The precaution was useless. There are times when the ragged colonist in homespun is wiser than the wariest diplomat that kingcraft ever produced. Congressional disputes, missionary lectures, the report of the American secret agent Slocum sent from Washington to observe the trend of events on the Pacific, the efforts of the Oregonian Society formed in Massachusetts—all fanned the flame of emigration to the West to a furore. More settlers in tented wagons rolled slowly westward from the Missouri. Jason Lee comes back with more missionaries in 1840. Lieutenant Wilkes of the American Exploring Squadron slips up the Columbia, in 1841, to observe things for himself. In 1842, Doctor White leads more than one hundred and twenty people to the Columbia, and all the while the settlers are clamoring to Washington for two things: (1) land grants for the farms on which they have “squatted”—some of them have “squatted” on as much as 1000 acres; (2) extension of American Government over them. And all the while, Washington politicians delay to close the boundary dispute. Why? Every day’s delay brought more settlers into the country and strengthened the American claim.
Lieutenant Wilkes of the American Squadron visits McLoughlin at Fort Vancouver. McLoughlin returns the courtesy by going across to the American ships off Puget Sound and dining with Wilkes. Unfortunately, while McLoughlin was absent, down came Sir George Simpson with the Columbia brigade from New Caledonia. It was the 5th of July. Simpson’s suspicions took fire. Was McLoughlin—the Company’s Chief Factor—celebrating the 4th of July on the American ship? As a matter of fact, McLoughlin had been invited to do so, but out of respect for his Company had gone across a day late. McLoughlin returned to find Simpson in a towering rage, raking Douglas and Ogden and Ermatinger over the coals for not “driving out the Americans.” Wilkes came back with McLoughlin. The encounter must have been comical. Sir George, icy and frigid and pompous at the head of the banquet table; Wilkes, the American, suave and amused; Douglas, grave, plainly perceiving the time had come when he must choose between loyalty to McLoughlin or loyalty to Simpson; Ogden, down from New Caledonia, pudgy and good natured as usual, but missing not a turn of the by-play; Ermatinger doing his best to fill in the heavy silence with tales of his mountain brigade; the Governor’s Highland pipers puffing and skirling and filling the great dining hall with tunes of Scottish Highlands. What were McLoughlin’s thoughts? Who knows? Simpson’s orders were to give no aid of any sort to American colonists and missionaries; but McLoughlin—as one of the Company’s directors afterward reported—was not a man to be bulldozed. He, too, perceived the time had come when he must choose between his Company and his conscience; for no man ever appealed in vain to McLoughlin for aid. To colonists and missionaries alike, he extended goods on credit. If he had not, the chances are they would have passed their first year on the Columbia in semi-starvation; and to their shame, be it said, some forgot to pay the debts they owed McLoughlin. To them, he was the hated aristocrat, representative of the hated English monopoly, that was trying to wrest Oregon from American control. Not the reproofs of his Company, not the rage of his governor, but the ingratitude of the people whose lives he had saved at sacrifice to himself—cut McLoughlin to the quick. The very winter after Governor Simpson’s visit, a petition was drawn up by the settlers and forwarded to Congress, bristling with bitter charges against the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Adam Thom
In the early days of Red River Settlement there were neither judges nor juries. The Company was autocrat supreme. When the people began to clamor for self-government, Adam Thom, a writer of Montreal, was brought up as First Recorder, and his régime became noted for his autocratic rule. Enemies, of course, said that Thom was the tool of the Company.
One more influence tended to quicken the pulse of public interest in Oregon. This was the famous and disputed Whitman Ride. Did Doctor Whitman, the missionary, save Oregon? For years popular sentiment cherished the belief that he did. Of late, historical critics have gone to the other extreme. The facts are these. It is not easy to make converts of Indians. Results are of slow growth. In the fall of 1842, the Missionary Board of the East decided to withdraw its mission on the Walla Walla. To Whitman such a move at this critical time when a straw’s weight might turn the balance either way to England or to the United States—seemed nothing short of a national calamity. “I must go East,” he told his wife. “I must see Webster at Washington, but the Mission can send me to Boston. I don’t want the Hudson’s Bay to know what I am about.” It was already October. Snow was falling on the mountains. The passes were closed for the year. “Can I get through to the East?” Whitman asked trappers and Indians. In answer, they laughed. The thing was not only impossible—it was mad. But Whitman had already accomplished things both mad and impossible. He had brought wagons across mountains, where fur traders said wagons could never come; and he had led missionaries over mountain barriers difficult as any Alps scaled by European warriors. Accompanied by Lovejoy, a lawyer, Whitman set out on October 3rd. Mrs. Whitman remained alone at the mission till the danger of a brutal Indian, trying to force his way into her room at night, induced the dauntless woman to accept Chief Trader McKinlay’s invitation to go down to the Hudson’s Bay fort at Walla Walla, where Mrs. McKinlay, Peter Ogden’s daughter, afforded companionship. On pressed Whitman over the mountains. This was the ride famous in the Western States. Its story belongs more to the pioneer than the Company. Therefore, it may not be related here. Suffice to say, Whitman increased “the Oregon fever” already raging in the East. He stirred up Webster, and he stirred up Congress, and he stirred up missionary boards of every denomination. Frémont was appointed by Congress to convoy the emigrants westward. The Oregon movement of 1843 would have been important without Whitman’s crusade. With his crusade, it became epoch-marking. If this was “saving Oregon,” then spite of historic critics, Whitman played an important rôle.
The movement westward had become a tide. From Massachusetts, from the Mississippi States, from the South, the emigrants gathered to Fort Independence on the Missouri for the long trip overland. This was the starting point of the Oregon Trail. Tented wagons—the prairie schooner—pack horses, ox carts, straggling herds of horses and cattle and sheep came rolling to the Missouri in ’43. May 22nd, with a pilot to the fore and a whoop as signal, the long line files out for Oregon—one thousand persons, one hundred and twenty wagons, some five thousand head of stock. On the Kansas, in June, pause is made to elect officers and maintain some kind of system. Peter Burnett, a lawyer, is chosen Captain; J. W. Nesmith, second in command, with nine others as assistant officers. Later, the travelers going light—on horseback or in light wagons—march to the fore. The heavy wagons and ox carts and stock come behind. The former division is known as “the light,” the latter as “the cow column.” Chief leader of the slow-goers is Jesse Applegate, a man to become famous in Oregon.
It is like the migration of ancient people in prehistoric times—the rise at dawn, the rifle shot to signal watch for the night is over, the tents and wagons pouring out the people to begin another day’s march, the women cooking breakfast over campfire, the men rounding up the stock! Forward scour the scouts to see that no danger besets the trail. Oxen are slowly hitched to the wagons forming a circular fort for the night camp; and these drag out in divisions of fifteen or twenty each. Young men on horseback flank the trail as out-guards and hunters. These have arduous work. They must ride twenty miles from the humming caravan before they will find scampering game for the night supper. Sharp at seven A. M. a trumpet blows. The long whips lash out. The wagons rumble into motion. The outriders are off at a gallop. The long caravan moves drowsily forward, and the camping place sinks on the horizon like a sail at sea. Pilots choose watering place for the noon hour, but teams are not unhitched. Promptly at one, writes Mr. Applegate, “the bugle sounded and the caravan resumed its western journey. Drowsiness falls on man and beast. Teamsters drop asleep on their perches ... till the sun is low in the west.” Again the pilot has chosen good watering place for camping ground, and the wagons circle into a corral for the night.
By the end of August, the pioneers are in the mountains at Fort Hall, on the very borders of their Promised Land. Two-thirds of the journey lies behind them, but the worst third is to the fore, though they are now on the outskirts of what was then called Oregon. Doctor Whitman goes ahead with the trail breakers to cut a road for the wagons through the dense mountain forests. Space does not permit the details of this part of the journey. This, too, belongs to the story of the pioneer. It was November before the colonists reached the Columbia. How splendid was the reward of the long toil, they now know; but ominous clouds gathered over the colony. The Columbia was a swollen sea with the autumn rains. The Indians were rampant, stampeding the stock.