In the early 19th century, many Americans believed that the western boundary of the United States should be the Pacific. They also believed that the northern boundary west of the Rockies should be set at least as far north as the 49th parallel. But Britain was not willing to give up its interests on the lower Columbia. In 1818 the two countries agreed to a temporary arrangement for joint occupation of the whole area. Citizens and subjects of the two nations could enter the Oregon Country without affecting either nation’s claims. The United States also reached agreements with Spain and Russia that resulted in these two countries surrendering all claims to the land between California and Alaska.
Alfred Jacob Miller’s painting of the first Fort Laramie. In 1836 it was still called Fort William.
Despite the joint-occupation agreement, the Hudson’s Bay Company was in almost complete control of Oregon after 1821. The United States, however, was able to keep alive its claims through the activities of some of its more colorful citizens. In 1828 the magnificent trailblazer Jedediah Smith visited Fort Vancouver, the Columbia headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay Company. A few years later Capt. Benjamin Bonneville explored and trapped the western slopes of the Rockies. In 1832 and 1834 Nathaniel Wyeth attempted unsuccessfully to establish a permanent foothold on the Columbia River.
This was the Oregon Country to which the missionaries came. Other than the scattered Hudson’s Bay forts and a handful of settlers near Fort Vancouver, the vast land was empty except for the transient trappers and, of course, the Indians.
The Trip West
Spalding and Gray, driving the livestock overland, set out from Liberty on April 28, 1836. Whitman and the two wives waited for a steamer to take them to the assembly point of the American Fur Company caravan farther upriver. But the steamboat failed to stop, and Whitman had to hire a wagon and make a hurried pursuit of Spalding. Reunited, the missionaries caught up with the caravan near the junction of the Platte River and the Loup Fork in Nebraska on May 26.
Traveling 15 to 20 miles a day, the caravan crossed the dusty plains toward Fort Laramie. There the missionaries left the heavy wagon and, discarding excess baggage, repacked their goods on animals. They decided to take Spalding’s light wagon as far as they possibly could.
On July 4 the caravan crossed the Continental Divide at South Pass and, 2 days later, reached that year’s fur-trapper rendezvous on the Green River, near Daniel, Wyo. While Narcissa enjoyed the excitement and tumult of the colorful affair, the quieter Eliza concentrated on learning the Indians’ languages.
Dismayed by Parker’s failure to return to the rendezvous, the missionaries were relieved by the unexpected arrival of two Hudson’s Bay Company traders, John McLeod and Thomas McKay. Guided by these two experienced men, the missionaries set out on the 700-mile journey through sagebrush, desert, canyons, and mountains to the Columbia. Stopping at Nathaniel Wyeth’s Fort Hall only overnight, the party moved westward along the south bank of the Snake River. The wagon finally broke down, and the men had to convert it into a two-wheeled cart. Two weeks later on August 19, they reached Fort Boise, a Hudson’s Bay Company post on the Snake River.