History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848, Part 6

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Victor, Mrs. Frances Auretta Fuller Barrett, 1826-1902
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: San Francisco : The History Co.
Number of Pages: 850

USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848 > Part 6

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Haven

New Years

100

CARVER'S MAP.

without being sure that any river flowed there. On their subsequent maps in 1791-2, after the river had been visited, it was put down as Rio de la Columbia. It is clear, then, that the name Oregon had not been applied to the country by any navigator up to that time, nor for a long time afterward. The word does not occur in Lewis and Clarke's journal, though it is found in Jefferson's instructions to Lewis, but not with reference to the river. It is not in any work published in the United States or England previous to the year 1811, the first year of American settlement, with one exception; that exception is the book of travels by Carver first mentioned, and which was published in London in 1778. It comes in thus: 'From the intelligence I gained from the Naudowessie Indians, among whom I arrived on the 7th of December,

120

Assiniboils

.Ft.

Str.Antan

Aguilar

Pike L.

CARVER AND BRYANT.

and whose language I perfectly acquired during a residence of seven months; and also from the accounts I afterward obtained from the Assinipoils, who speak the same tongue, being a revolted band of the Naudowessies; and from the Killistinoes, neighbours of the Assinipoils, who speak the Chipéway language, and inhabit the heads of the River Bourbon ;- I say, from these nations, together with my own observations, I have learned that the four most capital rivers on the Continent of North America, viz., the St Lawrence, the Mississippi, the River Bourbon, and the Oregon, or the River of the West, have their sources in the same neighborhood. The waters of the three former are within thirty miles of each other; the latter, however, is rather farther west.'

There is a happy audacity in Carver's statements, whether or not he in- tended to deceive, common to discoverers and geographers of that day. On his map he has the Heads of the Origan put down in latitude 47º, longi- tude 97°, and in the immediate vicinity of the head-waters of the upper Mississippi. Meantime, and doubtless while his map was being engraved, he received reports of the discoveries and movements of the Russians in the Pacific, who had been active during the years intervening between 1766 and 1778, the latter being the date of publication of Carver's book in London. On a map of 1768 by Jefferys the name River of the West 'according to the Russian maps' is shown. In the very year of the publication of Carver's narrative Cook was making his famous voyage along the Northwest Coast, and a general interest was felt among the maritime powers as to the results of any expedition of discovery. Enough had come to Carver's ears to make him place in the text of his book, though it was too much trouble to do so on the map, the sources of the Origan 'rather farther west,' and to add to his imaginary stream the secondary name of River of the West.

His assertion that four of the greatest rivers of the continent rose within thirty miles of each other, though pointing toward truth, was purely specula- tive. It was the fashion in those days to array speculation in positive forms. Also when he said, 'This shows that these parts are the highest lands in North America,' he meant those lands where he was, about the head of the Mississippi; therefore, if any such river as Origan existed, it rose there, in that neighborhood. The partial discovery of the Russians, and other rumors, led him to identify it with the River of the West; and the discovery made subsequently that there is a point on the continent where three great rivers head near together gave a weight to the former supposition which it did not merit.

The first American writer, after Carver, to make use of the word Oregon seems to have been the poet Bryant, in 1817. Struck with the poetical images suggested to his youthful mind by reading Carver's narrative, and knowing just enough of the country, from the reports of ship-masters and rumors of the hasty government expedition of 1804-6, to fire his imagination, he seized upon the word that fitted best his metre, and in his Thanatopsis made that word immortal. The popularity of Bryant's verse both at home and abroad fixed it in the public mind. Its adoption as the name of the territory drained by the River Oregon I am inclined to ascribe to the man who claims it, Hall

OREGON IN 1834.

J. Kelley, the evidence being in his favor, and no adverse claimant appear- ing. As stated in his History of the Settlement of Oregon, he was the first to make that application familiar to the public mind, while previous to his writings and correspondence the country was known as the 'Northwest Territory,' 'Columbia River,' or ' River Oregon.' About the time that Kelley was laboring to raise a company for Oregon, and importuning Congress and the cabinet members for aid, there are frequent allusions to the subject in Niles' Register, xl. 407; xli. 285; and xlii. 82 and 388. He, too, was looking

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MACKENZIE'S MAP.

for its origin, and says: 'Oregon, the Indian name of this river, was traced by me to a large river called Orjon in Chinese Tartary, whose latitude corresponds with that of Oregon in America. The word Killamucks, the name of the tribe a little south of the outlet of the Oregon, was also traced to a people called Kilmuchs, who anciently lived near the mouth of the Orjon in Asia.' This coincidence, however, does not account for the manner in which Carver obtained it; for he did not obtain it upon the shores of the Pacific, but about the head-waters of the Mississippi. Kelley, in his anxiety to prove his assertions, states, without other evidence than a reference to the ' Marine Archives of Madrid,' that Cuadra, a Spanish captain in the service of the viceroy of Mexico in 1792, and who in that year was at Nootka with Captain Vancouver of the British exploring squadron, and captains Gray and Ingra- ham of the American trading fleet in the Pacific, 'called this river Oregon.' The reference to a manuscript in the archives of Madrid must have been for

Tacoutche Tesse OF

GLOUALCUSS GENEES

KELLEY AND HUMBOLDT.

display, since neither Kelley nor his readers could have had access to it without journeying across the Atlantic, and it is extremely doubtful if he had ever seen anything like it; though he may have believed, in the confused state of his intellect, that such a fact had been communicated to him.

In another place he remarks: 'After surveying the mouth of the Colum- bia I supposed the word Orejon to be of Portuguese derivation-Orejon, a fort. It seemed an appropriate name; the entrance of the river being well fortified by nature.' He also refers to the fact that Humboldt speaks of 'le mot Indian Origan,' and says, 'Humboldt was a particular observer and correct writer, and would not have called this word Indian without good authority.' But this is a statement as disingenuous as the first. In referring to Gray's

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COOKE'S MAP.

discovery of the Columbia River in 1792, Humboldt adds a note, wherein he mentions a doubt thrown by Malte-Brun upon the identity of the Columbia with the Tacoutché-Tessé, or Oregan of Mackenzie, which illustrates how far great men may sometimes wander from the truth. Mackenzie in 1793, after the discovery and naming of the Columbia, having come overland from Canada, discovered a river, the Fraser, which he hoped and believed was the Columbia, and which in his narrative he calls by that name, alternately using 'Tacoutche Tesse ' and 'Great River' in his book; and having 'Tacoutche Tesse, or Co- lumbia River,' engraved on his map. But that Mackenzie calls any river the Origan, or Oregon, is not true.

Humboldt's criticism on an unknown geographer, however, furnishes a key to the manner in which a merely speculative idea became perpetuated through a mistake in map-engraving, when he goes on to say that he does not know whether the Origan enters into the lake placed in 39° to 41º north latitude, or pierces the mountain chain to enter some little bay between Bodega and Cape Orford; but that he objects to the attempt of a geographer, ordinarily learned and prudent, to identify Orégan with Origen, a name which the above- mentioned geographer erroneously believes to have been placed on the map of Antonio Alzate, Geog. Math. et Physique et Politique, tom. xv. 116-17; and he further explains that Alzate had placed the words ' cuyo origen se ignora ' near the junction of the Gila and the Colorado, and that the words being separated by the engraver, the geographer whom he is criticising, not under-

OREGON IN 1834.

standing the Spanish language, and seeing the word Origen, and probably having read Carver's book, jumps to the conclusion that this is the Origan, and so represents it, to which Humboldt very properly takes exception, in the language so disingenuously quoted by Kelley. He has confounded the Spanish word Origen with 'le mot Indien Origan.' But Humboldt calls it an Indian word because he has been so told by Carver and those who copied him; hence his mistake; the Indian word resembling it in the countries explored by Humboldt being, as already mentioned, 'huracan.' On a map contained in Cooke's Universal Geography, printed in London, without date, but from the names upon it not existing before Vancouver's surveys, we may infer the time of its publication, the Columbia is represented as rising near

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PAYNE'S MAP.

the Mississippi, and running nearly due west to the Pacific Ocean; it is called River of the West near its mouth, and River Oregon where it rises. In a similar work by Jolin Payne, New York, 1799, the River of the West is made to debouch into the strait of Juan de Fuca, while the name Oregon appears on the head, which is far east of the lead of the Missouri. Both are evidently borrowed from Carver.

Greenhow thinks the word was invented by Carver. He says: 'On leav- ing the river, Gray gave it the name of his ship, the Columbia, which it still bears; though attempts are made to fix upon it that of Oregon, on the strength of accounts which Carver pretended to have collected, in 1766, among the Indians of the upper Mississippi, respecting a River Oregon, rising near Lake Superior, and emptying into the Strait of Anian.'

Thus have I given in detail all that is known concerning the name and the naming of Oregon, from which it appears clear to my mind that the word came from Carver through Bryant and Kelley. How Carver obtained it --- whether with him it was pure fiction, vagary, caprice, or the embodiment of a fancied sound-we shall never know. That any natives of America ever em- ployed the word for any purpose there is no evidence. Out of some Indian word or words, or parts of words, perhaps, Carver made a name for that yet unseen river, flowing into that mystical and mythical strait which had been the dream of discoverers for over two hundred years, and for which they had

R. Mississippi

FURTHER AUTHORITIES.

not ceased to look when his book was published. Therefore the summing of the evidence would read-Oregon, invented by Carver, made famous by Bry- ant, and fastened upon the Columbia River territory, first by Kelley, through his memorials to Congress and numerous published writings, begun as early as 1817; and secondly, by other English and American authors, who adopted it from the three sources here given.

The authorities consulted on this subject are, Carver's Travels, 16; School- rruft's Arch., ii. 37, 490-1, 495; Id., v. 708; Mackenzie's Voyages, 369; Hum- boldt's Essai Pol., i. 14, 342-4; Malte-Brun, Précis Géog., vi. 314; Greenhow's Or. and Cal., 142-5; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Popol Vuh., 8; Twiss' Oreyon Question, 15-17; Ethnog. Jour., vi. 1871; Kelley's Settlements of Oregon, 88; Ross' Adventures, 5; Historical Magazine, i. 246-328; Davidson's Coast Pilot, 126, 154; Strong's Hist. Oregon, MS., 23; U. S. Govt. Doc., 25th Cong., 3d Sexs., H. Rept., no. 101, 6-7; Pajaro Times, May 6, 1865; Brown's Willamette Valley, MS., 11-12; Benicia Tribune, Dec. 13, 1873; Grover's Pub. Life, MS., 15-19; Trans. Oregon Pioneer Assoc., 1875, 67; American Register for 1808, 138; Blagdon's Modern Geographer, 63-5, 392; Howard Quarterly, i. 70; Califor- nia Farmer, Aug. 7, 1874; Portland Bulletin, Aug. 10, 1872; Eugene City Guard, Aug. 20, 1874; Pac. R. R. Report, ii. 18; Nouvelles An. des Toy., xiv. 53; Benton's Debates, viii. 188; Sturgis' Oregon, 8; Burton's City of the Saints, 210; Cath. Almanac, in Smet's Missions, 15-16; Robertson's Right and Title to Oregon, 179; Salem Farmer, Aug. 10, 1872; Bigland's World, v. 510; Murphy's Oregon Dir., 1873, 30; San Francisco Bulletin, Sept. 19 and 24, 1863; Portland Oregonian, Sept. 15, 1863.

CHAPTER II.

LIFE AT FORT VANCOUVER. 1825-1846.

MARRIAGE RELATIONS - FIDELITY -- SOCIAL CONDITIONS - McLOUGHLIN -- DOUGLAS -PETER SKEEN OGDEN - ERMATINGER - THOMAS MCKAY- DUNCAN FINLAYSON-GAIRDNER AND TOLMIE-PAMBRUN-MCKINLAY- BLACK-RAE-McLOUGHLIN JUNIOR-LEWES-DUNN-ROBERTS-BAR- CLAY-MANSON-MCLEOD-BIRNIE, GRANT, McBEAN, MCDONALD, MAX- WELL, BALLENDEN, AND McTAVISH-PATRIOTS AND LIBERALS-ATTITUDE TOWARD THE SETTLERS-THE BLESSED BEAVERS.

So long and so conspicuously before the world stood the metropolitan post of the Pacific, so unique was its position, and so mighty its influence on the settle- ment and occupation of Oregon, that although I have often briefly noticed the place and its occupants, a closer scrutiny, and further familiarity with its inner life and the characters of its occupants, seem not undesirable or uninteresting at this juncture.

Up to August 1836, Fort Vancouver was a bachelor establishment in character and feeling, if not in fact. The native women who held the relation of wives to the officers of the company were in no sense equal to their station; and this feature of domestic life in Oregon was not a pleasing one. It was with the com- pany a matter of business, but with the individuals it was something different. To be forever debarred from the society of intelligent women of their own race; to become the fathers of half-breed children, with no prospect of transmitting their names to posterity with increasing dignity, as is every right-minded man's de- sire ; to accumulate fortunes to be devoted to anything

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WIVES AND CHILDREN.

but ennoblement-such was the present life and the visible future of these gentlemen. The connection was so evidently and purely a business one that, as I have before stated, the native wives and children were ex- cluded from the officers' table, and from social inter- course with visitors, living retired in apartments of their own, and keeping separate tables.1

Not to be degraded by conditions so anomalous pre- supposes a character of more than ordinary strength and loftiness; and this, a close scrutiny of the lives of the principal officers of the company in Oregon will show. But if there was present no higher motive,

" The familics lived separate and in private entirely. Gentlemen who came trading to the fort never saw the family. 'We never saw anybody.' Harrey's Life of McLoughlin, MS., 13. The statement of Mrs Eloise McLoughlin Rae Harvey has been of great use in determining many points of the history of those early times. Ross Cox, in his gossipy book, Adventures on the Columbia River, ii. 343-4, says: "the half-breed women are excellent wives and mothers, and instances of improper conduet are rare among them. They are very expert at the needle, and make coats, trousers, vests, gowns, shirts, shoes, etc., in a manner that would astonish our English fashioners. They are kept in great subjection by their respective lords, to whom they are slav- ishly submissive. They are not allowed to sit at the same table, or indeed at any table, for they still continue the savage fashion of squatting on the ground at their meals, at which their fingers supply the place of forks. The propri- etors generally send their sons to Canada or England for education. They have a wonderful aptitude for learning, and in a short time attain a facility in writing and speaking both French and English that is quite astonishing. 'Their manners are naturally and unaffectedly polite, and their conversation displays a degree of pure, easy, yet impassioned eloquence seldom heard in the most refined societies.' 'This is a somewhat superficial view. The quick- ness in the children is true enough, but the paternal name soon disappears. The daughters often marry whites, the sons seldom. Says another writer: ' Many of the officers of the company marry half-breed women. These dis- charge their several duties of wife and mother with fidelity, cleverness, and attention. They are in general good housewives; and are remarkably ingenious as needle-women. Many of them, besides possessing a knowledge of English, speak French correctly, and possess other accomplishments; and they some- times attend their husbands on their distant and tedious journeys and voyages. These half-breed women are of a superior class, being the daughters of chief traders and factors, and other persons high in the company's service, by In- ‹lian women, of a superior descent or of superior personal attractions. Though they generally dress after the English fashion, according as they see it used by the English wives of the superior officers, yet they retain one peculiarity -the leggin or gaiter, which is made, now that the tanned deerskin has been superseded, of the finest and most gaudy-colored cloth, beautifully ornamented with beads.' Dum's Oregon Territory, 147-8. This seems to be an eastern view presented second-hand by the author. Before 1842 or 1843 there was not a white wife of a Hudson's Bay officer in Oregon to be imitated. About that time George B. Roberts, who had been on a visit to England, brought to Fort Vancouver the only white woman ever at home within its walls. She died in 1850 at the Cowlitz farm.

LIFE AT FORT VANCOUVER.

they were compelled to a life of comparative virtue by way of example to their subordinates. He who respected not his own marriage relations, or those of others, must suffer for it, either by incurring the wrath of the company,2 or the vengeance of the na- tives, or both. Licentiousness could not be tolerated, and this was one reason why, with so many discordant elements in the service, such perfect order was main- tained. And this discipline was as rigidly enforced outside the fort as within it.3

Notwithstanding the conjugal relations here de- scribed, society at Fort Vancouver embraced many happy elements, and numbered among its members men who would have graced a court.

Foremost among these, we may be sure, was John McLoughlin, always a pleasing character to contem- plate. On the consolidation of the Northwest and Hudson's Bay fur companies, he had been sent to

2 There is a story in Cox's Columbia River, 345, in which is given an in- stance of the seduction by one trader of another's wife; but it resulted in the seducer quitting the company's service, and the discarding of the unfaith- ful mistress. Cox also tells us that when a trader wished to separate from his Indian wife he generally allowed her an annuity, or married her comfort- ably to one of the voyageurs, who for a dowry was glad to become the hus- band of la dame d'un bourgeois. A retired partner, thus disembarrassed, on arriving in Canada was soon an object of interest to the ladies of Montreal and Quebec, where he was met by numerous hospitable invitations, and where, in short, he soon was able to marry a wife to his taste. More often, however, when the period he had fixed upon for quitting the Indian country arrives, he finds the woman who had been for many years a faithful partner cannot in a moment be whistled off and 'let down the wind to prey at fortune.' Children have grown up about him; the natural affection of the father de- spises the laws of civilized society, the patriot sinks in the parent, and in most cases the temporary liaison ends in a permanent union. See Hist. North- west Coast, and Hist. Brit. Col., this series.

3 In the spring a clerk who understood the country would go with the trappers, and whatever that clerk said, the others had to do. They were all free, but at the same time they had to come under the control of that one man. They had their by-laws, which were enforced. 'If they did anything wrong, it was reported to the company, and they would be punished accord- ingly. 'They all had Indian women, never more than one. Old Doctor Mc- Loughlin would hang them if they had more than one.' Matthieu's Refugee, MS., 17. Saint-Amant asserted that the company's policy of recompensing agents without imposing sacrifices, of maintaining the Indians in absolute dependence with the aid of the Canadians, and of creating more consumers, caused them to favor marriages of subalterns, especially those who had some means, with Indians, and to grant them lands along the Willamette, Cowlitz, and Nisqually.

JOHN MCLOUGHLIN.

Oregon as chief factor and virtual governor of the great Northwest. He was born in the city of Que- bec, of Irish parentage,4 in 1784, and educated in Paris for the profession of medicine. He entered the Northwest Company at an early age, and while in their service was stationed at several posts, and finally at Fort Frances, on Lake of the Woods, from which station he was transferred in 1824 to the Columbia River.

Finding Fort George unsuitable for a permanent establishment, such as he desired, he founded Fort Vancouver in 1824-5, leaving the old post at the mouth of the river in charge of Donald Manson. The selection of the new site was fortunate; prosperity reigned, and the days at Fort Vancouver were of the pleasantest in the early annals of the Northwest Coast. Here he held sway for many years, absolute monarch of the district of the Columbia, comprising all the Hudson's Bay trapping-grounds west of the Rocky Mountains, and extending as far south and north as the trapping parties ventured to penetrate.5

Of McLoughlin's personal appearance almost every visitor who came to Fort Vancouver has left a sketch. All agree in representing him as of commanding presence, partly the effect of a tall, well-formed per- son, somewhat inclined to stoutness, flowing white hair, and a benevolent expression of countenance. He seems to have become gray early in life, for he was only thirty-nine when he came to Oregon. To

' See Hist. Brit. Col., chap. xvii., this series. Howison, Rept. on Coast, 12, affirms that McLoughlin is of Irish parentage; and Jesse Applegate, in his Views of History, MS., 27, says the same; but George T. Allan, who was for many years at Fort Vancouver, and should be good authority on this point, says he was Scotch. 'I am not sure but his grandfather emigrated to Canada. The doctor, though a true Canadian, used to tell anecdotes of old Scotland, possibly furnished by his grandfather. One I remember, of a certain High- land chief who was in the habit of carrying a yellow cane, and of drumming the unwilling of his clan to church with it, so that the faith of that tribe came to be called the religion of the yellow stick.' Allan's Reminiscencex, MS., 5.

5 McLoughlin was called 'governor' by courtesy, but he had no right to the title. Sir John H. Pelly was the governor in England, and Sir George Simpson the resident governor. Roberts' Recollections, MS., 78.

LIFE AT FORT VANCOUVER.

this fine personal appearance he added courtly man- ners, and great affability in conversation. With the air of one monarch-born, he was fitted to govern men both by awe and love. Such was the autocrat of the Columbia when he first became known to American traders, missionaries, and settlers. White men and red alike revered him.6

He prevented wars, upheld right and justice, and ruled with a strong, firm hand. Perhaps there is no more difficult office to fill than that of sole arbiter, not only by reason of the numerous cares attending it, but because the struggle of a single will to maintain the mastery of the many requires a great expenditure of mental force. Absolute monarchs must be strict disciplinarians; to relax in the least is to encourage a freedom fatal to their influence. McLoughlin pos- sessed and acted on this knowledge; and like other potentates, acquired a certain quickness of temper that made him the terror of evil-doers, from the trader to the ploughboy.7

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History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848, Part 6

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Victor, Mrs. Frances Auretta Fuller Barrett, 1826-1902 Publication date: 1886 Publisher: San Francisco : The History Co. Number of Pages: 850

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Victor, Mrs. Frances Auretta Fuller Barrett, 1826-1902
Publication date: 1886
Publisher: San Francisco : The History Co.
Number of Pages: 850