Oregon Country

“ But, thank God and the energy of a free people, the country, with all its untold wealth and prospective grandeur, is ours, and to-day, as we hear the lightning tap of intelligence, from the Old World to Oregon, we have not one solitary regret that thirty of the best and most active years of our life have been spent, in contending publicly and privately, by day and by night, in season and out of season, against that influence. ”

“ The country was two thousand miles from the nearest American settlement on the Missouri river; and separated from it by thousands of miles of trackless plains, rugged mountains, inhospitable deserts, and savage tribes of Indians. Why should any American citizen with a family go to such a country as that? About all that anybody knew about Oregon that could be relied on before the emigration started, was to be found in the following brief notice of the country, in Mitchell's Common School Geography, of 1842, as follows:
"Oregon Territory is the most western part of the United States. ”

“ The facts so far marshalled on the origin of the pioneer movement to Oregon disclose the existence of a people in the Mississippi Valley competent for the undertaking, and on general principles not disinclined towards it, whose thought, moreover, had been arrested by some unique advantages claimed for the Oregon country. But the Oregon movement, like most migrations, has most light thrown on its origin and motive by an inquiry into the conditions that made the old home undesirable, and in some cases even unbearable. ”

“ Eighteen hundred and forty finds Oregon with her little population all active and busy, laboring and toiling to provide the necessaries of life—food and raiment. And if a man did not wear the finest of broadcloth, his intelligence and good conduct secured him a cordial welcome to every house or shanty in the country among the American or French settlers and missions. This was an innovation upon Hudson’s Bay Company customs, and a violation of aristocratic rules sought to be enforced by foreign influences and sustained by the missionaries then in the country. ”

“ It is a plan of 'Oregon settlement, to be commenced in the spring of 1832, on the delightful and fertile banks of the Columbia River.' Among the first results of inquiry is a 'clear conviction that the time is near at hand, and advancing in the ordinary course of Providence, when the Oregon country shall be occupied by an enlightened people, skilled in the various improvements of science and art. A people, thus enlightened and skilled, and enjoying the advantages of a climate, soil, and markets as good in their kind as the earth affords ”

“ Oregon was a fine country in my early days—a park on a large scale, that could not be surpassed even by artificial culture. It mattered not at what point immigrants or travelers entered this western shore of America, at each of its thresholds a scene of beauty awaited them. Before the Anglo-Saxon race penetrated the Rockies there was no civilization in the country that is worth mention. It was in its natural state of beauty, romantic and grand, with its endless prairies, streams and forests and wild animals of all kinds for the use of man. ”

“ As the river was long known as the Oregon, so the vast northwest territory of which it was one of the most prominent geographical features acquired the name of "the Oregon country" or "the Oregon territory." The region thus designated originally comprised all the land between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, from the vaguely delimited border of the great Spanish Southwest to the equally vague delimitations of British America and the Russian possessions on the north. By the Treaty of Florida in 1819, the southern boundary was fixed at the 42nd parallel ”

“ The mountain range stood as a colossal veto of whatever motions the early eastern Oregon settlers might have made toward economic equality with the pioneers of the lush country west of the Cascades. It turned them, out of sheer necessity, into cattlemen and sheepmen and miners and "dry" farmers, just as more benign circumstances made western Oregon residents into lumbermen, dairymen, fishermen and farmers, and—in the more populous centers—into artisans and politi
cians and financiers. ”

“ The country will be settled, and that speedily, from some quarter, and it depends very much upon the speedy action of congress what that population shall be, and what shall be the fate of the Indian tribes in that territory. It may be thought that Oregon is of little importance ”

“ They have, bee-like, been hived up in Oregon City during the winter, and are now swarming, to the entire satisfaction of the first occupants of the hive, it not being wide and large enough for such an unexpected increase. The last immigration, numbering about a thousand, are generally pleased with the country, and are setting about their spring work with becoming spirit and fortitude.
The Indians of this lower country, whose national honor and dignity are laid in the dust, are looking upon the rapid growth and increased strength of the whites with sorrowful countenances and sad hearts. ”

“ Of the general condition of the country south of the Columbia at the period of the division, something may be here said, as I shall not again refer to it in a particular manner. The population, before the addition of the large immigration of 1852, was about twenty thousand, most of whom were scattered over the Willamette Valley upon farms. The rage for laying out towns, which was at its height from 1850 to 1853, had a tendency to retard the growth of any one of them. [7] Oregon City, the oldest in the territory, had not much over one thousand inhabitants. ”

“ At that rate it would require a million of money to establish a post on the Oregon, and other posts at proper intervals across the continent. Besides the wrong to the natives of despoiling them of their territory, Oregon could never be of any advantage to the United States, and the best use that could be made of it was to leave it as a retreat for the red men. From Council Bluffs to the Rocky Mountains the country was sterile, without wood or water, and could never be cultivated. ”

“ It was the beginning, too, of a struggle for possession between this country and Great Britain, dating from the meeting of the North-west Company's men with the men of the American expedition at the Mandan villages. Happily, all these struggles for precedence are matters of past history now; and, to-day, both English and American citizens seek and find homes on Oregon soil, where, according to a wise act of Congress, one may be had for the taking. ”

“ After that, governmental functions were exercised by a Provisional Government, insti- tuted by American farmer-settlers, until establishment of the Oregon territorial government in 1849, following the treaty of 1846 with Great Britain, under which the United States secured the Old Oregon country up to the present boundary of Canada.
Until 1835 agriculture was wholly in British hands, except that John Ball, an American, raised a crop of wheat near Champoeg (west of Aurora, in Willamette Valley) in 1833, on what was called French Prairie. ”

“ For many years our citizens have gone into the country west of the Rocky Mountains for the purpose of hunting, trapping, and trading with the Indians. They have also more recently gone for the purpose of making permanent settlements. During the last year more th&n a thousand brave and hardy pioneers set out from Independence, in Missouri, and, over- coming all obstacles, have arrived in the Oregon. Thus the first attempt to cross the extensive prairies and high mountains which intervene between the settlements in the States and the Pacific ocean has been completely successful. ”

“ Nor is the Oregon of to-day so densely populated as to be without much of the same romantic freedom. Although most of the open or prairie land in Western Oregon is owned by donation claimants, locators, and others, comparatively little of it is cultivated. The uncultivated prairie lauds, together with the half-wooded bench lands of the foot-hills, make a large extent of country still in its primeval condition as to cultivation. One may ride, barring occasional fences, almost at his pleasure from one end of the Wallamet Valley to the other ”

“ Its location is convenient to all the shores and Islands of the Pacific, the Western portions of South America; and as all the numerous groups of Islands in the great Pacific Ocean, are ready of access; they will furnish much for profitable commerce, as they lie mostly in the tropics. The people who have emigrated to Oregon, have organized a Government, deeming it right and necessary, situated as they were, in an Indian country, and so far removed from the influence of any law ”

“ But competition was not undesirable to the people, who had more cause to fear pooling. Besides, it was but natural that the Northern should wish to occupy all the country north of Snake river with its own feeders, and to confine the Oregon road to the country south of it. But the wheat region of eastern Washington, and the rich mineral region of northern Idaho, were the fields into which Oregon wished to extend its business. ”

“ The east coast lines had been followed from Hudson's bay south to the Straits of Magellan, and thence along the west coast north to the Bering sea, and no strait found. The result of this conclusion was, to start explorations overland, first from Canada and afterward from Missouri territory, which finally developed the emigration to Oregon. And as this fact became fixed in the minds of men, we see the then ruling powers of the world taking steps to establish claims to the country by more open and assertive action. ”

“ Sixty-four years ago the great mass of the people of Oregon was located in the Willamette Valley. At that time Eastern Oregon was yet practically in pos- session of the Indians. The great donation claims of 640 acres each, had sub- stantially taken up all the open lands in Western Oregon. At that time the country and the farmers were every thing, and the towns amounted to little in wealth, population or political influence. ”

“ Private difficulties have but seldom occurred, and there is more harmony in society than we have ever known or heard of, in any other part of the world. —This happy circumstance is attributed principally, to the general absence of intoxicating liquors; which is a state of things unprecedented in the settlement of a new country, and speaks loudly in favor of the moral character of the people of Oregon. Many speculations have been indulged in, since the first discovery of America much research made, and many opinions offered as to the manner in which it became peopled. ”

“ We have China within our reach, and all the islands of the Pacific There can be no competition with us in the way of provisions, as we have no neighbors in that line. I consider Oregon as superior to California. The climate of that country is too warm for men to have any commercial enterprise. Besides, in California, pork and beef can not be put up; and consequently, the grazer loses half his profits. For a commercial and manufacturing people, the climate of Oregon is warm enough. ”

“ Such were the natural conditions of life in Oregon in 1834. European civilization, however, had already driven in its stakes here and there about the wilderness preparatory to its overthrow. For some time past the country had been dominated exclusively by fur-traders from Canada and Great Britain; now people from the United States begin to come and settle. ”

“ While politics occupied so much attention, the country was making long strides in material progress. The immigration of 1850 to the Pacific coast, by the overland route alone, amounted to between thirty and forty thousand persons, chiefly men. Through the exertions of the Oregon delegate, in and out of congress, about eight thousand were persuaded to settle in Oregon, where they arrived after undergoing more than the usual misfortunes. ”

“ Our citizens, before leaving their homes in the United States for Oregon, have had the strongest inducements held out by Congress to settle in this country, and their just expectations will not be met short of liberal donations of land. ”

“ The colony is in a most encouraging condition. The crops were giving promise of an abundant harvest.
People were coming into the territory in large numbers, and the country is filling up with thriving and energetic colonists. Doctor Babcock, "the supreme judge," went to Oregon as physician to the Methodist mission family. Doctor Bailey was from this city, where his family now resides.—New York Evening Post.
From Cherokee Advocate, February 27, 1845.
A large company of emigrants are expected to leave Independence, Missouri, about the first of May for Oregon. ”

“ Turning now to the special conditions that constrained Oregon to develop the characteristic features of its policy. A glance at a map representing the nature of the surface of the different sections of this country quickly reveals a striking contrast between that of the Mississippi valley and that of the Pacific slope, Yet the actual measure of difference between the two sections in the lay of their lands is hardly suggested by a map. In the Mississippi valley states land is pretty much all-of-a-piece. In the mountainous regions of the West diversity is the rule. ”

“ During the forties, when the national movement was setting strongly towards the Pacific, Oregon was an uppermost subject in the thought, and frequently in the plans, of a large portion of the people of this country. ”

“ From 1824 to the present hour, I have spared neither time nor means, but liberally used both, to facilitate the settling of Oregon by whites; and, that it has been my good fortune to do much in year 3 gone by to relieve distress and promote the comfort and happiness of immigrants, I may fearlessly assert, and for proof need only to refer to the candid and just Americans who first came to the country. ”