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CHAPTER III.
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THE OREGON CONTROVERSY.
THE OREGON CONTROVERSY.
The struggle of five nations for possession of "Oregon," a domain embracing indefinite territory, but including the present states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, and a portion of British Columbia, ran through a century and a half, and culminated in the "Oregon Controversy" between England and the United States. Through forty years of diplomatic sparring, advances, retreats, demands, concessions and unperfected compromises the contest was waged between the two remaining champions of the cause, the United States and Great Britain. British parliamentary leaders came and went; federal administrations followed each other successively, and each in turn directed the talents of its able secretaries of state to the vital point in American politics, Oregon.
The question became all important and far reaching. It involved, at different periods, all the cunning diplomacy of the Hudson's Bay Company, backed by hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling; it brought to the front conspicuously the life tragedy of a humble missionary among the far western Indians, Dr. Marcus Whitman; it aroused the spirited patriotism of American citizenship from Maine to Astoria, and it evoked the sanguinary defi from American lips, "Fifty-four forty or fight."
It closed with a compromise, quickly, yet effectually consummated; ratification was immediate, and the "Oregon Controversy" became as a tale that is told, and from a live and burning issue of the day it passed quietly into the sequestered nook of American history.
To obtain a fairly comprehensive view of this question it becomes necessary to hark back to 1697, the year of the Treaty of Ryswick, when Spain claimed, as her share of North America, as stated by William Barrows:
On the Atlantic coast from Cape Romaine on the Carolina shore, a few miles north of Charleston, due west to the Mississippi river, and all south of that line to the Gulf of Mexico. That line continued beyond the Mississippi makes the northern boundary of Louisiana. In the valley of the lower Mississippi Spain acknowledged no rival, though France was then beginning to intrude. On the basis of discovery by the heroic De Soto and others, she claimed up to the head of the Arkansas and the present famous Leadville, and westward to the Pacific. On that ocean, or the South Sea, as it was then called, she set up the pretensions of sovereignty from Panama to Nootka Sound or Vancouver. These pretensions covered the coasts, harbors, islands and even over the whole Pacific Ocean as then limited. These stupendous claims Spain based on discovery, under the papal bull of Alexander VI, in 1493. This bull or decree gave to the discoverer all newly discovered lands and waters. In 1513 Balboa, the Spaniard, discovered the Pacific Ocean, as he came over the Isthmus of Panama, and so Spain came into the ownership of that body of water. Good old times those were, when kings thrust their hands into the new world, as children do theirs into a grab-bag at a fair, and drew out a river four thousand miles long, or an ocean, or a tract of wild land ten or fifteen times the size of England.
Nor was France left out at the Ryswick partition of the world. She claimed in the south and in the north, and it was her proud boast that from the mouth of the Penobscot along the entire seaboard to the unknown and frozen Arctic, no European power divided that coast with her, nor the wild interior back of it.
At the date of this survey, 1697, Russia was quiescent. She claimed no possessions. But at the same time Peter the Great, and his ministers, were doing some heavy thinking. Results of these cogitations were afterwards seen in
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the new world, in a territory known for many years to school children as Russian America, now the Klondyke, Dawson, Skaguay, Bonanza Creek, the Yukon and — the place where the gold comes from. Russia entered the lists; she became the fifth competitor, with Spain, England, France and the United States, for Oregon.
Passing over the events of a hundred years, years of cruel wars; of possession and dispossession among the powers; the loss by France of Louisiana and the tragedy of the Plains of Abraham, we come to the first claims of Russia. She demanded all the Northwest Coast and islands north of latitude 51 degrees and down the Asiatic coast as low as 45 degrees, 50 minutes, forbidding "all foreigners to approach within one hundred miles of these coasts except in cases of extremity." Our secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, objected to this presumptuous claim. Emphatically he held that Russia had no valid rights on that coast south of the 55th degree. Vigorous letters were exchanged and then "the correspondence closed." Great Britain took sides with the United States. Our protest was emphasized by promulgation of the now famous "Monroe Doctrine," the substance of which lies in these words: "That the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for colonization by any European power."
Subsequently it was agreed between Russia and the United States, in 1824, that the latter country should make no new claim north of 54 degrees, 40 minutes, and the Russians none south of it. With Great Britain Russia made a similar compact the year following, and for a period of ten years this agreement was to be binding, it being, however, understood that the privilege of trade and navigation should be free to all parties. At the expiration of this period the United States and Great Britain received notice from Russia of the discontinuance of their navigation and trade north of 54 degrees, 40 minutes.
Right here falls into line the Hudson's Bay Company. Between Great Britain and Russia a compromise was effected through a lease from Russia to this company of the coast and margin from 54 degrees, 40 minutes, to Cape Spencer, near 58 degrees. Matters were, also, satisfactorily adjusted with the United States.
The final counting out of Russia from the list of competitors for Oregon dates from 1836. During a controversy between England and Russia the good offices of the United States were solicited, and at our suggestion Russia withdrew from California and relinquished all claims south of 54 degrees, 40 minutes. And now the contest for Oregon was narrowed down between Great Britain and the United States. But with the dropping of Russia it becomes necessary to go back a few years in order to preserve intact the web of this history.
On May 16, 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company was chartered by Charles II. Headed by Prince Rupert the original incorporators numbered eighteen. The announced object of the company was "the discovery of a passage into the South Sea" — the Pacific Ocean. During the first century of its existence the company really did something along the lines of geographical discovery. Afterward its identity was purely commercial. Twelve hundred miles from Lake Superior, in 1778, the eminent Frobisher and others had established a trading post, or "factory," at Athabasca. Fort Chipewyan was built ten years later and Athabasca abandoned. From this point Mackenzie made his two overland trips to the Pacific, treated in the two preceding chapters. Commenting upon these expeditions, from a political view point, William Barrows, in the "American Commonwealths" series, says:
"The point reached by Mackenzie on the Pacific is within the present limits of British Columbia on that coast (53 degrees, 21 minutes), and it was the first real, though
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undesigned step toward the occupation of Oregon by Great Britain. That government was feeling its way, daringly and blindly, for all territory it might obtain, and in 1793 came thus near the outlying region which afterward became the coveted prize of our narrative." (Oregon: the Struggle for Possession.)
Between the United States and possession of Oregon stood, like a stone wall, the Hudson's Bay Company. It was the incarnation of England's protest against our occupancy. Such being the case it is a fortuitous opportunity to glance, briefly, at the complexion of this great commercial potentate of the Northwest Coast. Aside from geographical discoveries there was another object set forth in the Hudson's Bay Company's charter. This was "the finding of some trade for furs, minerals and other considerable commodities." Moreover an exclusive right was granted by the charter to the "trade and commerce of all those seas, straits and bays, rivers, lakes, creeks and sounds, in whatsoever latitude they shall be, that lie within the entrance of the straits commonly called Hudson's Straits." The charter extended, also, to include all lands bordering them not under any other civilized government.
Such ambiguous description covered a vast territory — and Oregon. And of this domain, indefinitely bounded, the Hudson's Bay Company became monarch, autocrat and tyrant, rather an unpleasant trinity to be adjacent to the gradually increasing and solidifying dominion of the United States. Then, with the old company, was united the Northwestern Company, at one time a rival, now a component part of the great original "trust" of the Christian era. The crown granted to the new syndicate the exclusive right to trade with all Indians in British North America for a term of twenty years. Their hunters and trappers spread themselves throughout the entire northwest of North America. Their fur monopoly extended so far south as the Salt Lake basin of the modern Utah. Rivals were bought out, undersold or crushed. The company held at its mercy all individual traders from New Foundland to Vancouver; from the head of the Yellowstone to the mouth of the Mackenzie. With no rivals to share the field, the extent of territory under the consolidated company seems almost fabulous — one-third larger than all Europe; larger than the United States of to-day,
Alaska included, by, as Mr. Barrows states, "half a million of square miles." And it was preparing, backed by the throne of England, to swallow and assimilate "Oregon." Concerning this most powerful company Mr. Barrows has contributed the following graphic description:
Alaska included, by, as Mr. Barrows states, "half a million of square miles." And it was preparing, backed by the throne of England, to swallow and assimilate "Oregon." Concerning this most powerful company Mr. Barrows has contributed the following graphic description:
"One contemplates their power with awe and fear, when he regards the even motion and solemn silence and unvarying sameness with which it has done its work through that dreary animal country. It has been said that a hundred years has not changed its bills of goods ordered from London. The company wants the same muskrat and beaver and seal; the Indian hunter, unimproved, and the half-breed European, deteriorating, want the same cotton goods, and flint-lock guns and tobacco and gew-gaws. To-day as a hundred years ago the dog-sledge runs out from Winnipeg for its solitary drive of five hundred or two thousand or even three thousand miles. It glides silent as a spectre over those snow-fields and through the solemn, still forests, painfully wanting in animal life. Fifty, seventy, and hundred days it speeds along, and as many nights it camps without fire, and looks up to the same cold stars. At the intervening points the sledge makes a pause, as a ship, having rounded Cape Horn, heaves to before some lone Pacific island. It is the same at the trader's hut or 'factory,' as when the sledge man's grandfather drove up the same dogs, the same half-breeds or voyageurs to welcome him, the same foul, lounging Indians, and the same mink-skin in exchange for the same trinket. The fur animal and its purchaser and hunter, as the
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landscape, seem to be alike under the same immutable law of nature : —" 'A land where all things always seem the same,' as among the lotus-eaters. Human progress and Indian civilization have scarcely made more improvement than that central, silent partner of the Hudson's Bay Company — the beaver."
Originally the capital stock of this company, at the time the charter was granted by Charles II, was $50,820. Through profits alone it was tripled twice within fifty years, going as high as $457,380, without any additional money being paid in by stockholders. The Northwest Company was absorbed in 1821 on a basis of valuation equal to that of the Hudson's Bay Company. Then the consolidated capital stock was $1,916,000, of which $1,780,866 was from profits. And during all this elapsed period an annual dividend of ten per cent had been paid to stockholders. One cargo of furs, leaving Fort George for London in 1836, was valued at $380,000. In 1837 the consolidated company organized the Puget Sound Agricultural Company. This was intended to serve as an offset to encroachments of colonists from the United States which settled in Oregon. In 1846 the English government conceded United States claims to Oregon, and at that period the Hudson's Bay Company claimed property within the territory said to be worth $4,990,036.67.
With such gigantic and powerful competition for the territory of Oregon it is surprising that even as determined a government as the United States should have succeeded in ousting it from its trespass on our property. Nor could this have been accomplished had it not been for the pluck, skill, determination and indomitable energy of our hardy pioneers. While the sale of rabbit skins alone in London, in one year, ordinarily amounted to thirteen hundred thousand, the company found its profit also in the beaver, land and sea-otter, mink, fisher, muskrat, fox, raccoon, sable, black, brown and grizzly bear and buffalo. And in search for these fur-bearing animals the hunters of the company braved every danger and spread themselves over the wild half of North America. So far from carrying out the provisions of its charter relating to geographical discovery, early in the nineteenth century the company threw every obstacle possible in the way of such discoveries. Evidently it feared rivals. Sir John Barrow, in his history of Arctic Voyages, says: "The Northwest Passage seems to have been entirely forgotten, not only by the adventurers who had obtained their exclusive charter under this pretext, but also by the nation at large; at least nothing more appears to have been heard on the subject for more than half a century."
And what of the darker deeds of this mysterious, silent, yet powerful commercial aggregation? In 1719 it refused a proposal from Mr. Knight that two vessels be sent by him to look up a rumored copper mine at the mouth of an arctic river. In 1741 the company showed signs of hostility toward a Mr. Dobbs, engaged in the same enterprise. The failure of Captain Middleton, commissioned by the Lords of Admiralty to explore northern and western waters of Hudson's Bay, is attributed to a bribe of five thousand pounds received from the company. The beacon light at Fort York was cut down in 1746 to insure the complete wreck of an exploring party then aground in that vicinity. Much of the information concerning auriferous deposits brought back by Mackenzie from his two journeys was suppressed. The Hudson's Bay Company had set its face against mineral development. Even that industry was a rival. Following the assassination of Dr. Marcus Whitman by Indians, in 1847, one of the survivors of the massacre was refused the protection of Fort Walla Walla then under command of an agent of the Hudson's Bay Company. On the whole this aggregation of English capital seems to have been as antagonistic to English enterprise as to
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American commerce, but all the time working like a mole under ground.
Previous to the War of 1812 England had strenuously urged the Ohio as the western limit of the colonies. She seduced various Indian tribes to oppose western immigration. In 1811 General Harrison, afterward president, attempted to hold a friendly conference with the great Tecumseh. The meeting was disrupted by the latter, and it required the battle of Tippecanoe to teach the warriors a bloody object lesson. Then followed the War of 1812. In this Great Britain made an effort to recover the northwest, but failed signally. But the Hudson's Bay Company was England in North America. And when the nation failed the commercial syndicate succeeded — for a time. While the United States had legal, she had not, owing to the interference of this company, actual possession and occupancy.
Following the close of the Revolution and the treaty of 1783, an attempt was made to run a northern boundary for the United States. It looked well on paper. It traversed wild, unexplored territory unknown to either party to the agreement.
"Thus," says Barrows, "the northwest point of the Lake of the Woods was assumed for one bound from which the line was to run, to the northwestern point of the lake and thence 'due west,' to the Mississippi. The clause in the treaty reads thus: 'to the said Lake of the Woods, and thence through the said lake to the most northwestern point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi.' But the head of the river, proved to be a hundred miles or more to the south. So that little prominence in our otherwise straight boundary is the bump of ignorance developed by two nations. The St. Croix was fixed by treaty as the boundary on the northeast, but a special 'Joint Commission' was required in 1794 to determine 'what river is the St. Croix,' and four years afterward this commission called for an addition to their instructions
since their original ones were not broad enough to enable them to determine the true St. Croix."
In 1841 another commission ran a boundary from the head of the St. Croix, by the head of the Connecticut, to the St. Lawrence; thence through the middle of its channel and the middle of the lakes to the outlet of Lake Superior, occupying the whole of seven years. And yet the line had not been carried through Lake Superior to the Lake of the Woods. Finally, in 1818, this was done and an agreement reached, though this line was not on the 49th parallel, from the Lake of the Woods, to the Rocky Mountains, the line that was offered by Great Britain, accepted by one administration, refused by another, and finally adopted instead of "Fifty-four forty or fight." Still the English commission was loath to part with the Mississippi valley. They asked for a right of way to the headwaters of that stream. At the same time the southern limits of their northern possessions did not come within one hundred miles of the source of the Mississippi from whence its waters flow more than three thousand miles to the Gulf of Mexico. The commission, however, abandoned this claim and turned, to stand resolutely on latitude 49 degrees. During negotiations with England, in 1818, a compromise was effected which provided for a joint occupation of Oregon for ten years. In 1827 it was renewed, to run indefinitely, with a provision that it could be terminated by either party on giving one year's notice. The Ashburton-Webster treaty of 1842 fixed the line between the St. Croix and St. Lawrence. In 1846 another commission failed to accomplish results in extending a line to the westward through their inability to agree on the "middle of the channel" between the mainland and Vancouver Island.
Not until 1872 was this latter question decided. It was submitted to the Emperor of Germany as final arbiter. He decided favorably to the claim of the United States. Thus this boundary question was prolonged eighty-nine
Not until 1872 was this latter question decided. It was submitted to the Emperor of Germany as final arbiter. He decided favorably to the claim of the United States. Thus this boundary question was prolonged eighty-nine
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years, under eight treaties and fifteen specifications, until final adjustment in its entirety. The Oregon boundary remained in dispute up to 1847. It may here be appropriately remarked that the Joint Boundary Commission of 1818, agreeing on the 49th parallel, might have carried the line to a satisfactory point had they not been stopped by fur traders. Two companies were then attempting to gain possession of the territory.
The expedition of Lewis and Clarke, 1804-6, opened the eyes of England. Jealous lest Americans should gain an advantage. Laroque was sent by the Northwestern Company to sprinkle the Columbia river country with trading posts. But Laroque gained no farther westing than the Mandan Indian village on the Missouri. In 1806 Fraser, having crossed the mountains, made the first English settlement by erecting a post on Fraser Lake. Others soon followed and New Caledonia came into existence. It had remained for daring frontiersmen to open the dramatic contest for possession of Oregon. Diplomats and ministers had dallied and quibbed. Now the contest had become serious and earnest. A German immigrant, John Jacob Astor, was destined to play a prominent part in future strategetic movements for this possession. At forty years of age he was established in the fur business on the great lakes. Later, he had another post at the mouth of the Columbia river, Astoria, a freight port for furs incoming, and beads and trinkets outgoing. In 1810 he dispatched an expedition of sixty men from St. Louis to the Columbia. Fifteen months after, depleted by death, the survivors reached Astoria. Another company of about the same number arrived by way of Cape Horn some time earlier. Other ships followed, and in 1813 Mr. Astor suffered the loss of the Lark, shipwrecked on the Sandwich, now the Hawaiian Islands. Nor was this the worst. Of Mr. Astor's partners, a majority had sold out to the Northwest Fur Company of Montreal, an English organization. Property which Mr. Astor had valued at $200,000 had been thrown away for $40,000. He saw signs of treachery. But so far, despite these handicaps, he had outwitted his competitors. They had planned to forestall him at the mouth of the Columbia. The failure of Laroque had defeated this scheme. Another division of the Northwest Company, in 1811, had attempted to reach there ahead of the sagacious American trader. This party was snowbound and compelled to winter in the mountains. When they eventually arrived Astoria was a reality. The importance of these events is worthy of notice. Had Laroque or the other parties anticipated Astor, strong and cumulative evidence would have been afforded England of prior possession, and this evidence would have been a powerful leverage during the long controversy which followed concerning the northern boundary of Oregon.
Then, too, the defection of Astor's partners who had sold out to the Northwest Company led to an incident in the Oregon Controversy which is significant. Mr. Barrows says:
The leading partner in it, and the one who afterward led off in its sale, received them (representatives of the Northwest Company) in a friendly and hospitable way, and not as rivals: when they returned from their vain expedition he supplied them, not only with provisions, but with goods for trading purposes up the river, where they established trading huts among the Indians and became rivals of the Americans. Strange to say when the question of priority of occupation and national sovereignty was under discussion at London, fifteen years afterward, the English put in these huts of this returning company, as proof that the English were as early if not earlier in the Columbia than the Americans.
Here is a case in point which eloquently illustrates the supremacy of commercialism over sentimental statesmanship. Astor's partners had turned over the post, practically, to the Northwestern Company. The United States had been solicited by Great Britain, previous to
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the War of 1 812, to favor the Northwest Company as against Mr. Astor, and this request had been refused. When the war opened England flamboyantly dispatched a naval force to the Columbia under orders "to take and destroy everything American on the Northwest Coast." On the arrival of this fleet in 1813, the commander had the barren satisfaction of running up the English colors and naming the post St. George. Already it had passed into English hands via the Northwest Company.
Bad faith of his partners and the chances of war had, temporarily defeated the plans of Mr. Astor. American interests on that coast were under a cloud. But the United States was destined to win out. The War of 1812 was fairly on. It had been declared on June 12, 1812; the treaty of peace was signed December 14, 1814. It contained this clause materially affecting our interests in Oregon: "All territory, places and possessions whatsoever, taken by either party from the other during the war * * * shall be restored without delay." Did this provision cover Astoria? Apparently the English thought not, for when, in 1817, an American vessel was put in readiness to occupy that post Mr. Bagot, the English minister at Washington, opposed it. Two points are noted in his protest: The post had been sold to the Northwest Company prior to the war; therefore never captured. Secondly, "the territory itself was early taken possession of in his majesty's name, and had since been considered as forming a part of his majesty's domains." But repossession was granted despite the protest. In 1818 the Stars and Stripes again waved over Astoria and the name "St. George" was relegated to the limbo of the obsolete.
But the Oregon Question was not dead; only hibernating. It sprang into life at the behest of the eloquent Rufus Choate. From his seat in the senate he said:
Astoria was restored to the United States by the Treaty of Ghent in 1814. Yet in that document there is no allusion made to the Northwest Coast, or in fact, any territory west of the Lake of the Woods. Our instructions to the American plenipotentiaries were to concede nothing to Great Britain south of the forty-
ninth parallel. Thus the question was left in abeyance with no defined boundary between English and American territory west of the Lake of the Woods. The southern boundary of Oregon was, also, in doubt. It was not definitely fixed until the Florida Purchase.
Bad faith of his partners and the chances of war had, temporarily defeated the plans of Mr. Astor. American interests on that coast were under a cloud. But the United States was destined to win out. The War of 1812 was fairly on. It had been declared on June 12, 1812; the treaty of peace was signed December 14, 1814. It contained this clause materially affecting our interests in Oregon: "All territory, places and possessions whatsoever, taken by either party from the other during the war * * * shall be restored without delay." Did this provision cover Astoria? Apparently the English thought not, for when, in 1817, an American vessel was put in readiness to occupy that post Mr. Bagot, the English minister at Washington, opposed it. Two points are noted in his protest: The post had been sold to the Northwest Company prior to the war; therefore never captured. Secondly, "the territory itself was early taken possession of in his majesty's name, and had since been considered as forming a part of his majesty's domains." But repossession was granted despite the protest. In 1818 the Stars and Stripes again waved over Astoria and the name "St. George" was relegated to the limbo of the obsolete.
But the Oregon Question was not dead; only hibernating. It sprang into life at the behest of the eloquent Rufus Choate. From his seat in the senate he said:
Keep your eye always open, like the eye of your own eagle, upon the Oregon. Watch day and night. If any new developments or policy break forth, meet them. If the times change, do you change. New things in a new world. Eternal vigilance is the condition of empire as well as of liberty.For twenty-seven years the threads of diplomatic delay and circumlocution were spun out concerning the status of Oregon. Theoretically Astoria had been restored to us; practically the Northwest fur traders thronged the land. The English company had built a stockade fort. It looked as if they intended to hold possession of the mouth of the Columbia vie et armis. Indian tribes ranged themselves on the side of the English. Their minds had been poisoned; insidious words had been breathed into their ears to the effect that the Americans would steal their lands; the English wanted only to trade with them for furs. And for more than ten years following the treacherous sale of Astoria, there were scarcely any Americans in the country. Greenhow in his "History of Oregon and California," declares that at the period when the Hudson's Bay Company was before parliament, in 1837, asking for renewal of its charter, they "claimed and received the aid and consideration of government for their energy and success in expelling the Americans from the Columbia regions, and forming settlements there, by means of which they were rapidly converting Oregon into a British colony."
Astoria was restored to the United States by the Treaty of Ghent in 1814. Yet in that document there is no allusion made to the Northwest Coast, or in fact, any territory west of the Lake of the Woods. Our instructions to the American plenipotentiaries were to concede nothing to Great Britain south of the forty-
ninth parallel. Thus the question was left in abeyance with no defined boundary between English and American territory west of the Lake of the Woods. The southern boundary of Oregon was, also, in doubt. It was not definitely fixed until the Florida Purchase.
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