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CHAPTER III.
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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 p.15 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 p.16 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:
"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 p.17 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 p.18 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 p.19 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
p.20 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: "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.
p.21 Then it was decided that parallel forty-two, on the Pacific, running east from that ocean to the Arkansas, down the river to longitude one hundred; on that meridian south till it strikes the Red river; down the Red river to longitude ninety-four; due south on it to the Sabine river; and down the Sabine to the Gulf of Mexico, should define the southern and western boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, which up to that period had remained indefinite. This act fixed, also, the southern boundary of Oregon.
Until 1820 congress remained dormant so far as Oregon interests were concerned. Then it was suggested that a marine expedition be dispatched to guard our interests at the mouth of the Columbia and aid immigration from the United States. Nothing resulted. In 1821 the same question was revived, but again permitted to relapse into desuetude. Mr. Barrows does not use language too strong when he says: "There appeared to be a lack of appreciation of the case, and there was a skepticism and lethargy concerning that half of the union, which have by no means disappeared."
In 1814 the question having been reopened in London Mr. Rush claimed for the United States from the forty-second to the fifty-first parallel. This section would embrace all the waters of the Columbia. Per contra the English demanded possession of the northern half of the Columbia basin. This would have given us, as the northern boundary of Oregon, the Columbia river from a point where it intersects the forty-ninth parallel to its mouth. It is well to examine, at this point, what such a boundary would have meant to Washington. Had it been accepted there would, probably, never have been any state of Washington, at least, not as subsequently defined. It would have meant the loss of the following territory, comprised in the counties of Klickitat. Skamia. Cowlitz, Clark, Wahkiakum. Pacific. Chehalis, Mason, Lewis. Pierce. Jefferson. Clallam. Kitsap, King, Snohomish, Skagit, Whatcom, Yakima, Kittitas, Chelan, Okanogan and Ferry, a territory comprising forty-three thousand, seven hundred and sixteen square miles, two-thirds of the area of the present state of Washington.
Thus remained the status of the dispute until 1828. Joint occupancy had now continued ten years. It must be conceded that the country, owing to this provision, was now numerically British. And English ministers were eager to avail themselves of the advantages of this fact. They said: "In the interior of the territory in question the subjects of Great Britain have had, for many years, numerous settlements and trading posts — several of these posts on the tributary streams of the Columbia, several upon the Columbia itself, some to the northward and others to the southward of that river. * * * In the whole of the territory in question the citizens of the United States have not a single settlement or trading post. They do not use that river, either for the purpose of transmitting or receiving any produce of their own to or from other parts of the world."
Yet why was this the condition in Oregon at that period? Simply because the aggressiveness of the Northwestern Company had opposed American colonization and fought each and every advance made by our pioneers, commercially and otherwise. Nor can it be denied that for many years Oregon was unappreciated by the east. To-day it appears, to unreflecting minds, an extravagant boast to say that only one-fifth of the domain of the United States lies east of the Mississippi river. And yet the statement is true. Only in 1854 did the initial railway gain the banks of the Father of Waters — at Rock Island. From there progress to the northwest was, for many years, slow, perilous and discouraging. Truly, it was a difficult matter for Oregon to assert herself. In 1828 an "Oregon wave" had swept over congress, amid considerable feverish interest and prolonged eloquence. Protracted debate was had on a bill to survey the territory west of the
p.22 mountains between 42 degrees and 54 degrees 40 minutes, garrison the land and extend over it the laws of the United States. The measure was defeated, again the question slumbered.
But the daring American pioneers of the west were by no means idle. Unconsciously they were accomplishing far more toward a final settlement of the "Oregon Question" than all the tape-bound documents sleeping in the pigeon-holes of English parliamentary and American congressional archives. Of these pioneers Captain Bonneville should not pass unnoticed. He was of the army, and with one hundred of his men he made a two years' hunting, trapping and fur-trading expedition, from the Missouri to the Colorado, and thence to the Columbia. In 1832 Nathaniel J. Wyeth organized a company of twenty-two persons, in Massachusetts, for western exploration. Enthusiastic descriptions of Oregon, written by Hall J. Kelly, had contributed greatly to awaken this interest among the scholarly young men who formed Wyeth's party. On July 4, 1832, they had arrived at Lewis' Fork of the Columbia. Among them were sickness, disappointment and insubordination. Here the company divided. Several left to return east; among them Jacob and John, brothers of Captain Wyeth. Nathaniel Wyeth and his remaining companions reached Snake river, and one hundred miles north of Salt Lake, established a trading post. He was ruined by the ever aggressive Hudson's Bay Company, which placed a rival post, Fort Boise, below Fort Hall. British ministers had impudently declared that Oregon was settled by Englishmen; that Americans had no trading posts within its limits. And why not? Read the following from Mr. Wyeth's memoir to congress: Experience has satisfied me that the entire weight of this company (Hudson Bay) will be made to bear on any trader who shall attempt to prosecute his business within its reach. * * * No sooner does an American start in this region than one of these trading parties is put in motion. A few years will make the country west of the mountains as completely English as they can desire.
To the same congressional committee William A. Slocum, in a report, goes on record as follows: "No individual enterprise can compete with this immense foreign monopoly established in our waters. * * * The Indians are taught to believe that no vessels but the Company's ships are allowed to trade in the river, and most of them are afraid to sell their skins but at Vancouver or Fort George."
Small wonder that at this time there were less than two hundred Americans west of the Rockies. And Canadian law, by act of parliament, was extended throughout the region of the Columbia. Theoretically it was joint occupation; practically British monopoly. So late as 1844 the British and Foreign Review said, brutally: "The interests of the company are of course adverse to colonization. * * * The fur trade has been hitherto the only channel for the advantageous investments of capital in those regions."
Truly the Hudson's Bay Company had adopted a policy of "multiplication, division and silence." Because meat and beef conduced to pastoral settlements, so late as 1836, the company opposed the introduction of cattle. One of the missionaries stationed at Moose Factory has written this: "A plan which I had devised for educating and training to some acquaintance with agriculture native children, was disallowed. * * * A proposal made for forming a small Indian village near Moose Factory was not acceded to; and instead, permission only given to attempt the location of one or two old men, no longer fit for engaging in the chase, it being carefully and distinctly stated, by Sir George Simpson, that the company would not give them even a spade toward commencing this mode of life."
In 1836 when Dr. Marcus Whitman and his party were entering Oregon. J. K. Townsend. a naturalist sent from Philadelphia to collect p.23 specimens of fauna and flora, said to him at Walla Walla: "The company will be glad to have you in the country, and your influence to improve their servants and their native wives and children. As to the Indians you have come to teach they do not want them to be any more enlightened. The company now have absolute control over them, and that is all they require."
And right here is the crux of the differences between the United States and England concerning the territory of Oregon. It was the aim of the former to develop, improve and civilize the country; it was the expressed determination of the latter to keep it in darkness and savagery. For in North America the Hudson's Bay Company was England and English statesmen were under the complete domination of this company's abject commercialism. It has pleased modern English writers to describe Americans as "a nation of shop-keepers." But throughout the whole Oregon controversy the United States stood for progress and civilization; England for the long night of ignorance and barbarism — for profit. Summed up by Mr. Barrows the relations to Oregon of the two countries were as follows: "The Americans struck Oregon just where the English failed, in the line of settlements and civilization. One carried in the single man and the other the family; one, his traps and snares, the other his seed wheat and oats and potatoes; one counted his muskrat nests, and the other his hills of corn; one shot an Indian for killing a wild animal out of season; and the other paid bounty on the wolf and bear; one took his newspaper from the dog-mail twenty-four or thirty-six months from date, and the other carried in the printing press; one hunted and traded for what he could carry out of the country, the other planted and builded for what he could leave in it for his children. In short the English trader ran his birch and batteaux up the streams and around the lakes to bring out furs and peltries, while the American immigrant hauled in with his rude wagon, the nineteenth century and came back loaded with Oregon for the American union."
In 1840 the flow of American immigration into Oregon, especially the missionaries, Lee, Whitman and Parker, alarmed the Hudson's Bay Company. It strenuously opposed the advent of wagons and carriages. Immigrants were lied to at Fort Hall; were told that it would be impossible to proceed farther on wheels. It is recorded that on this account many of them reached Dr. Whitman's mission in a deplorably destitute condition. But all the artifices of the company could not check the hegira from the east. It is reserved for another chapter to relate the experiences of these pioneers. We have to do here, mainly, with the final settlement of the great "Oregon Question" between England and the United States — the political struggle for sovereignty.
In 1843 Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had made a tour of the continent, challenged us in these words: "The United States will never possess more than a nominal jurisdiction, nor long possess even that, on the west side of the Rocky Mountains. And supposing the country to be divided tomorrow to the entire satisfaction of the most unscrupulous patriot in the union, I challenge congress to bring my prediction and its power to the test by imposing the Atlantic tariff on the ports of the Pacific."
Thus the great international question of tariff was brought into the Oregon Controversy. But we must not jump to the conclusion that Sir George was without some foundation for his vaporous remarks. At that time the Hudson's Bay Company had twenty-three posts and five trading stations in the northwest; it had absorbed ten rival companies, not leaving one American or Russian, and had been the means of putting to rout seven immigrant expeditions seeking homes in Oregon.
The Oregon boundary question was still in dispute. But those Americans familiar with the
p.24 subject were destined to temporary disappointment. In 1827 it had been referred, through a convention, to the King of the Netherlands as arbiter. Both parties to the dispute had rejected his decision in 1831. Five efforts had been made to adjust the boundary by President Jackson, and five failures had resulted. The administration of President Van Buren closed with the matter still unsettled. In 1842 Lord Ashburton came from London to negotiate a boundary treaty with Daniel Webster, secretary of state. A certain boundary treaty was negotiated, August 9, 1842, the two ministers signed it; it was ratified by the senate on the 25th; by the Queen soon after, proclaimed on November 10, 1842 — and the Oregon boundary was not in it. Nothing official whatever alluding to Oregon was found therein. The only boundary touched was one "beginning at the monument at the source of the river St. Croix," terminating at the Rocky Mountains on the forty-seventh parallel. Little wonder that sectional feeling developed in the far west.
Dr. Marcus Whitman, whose connection with the "Oregon Question" is treated in another chapter, had arrived in Washington too late for any effectual pleas for consideration of the matter in the treaty just signed. Still, as Mr. Barrows says: "The pressure of Oregon into the Ashburton treaty would probably have done one of three things, prevented the treaty altogether, excluded the United States from Oregon, or produced a war. Delay and apparent defeat were the basis of our real success, and the great work of Marcus Whitman, by his timely presence at Washington, was in making the success sure."
With Oregon left out the Ashburton treaty had been ratified. The outlook was, indeed, gloomy. As a reflex of the insidious teachings of the Hudson's Bay Company the following extract from a speech delivered by Mr. McDuffie in the United States senate is interesting. He said:
What is the character of this country? Why, as I understand it, that seven hundred miles this side of the Rocky Mountains is uninhabitable, where rain scarcely ever falls — a barren and sandy soil — mountains totally impassable except in certain parts, where there were gaps or depressions, to be reached only by going some hundreds of miles out of the direct course. Well, now, what are we going to do in a case like this? How are you going to apply steam? Have you made anything like an estimate of the cost of a railroad running from here to the mouth of the Columbia? Why, the wealth of the Indies would be insufficient. You would have to tunnel through mountains five or six hundred miles in extent. * * * Of what use will this be for agricultural purposes? I would not, for that purpose, give a pinch of snuff for the whole territory. I wish it was an impassable barrier to secure us against the intrusion of others. * * * If there was an embankment of even five feet to be removed, I would not consent to expend five dollars to remove that embankment to enable our population to go there. I thank God for his mercy in placing the Rocky Mountains there.
At the time this speech was being delivered Dr. Marcus Whitman was on his way from Oregon with "the facts in the case," information destined to shed a flood of intelligence on a rather benighted congress. And, in reality, our country was rapidly nearing the end of this interminable controversy. An area of territory sixty-three times the size of Massachusetts and four times as large as Great Britain and Ireland was about to come under the protecting aegis of the United States government. The Hudson's Bay Company had declared, through its emissaries, that a wagon trip to Oregon was an impossibility. The same sentiment had been voiced in the United States senate. It remained for Dr. Whitman to prove the falsity of such an audacious statement. He led a party of two hundred wagons through to his mission on the mouth of the Columbia, arriving in October, 1843. And this, too, against vigorous opposition from the Hudson's Bay Company, at Fort Hall. Then the people began to manifest a lively interest in the question. This interest had been stimulated in December, 1842, by a message from President Tyler, in which he said: "The tide of population which has reclaimed what was so lately an unbroken wilderness
p.25 in more contiguous regions, is preparing to flow over those vast districts which stretch from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. In advance of the acquirements of individual rights sound policy dictates that every effort should be resorted to by the two governments to settle their respective claims." January 8, 1843, congress received news that Dr. Whitman had made good his claim, and reached his destination, with wagons, in Oregon. Party spirit, for there were two parties to the Oregon Controversy, aside from the British, ran high. Dr. Winthrop said: "For myself, certainly, I believe that we have as good a title to the whole twelve degrees of latitude," i. e., up to 54 degrees 40 minutes. Senator Thomas Benton voiced the prevailing sentiment of the time in these words: "Let the emigrants go on and carry their rifles. We want thirty thousand rifles in the valley of the Oregon; they will make all quiet there, in the event of a war with Great Britain for the dominion of that country. The war, if it come, will not be topical: it will not be confined to Oregon, but will embrace the possessions of the two powers throughout the globe. Thirty thousand rifles on the Oregon will annihilate the Hudson's Bay Company and drive them off our continent and quiet the Indians."
Rufus Choate spoke for peace. He was followed by pacificatory utterances from others. Still, there was sufficient vitality in the "Fifty-four forty or fight" to elect President Polk on such a campaign issue. The population of Oregon at the close of 1844 was estimated by Mr. Greenhow at more than three thousand. The Indian agent for the government, Mr. White, placed it at about four thousand; Mr. Hines said: "In 1845 it increased to nearly three thousand souls, with some two thousand to three thousand head of cattle." The west was warm with zeal and anticipation. In the house of representatives Mr. Owen, of Indiana, said: "Oregon is our land of promise. Oregon is our land of destination. 'The finger of nature' — such were once the words of the gentleman from Massachusetts (J. Q. Adams) in regard to this country, — 'points that way;' two thousand Americans are already dwelling in her valleys, five thousand more * * * will have crossed the mountains before another year rolls round." It was the opinion of the senator from Illinois, Mr. Semple, that ten thousand would cross the Rocky Mountains the following year.
At last a resolution was introduced in congress "affirming Oregon to be part and parcel of the territory of the United States from 42 degrees to 54 degrees, 40 minutes, and that notice should be given at once to terminate the joint occupation of it." It was held on the floor of the house that "no doubts now remain in the minds of American statesmen that the government of the United States held a clear and unquestionable title to the whole of the Oregon territory."
In the region at this time the Hudson's Bay Company had about thirty "trading posts." Really they were forts and powerful auxiliaries to an internecine war. Seven thousand citizens of the United States were in the same country. The question of another war with England had become a live and important issue. To have stood solidly for 54 degrees, 40 minutes, would have meant war, and as one gentleman expressed it, "a war that might have given the whole of Oregon to England and Canada to the United States." During forty days the question of giving notice to England of discontinuance of joint occupancy was discussed in the house. It was carried by a vote of one hundred and sixty-three to fifty-four. The struggle in the senate was longer. An idea of the engrossing nature of the Oregon topic may be gleaned from the fact that three score bills and resolutions were kept in abeyance on the calendar for future action. Daniel Webster prophesied that war would not result: that the incident would be closed by compromise and that the compromise
p.26 would be on the boundary line of the forty-ninth parallel. The attitude of the two countries was this: We had offered forty-nine degrees from the mountains to the Pacific ocean, not once, but several times; England had offered forty-nine degrees from the mountains to the Columbia, and by that stream to the sea. A comparatively narrow triangle of land only lay between the demands of England and concessions of the United States. Most excellent grounds for a compromise. April 23, 1846, the notice passed the house by a vote of forty-two to ten, with important amendments strongly suggestive to both governments to adjust all differences amicably. No one longer feared war.
From the point on the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude where the boundary laid down in existing treaties and conventions between the United States and Great Britain terminates, the line of boundary between the territories of the United States and those of her Britannic Majesty shall be continued westward along said forty-ninth parallel of north latitude to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island, and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel, and of Fucca's Strait, to the Pacific ocean : Provided, however, that the navigation of the whole of the said channel and straits south of the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, remain free and open to both parties.
Thus reads the first article of the final boundary treaty between England and the United States, so far as concerns Oregon. But to mould it into this form and sign the same, fifty-four years, two months and six days had been required by the two countries. On July 17, 1846, the document, previously ratified, was exchanged in London between the two governments. But Captain Robert Gray, of Boston, had discovered the Columbia river May 11, 1792, and fully established a United States title to the country which it drains. It remained yet for a boundary commission, in 1857, to run the line. The first meeting of the commission was held July 27, of the same year.
