Frances Fuller Victor

“ If there were another Columbia River that he might occupy like McLoughlin, placing the natives under tribute, temporal and spiritual, holding the key to the interior by means of a metropolis on the bank of a stream into which ocean vessels might easily enter and depart, with a nobler ambition than to collect the skins of wild beasts, with loftier aims than to keep the country and its inhabitants wild and primitive, and stay the hand of progress—in such a case, on this western shore he might rival Raleigh, Smith, Penn, or any of the great founders of empire on the eastern seaboard. ”

“ All agree in representing him as of commanding presence, partly the effect of a tall, well-formed person, somewhat inclined to stoutness, flowing white hair, and a benevolent expression of countenance. He seems to have become gray early in life, for he was only thirty-nine when he came to Oregon. To this fine personal appearance he added courtly manners, and great affability in conversation. With the air of one monarch-born, he was fitted to govern men both by awe and love. Such was the autocrat of the Columbia when he first became known to American traders, missionaries, and settlers. ”

“ There was, at the time under consideration, a number of dissolute characters, half-breeds from the mountains to the east, hanging upon the skirts of the travellers, men whose wild blood was full of the ichor of hatred of religion and civilization, and poisoned with jealousy of the white race, the worst traits only of which they had inherited. These men among the natives were like fire in tow, their evil practices and counsel scorching every shred of good the missionaries by patient effort had been able to weave into their habits of life. ”

“ With a scheme of an exclusively Methodist colony, a sort of religious republic in his own mind Jason Lee was not likely to listen with favor to the plans of a man who, however religious in his own sentiments, had come to the country in company with horse-thieves and banditti; and Kelley, with a sore heart and half-crazed brain, was left to dwell in solitude on the failure of his magnificent scheme of an ideal American settlement devoted to liberty, virtue, order, education, the enlightenment of the savage tribes of the north-west, and the promotion of individual happiness. ”

“ Of game-birds found in woods there are also plenty; grouse, quails, pheasants, and wood-doves inhabit the thickets of young firs, and the groves of oak and fir that skirt the older and darker forest. Singing birds which make their homes in trees are rare. The only really musical bird of Oregon is the meadowlark, which carols to the passer-by of the happiness he finds in his humble life near the ground. ”

“ In proof of this, it is only necessary to say that almost all the settlers in the Willamette Valley have signed a memorial to congress, praying that body to extend the United States government over the territory. . . . You are aware, sir, that there is no law in that country to protect or control American citizens. And to whom shall we look, to whom can we look, for the establishment of wholesome laws to regulate our infant but rising settlements, but to the congress of our own beloved country? ”

“ Aside from the somewhat antiquated sentiments of eternal justice and the rights of man as apart from man's power to enforce his rights, the quick extermination of the aborigines may be regarded as a blessing both to the red race and to the white. The two seldom profitably intermix. And this happy consummation, the swift and sharpest means of sweeping from the earth every human encumbrance, the people of the United States have never been backward about. ”

“ The tall, slender, plain, dark woman, with few charms of voice or feature, sagacious, decided, sympathizing, and faithful, won the confidence of all about her. What she lacked in personal charms she made up in the excellences of her character, taking for her own standard that of the highest in pious life. She was fitted by nature for the work of a missionary, and found the reward of self-sacrifice in elevation of spirit. ”

“ When will men learn that in the affairs of the savages the benevolence of civilization curdles into a curse, and missionary efforts are like a burst peat-bog sowing its black mud over the land!
While the missionaries were building, ploughing, and harvesting, teaching, preaching, and enduring, and becoming somewhat incorporated with the French settlers, a new element, and one in some respects less tractable, introduced itself in an unexpected manner. It was the party of Hall J. Kelley and Ewing Young, which arrived in the Willamette Valley late in October 1834. ”

“ Mallary of Vermont did not wish for the establishment of a civil government on the Columbia, before there were people in that territory over whom it might be exercised; but approved of occupation by a military force only, with encouragement to settlers. As to the rest, he was decidedly in favor of occupying the country, and entertained no fear of consequences. The smallest nation of Europe would not hesitate to plant her colonies in any part of the world; and yet American enterprise, so often vaunted, dared not venture beyond the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ It was soon evident to the mind of Jason Lee that a better locality than French Prairie, for both missionary and colonization purposes, might be found. The French Canadians still owed allegiance to Fort Vancouver. A society of low, illiterate half-breeds was not the best soil in which to plant American institutions. Let him have something apart from all the world, plenty of room, plenty of agricultural land, with some commercial facilities if possible, and he would clear the ground for a commonwealth of intelligent freemen such as God would delight to prosper. ”

“ Men grasp each other by the hand, and the organ of a free people spreads in broad capitals across its front the stirring words 'Hail Columbia, happy land!' [41]
Such was the state of feeling when it was only known in general terms that the boundary was fixed at the 49th parallel, that Vancouver Island was excluded from the possession of the United States, and that the navigation of the Strait of Fuca and neighboring waters was left open, while the Columbia remained free to the Hudson's Bay Company till the expiration of its charter. ”

“ Seated astride the finest horse, whose trappings were ornamented with colored quills, beads, and fringes to which hung tiny bells that tinkled with every motion, herself dressed in a petticoat of the finest blue broadcloth, with embroidered scarlet leggings, and moccasons stiff with the most costly beads, her black braided hair surmounted by a hat trimmed with gay ribbon, or supporting drooping feathers, she presented a picture, if not as elegant as that of a lady of the sixteenth century at a hawking party, yet quite as striking and brilliant. ”

“ Early in the spring of 1843, or as soon as the grass began to grow, promptly, without preconcert, but as if by appointment, emigrants from every part of Missouri and the neighboring states were on the roads to the usual rendezvous in the vicinity of Independence. Their wagons were drawn by two or three or five yokes of oxen; on the covers were the words "For Oregon," and their immense herds of cattle filled the highways. Many of them had been neighbors at home, and often families of brothers, with their wives and little ones, constituted a colony. ”

“ From the life of Ewing Young—indeed, from any man's life—we may safely conclude that it is better to laugh at sorrow and slight, and even indignity, especially where the wrong is only fancied, as is usually the case, than to cry over these things. There is nothing in the wide world worth mourning for; if all our joys have taken their departure, they are but a step before us. But it has always been so, the chief occupation of man being to torment himself withal. At first, on coming to Oregon, Ewing Young would be king ”

“ There was an Arcadian simplicity about Fort Vancouver life, in its early days, that awakens something of poetry and sentiment. It is a bit of feudal life in the wilderness. The fort is the duke's castle; the other posts the dependent baronies; the leaders of trapping parties the chiefs who sally forth to do battle for their lord. Every summer, when the season is at its height, the fortress gates are opened to receive, not the array of knights in armor, but the brigade of gay and happy trappers home from the mountains with the year's harvest of furs. ”

“ But the hardships of the journey, with the sudden changes of temperature in the mountains, cost Parker an illness, the serious consequences of which he averted by free use of the lancet and medicines. One cannot but feel an interest in the elderly clergyman, accustomed to the order and comfort of his family, in a land of plenty and peace, now left alone with a few wandering bands of Indians, starving one day and feasting the next, watchful for an encounter with the dreaded Blackfoot hunters on their common buffalo-grounds, and startled frequently by false alarms. ”

“ Gentlemen are talking of natural boundaries. Sir, our natural boundary is the Pacific Ocean. The swelling tide of our population must and will roll on until that mighty ocean interposes its waters, and limits our territorial empire Then, with two oceans washing our shores, the commercial wealth of the world is ours, and imagination can hardly conceive the greatness, the grandeur, and the power that await us."
Baylies then reviewed the statements of his opponents that the country was sterile and the climate inhospitable ”

“ The vanity of a native is his most distinguishing trait. These three hundred Cayuses had told each other, and believed it themselves, that they should have an easy conquest of the Americans. "We will beat the Americans to death with clubs, and then proceed to the Willamette and take the women, and all their property," said these boastful braves, [15] who had yet the art of war to learn. They had an advantage in the ground chosen, and in their general acquaintance with the country, and had they been as great warriors as they imagined, must easily have beaten the invaders. ”

“ Your memorialists would further crave your indulgence to remark that Great Britain has, by extending her criminal code to this country, guaranteed every British subject, claiming his birthright, a legitimate trial by the laws of his country. We, as citizens of the United States, having neither the military protection of our government, nor the extension to us of the civil laws of our country, are forced to the enactment and execution of laws not authorized, and, for what we know, never will be sanctioned, by our government. ”

“ We shall, of course, be very unwilling to settle in a savage wilderness, without first having obtained a sufficient title to the land we may occupy, and without being assured that political obstacles will not be thrown in the way of our prosperity.
"We are confident that our settlement, more than anything else, would subserve the purposes of our government respecting the Oregon Territory. Our relations with the Indians will give us an influence over them which Americans will hardly obtain by any other means, and which, at a future day, may be found an advantage to the United States. ”

“ He stated that one hundred and fifty men only were left at Fort Waters, and almost without ammunition and wholly without bread; while at Fort Lee there were but fifty men and no supplies. Maxon, having pictured their condition in a strong light, appealed to fathers to send bread to their sons, who were enduring cold and hunger to keep danger away from the hearth-stone; to mothers for clothing to shield their soldiers from the piercing airs of winter; to the young women to withhold their smiles from every young man who refused to volunteer to defend her honor and the country of her adoption ”

“ The Indians about Puget Sound, more than any others, seem to have taken to the cultivation of the potato for food,
Encamping for the night, sixty miles from Colville, he found many Spokanes and Nez Percés gathered, who had heard from others that a teacher of religion was passing through the country, and they were anxious to see and listen to so great a personage. They brought with them, with wise forethought, an interpreter of their own, a young Spokane who had attended school at the Red River settlement, and who understood English fairly. ”

“ A party of immigrants while in the Cayuse country were much annoyed by some of the young braves, who, with Indian intrusiveness and insolence, hung about the wagons, daring the drivers or the young lads of the train to fight, seemingly ambitious to rival the white people in boxing and wrestling. One wagon thus intruded on contained a woman, whose half-grown children were all down with the measles, and the driver of the team also, an active young fellow, was in the height of the fever, though still compelled to drive. ”

“ About the year 1832 four native chiefs from the region round the head waters of the Columbia appeared at St Louis asking for Mr Clarke, of the Lewis and Clarke expedition, then resident Indian agent at that place. Their fathers had told them of his visit to their nation. From various sources, from the praise of pious travellers and the oaths of impious trappers, they had learned of the white man's God, and the book which he had given. And now, would the great white chief grant their prayer and send religious men to point their people the way to heaven? ”

“ After the first American missionaries came to Oregon, the doctor questioned whether it was right to be without a chaplain at Fort Vancouver, or dignified for so great a company to pay so little regard to religious forms. The American ministers might not be to his taste, but some there should be who were. These Americans, uncouth perhaps in dress and bearing, had set themselves to teach not only the children of the Canadians, but those within the fort, his children, and the sons and daughters of gentlemen high in the company's service. ”

“ It is true we have killed many people, but we never have killed any but bad people. Many lies have been told about us. We have been called a bad people, and we are glad you have come to see for yourselves. We have seen some white people before, but they came to get our beaver. None ever came before to instruct us. We are glad to see you. We want to learn. We wish to throw away bad things and become good.' This was spoken with violent gestures and genuflections, rising on tiptoe, and stretching his hands above his head, then bending almost to the earth. Hines' Oregon Hist., 104–5. ”

“ It was quite necessary that the missionaries of Oregon should have cows and horses before they could take rank among the foremost nations of the world. Ewing Young saw this, for he was a thoughtful, practical man, ready to assist progress and minister to the wants of the race; and as his proposal to supply the settlers with that fiery adjunct of civilization, whiskey, had met with poor encouragement, he concluded to do what he could toward stocking the valley with those gentle beasts which men make their companions, not to say masters. ”

“ Seldom was there so determined opposition to a bill as that offered by the southern senators to the establishment of Oregon Territory: not, as they themselves said, from a want of sympathy with the people of that isolated section of the country, who were, as all believed, still engaged in a bloody contest with hostile savages; nor from a conviction that slavery would strike root in this far northern soil; but only from a sense of the danger to their sacred institution from extending the principles of the ordinance of 1787 to the territory acquired since the passage of that ordinance. ”