[4] The Monroe Doctrine. "The American Continents, by the free and independent condition they have assumed and maintain, are not to be considered as subjects for colonization by European powers."
[5] Captain Bonneville's adventures are related by Washington Irving.
[6] Nathaniel J. Wyeth established Fort Hall on Lewis River, in what is now Idaho. The Hudson's Bay Company at once set up a rival post called Fort Boisé below it, so compelling Wyeth to sell out to it or be ruined by its competition.
[7] These Missionaries were Revs. Jason and Daniel Lee sent by the Methodist denomination, and Revs. Samuel Parker and Marcus Whitman sent by the American Board. The Methodist mission was at the Dalles, the other at Walla Walla. This was the first introduction of Protestant missions among the Oregon tribes.
WITH THE VANGUARD TO OREGON.
"This army does not retreat!"
Emigration was to be our army of occupation in Oregon. In this conviction Mr. Benton was looking about him for the means to set it in motion, when he chanced to meet Lieutenant John C. Fremont, of the topographical engineers, who had just returned from surveying the Upper Mississippi, with Nicollet.[1]
Mr. Benton wanted the Oregon route surveyed in aid of emigration to the Lower Columbia. The subject led to an intimacy between the two men, in the course of which Fremont fell in love with Mr. Benton's daughter Jessie, whom a little later he married, so uniting his fortunes with the distinguished senator's family, as well as his plans.
It resulted in sending Fremont (1842) to find out whether the South Pass[2] of the Rocky Mountains, the usual crossing-place, would best accommodate the coming emigration.
This was the very first step taken by our Government in aid of emigration to Oregon. Hitherto it had reflected the prevailing belief in the worthlessness of Oregon for any such purpose. We were, at this time, thick in the dispute with England about the boundary, and so the expedition was rather assented to, in deference to Western men, than authorized as a Government measure.
St. Louis is no longer to be considered as a starting-point for the mountains. Already this had gone three hundred and fifty miles west. Fremont's journey therefore began at the little village of Kansas,[3] now a city larger than any then existing west of the Alleghanies, but then only a landing for Chouteau's trading-post, ten miles up the Kansas River. From this place, early in June, Fremont's party set out for the mountains. Kit Carson of Taos, a famous hunter, was their guide.