THE OREGON QUESTION.
CHAPTER I.
THE OREGON TERRITORY.
North-west America.—Plateau of Anahuac.—Rocky Mountains.—New-Albion.—New Caledonia.—Oregon, or Oregan, the River of the West.—The Columbia River.—Extent of the Oregon Territory.—The Country of the Columbia.—Opening of the Fur Trade in 1786.—Vancouver.—Straits of Anian.—Straits of Juan de Fuca.—Barclay.—Meares.—The American sloop Washington.—Galiano and Valdés.—Journey of Mackenzie in 1793.—The Tacoutche-Tesse, now Frazer’s River.—North-west Company in 1805.—The Hudson’s Bay Company in 1670.—The First Settlement of the North-west Company across the Rocky Mountains in 1806, at Frazer’s Lake.—Journey of Mr. Thomson, the Astronomer of the North-west Company, down the North Branch of the Columbia River, in 1811.—Expedition of Lewis and Clarke, in 1805.—The Missouri Fur Company, in 1808.—Their First Settlement on the West of the Rocky Mountains.—The Pacific Fur Company, in 1810.—John Jacob Astor, the Representative of it.—Astoria, established in 1811.—Dissolution of the Pacific Fur Company, in July, 1813.—Transfer of Astoria to the North-west Company, by Purchase, in October, 1813.—Subsequent Arrival of the British Sloop-of-War, the Racoon.—Name of Astoria changed to Fort George.
North-Western America is divided from the other portions of the continent by a chain of lofty mountains, which extend throughout its entire length in a north-westerly direction, in continuation of the Mexican Andes, to the shores of the Arctic Ocean. The southern part of this chain, immediately below the parallel of 42° north latitude, is known to the Spaniards by the name of the Sierra Verde, and the central ridge, in continuation of this, as the Sierra de las Grullas; and by these names they are distinguished by Humboldt in his account of New Spain, (Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, l. i., c. 3,) as well as in a copy of Mitchell’s Map of North America, published in 1834. Mr. Greenhow, in his History of Oregon and California, states that the Anahuac Mountains is “the appellation most commonly applied to this part of the dividing chain extending south of the 40th degree of latitude to Mexico,” but when and on what grounds that name has come to be so applied, he does not explain. Anahuac was the denomination before the Spanish conquest of that portion of America which lies between the 14th and 21st degrees of north latitude, whereas the Cordillera of the Mexican Andes takes the name of the Sierra Madre a little north of the parallel of 19°, and the Sierra Madre in its turn is connected with the Sierra de las Grullas by an intermediate range, commencing near the parallel of 30°, termed La Sierra de los Mimbres. The application, indeed, of the name Anahuac to the entire portion of the chain which lies south of 40°, may have originated with those writers who have confounded Anahuac with New Spain; but as the use of the word in this sense is incorrect, it hardly seems desirable to adopt an appellation which is calculated to produce confusion, whilst it perpetuates an error, especially as there appear to be no reasonable grounds for discarding the established Spanish names. The plateau of Anahuac, in the proper sense of the word, comprises the entire territory from the Isthmus of Panama to the 21st parallel of north latitude, so that the name of Anahuac Mountains would, with more propriety, be confined to the portion of the Cordillera south of 21°. If this view be correct, the name of the Sierra Verde may be continued for that portion of the central range which separates the head waters of the Rio Bravo del Norte, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico, and forms the south-western boundary of Texas, from those of the Rio Colorado, (del Occidente,) which empties itself into the Gulf of California.
The Rocky Mountains, then, or, as they are frequently called, the Stony Mountains, will be the distinctive appellation of the portion of the great central chain which lies north of the parallel of 42°; and if a general term should be required for the entire chain to the south of this parallel, it may be convenient to speak of it as the Mexican Cordillera, since it is co-extensive with the present territory of the United States of Mexico, or else as the Mexican Andes, since the range is, both in a geographical and a geological point of view, a continuation of the South American Andes.
Between this great chain of mountains and the Pacific Ocean a most ample territory extends, which may be regarded as divided into three great districts. The most southerly of these, of which the northern boundary line was drawn along the parallel of 42°, by the Treaty of Washington in 1819, belong to the United States of Mexico. The most northerly, commencing at Behring’s Straits, and of which the extreme southern limit was fixed at the southernmost point of Prince of Wales’s Island in the parallel of 54° 40′ north, by treaties concluded between Russia and the United States of America in 1824, and between Russia and Great Britain in 1825, forms a part of the dominions of Russia; whilst the intermediate country is not as yet under the acknowledged sovereignty of any power.
To this intermediate territory different names have been assigned. To the portion of the coast between the parallels of 43° and 48°, the British have applied the name of New Albion, since the expedition of Sir Francis Drake in 1578-80, and the British Government, in the instructions furnished by the Lords of the Admiralty, in 1776, to Captain Cook, directed him “to proceed to the coast of New Albion, endeavouring to fall in with it in the latitude of 45°.” (Introduction to Captain Cook’s Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, 4to, 1784, vol. i., p. xxxii.) At a later period, Vancouver gave the name of New Georgia to the coast between 45° and 50°, and that of New Hanover to the coast between 50° and 54°; whilst to the entire country north of New Albion, between 48° and 56° 30′, from the Rocky Mountains to the sea, British traders have given the name of New Caledonia, ever since the North-west Company formed an establishment on the western side of the Rocky Mountains, in 1806. (Journal of D. W. Harmon, quoted by Mr. Greenhow, p. 291.) The Spanish government, on the other hand, in the course of the negotiations with the British government which ensued upon the seizure of the British vessels in Nootka Sound, and terminated in the Convention of the Escurial, in 1790, designated the entire territory as “the Coast of California, in the South Sea.” (Declaration of His Catholic Majesty, June 4th, transmitted to all the European Courts, in the Annual Register, 1790.) Of late it has been customary to speak of it as the Oregon territory, or the Columbia River territory, although some writers confine that term to the region watered by the Oregon, or Columbia River, and its tributaries.
The authority for the use of the word Oregon, or, more properly speaking, Oregan, has not been clearly ascertained, but the majority of writers agree in referring the introduction of the name to Carver’s Travels. Jonathan Carver, a native of Connecticut and a British subject, set out from Boston in 1766, soon after the transfer of Canada to Great Britain, on an expedition to the regions of the Upper Mississippi, with the ultimate purpose of ascertaining “the breadth of that vast continent, which extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, in its broadest part, between 43° and 46° of north latitude. Had I been able,” he says, “to accomplish this task, I intended to have proposed to government to establish a post in some of those parts, about the Straits of Anian, which having been discovered by Sir Francis Drake, of course belong to the English.” The account of his travels, from the introduction to which the above extract in his own words is quoted, was published in London in 1778. Carver did not succeed in penetrating to the Pacific Ocean, but he first made known, or at least established a belief in, the existence of a great river, termed apparently, by the nations in the interior, Oregon, or Oregan, the source of which he placed not far from the head waters of the River Missouri, “on the other side of the summit of the lands that divide the waters which run into the Gulf of Mexico from those which fall into the Pacific Ocean.” He was led to infer, from the account of the natives, that this “Great River of the West” emptied itself near the Straits of Anian, (Carver’s Travels, 3d edit., London, 1781, p. 542,) although it may be observed that the situation of the so-called Straits of Anian themselves was not at this time accurately fixed. Carver, however, was misled in this latter respect, but the description of the locality where he placed the source of the Oregon, seems to identify it either with the Flatbow or M’Gillivray’s River, or else, and perhaps more probably, with the Flathead or Clark’s River, each of which streams, after pursuing a north-western course from the base of the Rocky Mountains, unites with a great river coming from the north, which ultimately empties itself into the Pacific Ocean in latitude 46° 18′. The name of Oregon has consequently been perpetuated in this main river, as being really “the Great River of the West,” and by this name it is best known in Europe; but in the United States of America, it is now more frequently spoken of as the Columbia River, from the name of the American vessel, “The Columbia,” which first succeeded in passing the bar at its mouth in 1792. The native name, however, will not totally perish in the United States, for it has been embalmed in the beautiful verse of Bryant, whom the competent judgment of Mr. Washington Irving has pronounced to be amongst the most distinguished of American poets:—
“Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings.”