Joaquin (hō-ä-kēn'). CHAPTER XVIII. OREGON AND CALIFORNIA. El Dorado (do-rä'do) = The Golden America, supposed to be the richest spot in the world. Laramie (lăr'å-mē). 162. Boundary Disputes. - Texas was the last slave State added to the Union. The tide of emigration was moving steadily north westward. In 1846 Iowa was admitted into the Union, and in 1848 Wisconsin.' While the representatives of the people in Congress were struggling with the question of free or slave territory, the people themselves were rapidly increasing the influence of the free States. The limit of the country on the north was the boundary line which separated the United States from the British possessions. When a treaty of peace was made after the war for independence, this northern boundary was made to run from the St. Croix River to the Mississippi. The St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes marked most of the boundary, but for a part of the way there was only an imaginary line which never had been laid down in a survey. Thus there was a large tract of country which was claimed by the inhabitants of Maine and by those of Canada. The dispute ran high, and sometimes led to petty warfare, which threatened, at one time, to bring the two nations into open war. In 1842 1 Both of these States made generous provision for education. They stand among the most eminent in carrying out the policy, dominant in the West, by which constitutional provision is made for a system including schools of all grades, from common schools to the university. the English government sent Lord Ashburton as special commissioner to settle the dispute; and he, with Mr. Webster, who was Secretary of State, agreeing upon a compromise, established the northeastern boundary as it now stands. The Spanish Claims on the Pacific. The territory west of the line of Mississippi had originally been claimed by Great Britain and by France. The dividing line west to the Rocky Mountains was on the forty-ninth parallel. When the great struggle between England and France was ended in 1763, France ceded to England all her territory east of the Mississippi, and by a secret treaty to Spain all that she claimed west of that river. When, therefore, in 1800, Spain ceded back to France what she had received in 1763, the United States in 1803 bought the same of France, the boundary continued to be the forty-ninth parallel on the north, and the Rocky Mountains on the west. But Spain still claimed the Pacific coast as far north as 54° 40'. She then held Mexico and California, and her vessels sailed up and down, trading with the natives. England, on the other hand, claimed on the Pacific coast as far south as the forty-second parallel, which was the northern boundary of California. When Spain sold Florida to the United States, in 1819, she also relinquished all claim to the country north of the forty-second parallel, and west of the Rocky Mountains. 163. The Oregon Country. Whatever claim, therefore, Spain. once had to that country, the United States now received from Spain. It was bounded on the north by the parallel of 54° 40', on the south by the parallel of 42°, and lay between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It went by the name of Oregon, and included the present States of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and part of Montana, as well as part of British Columbia. The United States rested its claim to this territory on other grounds. In 1792 Captain Robert Gray, of Boston, discovered and partly explored the river which he named, after his vessel, the Columbia. According to usage, the country drained by the river became the possession of the nation to which the discoverer belonged. Lewis and Clarke also had followed the Columbia down from its source in the mountains; and after their return, John Jacob Astor, a New York fur merchant, sent out a company, and established near the mouth of the river a trading post, to which the name Astoria was given. On the other hand, the Hudson Bay Company of England, which controlled the great west of Canada, had posts at the mouth of Fraser's River and along the mountain passes. 2 Joint Occupation of Oregon. After the second war with England, when both countries claimed this region, it was agreed in 1818 that they should hold it jointly for ten years. The Hudson Bay Company, which was fully equipped for the fur trade, increased its stations. At the end of the ten years it seemed to have almost entire possession. In 1827, when the ten years were near an end, it was agreed to continue the joint occupation until notice of its termination should be given by one nation or the other. When this agreement was thus renewed, St. Louis was the great center of the fur trade of the West. Expeditions from that point into the disputed territory, soon became common. The hunters brought back word of the fine farming and grazing lands they had seen, and parties of emigrants began to make their way in that direction. The Hudson Bay Company put every possible obstacle in the way of immigration. They wished to keep the country for trapping and hunting; if settlements were made, that would be the end of their business. They managed to create the impression in the United States that the Rocky Mountains could not be crossed by wagons, and that the country on the other side was a barren wilderness. 9 164. Whitman's Ride. In 1836, a company of missionaries was sent out from the Eastern States to the Oregon Indians. One of them, Dr. Marcus Whitman, was a man of great energy 1 See Washington Irving's Astoria. 2 This company received its charter in 1670. An interesting account of its operations may be read in The Great Lone Land. and foresight. He saw that it was practicable for emigrant trains / to cross the mountains by good passes, and he knew that if he could make this generally known, the people of the United States would soon occupy the country. Now when Lord Ashburton came, in 1842, to settle with Mr. Webster the boundary line between the British possessions and the United States, the Hudson Bay Company had succeeded in keeping out almost all American immigrants. They had laid their plans also to bring in English settlers from the Red River country so as to strengthen the British claim to all Oregon. In October of that year, Dr. Whitman was at one of the company's posts when the news came that a large body of English settlers was at hand. He saw at once what this meant. With only a few hours' preparation, he set off on horseback, determined to go to Washington. He meant to tell Mr. Webster how possible it was for the United States to occupy Oregon, and thus prevent him from making any treaty which should surrender that country. It was a terrible ride. With a companion and a guide he left the neighborhood of what is now Walla Walla, October 3, 1842. Exactly three months afterward he was at Santa Fé, having braved the snow and ice and wintry blasts of an almost trackless region. He pushed on to St. Louis, and thence to Washington. There he found that the treaty had been signed, but that Oregon had been left out of the settlement altogether. A Boundary Compromise. Dr. Whitman's errand was to make clear to the administration at Washington the value of Oregon, and then to organize companies of emigrants. He did both. In the following summer he carried a great body of settlers over the mountains, and at the close of 1844 there were three thousand Americans within Oregon. The people were fast deciding the question. Congress now took up the matter in earnest. There were some who called loudly for the whole country, and raised the cry of "Fifty-four forty or fight," meaning that the parallel of 54° 40' must be made the northern boundary. The wiser men were ready to compromise, and a treaty was made with Great Britain in 1846, by which the forty-ninth parallel was made the dividing line west of the Rocky Mountains.1 165. The California Pioneers. - In the same year that California became United States territory, gold was discovered in the valley of the Sacramento River, at the mills of 1848. Colonel Sutter, a Swiss immigrant; and a very hasty exploration showed that there was a great deposit of the precious metal. The news spread all over the world, and immediately there followed a rush to the gold region. The great body of the immigrants was at first made up of men only, who came chiefly from the Northern States of the Union. 2 There were three modes of reaching California: by ship round Cape Horn; by ship to Panama, thence across the isthmus, and again by ship; and finally by the overland route. In two years there were a hundred thousand inhabitants in the valleys of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. The splendid harbor of San Francisco gave shelter to vessels which came from all parts of the world. The town of San Francisco, which in 1840 had only five hundred inhabitants, now sprang into a city. At first California was regarded as an El Dorado. It was occupied by a restless population searching for gold; but the needs of the new country quickly attracted merchants, while the fruitful valleys induced farmers to settle. Many who had come to dig for gold found it more profitable to engage in business or agriculture. The overland route to California was a perilous one. Beyond the settled country lay the "plains," a hundred days' journey from the California valleys. Great herds of buffalo were found on these plains, and were hunted by roving tribes of Indians. In 1848 Fort Laramie, in what is now Wyoming, was the extreme western limit of population. 1 For Whitman's ride and the early history of the Oregon country see Barrows's Oregon in American Commonwealths. 2 Dana's Two Years Before the Mast is a notable account of such a voyage, and contains also an interesting picture of San Francisco before the discovery of gold. |