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GENERAL HISTORY
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THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
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PART I.
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GENERAL HISTORY
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CHAPTER I.
DAWN OF DISCOVERY.
Few students of history have failed to observe the immediate impetus given to maritime exploration by the royally proclaimed exploit of Columbus in 1492. Only nine years after the caravels of the Italian navigator had dropped anchor in American waters, off San Salvador, a Portugese sailor, Gaspar Cortereal, was cautiously feeling his way along the Atlantic coast. This was in the summer of 1501. This voyage of Cortereal reached as high, on the Atlantic mainland of North America, as 42 degrees north. Certain historians have claimed that the explorations of Cortereal really antedated the discovery of Columbus. But of this there is no authentic evidence; there is an accumulation of testimony to the contrary. By eminent cosmographists the year 1501 is now accepted as the period of Cortereal's exploits on the coast of the Atlantic, in the vicinity of modern New England. This expedition of two caravels had been sent out by Manuel, King of Portugal. There is no proof that this voyage had any other object, at least any other result, than profit. Seizing fifty Indians he carried them away, on his return, and sold them as slaves.
As Cortereal was among the earliest on the Atlantic seaboard, so Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, or Cabrilla, as the name is variously spelled, is admitted to have been the earliest navigator, along southern California. It was evidently the intention of Cabrillo, to continue his voyage far higher on the Northwest Coast, for he, too, had heard of the mysterious "Strait of Anian," and was enthused with most laudable geographical ambition. But fate ruled otherwise. Cabrillo died in the harbor of San Diego, California, in January, 1543, fifty-one years after the momentous achievement of Columbus on the southeastern shores of the present United States. The mantle of Cabrillo fell upon the shoulders of his pilot, Bartolome Ferrelo. To within two and one-half degrees of the mouth of the Columbia river Ferrelo continued the exploration, tracing the western coast of the American continent along this portion of the Pacific, and to Ferrelo has been accredited the honor of having been the first white man to gaze upon the coast of Oregon.
But back of that dimly outlined shore which Ferrelo skirted, above latitude 42 degrees, far inland, lay the immense, wonderful territory which afterward became Oregon. It is not susceptible of proof that Ferrelo ever gained north of the present Astoria, although this claim was at one period urged by Spain. But a country which could solemnly lay claim to the whole Pacific ocean would not be at all backward in declaring that one of her navigators p.4 was the first to sight the Northwest Coast, and that, too, far above the point really gained by Ferrelo. It is not considered likely that he reached above the mouth of Umpqua river.
In 1577 Francis Drake, as privateer and freebooter, a pirate and plunderer of Spanish galleons, yet withal a man of strong character and enterprising spirit, attempted to find a northwest passage. Drake probably reached as high as latitude 43 degrees, and dropped his anchors into the shoals of that region. No inland explorations were achieved by him, and he reluctantly abandoned the search for Anian, returned to Drake's Bay, on the coast of California, and subsequently to England around the Cape of Good Hope. En passant it is noticeable that during the famous Oregon Controversy, which obtained ascendancy in international politics two hundred and fifty years later, the discoveries of Drake were not presented by England in support of her claims for all territory north of the Columbia river. Whether Great Britain was doubtful of the validity of discoveries made by a freebooter, or attached no importance to his achievement, the fact remains that they were not urged with any force or enthusiasm.
Cabrillo and Ferrelo were not emulated in maritime discoveries in the waters of the Northwest Coast, until 1550. But on the shore-line of the Atlantic, Cartier, for six years, between 1536 and 1542, had made a number of inland voyages, ascending the St. Lawrence Gulf and river five hundred miles, past the site of Montreal and to the falls of St. Louis. In the far south Hernando De Soto, contemporary with Cartier, had sailed coastwise along the Florida peninsula and penetrated that tropical country until forced back by swamps, morasses and everglades. Inland exploration in the middle of the sixteenth century comprised, practically, in its northern limitations, a line crossing the continent a few miles below the 36th parallel, from the Colorado to the Savannahs, Coronado advancing into the modern Kansas, having passed the line at its central part. The Pacific had been explored sufficiently only to barely show the shore-line to the 44th degree of north latitude.
In the way of northern exploration on the Pacific coast Spain had, in 1550, accomplished little or nothing. But fifteen years afterward Spain became aggressive along the lines of maritime activity. Urdaneta, in 1565, planned and executed the initial voyage eastward, opening a northern route to the Pacific coast of North America. He was followed,, from the Philippines, by Manila traders, eager for gain, and for two centuries thereafter, through the rise and decline of Spanish commercial supremacy, these active and energetic sailors reaped large rewards from the costly furs found in the waters of the Northwest Coast. It is fair to say that the spirit of commercialism contributed far more toward development of the region of which this history treats than did the more sentimental efforts of geographical science.
Still, the latter spirit was not without its apostles and propagandists. Among them was one who called himself Juan de Fuca, a Greek of Cephalonia. His real name was Apostolos Valerianos. Acting, as had Columbus, under royal commission from the King of Spain, he sailed bravely away to find the legendary Strait of Anian — the marine pathway between the greatest oceans of the world. The name of Anian, a mythical northwestern kingdom, originated in 1500, and is said to have been taken in honor of a brother of Cortereal. The real strait was discovered by Russians in 1750. These Russians were fur-hunting Cossacks, who reached the Pacific coast of North America in 1639. Their point of rendezvous was at Okhotsk, on the sea of that name.
Though the voyage of Juan de Fuca proved fruitless it must be conceded that it was con- ceived in the interest of science; a move in behalf of international economics, and honorable alike to both Spain and the intrepid navigator. In 1584 Francisco de Gali reached the Pacific p.5 coast, from the west, in 37 degrees 30 minutes; some say 57 degrees 30 minutes. He was content to sail southward without landing, but recorded for the archives of Spain the trend and shore-line of the coast. By the same route Cermenon, in 1595, met with disaster by losing his vessel in Drake's Bay, a short distance above the present city of San Francisco. Prominent among numerous other voyagers, mainly bent on profit, were Espejo, Perea, Lopez and Captain Vaca.
As has been stated, the earliest explorations of the Northwest Coast were maritime. They were, also, in the main, confined between latitudes 42 degrees and 54 degrees, mainly south of the boundary line finally accepted by Great Britain as between Canada and the United States. Even in that twilight preceding the broad day of inland discovery, there were wars between nations, with "Oregon" the issue, and some compromises. Later came the advance guard of inland explorers who found, at the occidental terminus of their perilous journeys, a comparatively unknown seaboard 750 miles in extent, below the vast reaches of Alaskan territory and the Aleutian Islands. From the far north came Russian explorers, and they encountered Southern navigators who had come upward from the ambrosial tropics. They compared notes, they detailed to each other many facts, intermixed with voluminous fiction, but from the whole was picked out and arranged much of geographical certainty. Four nations of Pacific navigators came to what afterward was known as Oregon, related their adventures, boasted of the discoveries each had made, discussed the probability of a northwest passage, the "Strait of Anian," — and the Northwest Mystery remained a mystery still.
The Spaniards, between 1492 and 1550, were in the lead so far as concerns actual geographical results, of all other European sailors. Spain, through the agency of the Italian, Columbus, had discovered a new world: Spain had meandered the coast-line for 30.000 miles, from 60 degrees on the Atlantis coast of Labrador, round by Magellan Strait, to 40 degrees on the coast of the Pacific. Vast were the possibilities of the future for Spain, and the world did honor to her unequalled achievement. From a broad, humanitarian view point, it is a sad reflection that so many of the golden promises held out to her should have, in subsequent centuries, faded away as fades the elusive rainbow against the storm-cloud background. But Spain's misfortune became North America's opportunity. England, too, and Russia, watched and waited, seized and assimilated so rapidly as possible, piece by piece the territory on which the feet of Spanish explorers had been first planted. That it was the survival of the fittest may, possibly, remain unquestioned, but it is a fact that Spain's gradual yet certain loss of the most valuable territory in the world has furnished many of the most stirring episodes in the world's history. Spain has lost, sold,ceded and relinquished vast domains to nearly all the modern powers. And not the least valuable of Spain's former possessions are now under the Stars and Stripes.
Thus far has been hastily sketched the salient facts concerning the earliest maritime discoveries of the Northwest Coast. None of the Spanish, English, Russian or Italian navigators had penetrated inland farther than a few miles up the estuary of the Columbia river. Itwas destined to remain for a class of explorers other than maritime, yet equally courageousand enterprising, to blaze the trail for future pioneers from the east.
To Alexander Mackenzie, a native of Inverness, knighted by George III, is accredited the honor of being the first European to force a passage of the Rocky Mountains north of California. On June 3. 1780. Mackenzie left Fort Chipewyan, situated at the western point of Athabasca lake, in two canoes. He was accompanied by a German, four Canadians, two of them with wives, an Indian, named English Chief, [[p. and M. Le Roux. the latter in the capacity p.6 of clerk and supercargo of the expedition. The route of this adventurous party was by the way of Slave river and Slave lake, thence down a stream subsequently named the Mackenzie river, on to the Arctic Ocean, striking the coast at latitude 52 degrees, 24 minutes, 48 seconds. This territory is all within the present boundaries of British Columbia, north of the line finally accepted as the northern boundary of "Oregon" by the English diplomats.
The expedition of Mackenzie, crowned with results most valuable to science and territorial development, comprised one hundred and two days. At the point he first made, on the Pacific coast the explorer executed, with vermillion and grease, a rude sign bearing the following inscription: "Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada by land, July 22. 1793." Subsequent expeditions were made by Mackenzie to the coast, one of them via the Peace river.
But now comes one M. Le Page du Pratz, a talented and scholarly French savant, with the statement made several years ago, that neither Mackenzie nor Lewis and Clarke were the first to cross the Rockies and gain the Northwest Coast. Our French student claims to have discovered a Natchez Indian, being of the tribe of the Yahoos, called L'Interprete, on account of the various languages he had acquired, but named by his own people Moncacht Ape, "He Who Kills Trouble and Fatigue." M. Le Page declares that this man, actuated mainly by curiosity, a stimulant underlying all advancement, unassisted and unattended, traveled from the Mississippi river to the Pacific coast so early as 1743. This was sixty years before President Jefferson dispatched Captains Lewis and Clarke on their governmental expedition, the results of which have proved so important and momentuous in the history of the development of Oregon and Washington. Moncacht Ape, it is claimed, met many tribes of Indians, made friends with all of them, acquired portions of complex dialects, gained assistance and information and, eventually gazed upon the same waters upon which Balboa had fixed his eyes with enthusiasm, many hundreds of miles to the south.
It can not be denied that hardly has a great discovery been heralded to the world ere some rival genius springs up to claim it. Possibly it is this spirit which may have actuated M. Le Page in producing the somewhat mysterious Moncacht Ape, to pose as the pioneer of Northwestern exploration. But we, of to-day, are in no position to combat his claims, reserving to ourselves the undeniable fact that Mackenzie, Lewis and Clarke were the first white men to gain, overland, the Northwest Coast.
From 1500 to 1803 this greatly abridged foreword has traced northwestern discoveries. We now enter upon a brief description of the glorious achievements of Lewis and Clarke in that portion of their journey so fruitful with results to Washington and Oregon.
But now comes one M. Le Page du Pratz, a talented and scholarly French savant, with the statement made several years ago, that neither Mackenzie nor Lewis and Clarke were the first to cross the Rockies and gain the Northwest Coast. Our French student claims to have discovered a Natchez Indian, being of the tribe of the Yahoos, called L'Interprete, on account of the various languages he had acquired, but named by his own people Moncacht Ape, "He Who Kills Trouble and Fatigue." M. Le Page declares that this man, actuated mainly by curiosity, a stimulant underlying all advancement, unassisted and unattended, traveled from the Mississippi river to the Pacific coast so early as 1743. This was sixty years before President Jefferson dispatched Captains Lewis and Clarke on their governmental expedition, the results of which have proved so important and momentuous in the history of the development of Oregon and Washington. Moncacht Ape, it is claimed, met many tribes of Indians, made friends with all of them, acquired portions of complex dialects, gained assistance and information and, eventually gazed upon the same waters upon which Balboa had fixed his eyes with enthusiasm, many hundreds of miles to the south.
It can not be denied that hardly has a great discovery been heralded to the world ere some rival genius springs up to claim it. Possibly it is this spirit which may have actuated M. Le Page in producing the somewhat mysterious Moncacht Ape, to pose as the pioneer of Northwestern exploration. But we, of to-day, are in no position to combat his claims, reserving to ourselves the undeniable fact that Mackenzie, Lewis and Clarke were the first white men to gain, overland, the Northwest Coast.
From 1500 to 1803 this greatly abridged foreword has traced northwestern discoveries. We now enter upon a brief description of the glorious achievements of Lewis and Clarke in that portion of their journey so fruitful with results to Washington and Oregon.
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