to General Henry Atkinson, narrating his explorations, pp. 117-161. ' 2lst Cong. 2nd. Sess. Sen. Doc. no. 39, p. 19. Cf. Flint, Timothy, A Condensed Geography and History of the Western States (Cincinnati, 1828), p. 437; and 19th Cong, ist Sess. House Executive Document, no. lir. gg] BRITISH AND AMERICAN FUR TRADERS 59 The pass of which Pilcher speaks, known far and wide as the South Pass, is said to have been discovered by Ashley's nxen, in 1824. It lay just north of the route by which the Astor party returned, in 181 3. Probably it was known to the occasional trappers who lived with the Indians for years before this time, as Indian trails ran through every mountain gap, but Ashley and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company were the first to make commercial use of this great natural highway.^ When Jedediah S. Smith became a partner of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company,^ he determined upon exploration of the Mexican desert country which was known to lie ibeyond the Great Salt Lake, to learn its possibilities with regard to beaver trapping. In 1826, he set out from Rendezvous in the heart of the mountains, with a small party on horseback, and travelled south past the Salt and Utah Lakes, along the Sevier and Virginia Rivers, to the Colorado just below its Grand 'Canyon. From this river he crossed the Mohave Desert and San Bernardino range to San Diego, thence north through San Joaquin valley, east over the Sierra Nevada, and out upon the desert a little north of Mono Lake. He crossed this desert in a northeast direction, to the Salt Lake and the rendezvous of 1827, suffering much from hunger and thirst. He immediately set out again re- tracing his course to the point whence he had left the Colorado the previous year. However, on reaching this place some of his party were massacred. He once more crossed the Mohave Desert, this time arriving at Los Angeles, and from there he went north by the San Joaquin ' Letter of Smith, Jackson, and Sublette to Secretary of War, October 29, 1830, 2ist Cong. 2nd Sess., iSen. Doc. no. 39, p. 21. Cf. Dale, op. eit., pp. 39, 40, 89, 90, 93-95. The precise date of discovery by white trappers of this Indian highway is an academic question. " Vide, p. SS. 6o OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [60 to San Jose. Naturally, he was not welcomed by the jealous Mexicans, who knew what his coming presaged, and who had set the Indians upon him. Nevertheless, he travel- led leisurely, trapping as he went northward up the Sacra- mento, over the Siskiyou Moimtains and out upon the coast at the mouth of the Umpqua River. Here the Indians fell upon and murdered his party and seized his beaver, but he himself made his way northward to Fort Vancouver, where the Chief Factor disciplined the Indians, and secured the return of his furs. He stayed at Fort Vancouver until the spring of 1829, and then returned to Rendezvous, a very much wiser man.^ Since Smith did not himself publish his findings, it is pecessary to give these in part in the words of Albert Galla- tin, who had long possessed a scientific as well as diplomatic interes.t in the Far West. The result of Mr. Smith's journey is, that the whole country south of that [Snake] river, from the vicinity of the Rio Colorado to the California Mountains, is an immense sandy plain, in which a few detached mountains are seen, from which flow small streams that are soon lost in the sand. A solitary antelope or black-tailed deer may sometimes be seen. A few wild Indians are scattered over the plain, the most miserable objects in creation.^ From this it is clear that natural limitations put a stop to the westward activities of the St. Louis fur hunters, for the desert, however attractive it may be to the prospector with a burro and a bag of beans, had neither game nor grass enough for the trapper who must live off the country. Other reasons kept these men out of the Columbia River country. ' Dale, op. cit., ch. iii. ' Gallatin, A., in Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian Society (Cambridge, 1836), vol. ii, p. 136. 6l] BRITISH AND AMERICAN FUR TRADERS 6l The American trappers who were most famiHar with the situation hesitated to enter the Oregon territory for two very good reasons, though several easterners unsuccessfully attempted to compete with the Hudson's Bay Company on the Pacific. One reason was the inequality experienced in the operation of the joint-occupancy convention, which had been " intended to grant reciprocal privileges," but which time had proved to be a reciprocity " in words only." The cause of this lay in the peculiar geographic features of the Oregon country, for " the privileges granted by it (the Convention of 1818) have enabled the British to take pos- session of the Columibia River, and spread over the country south of it; while no Americans have ever gone, or can venture to go on the British side," ^ the greater part of which must be reached not from the river, but from the coast. The other reason why the Americans did not enter upon competition with the Hudson's Bay Company is that it was thought to be contrary to the interest of the St. Louis equippers to do so. The success of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company was each year drawing a large horde of free trappers into the mountain region, and in their wake came a motley array of eastern adventurers, missionaries, and their wives, English sportsmen, naturalists, travellers, and mere wanderers, who gathered at Rendezvous to moralize upon the wickedness of man, or to enter into his revels. In 183 1, the American Fur Company extended its operations from the Missouri to the mountains, but as its leaders were not acquainted with the country, they adopted the simple expedient of following the parties of the Rocky Mountain Company. All this meant so much competition that the trade very quickly became almost wholly the work of indi- vidual free trappers, and the old organized parties were '21st Cong. 2n(I Sess. Sen. Doc. no. 39^ PP. IS, 21. 62 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [62 broken up. This played directly into the hands of the equippers, who seem to have found more profit in this business than in that of trapping. The equippers were men of position and connections suffi- cient to secure credit in the East, whose homes were in St. Louis, and who invested considerable capital in the outfits they sent to the mountains. In such circumstances it is not unnatural that these men should attack every effort made to establish a supply business on the Pacific.^ Captain Bonne- ville, leader of an independent enterprise, made two attempts ( 1833-34) to trap and trade in the Snake River country, but failed because he was imable to obtain either goods or pro- visions from the Hudson's Bay Company. He also ordered another expedition to explore across the interior desert from Salt Lake to the California coast." In 1832, Nathaniel J. Wyeth put into operation a plan, as large and well conceived as was the Astoria project. It contemplated forming a base upon Columbia River tide-water to receive goods, sent by ship from Boston, and take advantage, as circum- stances made it possible, of any or all of the several oppor- tunities which the country offered — 'salmon fishing, coast trade, provision trade, trade virith the natives of the interior, ' " While the outfits continue from St. Louis — and a strong influential party has a direct interest in keeping the trade in that channel — we shall always be able to compete with them, but the moment the entrepot is formed by American subjects near the mouth of the Columbia, goodbye to our advantages." Archibald McDonald to John' McLeod, from Fort Colville, January 25, 1837, Wash. Hist. Quart., vol. ii, p. 256. On this point the letter of Wyeth, N. J. {Correspondence, pp. 73-78), of No- vember 8, 1833, to the gentleman who proposed to back him in his second venture, is very illuminating. He states that the Rocky Mountain Fur Company paid to William L. Sublette about $30,000 for goods at the rendezvous, the first cost of which was only about $6,000, and $8,000 for transporting the furs to St. Louis. 'Irving, W., The Rocky Mountains (Philadelphia. 1837), and Leonard, Zenas, Narrative of the Adventures of (Reprint, Cleveland, 1904). 63] BRITISH AND AMERICAN FUR TRADERS 63 trapping and supply of goods to the Rocky Mountain Rendez- vous. Initial loss, inevitable in so extensive an undertaking agaist the competition of such well established and powerful rivals as the Hudson's Bay Company and the St. Louis equippers, caused the withdrawal of his financial backers, and abandonment of the plan, in 1836.^ However, he left a permanent memorial, which was to become an important station for rest and repair upon the Oregon high road,' when he built Fort Hall, on the upper reaches of Snake River. This he did ( 1834) to store the goods he had contracted to bring into the mountains for the partners of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. Under the influence of the St. Louis equippers, the Company broke their agreement to buy his goods. He promptly built the fort, in the foothills of the Rockies, and sold it, together with its contents, to the Hudson's Bay Company, in fulfillment of a threat to " roll a stone into their (the Rock Mountain Fur Com- pany's) garden, which they would never be able to get out." His parting comment was a true statement of the condition which the mountain fur trade had reached, when he wrote to one of the partners of that concern : " You will find that you have only bound yourself over to receive your supplies at such a price as may be inflicted upon you, and that all you will ever make in this country will go to pay for your goods. You will be kept, as you have been, a mere slave to catch beaver for others." ^ From the lack of success of these efforts to dislodge the English Company from its trade on the Columbia, it is 'Chittenden, op. cit., p. 455, I think, goes out of his way to blame the failure also on " the apathy of the United States Government to its true interests on the Pacific." Wyeth's own explanation is as given in the text. Wyeth, N. J., op. cit., p. 150. Cf. Townsend, J. K., Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains (Philadelphia, 1839), PP- 224-S. 'Wyeth, N. J., op. cit., p. 140. 64 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [64 clear that Joshua Pilcher had truly stated the fact, in 1829, when he called attention to the fulfillment of Alexander Mackenzie's prediction that the fur trade north from the forty-eighith degree of latitude to the frozen ocean could be controlled by a transcontinental communication with an en- trepot on both oceans.^ The earliest effort made by any group of American citizens with material interests in the country west of the Rocky Mountains to terminate the joint occupancy status of Oregon and determine upon a definite boundary, came from these St. Louis fur traders ^ after they had learned that it was impossible to exploit even the southern branch of the Columbia River with the Hudson's Bay Company intrenched in so advantageous a position. They failed because their object was too remote from the common interests of most Americans, and would not furnish an immediately service- able political issue in those lusty days of Andrew Jackson, when elections were held largely to determine through whom the people should rule. The Americans made no pretense of a policy other than '2ist Cong. 2nd Sess. Sen. Doc, no. 39, p. 14. 2 There was an earlier effort, led by John Floyd, made in 1820, under the guise of a colony at the mouth of the 'Columbia, to be fostered by the Government. The purpose of the move was probably to lend digfnity to his opposition to J. Q. Adams, who so ably guarded and guided the interests of the United States upon the Pacific. It was not the last time this pet interest of Adams was to be iseizedi upon by a political opponent, but none succeeded in making much capital from it. For Floyd's efforts, see Ambler, Charles, Life and Diary of John Floyd (Richmond, 1918), ch. iii. For the course of the various attempts to make a political issue out of the status of the Oregon Country, see Shippee, L. R., " Federal Relations of Oregon," in Ore. Hist. Quart, vols, xix-xx. Benton, Thirty Years' View (New York, 1858), vol, i, p. no, claims to have called attention to the inequality of the Convention of 1818 as soon as it was published, saying, " We furnish the whole stake — country, river, harbor; and shall not even maintain the joint use of our own." 65] BRITISH AND AMERICAN FUR TRADERS 65 opportunism in the conduct of the fur trade; a policy in sharp distinction to that of the Hudson's Bay Company, who sought to control and restrain the natives as well as conserve the beaver. To an Englishman, in the American mode of commerce with the natives there was no unity of purpose — no communion of interest — no fraternity of feeling — no system — no guiding spirit to direct and control it; but it was a loose, dissipated, jealous sort of thing — jealous not only of British rivalry, but also of American rivalry — and eager to grasp at any article of trade, however worthless, and by any means, however unworthy; and hence losing the attainment of important objects.^ Though this is true, it must be remembered that the only object of the American trade was immediate profit, and that the feature of national advantage was but incidental, which could be called upon, as Astor did,^ when it was desired to iiDunn, John, The Oregon Territory (Philadelphia, 1845), p, 156. It was not a large affair — less than five hundred men employed in the mountains — the iSanta Fe trade being much more important. The St. Louis warehouse of the American Fur Company was scarcely larger than a barn; and the cit/s inhabitants, for all their far connections, remained as naive as they had been in 1824, when the leading hostess welcomed the Marquis de Lafayette upon his tour of the United States : Cest votre premiere visite en Amerique, M. le General ? " Stewart, Sir Wm. G. D., EUward Warren (London, 1854), p. 75. 'Astor wrote to Senator Benton, under date of February 9, 1829: " I think, iSir, a duty of fifteen to twenty per cent on all furs ought to be laid ; and I do think that unless it is done, we must give up the trade with the Indians, which, I am authorized to say, has by great exertion and expertse, been put, and is at present, on a respectable footing — much more so than it ever has been. The American Fur Company have for years past, and now do employ a capital of a million or more of dollars. They have not yet been able to declare a dividend' — they require the protection of Governm.ent, which I hope will no longer be withheld, and to the obtainment of which I take the liberty to call on^ you for your, good aid. I ask it on account of the many young and enterprising men engaged in the trade." 20th Cong. 2nd Sess. Sen. Doc. no. 67, p. 17. No American ever asked for governmental regulation of the trade, however. 66 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [66 secure popular favor or governmental support. Service under the American companies or as free trappers, how- ever, was much preferred to that of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany, for the trapper heartily disliked all authority. Under the American system he might make a fortune, if he had luck, a thing impossible under the English Company for any except the partners, and then only after long years of strictest attention to the trade.^ Both English and Amer- icans trapped out the Rocky Mountain — Snake River — country where they were in contact, without regard to con- servation; but another change was a'bout to take place, which was the real end of the fur trade, so far as beaver was concerned. It was in 1832 that Mr. Astor, having built up one of the lasting American fortunes, even though his Company did not pay dividends, retired from the fur trade. At the same time he wrote in a letter from London : " I very much fear beaver will not sell well very soon unless very fine. It appears they make hats of silk in place of beaver." ^ The change he foresaw came within a few years, so that by 1846 ibeaver had so depreciated in value that trapping was almost abandoned. Skins that formerly brought from six to eight dollars per pound had fallen to one dollar, and the remuneration received hardly paid for the expense of the outfit for the hunt.^ In the Rocky Mountains, however, the change came ' Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. xi, pp. 368-374. " Journal of P. ,S. Ogden." ' Chittenden, H. M., op. cit., p. 364. 'Ruxton, G. F., Adventures in Mexico (Reprint, New York, 1915), pp. 184-231. Hudson's Bay Company sales in London were. 1S3Q 1846 Price of beaver skin 27/6 3/5 Number of beaver skins 55,486 45,389 Amount realized ^76,312 £7,856 Martin, R. M., Hudson's Bay Territories (London, 1849), p. 52. 67] BRITISH AND AMERICAN FUR TRADERS 67 sooner, and for more local reasons. By 1840, both the fur- bearing animals and the game upon which life itself de- pended were practically exhausted, and " the trappers often remarked to each other as they rode over these lonely plains that it was time for the white man to leave the mountains, as beaver and game had nearly disappeared." ^ So many of them turned westward, with their Indian wives and children, to settle as farmers in the fertile Willamette Valley of Oregon, where they became an important and stable element in the growing community. There were, however, many who remained in the mountains to earn their living by establishing posts for repair of wagons and utensils, or by guiding the emigrant parties, who were begin- ning to raise the dust clouds along the Oregon trail.^ The service of the American trappers to their country, however incidental to their pursuit of happiness, neverthe- less has been immense. Not a hole or corner in the vast wilderness of the " Far West " but has been ransacked by these hardy men. From the Mississippi to the mouth of the Colorado of the West, from the frozen regions of the North to the Gila in Mexico, the beaver hunter has set his traps in every creek and stream. All this vast country but for the daring enterprise of these men, would be even now a terra incognita to geographers, as indeed a great portion still is ; but there is not an acre that has not been passed and repassed by the trappers in their perilous excur- sions. The mountains and streams still retain the names as- signed to them by the rude hunters, and these alone are the hardy pioneers who have paved the way for the settlement of the western country.' ' Russell, O., op. cit., pp. 94, pS ; cf. Wislizenus, F. A., A Journey to the Rocky Mountains in the Years 1838-39 (Translation, St. Louis, 1912), p. 88. ' Chittenden, H. M., op. cit., p. 476,— Fort Bridger. ' Ruxton, G. F., Wild Life in the Rocky Mountains (Reprint, New York, 1916), pp. 151, 152. CHAPTER IV Missionary Colonists 1 834- 1 843 The trappers were not quite alone in paving the way for tiie settlements on the Pacific. By the year 1834 the wonders of life in the American Far West had attracted the attention of many, both in the Eastern States and in Europe. The wide freedom of action, the natural beauty and grandeur of the setting, the adventures which lurked just over the prairie hills, as well as the scenic and geog- raphical marvels of the highway, were all proving a power- ful attraction to draw not only wanderers and lovers of sport, but scientific men and others to Santa Fe or up the Missouri and into the Rocky Mountains along the paths of the trapjping and trading fraternity. Missionaries too, as we have seen, for some time past had been manifesting a real, if unenthusiastic, interest in the future of the yet wild natives of the Pacific slope, and had talked of plans for counteracting the evils which white traders had brought among them.^ But the church was slow in this field, and American traders, never much in- terested in forwarding the avow;ed policy of their govern- ment for the just treatment of the Indian and maintenance of his rights and integrity, had already introduced enough disease and debauchery among many tribes to render any 1 Green, 'Rev. J. S., Journal of a Tour to the Northwest Coast of America in the Year 1829, fassiitt. 68 [68 69] MISSIONARY COLONISTS 69 later missionary efforts almost nugatory.^ Nevertheless, the missionaries would probably have entered this field eventually, for it was altogether too promising an oppor- tunity to get ahead of the American settler. However, an event occurred which quickened their latent interest, and which introduced into the Oregon country a factor that proved important and influential upon the growth not of the Indians, but of the American commiuiity which was to settle there. In the fall of 1831 there arrived at the house of General William Clark, the famous explorer, now the government Superintendent of Indian Affairs in St. Lous, a deputation of four Flathead Indians, who had come to ask instruction in the white man's way of worshiping the Great Spirit. "The Flatheads were a brave, friendly, generous, and hospitable tribe, strictly honest, with a mixture of pride which exalts them far above the rude appellation of savages, when contrasted with the tribes around them." * They lived along the headwaters of Clark's fork of the Columbia and the northern branch of Lewis fork. According to General Clark, several had been educated at a Jesuit school in Montreal.® A year and a half later, an account of the ' The Jesuit Mission under Father Die Smet, which dealt almost entirely with the tribes of the Rocky Mountains, obtained a real foothold among the savages, and the missions of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Presbyterian and Congrega- tional) in the Columbia valley, seem to have had some success in this direction, after a most trying initial experience. ' Russell, O., op. cit., p. 27. 'Gallatin, A., Transactions and Collections of the American Anti- quarian Society, vol. ii, p. 134, and map; Christian Advocate and Journal, May 10, 1833; Chittenden (op. cit. app. D) publishes extracts from the Christian Advocate covering this occurrence, which was trum- peted forth to the Methodist world. He states (Life of Be Smet, pp. 22, 23, 29) that the records of the Catholic Cathedral in St. Louis show the arrival of similar delegations in 183S and 1839. In 1840 Father De yo OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [70 quest of these Indians was published in the form of a letter in the Christicm Advocate, from a Wyandotte interpreter. The Methodists had long maintained a mission among this tribe in Ohio. This interpreter had 'been sent to Missouri in connection with the government's policy of moving the Indian tribes west of the Missouri River, and had met the Indians from beyond the Rockies in the house of General Clark.^ The opportunity for a stirring appeal for Pro- testant missions among the Indian tribes of the Far West was excellent, and was immediately taken up in the mis- sionary papers.^ The Macedonian cry, being especially loud among the Methodists, was .heard by a young elder of that sect, Jason Lee. He, with his nephew, Daniel Lee, responded to the call in the spring of 1834, and the same Smet, S. J., a Belgian, began a notable series of missionary journeys out of St. Louis to these and other Indians of the Far Northwest. Chitten- den and Richardson, Life, Letters, and Travels of Father Pierre- Jean De Smet, S. J. (New York, 1905), ch. iii; cf. also Laveille, K, The Life of Father de Smet (New York, 1915), pp. 96-102. Chittenden thinks the delegation came from the Nez Perce, a tribe neighborii^ and similar to the Flatheads, and that they had been influenced by Christian Iroquois living among them, in which latter conclusion' Laveille agrees. ' Christian Advocate, March i, 1833. ' In the course of this propaganda a speech, fabricated by som* Protestant who was evidently saturated with Biblical literature and well versed in the beauties of Indian* figurative expression, was put into the mouth of one of the visiting Indians : " My people sent me to get the ' White Man's Book of Heaven.' You took me to where you allow your women to dance as we do not ours, and the book was not there. You took me to where they worship the Great Spirit with candles, and the book was not there. You showed me images of the good spirits and the pictures of the good land beyond, but the book was not among them to tell us the way. I am going back the long and sad trail to my people in the dark land. You make my feet heavy with gifts and my moccasins will grow old in carrying them, yet the book is not among them. . . . My people will die in darkness, and they will go a long path to other hunting grounds. No white man will go with them, and no White Man's Book to make the way plain. I have no more words." Chittenden and Richardson, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 24, 25. 71 ] MISSIONARY COLONISTS 71 year saw the initiation of the long projected efforts of the American Board of Comniissioners for Foreign Missions. The Lees passed by those tribes whose requests for spiritual guidance had so stirred their interest. Although conscious of their dereliction, these missionaries justified their action by the assertion that a larger field of usefulness was contemplated as the object of the mission than the benefiting of a single tribe. The wants of the whole country, present and prospective, so far as they could be, were taken into the account, and the hope of meeting these wants, in the progress of their work, led to the choice of the Walamet location.^ This choice was made on the advice of the Hudson's Bay Company Chief Factor, although in the opinion of all there were other places "where the good effects of mis- sionary labor might be more speedily realized " among the Indians.'' The event proved this opinion correct, for the Willamette valley, running north to the Columbia between the Cascade and Coast ranges, was not a desert but a finely diversified region of tall forests, open prairies, rich, well- watered soil, where the Indians were very degraded, and a white settlement was already planted.* 'Lee, D. and Frost, J. H., Ten Years in Oregon (New York, 1844), p. 127. Jason Lee in his Diary (Ore, Hist. Quart., vol. xvii, p. 262, 264) says : " Dr. McLoughlin, the governor of the fort, seems pleased that missions have come to the country and freely offers us any assistance that it is in his power to render. It is his decided opinion that we should commence somewhere in this vicinity. O Lord, do thou direct us in the choice of a location. . Could I but know the identical place that the Lord designs for us, be it where it may, even a thousand miles in the interior, it would be a matter of great rejoicing." Cf. also Christian Advocate, February 12, 1836, letter of Dr. McLoughlin. ' Christian Advocate, (September 2, 1836. 'Ball, John, in American Journal of Science (New Haven, 183S), vol. xxviii, pp. 8, 14. "The Willamette (Multnomah) is of much less ex- tent than has been supposed, not being more than two hundred miles 72 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [72 On first impression, however, tlie missionaries regarded their prospects of being serviceable to a miserable people as being good, for they were surrounded by a considerable number of Indians who seemed friendly to the introduction of civilization and religious light and who treated them with great kindness.^ They found the soil unusually rich and productive, and they were compelled to give much time to erecting buildings and developing farms, because they desired to raise all their own supplies. In doing so they were conscious of seeming to " have left the ministry of the Word to serve tables," but they soon discovered that little could be done "to benefit the natives but by means of schools." Hopeful of accomplishing something before the arrival of American settlers, of whose coming they seem to have grown' convinced as early as 1836, they built a school and cared for twenty-two native children. Writing to the Board they said : " So great are the difficulties in the way of approaching the adults that — their case is compara- tively hopeless." Nevertheless, the farming operations prospered, and the mission family was blessed with health and peace. As the years passed, spiritual progress re- mained slow, but was not discouraging, for as one said: " I cannot cheer your heart by telling you that these long in length. Along its spreading branches above its falls, to which the tide flows, about twenty miles from its mouth, extends a very beautiful valley of interspersed prairie and woodland. . , In March of 1833; . . . I procured seeds, implements, etc., of the Hudson's Bay Company, went up the Multnomah River about fifty miles from the fort, where some of the Canadian French and Half-breeds had commenced farming, and with the help of one American and an Indian, enclosed some prairie ground, built a log house, and raised a crop of wheat — and would have remained in that country could I have had a few good neighbors as associates, for I did not feel inclined to fall into the customs of the country and become identified with the natives," •Townsend, J. K., Narrative of a lourney across the Rocky Moutt- iains, p. 219, May 18, 1835. 73] MISSIONARY COLONISTS 73 revolted tribes are bowing to Christ's sceptre, — ^yet we are not disheartened, but are resolved to prosecute our work with fidelity, and leave the event with God." ^ In 1838, Jason Lee came overland to the Elast, in order to secure a large reinforcement for the Methodist Mission, which had already been augmented twice in the four years of its existence. He brought with him three half-breed children to be educated, and two full-'blooded Indians." As he passed through the prairie states, he lectured frequently and displayed his wards before religious gatherings, find- ing everywhere among the public a considerable interest in the country west of the mountains. His talks from the public platform, together with those of others who had visited Oregon, such as the Rev. Samuel Parker, W. A. Slacum, and Dr. White, undoubtedly contributed much good information regarding Oregon, and had some influence on those who were anxious to go West* Lee was most successful in the East. He found the Oregon Provisional Emigration Society already organized, largely by some interested Methodists,* and he secured from the Missionary Society the authorization for a great in- crease in his mission, together with a large appropriation. Of the fifty-two additional persons sent out, only five were ministers, and the grant of $42,000. — "the largest grant ever made to a single mission thus far in the history of the Society " ° — was spent for agricultural implements, machin- ^ Christian Advocate, Nov. 13, 1835; Sept. 2, 1836; June 34, 1836; Nov. 3, 1837; June 14, 1839, letters from the missionaries. ' Lee and Frost, op. cit., p. 216 et seq. ; Oregon Pioneer Association Transactions, 1889 (Portland), p. 80, journal of Myra F. Eells. • The substance of one of his lectures is found in Christian Advocate,. Nov. 16, 1838. *The Oregonia and Indian's Advocate (Linn, 1838-1839), p. 220. 'Bashford, J. W., The Oregon Missions (New York, 1918), p. 171. 74 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [74 ery, merchandise, and the transportation of these by water to the Columbia River. However, these expenditures con- stituted no fundamental change in policy, which apparently had been always that of "Applied Christianity;" for a traveler who visited the mission in 1839, while Lee was in in the East, says : Their object in settling in Oregon, I understood to be twofold: the one and principal, to civilize and christianize the Indians ; the other, and not less important, the establishment of religious and literary institutions for the benefit of white emigrants. Their plan of operation on the Indians is to learn their various languages, for the purposes of itinerant preaching and of teaching the young the English language. The scholars are also instructed in agriculture, the regulations of a well-managed household, reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography. The principles and duties of the Christian religion form a very considerable part of the systems. They have succeeded very well in the several parts of their undertaking.^ In talking to a Methodist brother who was promoting the Provisional Emigration Society, Lee made it clear "that the spirit of personal adventure may make it difficult .... to hold the members of the Emigrating Association to the purpose of saving the Indians." ^ The Missionary Society expressly disclaimed the idea that it was sending out a colony, and it rigorously investigated the piety and church standing of all appUcants, and their "competency in that ' Farnham, T. J., Travels in the Great Western Prairies, p. 94- Bishop Bashford holds that the sending of this reinforcement consti- tuted a complete change of policy, but of the numerous original sources for the history of Lee's Mission he has examined only four : the non- committal works of Lee and Frost, Hines, Parker, and Farnham, the latter's observation on this point not being cited. Cf. also letter of Rev. David Leslie from Oregon, dated November 13, 1835 ; Allen, A, J., Ten Years in Oregon (Ithaca, 1850), p. 125. ' The Oregonian, p. 94 75] MISSIONARY COLONISTS 75 particular branch of medhanical art in which they propose to engage." ^ Upon the arrival of this reinforcement, which came by sea, in 1840, the misgivings of the leader were justified; for the prospect of the growing settlement and the oppor- tunity of supplying its temporal wants proved so alluring to the missionaries and their helpers that" they got entirely out of hand. The range of their activities is best expressed by one of these latter, who stated that he was " carpenter and joiner, receiver and forwarder of goods, retail merchant, salmon trader and salter, boat and canoe maker, stone layer, blacksmith, farmer, cooper, cobbler, nurse, and physician. On Sabbath I have generally held three or four meetings." ^ A store, also, was maintained, " where goods are annually sold, both to the settlers and the Indians, to the amount of several thousand dollars." * No doubt it was necessary for one man to do all this and more if he were to carry on missionary work in a primitive region, but the Willamette valley settlement was many stages removed from the primi- tive in 1 84 1, possessing advantages, as will presently appear, over many a lonely though promising town of the great valley of the Mississippi. The most unibiased commentator said : " As far as my personal observationi went, in the part of the country where the missipnaries reside, there are very few Indians to engage their attention ; and they seem more occupied with the settlement of the cxxmtry and in agricul- tural pursuits than in missionary labors." * ^Christian Advocate, April 5, 1839. ' Christian Advocate. Nov. 8, 1843. ' Hastings, L. W., Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California (Cin- cinnati, 184s), p. 5- * 27th 'Cong. 3rd Sess. House Rept. no. 31, p. 78 — Wilkes' Rept. of Jan. 24, 1843, reprinted in Farnham, T. J., op. cit., p. 112. For exatnples showing the eagerness of the missionaries to obtain settlers, see letters of A. F. Waller, in Christian Advocate, Dec. 21, 1843 and Nov. 8, 1843. 76 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [75 It is not clear whetlier the suspicions of the Missionary Society were aroused by the character of the letters from Oregon, or, as seems more probable, by " the influence of the travelers who have listened to the false reports of the ungodly settlers," or were coldly treated by the members of the mission/ However, the society promptly appointed the Rev. George Gary as superintendent, " to ascertain the true state of the mission, both in its financial and its spiritual aspects." Upon his arrival, in 1844, he quickly perceived " that the secular character of the mission had already ex- cited suspicions and heart burnings among the newly arrived emigrants; which threatened an almost entire loss of con- fidence in the purity of our motives in its establishment and prosecution. This would have been a loss for which no amount of money could compensate." The society frankly acknowledged its error in having supported so large an extra-missionary activity, stating, " that under the influence of glowing representations and plausible though imwise counsels," it had been misled into sanctioning an enlarge- ment of the mission which was not really necessary.' Disengaged from its large mercantile business and super- abundant property, the mission, under the able and firm guidance of the new leader, entered upon a period of en- 1 Warren, E. S., Memoirs of the West (Portland, 1916), p. 86, letter of (Rev. H. H. Spalding, Oct 9, 184S ; Williams, Joseph, Narra- tive of a Tour from the State of Indiana to the Oregon Territory, in the Years 1841-1842 (Cincinnati, 1843), pp. 19-24. 'Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 26th Annual Report (New York, 1845), p. 32. For a full description of the extent of the activities of the mission, see the report of Rev. George Gary upon his return, in 1848, ibid., 29th Annual Report, p. 30, et seq. Ex- cerpts from Lee's report to the Mission Board, in 1844, are published in Holman, F. V., Dr. John McLaughlin (Cleveland, 1907) p. 186, et seq. The fairest account of the mission will be found in Strickland, Rev. W. P., History of the Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church (Cincinnati, 1850), ch. vi. ^7] MISSIONARY COLONISTS 77 larged usefulniess in the life of the rapidly growing com- munity. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- sions, though they had been contemplating a mission among the Oregon Indians for many years past, were somewhat slower than their Methodist brethren. It was in the same year the Lees started (1834) that the Board sent the Rev. Samuel Parker on an exploring tour, but he was so late in reaching the frontier that he had to wait until the follow- ing year, in order to travel under the protection of the fur companies' caravan.^ With him as far as the Rendezvous went Marcus Whitman, a young doctor, who proved to be a man of remarkable courage, energy, and devotion to his duty. They met most of the Nez Perce and Flathead tribes at Rendezvous. Whitman was so impressed from what he learned of the opportunity for missionary service, that he left his companion to investigate at leisure " the remote tribes and their disposition in regard to teachers of Christ- ianity," while he returned to obtain some helpers to found a mission among these Indians.^ In 1836, Whitman and the Rev. H. H. Spalding, with their wives, crossed the plains and located two missions among the Indians of the great interior valley of the Columbia — ■Whitman with the Cayuse on the Walla Walla River, and Spalding with the Nez Perce on the Lapwai. Two years later the Rev. Cushing Eells, with his wife and others, arrived, and located another station among the Flat- heads, near the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Colville. In accordance with its invariable custom, the English com- pany lent every assistance and all necessary supplies to 'American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Report (Boston, 1834), p. 119. ' Parker, S., Journal of an Exploring Tour beyond the Rocky Moun- tains, pp. 5, 78. 78 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [78 these missionaries, but, like the Methodists west of the Cas- cades, they set about making themselves independent as far as food was concerned, by farming. They found that the Indians soon settled about them and copied their agricultural methods. From this the missionaries concluded that they had made a fortunate beginning.^ However, in 1838, before these missionaries had obtained a real hold upon the Indians, some Catholic priests came from the Red River Settlement to minister to the French Canadians of the Hudson's Bay Company, and began to correct the errors of Protestant teaching. The Indians were not long in informing Dr. Whitman what the French Catholic had said to them : " I tell you, Nez Perces and Skynise, that you must leave the Americans if you would have your souls saved." ^ Suspicions were promptly aroused in Whitman's heart not only of the Catholics, whom he abominated,* but also of the intentions of the English Company, several of whose officers were also Catholics. The Hudson's Bay Company was just starting a large sub- sidiary — the Puget Sound Agricultural Company — for the purpose of fulfilling a recent contract to supply food to the Russian posts in Alaska. To furnish labor for this undertaking the Company brought out a body of colonists from the Red River Settlement, in 1841. To Whitman, as well as other missionaries, the signs indicated that the ' American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Reports, 1837, pp. 113, 114; 1838, pp. 126-7; 1839, p. loi ; 1840, p. 178; 1841, pp. i8i-i8s, Map. 'Farnham, T. J., op. cit. (ist ed. Poughkeepsie, 1841), p. 152; this long report of the Cayuse Chief is omitted from later editions. Cf. Ore. Pioneer Ass. Transactions, 1891, p. 129, letter of Mrs. Whitman, Oct. 9, 1839. Vide Kane, Paul, Wanderings of an Artist (London, '859), pp. 280-284, for attitude of the Indians just before the massacre. •Ore. Pioneer Ass. Transactions, 1893, p. 164. Letter of Dr. Whitman, Aug. 23, 1842. 79] MISSIONARY COLONISTS yg English company in the future would be more jealous of encroachments and more active in maintaining its commer- cial predominance on the Columbia. He saw the company turning from trapping to farming, and he began to feel it most important that the Willamette valley should be settled by Americans who would " hold on and give stability," lest it fall to the Papist and English interest, " and then the country might have slept in their hands forever." ^ Unfortunately, the missionaries, and especially Whitman when his medicines did not work well, were forced to work against a powerful current, once the novelty of their presence haid worn off. " One thing is certain, the natural heart loves such instruction as the Catholics usually give, and we have reason to fear our work will soon be done among this people." * Most of the few people he saw coming to the country were mere wanderers who passed on, or independent missionaries who had come in opposition to the American Board, which he represented. These were somewhat try- ing to his patience, as they expected him to take care of them in their helpless situation.* The first real American settlers he saw coming were the mountain men with their Indian wives and half-^breed families. He felt that they were uncongenial companions, and that, as one of them con- fessed, they " were wickeder than the Indians around them." * For this reason, and because he feared the later emigrants who passed his station, he continually did all in his power to urge the emigration of Christian settlers.' 'Ore. Pioneer Ass. Transactions, 1893, pp. 64, 200-1, letters of Whit- man, May 16, 1844, Nov. S, 1846. 'Missionary Herald, vol. xxxvi, pp. 328, 329, letter of Mr. Smith, Aug. 27, 1839. ^Ore. Pioneer Ass. Transactions, 1893, p. 136, letter of Mrs. Whit- man, Oct. 9, 1840. * Ibid., p. 163, letter, Aug. 23, 1842. ' Ibid., Transactions, 1891 and 1893, passim, Whitman letters ; Warren, H. S„ Memoirs of the West, pp. 72-100, letters of Rev. H. H. Spalding. go OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [go Romanism stalks abroad on our right hand and on our left [Whitman wrote in 1842] and with daring effrontery, boasts that she is to prevail and possess the land. I ask, must it be so? Does it not remain for the people of God in this and Christian lands to say whether it shall be so or not ? " Is not the Lord on our side? " " If he is for us who can be against us?"^ In this mood he received word that his Board, discouraged by the unfavorable outlook, and in the midst of financial embarrassments, had decided upon the abandonment of all except one of the stations of its Oregon Mission." Whitman was chosen by his associates to go East at once and present the true state of the mission and its oppor- tunities before the Board in an efiFort to have its decision reversed. He passed over the frontier late in the winter of 1843, finding in the border counties a hot agitation in favor of emigrating westward to the Pacific* He arrived in Boston March 30th, where he successfully performed the primary object of his journey by inducing the Board to sustain the mission in its entirety.* In the East he found time to visit Washington also, and add his own opinion on the subject of what should be done about Oregon to the already copious advice vnth which, the government was being deluged at this time.' He was on the frontier again at the 1 Ibid., Transactions, 1893, P- 164 letter, Aug. 23, 1842. 'American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Report, 1842, pp. 193-S. 'Paxton, W. M., Annals of Platte (Kansas City, 1897), Winter and Spring of 1843, passim. There is no mention of his participation in the discussions which were taking place. An ex-member of the Methodist Mission lived here at this time, who gave out information to applicants, and letters of introduction to his friends who were about to emigrate. •American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Report, 1843, p. 169. 'Ore. Pioneer Ass. Transactions, 1891, pp. 69-78. Whitman suggested 8lJ MISSIONARY COLONISTS 8l end of May. Having little to do and no one dependent on him, he anticipated an easy journey, in company with the emigrants, many of whom 'had already started.^ These Protestant missionaries to the Indians west of the Rocky Mountains helped to induce American farmers to colonize Oregon. They were the first missionaries in the field, the formation of a number of farm posts along the Oregon road similar to those of the Hudson's Bay Company, where the emigrants might obtain supplies and make repairs. These he thought should be in chargte of persons with certain minor legal powers and considerable authority to deal with the Indians. 1 Ibid., Transactions, 1891, p. 177, letter of Whitman from Shawnee Mission, May 27, 1843. I have gone thus into detail upon a very minor point because about the purposes and results of this journey there has raged for years a famous historical controversy which has been pro- ductive of many criminations and recriminations that were better for- gotten. On this point I agree with the conclusion of the Rev. James S. Dennis, D. D. (Christian Missions and Social Progress (New York, 1906), vol. iii, pp. 441, 442), who says: "To the author the evidence seems of a highly creditable character, and sufficient fully to establish the fact that one object among others which Whitman had in view in his memorable journey to the East in 1843, was to awaken public opinion, and, if possible, to influence official action in behalf of the retention of Oregon by demonstrating its value and the possibility of emigration thereto, and at the same time to secure a band of settlers to establish more clearly the basis of occupation." This, however, is not to say that Whitman was especially influential or even successful in accomplishing these things, for if my thesis proves anything it is that the migrations to the Pacific took place not in response to leadership, excellent as that was, but to forces deep-seated, more persistent and profound than we are apt to realize. Of these forces Whitmaw said ; "Although the In- dians have made and are making rapid advance in religious knowledge and civilization, yet it cannot be hoped that time will be allowed to mature either the work of 'Christianization or civiUzation before the white settlers will demand' the soil and seek the removal of both the Indians and the Mission. What Americans desire of this kind they always effect and it is equally useless to oppose or desire it otherwise. To guide as far as can be done, and direct these tendencies for the best is evidently the part of wisdom.'' Ore. Pioneer Ass. Transactions, l8p3, p. 65, letter, May 16, 1844. Cf. also Appendix. Whitman was mas- sacred at his post in 1847. 82 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [82 their work was undertaken in the spirit of the noblest self- sacrifice, and if they were not highly successful in the achieve- ment of their original purpose ^ they are scarcely to be held personally accountable for a failure which lay so largely in the nature of the Indians, few of whom ever grasped the teaching of these devoted men. They labored hard by the example of their own Hves to induce the Indians to settle and cultivate the soil; and when it became apparent that white farmers would come and take up the land before their work was half accomplished, it was but natural as well as wise that they should seek to induce the highest type of Christians to be among the foremost of the immigrants. In this they succeeded beyond their fondest hopes. But for us the important thing at the moment is not the relative degree of success of the missionaries in Oregon nor the sincerity of their actions, but rather their reaction toward the oft-proposed settlement of the country and the character of their activity in promoting this end. Naturally, they accompanied the caravans of the fur traders and St. Louis equippers for protection through the Indian country, and their mode and speed of travel was of as much interest to them at what they found along the route. The first to go, of course, used saddle and pack horses, since the fur people usually discarded their wagons before reaching the divide, in order to arrive the earlier at the July Rendezvous. The road over the open prairie from the west- ern border of Missouri and up the almost level Platte valley was smooth and hard, and over it mule-drawn wagons could travel at the remarkable rate of from fifteen to twenty-five miles a day. It had been constructed with no more difficulty 'Ten years after its establishment the statistics of the Methodist Mission showed a total of sixty-five whites and eight Indians. Strick- land, W. P., op. cit., p. 144. 83] MISSIONARY COLONISTS 83 than that of cutting down the banks of ravines and creeks. The fur hunters who knew the country best were confident that this route leading through the South Pass would furnish an easy communication overland with the Pacific, the western slope " being easier and better than on this side of the mountains, with grass enough for horses and mules, but a scarcity of game for the support of men." ^ In 1835, the Rev. Mr. Parker was attracted by this extra- ordinary gap in the mountains, called the " South Pass," which " varies in width from five to twenty miles ; and fol- lowing its course, the distance through the mountains is about eighty miles, or four days' journey." Its gradual ascent caused him to meditate without marveling upon the construction of a railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific and the not far distant day " when trips will be made across the continent, as they have been made to the Niagara Falls, to see nature's wonders." * With regard to the country which we passed [wrote the Rev. Mr. Spalding, in 1836] nothing probably could have set me right but actual observation, so different is the reality from what I had previously imagined. The fact that the vast in- terior of North America is a barren desert, is not, as far as I am aware, very extensively known in the United States. On the twenty-second of June we entered the Rocky Mountains, and came out of them on the first of September. Till we reached the forks of the Platte, we found some timber and con- siderable fertile soil on the water courses, though both dimin- ished to that point. From that place, excepting a little spot at Fort William, Fort Hall, Snake Fort, Grand Round, Walla- walla, till we come within a hundred miles of this fort (Van- couver) the whole country is a barren desert, with only here and there a little patch of grass and willows, planted, it would '21st Cong. 2nd Sess. Sen. Doc no. 39, p, 22. ' Parker, S., op. fit., pp. 72-3. 84 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [84 seem, by the hands of some kind Providence, just often enough for stops at noon and night, reminding one of the great Sahara of Africa. In the morning we would mount our horses and ride hour after hour, through plains of burning sand, or over mountains of rocks, till about midday : and when ourselves and animals had become thirsty and hungry and tired, we would come suddenly upon a cool spring or stream of water, with a few acres of excellent grass for our horses (excepting the route from Fort William to Rendezvous, when they suffered much), and a little cluster of willows for fuel. So we would travel in the afternoon till we came on a similarly favored spot, about the hour when we wished to encamp for the night. . . . [Food was plenty but monotonous, consisting of dried buffalo meat and salmon.] . . . For one whole day, while passing the Blue Mountains, two days from Wallawalla, we were upon cut stone, or stone broken by some natural agency, and resembling very much continued heaps of such broken stone as is prepared for covering roads in the States. This day's travel injured the feet of our animals more than the whole journey besides. In fact, we found but little difficulty till we reached these moun- tains. Most of our animals made the whole journey without being shod. We drove a wagon to Snake (Boise) Fort, and could have driven it through but for the fatigue of our animals. We expect to get it at some future time. . The high, scattered sage brush, which furnishes so much of the endless beauty of the desert, " was some obstruction to the wagon, though but little to the pack horses." But the real attractions of the trip were the long succession of natural wonders, especially the Soda Springs in Bear River, which must become a Mecca for tourists, " when a railroad connects the waiters of the Columbia with those of Mis- souri." ^ Not until 1840 did a wagon actually reach the main Missionary Herald, vol. xxxiii, pp. 421-428; Spalding, Rev. H. H., letter from Vancouver, iSept. 20, 1836. gj] MISSIONARY COLONISTS 85 Columbia River, in which year we hear, from a " gentle- man " living " about 400 miles up the Columbia," that, " Two wagons are at my door from the state of Illinois. It is now clear that a person who understood the country well, could conduct a party with wagons through from the United States with very little trouble, comparatively." ^ If the missionaries spoke moderately of a highway to the coa3t as opened by the year 1840, they were more enthusias- tic about the inviting prospects of the lovely Willamette valr ley, which " is well diversified with woods and prairies, the soil is rich and sufficiently dry for cultivation, and at the same time well watered with small streams and springs." ^ With increasing emphasis they spoke of the large crops they raised, no part of w'hich need be fed to stock, as grass ripened on the prairies the winter through. An easy life in a mild climate that seemed delightful, in spite of incessant winter rains, was the burden of their letters, copied more frequently now in the local press throughout the country. These letters, together with information coming through other channels, served to turn the public mind more and more toward this far-off country.* In 1838, when Lee and his associates began to seek Christian settlers for Oregon, they found that their words did not fall upon barren soil, for in both the New England and the prairie states there was already considerable in- terest in " one of the loveliest regions that nature ever bestowed upon man." * Irving's delightful works on the ' The Polynesian, Jaw. 9, 1841. Probably the writer was Dr. Whitman, who was in touch with American Board missionaries in Hawaii. 'Parker, S., op. cit., pp. 175-6. Cf. Christian Advocate, Dec. 21, 1842; Nov. 8, 1843. 'Christian Advocate, Nov. 16, 1838. 'Alton (111.) Telegraph, Oct. 17, 1838, quoted by Atwood, iRev. A., The Conquerors (C, 1907), p. 143; this book contains many quotations from the local press, between 1838 and 1843. 86 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [86 romantic fur trade in the Far West had just been pubHshed,V ,^ and his tales of the rivalry of British and Americans upon the distant shores of the Columbia were begining to arouse heart-burnings among the always sensitive farmers, whose f greatest objection to immediately becoming emigrants seems to have been their anticipation of the ill will of the Hudson's Bay Company/ These works, together with the writings'; of missionaries and travelers, were to go through several editions in the next few years, so insatiable grew the demand for information regarding Oregon.'' , On the Atlantic seaboard this interest appears to have been ;' more or less sporadic and not well maintained. This was, no doubt, due to the fact that unless a man was sent by a mis- sionary society or was wealthy enough to use public con- veyance as far as the Missouri frontier, and there purchase ' an outfit, the journey could not 'be made in a single season. Many there were, however, who feeling the pinch of the financial panic of 1837, moved into Illinois and Missouri with the idea, if the chance offered, of going on to this new- land of dreams. In the Mississippi valley, where people's minds are thought to be less confined by traditions, men were allowing their imaginations to consider more magnificent vistas than those afforded by the beautiful, fertile lands on which they lived: for the hard facts of their existence were forcing them to think along new channels. Of Oregon it was said : It would become a grand thoroughfare to Asia and the coun- ' Irving, Washington, Astoria (1836) ; Rocky Mountains (1837), many later editions; cf. The Oregonian, pp. 219, 220. ' The Oregonian, p. 315. •Increasing interest in California ran parallel with that in Oregon. Cf. Cleland, R. G., The Early Sentiment for the Annexation of Cali- fornia: An Account of the Growth of American Interest in California from 1835 to 1846 (Austin, 1915). gjr] MISSIONARY COLONISTS 87 tries bordering on the Pacific Ocean. ... It would be of great advantage to the Western States, and cause them to increase in population and industrial development, and make them the centre of this great republic. . . . Nothing but the power of Omnipotence could prevent the United States from becoming the leading nation of the world. ^ They were not day-dreaming. An observant traveler notes what he heard from the English, in 1839, of the Columbia River : The intercourse with the Sandwich Islands, California, Russian America, and Asia grows from year to year; and the trading vessels on the Pacific Ocean find here a safe base for action. In short, if any place on the western shore of North America seems designed by nature to be a western New York on the Pacific Ocean, it is this. The Straits of Juan de Fuca, some- what further north, form a much better harbor. It is said that a whole fleet could anchor there in safety.^ The fact that a " safe and easy " passage for wagons across the Blue Motmtains in Snake River valley had lately been discovered removed the last physical barrier to the migration of settlers to the Pacific Coast, with all their house- hold goods and gods. But even had this fact not been an- nounced, it is probable that some great migration would have taken place, in any event. Those whose ears were closely attun«l to the desires of men were aware of the impending changes. A lawyer from Peoria, Illinois, traveling, in "^ Alton (111.) Telegraph, Nov. 9, 1839, quoted by Atwood, A., op. eit., p. 144; cf. Christian Advocate, March 13, 1840, quoting same paper, on "a great national line of communication from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean." ^ Wislizenus, F. A., op\. cit., p. 115, cf. Farnham, T. J., op. cit. (New York, 1843), p. 142. Farnham must h^ve been writing in the local press immediately on his return, for the Christian Advocate, May 30, 1840, takes exception to some of his views on Oregon. 88 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [88 1839, for health and pleasure, confidently mused in his camp at the Soda Springs, on Bear River : The immediate neighborhood of our encampment is one of the most remarkable in the Rocky Mountains. The facts that the trail to Oregon and California will forever, of necessity, pass within 300 yards of the place where our camp fire is burning ; that near this spot must be erected a resting place for the long lines of caravans between the harbors of the Pacific and the waters of the Missouri, would of themselves interest all who are witnessing the irresistible movements of civilization upon the American continent.^ Men in a position to know made no mistake in asserting that, " the restless tide of western emigration has already overleaped the terrier of the Rocky Mountains, and formed a current down their western slopes, which promises to roll on and fructify the plains till met by the tide waters of the Pacific." * " The Rocky Mountain Missions " had become fashionable, and " a new route for emigrants, which will bring them up opposite to China, and put a final stop to them, may now be said to be fairly opened." ' In 1840, two wagons came through to Fort Walla Walla, on the Columbia, and with them four fam^ilies, one with children, to settle on the Willamette. More roving men were expected, and "thousands" of families, the coming year.* Instead of thousands, twenty-four persons — among them two families with small children — ^turned up. This was part of a larger emigration which had left the States in company with the Jesuit Mission of Father De Smet. 1 Farnham, T. J., op. cit., p. 129. " Christian Advocate, Sept. 30, 1840, letter of Rev. David Leslie, from Oregon, March 16, 1840. •Extract from the Albany (III.) Journal in The Oregonian, p. 320 (1839). * The Polynesian, Jan. 9, 1841, letter from Columbia River. go] MISSIONARY COLONISTS 89 These emigrants had very indefinite ideas about their ulti- mate destination, as they were swayed toward either Oregon or California whenever they heard good or ill re- ports from the travelers they met.^ In 1842, there came a larger emigration, with a greater proportion of families, mostly from Illinois, Arkansas, and Missouri. However, they were so late in starting that some were forced to aban- don their wagons before reaching South Pass, and others on Green River or at Fort Hall, and to use their oxen as pack animals for the remainder of the Journey.^ Lust for adventure, desire to see something of Indian life and the glorious scenery, and eagerness to indulge in the now famous sport of hunting buffalo on the plains, as well as to gratify curiosities aroused by reading the novels of the day, may and probably did account for many of those who made the long trip to the Pacific when men could no longer earn a livelihood as trappers in the mountains.. But the immigrants of (1842) brought the printed copy of a bill 1 Ore. Pioneer Ass. Transactions, 1891, p. 139, letter of Oct. i, 1841 ; Bidwell, John, Trip to California, 1841 (n. p. n. d.), p. 21; one woman and child', with some thirty-two men, went to California (ibid., p. 10) . All left their wagons at Fort Hall, and exchanged their oxen for pack horses {ibid., p. 12). Free trappers from the mountains, and their Indian wives, went down to the Willamette settlements with these emigrants (Russel, O., op. cit., pp. 94-s). Father De Smet has very little to say regarding his traveling companions. A full accotmt of the journey is in Williams, J., op. cit., pp. 1-19. 'Crawford, Medorem, Journal of (Eugene, 1899), passim. 28th Cong. 2nd Sess. (Sen. Ex. Doc, no. 174, p. 40, J. C. Fremont's Report of His Explorations in 1842; Allen, A. J., op. cit., pp. 144-170; Hastings, L. W., op. cit., pp. 19, 20, states that his party was informed at Fort Hall that it was impossible for them to take their " wagons down to the Pacific." As no road was opened across the Cascade Range until 1845, such of the early emigrants as desired to take their wagons into the settlements were forced to build rafts on the Columbia and float them through the mountains. go OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [90 brought into the Senate of the United States by Dr. Linn, in which it was proposed to donate 640 acres of land to every white male inhabitant, the same to a male descendant of a white man, 320 to a wife, and 160 to a child under 18 years old.^ Why should responsible men with families risk the perils of such a journey in the hope of a land donation which their government could not even promise? It is a ques- tion many have tried to answer. Before we make the attempt, let us consider more fully the agitation which had been going on during these years, for many were cultivating the sensation of travel in what they read and heard of the wondrous west. 1 Ore. Hist. Quart, vol. i, p. 199, " Narrative of Dr. John McLoughlin." CHAPTER V Spread of the Oregon Fever 1838-1843 It is erroneous to suppose from what has been said in the preceding chapter that the missionary interest in Oregon played a really large and decisive part in gener- ating the " Oregon Fever ", which seized the ever-restless American farmer after Andrew Jackson — through two decades the impersonation of their ideals — had retired from the political limelight. This is not to say that the propaganda of the missionaries played a small role in this development; but, merely, that those Americans who happened to be interested were in possession of a more spontaneous and reliable method of collecting and spreading information among themselves regarding a land which seemed to meet their desires than that afforded by the missionary press. Eastern missionaries were, in fact, as alien to the "hog and hominy" eating settlers from the prairie states as were the gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay Company, and they were made to feel their difference when public sentiment, in accord with the ancient custom of the frontier, sustained the jump- ing of their unoccupied claims.' The emigrant sentiment which was not the product of 1 Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Oiurch, sdih Annual Report, 184s, p. 33: Cf. also, Warren, E. S., Memoirs of the West, PP- 92> 93, 98, letter of Rev. H. H. Spalding, Sept. IS> 1845. His opinion of these " knaves," " direct from the hot ranks of anti-religion in the West," is scarcely restrained. 91] 91 92 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [92 of the fostering care of church, trade or politics was Soon to displace all these groups in favoring the occu- pancy of Oregon, and was as nearly spontaneous as any movement could well be. In spite of the great distance to be traveled, the sentiment really developed as the natural next step in an already habitual routine growth of the frontier. There were some — many even — who, though rich lands lay unoccupied round about them, were not satis- fied ; they were not looking so much for future wealth as for a good living at the moment. The politicians, who for two decades previously had been trying now and then to arouse public interest in the government's claim to lands across the mountains, were quick to note the change in sentiment, and gave recognition by a re- port on the Oregon territory giving the most " recent and authentic information" in their possession. They also introduced a bill in Congress for the military occu- pation of Oregon and the extension of United States' jurisdiction to that territory. This was the first of a a long series of similar proposals.' This report draws upon previous Congressional re- ports to explain the international status of the Oregon territory, and argues the claim of the United States, saying that the principles upon which it is based " will carry our line as far as 49°". The possession of some good harbor on the Pacific, longing eyes being cast at the "Bay of St. Francis", is asserted to be necessary, owing to the immense sums invested in the whaling in- dustry, and in order to place the nation in an advantage- ous position for the future commercial rivalry in that 125th Cong. 2nr?SS l^^wfcte- i'."^'- ■' , ^■1^^ i 1 ''Ss^HHHHl ' .fS'«' '^im ' ^;^^HH ■M^ K^*"- ''■."■■":' Erfl Wi, Bi|; ^p^'^''^ I *-'5: ^K|-Jv'- Pll 5 ^.' ' nrii W^^:'' ':■'■■ ■' #^^..-':^^^' ■/?>/.::! ^ !i^ fe'%!^'.: ■'' . MM tl. pf ■:: : ,^^ ||fe:ft. ■ ■■'S -' -^ iZ^P !i>^i ■tV'-fe':-;';'' : • r^'i:' it ■•*'»; fef:^ Ife:;^ ''.>"'■■• : ^ '1 ft.*' .■ '• J i^-A j-^-iL-^ 9» .OT '! "21 ■cf- /^P|^|;/%i- ' ■ . . i ^■"^ ^ *«*w* il/'''^. ['iiisBI^^^H i?[^ :0(^:^; ^iSi^H SKi.'' 1." ^, '■'■ S'-^- ■f^^il«'s--'^':'''" ''' §'1|ri ^ '$':'. ^■%-', ^^^^^i^v' 7 ;>-3l^ ^^Ks--' ■ %^| ^ V /--7^:-/ , i».i \ ' « '»« iiL_ »«!— .w-«««B^ PBHH^ - ' ■' „ ^ '''^' H ^fi CO *s t2 ^ O W '« o H D 0) O rt o s ^ cl' 0) s ^ t! s ^ s KH S ■f- „ ao M J O ■^t^ J?; OS H % Q ?; 105] SPREAD OF THE OREGON FEVER J05 than could be had elsewhere in the country; and these same trappers found employment, on returning to the mountains, as guides to the emigrants.' About fifty emigrants gathered that spring in response to this ap- peal, and set out upon their journey : but before their re- ports had come back to Missouri another spring had arrived. In 1842, Dr. White, a former member of the Meth- odist mission, while on his return to Oregon to fulfill an appointment from the government as Sub- Indian Agent, found that only a brief campaign in the frontier counties was necessary to gather a very respect- able emigration of over an hundred persons, who had assembled there from Illinois, Arkansas, and Missouri. His first experience with these traveling companions showed them unamenable to such discipline as the ex- perienced fur traders deemed necessary for protection from hostile Indians ; and when he called them together to consider a closer organization they demanded to be shown evidence of his federal appointment before elect- ing him captain and subscribing to other arrangements. This organization, however, did not last long under the stress of hard travel." News of the success of the emigration of 1841 reached the Missouri frontier late the following year, and was published in the form of a little guide book, giving briefly the route, distances, delights of the mountain scenery, and unusual difficulties. With it, also, was the welcome information that the families which had gone to Oregon "were well pleased with the country", and that goods were cheaper there than in the western states. 'Williams, J., op. cit., pp. 5, 8, 9. ' Allen, A. J., op. cit., pp. 145-6- I06 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [io6 Of California, it said, "prudence and economy would not fail to make you a vast fortune, provided you come in time to get a farm in a suitable place, and conform to the Spanish Laws " ; but some had gone home disgusted, for, " People generally look on it as the garden of the world, or the most desolate place of creation." ' Surely, it must have been pleasing to many to hear, that the white people live without any forms of law; but, in general, are very honest in paying their debts, and give notes and bonds. They have no sheriffs, constables, fees, or taxes to pay. They profess to be very hospitable to strangers, and kind to one another. No breaking each other up for debts. Here are no distilleries, no drunkenness, nor much swearing. They seem, indeed, to be a very happy people.^ Cognizant of the growing interest in the territory claimed by the United States on the Pacific, several of the political leaders of the western States, such as Senator Semple of Illinois, Jesse B. Thomas, one time United States Senator from Illinois, Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, former Vice-President of the United States, and others, gathered the people in meetings at the larger centers of population, to consider what action should be recommended to the national government in the emerg- ency, which they were careful to point out as extremely pressing and dangerous. Such a meeting was held in the court room at Alton, Illinois, November 8, 1842, ' Bidwell, John, Trip to California, 1841, pp. 12, .28, 31, 29. In his manuscript "Recollections" (Bancroft Collection), Bidwell says that the fur trader, Roubidoux, told such glorious stories of California that nearly every one in Weston (Missouri border town) agreed to go, but that the merchants of the town spread contrary reports, and, especially, republished the letters of T. J. Farnham, from the New York papers, which nearly overthrew the work of his Committee of Correspondence. 'Williams, J., op. cit., p. 23. lo;] SPREAD OF THE OREGON FEVER 107 which resolved not only to encourage emigration, but "that we will never give our consent to surrender any part of that territory lying between the Russian and Mexican boundaries, to any nation, for any considera- tion whatever."' Further, the resolutions urged the people and legislators of the Union, and especially those of the states of Arkansas and Missouri, and of the terri- tory of Iowa, whose frontiers were exposed, " to prevent steps being taken that will for a moment weaken the claim which we have to that whole country". They also denounced "'the conclusion of a treaty' with Eng- land without settling our Western boundary, as wholly overlooking our Western interests". Senator Semple announced that he had been for the last four or five years placed in a situation where it became his duty as well as inclination to study the commercial interest of the United States. He had during that time made himself acquainted with the importance to us of the vast trade of the Pacific Ocean, and of the immense wealth that would flow into our country by means of the occupation of the Oregon Territory. The rich furs of the Northwest were alone a source of great wealth. Add to this the tropical pro- ductions of the western coast of Mexico and Central America, the pearls and gold of Panama and Choco, the inexhaustible mineral and other productions of Peru and Chili, on the west- ern coast of South America, which would be brought within our limits through the Oregon, and across two thousand miles of desert, to be ex- ' Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. ix, pp. 394-S- ' Webster- Ashburton' Treaty, Aug. 9, 1842, United States, Treaties, Conventions, etc., p. 650. Io8 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [io8 changed for the cattle and hogs of the Mississippi Valley.' Another such meeting was held, February 5, 1843, in the " Hall of the House of Representatives ", Springfield, Illinois, which viewed with great distrust the activity of Great Britain "in establishing military posts, and en- couraging her subjects to settle" in Oregon, as evidence of her policy of " encroaching upon the territory of other governments", and urged that this activity be resisted by every means. Moreover, the commercial advantages were large, and if the protection of the government were extended, the day is not distant when our enterprising and adventurous countrymen, invited by the salubrious climate and fertile soil bordering the Pacific, will extend thither their settlements, and dispense from the western shore of this vast continent, wealth, commerce, and freedom, to the remotest parts of the earth.^ The citizens of Columbus, Ohio, also busied them- selves turning out a long report on the Oregon Terri- tory, in the early spring of 1843.^ This report, like the Congressional reports on which it was largely based, 1 Cf. petition of a number of citizens of Indiana, praying the occupa- tion and settlement of the Oregon Territory, and the construction of a road thereto; and remonstrating against the construction of the proposed ship-canal across the Isthmus of Darien — March 4, 1840, 26th Cong. 1st Sess. Sen. Doc, no. 244. ' Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. ix, p. 397. 3 Report on the Territory of Oregon, by a Committee, Appointed at a Meeting of the Citizens of Columbus, to Collect Information in Relation Thereto (Columbus, Ohio, 1843). All of these reports cribbed from each other, often without credit, certain felicitous expressions, such as that just quoted from Senator iSemple. For a list of the various peti- tions and reports printed in the Public Documents from 1839 on, vide Judson, K. B., Subject Index to the History of the Pacific Northwest (Olympia, 1913). under title, "Oregon Country." lOg] SPREAD OF THE OREGON FEVER 109 was a mixture of history, description, and exhortation. The report joked about the liberality of the proposed land grants to settlers in Oregon, saying: "Some fami- lies we might name, in Ohio, could sweep over territory enough to rival the possessions of the temporal lord of some European principality", and marveled at the pros- pect of natural beauty beyond the ken of the plainsman. It declared : The Oregon is a country of magnificent heights and distances ; of bold and novel scenery. The broad green valley and out- stretched prairie, covered with a thousand varieties of flowers ; the sunburnt, sandy desert, destitute of living thing, and the mountain peak peering to the very heavens above, capped with eternal snow, meet the eye in continued change and variety. This report did not neglect to make the usual ap- peal for action on the part of the national government, but it went further than others in collecting and pub- lishing the most accurate information it could obtain, especially in the form of letters from settlers and re- turned missionaries or explorers. One of these letters, dated March 30, 1842, says: I have settled fifty miles from the great Pacific Ocean, eight miles from the Columbia River, in a beautiful country, and commenced farming. Our land produces from forty to sixty bushels of wheat to the acre, and that will weigh from seventy to eighty pounds per bushel. ... I came to this place with my wife and two children, and about forty mountaineers, and we have settled ourselves, and have got plenty around us to eat and to wear, and our produce bears a good price. Wheat from sixty cents to $1.25 per bushel ;. Pork, $10 per hundred- weight; Beef, from $6.00 to $8.00 per hundred-weight; Flour, $5.00 per hundred- weight ; and we can sell as much at that price as we can raise.^ 1 Report on the Territory of Oregon, p. 7 ; cf. prices in next chapter. no OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [no The report quotes New England merchant skippers to show that : " ' American commerce in that part of the world must soon lower its flag ' ", and the necessity of government doing " ' something to break up the British settlements in the Oregon Territory, and thereby de- stroy the source from which now emanate the most dire evils to American interests in the Western world '." The recent contracts of the Hudson's Bay Company to supply the Russian settlements with all they needed had driven Americans ofif the coast, and the British were further suspected of an intention "to add even Cali- fornia to their possessions". Before closing, the report devoted several pages to an analysis of the route, and comparisons between the opinions of the different writers who had described it, concluding that, the reason why this southern route is traveled, is because it is an almost continuous level ; so much so that a wagon or carriage might be driven from this city to Wallawalla, so far as hills or mountains would obstruct the passage. . . . Every new expedi- tion will search out new paths and conveniences, until a jour- ney to the Columbia will be considered, in a few years, an under- taking of no great magnitude, except as to time and distance. This is clear enough evidence of the Committee's accept- ance of General Ashley's statement that the route was " better for carriages than any turnpike road in the United States." ' The efforts of the political leaders were not primarily directed to helping emigrants, as the politicians, of course, had no intention of undertaking the hardships of the journey themselves.' They seem to have been in- ' Report on the Territory of Oregon, p. i8. " McMaster, J. B., History of the People of the United States (New York, 1910), vol. vii, pp. 294-8, is an excellent study of this political movement in its relation to the emigrants. Ill] SPREAD OF THE OREGON FEVER j 1 1 tent, rather, upon launching a sectional plank for the platform of either party which would use it in the presi- dential campaign of the following year. This unwonted lack of bias was probably due to the political confusion resultant upon the Tyler administration, and the preval- ent feeling that the people were a little weary of the old leaders and their familiar issues, which by that time seemed not to move the suffering farmers of the North- west. These efforts culminated in a call, issued May 22, 1843, for a convention of the citizens of the Mississippi valley, to be held in Cincinnati, July 3rd, 4th and 5 th, for the purpose of urging the " immediate occupation of the Oregon Territory by the arms and laws of the Re- public ", which action was to be based " on Mr. Mon- roe's declaration of 1823, ' that the American continents were not to be considered subjects of colonization by any European powers'." Professor E. D. Mansfield was to expound the history of this declaration, and " de- fine its proper application and extension"." - The convention duly met, and was conducted with "[decorum and good feeling." It proclaimed its purpose to carry wealth, commerce and freedom to the remotest parts of the earth, in doing which " we are but perform- ing a duty to ourselves, to the Republic, to the commer- cial nations of the world, to posterity, and to the people of Great Britain and Ireland".' It added "that, how- ever indignant at the avarice, pride, and ambition of Great Britain, ... we yet believe it is for the benefit of all civilized nations that she should fulfill a legitimate destiny, but that she should be checked in her career of aggression with impunity and domination without ' Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. ii, p. ipo- Ibid., vol. ix, p. 410. 112 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [112 right". ^ The declaration of Mr. Monroe evidently re- quired too much explanation, as it was omitted from the convention's resolutions. Thus, the formulation of one of the new national issues coincided exactly with the opening of the emigrant movement. A study of the rise and progress of this issue has been made elsewhere,^ and it has been intro- duced here only because it impinges on the emigrant movement at this point. It will not be necessary to refer again to the political activities of the time, since, though they became furious, they do not appear to have exercised any great influence upon the emigrant senti- ment ; those few farmers and mechanics who felt the call of the West in their blood were already preoccupied with their own affairs. These farmers and mechanics are the men who have contributed much that is futile and something that is unquenchably ideal to the history of the American peo- ple. Just at this period, when they were coming under the spell of expansion, which they associated with national greatness and honor, they could afford to be visionary, as they could afford little else. So, the men who intended to emigrate pushed a vigorous and de- termined propaganda by time-honored American meth- ods, and, in the spring of 1843, were rewarded by the crystallization of sentiment among a considerable body of the most substantial families on the frontier. Fearlessness, hospitality, and independent frankness, united with restless enterprise and unquenchable thirst for novelty and change, are the peculiar characteristics of the western pioneer. ^Cincinnati Daily Chronicle, July 12, 1843. Cf. ibid., July 10, 11, 19, 1843, for more accounts of the convention. ' Shippee, L. B., op. cit. 113] SPREAD OF THE OREGON FEVER 113 With him there is always a land of promise further west, where the climate is milder, the soil more fertile, better timber and finer prairies ; and on, on, on he goes, always seeking and never attaining the Pisgah of his hopes. You of the old states can- not readily conceive the every-day sort of business the " old settler " makes of selling out his " improvements," hitching the horses to the big wagon, and, with his wife and children, swine and cattle, pots and kettles, household goods and household gods, starting on a journey of hundreds of miles to find and make a new home. Just now Oregon is the pioneer's land of promise. Hun- dreds are already prepared to start thither with the spring, while hundreds of others are anxiously awaiting the action of con- gress in reference to that country, as the signal for their de- parture. Some have already been to view the country, and have returned with a flattering tale of the inducements it holds out. They have painted it to their neighbors in the brightest colors ; these have told it to others ; the Oregon fever has broke out, and is now raging like any other contagion.^ What was this traditional American method which was so effective during the winter of 1842- 1843? ^itn speaking in the courthouses of their county-seats on the Oregon question, and advocating emigration thither; others writing long letters to the local newspapers giv- ing their views upon this and that aspect of the subject ; still others, who knew the road, advertising themselves as guides ready to meet all who intended to make the jour- ney at an appointed time and place; and, lastly, the gathering of a few in the house of a neighbor to talk over the proposed undertaking, form a committee, and pass resolutions declaratory of their purpose and inform- ing of details. Newspapers, always hungry for copy, '■Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. iii, pp. 311, 312, letter from Iowa Territory, March 4, 1843. 114 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [114 gladly printed the resolutions, with the address of the secretary ; and so like-minded people at a distance were enabled to get in touch with each other ; while some one went to Washington to make sure of the attitude of Con- gress toward land donations.' What is this but the old successful method of corres- pondence for galvanizing a general sentiment into action ? The idea of a colony on the Pacific had been before the American people for a generation, but the conditions favoring its fulfillment had never been so ripe as now- Long before the agitation reached a climax, many eager frontiersmen had essayed the journey to the coast; young men anxious to get away from home and find real exper- ience in a life of which they had heard so much ; older men, heads of families, more venturesome, or merely more restless, than their neighbors. Perhaps they were farsighted ; perhaps they were only led by the old yearn- ings to be first in a new country. These either returned to relate their experiences to eager friends, or wrote letters and books of what they had seen. Returned travelers told all sorts of tales ; some liked it, some did not ; some were sick ; and some had never felt better in their lives; but nearly every one insisted a man could live easier there than almost anywhere else, and certainly better than in the particular locality where the informant had formerly made his home. Lest the edge of their enthusiasm be dulled, men would not listen too seriously to stories of the hardships they must endure to attain their desires ; they were thinking most of the glories of the West. They knew there would be suflfering to get what they wanted, so without worrying they went about the task in hand. ^ Paxton, W. M., op. cit., p. 52 ; Ore. Hist. Quart., vols, i, ii, iii, iv, ix, XV — Documents. 1 1 5] SPREAD OF THE OREGON FEVER ug Wisconsin and Iowa territories were just being opened to settlement, and high-class immigrants from Europe were going there in considerable numbers, but what at- tractions had these lands to offer that Missouri and Illi- nois had not also ? What in the great valley could com- pare with the land behind the mountains whose shores were washed by the South Sea? The pecuniary distress was severe, and the outlook growing blacker, many not being able to pay the taxes on their land, or to enter their claims. There was slight prospect that those who did not own slaves would be willing to endure a prolon- ged depression. In this state of affairs conditions were ripe for the exaggerated and passionate advocacy of whatever happened to seize the popular fancy. The seed, so well sown, was taking root in the rich soil of desire ; rumor gave way to preparation. CHAPTER VI Agrarian Discontent in the Mississippi Valley 1 840-1 845 The advantages of the western coast of the North American Continent had been called to the attention of the American people years before 1840, and passed over almost in silence. Men of no judgment, of the type of Hall J. Kelley, had only annoyed people with their propaganda. Politicians of the stamp of Benton, who liked to think themselves statesmen, had vainly sought to arouse the country, and had only succeeded in placing themselves in a position to say, " I told you so." Only two merchants, Astor and Wyeth, had had the nerve to risk anything for their dreams. It is but natural to ask why any considerable portion of the American people should just at this time become so receptive to these old enthusiasms, why certain independent farmers and mechanics of the United States should think the time opportune to utilize some of these advantages. By 1840, the frontier had barely reached the Missouri River, where the government was endeavoring to erect a barrier for the purpose of carrying out the well-meant in- tention of treating with fairness those Indian nations that the rapacity of the frontiersman had displaced from their hunting-grounds. The old Indian lands between the Mis- souri and the Mississippi, and about the upper waters of the "^ [116 117] AGRARIAN DISCONTENT II7 latter, were just being thrown open to entry, and were begin- ning to be settled by the hardy immigrants of North Europe, whose descendants now hold them. Vast sections of the old Prairie States, still untouched by the plow, were about to furnish the new and permanent location of thrifty New Englanders/ Even had there not been plenty of the finest land within the United States unoccupied, a glance at the map will make it seem somewhat surprising that the usual course of evolution of the frontier should be so funda- mentally altered as to carry it two thousand miles to the Pacific, leaving untouched, but not unnoticed, the best farm- ing region of the Mississippi Valley. Surely it could not have been land alone, even free land, which the emigrant sought ! Only a small portion of those territories laid down on the maps as Oregon and California, are at all calculated for settle- ment ; much the largest portion of both are nothing more than barren wastes, which yield little or nothing to the support of animal life. The valuable portion of Oregon lies between the Blue Mountains and the coast; and the valuable portion of California, between the California (Sierra Nevada) Mountains and the coast. The principal advantages that those countries possess over the Western States are a mild and very healthy climate and an excellent commercial situation.^ The secret, then, of what the emigrant really sought will appear from an examination of the economic and social aspect of a farmer's life in the Mississippi Valley during the years following 1840. ' Vide Faust, A. B., The German Element in the United States (Boston, 1909), passim; Mathews, L. K., The Expansion of New England (Boston, 1909), passim. 'Johnson and Winter, Route Across the Rocky Mountains (Lafayette, 1846), Preface, p. iv. Ilg OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [ng The early thirties in this country was a period of rash, buoyant, hopeful prosperity. Paper, printed either as bank- notes or as the plats of cities which could never be,"^ was plentiful, and was thought to be as good as represented on its face. Frantic speculation was the dominant tone; sta- bility of business conditions, regularity, and fundamental soundness were undesired. Enterprising people — and who was not? — were expectant of the morrow, but rather thoughtless of the day after. The acute political controversies of the Jacksonian era centered about the personality of the great Democratic leader, backed by the unorganized agrarians, who were en- joying their power and were ignorant of constructive ideas. Clay and other good Whigs might talk of an American system, but the very idea of a well-ordered system for the internal development of the United States in this period was somewhat abstract. It was a day when men were im- patient of any restraint, thinking they needed none, and not a few sought the wild freedom of the Rocky Mountain trapper. In the decision of the bank question, local ideals were triumphant — the Bank of the United States had too much power, it might become oppressive; it was destroyed; an old remedy for an old disease. There followed in 1837 a financial panic, the consequence of " overaction in all the departments of business," as Van Buren puts it, with its inevitable concomitants, — ^suspension of specie payments and contraction of credit. The panic itself was a small afifair, no more than a pricking of the bubble of currency inflation aiid western land speculation. Agrarian prosperity continued. The banks soon got on their feet again, and the country seemingly was on the road to recovery, when, 1 Wilkey, Maj. W., Western Emigration (New York, 1834)— humor- ous account of speculation in ' Edensburgh,' 111. up] AGRARIAN DISCONTENT ng in 1839, a second suspension of specie payments took place/ and both the United States and Europe entered upon an era of declining prices and a succession of lean years for the farmer, so long continued that men became restless, visionary, even revolutionary. Many aspects of this depression, such as the reaction upon the labor market of the almost entire cessation of vrork on the extensive systems of internal improvements under- taken by the States, are absolutely unknown, and must re- main so tmtil historians and economists give the period the attention w^hich its importance merits.' Indeed, we must fall back upon the all but meaningless phrases, "economic depression," " hard times," etc., in our effort to describe the progress and extent of misery among the farmers. The Jacksonian solution of the bank question was cer- tainly not the cause of the difficulties of the American farmer, but the chaotic condition in which it left the cur- rency greatly intensified the suffering. In the West, the distress from this was most severe in the spring of 1842, when one of the itinerant preachers and collectors of the American Bible Society wrote from Columbus, Ohio : Exchanges on New York have already fallen from 15 to 7 or 8 per cent ; and I have the best authority for believing that within a week they will be much lower still. . . . The currency is, however, in vast confusion. For instance, I had on Monday ' The banks' " recovery from the panic of 1837 had been too rapid. Of nearly 1,000 banks in the country, including branches, 343 suspended specie payments entirely in 1839, 56 went out of business, and 62 re- sorted to partial suspension. As before, the larger number of these was in the West and South." Kinley, D., The Independent Treasury of the U. S. (Washington, 1910), pp. 39, 40. See especially article by Judge Curtis, in North American Review, vol. Iviii (1844), on "Debts of the States." • Vide bibliography for suggestions regarding sources. I20 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [120 a quantity of Chillicothe paper, which I there exchanged at par for Indiana State B. and 5's scrip. And was assured I had done well. But ere I reached home the state scrip had depre- ciated 50 per cent.^ From Jacksonville, Illinois, comes the same story : I shall wait your advice what I shall do with the funds now in my hands.'most of which was paid in Bills on the Illinois State Bank, current money when paid, as any in these parts, but subject to a heavy rate of exchange with Eastern funds. But within a few days this Bank has received a severe revulsion, and its Bills are no longer current here, much less suitable to make remittances to the East, and whether the Bank can revive again is a problem we cannot solve.^ A month later this same agent thought it prudent to refrain from purchasing for $122.00 a draft on New York for $50.00, on account of the loss the Society would incur, and so sent worthless paper to be disposed of " as you might find convenient." ^ The Western farmer got along fairly well so far as his purchases from the cross-roads store or the merchants of the county seat were concerned, as these were accomplished by means of barter; but he did need ready money with which to pay his taxes or enter his claim at the land office, and we may well imagine the discouragement which he faced when he found the bills he had hoarded against such a time were depreciated beyond any possible value to him.* ' American Bible Society, Letters Received 26th Year, pt. i, p. 236 — Rev. C. Fitch, March i, 1843 (MS.). '^Ihid., 27th Year, pt. i, p. 43— 'Rev. H. S. Spalding, March 5, 184a. 'Ibid., Letters Received zfth Year, pt. i, p. 40 — Rev. H. S. Spalding, April 14, 1842. * Brown, William, America: A Four Years' Residence in the United States and Canada (Leeds, 1849), ch. vii. 121 ] AGRARIAN DISCONTENT 12 1 The situation in St. Louis was well expressed in a letter of Robert Campbell to his partner, William Sublette, formerly of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, dated June 4th, 1842 : I have no news to communicate — collections are entirely at a standstill — not a dollar has been received for a week or more. ... A number of persons collected together last night, with a view of mobbing the Brokers, on account of the depreciation in value of city and county notes, but they separated without do- ing any harm — it is feared there will be a mob tonight, but I don't think any harm will be done — the Brokers require a little regulating, for if ever a community was swindled by Brokers it is the citizens of St. Louis. . . I dislike to see mobs, but sometimes they do good, and a little fright might be of service.' The situation must have been nearly desperate, since this writer could hardly be suspected of radical tendencies or favoring terrorism in principle. The immediate effects of both these financial panics fell, of course, upon the manufacturing and commercial classes. Though the panic of 1837 prevented the distribution of the fourth installment of the surplus federal revenue to the states, upon which the Western States especially were relying to finance internal improvements,^ this fact did not cause the immediate abandonment of construction work on roads and canals. The Western States, under the fever of speculation, had begun a magnificient system of communica- tions.' Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan had under- 'MS. Sublette Papers (Missouri Historical Society). 2 Bourne, E. G., The History of the Surplus Revenues of 1837 (New York, i88s),p. 59- 'Tanner, H. S., Canals and Railways of the United States (New York, 1840) has an excellent map showing the ijiternal improvements completed and prospective. 122 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [122 taken the construction of some 1250 miles of canals, 750 miles of slack-water navigation, 1 540 miles of railroads, and 1400 miles of macadam roads. Illinois in particular was embarked upon a fantastic scheme, far beyond her actual needs. Her origdnal scheme had been enlarged by log- rolling methods in the legislature, and she had borrowed large sums, with the result that she was compelled to default interest upon the loan after 1841.^ Banking difficulties really troubled the farmer but little, at least for the first few years after the panic, since he received his credit from the country storekeeper rather than from the town bank. For a year or so after the first panic, agriculture in the West prospered wonderfully, both as regards crops and prices, and President Van Buren spoke of fundamentally sound conditions. " Especially have we reason to rejoice in the exviberant harvests which have lavishly recompensed well-directed industry and given to it that sure reward which is vainly sought in visionary speculations." This more than usual abundance has " left our granaries and storehouses filled with a surplus for exportation." " But the people, under the witchery of hard cider, refused re-election, in 1840, to the genial successor of Andrew Jackson. The fact is that the heavens s|miled too benignly. The patron saint of agrictilture produced too much. Even sup- posing the transportation system capable of getting the 'Bourne, E. G., ol>. cit., pp. 128, 129. A good study of the effect of proposed transportation systems upon land values is, Putnam, J. W., " The Illinois and Michigan Canal," Chicago Historical Society's Col- lections, vol. X, passim. In general, it may be said that the market on the Great Lakes fell off less than that on the Mississippi River. • Richardson, J. D., Messages and Papers of the Presidents (Wash- ington, 1896), vol. iii, pp. 530, 542. 123] AGRARIAN DISCONTENT 123 surplus to the seaboard/ there was not one European country ready to take large quantities of American grain/ and the West India Islands required no more than usual. But there was no transportation system, as we imderstand the term; only a few river and canal routes, frozen up part of the year. Wheat was the staple, almost the exclusive, crop of the frontier, and corn was fed to live stock as the only means of getting it to market. This, of course, meant that the stock walked off many valuable pounds, for the drive was often very long; but the alternative, to salt the meat on the farm, was a task beyond the technical ability of most farmers. Should the farmer do this, if he did not live on a navigable stream, he had still the problem of haul- ing his products over roads which Dickens described as having " no variety but in depth." ' In the face of such ' It is improbable that the means of transportation were insufiScient to care for the business offered; but carriage charges were very heavy. Paxton, W. M., op. cit., pp. 48, gives the freight rate from Platte County to St Louisas from one to two dollars per hundred pounds ; and Sargent, G. B., Notes on Iowa (New York, 1848), p. 45, has it for wheat as thirty cents per bushel for 340 miles on the Mississippi ; too heavy for low-grade, bulky goods. Insurance rates were high, because boilers could not hold much pressure and frequently exploded, while the rivers were filled with snags and sawyers. Add the time in which capital was tied up, and it will be understood why farm products could not be ex- ported to compete in a distant market 'See Commissioner of Patents, Report on Agriculture, yearly, from 1837-1843, in the Public Documents. The Irish potato famine did not occu- until 1845-6. 'The agricultural periodicals of the time, Prairie Parmer, American Agriculturist, and others, were engaged in the attempt to persuade the farmer to diversify his crops, improve his stock, and better his pack- ing methods, and gave almost no attention to the marketing problem —a problem which our Department of Agriculture has only recently taken up. The ccmdition of the Indiana roads is described by the Rev. C. Fitch, in speaking of his work : " It is hard to flesh and blood, and not less to horse flesh than to man flesh, to push it forward through 124 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [124 conditions in banking and transportation, we perhaps marvel how they were able to get along at all, but it is conceivable that the country might have gone on in the peaceful tenor of its ways had the government been able to assure to the husbandman the benefits that spring from steady devotion to his honorable pursuit. This is precisely what it could not do. What happened was that the bottom fell out of the market for agricultural produce in the fertile Mississippi valley. The price of flour per barrel in Cincinnati, in January, 1839, was $6.25; in October, 1842, it was $2.51. Wheat to be profitable should have brought the farmer about fifty cents per bushel, at the nearest market, to which the haul might be as great as fifty miles, but in Springfield and Pekin, Illinois, it sold for only twenty-five cents.^ In 1842, the condition of things was frightful, worse than has ever since been known. . . . During this year a number of the settlers concluded to collect their pigs in a " bunch " and drive them to Qiicago themselves, for they could not believe that the price offered by drovers was really that of the Chicago market. But these misguided settlers received for their pork, after pay- ing expenses, about twenty-five cents per hundred.- the thick atid thin of this region of intolerable mud and mire. Of the superlative and almost indescribable badness of the travelling of this region for months past (and it is growing worse and worse every day), our friends in New York, who walk and ride on pavements, railroads, etc., have no conception." American Bible Society, Letters Received, 28th Year, pt. 1, p. 236. ^Cincinnati Daily Chronicle, June i, 1843; 28th Cong. 1st Sess. Sen. Doc, no. 83 — a petition for aid in building a railway to Macon County, Illinois, that the settlers might send wheat to Canada, and thus reach the English market through the preferential duties, 1843. 'Duis, E., The Good Old Times in McLean County, Illinois (Bloom- ington, 1874, pp. 14, 15. A table, meagre as the figures are, will show the fall and continued depression in prices of agricultural products: 125] AGRARIAN DISCONTENT 125 On the Missouri frontier, where lands were being settled, the needs of new-comers and traders held prices up a bit, but even there all the ready cash was required to enter lands, and many had to sacrifice their personal property to hold their claims.^ Dry-goods fluctuated to a certain extent, but the prices of groceries remained almost constant ; coffee and sugar being the most stable, at about twenty and ten cents, Illinois State Historical Society Transactions for 1904, article by Prince, Ezra M., " Prices in McLean County, Illinois, 1832-1860," p. 537. 1833 1834 183s 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 Com 33'A 20 30M 24^ 30'A 20'A 20>^ I2}i 2i% 14 14k Horses I39SO 45-00 60.00 50.10 39-05 61.68 56.80 48.62 37.37 18.87 37.00 35.00 42.12 39-87 42.81 53-57 Cows $11.06 7.08 10.87 18.50 20.25 I2.6o 20.og 13-89 13.54 7-50 6-44 8.50 8.4S 7-75 10.50 8.56 17.97 Hogs $2.81 .72 1.83 1.52 3-51 3.33 4.20 3.47 1.70 1. 00 -SI .89 1-45 -92>^ 1.27 ' Paxton, W. M., op. cit., p. 53. He gives prices taken, like those of Prince, previously cited, with which they compare quite closely, from the appraisal of estates. He says: "Abundant crops were raised in 1842, but there was no market for them." Ibid., p. 48. "Until the Mexican War brought relief, I witnessed a state of awful pecuniary distress." Ibid., p. 53. Cf. also, History of Clay and Platte Counties, Missouri, pp. 585, 590. Newhall, J. B., The British Emigrants' " Hand Book" and Guide to the New States of America (London, 1844), p. 67, states that he was continually pressed to answer the reiterated question : " What signifies your productive country without a market ? " For reply, he only urged the cultivation of other than staple crops. 126 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [126 respectively, for many years.^ Labor cost only fifty cents per day, with board, while skilled labor was worth from $1.25 to $2.00; but when we realize that wages were paid in orders on the various shopkeepers, butchers, bakers, grocers, clothiers, and shoemakers, payable only in goods,* we may assume that the limitations upon the economic free- dom of at least the mechanic classes, must have been con- sidera;ble. Though the yearly expenses, on the frontier, of a new settler with a family of five might be less than $150.,* it is doubtful if men would care, should opportunity promise anything better, to endure long a scale of living such as this would entail. Those who owned slaves and cultivated cotton or hemp seem either not to have suffered so severely, or else were better able to tide over the depres- sion.* At all events, to the insistent question, whether to stick it out in the valley or try the luck of the coast, the slave- owner gave the conservative answer. The radical reply was returned with enthusiasm by that class which, hating slavery, had fled before it from the Virginia mountains to the Arkansas bottoms; that class with which dissent and change were traditional, because lacking organization and leadership it must search rather than fight for its ideals of happiness. To this class was added another, that of the •Prince, Ezra M., op. cit., p. 541; American Bible Society, Letters Received, 27th Year, pt. i, p. 224— 'Rev. C Fitch, February 9, 1843, " Our clothing and groceries are equally high, I believe, if not higher, than they were." Newhall, J. B., A Glimpse of Iowa w 1846 (Burlington, 1846), p. 60, gives the prices of all household articles. 'Newhall, J. B., op. cit., pp. 40, 60; Rubio, pseud, of T. N. James, Rambles in the United States aud Canada, 1845 (London, 1846), pp. 115. 116. •Newhall, J. B., op. cit., p. 59. * Paxton, W. M., op. cit., p. 37 ; the Proceedings of the Southwestern Convention at Memphis, 1845, throw some light on conditions in the Cotton States. 127] AGRARIAN DISCONTENT 127 Eastern farmers and a few foreigners who had recently come West and found their hopes rudely shattered. The population of the valley grew prodigiously during this decade, in spite of its uninviting features; but whether the strangers moved on or settled there, most of them joined in the outcry for expansion. Then, as now, that popula- tion was never inarticulate. It was no new political pheno- menon that they should give an almost fanatical allegiance to a dream, for they suffered in more ways than one. The hardy settlers of the Great Valley had other difficul- ties than low prices to test their endurance. The series of bountiful years ended with 1842, and capricious nature played her other hand. Heavy rains in 1843 retarded farm- ing operations, and in the following year many of those settlements which were in the river bottoms were almost wiped out by disastrous floods. Many towns along the Wabash were isolated or inundated for weeks at a time, while the Missouri " spread from bluff to bluff, driving out to the hills families and their stock." ^ After the floods came sickness — malaria chiefly — then known as chills and fever, or the ague; with cholera not infrequent. Often the river steamers were stopped an hour on the grassy bank, to bury a passenger suddenly stricken down. " The people were discouraged. Their fields were overgrown with weeds, the furrows were running with water, the land sales had exhausted their money, and to the failure of their crops, sickness is added." " Truth to tell, 'Paxton, W. M., op. cit., p. 61. These floods, however, had their compensations. When a steamer was able for the first time to come up the Little Platte to Platte Qty, in 1843, "the town got drunk, and J. P. Dorriss shipped a hogshead of sugar to New Orleans." Ibid., p. 55. But, in 1844, the arrival of several steamers '' excited the vision- ary people, and for some years it was thought Platte City was destined to become an important seaport. Ground for a wharf was reserved, etc., etc." Ibid., p. 62. '/6irf., p. 62. 128 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [128 sickness was rarely absent from frontier homes, for which the " noxious miasma " — otherwise the obnoxious mosquito — that rose from stagnant water, was held accountable ; but there is good reason for believing that malaria was epidemic in Iowa and Missouri about this time.^ Time brought a measure of relief, for people at length began to know what value to fix upon the depreciated paper, and what loss they had actually sustained. On the other hand, they had become too accustomed to the advantages of a medium of exchange to endure for long a primitive barter economy; but either this was not the most pressing difficulty confronting the farmer of the West, or else he was tired of discussing a subject in which he had had his own way, for he suddenly turned his attention in another direc- tion — to the problem of markets. In the political language of the day this often took the form of a cry for more land, which has ever since seemed so unintelligible,^ since unoccupied land in the Mississippi valley ' American Bible Society, Letters Received, 30th Year, p. 207, from R. Bond, M. D., August 25, 1845. "Such was the sickness here [Van Buren County, Iowa Territory] . . . that there was scarcely any busi- ness done in any stores of this place, except at the drug store and the groceries. Religious meetings on the Sabbath were suspended for want of hearers, all of whom were sick, or engaged in taking care of the sick. Our physicians say that some of their patients died for want of proper care and nursing. A sufficient number of persons in health could not be found to take care of them," Bible Society Record, no. 18, September, 1846. Mrs. Whitman states that the widespread sickness in the Western States was the cause of the large emigration of 1847, Ore. Pioneer Ass. Transactions, 1893, p. 215. *Polk Papers, vol. iv. Circular of a Carrol County (Kentucky) Mass Meeting, in November, 1843. " The new and unsettled States of Texas would offer an extensive market to the Eastern manufacturers, and a large carrying trade to the shipping of the great commercial cities, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia; while the products of the West, which now too often glut the New Orleans market, would be carried off to Texas free of the onerous taxes which now fetter our trade. Our intercourse with Santa Fe would be greatly facilitated. 129] AGRARIAN DISCONTENT 129 was more than abundant ; but it was only another expression of the desire for new markets, which lay behind the " 54° 40' or fight" uproar.^ It was well known that the best harbor in Oregon lay in the disputed section, but even the magnificent Bay of San Francisco did not seem out of reach. It was a day of agitation. Pacific Railway schemes were not lacking either in number or variety;^ the position of Oregon as the key of the Pacific was considered invaluable to the United States, " even if it were as barren as the African Sahara." Just beyond lay Asia and all the storied Orient, as potent as ever to grip the imagination of man. The wealth, the curious and expensive manufactures of the East were waiting to be exchanged for the wheat and pork of the wonderful valley. Would the Chinese eat pork? And did they need grain? The Westerner thought so.' The really curious thing is that no one suggested feeding Russia by way of Siberia.* The frontiersman was not seek- ing land only ; It could not b€ long before the West would receive for her manu- factured articles a greater influx of specie from that source than from any other." Alfred Balch wrote from Nashville: "There is a political conflagration raging throughout the whole South-West. . . . The Breed- ers of mules and horses and hogs cry out, ' Let us have Texas, right or wrong!'" Van Buren Papers (Library of Congress, Mss.). 1 There were numerous petitions sent to Congress from western state legislatures, 1843-5, praying for the occupation of Oregon, and the exclusion of England therefrom, in order that American traders might have a freer hand in the Pacific. 'Haney, L. H., Congressional History of Railways (Madison, 1910), pt. iii. 'Weston (Mo.) Journal, January 25, 1845. *In a report by Senator J. Semple, Chairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, April 20, 1846 (29th Cong, ist Sess. Sen. Doc, no. 306), we have the argument in all its glory. As it is impos- sible to summarize, a few extracts will suflfice to give the dirft of his thought. " In the occupation of Oregon, we are about to connect our- selves with the Pacific Ocean, to open our way to a new and indefinite 130 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [130 it will be at once acknowledged by any sensible man that a richer soil cannot be expected than that of the fertile valley of the Mississippi: what then is wanted? It is Position! The na- tural advantages of situation of our Territory on the Pacific coast, almost rivalling those of our Atlantic shores. . . . The position of commanding the trade of the Pacific and Southern Oceans, whose waters wash the shores of some of the wealthiest powers of the earth; and the position of holding a country fertile enough, rich enough in its natural advantages, salubrious enough to be the home of thousands of freemen, belongs to the Oregon Territory — let her take her place.^ commerce, and bring ourselves into connection with Asia, Polynesia, and Southern America, by the most direct, natural, and easy route. We h^ve seen that already over-growth, over-production, and too great agricultural competition at home have reduced the reward of labor in all employments, etc. . . . The transient nostrums sought to be applied to remedy a general depression, such as national banks, protective tariffs, and the contrary, home manufactures, and treaty stipulations with European powers, drawbacks, and premiums, are so miserably trifling in proportion to the great disease, as to prove unfit to be regarded as measures of relief." (p. 25). . . . "We already see amongst the Chinese a great and increasing market for the lead of the Mississippi Valley. The consumption of the coarse and cheap American tobacco has super- seded the use of all other narcotic drugs amongst the Europeans. It will in like manner substitute itself for opium amongst the Asiatics. The Chinese, the Japanese, the Indians, will take from us an unlimited quantity of cotton, of rice, of provisions of all kinds. They will send us the beautiful and inimitable cotton and silk fabrics of which they are the inventors, and still produce far more perfect than the machin- ery of Europe. The beautiful shawls of Cashmere, nankeens, crapes, a thousand varieties of crapes, silks, delicate and perfect fabrics of every kind and hue, works in ivory, japan ware, porcelain, drugs, spices, dyes, medicines, the excellent coffee of Java and Mocha, teas, the sugar of the East Indies, the hemp of Manilla, all this mighty laboratory whence the world has suppUed itself for fifty centuries with articles of luxury, comfort, and common use, will pour itself forth in exchange for the produce of the Mississippi Valley." (pp. 31, 32). 'Independence (Mo.) Journal, January 4, 1845; cf. Cleland, R. G., "Asiatic Trade and American Occupation of the Pacific Coast," Ameri- can Historical Association, Report 1914, vol. i, no. xvi. 131] AGRARIAN DISCONTENT I3I Perhaps these are only parochial ideas made extravagant by prolonged suffering; yet we may agree with Albert Gallatin that, " the greater degree of excitement which pre- vails in the West is due to other and more powerful causes than self-interest." The course of emigration, bloodshed, and expansion, upon which this country then embarked could have been to the immediate interest of no considerable class, however firmly they believed it might be. The Chinese never tasted American pork, and the outfitting of the armies invading Mexico benefited only Platte County and St. Louis. Relief came in time, through the building of railways and the opening of European markets. But the indomitable energy of this nation has been and is nowhere displayed so forcibly as in the new states and settlements. It was necessarily directed toward the acquisition of land and the cultivation of the soil. In that respect it has performed prodi-' gies. . . . Nothing now seems impossible to those men; they have not even been sobered by fresh experience. Attempting to do at once, and without an adequate capital, that which should have been delayed five-and-twenty years, and might have then been successfully accomplished, some of those states have had the mortification to find themselves unable to pay the interest on the debt they had contracted, and obliged to try to compound with their creditors. Nevertheless, undiminished activity and locomotion are still the ruling principles : the West- ern people leap over time and distance; ahead they must go; it is their mission. May God speed them, and may they thus quietly take possession of the entire contested territory ! * And God did ; yet less than a dozen pioneers settled in the contested territory before 1846. ' Gallatin, A., The Oregon Question (New York, 1846), pp. 28, 29. CHAPTER VII The Journey to the Western Coast 1 843-1 846 When the emigrants start to the sun-down diggings of Oregon, they should not fancy that they are doing some great thing, and that they need miHtary array, officers, non-commis- sioned officers, etc.: all this is folly. They will quarrel, and try to enforce non-essential duties, till the company will divide and subdivide, the whole way to Oregon.^ This caution from a handbook of information suggests the first problem that confronted the participants in the early migration to the western coast. The almost gigantic appeal of this task, the glamor and ibeauty of its set- ting, ihe consciousness of something heroic about their undertaking led the first emigrants to err on the side of too much organization, while their followers tended to- ward too little cohesion for their own safety and success. However, the families which opened the wagon road, clear through to the settlements on the coast, probably had an easier time of it than those who came after, in the gold rush, when the way was more crowded and worn, food and fuel scarcer, and the preparation less intelligent and thorough. The correspondence committees working in the winter and spring of 1843 were successful in bringing to the rendez- vous, at the Spanish encampment twenty miles west of In- dependence, on the Santa Fe road, a goodly throng of men, women, and children from the river counties of 'Arkansas. 'Shively, J. M., Route and Distances to Oregon and California (Washington, 1846), p. 3. 132 [132 133] THE JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN COAST 133 Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa. They were already organized in local companies, ready and determined to put through the thing they had started. They had listened with attention to the enthusiastic speeches of the promoters, had discussed earnestly details of route and equipment, and inquired care- fully into the character of applicants to join the companies. As officers had been elected, constitutions discussed and adopted defining the powers and duties of these, something of the heroic mood easily gathered about their ideas of this far journey into the West.^ Encamped at their rendezvous, with their wagons formed in a circle, rear end in, and their cattle grazing on the prairie, the emigrants proceeded to the election of a captain and council to govern the whole party. The candidates, stood up in a row behind the constituents, and at a given signal they wheeled about and marched off, while the general mass broke after them " lickety-split," each man forming in behind his favorite, so that every candidate flour- ished a sort of a tail of his own, and the man with the longest tail was elected! ... if the scene can be conceived, it must appear as a curious mingling of the whimsical with the wild. Here was a congregation of rough, bold, and adventurous men, gathered from distant and opposite points of the Union, just forming an acquaintace with each other, to last, in all prob- ability, through good or ill fortune, through the rest of their days. . . . They had with them their wives and children, and aged, depending relatives. They were going with stout and determined hearts to traverse a wild and desolate r^on, and take possession of a far corner of their country, destined to prove a new and strong arm of a mighty nation. These men were running about the prairie, in long strings ; the leaders, in sport and for the purpose of puzzling the judges, doubling and winding in the drollest fashion; so that the all important 'Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. xv, pp. 286-299; vol. iii, pp. 390-39Z; vol. iv, pp. 278-280 — Document:: 134 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [134 business of forming a government seemed very much like the merry schoolboy game of " snapping the whip." ^ But they could not be merry long, for the reality of a passage over the open wastes was so utterly unlike the expectation that not even the wisdom born of experience on the furthest frontier could fully prepare a family to meet its hardships. To begin with, there was always a certain amount of seasoning to be undergone during the first few weeks. Only buckskin clothing would last through the prickly sage, and eyes and lips would become swollen and ulcerated in the burning sun and the desert's dust. The wagons in which the family life was to be carried on were, in truth, moving households, having water-tight beds, and being fitted with boxes to carry the food and cooking utensils; they must also be equipped with falling tongues, as the hills were short, steep pitches, whose bottoms the lead oxen might reach before ever the wagon came over the crest; a well-seasoned log should be swung beneath, from which to make repairs ; and the bows supporting the canvas tops must not be too large for safety, prairie winds being so fierce and sudden, that, upon occasion, some ingenious people tried to sail light cars over the level stretches. In regard to the equipment for an unfamiliar trip, one is apt to have either too many ideas, or else none at all. Many a wagon was elaborately fitted with bureau, carpet, and chairs. There were probably few, if any, families that did not learn, to their sorrow, of some necessary article omitted, or leave some family heirloom by the wayside, because its weight was breaking down the teams. There is record, however, of such articles as burr stones, soft soap, and growing plants, being carried through to Oregon. ^Ore. Hist. Qmr., vol. i, pp. 399, 4oc>-extract from New Orleans Picayune, November 21, 1843. 135] THE JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN COAST 135 The item of food was one from which they all suffered greatly, for it was impossible, with even the closest figuring, to carry supplies enough for four or five months, and there were sure to be many in the companies who would be hungry and near to starvation as they approached the Columbia. There were some who seemed to have no comprehension of the journey ahead, for they would start with provisions enough for only three or four weeks. Those who made the trip most successfully were those who figured upon the privations of the way as well as on the beauty of nature, and repeated warnings, by all who wrote of their experiences, to carry nothing but food, testify to the general ignorance regarding the magnitude of their undertaking. The most interesting feature of the whole movement is the organization and re-organization of the companies. With the principle of co-operation and the necessity for a certain amoimt of it, all were familiar enough ; but to obtain agreement upon the application and exercise of the principle, in unaccustomed ways, was a nearly insuperable task for the leaders. " If a company is strong and united, there is no security that it will long continue so; if it is weak to-day, it is no reason that it will not be weaker tomorrow." ^ The people who, by virtue of some inherent natural right, could organize a government for mutual aid and protection could, by a right of equal antiquity, revolutionize the thing; and they exercised both rights with something less than dis- crimination. The man who would pull his neighbor out of a slough in the afternoon might refuse to stand guard over his cattle that night, for, as some one has put it : " Each took his marching orders from his own soul." If they con- ceived a big idea, and created a close-knit organization with power and responsibility centered in the officers, at once " the 'Johnson, O. and Winter, W. H., op. cit., p. 120. 136 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [136 'American character' was fully exhibited. All appeared to be determined to govern, but not to be governed." ^ A loose-knit organization with plenty of latitude for individual freedom was actually no better, since incidents were sure to occur for which no one could be held to account ; and dissat- isfaction with the way things were run was no respecter of political theories. Good causes might, perhaps, be found for many of their disputes, since the captains were apt to play favorites; but most of them arose for no more soul- stirring reason than the mere ill-humor to which men are peculiarly prone when traveling with their fellows. " It was strange," but not unusual, "to see one small family traveling along through such a country, so remote from civilization," ' and even that ancient unit was sometimes, subdivided. We may look back on these primitive mani- festations of natural abilities and inherent rights half humorously, half regretfully, and agree with the young Nesmith, who was later to become Senator from Oregon, that ' the emigrants were their own worst enemies.' For all that, their achievement was astoundingly large. After 1840, in the spring of each year there gathered at Independence and other jumping-off places along the Mis- souri River a motley throng of Santa Fe traders, mountain trappers, sportsmen, and emigrants, with an occasional Indian stalking about. The town of Independence, now part of Kansas City, lay back in the hills, four miles from the landing. It was substantially built, for its trade was certain, its position making it then, as later, a natural center for the supply business of the plains. From its merchants could be purchased every useful article, from well-seasoned Conestoga wagons, brought by boat from Pittsburgh, to red ' Hastings, L. W., op. cit., p. 6. 2 28th Cong. 2nd Sess. .Sen. Doc, no. 174, p. 133, Fremont, J. C,. Report of his Expedition of 1843." 137] THE JOURNEV TO THE WESTERN COAST 137 bandana handkerchiefs. The post office door was covered with communications from those who had started, to friends who were following. The postmaster played the part of an enterprising chamber of commerce by issuing circulars of information and inspiration to prospective emi- grants who applied for advice. Glad these emigrants must have been to get clear of the worry and bustle of the out- fitting place; or, if they came by one of the upper crossings, to leave behind the crowd that waited for weeks to ibe ferried over the Missouri.'' There were many roads leading from the Missouri river, developed by the growing traffic, all of which converged upon the great turnpike up the Platte.^ On leaving the States, the country traversed was open prairie, well timbered along the rivers, but " a bad country for wagons to travel through, having so many sloughs and bad creeks: the teams were often stalled and made very slow progress." ^ But beyond the trouble, if the season was wet, caused by this and the not infrequent stampedes,* there was little to break the 1 Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. xi, pp. 307-312, circular issued 1847, by the postmaster of Independence, Missouri. This was also the starting- point for the Santa Fe trade, which had been in existence as long as the mountain fur trade. See Gregg, Josiah, Commerce of the Prairies (Philadelphia, 1855), passim. Mormons opened the road across Iowa to the mouth of the Platte, which became the usual route when the sources of the emigrations became more diversified than they were in the beginning. Cf. Van der Zee, " The Mormon Trails in Iowa," Iowa Journal of History and Politics, vol. xii. 'Cf, Table of distances at end of chapter and map. ■'Weston, Mo., Journal, January 4, 184S. letter of J. Boardman, July 17, 1844. *"At noonday we were quietly pursuing our way along the route; the prairies were clothed in a carpet of green interspersed with beau- tiful flowers ; the face of the earth was as level as a floor ; not a single tree, hill, or shrub could be seen to vary the monotony of sky and grass, ■fhe wagons, jogging along leisurely, were separated some distance from each other, so that the whole line of the train was about a mile 138 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [138 routine of travel, for the Indians were more disposed to beg than to steal. But vigilance could not be relaxed, since war parties of the Pawnees from their villages on the Platte often roamed these plains. Along the Platte on either side stretched a smooth, hard road — " the finest road imagin- long. There was a young mare, belonging to one of our company, running loose, and eating grass leisurely along by the roadside, at some distance behind the train. Finding that she was getting left behind, she quit eating to catch up with the other horses, and feeling, no doubt, very happy on the occasion, thought she would try how fast she could run. After kicking up her heels and snorting, away she started pell- mell as fast as she could run. The clattering of her hoofs, as she n«ared the loose cattle behind the train, startled them, and when she came a little closer away they started too; as they came nearer to the train, the oxen in the hindmost wagotv became unmanageable, and when they came up, each ox gave a frightful hawl, and started out, with elongated tail, at full speed. I shall never forget that terrific bawl; it spread from wagon to wagon along the whole line, with the velocity of a telegraph despatch. The ox, you know, has the reputation of being rather a slow animal, but, upon my honor, in a stampede, I don't think I ever saw anything so fast. The proper way to manage oxen when they take a stampede in the wagon is not to attempt to manage them at all—' Let them rip ! ' If you do not attempt to control them, they will run in a straight line; but if you attempt to stop or control them, they will take a short turn, when at full speed, upset the wagon, dash everything to atoms, break their own necks, and kill the driver. I was in advance of the train when the affair occurred, and could see every- thing. As soon as I saw what was up, I dismounted mighty quick, and it was with great difficulty that I could hold my horse. It was indeed a strange spectacle— to see such ijnwieldy animals, that seemed formed by nature to move at no faster pace than a snail's gallop, traveling so rapidly — then to see the drivers endeavoring in vain to stop them— to see men, women, and children getting pitched out of the wagons— to hear them scream, and the drivers shouting. I shall never forget the occurrence. One man got his shoulder dislocated, and was otherwise badly bruised; several others were somewhat injured; some of the women were rather roughly handled, but no serious accident occurred. Several oxen got their necks broken. ... As soon as the stampede was over (it did not last over three minutes) we went to work mending up things, and, in an hour afterwards, we were traveling on as usual." Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. xv, pp. 210-215, letter of Q. A. Brooks, 1851. e; 2 O- a "5 > t; a. 1— ( ?^ CL. M 5 i B5 CO -5 ^ 1 "a <3 _W) ^ 1-1 § m a E S ■? H S C bD 5c g 'rfi . c 9 03 o M 139] "^^^ JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN COAST jog able " — where travel became monotonous, and men, women, and children slept out the sultry afternoons under the welcome shade of the great white canvas top. If they were fortiuiate, and there were not too many Indians or sportsmen ahead, they might have the diversion of a buffalo hunt; but, when the emigrant travel became so heavy that the huge prairie schooners were visible on both sides of the river, as far as the eye could see, the buffalo were driven to smaller streams for their summer range. Then the emigrants were forced to rely upon salt pork for food, which could be purchased at the numerous emigrant stations that sprang up along the way. If they were less fortunate, the cattle that were driven along might wander at night, or the horses be stampeded while the guards were asleep. Being a guard was not much fun, anyway, for if one fired at an Indian prowling on the dusky plain, who happened to be silhouetted against the sky, the company would be instantly in a uproar, and it usually turned out that someone's horse had been killed. But tragedy is at all times poignant, touching our deepest feelings, and of swift, overwhelming tragedy these emi- grants tasted bitterly. Thus runs a woman's diary: June 29th. This morning eight of our largest and best work oxen were missing, besides two yoke of Welch's, three yoke of Adam Polk's, and about thirty head belonging to the company — all work oxen right out of our wagons. Here we were, thousands of miles from any inhabitants, and thus deprived of teams — an appaling situation. We had only one yoke left. We hunted in every direction without success. June 30th. Hunted all day. Our cattle hunters, my hus- band among them, were so far away from camp, some thirty miles, that they stayed away all night. July 1st. To-day when our hunters came in they brought one dead man; he had shot himself last night, accidentally. 140 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [140 He left a wile and six small children. The distress of his wife I cannot describe. He was an excellent man, and very much missed. His name was Smith Dunlap, from Chicago, 111. The hunters found no cattle. July 2nd. A trying time. So many of us having to get teams, had to hire, borrow, buy, just as we could. Had to take raw cattle, cows, or anything we could get. Some had to apply to other companies for help; at last we moved off. Made fifteen miles.^ So they travelled up the North Fork of the Platte and Sweetwater to South Pass. They marveled at the weather- worn, wondrously carved rocks, some of which " resemble old demolished villages, half sunk in the ground," but are forgotten now, for the railway does not go that way, and its folders advertise other curiosities than those of the emigrant hand-books. They danced at Fort Laramie, where there was a strange mixture of people, and " plenty of talk about their damnation, but none about their salvation ; " * and celebrated the Fourth of July with neither safety nor sanity, if some one happened to be toting a brass cannon. Perhaps a marriage in the company would relieve the tedium; and all must, of course, inscribe their names on the "great registry of the desert," Independence Rock. But summer does not last all year, so they could not often stop to recruit the teams, air out the wagon, or give the women a chance to wash and bake. " We have more time for reading and meditation when we are traveling," wrote one of them, " than we do when we stop and spend a day. We have so much to do when we stop it keeps us busy all day. ... We all take a great deal of comfort, (and) have 'Ore. Pioneer Ass., Transaction. 1907, pp. 157, 15&— Diary of Mrs. Gear. 'Williams, J., op. cit., p. 11, 141 ] THE JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN COAST 141 some jolly times, if we are in the wilderness." ^ Indeed, they did have a good time — the men buffalo-running, the women and children wading the shallow fords, or walking a little in advance of the dusty caravans. Music, or a game, around the dying embers of a camp fire, of a still evening, will compensate for many a chill night in wet blankets ; " but we cannot comprehend the dread horror of watching a wagon with its team sinking in the quicksands of the Platte, or a husband drowning in the rapid current of the Snake. The camping places were naturally selected in close pro- ximity to the infrequent watei'-holes; buffalo chips, cotton- wood, or sage, which burns quickly without leaving a coal, furnished fuel. As there was no protection from the wind, fires were built in narrow, shallow trenches, with the cooking-pots and frying-pans resting directly on the ground. If trouble with the Indians was anticipated, the wagons were drawn up in a circle about the camp, and the stock driven inside; a secure defense from the Indian mode of attack. The latter soon learned that they could get more out of the emigrants by peacefully making a nuisance of themselves, than by stampedes or night raids; so that all summer long many tribes were camped by the road to demand food and presents from all who passed. The poor emigrants were too fearful of their savage guests to resist ^Ore. Picmeer Ass., Transactions, 1904, pp. 393, 296— Diary of Mrs. Adams. Visitors to the desert wonders " must be cautious, on account of the many rattlesnakes lurking round and concealed in the clefts of the WuflFs," Cla3^on, W., Latter Day Saints' Emigrants' Guide (St. Louis, 1848), p. II. '"It is almost always the case that someone was thoughtful enough to bring a deck of cards with him ; and if they have none of them, they bet on the distance to some hill, or on the distance traveled during the day, or that my oxen can draw more than yours." Ore. Pioneer Ass., Transactions, 1803, p. 84— letter of Andrew Rogers, Jr., April 22, 1846. 142 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [142 their importunities, and yielded so often that the Indians became more and more insolent.^ If not bothered tdo much by the savages, it was often necessary to lay by a day or two on the barren uplands approaching the divide, in order to treat the swollen feet of the oxen with boiling tar, or to repair the wagons, which had become shrunken and rickety in the hot, dry sand. The sheer ingenuity, little short of marvelous, of the emigrants, in meeting their physical difficulties, is in sharp contrast to their timidity and indecision in dealing with those problems which involved human relationships.^ The road up the Sweetwater led directly, by an easy grade to the great gap in the mountains,* and dropped a little to Bridger's Fort, on a fork of Green River, whence one of the old Indian trails struck directly we^t to Salt Lake. From Bridger's it turned north, to meet again, just over Bear River divide,* the Sublette cutoff. This cutoff entailed '"After we passed Green River we abandoned guarding and broke up into small companies, . . . some of the emigrants were imposed on, in fact, some of them were robbed, though it was their own fault for not sticking together." Weston, Mo., Journal, March 15, 1845 — letter from S. M. Gilmore, of the Emigration of 1843. The governmient sent military expeditions over parts of the highway every few years, for the purpose of overawing the Indians. See for Col. Kearney's expedition in 1845, 29th Cong. 1st iSess. House Doc, no. 2, p. 210. '". . . Our wagon tires had become loose; and we had wedged until the tire would no longer remain on the wheels. . . . We had neither bellows nor anvil, and, of course, could not cut and weld tire. But, as a substitute, we took off the tire, shaved thin hoops, and tacked them on the felloes, heated our tire, and replaced it." Palmer, Joel, Journal (Thwaites, ed.), p. 65. On the emigrants' attitude toward strangers, see Parkman, F., The California and Oregon Trail (New York, 1849), passim. ' " We crossed very near the table mountain, at the southern extremity of the South Pass, which is near twenty miles in width, and already traversed by several different roads." (1843) Elevation, 7490 feet. 28th Cong. 2nd iSess. Sen. Doc, no. 174, p. 128. * "August 20th. We continued to travel up the creek by a very 143] ^^'^ JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN COAST 143 a forty-mile dry drive, but avoided the wide southern detour of the main highway. At Soda Springs, on Bear River, "^ the California road, by way of the Mormon settle- ments and Salt Lake, followed the river in its bend to the gradual ascent and a very excellent grassy road, passing on the way several small forks of the stream. The hills here are higher, present- ing escarpments of parti-colored and apparently clay rocks, purple, dark red, and yellow, containing strata of sand-stone and limestone with shells, with a bed of cemented pebbles, the whole overlaid by beds of limestone. The alternation of red and yellow gives a bright appearance to the hills, one of which was called by our people the Rainbow Hill; and the character of the country became more agree- able, and traveling far more pleasant, as now we found timber and very good grass. ... At noon we halted at the last main fork of the creek, at an elevation of 7,200 feet, . . . ; and in the afternoon continued on the same excellent road, up to the left or northern fork of the stream, towards its head, in a pass which the barometer placed at 8,230 feet above the sea. This [pass] is a connecting ridge between the Utah or Bear River Mountains, and the Wind iRiver chain of the Rocky Mountains, separating the waters of the Gulf of California, on the east, and those on the west belonging more directly to the Pacific, from a vast interior basin whose rivers are collected into numerous lakes having no outlet to the ocean. From the summit of this pass, the highest which the road crosses between the Mississippi and the Western Ocean, our view was over a very mountainous region, whose rugged appearance was greatly increased by the smoky weather, through which the broken ridges were dark and dimly seen. The ascent to the summit of the gap was occasionally steeper than the national road in the Alleghanies ; and the descent, by way of a spur on the western side, is rather precipitous, but the pass may still be called a good one." 28th Cong. 2nd Sess. Sen. Doc., no. 174, pp. 131, 132 — Fremont, J. C, "Report of his Expedition of 1843," which was much used as a guide-book. 'Here "'we descended into a beautiful bottom, formed by a lateral valley, which presented a picture of home beauty that went directly to our hearts. The edge of the wood, for several miles along the river, was dotted with the white covers of emigrant wagons, collected in groups at different camps, where the smokes were rising lazily from the fires, around which the women were occupied in preparing the evening meal, and the children playing in the grass ; and herds of cattle grazing about in the bottom, had an air of quiet security and civilized comfort that made a rare sight for the traveler in such a remote wilderness." IKd., p. 133. J4. OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [144 southwest, while the Oregon road, crossing another divide, and winding down a narrow, gloomy valley, reached the wide Snake River desert, near Fort Hall, the first of the Hudson's Bay Company posts. Here the emigrant was sure of accommodation for all his wants, except provisions, with which the post was never over-supplied. The Com- pany pursued a generous policy toward all who came its way,'^ out of sound good sense and those dictates of human- ity which make the Englishman so unconscious of his superiority. Here also the emigrant was met by a horde of silver-tongued men from the settlements, offering to guide him by new routes to this or that point on the coost.^ Fortunate was the family which did not yield to the tempta- tion to leave the beaten way, for it was upon these ventures that most of the tragedy of the western migrations was enacted. Here, also, tlie emigrant was faced with his hardest pro- blem, the necessity of making a final decision. Tied to the soil, but to no particular portion of it, his restless habits bred in him a frame of mind of which this is pro- bably the extreme form, the desire to be up and doing, with the minimum definition, of what he wished to do. With the care-free outlook of one who does not know where he is going, but is on the way, he enjoyed "rolling over the vast plains . . . with a jovial company," but he cared little ' Weston, Mo., Journal, March 15, 1845 — letter of S. M. Gilmore, from Oregon, November 11, 1843. * Through the efforts of these men, there came, in the course of time, to be many roads west of the 'Rockies to the American settlements. As use developed the route, and the hard surface was ground into fine, deep sand, it was often easier to tread out a new path through the low sage than to haul heavy loads in the old ruts. Thus, the road quickly became not a single trace, but multiple throughout its whole length. Not infrequently, however, the emigrant who stuck to the old path could smile at a companion who was delayed by following one less well worn. Hastings, L. W., op. cit., passim. 145] ^^^ JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN COAST 145 where, so long as the prospect seemed inviting. In this frame of mind, he met many on the road, returning for diverse reasons, whose accounts and opinions of the coast were as various as their characters. Frequently those bound to California came by way of Fort Hall to the turn in the road ^ on Snake River, either still undecided, or in order to avoid the Mormons, who, after being driven out of Illinois, in 1845, were thought to be inhospitably inclined toward the emigrants. They encountered so many differ- ent opinions in regard to the coast region that any choice depended more upon feeling and influence than upon a balancing of the advantages and disadvantages of Oregon and California. Before the gold discoveries, however, a large number preferred the former country, since it was certain that their land claims would be respected, it being understood that the Willamette Valley, in which they settled, would in any division of the Oregon country become American territory. Whether the emigrant decided on California or on Oregon, he had before him many thirsty miles of travel over a desert country, which was " hilly, rocky, sandy, no timber, but an abundance of sage" — z. country where the day's travel must be governed by the location of the water-holes and springs; where his wagon would break down, his team give out; where his family must suffer himger and the savage weariness that accompanies toil under such circum- stances. " You in ' The States ' know nothing about dust. It will fly so that you can hardly see the horns of your tongue yoke of oxen. It often seems that the cattle must die for want of breath, and then in our wagons, such a spectacle — ^beds, clothes, victuals, and children, all com- pletely covered."^ 'Fremont, "the Pathfinder," took this road by mistake. 'Ore, Pioneer Ass., Transactions, 1907, p. 163— Diary of Mrs. Geer. 1^6 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [146 But though the desert strained nerves to the point where it seemed they must snap, it was neither the last nor the greatest difficulty which must be overcome, for the place where one could turn 'back had been passed long since. At the end of the desert, when oxen and men were most exhausted, the emigrant to the Sacramento faced the tow- ering wall of the Sierra, which rises abruptly from the rugged, barren country; a sight so forbidding as to try even the most courageous. Before the Ol-egon-bound could reach his land of pro- mised rain, he had to cross the Blue Mountains,^ and follow down the utterly barren course of the Columbia to the Dalles. Here, as the river flows through a deep cleft in the Cascade Mountains, the families were forced to divide ; the older boys driving the cattle over the mountains, while the fathers were dismantling their wagons, and building rafts to carry the outfit to tide-water and the settlements. Floating down the Columbia in the chill November winds Accidents could occur here or anywhere. " To-day as little Rebecca was trying to get on or off the wagon, she slipped and fell, the wagon wheel rolling over and breaking her thigh. . . . All well, except Rebecca, who is doing as well as can be reasonably expected, this being the eigh- teenth day since her thigh was broken. She complains not much, ex- cept of pain occasioned by the jolting of the wagon over rocks and rough places." Ore. Pioneer Ass., Transactions, 1888, pp. no, 112 — Diary of the Rev. Mr. Parrish. •"As we advanced, we gradually ascended a beautiful mountain; gained the top upon which grew a number of pine and cedar trees; a few miles farther, a beautiful landscape appeared to sight; to the west a large valley; to the southwest the Cascade Mountains; to the northwest was the Columbia River." Ore. Pioneer Ass., Transactions, 191 1, p. 522— Diary of Jesse Harritt. "The trail now led along one of the long spurs of the mountain descending gradually toward the plain; and, after a few miles traveling, we emerged finally from the forest, in full view of the plain below, and saw the snowy mass oi Mount Hood, standing high out above the surrounding country, at the distance of 180 miles." Fremont, J. C, op. cit., p. 182. 147] "^^^ JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN COAST 147 and the freezing cold, with the water knee-deep over the raft; this was the emigrant's entrance into his new home. It was a pleasant sight after months of toil to see the ships anchored in the streams, and the drays on shore, to hear the stir of business, and feel the quickening touch of an active life outgrow the dream. " Day after day In hope to find We wend our way To pkase our mind, Through sage and sand, A home in a happy land." ^ The infinite labor of traversing the Rocky Moiuitains and sandy desert left the emigrants in a truly appalling con- dition. For a month they had been living upon salmon, bought in exchange for old clothes, from Indians fishing along the Snake. These children of nature decked them- selves out with frilled nightcaps, or brogans, " regardless 'Ore. Pioneer Ass., Transactions, 1903, p. 188 — ^Diafy of Mrs. 'Sharp. If the emigrants were late, and the winter rains had set in, they suf- fered more than anywhere else on the short carry arovindi the Cascades of the 'Columbia. " November l8th. My husband is sick. It rains and snows. We start this morning around the falls with our wagon's. We have five miles to go. I carry my babe and lead, or rather carry, another through snow, mud, and water, almost to my knees. It is the worst road that a team could possibly travel. I went ahead with my children, and I was afraid to look behind me for fear of seeing the wagons turn over in the mud) and water, with everjrthing in them. My children gave out with cold and fatigue, and could not travel, and the boys had to tmhitch the oxen and bring them and carry the children on to camp. I was so cold and numb that I could not tell by the feeling that I had any feet at all. . . . We started this morning at sunrise, and did not get to camp until after dark, and there was not one dry thread on one of us — not even my babe. I had carried my babe and I was so fatigued that I could scarcely speak or step. When I got here I found my husband lying in Welch's wagon, very sick. He had brought Mrs. Polk down the day before, and was taken sick here. We had to stay up all night tonight, for our wagons are left half-way back. I have not told half we suffered. I am not adequate to the task. Here was some hundreds camped, waiting for boats to come and take them down the Columbia to Vancouver or Portland or Oregon City," Ibid., p. 171. 148 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [148 alike of their appropriateness as to sex or condition of life." As Father De Smet said : " A masquerade character, as we understand it, will at least exhibit unity of design ; but this Indian masquerade sets all unities at defiance." A ludicrous note in a universally grim situation. In their lamentable position the emigrants " threw themselves on the hospitality of the Hudson's Bay Company's agents, who most kindly relieved their immediate wants, and afforded them every assistance toward their future settlement." ^ Thus they were assured of kind and fair treatment by the Great Com- pany, and their fears, that had been so aroused by the political agitation at home, were allayed.^ Word of this friendliness went back to the States along with reports that the journey was not so difficult as had been supposed.^ Under the stimulus of success, the emigrant movement grew apace, until the gold lust drew a horde of lesser men, and temporarily obliterated all trace of those who journeyed 1 Warre, Capt. H. J., Sketches m North America (London, 1849) , p. 3. AH the Americans speak of the kindness and generosity of these agents, but many, recognizing the obligation under which it placed them, would, perhaps, have preferred a little hostility. 'American Historical Review, vol. xxi, p. 125— " McLoughlin's Last Letter." By some at the time it was thought that this policy " tended to the introduction of American settlers into the country" {Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. x, p. 81, Report of Warre and Vavasour), but in view of the attitude of those who went to California, it seems improbable that a policy of strict neutrality on the part of the Company would have hin- dered settlement. Any opposition would have been both unwise and impracticable, for the emigrants settled south of the Columbia in terri- tory recognized as beyond dispute. ^Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. iv, pp. 2;70-28&-letter of S. M. Gilmore, reprinted from Weston, Mo., Journal, March 15, 1845. Mrs. Whitman thought, "the greatest afHictiom would be to die pious soul— it is so con- tinuously vexed from the ungodly conversation and profanity of the wicked. ... It is often said that every Christian gets so that he can swear before the journey is complete." Ore. Pioneer Ass., Transactiom 1893. p. 78. 149] "^^^ JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN COAST j^g under the older inspiration. However, the more permanent attractions of this very extraordinary coxmtry were too strong not to be reasserted, and long after the return of prosperity to the Mississippi valley, which came on the heels of the Mexican war and the gold discoveries, the emigrantsi were still opening new highways, to the coast.'^ Time im- proved the character of the highways, as well as the traveler's vocabulary. Toll bridges over the sloughs, and ferries at the important crossings were established; while the operation of pony express and coach line insured the erection, at intervals, of that all-inclusive convenience, the post office. Quickly it became the highway of a people's aspirations, and then was fulfilled that extravagant prophecy of 1843 : " Every new expedition will search out new paths and conveniences, imtil a journey to the Columbia will be considered, in a few years, an undertaking of no great magnitude, except as to time and distance." " Indeed, many later emigrants so little comprehended the task they essayed, that, taken in conjunction with cholera and the exhaustion of the grass, there was probably more suffering among them than there had been among those who opened the way. The accomplishment of these pioneers is best told in the words of Father De Smet who traveled often in company with the emigrants. We found ourselves on the Great Route to Oregon, over which, like successive ocean surges, the caravans, composed of thousands of emigrants from every country and clime, have passed during these latter years to reach the rich gold mines of California, or to take possession of the new lands in the fertile plains and valleys of Utah and Oregon. These intrepid 'Marcy, 'R. B., The Prairie Traveller (New York, 1861), Map, passim. 'Report on the Territory of Oregon, p. 20, by Columbus, Ohio, Committee. I go OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [150 pioneers of civilization have formed the broadest, longest, and most beautiful road in the whole world— from the United States to the Pacific Ocean.^ It would be difficult, indeed impossible, to say whether the tiresome journey was harder on the women than the men,"^ and quite out of the question to estimate its cost, not in terms of money, which was slight, but in terms of human agony and ambition. Fortunately, there is no necessity for any such computation, since the emigrants have repeatedly furnished us with their own opinion of the satisfaction derived from their habitual' activity. Though there are many unforeseen difficulties to beset you, be of good cheer — ^you will find a country in Oregon that will fill your desires, and repay you for all your toil. . . . The reader need not be disheartened by reading a description of the expansive desolation along the road; for in California, as in Oregon, the country along the sea is very fertile, and the plains produce an abundance of oats and clover spontaneously. Cattle and horses are so easily raised here that they are prized only for their hides — consequently, they are diminishing. But we hope that when a few more of our citizens get settled there, they will put a stop to killing stock merely for their hides. Seek a good location for your farm, and stick to it. The Spaniards may molest you — ^but be firm, and soon the destiny of California will be governed by yourselves. ' Chittenden and Richardson, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 671. ' " This Gypsy life is anything but agreeable ; it is impossible to keep anything clean, and it is with great difficulty that you do what little you have to do." Frizzell, Mrs. Lodisa, Across the Plains, in i8s^ (New York, 1915), p. 16, 15 1 ] THE JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN COAST jgi Distance from Independence to Astoria ^ Total Miles Miles From Independence to the Crossings of Kansas 102 Crossings of Blue 83 Platte River 119 Crossings of South Platte 163 To North Fork ao To Fort Larima 153 640 From Larima to Crossing of North Fork of the Platte . . 140 To Independence Rock on Sweet Water 50 830 Fort Bridger 229 Bear River 68 Soda Springs 94 To Fort Hall 57 1278 Salmon Falls 160 Crossings of Snake River 22 To Crossings of Bosie River 69 Fort Bosie , 45 E>r. Whitman's 'Mission 190 Fort Walawala 25 Dallis Mission 120 Cascade Falls, on the Columbia 50 Fort Vancouver 41 Astoria 90 2117 i.Shively, J. M., op. cit., pp. 12, 14, 15. The table of distances is nearly accurate though the addition is not. Cf. iChittenden, H. M., op. cit., ch. xxvi, and map, describing the route in detail, the appreciation ■of" an engineer for a road that had originated from "the spontaneous use of travelers." The numbers of the emigrants, as given by Saxton, Chas., The Oregonian, p. 39, were as follows : 1842 137 persons 1843 87s " 1300 cattle 1844 47S " 3000 " 1845 3000 " 7500 " Cf. Young, F, G., " The Oregon Trail," in Ore. Hist. Quart., voL ii. CHAPTER VIII Settlement in the Willamette Valley 1 840- 1 846 "In Oregon, the people get on very well, being energetic and hardy; . . . they have established a sort of off-hand Republican Govern- ment for themselves." Warburton, J. D., Hochelaga (Nevr York, 1846), vol. ii, p. 116. "They have made no appeal to arms, but have peacefully fortified themselves in their new homes by the adoption of Republican institutions for themselves, furnishing another example of the truth that self-government is inherent in the American breast, and must prevail." James Knox Polk — Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. iv, p. 396. Once out upon the broad highway of all westward look- ing men, the emigrant pursued his now glowing star of destiny with the zeal bom of an eager conviction. From his own enthusiasm he drew the sustenance and determina- tion which carried him over prairie and mountains, desert and mountain again, to the western-facing shore. Ever ahead of him his star ; his hope and comfort in the splendid vision of a future home in the West. At length the star came and stood over Oregon, where the scenery is varied, romantic, picturesque, and grand . . . Let the beholder stand upon the green summit of one of the high isolated hills, that rise from the plain in the upper Willamette, and what a prospect! The imagination that has been accustomed only to the level surface and dull monotony of the Valley of the Mississippi, must be stretched to its utmost to comprehend the mighty picture. The fair valley of the Willamette, with its hills and its vales, its forests and its plains, is spread out before IS2 [152 153] SETTLEMENT IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY 153 you. To the East, and extending as far as the eye can reach to the North and South, the Cascades, in one lofty, unbroken range, rise mountain upon mountain, and forest over forest, until their highest peaks, wrapped in eternal snow, and white as the unsullied flake in the storm of winter, stand high and giddy, far above the clouds. At your feet you can see the Willamette, meandering down the wide, fertile valley, and can trace afar the course of the broad Columbia winding through the forest-crested hills; and farther away to the North, St. Helene shows her towering crater of eternal fire; and, further still, the eye is lost in the wide labyrinth of dark and cluster- ing heights, in distance indistinct. Away to the South, the peering summits of some lofty chain are dimly drawn upon the sky. To the West, you hear the distant ocean's sullen roar, as its waves, with tremendous crash, break upon its rock- bound shores. The bright, clear blue above is cloudless; all beneath seems hushed in deep repose ; even the loud cataract's thunders wake not so far the circling waves of air ; and save, perchance, the carol of a mountain bird, the breeze sighing to the leaves, and the heavy murmuring of the distant deep, all else is silent as it was upon the morn when God created it.^ The emigrant allowed his imagination to run riot in peer- ing "into the destinies of this fair land,". peopling it with busy and civilized inhabitants, seeing it as the home of a prosperous agriculture, industry, and commerce. Nor would he allow his vision to pause till it had rooted a literature in the beloved soil of Oregon ; when these mountains, the rivers, these verdant vales, when every rock and hill and cataract, when every forest, glade, and glen, when every mountain, gorge, and precipice, and dark ravine, shall have been sung and storied, until they have grown old and honored by the poet's pen, and the thrilling legends of the past.^ 'Johnson and Winter, op. cit., pp. 66, 67. 2 Ibid., p. 68. 154 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [154 Such is the attractive picture the emigrant drew of the land of his longing; but, though ready to dream a bit, he was far from obhvious to the more prosaic features of his situation. There is enough to live on in this country [wrote one] . The inhabitants are generally good farmers, raise large quantities of grain, and have from 40 to 100 head of cattle, 20 to 60 head of hogs, and horses without number. Qothing is cheaper here than in Iowa. There is nothing to be found in your stores, but what we have an abundance of, and at a cheaper rate, as they are brought here free of duty.^ The first settlers in the Willamette Valley were New England Methodists, missionaries and laymen, together with a few French Canadians, old servants of the Hudson's Bay Company. There was a slow accretion of population from the beach-combers of the Pacific — ^Hawaiian Islanders and sailors off the whaling ships — and. from the mountain trappers, but the number of these was negligible, and only the mountain men were equal in character and ability to the missionaries. The gentlemen directing the affairs of the English Company remained at Vancouver, across the river, and supported the initiative of the missionaries in all changes looking toward the benefit of the settlement. The dominant men were able to deal with the renegades and outcasts, from which class any new country is apt to suffer, by the simple device of denying them supplies which could be purchased only at the fort. This sufficed to maintain order in the settlement between whites and Indians alike. With the arrival, in the fall of 1842, of the first considerable emigration from the States, the American population was almost doubled by a class of people who were not considered by the New Englanders " as industrious or moral " as them- 1 NUes' Reg., vol. Ixv, p. 137— letter of Wm. T. Perry, March 30, 1843. 155] SETTLEMENT IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY 155 selves, and the following year the proportion of " hog and hominy " Westerners in the settlement was very largely in- creased/ This element remained preponderant for the next three or four years. The mixture of these three very definite and not infre- quently divergent groups, known as the Mission, the Ameri- can settler, and the English, or Hudson's Bay, parties, in a rapidly changing country over which no national jurisdiction had been extended, caused the interplay of strong, passionate and fundamental human forces, which furnish a fascinating study in political beginnings. Early Oregon was quite near the fabled state of nature. Out of their own necessity, the people of Oregon drew the authority to form a Provisional Government, " for purposes of mutual protection, and to secure peace and prosperity " among themselves " until such time as the United States of America extend their jurisdic- tion over us." ^ The conception and earliest activities of this government show that it rested quite as much upon well- grounded political principles as upon the personalities of those who strove to direct its destinies. Historically the oldest, and at all times the most power- ful group was that composed of the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, who, led by the white-haired, majestic old gentleman, John McLoughlin, had been in the country since 1824. Their business was trade with the natives, trapping for furs, and, after 1840, the supply of food-stuffs to the Russian settlements, and of clothing and implements to the Americans, who came late each fall, destitute and in great distress. Their important establishments were. Fort Van- couver, on the north bank of the Columbia, nearly opposite 1 Niks' Register, vol. Ixvi, p. loi— letter from Oregon, Oct. 20, 1843 ; tf. Williams, }., op. cit, pp. 24, 27, 28. 'Oregon Archives (Sakm, 1853), p. 28, " Preamble to Organic iLaw.'' 156 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [156 the mouth of the Willamette, and a farm at Nisqually, on Puget Sound. In addition, they maintained many interior posts, migratory brigades, and ships. The entire trade of the country, fon they purchased wheat from the settlers, as well as sold them goods, was in their hands. The only rivalry attempted between 1840 and 1845 was by the mis- sionaries, the Cushings of Massachusetts, and the Benson firm of New York.^ When competition occurred, the Chief Factor endeavored to defeat it by the sound business principle of " selhng at a small or even no profit for the time," but it was the policy of his company never to speculate, and always to sell its goods at a stated advance on the London cost. A large reserve stock was kept on hand, which, one of the emigrants says, was exhausted by 1846, and which all testify was of the greatest benefit to the settlers.^ By act of Parliament, the Chief Factor had the powers of a Justice of the Peace, and he could arrest and send to Canada for trial English subjects who were accused of 'White, E., A Concise View of Oregon Territory (Washington, 1846), p. 42; Oregon Historical Society Quarterly, vol. i, p. 198, " McLoughlin Narrative ; " Allen, A. J., Ten Years in Oregon, p. 356— Petition of Oregon Provisional Government, says: "for want of ade- quate protection, no private capitalist among us can establish a suc- cessful competition with a wealthy and powerful monopoly, possessing all the appliances of commerce, and all the influence over the natives, by an early establishment among tliem. We are, therefore, dependent for a market for a large and increasing surplus, and for nearly all our supplies, upon a single company which holds the market imder its control." Cf. American Historical Review, vol. xxi, p. 124, " Mc- Loughlin's Last Letter.'' 'Joel Palmer {op, cit., p. 217) says: "Great complaints have been made by the merchants trading in that quarter, that they were not able to compete with the Hudson's Bay Company; . . but the fact is, the prices were much lower before these American merchants went into the country than they now are. Their mode of dealing is to ask whatever their avarice demands, and the necessities of the purchaser will bear." 157] SETTLEMENT IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY 157 criminal acts. Over the Indians he maintained authority by occasionally going among the trit>es, surrounded by all the trappings and evidence of his position. McLoughlin and his suite would sometimes accompany the southbound expeditions from Fort Vancouver, in regal state, for fifty or one hundred miles up the Willamette, where he would dismiss them with his blessing, and return to the fort. He did not often travel, and seldom far ; but on these occasions he indulged his men rather than himself in some little variety. ... It pleased Mrs. McLoughlin thus to break the monotony of her fort life. Upon a gaily caparisoned steed, with silver trappings and bells on bridle reins, and saddle skirt, sat the lady of Fort Vancouver, herself arrayed in brilliant colours, and wearing a smile which might cause to blush and hang its head the broadest, warmest, and most fragrant sunflower. By her side, also gorgeously attired, rode her lord. King of the Columbia, and every inch a king, attended by a train of trappers, under a chief trader, each upon his best behaviour.^ Such show could hardly be expected to please the Americans, but there were other means in the hands of the Chief Factor for maintaining the prestige of his Company, as will presently appear. The missionary group arrived in 1834, and were rein- forced from time to time, being more than doubled in 1840 by the addition of a number of farmers, merchants, and mechanics. The Mission, in 1840, also received a large stock of goods, with which certain of its members undertook to rival the Hudson's Bay Company as supplier of tools, seed, groceries, and clothing to the settlers. They were all intelligent and well educated, and were all Yankees, with the exception of the leader, who was a Canadian. Whether this man, Jason Lee, was the moving spirit in these extra- ' ' ' 2Sth Cong, and Sess. Sen. Doc, no. 24. I eg OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [158 religious activities, or was only a tool in the hands of his subordinates, A. F. Waller and George Abernethy, is to be answered only by interpreting circumstantial evidence, and need not detain us. At all events. Waller erected a build- ing at the Falls of the Willamette, on land claimed by Mc- Loughlin since 1829, and opened a store. Thus arose a situation which might have become of international delicacy, but for the wise course of McLoughlin. It is best told in the language of a petition to Congress from several of the mission party : In 1840, the Methodist Mission erected buildings at the falls, and stationed two families there, and made a claim to sufficient land for their buildings, not interfering with any others who might wish to build. A short time previous to this. Dr. Mc- Loughlin had a storehouse erected for the Company, not occupied, however, further than to store wheat and other articles in, and as a trading house during the salmon season. . . . Ehiring the years 1841 and 1842, several families settled at the falls, when Dr. McLoughlin, who still resides at Fort Vancouver, comes on the ground, and says the land is his, and any person building without his permission is held as a trespasser ^ The Doctor was clever enough to employ an American lawyer as his agent, to plat a town at this power site, and to give lots to certain influential people, which enabled him to increase the value of what he was able to retain ; but the real source of the dispute is to be found not in the greed of the missionaries so much as in their feeling of economic and social inferiority to the gentlemen of the Great Company. Laws are made to protect the weak against the mighty [said the '28th Cong. 1st Sess. Sen. Doc, na 105, pp. 2, 3. The dispute over the Oregon City town site is covered by Holman, F. V., Dr. John McLoughlin, passim. J en] SETTLEMENT IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY i^g colonists in this same petition to Congress] and we feel the necessity of them in steps that are constantly taken by the Honorable Hudson Bay Company, in their opposition to the improvement and enterprise of American citizens. . . . In the year 1841, feeling the necessity of having mills erected that could supply the settlement with flour and lumber, a num- ber of the inhabitants formed themselves into a joint stock company, for the purpose of supplying the growing wants of the community. . . . The company was formed, and pro- ceeded to select a site. They selected an island at the falls of the Willamette, and concluded to commence their operations. After commencing, they are informed by Dr. McLoughlin, who is at the head of the Hudson's Bay Company's affairs west of the Rocky Mountains, that the island is his, and that he (although a Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company) claims all the land at the east side of the Willamette, embrac- ing the falls down to the Klakamus River, a distance of about two miles. He had no idea, we presume, that the com- pany would succeed. However, he erected a shed on the island, after the stuff was on the island to build a house, and then gave them permission to build under certain restrictions. They took the paper he wrote them, containing his conditions ; but did not obligate themselves to comply with the conditions, as they did not think his claim just or reasonable. Many projects had been started by the inhabitants, but, for want of means and encouragement, failed. This fate was predicted for the milling company. But, after much labor and difficulty, they succeeded in getting a saw mill erected and ready to run; and entered into a contract to have a grist mill erected forthwith. And now, as they have succeeded, where is the Hudson's Bay Company? Dr. McLoughlin employs hands to get out a frame for a saw mill, and erect it at the Willamette Falls; and we find, as soon as the frame is up, the gearing which has been made at Vancouver is brought up in boats ; and that which caused a feeble company of Ameri- can citizens months of toil and embarrassment is accomplished by the Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company in a few l6o OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [i6o weeks (he has men and means) ; and it is said by him that in two weeks his mill will be sawing. And what will be the consequences? Why, if the milling company sell for $15. per thousand, he can sell for $12. ; if they reduce the price to $10., he can come to $8.00 or $5.00 or $2.00 per thousand. He says he will have a grist mill started as soon as he gets the saw mill in operation. All the wheat raised in Oregon they are anxious to get, as they ship it to the Russians on the Northwest Coast. In the first place, they measured the wheat in a half bushel, called by them imperial measure, much larger than the standard meas- ure of the United States; this not answering, they next pro- ceeded to kick the half bushel with the foot, to settle the wheat; then they brought up a measure larger than the former one; and now they fill this measure, then strike it three times with a stout club, and then fill it up, and call it fair measure. Against such proceedings we need law that will be respected and obeyed.^ How utterly fatuous was this remedy of a law that would be respected and obeyed ! How often it has been appealed to in this country! Law could not build cities and mills and warehouses on the Pacific, but the Hudson's Bay Com- pany cotdd and did, efifectually preventing any serious com- petition in the process. Under such exhibitions of superior power, some Americans chafed for several years, while the Company remained the strongest force in the upbuilding of the new community. The Mission interest had been petitioning Congress ever since 1838 for the extension of the laws of the United States over the distant little settlement, but without success.* ^ Cf. Christian Advocate, December 21, 1843.— letter of the Rev. A. F. Walter ; White, Dr. E., op. cit., pp. 18, 19. ■1838— 2Sth Cong. 1st Sess. Sen. Doc, no. S14; i840-^8th Cong. 1st Sess. Sen. Doa, no. 105. T3 o o s -1^ c Tt* o ■?!• ^ 00 '^ '^ ri ;h QJ >H > H cS 3 OJ w g a o i o 01 -a -a IB l6ij SETTLEMENT IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY i6r The matter was not then pressing enough to require settle- ment of the boundary dispute, which was a condition pre- cedent to any assertion of exclusive jurisdiction in the Oregon Territory. Undiscouraged, however, they set about the agitation for a temporary government, which the death of a settler, in 1840, leaving a large estate and no heirs, gave them the opportunity to urge with some justifi- cation. They endeavored to gain the adhesion of the French Canadians, but these, after first joining the mis- sionaries in the political activity, withdrew under the leader- ship of their priest.^ Moreover, most of the Americans were decidedly apathetic to the agitation. The com- mander of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, which was in the river at the time, discouraged the scheme, on the ground that it was undesired, unnecessary, unenforceable, and a poor substitute for the moral code they all fol- lowed ; also, that it would make an unfavorable impression in the States, being an admission of the insufficiency of tiie Mission to prevent crime among themselves.^ The missionaries, nevertheless, the Indians of the Willa- mette Valley having practically disappeared by this time, were intent upon raising the value of their farms and stock by making the settlement attractive to immigrants from the States. The next good opportunity came after the ' The primary source for material on the Catholic Mission in Oregon, which was later erected into a bishopric; — not the Jesuit Mission of Father De iSraet to the Rocky Mountain Indians — are the letters con- tained in Rapport sur les Missions du Diocese de Quebec, qui sont secouru par l' Association de la Foi (Quebec, January, 1839, no. i— March, 1851, no. 9) ; and Notice sur le Territoire et sur le Mission de L'Oregon (n. p., n. d. 18I44?). = Wilkes, Charles, Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842 (New York, 1851), vol. iv, pp. 349 et «g.—" Johnson, trapper-like, took what I thought the soundest view, saying that they yet lived in the bush, and let all do right there was no necessity for laws, lawyers, or magistrates." 1 62 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [162 emigration of 1842 had brought into the Willamette Valley a government Indian agent, some well-educated trappers, and a number of politically minded lawyers. This time they were successful. At a meeting held May 2, 1843, with the help of American settlers and the leadership of the mountain men, the Mission party carried the day by a vote of 52 to 50. The Canadians, defeated and fearing the misuse of authority, remained apart. The meeting chose a Supreme Judge, a Qerk, a Sheriff, a Treasurer, and a Legislative Committee charged with drafting a code of laws. This Committee reported July 5th, and their report, with only minor amendments, was adopted as the Organic Laws of the People of Oregon Territory.^ The extant journals of the various meetings, both public and committee,^ give only bare outlines of their " doings," but the finished work reveals what was uppermost in the minds of these creators. The Organic Law is a curious mixture, including not only constitutional and statutory rules, but also such minor provisions as the amount of fees and the dates for holding court. It begins with a bill of rights of the individual, declaring certain "Articles of Compact among the free citizens," which were common to nearly all state constitutions of the period, and the added proviso that, " There shall be neither slavery nor involun- tary servitude in said territory, otherwise than for the pimishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." It provides for full manhood suffrage; the vesting of executive power in a committee of three, of legislative power in a committee of nine, and of judicial power in a court of three; and for a recorder to keep all records, standards, and written instruments. The Laws 'Saxton, C, The Oregonian, p. 19; Oregon Archives, pp. 14, 15. 'Oregon Archives, passim. 163] SETTLEMENT IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY 163 of Iowa of 1838-9 were to " be the law of this territory, in civil, military, and criminal cases ; where not otherwise pro- vided for, and where no statute of Iowa Territory applies, the principles of common law and equity shall govern." Revenue to defray expenses was to be raised by subscrip- tion, from which an individual might withdraw, thereby insuring that the government would not become burden- some. All this was more than the colony needed at that moment, since crime is apt to be summarily dealt with on the fron- tier, and no private actions involving any great amount of property could arise without the Hudson's Bay Company being a party. The officers of this company, of course, had been consulted, from the beginning of the agitation for a provisional government, and, while they could hardly have been expected to give ofificial adherence, they did not throw any obstacles in the way of consummating the wishes of the Mission party. Also, the Americans did not care to raise questions with the Company which they were unable to settle, so they set as the limits of their jurisdiction, " the northern boundary line of the United States/' although it had not then been determined west of the Rockies.^ There were, however, two features of this Organic Law which touched very closely the real needs of the new com- munity. One of these, the Militia Law, provided for the organization of a battalion of "mounted riflemen" to be subject to the call of any commissioned officer " in case of invasion or insurrection — provided that he has sufficient reason for so doing, and give immediate notice thereof to the executive committee." The " duty " of military service VA few years later, the political men of Oregon defined the Territory as extending north to 54° 40', and made it seem advantageous for the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company to join them as individuals. Am. Hist. Rev., vol. xxi, p. no, et seq.—" McLoughlin's Last Letter." l64 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [164 for all males between the ages of sixteen and sixty was declared, but it was a duty only and not a liability, since the Provisional Government could not enforce its laws except by refusal to recognize as a "citizen" those who would not undertake its burdens. It was, therefore, not a govern- ment, but merely a private association. Citizenship, however, must have been a privilege of some value, for in such a community the principal form ':f wealth would be real property, and the guarantee of one's land claim by neighboring claimants a thing of actual worth. This was done in the most important and attractive section of the Organic Law, the provisions of which were modeled after the Linn Land Donation Bill in Congress.^ The law permitted " any person " to hold a claim of 640 acres of land anywhere, except at a town or power site, and guaranteed the action of trespass, provided the holder had marked out, recorded, improved, and occupied the claim within six months. Here again the power of the Mission is apparent, for the law specially recognized their claim "of an extent not more than six miles square." The French Canadian settlers, guided by their priest, had remained aloof from this whole scheme, and in advance of its completion had impugned the theories of the poli- tically minded missionaries. Asserting that they desired a " union, and inexhaustible peace between all the people," as well as the guarantee of their rights and liberties, and that they were willing to submit to any lawful government when it comes, they criticized the militia as unnecessary and likely to arouse suspicion among the natives. More- over, they asserted that there was no "direct guarantee" ' The Sub-Indian Agent said of popular feeling in Oregon regarding the Linn Bill, that "should it at last fail of passing ... it will create a disaffection so strong as to end only in open rebellion." White, E., op. cit., p. 30. 165] SETTLEMENT IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY 165 that the proposed land law would not be broken or changed on the morrow. The rest of the scheme appeared to them " too self-interested, and full of degrees, useless to our power, and overloading the colony instead of improving it; besides, men of laws and science are too scarce, and have too much to do in such a new country." Furthermore, they expressed the pious idea: "That the members (of the colony) should be influenced to interest themselves, to their own welfare, and that of the public, by the love of doing good, rather than by the hope of gain," in order to remove from "the people all suspicions of interest in the persons of their representatives." ^ The reply of the missionaries to this opinion would be of interest, but, unfortunately, even the debates by which this Provisional Government was formed are not available. Certain it is that the coorpora- tion and the leadership of the mountain men were required to carry the question by a slender majority.^ Events succeeding the organization of the Provisional Government show that the fears of the French Canadians, that it would overload the colony with officials, were un- founded. Indeed, it was so weak that the first sign of Indian trouble compelled the threatened neighborhood to call for volunteers, elect officers, and drill a company, though the Organic Law had made provision for all this.^ But one criticism of the French Canadians proved only too true, namely, that there was no assurance that the land law would not be changed. In the very hour of the Mission party's triumph, the population of the settlement was quadrupled, and the fundamental law promptly altered by the new-comers. • Oregon Archives, pp. 12, 13. 'Gray, W. H., History of Oregon (Portland, 1870), pp. 275-6, gives an answer, but it is not part of the contemporary debate. 'Oregon Archives, pp. 36-7. l66 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [i66 The Executive Committee in its first message to the Legis- lative, on June i8, 1844/ called attention to the fact that, until the question of sovereignty was settled and the Indian title quieted, no rights in the soil they cultivated could be conferred. However, the natives were almost gone. Great Britain had never claimed the Willamette Valley, and " the United States have held out inducements to their citizens, and indirectly encouraged the settlement of this country by them." Under the necessity of providing protection for themselves, the settlers had adopted certain rules, which, as there was no prospect of immediate aid from the United States, it was thought should be altered to the end of " a more thorough organization." It was recommended that a light tax be laid, the executive power be vested in one person, several minor changes of convenience be carried out, and that the article in the land law guaranteeing six square miles of land to the missions be repealed, as " detri- mental to the interests of the community." There were also other recommendations, such as the establishment of roads, ferries, and sdiools, indicative of a healthy growth. The message closed With an appeal to that human sense of fairness which the Provisional Government exhibited from this day forth : We desire to impress upon your minds that, although the colony is small, and its resources feeble, yet the life, rights, and liberties of an individual here are of equal value to him as to one in the city of Washington or London. And it is a duty which devolves on you, and on us, to use as much discretion, vigilance, and caution, in maturing and adopting measures for promoting the interests of this little colony, as if we expected our names and acts would be enrolled in the pages of history, or inscribed on pillars of stone, when our day and generation shall have passed away. '■ Text in Bancroft, H. H., History of Oregon, vol i, p. 429, a. 8. 167] SETTLEMENT IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY 167 By 1844, when the new superintendent arrived, the Methcxiist Mission in Oregon was thoroughly disrupted by the strife of factions within itself, and it drops from politics as an organized and cohesive group. The mercantile busi- ness of the Mission had reached alarming proportions, its assets being about $30,000. in accounts receivable from the settlers, besides a mill, and extensive farms and herds, " so that it presented more the appearance of a design to estab- lish a colony, than of an associated effort to promote true 'Christian evangelization." To liquidate the business promptly, the superintendent arranged with the secular agent, George Abernethy, to take most of the property and the paper assets for $20,000., and also to assume the liabilities, amounting to $10,000. This change, so far as politics were concerned, was in name only, for Abernethy promptly be- came not only a prominent merchant, but also governor of the settlement, being elected on the temperance issue. The faction of which he was the leader assumed the name of the American Party.^ The first emigrants who came to Oregon were men of strong character and intelligence, who " seem to have sen- sible views of what they are to expect," and their women were tidy and care-free.' Among them were several leaders of real ability, who, in the excited state of public feeling, might easily have made considerable trouble for the Eng- lish Company, had not its officers been adroit enough to meet them more than half way. These officers encouraged the " Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 29th Annual Report, pp. 31-33. There is much information regarding their activities in letters from the former missionaries to their friends in Hawaii, published by the Rev. S.. C. Damon, in The Friend of Temperance and Seamen, vols, iii and iv, Honolulu, 184S-6. ' Niks' Register, vol. Ixviii, p. 342— letter from Col. Kearny's Ex- pedition, June 3, 1845. l68 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [i6g feeling of mutual accommodation and desire to get along without quarreling, which seems to have been one of the most prominent features of life in the territory during the regime of the Provisional Government. The Company's officers and the missionaries had been cooperating from the first in preserving order in the settle- ment, which was the more easily accomplished since the policy of both looked to the prohibition of liquor. The Sub-Indian Agent, the sole representative of the United States Government, also took prompt steps to suppress " the manufacture and use of that most degrading, wither- ing, and damning of all the curses that has ever visited our race since the fall of Adam." In this course he had the aid of the great majority of the colonists.^ The Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company knew, however, that other and more active measures must be taken if the new arrivals were really to be assimilated into his commercial system and turned from hostility to his Com- pany. He made no attempt to press exclusive rights to his personal claim at Willamette Falls. Instead, he judiciously distributed certain lots as gifts to a selected few, who were also entertained by him hospitably and free of charge, at Fort Vancouver.^ McLoughlin was aware of the growing hostility to Great Britain; he saw how it freshened the natural pugnacity and determination of the emigrants, as well as strengthened their fears of British intentions in the West. To the settler he was the representative of his country as well as his company. A situation more preg- nant with opportunities for trouble can hardly be imagined than this, resulting from the necessarily close relations between the courtly, dignified old despot of the Columbia, 'White, E., op. cit., pp. 31-2. Cf. Hastings, L. W., op, cit., p. 57. '^ Niks' Register, vol. Ixvii, p. 130— letter of P. H. Burnett, July 25, 1844. 169] SETTLEMENT IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY 169 accustomed throughout his hfe to exercising power and commanding obedience, and the American frontiersman, accustomed to escaping from the sHghtest exhibition of either. The white-haired McLoughHn had the resourcefulness bom of a long experience in handling all classes of men; he knew when firmness counted for most, just the place to yield a point, and the moment to give a dinner in the great hall of his fort. Quickly he learned who should be signally honored with the Company's best wine, and to whom credit should be extended liberally. Yet the immense power which the leadership of the social and commercial life of the comriiunity placed in his hands alone would not have been sufficienit to maintain the position of the Hudson's Bay Company. The pitiful condition of the way-worn emigrants who in the late fall came floating down the river gave him the opportunity to display kindly feelings and to aid his fellows in distress — ^help to the destitute, generously extended by a great-hearted man, which im- mediately placed them under lasting obligations to him.^ By sending food and bateaux up the river to aid those arriving late, by offering the hospital facilities of his post to the sick, and by extending credit at the Company's stores payable in the next season's crops, he at once allayed their suspicions. He disarmed his critics by giving employ- ment at the Falls to mechanics and builders; and lent the resources of his Company to supporting an air of prosper- ous activity in the settlement.^ For many of these acts ' "... In acting as I have done, I firmly believe that time will prove I have not only fulfilled the dictates of humanity, but most effectually promoted the best interests of the Company, ..." Am. Hist. Rev., vol. xxi, p. 125 — Dr. McLoughlin's Last Letter. 2 Hastings, L. W., op. cit, pp. 56, S8; Johnson and Winter, op. cit., PP- 38, 39; Shively, J. M., op. cit., pp. n, 12. The Methodist Mission also rendered material aid to the new-comers, Hastings, L. W., op. cit., P-SS- I70 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [170 he was severely criticised by his government and the direc- tors of the Company ; especially for the extension of credit, since collections were slow and sometimes impossible to make. Most of these accounts with the settlers were small — < from $50.00 to $200.00 — , though a few as large as $1,500. were carried with those who appeared to be leaders. This accommodation he gave " judiciously and prudently," and probably the Company was repaid for his liberal policy in many other ways, through the obligation it placed upon these men.^ The aid which the Chief Factor derived, in exercising his control over settlers and Indians, from the Catholic Church in the Willamette Valley and the Jesuit Mission in the upper country is not to be overlooked. The Doctor was himself a Catholic, the parish priests were Canadians, and several of the emigrant leaders either were or else became Catholics upon their arrival ; yet so naturally and unobtru- 'Ore. Pioneer Ass., Transactions, 1880, p. 54 — McLoughlin Document; Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. xiv, p. 224 — ^letter of Daniel H. Lownsdale; Am. Hist. Rev., vol. xxi, pp. 125, lap — Dr. McLougfhlin's Last Letter. Lieutenant Howison, U. S. N., reported on the subject, in 1846, as follows : " I was told at Vancouver that the amount of debt due the Company by Americans exceeded eighty thousand dollars; and that so little dis- position was shown to pay off this debt, that it had been determined to refuse any further credits. . . . The bulk of this debt, however, is due in sums of from twenty to two hundred dollars, and seems to he the cause of no uneasiness to the officers of the Company, who told me they were often surprised by the appearance (after an absence of years) of some debtor who came forward to liquidate the claim against him. Much of this large amount will probably be lost to the Company; but there is some reason to presume that the larger credits were granted to individuals whose political influence was thus sought to be procured." 30th Cong. 1st Sess. House Misc. Docs., no. 29, p. 19, Cf. also letter of P. H. Burnett, from Oregon, Jan. 20, 1846, in the Weekly Tribune, Liberty, Clay Co., Mo., Aug. 22, 1846, and Hastings, L. W., op. cit., p. 58. lyi] SETTLEMENT IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY lyi sively was this influence exerted that it is nearly impossible to make any just calculation of the extent or effect of its use. However, such a suitable power was not allowed to stand idle by those keen and intelligent men who directed the Company's affairs west of the Rocky Mountains, as is abundantly proved by the writings of Protestants.^ For a few years everything went smoothly. The emi- grants scattered themselves over the face of the country, each one staking out a claim of 640 acres of delightful prairie land, or engaged in the building operations at Oregon City.^ Though preoccupied with breaking the soil, putting in a crop, fencing and erecting log homes, they still found time to revise the Organic Law of the Provisional Government, with the intent of establishing it upon a firmer basis, by granting their government sufficient authority to be effective, and simplifying its procedure to make it more re- sponsive to their needs. In its earlier form it had been a dis- trusted necessity, and its three-headed Executive Committee so unwieldy that it could aaromplish but little. The new set- tlers, however, being a substantial class of genuine home- seekers, with an intelligent view of their own aspirations, and a recognition of both the opportunities and the limita- tions of their new position, proceeded to adapt the govern- ment to their desires. They saw in it an instrument by which they might regulate the most fundamental features of their ^ The contemporary sources upon this point are the fierce invective letter of D. H. Lownsdale {Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. xiv, pp. 213-240), and the Whitman correspondence ('Ore. Pioneer Ass., Transactions, 1891 and 1893). The Hudson's Bay Company's use of its power aroused a very bitter opposition, which succeeded in electing the first territorial delegate to Congress. The Lownsdale letter is the most important and informing source for the side of the opposition in early Oregon politics. 'This was the name given the settlement at the Falls of the Willamette. McLoughlin spent some $46,000 in commercial improve- ments at this place. Cf. Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. xiv, pp. 68, 69. 1^2 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [172 new life and property. The men who were politically domin- ant among the emigrants were conservative, recognizing neither American nor British interests as exclusive, and seek- ing only the orderly development of the country whose future they had chosen to mold for themselves. Few in number, yet superior in ability and sustained desires, they gave the Provi- sional Government, a tone which has lasted long. They re- garded the preservation of the peace, integrity, and fair name of Oregon as of first importance. In doing this they served \rell the interests of their country, for they never once gave a cas%ts belli to the expanding wrath of the United States, although they passed through many delicate situations which might have been productive of excellent excuses for war, had they wished to fight.^ The circumstances which made it advisable for the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company to join in the support of the Provisional Government flowed from the conciliatory attitude of the settlers in " remodeling the former organic 'The reason every critical situation was smoothed over is perhaps to be found in the friendly disposition and the willingness to com- promise exhibited by the officers of both the Hudson's Bay Company and the Provisional Government. Not that either had so very much at stake, but that each wanted to get along with the other, and pos- sessed the intelligence to find a way. This spirit is voiced in the message of the Executive Committee of December 16, 1844: "As descendants of the United States and of Great Britain, we should honor and respect the countries which gave us birth; and, as citizens of Oregon, we should, by a uniform course of proceeding, and a strict observance of the rules of justice, equity, and republican principles, without party distinction, use our best endeavors to cultivate the kind feeling, not only of our native countries, but of all the powers or states with whom we may have intercourse." Oregon Archives, pp. 58, 59. Hast- ings, L. W., op. cit., p. 58, says : " The Oregon emigrants are, as a general thing, of a superior order to those of our people, who usually emigrate to our frontier countries. They are not the indolent, dis- solute, ignorant, and vicious, but they are generally the enterprising, orderly, intelligent, and virtuous." 173] SETTLEMENT IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY 173 law, and divesting it entirely of its national character," '^ as well as the rather anomalous position in which the Company- was placed by the coming of so many American settlers. The officers possessed legal authority over the Company's servants,' which circumstances practically nullified when the American settlement became an enticing refuge for the disgruntled, into which it was unwise to pursue them.* The Company had certain possessory rights to the lands about its posts, necessary in the conduct of its business, but as soon as the most favorable locations in the Willamette Valley had been occupied, reckless Americans refused to recognize these rights, and the Company's officers dared not eject squatters by force.* These intrusions, sometimes repeated by the same individual, were made with " a belief that the Hudson's Bay Company would be soon turned out of the country by the terms of the anticipated treaty, and many were led to this offensive course by a desire to succeed to those advantages which could not be conveyed away by the retiring Company." ^ From the increasing difficulty of maintaining the Com- pany's rights, and the desire to bring pressure on their creditors. Dr. McLoughlin and his assistants resolved, in the summer of 1845, to accept a proffered opportunity of Mw. Hist. Rev., vol. xxi, p. 116 — " McLoughlin's Last Letter." •land II George IV, 66. Mm. Hist. Rev., vol. xxi, p. m. *[bid., vol. xxi, p. 112, The ejected squatter always had a weapon of revenge in the threat to bum Fort Vancouver. '"But although too many were influenced by motives so unworthy, yet it must not be supposed I would include among them the substantial cultivator, or any one of the great bulk of honest emigrants who came here to live by his labor, and not by his artifice or speculating genius, which would render the labors of others subservient to his use." 30th Cong. 1st Sess. House Misc. Docs., no. 29, p. 19, Lieut. Howison's report Cf. Martin, R. M., The Hudson's Bay Territories, pp. 37-38. 174 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [174 joining the provisional government, as individuals, " for the purpose of mutual protection, with the white population in the Willamette." ^ They did this with good grace, as it had no appearance of a forced submission. The decision was a wise one, for so far from neutralizing their authority in the country, as an English lieutenant observed, it great enhanced their prestige, and put into their hands quasi legal weapons which they had not before enjoyed. With this new power in their possession, the Company's officers continued, for several years after the boundary had ibeen established by treaty, in large measure to control, if not to govern, the community west of the iCascade Mountains, for they had completely sub- merged the " Ultra Party," as the opposition was sometimes called. But the American party was neither defeated nor silenced. Their cause was the age-long cause of those who have aspired but have not attained, and they were left by their ill success in no mood to remain quiet long. The leaders of the American party were, many of them, the same men who had directed the Methodist Mission in its days of temporal grandeur, and who, dispossessed from a power they had barely tasted, bore in their hearts the bitter hatred which is bom of balked desires. The governor, who was only a nominal leader, was unable to dominate the legislature, and so remained silent, awaiting the proper moment for a revenge, which forms a sad aftermath to the rather brilliant political beginnings of these people." Correctly speaking, there were no parties in Oregon dis- ^Am. Hist. Rev., vol. xxi, p. no. •An unfavorable but correct estimate of this man may be found in Bancroft, op, cit., vol. i, p. 612, et seq., where the subject of Oregon's political decadence is fully treated. It centered about Dr. McLaughlin's claim to the site of Oregon City, of which he was deprived by the Donation Law of 1852. J75] SETTLEMENT IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY 175 tinguished by principles that were larger or more persistent than the prejudices of those individuals who led them. The divisions along lines of mere personal followings were very numerous, and shifted rapidly with the growth of likes and dislikes. Numerically, the largest party were the American settlers, sometimes split by factions, without much leader- ship, and so well satisfied with their position that they were content to remain, like the Canadians, mere pawns, to be manipulated by those who were playing the political game. They were content because their land claims and the peace and safety of the settlement were well looked after by their government ; and they were concerned in the squabbles be- tween American merchants and the Company only when their passions were stirred. They were substantial people, eager to build homes, pre- occupied with that task, and fairly prosperous. The young men, the speculators, the reckless, made a great deal of trouble for the Company as individuals, but could never be consolidated into a powerful group. The really dissatis- fied drifted off to California, where there was considerably more excitement, as easily as they had drifted to Oregon. Then, too, they lacked leadership, because any one with ability found that his interest lay along conservative lines. There was too much speculation, especially in town sites and seaports which lined the Columbia for a hundred miles, to return quick profits to any one. The settlement was very prosperous for a number of years. The export of lumber to the Sandwich Islands and Cali- fornia early developed, while the needs of the new arrivals, and the Company's shipments of provisions to the Russian settlements in the North, furnished a ready demand and excellent prices for all the foodstuffs produced in excess of family consumption. But the much talked of Asiatic markets did not materialize, and, in 1847 and 1848, the old 176 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [176 story of over-production and low prices was repeated. To make matters worse, this occurred at a time when the cost of all supplies had been raised, because of the gradual aban- donment by the fur company of it business along the lower Columbia. The Company moved its principal depot to> Vancouver's Island, after the boundary treaty was con- cluded, and left the settlement to American enterprise. Temperamentally, the settlers had as little in common with the missionaries, whom they termed " American aristo- crats," as they had with the more real aristocracy, composed of those hard-headed, keen Scotchmen who directed the Company's affairs on the Columbia. Yet, by some queer outburst of feeling, the settlers were at length either led to back the Mission party, or else induced to remain quiet in the perfectly fruitless, if gratifying, campaign of revenge by which, when a territorial government had been organized, the old Chief Factor of the Company was deprived of his land claim at Oregon City. Oregon eventually made good its honorable obligation to this man, whose policy had " tended to the introduction of American settlers into the coimtry." " From what has just been said, it may be concluded that early Oregon politics were too purely personal to be really interesting, save as the sidelights are amusing, or indicate some natural political aptitude.' However, it would seem that in the chaotic political beginnings of Oregon may be 'C/. Gilbert, J. H., Trade and Currency in Early Oregon (New York, 1907) , passim. * Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. x, p. 81, report of Lieutenants Warre and Vavasour, 1846. 'The Oregon legislature elected as its Speaker one of its members who was found of talking, simply to prevent his taking up too much time. Bancroft, op. cit., vol. i, p. 488, n. 32. A study of Oregon politics, is Woodward, W. C, " Rise and Early History of Political Parties in Oregon," Ore. Hist. Quart., vols, xi-xiii. 177] SETTLEMENT IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY lyy found something other than mere faction; something that might have come to the surface and caused a row of con- siderable magnitude, had not the settlers been comparatively- contented and concerned with matters of more immediate import. By 1845 the settlers had worked the Provisional Government into such a shape that it fulfilled their every need, and the only political strife was involved in the struggle for commercial supremacy between the British Company on the one hand and the American merchants on the other. The more usual and fundamental political div- ergence between the interests of commercialism and agrarianism did not appear in early Oregon. Up to the present the moneyed power in Oregon has been in the hands of the Hudson's Bay Company. . . . Not a merchant dared put his head into Oregon without the expectation of losing everything, unless he fell into the track marked out by the Company. . . . Everything has been written and said to kill the country in a commercial view with Ataerican merchants.^ The settler did not suffer from this power ; on the contrary, he benefited greatly by it ; yet he apprehended its presence, and his quarrel remained latent only by reason of the adroit manner in which that power was exercised. If the interpretation placed upon the facts which have been adduced is the correct one, it follows that Oregon presented to the farming and mechanic classes cer- tain political advantages, in addition to its well-known 1 Ore. Hist. Quart., vol. xiv, p. 242^ — letter of D. H. Lownsdale, of 1849. Cf. Palmer, Joel, op. cit. The line is not to be drawn too closely, for the Company sometimes withheld raw material from a mechanic, or refused further credit to a farmer, which provoked similar com- ment. By and large, however, if we judge by the purpose and excel- lence of the institutions the settlers erected for themselves in their Provisional Government, we must, I think, conclude that the old op- position between financial and farming interests was dormant in the settlement, because for the time being the objects of both coincided. 178 OPENING A HIGHWAY TO THE PACIFIC [178 physical advatages, which in future years proved a powerful attraction for all who were yearning to make their homes in the midst of delightful natural surroundings. California, indeed, drew off many of the more adventur- ous, for the guide-books had it that even larger tracts of land were given the immigrant there than in Oregon, and the possibility of having the greatest commercial city of the coast grow up about one's caibin was not altogether fanciful. There was apt to be more excitement there, for the govern- ment was following the revolutionary tradition of Mexico, and the emigrants were by no means disinclined to try their luck at that diversion. Captain Sutter, from his enormous ranch near the present city of Sacramento, performed ser- vices to the new-comers similar to those rendered by the Hudson's Bay Company in Oregon. While goods of all kinds were much higher there, owing to the enormous duties charged by the Mexican Government, nevertheless, the feel- ing that control of the country was rapidly passing into the hands of the immigrants was strong among them, and they were willing to endure minor annoyances and hazard any- thing, in order to be first in a country possessing the un- equaled facilities, in respect to commerce and agriculture, of central California. In view of these things, it is small wonder that the Pacific Coast region quickly assumed, in the popular imagination, the aspect of the veritable El Dorado, which it has ever since remained. A government strong enough to guarantee the continuity of the emigrants' ideas regarding property and moral pro- gress, but in no sense a burden ; the almost certain prospect that Congress would fulfill its promise in regard to dona- tion of lands as soon as the joint occupancy status should be abandoned; and the undoubted natural advantages of the country for commerce, manufacturing, and farming, com- bined to induce the majority of emigrants to settle in 179] SETTLEMENT IN THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY jyg Oregon; but it was always difficult for them to separate truth from fiction in the stories they heard, so numerous and plausible were the rumors set afloat by the agents from the different settlements. Until the discovery of gold, however, the larger number of emigrants preferred the more northern portion of the Pacific Coast. Of the aspirations and ideals of these men, one who returned to urge their cause upon the federal con- gress, in 1846, said: Already Oregon has a white population of 8,000 souls, who have gone thither mostly from various portions of the Union, but far the greater part from the Southern and Western States ; there being more inhabitants there from Virginia, or whose forefathers have formerly resided in that state, than any other single state in the Union ; still possessing the same devotion to our free institutions, and carrying with them their accustomed politeness, which has ever characterized the people of the West, and are educating their sons and daughters in that country to act well their part in life when those who guided their foot- steps over the Rocky Mountains shall be no more.^ 'Saxton, C, op. cit., pp. 32, 33. By the middle of the next decade the proportion of New Bnglanders about equaled that of Westerners. The most thorough discussion of the occurrences in Oregon and the state of public feeling there is found in Bancroft, History of Oregon, voli, passim. ,^ ,,,,.; y [Library of Congress and New York Public Library] ; W. Clayton, The- Latter-Day Saints' Emigrants' Guide (St. Louis, 1848) [N. Y. P. L.];, Charles Saxton. The Oregonian (Washington, 1846) [L. of C. and N. Y, P. L.] ; The Oregonian and Indians' Advocate (Boston, vol. i, Oct., 1838-Aug., 1839) [L. of C] ; Report on the Territory of Oregon, by a. Committee, Appointed at a Meeting of the Citizens of Columbus, to Collect Information in Relation Thereto (Columbus, 1843) [N. Y. P. L.] ;. The Oregon Convention of July 3, 4, 5, 1843, is fully reported in the Cincinnati Daily Chronicle of July 10, 11, 12, 19, 1843 (N. Y. P. L.); Osborne Russel, Journal of a Trapper; or. Nine Years in th£ Rocky Mountains, 1834-1843 (Boise, 1914) [Oregon Historical Society and. N. Y. P. L.] ; Sir W. G. D. Stewart, Edward Warren (London, i854>- [L. of C, fiction] ; the Journals of William H. Ashley and Jedidiah. Smith are found in H. C. Dale, The Ashley-Smith Explorations, and the Discovery of a Central Route to the Pacific . . . i8z2-i8sg (Qeveland, 1918) ; the journals of the Hudson's Bay Company traders have beea edited by T. C. Elliott, in the Quarterlies of the Oregon and Washington Historical Societies ; letters of the emigrants of 1843 will be found in the newspaper files of the Missouri Historical Society — a few have been re- printed in the Oregon Historical Society Quarterly ; the Correspondence of the American Bible Society (MSS.) is in the Bible House, New York City; a file of the Missionary Herald is in the N. Y. P. L., and one of the Christian Advocate and Journal is in the Methodist Mission House, New York City, where also may be found the Annual Reports of the Missionary Society; scattered copies of The Polynesian (Honolulu^ 1840-1841) and The Friend of Temperance and Seamen (Honolulu, ■205] BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 205 ■1843-1849) are in the N. Y. P. L. ; the Private {for the Cabinet) Papers Relative to the Negotiation between Great Britain and the United States, Concerning Boundaries (iLondon, n. d. 1826?) cited above as Creat Britain— Bownrfory Papers, are in the N. Y. P. L.; the series, ■Rapport sur les Missions du Diocese de Quebec, qui sont secouru par {'Association de la Foi (Quebec, 1839-1851) are privately owned; while the Notice sur le Territoire et sur le Mission de I'Oregon (n. p., n. d., ■circa 1844) is in the Widener Library, Harvard University. The sources for Chapter VI, which deals with the economic aspect of •farming in the Mississippi Valley .States, following the financial panic of 1837-39, are very inadequate. Much has been written about the social life of American agricultural communities; but then, as now, little was -said about the return a man received for his labor, or the attitude of the producer toward his rewards. This is inherent in the subject, for men tolk little of their incomes and never on the basis of exact figures, unless their returns become so low that they are driven to advocate a change of conditions. Yet it is the first duty of the historian to discover not only the attitude of those who advocate change, but the reasons therefore. Fortunately, a beginning has been made, by Ezra M. Prince, Prices in McLean County, Illinois, 1832-1860, in Illinois State Historical Society Transactions for 1904, p. 537, a study of the records of auctions in the County. The census before 1850 gives no aid in this matter, nor is there any help in the work of the Aldrich Committee on Prices (S2nd Congress, ist iSession, Senate Report, no. 986, and S^nd Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Report, no. 1394). This is likewise true of the published reports of what is now the Department of Agriculture, wl.lch had its lieginning under the Commissioner of Patents, in 1837. The agricultural journals of the day, nearly ali of which suspended during this period •of depression, as did most of the local press of the t juntry, were more concerned with the technique of farming than the economics of dis- tribution. Cf. H. L. Ellsworth, Improvements in Agriculture (Ncat York, 1843). Price Currents of the various markets — ^Cincinnati, St. Louis, New Orleans — which have been found ( a few are in the N. Y. P. L.) are incomplete, and the prices vary widely with the receipts of ■produce. Moreover, then, as now, most of the selling of farm produce appears to have been done to itinerant buyers. Immigration to the West via the Great Lakes had just given birth to Chicago, but conditions there were no index of affairs and feeling in the heart of the Valley. The biographies of the politicians and statesmen, together with their manu- scripts in the Library of 'Congress, have also been searched, with but ■nominal reward. The Letters Received by the Corresponding Secretary of the American Bible Society yielded some specific information, where the writer was •under the necessity of explaining the smallness of his collections for the 2o6 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE [206 Society's funds, but this correspondence naturally is not concerned with economic matters. In. spite of a general willingness to give to such a. cause, the Society with difficulty raised sufficient funds for its work. Many references to the bad market for farm produce have been found in the guide-books for immigrants, though always it is coupled with the statement that the wants of new settlers will provide a steadily increasing demand. Only infrequently do the iCounty and State His- tories, which are really genealogical works, repay the searcher. The same observation is true of the Public Documents'. Statistical compila- tions are of no value, since the country was growing so rapidly that one year or one place is incomparable with another. It should be observed that the hardships experienced were expressed in terms of money and the dark outlook for the future rather than in> suffering for want of the necessities of life. The best discussion of this subject remains the contemporary one by Judge Curtis: "Debts of the: States," in the North American Review, vol. Iviii. INDEX Abemethy, Geo., 158, 174 Adams, J. Q., 29 et seq., 64, 184 Agricultural Journals, 123 Am. Bible Soc, 119, 120, 124, 126, 128 Am. Fur Co., 54, 61, 65 Ashley, W. H., 54-59, no Asia, IS, 16, 24, 31, 52, 87, 129, 130, 175 Astoria, 23-25, 28, 29, 39, 45, 51, 52, 59, 93 AstoT, J. J., 23, 51, 54, 62, 65, 66, 116 Ball, J., 71 Bancroft, H. H., 23, 166, 179 Banking, 118 et seq. Bear iRiver, 25, 57, 84, 88, 142, 143 Beaver, 66 Benton, T. H., 16, 17, 23, 26, 62, 80, 98, 116 Bidwell, J., 89, 106 Bison (see Buffalo) Blue Mts., 25, 84, 88, 117, 146 Bonniville, Capt., 62 Boundary, 20, 31, 32, 39, 41, 64, 92, 94, 97, 107, 161, 163, 174, 195, 199, 200, 201 Buchanan, J., 195 Buffalo, 48, 56, 89, 139 Burnett, P. H., loi Calhoun', J. C, 194 California, 15, 53, 62, 87, 98, 104, 106, no, 117, 145, 149, 175, 178, 183, 188, 190, 201 Campbell, Robt., 56 Canning, 43, Si -53 Carver, J., 18 Cascade Mts., 22, 27, 71, 89, 146, 153 Castlereagh, 30, 33, 43 Chittenden', H. M., 25, 54, 63, 66, 67,69 Uaims (territorial), 23, 29 et seq., 92, 94 . . Qark, Wm. (vide also Lewis and iClark), 69, 70 207] Clay, H., 118 Colorado River (vide Green River) Columbia River, 17-29, 32, 36-45, 51-64, 74, 79, 84, 96, 146, 153, 180 Congress, 43, 97 et seq., 184 Conservatism, 185, 190-192 Convention of 1818, 31, 33, 61, 194 Convention of 1827, 41, 194 Cook, Capt., IS, 26 CorrespondtencB ConMnittees, 104, ii2-ii'4, 132 Gushing, C, 94 Dennis, iRev. J. S., 81 DcSmet, Father P. J., 69, 88, 147, 149 Emigrants, character of, 100, 105, 112, 131, 136, 142, 148, 167; equipment of, 134, 136; numlber of, 151; organization of, 88, 104, 132, 199; sentiment of, 91, 100, 112; societies of, 73, 95, 99, 104, 112-114 Equipper, 56, 62, 82 Exchange, 119, 120 Farnham, T. J., 57,, 74, 78; 87, 106 Farming, 52, 71, 116 et seq., 156 et seq. Floods, 127 Floyd, J., 64, 98 'Fort Bridlger, 67, 142 Fort Colville, S7, 62, yy Fort Hiaill, 63, 83, 89, 144 Fort .Laramie, 49, 50, 140 Fort Vancouver, 52, 60, 72, 83, 100, 15s Fort 'Walla 'Walla, 83, 88, no France, 16, 18, 26, 35, 44 Eraser, S., 17, 19 Eraser iRiver, 17, 19, 43, 53 Freight rates, 123 Fremont, J. C, 98, 142 et seq. Frontier, 80, 82, 86, 103-105, 116, 126, 128, 186, 190 Gallatin, A., 33, 60, 69, 131 Gary, Rev. G., 76 307 208 INDEX [208 Gold discovery, 149, 179, 187, 188 Gray, flRxabt., 17, 26 Great Britain (vide Boundary, Qaims, and Hudson's Bay Co.) ■Greenhow, iRobt., IS, 29, 36, 46 Green iRiver, 24, 55, S7, 59, 67, 89, 142 Harbors, 17, 26, 87, 92, 94, 129, 180, 182 Hastings, L. W., 75, 89 Hawaiian' (Sandwich) Islands, 17, 37, 87, 17s, 186 Henry, Andrew, 26, 54 Hudson's Bay, 49-52 Hudson's Bay ICo., 18, 46-51, 57, 61-66, 72, 77, 86, 91-96, 144, ISS et seq., 181, 184, 186; farming by, 52, 79, no, 156, 17s; and im- migrants, 148, 169, 176, 188; in^ fluence of, 154-156, 160, 168, 170, 177, 197; Tights of, 173, 197 Immigrants (European), 187 Indtependence (Mo.), 55, 104, 130, 136 Indians, 16, 24, S4, 60, 68-71, 77, 141, 147, 180 Indian territory, 103, 116 Indian trails, 25 Irving, W., 23, 25, 62, 85, 93 Jatkson, A., 64, 91, 122 Jefferson, T., 21 Johnson, R. M., 106 Juan de Fuca, 17, 40, 42, 87 Kelley, H. J., 95, 98, 116 ■Land donations, 90, 96, 99-104, 109, 114, 164, 178, 196 Laws, extension of U. S., 96, 97 Lee, J., 70-76, 85, 95, I57 Lewis and Clark, 21-25, 32, 94 Liquor, 168 Linn, Dr., iE. A., 90, 92, 96, 99, 184, 196 Louisiana, 21, 31 Mackenzie, Alex., 18, 45-47, 51, 54, 64 M'Kenzie, Alex., 43 McLoughlin, J., 51-53, 60, 71, 90, 100, 155-157, 168, 156; land claim of, 158 et seq., 173, 174 M'Millan, 43 Markets (z>ide Asia, Hawaii, Hud- son's Bay Co., Oregon, Prices) Mercantile iSystem, 16, 24, 33-37, 45,46 Mexico, IS, 36, 55, 67, 131, 190, 201 Missionaries, Am. Bd., 17, 68, 71, 77-81 ; Catholic, 69, 78, 161, 197 ; Methodist, 69-76 ; agricultural activity of, 72, 78; colonizing activity of, 73, 78-82, 8s, 99, 161 ; commerciail activity of, 75, 157- 160, 167; religious activity of, 71-74, 77, 81 Mississippi Valley, 38, 67, 75, 86, 93, 103, III, 117, 124, 184, 186 Missouri River, 21, 24, 53-55, 61, 68, 84, 103, 116 Monroe 'Doctrine, 38, 39, iii, 112 Moore, J. B., 37, 38, 42, 43, 195 Mormons, 143, 187 Nesmith, J. W., 136 Nootka Sound, 37-40 Northwest coast, 15-17, 33-40, 45, 68, 94, 98, 180 Northwest Company, 18, 23, 27, 40, 45-50 Ogdeii, P. IS., 57, 66 Oregon City, 158, 171, 186 Oregon Country, 21, 24, 30, 32, 40, 45, 50, 51, 61, 96, 99, 109, 117, 152, 177, 183, 193 ; definition of, 41, 42; exploration of, 15 et seq., 97, 98; position of, 86, 87, 129, 130; status of, 31, 43, SI, 64, 92, 94, 99, 161, 181, 193-195 Oregon, fever, gi, loi, 113, 187; occupation of, 92, 97, loi, 129, 18s, 199; Provisional Govern- ment of, 152 et seq.; road, 25, 27, 63, 67, 82-84, 93, 104, no, 132 et seq., 187 ; survey and dis- tances of road, 98, 151 Organic Law, 162-164, 188 Pacific Ocean, 15, 32-36, 39, 42-45, SI, 62, 87, 92, 107, no, 129, 182 Pakenham, Sir R., 195 'Panic of 1837, 86, 118 et seq. Parker, Rev. S., 53, 77 Pelley, J. H., 42, 51 Petitions, 93-98, 101-104, 129, 160, 183 Pilcher, J., 57-59, 64 Platte 'River, 25, 55, 58, 82, 93, 137 et seq. Political agitation, 106-112, 184, 189, 190 Political parties in Ore., 155 et seq. Portuguese, 16, 26, 35 Prices, 105, 109, 124-126, 154, 175 209] INDEX 209 Puget Sound, 17, 27, 32, 198 Ptiget Sound Agricultural Co., 78 Railway overland, 83, 84, 129 Red) iRiver settlement, 48, 49, 78 Rendezvous, SS-S7. 60-63, 77, 84 Rocky Mts., 18, 21, 27, 31, 42, 51- 57, 61, 66, 68, 83, 93, 143, 183 Rocky Mt. Fur Co., 54, 59, 61, 63 Routes of communication, 20, 26, 45. 57. 64, 93, no, 121-123, 129 Ruslh, R., 29, 30, 31, 38, 41 Russel, O., 56, 67, 89 Russia:, 15, 26, 29. 33-39, 44. 78, 87, no, 129, I7S Salt ILake, 25, S5, 57. 59. 62, 143 San Francisco Bay, IS, 37, 92, 129, 182 Santa Fe, 55, 68, 136, 183 Selkirk, Lordl, 48-51 Semple, iSenator, 106, 129 Settlements, American, 39, 71, 75, 85, 95. 97, 154 et. seq., 188; French Canadian, 71, 78, 95, 164; English, 78, no, 155 Settlers, 69, 79, 91, 100, 154, 167, i6g, 172, 175, 185 Shippee, L. B., 43, 64, 112 Sickness, 127, 128 Sierra Nevada iMts., 59, 117 Simpson, G., 51-53 Slacum, W. A., 73, 93, 95 Slavery, 126, 162 Smith, J. S., S3-6o Snake River, 21-26, 53, 57, 60, 62, 66, 84, 87, 141 South Pass, 26, 58, 83, 89, 142 Spalding, Rev. H. H., J6, 83-85, 91, 93 Spain, 15, 26, 29, 33, 37, 39. 44, 94 St. Louis, 21, 24-26, 54, 57, 60-65, 69, 121 Sublette, Wm., 55, 62, 121 Sutter, 178 Texas, 129, 201 Thesis, 188-189 Thomas, Jesse B., 106 Thompson, David, 20, 23, 32 Townsend, J. K., 63, 72 Trade, l6, 20, 23, 27, 32, 34, 38, 42, 45^^, 80, 98, 116, 186 Trappers, 55-57, 61, 66, 79, 89, 104, nS Travel, by canoe, 18, 19, 22, 25, 27, 54 ; by pa^k horse, 2a, 25-27, 55; by wagon, 26, 55, 58 (rate of, 82), 85, 89, 93, no, 123, 132 et seq., 199 Treaty of Florida 1819, 33 Treaty of Ghent, 28, 30 Treaty with Great Britain, 1842, 107, 174, 201 Treaty with Great Britain, 1846, 42, 199 Treaty with iRussia 1824, 34 et seq. Van Buren, iM., 118, 122 Vancouver, Capt. Geo., 16, 20, 26 Vancouver Island, 18, 42 Waller, A. F., 75, IS8 War of 1812, 23, 28, 50 Webster, D., 201 White, Dr. E., 73, 105 Whitman, Dr. iM., 77-81, 128, 196 et seq. Wilkes, Com. C, 75, 97, 162, 200 Willamette Valley, 27, 53, 67, 71, 75, 79, 85, 88, 95, I45, 152, 181, 186, 195 Williams, Joseph, 76, 89, 105, 106 Wislizenus, Dr. F. A., 67, 87 Wyeth, N. J., 55, 62, 95, 97, 116 L) woNuiTinii: til vxtii ncm n i9dftEemriari9T U9 »»»3M^f- . j i j »«^ "' pMii' .r T=x „ — I " .1-;=; — Wr^l 1^3 A WITH THE REGIONS ADJOINING COMPILED iVoiii llio iiiosl recent authorities. PHILADEJLPHIA Published l>y S. Augustus 31itchell ^, N.E.CORNER OF MARKET & SEVENTH STREETS 1816 '\ V N ^v — "--S '^ % S^ . >-'"' M C TT fockyj^ JJ.'^i 9. :'~<^ »P'' UL U! kOMoiTinic ill vsDT THOU I w^KoamOFik^ -^MoSBUlnt VhlMI V^-fc. 3 »7 »T Unarr^HIm L.I •••»! |»^*j« o »r««>" «J» ^^^ t-Ai" *^»» Bo*" 5« r' r' ^- r^n llS^-^j01ii@@pr kl^J l^ >. ^•-o. »Uhu>«^ ,!,.»)' g^cru' / / f ' * Ai'o i/v S Jaapera UfL lh«P" ,^ur«»f<*«c. »Z% ■•4.,ifl •of^ *-D / tie V. . 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[lS]>SpeculatIon on the Stock and Produce Exchanges of the TTnited States By UsNRY Crosby Emery, Ph.D. Price, ;i.sa. VOLUME Vm, 1896-98. 551 pp. Price, cloth, $4.00. 1. [19] The Struggle bet-ween President Johnson and Congress over Recon- struction. By Charles Erkbst Chadsey. Ph.D. Price, |$i.oo. 3. [iSO] Recent Centralizing Tendencies in State Educational Administra- tion. By William CLARE:fCB Webster, Ph.D. Price, 75 cents. 3. [81] The Abolition of Privateering and the Declaration of Paris. By Francis R. Stark, LL.B., Ph.D. Price, gi 00. *. [28] Public Administration in Massachusetts. The Relation of Central to Xtocal Activity. By Robert Harvey Whitten, Ph.D. Price, ^i.oo. VOLUME IX, 1897-98. 617 pp. Price, cloth, $4.00. 1. [83] "English liocal Government of To-day. A Study of the Relations of Central and Local Government. By Mild Roy Maltbie, Ph.D. Price, ;|2.oo. 8. [341 German Wage Theories. A History of their Development. By Jamhs W. Crook, Ph.D. Price, ^i.oo. B. [35 1 The Centralization of Administration in Nevr York State. By John Archibald Fairlib, Ph.D. Price, f loo. VOLUME X, 1898-99. lyji, ^p. jrnuc, vivm, By Jacob Salwyn ScHAPiRO, Ph.D. Price, ^i. 25^ t. [91] Responsibility lor Crime. By Philip A. Paksons, Ph.D. Price, Ji.jo. VOLUME XXXV, 1909. 568 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50. 1. [98] Tlie Conflict over the Judicial Powers In tlie TJnIted States to 1S70. By Charles Grove Haikes, Ph.D. Price, J1.50. >. [93] A Study of tbe Population ot Manhattan vllle. By Howard Brown Woolston, Ph.D. Price, ^1.25. 8. [94] 'Divorce: A Study In Social Causation. By Jahes p. Lichtbnbergbr, Ph.D. Price, J1.50, VOLUME XXXVI, 1910. 542 pp. Price, cloth, $4.00. 1. [95] *KeconstructlonlnTexas. By Chaeles William Ramsdell, Ph.D. Price, ^.50. S. [961 * The Transition In Virginia from Colony to Commouwealtlj. By Charles Ramsdell Limgley, Ph.D. Price, fi.50. VOLUME XXXVII, 1910. 606 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50. 1. [97] Standards of Reasonableness In Local Freight Discriminations. By John Maurice Clark, Ph.D. Price, J1.S5. S. [98] Legal Development In Colonial Massachusetts. By Charles J. Hilkbt, Ph.D. Price, Ji.35^ 8. [99] * Social and Mental Traits of the STegro. By Howard W. Odum, Ph.D. Priee, t^.o». VOLUME XXXVin, 1910. 463 pp. Price, cloth, $3.50. 1. [1001 The Public Domain and Democracy. By Robert Tudor Hill, Ph.D. Price, ^.os. e. [101] Organlsmic Theories ot the State. By Francis W. Cokbr, Ph.D. Price, $1.50. VOLUME XXXIX, 1910-1911. 651 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50. 1. [102] The Making ot the Balkan States. By William Smith Murray, Ph.D. Price, $1.50. a. [103] Political History ot Nevs Torfe State during the Period ot the ClvU War. By Sidney David Brummer, Ph. D. Price, 3.00. VOLUME XL, 1911. 633 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50. 1. [104] A Survey ot Constitutional Development In China. By Hawkling L. Yen, Ph D, Price, f 1.00. a. [105] Ohio Politics during the Civil War Period. By George H. Porter, Ph.D. Price. $1.75. S. [106] The Territorial Basis ot Government under the State Constitutions. By Alfred ZantziI7gbk Rebd, Ph.D. Price, fx.75. VOLUME XLI, 1911. 514 pp. Price, cloth, $3.50; paper covers, $3.00. [107] New Jersey as a Royal Province. By Edgar Jacob Fishbb, Ph. D. VOLUME XLn, 1911. 400 pp. Price, cloth, $3.00; paper covers, $2.50. [108I Attitude ot American Courts in Labor Cases. By George Gorham Groat, Ph.I>. VOLUME XLIII, 1911. 633 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50. !• [lOB] •Industrial Causes ot Congestion ot Population In New York City. By Edward Ewing Pratt, Ph.D. Price, li.oo. S. [IIOJ Education and the Mores. By F. Stuart Chafih, Ph.D. Price, 75 cents. 8. 1111] The British Consuls in the Confederacy. By Millbdgb L. Bonham, Jr., Ph.D. Price, |9.Q«k VOLUMES XLIV and XLV, 1911. 745 pp. Price for the two volumes, cloth, $6.00 ; paper covers, $5.00. (lia and 118] The Eoonomic Principles ot Contuolus and bis School. By Chen Huan-Chahg, Fh,I>> VOLUME XL VI, 1911-1912.^ 623 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50. 3 1. [114] The Rlcardlan Socialists. By Esther Lowenthal, Ph.D. Price.$i.o« 9. [115] Ibrahim Pasha. Grand Vizier ot Suleiman, the Magnificent. By Hester Donaldson Jenkins, Ph.D. Price, fi.oo. «. [116] •Syndicalism in Prance. By Louis Lbvinb, Ph.D. Second edition, 1914. Price, >i.5o> 4. [117] A Hoosler Village. By Newell Lebov Sims, Ph. B. Price.fi.ja VOLUME XL VII, 1912. 544 pp. Price, cloth, $4.00. 1. [118] The Politics of Mlclilgaii, 1865-1878, By HarriettkM. Dilla, Ph.D. Price, $2.00. S. [1 19] *Tlie United States Beet Sugar Industry and tlie Tariff. By Rot G. Blakey, Ph.D. Price, $2.00. VOLUIffE XLVni, 1912. 493 pp. Price, cloth, $4.00. 1. [ISO] Isldor of Seville. By Ernest Brehadt, Ph. D. Price. Js.oo. S. [131] Progress and Uniformity In Chlld-IiaborX/eglsIatlon. By William Fielding Ogburn, Ph.D. Price, ^1.75. VOLUME XLIX, 1912. 592 pp. Price, cloth. $4.50. 1. riSS] British Badlcallsm 1791-1797. By Walter Phelps Hall. Price.fz.oo. H, [133] A Comparative Study of the I^aw of Corporations. By Arthur K. Kuhh. Ph.D. Price, $1.50. 8. [184] *The Negro at Work In New Tork City. By Gbohgb E. Hatkes. Ph.D. Price, ^1.25. VOLUME L, 1911. 481 pp. Price, cloth, $4.00. 1. [135] *The Spirit of Chinese Philanthropy. 'By Yai Yub Tso, Ph.D. Price, Si.00. «, [13«J *The Allen In China, By Vi. Kyoim Wellington Koo, Ph.D. Price, $2.50. VOLUME LI, 1912. 4to. Atlas. Price: cloth, $1.50; paper covers, $1.00. 1. [137] The Sale of lilqnor In the South. By LaoHARs S. Blakky, Ph.D. VOLUME UI, 1912. 489 pp. Price, cloth, $4.00. 1. [138] 'Provincial and Local Taxation In Canada. By Solomon Vinbberg, Ph.D. Price, $i.y>. t, [139] *The Distribution of Income. By Frank Hatch Streightoff, Ph.D. Price, $1.50, 8. [130] *The rinances of "Vermont. By Frederick A. Wood, Ph.D. Price, ^i.oo. VOLUIVEE Lin, 1913. 789 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50; paper, $4.00. [131] The Civil War andBeconstrnctlon In Xlorlda. By W. W. 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[139] *The Civil Service of Great Britain. „,. „ „^ _ By Robert Mosbs, Ph.D. Price, fa.oo. S. [140] The Financial History of New York State. „ „ ^ „ By Don C. Sowers. Price, gz.sa VOLUME LVIII, 1914. 684 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50; paper, $4.00. [141] Reconstruction In North Carolina. „ , „ „ „ „. _ ' ■■ By J. G. DE RouLHAC Hamilton, Ph.D. VOLUME LIX, 1914. 625 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50. I, ri421 The Development of Modern Turkey by means of Its Press. m. i^^A,j ^^-a »• By Ahmed Emin, Ph.D. Price, >i.oo. t. [1481 The System of Taxation m China, 1614-1811. „,.„_. ^ m, i^-^^i ^M^^ J By Shao-Kwan Chen, Ph. D. Price, fi.oo. 8. [1441 The Currency Problem in China. By Wen Pin Wei, Ph.D. Price, ti.25. 4. 114,61 'Jew^lsh Immigration to the United States. „, „ „ «. lAaoi oayyxa^^±A..^^ m. By Samoel Joseph, Ph.D. Price.fi.so^ VOLUME LX. 1914. 516 pp. Price, elotli, $4.00. 1. ri46] •Constantlne tlie Great and Christianity. By Chkistophek Bush Coleman, Ph.D. Price, $a.oo. a. [147] The Establlslament of Cliristlanlt.v and tlie Proscription ot Pa- ganism. By Maud Aline Huittman, Ph.D. Price, J2.00. VOLUME LXI. 1914. 496 pp. Price, cloth, $400. 1. [148] *Tlie RallTvay Conductors: A Study In Organized Labor. By Kdwin Clyde Robbins. Price, I1.50, 2. [149] 'Tlie Finances of the City oI>iew York. By Yin-Ch'u Ma, Ph D. Price, ^2.50. VOLUME LXII. 1914. 414 pp. Price, cloth, $3.50. [ 1501 The Journal of the Joint Committee of Fifteen on Reconstrnctlon. 39tb Congress, 1865— 1867. By Benjamin B. Kendrick, Ph.D. Pricc,$3.oo. VOLUME LXin. 1914. 561pp. Price, cloth, $4 00. 1. [15i] Emlle Durklieim's Contributions to Sociological Theory. By Charles Elmbr Gehlke, Ph.D. Price, >i. 50, 2. [15^1 Tbe Nationalization of Rall^vays In Japan. By TosHiHARU Watarai, Ph.D. Price, J1.25. 3. [1531 Population: A Study lu Maltbuslanlsnoi. By Warren S. Thompson, Ph.D. Price, $1.75^ VOLUME LXIV. 1915. 646 pp. Price, cloth, $4,50. 1. [154] *KeoonstructIon in Georgia. By C. 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Hitti, Ph.D. Price, $4.00. VOLUME LXIX. 1916. 489 pp. Price, cloth, $4,00. 1. [164] Railway Monopoly and Rate Regnlation. By Robert J. McFall, Ph.D. Price, (2 00. 8. [165] The Butter Industry in the United States. By £dward Wiest, Ph D. Price, ^2.00, VOLUME LXX, 1916. 640 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50. [166] Mohammedan Theories of Finance By Nicolas P. Aghnidbs, Ph.D. Price, $4.00. VOLUME LXXI. 1916. 476 pp. Price, cloth, $4.00. 1. [167] The Commerce of Louisiana during the French Regime, 1699—1768. By N. M. Miller Surrey, Ph.D. Price, f3.50. VOLUME LXXII. 1916. 542 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50. 1. '168] American Men of Letters: Their Nature and Nurture. By Edwin Leavitt Clarke, Ph.D. Price, $1.50. a. [169] The Tariff Problem in China. By Chin Chu, Ph.D. Price, *i. 50. 3. 1170] The Marketing of Perishable Food Products. By A. B. Adams, Ph.D. Price, $1.50. VOLUME LXXIII. 1917. 616 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50. 1. [171] *Tlie Social and Economic Aspects of tbe Cbartist Movement. By Frank F. Rosenblatt. Ph.D. Price, fs.oo 8, [17S] 'Tbe Decline of tbe Cbartlst Movement. By Prbston William Slossoh, Ph.D. Price, f2.cx). 3. [178] Cbartlsiu and tbe Clinrcbes. By H. U. Faulkner, Ph.D. Piice, $r.ss VOLITME LXXIY. 1917. 546 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50. 1. [174] The Rise of Bccleslastlcal Control In Quebec. By Walter A. Riddell. Ph.D. Price, $1.75 8, [176] Political Opinion In Massaclinsetts dnrlnjB tbe Civil War and Re- construction. _ _ By Edith Ellen Ware, Ph.D. Price, |i. 75. >erap]ilc Indnstrv. By H. E. HoAGLAND, Ph.D. Price, Ji.oo 8. [176] Collective Bargaining in the Liltbo^aphlc^Indastrv. " " " '^ D, Ph.. VOLUME LXXV. 1917. 410 pp. Price, cloth, $4.00. An extra-Ulnstrated and bonnd volnme Is ipnttllsbed at $5.00. 1. [177] New Yorfe as an Eltctteentli Century Mnnlclpallty. Prior to 1731. By Arthur EvBKmT Peterson, Ph.D. Price, $2.00. 8. [178] New York as an Blghteenth Century Municipality. 1731-1776. Py George William Edwards, Ph.D. Price, |a.oo VOLUME LXXVI. 1917. 489 pp. Price, cloth, $4.00. 1, [179] 'Economic and Social History of Cbow^an County, North Carolina. By W. Scott Boice, Ph.D. Price, Ja.50 S. [180] Separation of State and Local Revenues In the Cnlted States. By Mabel Newcomer, Ph.D. Price, fl.75 VOLUME LXXVII. 1917. 473 pp. Price, cloth, $4.00 [181] American civil Church Law. By Carl Zollmann, LL.B. Price, $3.50 VOLUME LXXVIII. 1917. 647 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50. [188] The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution. By Arthur Meier Schlbsinger, Ph.D. Price, ^4.00. VOLUME LXXIX. 1917-1918. 535 pp. Price, doth, $4.50. 1. [188] Contemporary Theories of Unemployment and Unemployment Relief. By Frederick C. Mills, Ph.D. Price, $1.50 8. [184] The French Assembly of 1848 and American Constltntlonal Doc- trine. By Eugene Newton Curtis, Ph.D. Price, {3.00. VOLUME LXXX. 1918. 448 pp. Price, cloth, $4.00. 1. [185] '"Valuation and Rate Making. By Robert L. Hale, Ph.D. Price, $1.50. 8. [186] The Enclosure of Open Fields In Enarland. By Harriet Bradley, Ph.D. Price, $1.35. 8. [187] The Land Tax In China. By H. L. Huang, Ph.D. Price, $1 50 VOLUME LXXXL 1918. 601 pD. Price, cloth $4.50. 1. [188] Social lilfe In Rome In the Time of Plantns and Terence. By Georgia W. Leffingwbll, Ph.D. Price, (i.aj. 3. [189] *Aastrallan Social Development. By Clarence H. Northcott, Ph.D. Price, $2.50. 3. [190] ^Factory Statistics and Industrial Fatlsne. By Philip S. Florewce, Ph.D. Price, $1.25, VOLUME LXXXn. 1918-1919. 576 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50. 1. [1911 New England and the Bavarian Illnmlnatl. By Vernon Stauffer, Ph.D. Price, 13,00, 8. [198] Resale Price Maintenance. By Claudius T. Murcbison, Ph.D. Price, $1.50, VOLUME LXXXIIL 1919. 432 pp. Price, cloth, $4 00. [193] The I. "W. W. By PaulF. Brissbnden, Ph.D. Price, fe.se. VOLUME LXXXIV. 1919. 534 pp. Price, cloth, $4.50. 1. [1941 The Royal Government In Vlrfflnla, 1684-1775. By Percy Scott Flippin, Ph.D. Price, fe.cx!. 8. [195] Hellenic Conceptions of Peace. By Wallace E.caldwfll, Ph.D. Price, »i 35. VOLUME LXXXV. 1919. 450 pp. Price, cloth, $4.00. 1. [196] The Rellarlous Policy of the Bavarian Government during the Napoleonic Period. By Chester P. Higbt, Ph.D. Price, feoo. 8. [197rPubllo Debts of China. By F. H. Huang, Ph.D. Price, Ji.oo. VOLUME LXXXVI. 1919. 460 pp. Price, cloth, $4.00. 11981 The Decline of Aristocracy In the Politics of New York. By Dixon R^AN Fox, Ph.D. Price, J3. 50. VOLUME LXXXVn. 1919. 451pp. Price, cloth, $4.00. 1 199] Foreign Trade of China. By Chong Su See, Ph.D. Price, $3.50. 1. raioi 2. tail] VOLUME LXXXVIII. 1919. 444 pp. Price, cloth, $4.00 1. 1800J The Street Surface Railway Franchises of Mew York City. By Havsy J. Cabman, Ph.U. Piice, $>.». 8. [801 1 Electric LlKht Pranohlses In Kew York City. By Leonora Arbnt, Ph.D. Price, fi.50. VOLUME LXXXIX. 1919. 658 pp. Price, cloth, $5.00. I. 1803) Women's Wages. B> Emilie J. 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