The Oregon Territory, Its History and Discovery

by Travers Twiss

“Upon this view, therefore, of the subject, and considering that the motive for declining to admit my proposal of extending the boundary line from the Missouri to the Columbia, and along that river to the Pacific, appears to be the wish of the President to include, within the limits of the Union, all the branches and rivers emptying into the said River Columbia, I will adapt my proposals on this point, so as fully to satisfy the demand of the United States, without losing sight of the essential object, namely, that the boundary line shall, as far as possible, be natural and clearly defined, and leave no room for dispute to the inhabitants on either side.”

He therefore proposed, as the Red River rose within a few leagues of Santa Fé, the capital of New Mexico, to substitute the Arkansas for the Red River; so that the line along the Red River should not be drawn further westward than the 95th degree of longitude, and crossing it at that point, should run “due north to the Arkansas, and along it to its source; thence, by a line due west, till it strikes the source of the River St. Clemente, or Multnomah, in latitude 41°, and along that river to the Pacific Ocean. The whole agreeably to Melish’s map.”—(State Papers, 1819-20, p. 568.)

Mr. Adams on the other hand, on Feb. 6, 1819, repeated the proposal of the United States as to the line from the source of the Arkansas River being drawn along the parallel of 41° N. L. to the Pacific, with other modifications in the general detail of the boundary.

This proposal, however, was not accepted, and the Spanish commissioner in his turn, on Feb. 9, proposed a different line, to be drawn “along the middle of the Arkansas to the 42° of latitude; thence a line shall be drawn westward by the same parallel of latitude to the source of the River San Clemente or Multnomah, following the course of that river to the 43° of latitude, and thence by a line to the Pacific Ocean.” (Ibid. p. 570.)

Mr. Adams, in his answer of February 13, 1819, still retained the parallel of 41° of latitude from the source of the Arkansas to the South Sea, according to Melish’s map. (Ibid. p. 575.)

The Chevalier de Onis, on the 16th of February 1819, ultimately agreed “to admit the 42° instead of the 43° of latitude from the Arkansas to the Pacific Ocean.” (Ibid. p. 580.)

These extracts from the documentary correspondence preliminary to the Treaty of 1819, will show the nature of the claims maintained by the two parties, and thus serve to explain the meaning of the third article of the treaty. Spain asserted her right and dominion over the northwest coast of America as high up as the Californias, as based upon the discoveries of Juan de Fuca in 1592, and Admiral Fonte in 1640. The United States made no claim to territory west of the Rocky Mountains. On the other hand, the United States asserted her right over the coasts of the Mexican Gulf from the Mississippi to the Rio Bravo by virtue of Crozat’s grant, and of the settlement of La Salle in the Bay of St. Bernard, whilst Spain maintained that the expedition of Hernando de Soto and others entitled her by discovery to the entire coasts of the Mexican Gulf, and that the crown of Spain, before 1763, had extended her dominion eastward over the right side of the Mississippi from its mouth to the mouth of the Missouri, and northward over the right side of the latter river from its mouth to its source; in other words, that the dependencies of the Spanish province of New Mexico extended as far as the Missouri and the Mississippi, and the Spanish province of Texas as far as the Red River and Mississippi. The rights, claims, and pretensions, therefore, to any territories lying east and north of the parallel of 42°, which Spain, by the 3rd article of the Treaty of 1819, ceded to the United States, had respect to the Spanish province of Texas, the Spanish province of New Mexico, and the Californias; the rights, claims, and pretensions which the United States ceded to his Catholic Majesty to any territories west and south of this line, had reference to the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico as far the Rio Bravo, and the inland country; for no claim or pretension had been advanced by the United States to territory beyond the Rocky Mountains, and the object of the negotiation was expressly to determine the boundaries of Louisiana, which the United States insisted had been ceded to them in the full extent in which it had been possessed by France, according to the limits marked out by Louis XIV. in his grant to Crozat.

In the course of these negotiations, we find certain principles of international law laid down by the commissioners of the United States as applicable to the question of disputed boundaries. They seem to have been advanced after careful consideration, for Messrs. Pinckney and Monroe formally enunciated them on the 20th of April 1805, as “dictated by reason, and adopted in practice by European Powers in the discoveries and acquisitions which they have respectively made in the new world;” and Mr. Adams, on the 12th of March 1820, restated them again as principles “sanctioned alike by immutable justice, and the general practice of the European nations, which have formed settlements and held possessions in this hemisphere.” (British and Foreign State Papers, 1817-18, pp. 327, 467.)

The first is, “That whenever any European nation takes possession of any extent of sea-coast, that possession is understood as extending into the interior country, to the sources of the rivers emptying within that coast, to all their branches, and the country they cover, and to give it a right in exclusion of all other nations to the same.”

“It is evident,” write Messrs. Pinckney and Monroe, (ibid., p. 327,) “that some rule or principle must govern the rights of European Powers in regard to each other in all such cases, and it is certain that none can be adopted, in those to which it applies, more reasonable or just than the present one. Many weighty considerations shew the propriety of it. Nature seems to have destined a range of territory so described for the same society, to have connected its several parts together by the ties of a common interest, and to have detached them from others. If this principle is departed from, it must be by attaching to such discovery and possession, a more enlarged or contracted scope of acquisition; but a slight attention to the subject will demonstrate the absurdity of either. The latter would be to restrict the rights of a European Power, who discovered and took possession of a new country, to the spot on which its troops or settlements rested, a doctrine which has been totally disclaimed by all the Powers who made discoveries and acquired possessions in America. The other extreme would be equally improper; that is, that the nation who made such discovery should, in all cases, be entitled to the whole of the territory so discovered. In the case of an island, whose extent was seen, which might be soon sailed round, and preserved by a few forts, it may apply with justice; but in that of a continent it would be absolutely absurd. Accordingly, we find, that this opposite extreme has been equally disclaimed and disavowed by the doctrine and practice of European nations. The great continent of America, north and south, was never claimed or held by any one European nation, nor was either great section of it. Their pretensions have been always bounded by more moderate and rational principles. The one laid down has obtained general assent.