USA > Oregon > Benton County > History of Benton County, Oregon > Part 12
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In the meantime Bodega and Maurelle were persevering in their attempt to carry out the original plan of the expedition, and were still endeavoring to reach the 65th parallel in the little Sonora. On the sixteenth of August they suddenly came in sight of land both to the north and east of them, being then, according to their observations, north of latitude 56 degrees, and at a point which their chart told them was 135 leagues distant from the American shore. This proved to be the large island known as King George III's Archipelago, though supposed by the Span- iards to be a portion of the main land. A large mountain rising from a jutting head- land and draped in snow, was called by them San Jacinto, though it was a few years later named Mount Edgecumb by Captain Cook. The Spaniards landed to take formal possession of the country for the Spanish crown and to procure a supply of fish and water, to both of which proceedings the natives fiercely objected, compelling the intruders to pay liberally for the fish, and the water as well, and derisively tearing up and destroying the cross and other symbolic monuments the would-be possessors of their land had erected. The voyage northward was resumed, but upon reaching lati-
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tude 58 degrees Bodega deemed it imprudent to advance farther and turned again to the southward. From that point to the 54th parallel the coast was closely scrutinized for the Rio de los Reyes of Admiral Fonte, but as the romancing admiral had located his mythical river a degree farther south their search would have proven in vain even had the stream an existence beyond its creator's fancy, and therefore their assertion that no such river existed north of latitude 54 degrees was valueless to prove Fonte's great water route from the Pacific to the Atlantic to be a myth. On the twenty-fourth of August they again landed to take possession of the country, this time at Port Bucareli, named in honor of the viceroy under whose authority the expedition was dispatched, on the west coast of Prince of Wales Island. From this place they casually observed the coast at various points until they reached the Oregon coast in latitude 45 degrees and 27 minutes, when they began a careful search for the great river Martin de Aguilar claimed to have discovered in 1603. Though they noticed currents of water setting out from the land in various places, nothing was observed indicating a stream of the magni- tude described by Aguilar, and they became satisfied that none such existed in that locality ; yet they observed a headland which was recognized as answering the descrip- tion of Cape Blanco, being, no doubt, the one called later Cape Orford by Captain Vancouver. On the third of October the Sonora entered a bay supposed to be that of San Francisco, but which proved to be a much smaller one a short distance north of that great harbor, and was therefore named Bodega bay by the discoverer in his own honor.
By the voyages of Perez, Heceta and Bodega, and especially the latter, which was conducted under the most disadvantageous conditions, through stormy and unknown seas, in a small vessel which had lost its only boat, and with a crew afflicted with that terrible scourge of the early mariners, the scurvy, Spain justly laid claim to the first exploration of the Pacific coast from which even an approximately correct chart could be made; especially was this true of our immediate coast, for prior to these explorations the coast between Cape Mendocino and Mount San Jacinto, or Edgecumb, was so prac- tically unknown that in regard to it the most utterly erroneons ideas prevailed.
Condensed reports of these voyages, containing the leading features, soon reached England, together with the acconnts of the progress Spain was making in her scheme of colonizing California, and caused much anxiety to the government. With her Florida and Louisiana possessions extending indefinitely westward, with her California colonies already established and the possibility of her making additional settlements at some or all of the favorable localities on the northern coast where her representatives had already performed the ceremony of taking formal possession in the name of the king, the prospect of Spain soon obtaining control of the whole Pacific of America south of the 56th parallel, the limit to which Russian explorations formed a foundation for a claim by the czar, was imminent. With the zeal which England would exercise under the same circumstances, the claim of Spain would be perfected in ten years, and England be confined in North America to Canada and the possessions of her fur mo- nopoly around Hudson's bay. The prospect was far from pleasing, and nothing but the indolence of Spain saved England from entire exclusion from Pacific North Amer- ica. Yet for England to establish colonies in opposition to those of Spain was practically impossible. She had no Mexico to form a base of operation and supplies, but could
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hold communication with them only by means of a long and hazardous voyage of eight or ten months around Cape Horn or by the way of the Cape of Good Hope.
Under this condition of affairs England looked upon the discovery of a northern passage from ocean to ocean as absolutely necessary to further her interests on the Pa- cific coast. It was this idea of the situation which led Parliament to renew the offered reward spoken of at the close of the last chapter, and which stimulated English ex- plorers into that great activity which resulted in revealing so much of our geography during the next fifteen years, laid the foundation for the claim to Oregon which Great Britain so strenuously asserted, and gave her title to the immense territory she now possesses on the Pacific coast.
About this time Captain James Cook returned from his great voyage of explora- tion in the South sea and Indian ocean, having established the fact that no habitable land existed in the vicinity of the Antarctic circle and made a voyage so extensive and im- portant that he was universally recognized as the leading explorer of the century. To him England turned in her hour of anxiety. Here was the man above all others to whom could be entrusted the search for that passage so vitally important to British interests in the Pacific, with the assurance that whatever skill, diligence and the most thorough acquaintance with the geographical knowledge and theories of the day could accomplish would certainly be achieved. This task Cook at once undertook, and sailed upon his new quest with high hopes of winning laurels greater than those which already encircled his brow.
The instructions given to Cook by the Admiralty were very minute and particular. He was directed to proceed by way of the Cape of Good Hope, New Zealand and Otaheite and endeavor to reach the coast of New Albion in the latitude 45 degrees. To the name New Albion the English government had tenaciously clung since the time Sir Francis Drake so christened the California coast and ceremoniously took possession in the name of the queen. To England there was much in a simple name, since her adherence to it showed her resolution to claim to the last all the benefit which could possibly be derived from the voyage of that adventurous marauder ; and this name was only changed for another when the basis upon which the English claim to Oregon rested was also altered. Though resolved to abate not one whit of her dis- covery rights, England was careful not to commit the least overt act of hostility against any rival claimants whatever. Serious trouble had commenced with her Atlantic colonies ; the battle of Bunker Hill had been fought and the evacuation of Boston compelled ; the whole coast from Massachusetts to Georgia was in a state of armed rebel- lion, encouraged by both France and Spain, who appeared upon the verge of offering substantial aid. The times were not propitious for England to assert her rights in the Pacific in a manner bordering in the least upon arrogance. Under the circum- stances an extremely modest demeanor was considered exceedingly becoming, and Cook was "strictly enjoined, on his way thither, not to touch upon any part of the Spanish dominions on [the western continent of America, unless driven to it by some unavoid- able accident; in which case he was to stay no longer than should be absolutely neces- sary, and to be very careful not to give any umbrage or offence to any of the inhabi- tants or subjects of his Catholic majesty. And if, in his farther progress northward, he should find any subjects of any European prince or state, upon any part of the
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coast which he might think proper to visit, he was not to disturb them or give them any just cause of offence, but, on the contrary, to treat them with civility and friend- ship." The last charge referred especially to the Russian settlements in the extreme north.
But little positive knowledge was possessed in England of the geography of the coast north of Cape Mendocino. To be sure it was the reports of Spanish settlements in California and of several important voyages of exploration recently made by repre- sentatives of that nation, which had created such anxiety and infused such zeal into the English Admiralty ; but the particulars of those voyages were not yet received. All that was really known of the northwest coast was what could be learned from the records of Viscaino's voyage nearly two centuries before, from the indefinite and con- tradictory accounts of Russian discoveries in Alaskan waters, and the recent report by Samuel Hearne that the continent extended many miles westward from the Coppermine river. Between Viscaino's most northern limit, latitude 45 degrees, and the extreme southern point reached by Tchirikof in the 56th parallel, there was a vast stretch of coast line absolutely unknown. Cook was consequently instructed to proceed along the coast and, "with the consent of the natives, to take possession in the name of the King of Great Britain of convenient stations in such countries as he might discover that had not been already discovered or visited by any other European power, and to distribute among the inhabitants such things as will remain as traces of his having been there ; but, if he should find the countries so discovered to be uninhabited he was to take pos- session of them for his sovereign, by setting up proper marks and descriptions, as first discoverers and possessors." This was exactly what Heceta and Bodega had done for Spain the year before, though of this fact England was ignorant. Cook was directed to coast along to the 65th parallel, before reaching which he was expected to find it trending sharply towards then ortheast in the direction of the Coppermine river, the Admiralty being of the opinion that the great North sea visited by Hearne was identical with the Pacific. From that point he was to explore carefully "such rivers or inlets as might appear to be of considerable extent and pointing towards Hudson's or Baffin's bays," and endeavor to sail through all such passages, either in his vessels or in smaller ones to be constructed on the spot from materials taken with him for that especial purpose. In case he became satisfied from the configuration of the coast that no such passage existed and that the Pacific ocean and North sea were not identical, he was then to repair to the Russian settlements at Kamtchatka, and from that point ex- plore the seas to the northward " in further search of a northeast or northwest passage from the Pacific ocean into the Atlantic or the North sea."
To carry out these minute and exhaustive instructions, Cook sailed from Plymouth July 12, 1776, in the Resolution, the vessel he had just taken around the world, ac- companied by Capt. Charles Clerke in the Discovery. The crews and officers were men selected carefully for this expedition, and the vessels were supplied with every nautical and scientific instrument which could in any possibility be needed, as well as the most accurate charts at the command of the government. After passing the Cape of Good Hope, Cook spent nearly a year making examinations about Van Dieman's Land, New Zealand, and the Friendly and Society islands. On the eighteenth of Jan- uary, 1778, he discovered the Hawaiian islands, that most important station in the
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FARM RESIDENCE OF JAMES COOPER. 21/2 Miles Southwest of Corvallis, Benton County, Oregon.
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Pacific, which he called Sandwich islands in honor of the first lord of the Admiralty under whose orders he was sailing. On the seventh of the following March he was delighted with a glimpse of the Oregon coast, or New Albion, near the 44th parallel, in the vicinity of the Umpqua. Contrary winds forced him as far south as the mouth of Rogue river, when, the wind becoming fair, he took a course almost due north and did not again see land until just above the 48th degree of latitude, when he descried a bald headland which he christened Cape Flattery to show his appreciation of the flatter- ing condition of his prospects.
It was now that Cook fell into the same error which had so sorely baffled and defeated Heceta and Bodega two years before. Like them, having reached the very southern edge of the Straits of Fuca, he turned away and searched for them to the south- ward, because in Lock's narrative they had been located between latitudes 47 and 48 degrees. Finding the coast line unbroken, Cook pronounced the passage a myth, and abandoning the search sailed northward, passing heedlessly by the straits for which he had been so diligently looking. He soon dropped anchor in a safe and spacious harbor in latitude 49} degrees, which he called King George's sound, but later substituted Nootka when he learned that such was its Indian title. This was, beyond doubt, the Port Lorenzo entered by Perez in 1774, and like the Spaniard, Cook reports the natives to be of a very light complexion and to possess ornaments of copper and weapons of iron and brass. This, united with the fact that one of them had suspended about his greasy neck two silver spoons of Spanish manufacture, and because they manifested no surprise and but little curiosity about the ships, and seemed not to be frightened at the report of guns, and were eager to barter furs for a valuable considera- tion, especially metals of all kinds, led Cook to the opinion that they had held inter- course with civilized nations in former times. Their supposed familiarity with firearms was soon found to be erroneous, for "one day, upon endeavoring to prove to us that arrows and spears would not penetrate their war-dresses, a gentleman of our company shot a musket-ball through one of them folded six times. At this they were so much staggered, that their ignorance of fire-arms was plainly seen. This was after- wards confirmed when we used them to shoot birds, the manner of which confounded them." This discovery and other facts elicited by a closer observation caused Cook to change his opinion about their previous intercourse with white people. In speculating on this subject he says that though "some account of a Spanish voyage to this coast in 1774 or 1775 had reached England before I sailed, it was evident that iron was too common here, was in too many hands, and the use of it too well known, for them to have had the first knowledge of it so very lately, or, indeed, at any earlier period, by an accidental supply from a ship. Doubtless, from the general use they make of this metal, it might be supposed to come from some constant source, by way of traffic, and that not of a very late date; for they are as dexterous in using their tools as the
longest practice can make them. The most probable way, therefore, by which we can suppose that they get their iron, is by trading for it with other Indian tribes, who either have immediate communication with European settlements upon the continent, or receive it, perhaps, through several intermediate nations; the same might be said of the brass and copper found amongst them." The indifference of the natives to the ships, in regard to which their lack of curiosity was noticeable and had been one of 8
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the causes which at first led him to suppose they were familiar with such objects, he attributed "to their natural indolence of temper and want of curiosity." Cook's ignorance of the vast extent of the American continent and the degree of civi- lization attained by the various aboriginal nations occupying it, must be his excuse for supposing that such a commodity as iron could have been transported from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, passing from hand to hand through numerous tribes of Indians, many of them engaged in unceasing and unrelenting warfare. That such could not have been the case, even aside from these objections, we are well assured by the fact that the inland tribes through whose hands the metal must have passed knew nothing of iron or its uses, and employed flint and bones for knives, spear-heads and arrow-tips. In the region then visited by the English for the first time exist vast quantities of iron ore, and in the mountains of the mainland copper ledges abound, and though no traces have as yet been observed of the ancient working of these mines, it is more than probable that the iron and copper possessed by the natives of Vancouver island, who were the most civilized and intelligent found on the Pacific coast, were produced from the crude ore by their possessors themselves. This supposition is sup- ported by the fact that the natives forged iron in an ingenious manner, making harpoons, weapons and ornaments, thus showing how well they understood the nature of the substance and demonstrating their ability to produce it from the native ore. The com- paratively limited amount in their possession indicated that they only utilized surface croppings, and this fully explains the absence of any signs of former mining opera- tions on the ledges. When Captain Meares visited the same locality a few years later, he was equally astonished at their familiarity with these metals. He tells us that the Indians manufactured tools of the iron obtained from him in trading ; and that it was seldom they could be prevailed upon to use European tools or utensils in preference to their own, with the exception of the saw, the utility and labor-saving value of which they at once recognized. They made a tool for the purpose of hollowing out large trees, which answered the purpose better than any instrument possessed by the ship's carpenter. For an anvil they employed a flat stone and a round one did duty as a sledge; and with these implements they fashioned the red hot iron at will, attaching to the tools or weapons when desired a wooden handle, fastened securely with cords of sinew. What little brass they possessed may have been procured from the Spanish vessels which had visited them a few years before. In this connection the legend re- lated to Meares, explaining the origin of their knowledge of copper, will be interesting. The fact that there existed a legend on the subject is sufficient evidence of the length of time the use of copper had been familiar to them. Meares says: "On expressing our wish to be informed by what means they became acquainted with copper, and why it was such a peculiar object of their admiration, a son of Hannapa, one of the Noot- kan chiefs, a youth of uncommon sagacity, informed us of all he knew on the subject, and we found, to our surprise, that his story involved a little sketch of their religion. He first placed a certain number of sticks upon the ground, at small distances from each other, to which he gave separate names. Thus, he called the first his father, the next his grandfather ; he then took what remained and threw them all into confusion together, as much as to say that they were the general heap of his ancestors, whom he could not individually reckon. He then, pointing to this bundle, said, when they
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lived an old man entered the sound in a copper canoe, with copper paddles, and every- thing else in his possession of the same metal ; that he paddled along the shore, on which all the people were assembled to contemplate so strange a sight, and that, hav- ing thrown one of his copper paddles on shore, he himself landed. The extraordinary stranger then told the natives that he came from the sky, to which the boy pointed with his hand; that their country would one day be destroyed, when they would all be killed, and rise again to live in the place from whence he came. Our young inter- preter explained this circumstance of his narrative by lying down as if he were dead, and then, rising up suddenly, he imitated the action as if he were soaring through the air. He continued to inform us that the people killed the old man and took his canoe, from which event they derived their fondness for copper, and he added that the images in their houses were intended to represent the form, and perpetuate the mission, of this supernatural person who came from the sky."
Cook's vessels lay in Nootka sound nearly a month, repairing the casualties of the long voyage, laying in a supply of wood and water, and permitting the seamen to recruit their impaired health. They were constantly surrounded by a fleet of canoes, whose occupants came from many miles along the coast for the purpose of trading with the strangers. They had for barter " skins of various animals, such as wolves, foxes, bears, deer, raccoons, polecats, martins, and, in particular, of the sea-otters, which are found at the islands east of Kamtchatka ;" and, he might have added, in great num- bers about the Straits of Fuca. " Besides the skins in their native shape, they also brought garments made of the bark of a tree or some plant like hemp ; weapons, such as bows and arrows, and spears ; fish-hooks and instruments of various kinds; wooden visors of many monstrous figures ; a sort of woolen stuff or blanketing ; bags filled with red ochre ; pieces of carved rock ; beads and several other little ornaments of thin brass and iron, shaped like a horseshoe, which they hung at their noses ; and several chisels, or pieces of iron fixed to handles. * * Their eagerness to possess iron and brass, and, indeed, any kind of metal, was so great that few of them could resist the temptation to steal it whenever an opportunity offered."
About the last of April Cook sailed out of Nootka sound and resumed his explor- ations northward. His next object was to look for the Rio de los Reyes of Admiral Fonte, but a violent wind drove him to sea and prevented him from viewing the coast about the 53d parallel. " For my own part," he says, " I gave no credit to such vague and improbable stories, that convey their own confutation along with them ; neverthe- less, I was very desirous of keeping the American coast aboard, in order to clear up this point beyond dispute." He next saw land near the 55th parallel on the first of May, and soon after passed the beautiful mountain called San Jacinto by Bodega, but upon which he bestowed the title Mount Edgecumb ; and a little later he observed and named Mount Fairweather, on the mainland. Cook had now entered the region ex- plored by the Russians, with whose voyages he was somewhat familiar, and consequently it was no surprise to him, but an expected gratification, when his eyes rested upon a giant, snow-mantled peak which he at once recognized as the Mount St. Elias described by Behring. This icy monarch is upwards of 17,000 feet in altitude, the highest and grandest peak of the North American continent
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Mount St. Elias was seen on the fourth of May, 1778; and from its base the shore line was seen to trend sharply to the west ; which fact induced Cook to begin.at that point his search for the Straits of Anian, hoping soon to find a passage which would lead him eastward into Hudson's bay or Baffin's bay, or northward into the great North sea spoken of by Maldonado and seen by Hearne. Russian maps of this region, copies of which he possessed, showed the whole space between Kamtchatka and Mount St. Elias to be an ocean thickly strewn with islands, the largest of which was called Aliaska, so that he had good authority for his belief in a passage into the North sea. He sailed westward, and then southwestward to the latitude 54} degrees, minutely examining all the bays, inlets and islands encountered, especially Prince William's sound and Cook's inlet, the latter of which he probably conceived to be the entrance to a river since he named it Cook's river. Nowhere could he observe an opening through the white chain of mountains, and he became satisfied that the American continent "extended much further to the west than, from the modern most reputable charts, he had reason to expect," and that the Russians were erroneous in their idea that the region west and northwest of Mount St. Elias was but a sea of islands. The result was that he abandoned the hope of finding a passage into either Hudson's or Baffin's bay, and resolved to see how far west the continent extended and to sail into the North sea through the passage discovered by Behring just fifty years before. He therefore sailed southwesterly, and on the nineteenth of June fell in with a number of islands which he recognized as the Schumagim group, and where he saw the first evi- dences of the presence of Russians at any time in those waters, in the form of a piece of paper in the possession of the natives, upon which was written something in a for- eign language which he supposed to be Russian. He soon after passed the extremity of the Alaskan peninsula and the islands which seemed an extension of it, and doubling this turned again eastward, soon reaching the large island of Ounalaska, which Russian accounts had frequently mentioned as an important station in their fur trade.
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