15. THE OREGON QUESTION AND THE OREGON TRAIL. MONROE, JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, JACKSON, VAN BUREN, HARRISON AND TYLER, POLK, Presidents. O you youths, Western youths, So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, The Oregon Question. As we have already seen, the British and the Americans had both appeared on the north-west coasts of America, from the Columbia northward; the question was, to which of them did this further north-west belong? By a treaty made in 1818, the two countries had agreed to enter the Oregon country together. In a speech by Senator Benton, a famous Missouri senator, we see the spirit in which Oregon was entered: After twenty-five years, the American population has begun to extend itself to the Oregon.. Two thousand are now setting out from the frontiers of Missouri. . . . I say to them all, Go on! the government will follow you, and will give you protection and land!... Let the emigrants go on, and carry their rifles. . . . Thirty thousand rifles on the Oregon will annihilate the Hudson Bay Company, drive them off our continent. . . . ... The settlers in Oregon will also recover and open for us the North American road to India! This road lies through the South Pass, and the mouth of the Oregon.20 264 The Oregon Trail. One of the travellers to Oregon in these early days describes the experiences of the trail or road to the Oregon country: ON THE OREGON TRAIL. (From Gregge, "Commerce of the Prairie.") The wagons are of the kind known as Pennsylvania Wagons.' On the 21st of May, 1839, the author and sixteen others arrived in the town of Independence, Missouri. . . . It is the usual place of "outfit" for the overland traders to Santa Fé.... In the month of May of each year, these traders congregate here, and buy large Pennsylvania wagons, and teams of mules to convey their calicoes, boots etc., over the plains to that distant. . . market.. ... Our road on the fifth [of June] was through a rich level prairie.... Fifteen miles of march brought us to our place of encampment. A certain portion of the company. unpacked the ... mules of the . . . provisions, ammunition, &c.; another portion pitched the tent; another gathered wood and built a fire; whilst others brought water, and... others. . . put . . . pots and . . . .. pans to their appropriate duties. ... A few minutes transposed our little cavalcade... into an eating, drinking and joyous camp. . . On the 9th we reached Council Grove, which derives its name from the practice among the [Santa Fé] traders, . . . of assembling there for the appointment of officers and the establishment of rules and regulations to govern their march through the dangerous country south of it. If they are attacked... by the Comanche cavalry ... they form an oblong rampart of waggons laden with cotton goods that . . . shields team and men from the small arms of the Indians. The same arrangement is made when they halt for the night. . . . ... We traversed Council Grove with . . . four persons in advance to mark the first appearance of an ambuscade; . in the rear. . . four men . . . all on the look-out, silent, with rifles lying on the saddles in front.... [On the 13th, we met some Santa Fé] traders, returning to St. Louis with ten wagons full of furs and 200 Santa Fé sheep. The 14th, 15th and 16th [of July] were days of more than ordinary hardships. With barely food enough to sustain life, drenched daily by thunder-storms and by swimming and fording the numerous [streams]... and wearied by the continual packing and unpacking of our animals, I was so much reduced. . . on the evening of ... he 16th that I was unable to loosen the girths of my saddle, or read my blanket for repose. The buffalo country was now entered, and herds on herds lackened the horizon. At Fort Bent, the Santa Fé traders left he Oregon travellers, who struck northwards for the Oregon rail, which ran at this time something as follows: from Indeendence, Missouri, along the Kansas and the Blue Fork of the Kansas to the Platte; along the Platte and North Platte to Fort Laramie, and then through the Black Hills by the Sweet Water; over the South Pass, to Fort Hall, to Fort Boisé, on he Snake River, just west of Boise City, along the Snake to he Columbia. By fall, they were making their way through the mountain region; now and then they came to a white man's settlement; one of the first of these was an American fur-trading post thus described: It... is a hollow square of one-story log-cabins, with roofs and floors of mud. . . . Around these we found the conical skin lodges of the squaws of the white trappers, . . . and also the lodges of a few Snake Indians, who had preceded their tribe to this, their winter haunt. Here also were the lodges of Mr. Robinson, a trader.... His skin lodge was his warehouse; and buffalo robes were spread upon the ground and counter, on which he displayed his butcher knives, hatchets, powder, lead, fish-hooks, and whiskey. Fort Hall was built by Captain Wyeth, of Boston, in 1832, for the purposes of trade with the Indians . . . without being molested by the Hudson's Bay Company.... In this he was disappointed.... They established a fort near him [Fort Boisé]. . . surrounded him everywhere [so that Wyeth] was induced to sell his whole interest ... in Oregon, to his . . . skilful and powerful antagonists. . . . Goods are [now] sold at this post fifty per cent lower than at the American posts. . . . At the Presbyterian mission near Walla-Walla, they were r ceived by Dr. Marcus Whitman, one of the founders of Oregon Breakfast being over, the doctor invited us to a stroll. ... Th garden was first examined; . . . the apple trees growing thriftily its western border; the beautiful tomato and other vegetables, bor dering the grounds. Next, to the fields, . . . two hundred acres .. under good cultivation. . . . Then to the new house. The adob walls had been erected a year. ... And last to the grist-mill... It would, with the help of himself and an Indian, grind enough in day to feed his family a week. ... It appeared to me quite remark able that the doctor could . . . in five years, . . . fence, plough, build plant an orchard, and thus open a plantation on the face of tha distant wilderness; learn an Indian language and do the duties meanwhile, of a physician. . . . [At the Dalles Mission, founded by the Methodists, affairs we in a similar state; at Willamette, a Methodist Episcopal M sion] several American citizens... called on me to talk of the fatherland.... The constantly repeated inquiries were "Wh are we left without protection...? Why are foreigners permitte to domineer over American citizens [and] drive their traders from the country?"... These people have put fifty or sixty fine farı under cultivation . . . have erected for themselves comfortable dwel ings . . . and have herds of excellent cattle. ... The reader wi find it difficult to learn any sufficient reason for their being left by the Government without the institutions of civilized society." ... 265 The Oregon Treaty. - The Oregon question was not settled until 1846, when by a treaty with Great Britain, the present Oregon boundary was established. STUDY ON 15. 1. What claims could the Americans lay to the Oregon country? (See index, North-west Coast.) 2. What claim could the British have to it? 3. How should the possession of the Oregon country give us the North Amer ican road to India? 4. What other reasons had the Americans for wanting |