USA > California > The history of Oregon and California & the other territories of the northwest coast of North America > Part 39
USA > Oregon > The history of Oregon and California & the other territories of the northwest coast of North America > Part 39
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The American minister might also have cited the charters granted to the Virginia Company by King James I., in 1609 and 1611, in virtue of which, the Dutch settle- ments on the Hudson River, in a country first discovered, explored, and occupied, under the flag of the United Provinces, were, in 1664, - forty years after the disso- lution of the company, -during peace between the two nations, seized by British forces, as being included in the territories conceded to that company.
352
BRITISH PROPOSITIONS REJECTED.
[1827.
hold the qualified rights which she now possesses over the whole of the territory in question. "To the interests which British industry and enterprise have created Great Britain owes protection. That protection will be given, both as regards settlement and freedom of trade and navigation, with every attention not to infringe the coordinate rights of the United States; it being the earnest desire of the British government, so long as the joint occupancy con- tinues, to regulate its own obligations by the same rule which governs the obligations of any other occupying party." Thus, in 1826, the British government based its claims, with regard to the territories west of the Rocky Mountains, entirely on the Nootka convention of 1790, and the acts of occupation by its subjects under that agreement ; the abrogation of which, by the war between the parties, in 1796, - ten years before a single spot in those territo- ries had been occupied by a British subject, - has been already so fully demonstrated,* that any further observations would be super- fluous.
The proposition of the British plenipotentiaries, with regard to the renewal of the existing arrangement for ten years, was rejected by the president of the United States,t on the grounds - that, so far as it would tend to prevent the Americans from exercising exclusive sovereignty at the mouth of the Columbia River, it would be con- trary to their rights, as acknowledged by the treaty of Ghent, and by the restitution of the place agreeably to that treaty ; - that the proposed additional provisions do not define, but leave open to disputation, the acts which might be deemed an exercise of exclu- sive sovereignty ; - and that, from the nature of the institutions of the United States, their rights in the territory in question must be protected, and their citizens must be secured in their lawful pursuits, by some species of government, different from that which it has been, or may be, the pleasure of Great Britain to establish there. Mr. Gallatin, on the 24th of May, 1827, communicated to the British commissioners the fact of the rejection of their proposition, and the reasons for it, declaring, at the same time, formally, in obedience to special instructions, that his government did not hold itself bound hereafter in consequence of any proposal which it had made for a line of separation between the territories of the two nations beyond the Rocky Mountains ; but would consider itself at liberty to contend for the full extent of the claims of the United States.
* See the examinations of this question, at pp. 213, 257, and 318.
t Letter of February 24th, 1827, from the Hon. Henry Clay to Mr. Gallatin.
353
NEGOTIATION AT LONDON RESUMED.
1827.]
The British plenipotentiaries, having entered on the protocol of the conferences a declaration with regard to the previous claims and propositions of their government, similar to that made on the part of the United States by Mr. Gallatin, then intimated their readiness to agree to a simple renewal of the terms of the existing arrangement, for ten years from the date of the expiration of the convention of 1818; provided, however, that, in so doing, they should append to the new convention, in some way, a declara- tion of what they considered to be its true intent, namely, - that both parties were restricted, during its continuance in force, from exercising, or assuming to themselves the right to exercise, any exclu- sive sovereignty or jurisdiction over the territories mentioned in the agreement. The objections to this arrangement were nearly as strong as to that which had already been proposed and refused ; Mr. Gallatin, however, desired to know what species of acts the British would consider as an exercise of exclusive sovereignty or jurisdiction. In reply, he was informed that Great Britain would not complain of the extension, over the regions west of the Rocky Mountains, of the jurisdiction of any territory, having for its eastern boundary a line within the acknowledged boundaries of the United States ; provided - that no custom-house should be erected, nor any duties or charges on tonnage, merchandise, or commerce, be raised, by either party, in the country west of the Rocky Mountains - that the citizens or subjects of the two powers residing in or resorting to those countries, should be amenable only to the juris- diction of their own nation respectively -and that no military post should be established by either party in those countries ; or, at least, no such post as would command the navigation of the Columbia or any of its branches.
To the first of these conditions, Mr. Gallatin saw no strong reason to object. With regard to the second, he considered it indispensable that the respective jurisdiction of the courts of justice should be determined by positive compact, as it would scarcely be possible otherwise to prevent collisions ; and upon the third condition, he believed it would be very difficult to arrive at a correct under- standing, as the British government would not admit the posts of the Hudson's Bay Company to be military establishments. On all these points, the two governments might afterwards negotiate ; but the American minister refused to assent to any declaration or explanation whatsoever respecting the terms under which the terri- tories in question were to remain open to the people of the two
45
354
RENEWAL OF THE CONVENTION OF 1818.
[1827.
countries ; and the British were equally resolved not to agree to a renewal of the engagement for a fixed period of time, without such a declaration.
Finally, on the 6th of August, 1827, a convention was signed by the plenipotentiaries, to the effect, that the provisions of the third article of the convention of October 20th, 1818, - rendering all the territories claimed by Great Britain or by the United States, west of the Rocky Mountains, free and open to the citizens or subjects of both nations for ten years, -should be further extended for an indefinite period ; either party being, however, at liberty to annul and abrogate the agreement, on giving a year's notice of its intention to the other .* This convention was submitted to the Senate of the United States in the following winter, and, having been approved by that body, it was immediately ratified.
In relating the circumstances connected with the adoption of the convention of October, 1818, the opinion was expressed, that it was perhaps the most wise, as well as most just, arrangement which could then have been made ; and this renewal of the arrangement for an indefinite period, leaving each of the parties at liberty to abrogate it, after a reasonable notice to the other, appears to merit the same commendation. No unworthy concession was made, no loss of dignity or right was sustained, on either side; and to break the amicable and mutually profitable relations, then subsisting between the two countries, on a question of mere title to the pos- session of territories from which neither could derive any immediate benefit of consequence, would have been impolitic and unrighteous. The advantages of the convention were, in 1827, as in 1818, nearly equal to both nations; but the difference was, on the whole, in favor of the United States. The British might, indeed, derive more profit from the fur trade as carried on by their organized Hudson's Bay Company, than the Americans could expect to obtain by the individual efforts of their citizens ; but the value of that trade is much less than is generally supposed : no settlements could be formed in the territory beyond the Rocky Mountains, by which it could acquire a population, while the arrangement subsisted ; and the facilities for occupying the territory at a future period, when its occupation by the United States should become expedient, would undoubtedly have increased in a far greater ratio on their part than on that of Great Britain. For the difficulties which must arise
" Proofs and Illustrations, letter I, No. 6.
355
PROCEEDINGS IN CONGRESS.
1829.]
whenever the convention is abrogated, even agreeably to the man- ner therein stipulated, it became, of course, the duty of each government to provide in time.
In the session of Congress following that in which the new con- vention with Great Britain had been approved, the subject of the occupation of the mouth of the Columbia River was again discussed ; and, after a long series of debates, in which the most eminent mem- bers of the House of Representatives took part, a bill was reported, whereby the president was authorized to cause the territory west of the Rocky Mountains to be explored, and forts and garrisons to be established in any proper places, between the parallels of 42 degrees and 54 degrees 40 minutes ; and also to extend the juris- diction of the United States over those countries, as regards citizens of the Union. The adoption of these measures was urged, on the ground that it was the duty of the government to make good, by occupation, the right of the United States, which was pronounced unquestionable, lest, by neglect, the country should fall irrevocably into the possession of another power, which had unjustly contested that right : and, as inducements to pursue this course, pictures most flattering were presented of the soil, climate, and productions, of the regions watered by the Columbia, and of the various advantages which would be secured to the citizens of the Union engaged in the trade of the Pacific Ocean, by the settlement of those coasts. The bill was opposed, as infringing the convention recently concluded with Great Britain ; in addition to which, it was contended, that, were all opposition on the part of that or other powers removed, and the right of the United States established and universally recognized, the occupation of the countries in question in the manner proposed, would be useless, from their extreme barrenness, from the dangers to navigation presented by their coasts, and from the difficulty of communicating with them either by sea or by land ; and such occupation might be injurious, as citizens of the United States would be thus induced to settle in those countries, and their government would find itself bound to protect and maintain them, at great expense, without a commensurate advancement of the pub- lic good. In the course of the debates, several amendments were proposed to the bill, but it was finally rejected on the 9th of January, 1829; and, for many years afterwards, very little atten- tion was bestowed, by any branch of the government of the United States, to matters connected with the territories west of the Rocky Mountains.
356
CHAPTER XVII.
1823 TO 1844
Few Citizens of the United States in the Countries west of the Rocky Mountains between 1813 and 1823 - Trading Expeditions of Ashley, Sublette, Smith, Pilcher, Pattie, Bonneville, and Wyeth - Missionaries from the United States form Estab- lishments on the Columbia - First Printing Press set up in Oregon - Opposi- tion of the Hudson's Bay Company to the Americans; how exerted - Contro- versy between the United States and Russia - Dispute between the Hudson's Bay and the Russian American Companies ; how terminated - California ; Cap- ture of Monterey by Commodore Jones -The Sandwich Islands; Proceedings of the Missionaries; Expulsion of the Catholic Priests, and their Reinstatement by a French Force - The Sandwich Islands temporarily occupied by the British.
IT has already been said, that, during the ten years immediately following the dissolution of the Pacific Fur Company, and the seizure of its establishments on the Columbia by the British, few, if any, citizens of the United States entered the countries west of the Rocky Mountains ; although, within that period, the facilities for communication between those countries and the settled portions of the American Union had been increased by the introduction of steam vessels on the Mississippi and its tributary rivers. Nearly all the trade of the regions of the Upper Mississippi and the Missouri was then carried on by the old North American Fur Company, at the head of which Mr. Astor still remained ; and by another association, called the Columbia Fur Company, formed in 1822, composed principally of persons who had been in the service of the North-West Company, and were dissatisfied with their new
masters. The Columbia Company established several posts on the upper waters of the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Yellowstone, which were, however, transferred to the North American Company, on the junction of the two bodies in 1826. The Americans had also begun to trade with the northernmost provinces of Mexico, before the overthrow of the Spanish authority in that country ; after which event, large caravans passed regularly, in each summer, between St. Louis and Santa Fé, the capital of New Mexico, on the head- waters of the River Bravo del Norte.
.
357
TRADING EXPEDITIONS OF ASHLEY.
1826.]
The first attempt to reestablish commercial communications between the United States and the territories west of the Rocky Mountains, was made by W. H. Ashley, of St. Louis, who had been, for some time previous, engaged in the fur trade of the Missouri and Yellowstone countries. He quitted the state of Missouri in the spring of 1823, at the head of a large party of men, with horses carrying merchandise and baggage, and proceeded up the Platte River, to the sources of its northern branch, called the Sweet Water, which had not been previously explored. These sources were found to be situated in a remarkable valley, or cleft, in the Rocky Moun- tains, in the latitude of 42 degrees 20 minutes ; and immediately beyond them were discovered those of another stream, flowing south-westward, called by the Indians Sidskadee, and by the Americans Green River, which proved to be one of the head- waters of the Colorado of California. In the country about these streams, which had not then been frequented by the British traders, Mr. Ashley passed the summer, with his men, employed in trap- ping, and in bartering goods for skins with the natives ; and, before the end of the year, he brought back to St. Louis a large and valu- able stock of furs.
In 1824, Mr. Ashley made another expedition up the Platte, and through the cleft in the mountains, which has since been gen- erally called the Southern Pass ; and then, advancing farther west, he reached a great collection of salt water called the Utah Lake, (probably the Lake Timpanogos, or Lake Tegayo, of the old Spanish rnaps,) which lies imbosomed among lofty mountains, between the 40th and the 42d parallels of latitude. Near this lake, on the south-east, he found another and smaller one, to which he gave his own name ; and there he built a fort, or trading post, in which he left about a hundred men, when he returned to Missouri in the autumn. Two years afterwards, a six-pound cannon was drawn from Mis- souri to this fort, a distance of more than twelve hundred miles ; and, in 1828, many wagons, heavily laden, performed the same journey.
During the three years between 1824 and 1827, the men left by Mr. Ashley in the country beyond the Rocky Mountains collected and sent to St. Louis furs to the value of more than one hundred and eighty thousand dollars ; this enterprising man then retired from the trade, and sold all his interests and establishments to the Rocky Mountain Company, at the head of which were Messrs. Smith, Jackson, and Sublette, persons not less energetic and determined.
358
TRADING EXPEDITION OF PILCHER.
[1828.
These traders carried on for many years an extensive and profit- able business, in the' course of which they traversed every part of the country about the southern branch of the Columbia, and nearly the whole of continental California. Unfortunately, how- ever, they made no astronomical observations, and, being unac- quainted with any branch of physical science, very little information has been derived through their means. Smith, after twice crossing the continent to the Pacific, was murdered, in the summer of 1829, by the Indians north-west of the Utah Lake.
These active proceedings of the Missouri fur traders roused the spirit of the North American Company, which also extended its operations beyond the Rocky Mountains, though no establishments were formed by its agents in those countries ; and many expeditions were made, in the same direction, by independent parties, of whose adventures, narratives, more or less exact and interesting, have been published. In 1827, Mr. Pilcher went from Council Bluffs, on the Missouri, with forty-five men, and more than a hundred horses ; and, having crossed the great dividing chain of mountains by the South- ern Pass, he spent the winter on the Colorado. In the following year, he proceeded to the Lewis River, and thence, northwardly, along the foot of the Rocky Mountains, on their western side, to the Flathead Lake, near the 47th degree of latitude, which he describes as a beautiful sheet of water, formed by the expansion of the Clarke River, in a rich and extensive valley, surrounded by high mountains. There he remained until the spring of 1829, when he descended the Clarke to Fort Colville, an establishment then recently formed by the Hudson's Bay Company, on the northern branch of the Columbia, at its falls ; and thence he returned to the United States, through the long and circuitous route of the Upper Columbia, the Athabasca, the Assinaboin, Red River, and the Upper Missouri. The countries thus traversed by Mr. Pilcher have all become comparatively well known from the accounts of subsequent travellers ; but very little information had been given to the world respecting them before the publication of his concise narrative .* The account of the rambles of J. O. Pattie, a Missouri fur trader, through New Mexico, Chihuahua, Sonora, and California, published in 1832, throws some light on the geography of parts of those countries of which little can as yet be learned from any other source. During his peregrinations, Pattie several times crossed the great dividing chain of mountains between New Mexico on the
" Published with President Jackson's message to Congress, January 23d, 1829.
359
PLANS OF WYETH FOR THE OREGON TRADE.
1834.]
east, and Sonora and California on the west, and descended and ascended the Colorado, and its principal tributaries, which, he de- scribes as being navigable by boats for considerable distances. He also made trips across Sonora to the Californian Gulf, and across California to the Pacific, as well as through the Mexican provinces on the coasts of that ocean, where he suffered imprisonment and many other hardships from the tyranny of the authorities.
In 1832, Captain Bonneville, of the army of the United States, while on furlough, led a band of more than a hundred men, with twenty wagons, and many horses and mules, carrying merchandise from Missouri to the countries of the Colorado and the Columbia, in which he passed more than two years, engaged in hunting, trap- ping, and trading .*
About the same time, Captain Wyeth, of Massachusetts, en- deavored to establish a regular system of commercial intercourse between the states of the Union and the countries of the Columbia, to which latter the general name of OREGON then began to be universally applied in the United States. His plan, like that devised by Mr. Astor in 1810, was to send manufactured goods to the Pacific countries, and from thence to transport to the United States, and even to China, not only furs, but also the salmon which abound in the rivers of North-Western America. With these objects, he made two expeditions over land to the Columbia, in the latter of which he founded a trading post, called Fort Hall, on the south side of the Snake or Lewis branch of that river, at the entrance of the Portneuf, about a hundred miles north of the Utah Lake ; and he then established another post, principally for fishing purposes, on Wappatoo Island, near the confluence of the Willamet River with the Columbia, a hundred miles above the mouth of the latter. This scheme, however, failed entirely. The Hudson's Bay Com- pany's agents immediately took the alarm, and founded a counter establishment, called Fort Boisé, at the entrance of the Boisé or Read's River into the Lewis, some distance below Fort Hall, where they offered goods to the Indians at prices much lower than those which the Americans could afford to take ; and Wyeth, being thus driven out of the market, was forced to compromise with his op- ponents, by selling his fort to them, and engaging to desist from the
* The narrative of this expedition, written from the, notes of Captain Bonneville, by Washington Irving, in the vein, half serious, half jocose, of Fray Agapida's Chronicle, contains some curious, though generally overcharged, pictures of life among the hunters, trappers, traders, Indians, and grisly bears, of the Rocky Moun- tains ; but it adds very little to our knowledge of the geography of those regions.
360
AMERICAN TRADERS IN CALIFORNIA. [1834.
fur trade. Meanwhile, a brig, which he had despatched from Boston, with a cargo of goods, arrived at Wappatoo Island, where she, after some further arrangements with the Hudson's Bay Com- pany, took in a cargo of salted salmon, for the United States. She reached Boston in safety ; but the results of her voyage were not such as to encourage perseverance in the enterprise, which was thereupon abandoned .*
The American traders, being excluded by these and other means from the Columbia countries, confined themselves almost entirely to the regions about the head-waters of the Colorado and the Utah Lake, where they formed one or two small establishments; though they sometimes extended their rambles westward to the Sacramento, the Bay of San Francisco, and Monterey, where they were viewed with dislike and mistrust by the Mexican authorities. The number of citizens of the United States thus employed in the country west of the Rocky Mountains seldom, if ever, exceeded two hundred : during the greater part of the year, they roved through the wilds, in search of furs, which they carried, in the summer, to certain places of rendezvous on the Colorado, or on the Lewis, and there disposed of them to the traders from Missouri ; the whole business being conducted by barter, and without the use of money, though each article bore a nominal value, expressed in dollars and cents, very different from that assigned to it in the states of the Union.t
About the time of Wyeth's expeditions also took place the ear- liest emigrations from the United States to the territories of the Columbia, for the purpose of settlement, and without any special commercial objects.
The first of these colonies was founded, in 1834, in the valley of
* Captain Wyeth's expeditions, though unprofitable to himself, have been rendered advantageous to the world at large; for his short memoir on the regions which he visited, printed with the report of the committee of the House of Representatives on the Oregon territory, in February, 1839, affords more exact and useful information, as to their general geography, climate, soil, and agricultural and commercial capabilities, than any other work yet published. Wyeth's movements are also related incidentally in the account of Bonneville's adventures, and in the interesting Narrative of a Jour- ney across the Rocky Mountains, &c., by J. K. Townsend, a naturalist of Philadelphia, published in 1839.
t Thus, among the prices current at the rendezvous on Green River, in the summer of 1838, we find whisky at three dollars per pint, gunpowder at six dollars per pint, tobacco at five dollars per pound, dogs (for food) at fifteen dollars each, &c. Twenty dollars were frequently expended in rum and sugar, for a night's carouse, by two or three traders, after the conclusion of a bargain. Under such circumstances, it may be supposed that the price of beaver and muskrat skins was proportionally raised ; and that a package, purchased for a hundred dollars on Green River, may have been afterwards sold with profit at St. Louis for twenty.
361
AMERICAN MISSIONARIES IN OREGON.
1834.]
the Willamet River, eighty miles above its junction with the Columbia, by a small party from the Northern and Eastern States of the Union, under the direction of Messrs. Lee, Shepherd, and other Methodist missionaries, who cleared land, erected houses, and opened schools for the instruction of the natives. A few retired servants of the Hudson's Bay Company had already settled in the same valley, by permission of the chief factor, and were there principally engaged in herding cattle. In the following year, Mr. Parker, a Presby- terian minister from Ithaca, in New York, proceeded, by way of the Platte and the Southern Pass, to the mouth of the Columbia, and thence returned to the United States; * and, upon his reports, Messrs. Spalding, Gray, and Whitman, were sent, by the American Board of Foreign Missions, to prosecute the objects of that society in the Oregon regions. Other missionaries of each of these sects, with their families and friends, have since successively gone from the United States, and formed settlements at various points, in all of which schools for the education of the natives have been opened ; and a printing press has been erected at the Walla-Walla station, on which were struck off the first sheets ever printed on the Pacific side of America north of Mexico.
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