THE QUARTERLY
OF THE
OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
VOLUME I] JUNE, 1900 [NUMBER 2
CONTENTS
THE OREGON QUESTION—_Joseph R. Wilson_ 111
OUR PUBLIC LAND SYSTEM AND ITS RELATION TO EDUCATION IN THE
UNITED STATES—_Frances F. Victor_ 132
GLIMPSES OF LIFE IN EARLY OREGON—_Mrs. William Markland
Molson_ 158
NOT MARJORAM.—THE SPANISH WORD "OREGANO" NOT THE ORIGINAL
OF OREGON—_H. W. Scott_ 165
REMINISCENCES OF LOUIS LABONTE—_H. S. Lyman_ 169
DR. ELLIOTT COUES—_Frances F. Victor_ 189
DOCUMENT.—A Narrative of Events In Early Oregon ascribed to
Dr. John McLoughlin 193
REVIEWS OF BOOKS.—"McLoughlin and Old Oregon"—_Eva Emery Dye_ 207
"Missionary History of the Pacific Northwest"—_H. K. Hines,
D. D._ 210
NOTE.—A Correction 212
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THE OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY
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VOLUME I.] JUNE, 1900. [NUMBER 2.
THE QUARTERLY
OF THE
OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
THE OREGON QUESTION.
I.
Ascending the Columbia River to the junction of its two main branches,
and each of these branches in turn to its source, a point is reached to
the north well toward the fifty-fifth degree of latitude, and another
point to the south not far from the forty-first degree. Lines drawn
through these two points directly west to the Pacific Ocean would
divide the Pacific Coast of North America approximately into three
great historic divisions. Previous to the year 1792, the coast north
of the fifty-fifth degree had been explored and in some sort settled
by Russia, and the sovereignty of Russia over it recognized; the part
south of the forty-first degree had been explored and settled by Spain,
and the sovereignty of it had been conceded to Spain; the middle part
of the coast having been explored by both Spain and Britain, but
settled by neither, the sovereignty of this was yet in abeyance. If the
lines supposed to be drawn from the utmost north and south sources of
the Columbia to the Pacific now be extended eastward to the crest of
the Rocky Mountains, the territory included between these two lines,
the Pacific Ocean and the crest-line of the Rocky Mountains, will
embrace the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, with a considerable
part of the states of California, Wyoming, and Montana, together with
the greater part of British Columbia. It is the settlement of the
question of sovereignty over the region thus roughly defined that is
the subject of this paper.
During almost the whole period when its sovereignty was in question
this region was commonly known in this country and in Europe as
Oregon, the Oregon Country, or the Oregon Territory, and the question
of its sovereignty as the Oregon Question. The country took its name
from a legendary name of the river that defines it, a name given the
river even before it had been seen by any white man. For many years
previous to 1792 the existence of such a river in this region had been
conjectured by explorers along the coast from signs they had observed
in an indentation in the coast line, and by explorers in the interior
from reports of such a river that reached them through native tribes
supposed to dwell near its sources. It is to Jonathan Carver, a native
of Connecticut, that we owe, as it is still thought, the name Oregon.
In his journal of travels in the regions of the Upper Mississippi he
speaks of four great rivers, flowing in as many directions, which
took their rise, as he had heard from native tribes, somewhere in
the mountains to the west. One of these was, as Carver writes in his
journal, "the river Oregon, or the River of the West, which falls into
the Pacific Ocean." Already, in Carver's day, and before the time of
his travels, maps had appeared with a river marked in the region of
what is now the Columbia, which bore the name, among others, of the
River of the West, or the Great River of the West. Whether Carver
thought of this river as the river of his tradition cannot now be
known, but it is certain that the name which he heard or invented came
before long to be attached to this river for a time at least, and for
all time to the region defined by the river.
At the beginning of the year 1792, the United States had no claim
to the region of the Oregon, but by an event of this year they were
destined to become one of the chief parties to the question of its
sovereignty. This year Capt. Robert Gray, of Boston, was for the second
time on the coast, trading and exploring, under sanction of congress.
At some time during his previous voyage, or in the earlier part of
his second voyage, while sailing close in shore, Gray had discovered
in a bay or indentation of the coast in latitude 46° 10´ what seemed
to him to be the mouth of a large river. Under this impression, he
had remained in the neighborhood nine days, making repeated attempts
to cross the bar and effect an entrance. But every attempt had been
without avail, on account of the violence of the breakers which reached
across the opening; he had been obliged to relinquish the attempt and
sail away, unable at this time to verify his discovery.
Captain Gray had spent the winter of 1791-92 in Clyoquot Sound, on
the west coast of Vancouver Island, with his ship Columbia. Resuming
his voyage in the spring, and sailing southward, on the morning of
April 28, in latitude 47° 37´, he fell in with Captain Vancouver, at
anchor off Destruction Island. In answer to Vancouver's inquiries as
to what discoveries he had made, Gray reported to him his discovery in
latitude 46° 10´ of what he took to be the mouth of a large river. This
Vancouver recognized as the Deception Bay of Captain Meares, which he
had himself passed and examined on the morning of Friday, April 27,
scarcely twenty-four hours before. Of his observations in this bay
Vancouver had at this time made this record: "The sea now changed
from its natural to river-colored water; the probable consequence of
some streams falling into the bay, or into the ocean to the north of
it through the low land. Not considering this opening worthy of more
attention, I continued our pursuits to the northwest, being desirous
to embrace the advantages of the now favorable breeze and pleasant
weather, so favorable to our examination of the coast." Vancouver's
estimate as here given of the importance of this opening is confirmed
by an entry in his journal Monday, April 30, two days after meeting
with Gray. After parting from Vancouver, who continued his course to
the north, Gray sailed on along shore southward, stopping here and
there to examine the coast or trade with the natives, but evidently
keeping in mind the bay which he had taken to be the mouth of a river.
In the log-book of the Columbia, for May 11, there is this entry: "At
4 A. M., saw the entrance of our desired port bearing east-south-east,
distance six leagues; in steering sails, and hauled our wind in shore.
At 8 A. M., being a little to windward of the entrance to the harbor,
bore away, and run in east-north-east, between the breakers. * * * When
we were over the bar we found this to be a large river of fresh water,
up which we steered."
Captain Gray remained in this river for nine days, during which time he
explored it to a distance of thirty miles from the mouth. After filling
the ship's casks with fresh water from the river, on May 20 he sailed
out over the bar, having first given to the river his ship's name, the
Columbia, which name the river has since borne.
From the mouth of the Columbia Gray sailed northward, and a few days
later, having suffered some injury to his ship, put into Nootka Bay
for repairs. Here he found Quadra, the Spanish commandant, to whom he
communicated his discovery, and gave a chart of the mouth of the river.
This title of Gray to be regarded as the discoverer of the Columbia
River was then, by this immediate publication of the discovery, made
secure, and it has never been successfully questioned. The existence
of such a river had long before been conjectured; others, before Gray,
sailing along the coast had remarked the same indentation, had noted
its latitude, and observed signs of fresh water issuing from it; but it
remained for Gray to surmount the obstacles to entrance and actually to
sail in and cast anchor in the river.
It was this discovery of the Columbia River by Robert Gray, a citizen
of the United States, sailing under the American flag, and with the
sanction of congress, that first gave the United States a claim to
the Oregon region. It was not, however, to be the only ground of that
claim. Some years before the discovery of the Columbia by Gray, an
exploration of the Oregon region had been projected by Americans. The
project seems to have originated with Jefferson, and may be regarded
as a fitting prelude to the later achievement by his administration
of the Louisiana Purchase. In the year 1786, six years before Gray's
discovery, while Minister to France, Jefferson became acquainted
with John Ledyard, of Connecticut, who had been with Captain Cook in
his last voyage in the Pacific, and who as corporal of marines had
gained some reputation for enterprise and daring. Ledyard had come to
Paris in search of an opportunity to engage in the fur trade of the
Pacific, and, failing in this, was ready to enlist in almost any other
enterprise of daring. Jefferson suggested to him the exploration of
the northwest region of America. The plan was, as Jefferson himself
gives it, that Ledyard "go by land to Kamchatka, cross in Russian
vessels to Nootka Sound, fall down into the latitude of the Missouri,
and penetrate to and through that to the United States." Jefferson's
proposal was accepted by Ledyard, and steps were at once taken to
secure from the Empress of Russia permission for him to cross her
dominions. Failing to secure permission of the Empress, she being
absent from her capital in a distant part of her dominions, Ledyard,
impatient of longer delay, set out on his own responsibility, and got
to within two hundred miles of Kamchatka, when he was arrested by an
order of the Empress and taken back to Poland, where he was released.
"Thus failed," writes Jefferson, "the first attempt to explore the
western part of our Northern Continent."
The attempt failed, but Jefferson's interest in the exploration of this
region did not die with it. Of a second attempt some years later he
writes: "In 1792, I proposed to the American Philosophical Society that
we should set on foot a subscription to engage some competent person to
explore that region in an opposite direction—that is, by ascending the
Missouri, crossing the Stony Mountains, and descending the nearest river
to the Pacific." This plan too was attempted, but the seriousness of the
projector's purpose was severely tried by the delay of years in raising
the necessary funds. When at last, under the leadership of Captain
Meriwether Lewis, later of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the explorers
were well started on the way, the expedition failed through an order of
the French minister recalling the botanist of the expedition, who was a
citizen of France. "Thus failed," writes Jefferson again, "the second
attempt to explore the Northern Pacific region."
Jefferson's interest in the exploration of the Northwest did not die
with the failure of this second attempt. Delay in raising the necessary
funds for the expedition had brought the setting out of the explorers
down to the eve of an event that placed Jefferson in a position to
further such an enterprise to a successful issue, and of another event
which was to furnish a new motive to its undertaking. Early in the
year 1801, when Jefferson had but just taken his seat as President,
Rufus King, Minister of the United States to England, wrote to Madison,
Secretary of State, that the opinion at that time prevailed both at
Paris and at London that Spain had ceded Louisiana and the Floridas to
France. Immediately on receipt of this information Madison wrote to
Pinckney, American Minister to Spain, advising him of the rumor, and of
the President's urgent wish that he make the whole subject the object
of early and vigilant inquiries. Instructions to the same effect were
given later to Robert R. Livingston on his departure as Minister to
France. After more than a year of persistent inquiry on the part of
both ministers it was ascertained that Louisiana had been transferred
to France, and that the transfer probably included the Floridas.
Uncertainty on the latter point, as we now know, arose from the
uncertainty of the governments of France and Spain as to the limits of
Louisiana. Meanwhile the government at Washington pressed its ministers
at both courts to use every effort to secure to the United States the
Floridas and New Orleans, with the Mississippi as our western boundary,
and the free navigation of the river to its mouth. Events of the latter
part of the year 1802, and especially the Spanish intendant's order
excluding the United States from New Orleans as a place of deposit,
together with France's open preparations for the occupation and
colonization of New Orleans and Lower Louisiana, made the President yet
more urgent in pressing for this end. So far, Jefferson's thought seems
not to have gone beyond the limits of Madison's dispatch to Pinckney
of May 11 of that year, "that every effort and address be employed to
obtain the arrangement by which the territory on the east side of the
Mississippi, including New Orleans, may be ceded to the United States,
and the Mississippi be made a common boundary." The sentiment of the
Atlantic States was at this time strongly averse to the extension of
our territory west of the Mississippi River, and there is nothing
in the government's dispatches up to the close of the year 1802 to
indicate that Jefferson did not share in this sentiment. But there is
that in Jefferson's action shortly after this that shows him to have
been singularly open-minded to the suggestion of events, and to have
been prompt to prepare to avail himself of whatever the rapid movement
of events might offer of advantage to his government.
In October of this year, 1802, in a conversation with Livingston
concerning Louisiana and the Floridas, Joseph Bonaparte put the
question to Livingston pointedly whether the United States preferred
the Floridas to Louisiana. Coming from this source, the question was
felt by Livingston to have significance. Though he shrank from the
thought of such an extension of our territory as the purchase of
Louisiana would involve, he promptly communicated the substance of
the conversation to the government at home, in a letter addressed to
the President in person. This letter dated Paris, October 28, was
due in Washington about the first of January. On the eleventh of
January Jefferson sent a message to the Senate nominating "Robert
R. Livingston to be Minister Plenipotentiary, and James Monroe to
be Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, with full powers to
both jointly, or to either on the death of the other, to enter into a
treaty or convention with the First Consul of France for the purpose
of enlarging and more effectually securing our rights and interests in
the River Mississippi and the territories eastward thereof." Since the
possession of these territories was understood to be still in Spain,
Pinckney and Monroe were nominated with like powers to enter into a
treaty with Spain to the same end. The words with which Jefferson
prefaced this nomination of Monroe as Minister Extraordinary are worthy
of note in this connection, and in view of what presently emerged in
the negotiations in Paris. "While my confidence," writes Jefferson,
"in our Minister Plenipotentiary at Paris is entire and undiminished,
I still think that these objects might be promoted by joining with him
a person sent from hence directly carrying with him the feelings and
sentiments of the nation excited on the late occurrence, impressed by
full communications of all the views we entertain on this interesting
subject, and thus prepared to meet and to improve to an useful result
the counter propositions of the other contracting party, whatsoever
form their interests may give to them, and to secure to us the ultimate
accomplishment of our object."
Whether Jefferson had in mind when he wrote these words any such
"counter proposition" as was afterward actually made, we do not
certainly know, but if he had had such in mind he could hardly have
better provided for its prompt improvement to a useful result.
Meanwhile events in Europe were shaping the suggestion of Joseph
Bonaparte into a formal proposition from the First Consul. The renewal
of hostilities between France and England was now imminent. In the
event of war it was manifest to Napoleon that he would be unable to
hold Louisiana against the sea power of England. Rather than that this
valuable possession should fall into the hands of his enemy he resolved
to sell it, if possible, to the United States, and thus win back the
nation which his policy of colonization had well-nigh alienated, and
at the same time recruit his depleted treasury. Negotiations to this
end were already begun when Monroe arrived in Paris, and were continued
after his arrival with scarcely a halt to their successful and
memorable issue.
A third scheme of Jefferson's for the exploration of the northwestern
region of the continent was coincident with these latter steps that
led to the purchase of Louisiana. The message nominating Monroe as
Minister Extraordinary was sent to the senate, January 11, 1803.
January 18, Jefferson, taking occasion of the expiration of the term
of an act establishing trading houses with the Indian tribes, writes
to the senate on the subject of its renewal. In the course of the
message, having touched upon the fact that the maintenance of such
trading houses by the government deprived certain of our citizens of
a lucrative trade, he suggests for the senate's consideration whether
the government might not rightly do something to encourage such
persons to extend their trade in the regions beyond the Mississippi,
then proceeds to outline a plan for the exploration of a trade-route
up the waters of the Missouri and through to the Western Ocean. "The
interests of commerce," he urges, "place the principal object within
the constitutional powers and care of congress, and that it should
incidentally advance the geographical knowledge of our own continent
cannot but be an additional gratification. The nation claiming the
territory, regarding this as a literary pursuit, which it is in the
habit of permitting within its dominions, would not be disposed to view
it with jealousy, even if the expiring state of its interests there did
not render it a matter of indifference. The appropriation of $2,500
'for the purpose of extending the external commerce of the United
States,' while understood and considered by the executive as giving
the legislative sanction, would cover the undertaking from notice and
prevent the obstructions which interested individuals might otherwise
previously prepare in its way."
Thus skillfully did Jefferson in a confidential message, as a matter
incidental to the main purpose of the message, put before the senate
a well reasoned scheme for the exploration of the territory for the
purchase of which ministers already appointed were soon to negotiate.
One can hardly read this message and weigh its carefully worded terms
in the light of what was already in the knowledge of the President,
without its awakening more than a suspicion that the possibility of
the purchase of Louisiana by the United States was distinctly present
to Jefferson's mind as he wrote, if it did not indeed lend urgency to
his argument. It is worthy of note, at any rate, that the measures
for the carrying out of this proposed scheme of exploration of the
territory kept pace with the progress of the negotiations for its
purchase, and quite outran the business of its transfer; for while the
transfer of Louisiana was not consummated until December of that year,
the commander of the expedition had been selected and commissioned,
and the expedition organized as early as midsummer. Thus closely
joined in time, if not otherwise intimately connected, were these two
measures of Jefferson's earlier administration, the Louisiana purchase
and the Lewis and Clark exploration. The promptness, energy, and
efficiency with which the exploration was carried out under the able
and courageous leadership of the man placed in charge, were altogether
worthy of its distinguished projector. The two stand together, the
purchase and the exploration, as worthy counterparts in what must
forever be regarded as one of the most daring yet at the same time
farsighted projects of statesmanship in American history.
These two measures have been dwelt upon thus at length because of their
material importance to the ultimate settlement of the Oregon Question.
The purchase of Louisiana brought the territory of the United States at
the crest of the Rocky Mountains in contiguity with the Oregon region
through seven degrees of latitude, while the Lewis and Clark expedition
explored a continuous route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific
Ocean, through the very center and by the central artery of the region
in question. These two events together made the second ground of our
claim to the region of the Oregon. Furthermore, they made possible
for the first time that movement of population across our border into
this adjacent and unoccupied territory which by the law of nations was
essential to the validity of our title,—that immigration of American
families upon which, in spite of every earlier attempt at settlement,
the final settlement of the question of sovereignty was destined to wait.
Louisiana had been purchased by the United States from France, or,
rather, from the First Consul, who at the time embodied in himself the
government of France. Spain, however, though by a convention three
years before the sale having agreed to retrocede the territory to
France, had remained in possession almost to the day of its transfer to
our government, so that possession of the territory virtually passed
to the United States immediately from Spain. The transfer left Spain
still with possessions within the present boundaries of the United
States of vast extent and of immense value. East of the Mississippi
were the Floridas, and west of that river was a great region extending
from the ill-defined western boundary of Louisiana westward to the
Pacific. These were conceded possessions of Spain. Besides, Spain was
a claimant, on the grounds of discovery and exploration, of the Oregon
country.
Spain had long claimed exclusive sovereignty over this region, with
the right to forbid the encroachment of other nations, on the ground
that it belonged to that region allotted to her by the bull of Pope
Alexander VI. England had never recognized Spain's claim to exclusive
sovereignty based upon papal authority, but had asserted her right to
settle upon any lands included within the limits prescribed by the
papal bull, even if discovered by Spain, if, after a reasonable time
allowed for settlement had passed, such lands remained unoccupied. This
attitude of England's appeared in her policy as early as the reign of
Elizabeth; it appears in the Queen's reply to the Spanish ambassador
on occasion of his remonstrance against the expedition of Drake, "that
she did not understand why either her subjects, or those of any other
European prince, should be debarred from traffic in the Indies; that
as she did not acknowledge the Spaniards to have any title by donation
of the Bishop of Rome, so she knew no right they had to any places
other than those they were in actual possession of; for that their
having touched only here and there upon a coast, and given names to
a few rivers or capes, were such insignificant things as could in no
way entitle them to a propriety further than in the parts where they
actually settled, and continued to inhabit." This principle, thus early
enunciated, of actual settlement as essential to ultimate validity of
title, is important to note, not only for its bearing against Spanish
pretensions at this time, but because of its ultimate and decisive
effect as against England herself in the settlement of the Oregon
question. The same principle emerged again in 1770, in the affair of
the Falkland Islands, and again still more distinctly ten years later
in the Nootka Convention. The point at issue in each of these cases was
that Britain claimed the right to make settlement upon a part of the
American coast claimed by Spain but remaining unoccupied by her, while
Spain denied this right and asserted her exclusive sovereignty over
all such places. In order to give effect to this claim of exclusive
sovereignty over the Northwest Coast of America, Spain had, within
a few years previous to the Nootka Convention, given orders that the
coasts of Spanish America should be more frequently navigated and
explored, and, in view of the recent encroachment of navigators and
traders of other nations in those parts, her "general orders and
instructions were, not to permit any settlements to be made by other
nations on the continent of Spanish America." It was in carrying out
these orders that the Spanish Commandant Martinez, in the summer
of 1789, finding two British vessels in Nootka Sound, attempting a
settlement there, captured the vessels and broke up the settlement.
In the course of the negotiations that followed on this act of Spain's,
the full extent of the Spanish claims appeared. As given by Count
Nunyez, Spanish Ambassador at Paris, to M. de Montmorin, Secretary of
the Foreign Department of France, June 1, 1790, it was claimed, "that,
by treaties, demarkations, taking of possessions, and the most decided
acts of sovereignty exercised by the Spaniards in those stations from
the reign of Charles II, and authorized by that monarch in 1692, all
the coast to the north of Western America, on the side of the South
Sea, as far as beyond what is called Prince William's Sound, which is
in the sixty-first degree, is acknowledged to belong exclusively to
Spain." Not feeling sufficiently strong in herself to enforce this
claim, and unable to secure the support of allies, Spain yielded this
pretension so far as to make, July 24, 1790, a declaration to Great
Britain in which the King of Spain engaged to make full restitution of
all British vessels which were captured at Nootka, and to indemnify the
parties interested in those vessels for the losses which they should
be found to have sustained. "It being understood," the declaration
concluded, "that this declaration is not to preclude or prejudice
the ulterior discussion of any right which His Majesty may claim to
form an exclusive establishment at the port of Nootka." The same
day the British Minister at Madrid presented a counter declaration
accepting the declaration of the Spanish King as offering "full and
entire satisfaction" for the injury complained of, in which counter
declaration, however, it was added at the same time "that it is to
be understood that neither the said declaration, nor the acceptance
thereof in the name of the King, is to preclude or prejudice, in any
respect, the rights which His Majesty may claim to any establishment
which his subjects may have formed, or should be desirous of forming
in the future, at the said Bay of Nootka." The exchange of this
declaration and counter declaration in July was followed in October
of the same year by the conclusion of the Nootka Convention between
Spain and Great Britain. The third article of this convention is:
"And in order to strengthen the bonds of friendship, and to preserve
in future a perfect harmony and good understanding between the two
contracting parties, it is agreed that their respective subjects shall
not be disturbed or molested, either in navigating or carrying on their
fisheries in the Pacific Ocean, or in the South Seas, or in landing
on the coast of those seas, in places not already occupied, for the
purpose of carrying on their commerce with the natives of the country,
or of making settlements there; the whole subject, nevertheless, to the
restrictions and provisions specified in the following articles."
After all the restrictions of the later articles of this treaty are
taken into view Britain may be regarded as having maintained her
main contention: That she had a right to any establishment which her
subjects might have formed, or shall be desirous of forming in future,
in any unoccupied places on the islands or the coasts of the Pacific
Ocean. The restrictions still left this clear, at least in respect
to the Oregon region. In so far as Britain succeeded in maintaining
in this convention this claim to the right of settlement, in so far
was Spain's claim to absolute sovereignty to this region practically
modified and limited. Unless Spain speedily made good her reserved
right of sovereignty by actual occupation of the region in question,
she must consent henceforth to hold her right of settlement as limited
by a similar right now conceded to Britain. It is at this point in
history, at the Nootka Convention, that the Oregon Question takes
definite form: Whose shall the territory be? Shall it be Spain's? or
shall it be Britain's? or shall it be divided between the two?
The story has already been told of the entrance of the United States
into the question as a third claimant, through Gray's discovery, the
Louisiana Purchase, and the Lewis and Clark expedition. The story of
how the United States succeeded to the modified claim of Spain to the
Oregon region belongs to the sequel of the Louisiana Purchase. The
purchase of Louisiana left the United States with a group of intricate
and delicate questions to settle with Spain, and with Spain in no
mood for a speedy and amicable settlement. The transfer of Louisiana
had not carried with it a clear definition of its boundaries. This
was in part true of its boundary on the east, and especially true
of its western boundary. Almost immediately on the transfer of the
territory negotiations were begun with Spain on questions arising out
of the transfer, or intimately connected with it. Two main objects
of the negotiations on the part of the United States were, to secure
from Spain, by purchase or otherwise, the cession of her remaining
possessions east of the Mississippi, and the settlement of the boundary
of Louisiana to the west. Any question in respect to the Oregon
country seems not at first to have been present to the thought of
either party. Negotiations were begun in 1804, and were continued,
with intervals of interruption, until February 22, 1819, when, by a
convention of that date, the Floridas were ceded by Spain to the United
States, and a boundary line west of the Mississippi agreed upon. This
western boundary line, after striking latitude 42° near the supposed
source of the Arkansas River, was to run west on this parallel to the
Pacific Ocean. Article III of this convention, after particularly
describing this line, concludes: "The two high contracting parties
agree to cede and renounce all their rights, claims, and pretensions
to the territories described by said line: That is to say, the United
States hereby cede to his Catholic Majesty, and renounce forever
all their rights, claims, and pretensions to the territories lying
west and south of the above described line; and, in like manner, his
Catholic Majesty cedes to the United States all his rights, claims,
and pretensions to any territories east and north of the said line;
and for himself, his heirs, and successors renounces all claim to the
said territories forever." Thus the Florida treaty, though making no
mention of the Oregon Territory, incidentally carried with it the
final delimitation of that territory on the south, and the transfer to
the United States of the Spanish claim to Oregon. By this treaty the
earliest claimant to the Oregon Territory ceased longer to be a party
to the question of its sovereignty.
The question of sovereignty was not left to Great Britain and the
United States alone, on the withdrawal of Spain. More than two decades
before, Russia had entered this region with an assertion of her right
to make settlement on unoccupied territory, and recently had grown
somewhat imperious in the tone of her assertion of that right. This
intrusion of Russia followed close upon the Nootka Convention, and was
the logical consequence of the principle for which Great Britain had
secured recognition in that convention. It will be remembered that
Great Britain did not base her right to make, and to have restored to
her, the Nootka settlement so much on priority in discovery of the
region in which the settlement was made, as on the broader principle of
her right to settle in any place by whomsoever discovered, which after
a reasonable time she might find unoccupied. This principle could not
be valid for England alone, and Russia was not long in discovering its
wider validity. After England's previous assertion of this principle,
in the affair of the Falkland Islands, Spain had taken alarm, and had
sent explorers along the Northwest Coast with the intention of making
good her claim to it by the northward extension of her settlements. In
like manner Russia now began to extend her claim into new territory
by availing herself of this same principle. The grant of Emperor Paul
I to the Russian American Company in 1799 gave the company exclusive
possession from latitude 55° northward to the Arctic Sea, with the
right to extend their settlements south of 55°, if they did not thereby
encroach on territories occupied by other powers. In the spring of 1808
the Russian government opened a correspondence with the government
of the United States in relation to what Russia was pleased to term
the illicit traffic of American traders with the natives inhabiting
Russian territories. It appeared in the course of this correspondence
that Russia claimed the coast at this time as far south as the Columbia
River. The right to make settlements, or at least to establish trading
posts, it seems she did not confine to this southern limit, for in
1816, a Russian trading post was established as far south as latitude
38°, in Northern California.
In this later and more aggressive policy of extending her claims
southward, Russia is thought to have been influenced by the publication
in Paris in 1808 of Humboldt's Political Essay on New Spain, in which
such a destiny for Russia had been hinted at. However this may have
been, it is certain that the accounts of Humboldt's travels were
eagerly read by the Russian Emperor, and an increased boldness and
aggressiveness are observable in Russian policy after the publication
of this work.
The extreme of Russia's pretensions in the matter of extension of
territory was reached in 1810, when the subject of the encroachment of
American traders was brought again to the attention of our government.
Mr. Adams, American Minister at St. Petersburg, in reply to the
Russian Minister, suggested that, since it did not appear how far
the Russians stretched their claim southward along the coast, it was
desirable that some latitude be fixed as the limit, and that it should
be advanced as little southward as might be. The answer of Russia
was, that the Russian-American Company claimed the whole coast of
America on the Pacific, and the adjacent islands, from Bering's Strait
southward toward and beyond the mouth of the Columbia River. With this
declaration of Russia's claim negotiations were broken off, and were
not resumed until September, 1821, when Emperor Alexander issued a
ukase, in which he declared all the Northwest Coast of America north of
latitude 51° exclusively Russian, and warned all other nations against
intrusion within those limits. The extent of the territory claimed in
this imperial ukase was less than that of the territory claimed by
Russia in 1810, and in particular the extent of the claim was not so
great southward. Several events had occurred since 1810 to limit the
extent of Russia's claim, though scarcely to modify the imperiousness
of her tone. To this intervening period belong the settlement at
Astoria of the Pacific Fur Company in 1811, the exploration of the
Upper Columbia the same year by David Thompson, an agent of the
Northwest Company, with a view to the extension of the posts of his
company far to the westward; the purchase two years later by the
Northwest Company of the establishment of the Pacific Fur Company at
Astoria, and its transfer a few days later to the British flag with
the change of name to Fort George; the surrender of the fort in 1818
in accordance with the terms of the treaty of Ghent; the extension
westward of the Hudson's Bay Company into this region, and its union in
1821 with its rival, the Northwest Company; and finally the extension
over the settlements of the united companies, by an act of parliament
in the same year, of the jurisdiction of the courts of Upper Canada.
These events had so changed the aspect of affairs on the Columbia at
the time of the Russian Emperor's decree in 1821 as to leave him no
alternative but to resort to the middle line, and drawing a line midway
between the Anglo-American settlement at the mouth of the Columbia and
the southernmost Russian settlement to the north of that river, to stand
for a southern boundary for his possessions at the fifty-first parallel.
This decree, though it withdrew the line of territory claimed thus
far northward, was yet offensive in tone and arbitrary in many of the
regulations it sought to enforce against the citizens of other nations.
Besides, it still encroached upon territory claimed by both Britain
and the United States. Both England and America protested, and opened,
each in her own behalf, negotiations with Russia which resulted in
establishing in 1824 the line of 54° 40´ as the boundary between the
territories claimed by Russia and those claimed by America, and in the
following year the same line, with modifications to the east, as the
boundary between the claims of Russia and those of Britain. These two
conventions may be regarded as the final acts in the delimitation of
the Oregon Territory.
JOSEPH R. WILSON.
(_To be continued._)
OUR PUBLIC LAND SYSTEM AND ITS
RELATION TO EDUCATION IN
THE UNITED STATES.
Local historians seem inclined to overlook some of the most interesting
subjects included under the general term of history. One of these is
the origin of land titles. I do not propose in this article, limited
as to space, to do more than indicate by slight touches the growth of
land titles on the earth, and the steps by which we as a nation became
endowed with the ownership of land in parcels large or small. Further,
the object of this brief review is to fix in the mind of the student of
history, and especially of Oregon history, the connection between land
and educational privileges in his state.
By way of introduction I would put forth the proposition, by no means
original, that God-made things are eternal, and belong to the children
of men equally and forever. Such is man himself. There can be no human
ownership of men except that of brotherhood. The dominion of man
over all other life is for his use only. He cannot claim collective
ownership of any particular genus or species, but only individual
ownership by conquest. Of the great divisions of inanimate nature,
earth, air, and water, individual man cannot own more than he uses,
because they belong equally to all men, and to all living things. For
the needs of these they were created, without preference for races or
single representatives of races.
Men in their primordial condition blindly recognized this principle
as to the earth, and for thousands of years did not become owners of
land in severalty. Divided into tribes they contended with each other
for the possession of certain countries because they were born there,
or because it held the graves of their fathers. To "sleep with their
fathers," or to continue to breathe the air which had borne abroad over
the land the sacred ashes of their ancestors was with them a religion.
The same earth furnished pasturage for the animals upon whose milk
and flesh they subsisted, and nourished the fruits they found most
agreeable. Hence they contended for its use against the covetousness of
other tribes. The long and persistent war carried on by the descendants
of Abraham to regain the land which held his burial place is an example
of the ancient sentiment of ownership in land, a sentiment which we
honor most highly under the name of patriotism. Metes and bounds could
not be closely observed in a pastoral country, neither could they
in a wooded one where game furnished the chief subsistence of the
inhabitants. Everything depended upon the strength and valor of the
predatory and the resisting tribes, and the division of lands acquired
in war was settled, as in this world most things still are settled, by
the most active securing to themselves the most desirable places.
The common desire to save from invasion the country of their birth,
and the necessity of captains in war, led to chieftainship, and
chieftainship led to the accumulation of such wealth as the conquered
lands afforded, whether in flocks and herds, in other subsistence,
or in such personal property as the subjugated nation possessed. War
makes a people nomadic in their habits. The young and the strong were
trained to fight, the feebler remained in such homes as they were able
to maintain in a state of continual dread of the enemy. The cultivation
of the ground at this stage of civilization was as uncertain as it was
unscientific. To the majority the land could have only a sentimental
value; to the higher classes it was a source of income through the
enforced labor of the enslaved class by whose toil they were enabled to
pay their military taxes to petty Kings.
Continental Europe was at this stage of development centuries after
the Christian era, and England long after the crusades. It was in the
eleventh century that the Norman conqueror, William, having fixed
himself upon the English throne, in order to secure the military tax in
its entirety, caused the lands held by the feudal lords to be surveyed,
and a description of them recorded in his Domesday Book. Hitherto lands
were held under grants from barons or lords; but the Conqueror claimed
that, as the representative of the people, he, and he only, could give
a legal title to land, thus indirectly recognizing its ownership by the
people. Under William, all land owners, great and small, were known as
"the King's men," a policy which made the feudal lords his supporters.
In return for their support he gave them offices. An office presupposed
property, and property insured office. The first social effect of this
was to lower men hitherto free, although in time it tended to raise
the condition of the slave class to that of freemen by removing the
distinction between these two classes. But it left a peasantry attached
to the soil with no voice in its disposal. A law of primogeniture
prevented the division of the great estates conferred upon "the King's
men," who could neither sell nor give away their landed property.
How much of the colonizing spirit of Englishmen is due to this
exclusive occupation of England by a class, we might very naturally
inquire. But that is aside from the subject under consideration. It was
my intention to point out that the land system of the United States is
directly descended from the practice of William the Conqueror, whose
policy of binding the most active and influential men of the Kingdom to
his throne by gifts of land was imitated by his successors down to the
period when English subjects began to colonize America.[1]
At the time when Englishmen made this important movement, Spain and
France had already laid claim to extensive tracts of country lying
upon the great rivers debouching into the Gulf of Mexico in a southern
latitude, and into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence in a northern latitude,
which ultimately became possessions of the United States, either by
purchase or treaty, after our war of independence. Between these two
indefinite boundaries the English colonies were located. Wherever the
Englishman went he carried his loyalty to his King and his country's
laws. His presence on the soil of Virginia made it English soil,
conveying to it the sovereignty of England, and the King's right to
confirm to him whatever he had already taken, provided both of them
together could hold it against the native occupants. [2]The grants
from James and Charles I were described in terms more imaginative than
accurate, the "South Sea," or Pacific Ocean, being the western limit
of some of the earliest charters. But when the thirteen commonwealths
on the Atlantic Coast asserted their right and ability to govern
themselves, proving it by the arbitrament of the sword, and securing
a treaty of peace with the mother country, such discoveries had been
made, and so many remained to be made, that it was thought expedient to
adopt the apparently natural boundaries of the United States, namely,
the Saint Lawrence and Great Lakes on the north, the Mississippi on the
west, the Spanish possessions in Florida on the south, and the Atlantic
Ocean on the east.
In 1779, three years after the declaration of independence, and four
years before the treaty of peace, the American Congress recommended
to the several states in the union to make liberal cessions of their
respective claims for the common benefit of the union, including the
state making the cession. Thus early did our government assert the
principle that the lands not held by occupancy belonged to the people
for their use. The people on their side were quite willing to assist
the union, burdened as it was with the debt of the revolutionary war,
and other claims. But the unsettled boundaries of the several states
made it a matter of some difficulty to convey land to the government
in definite measure, some of the older grants, like Massachusetts and
Connecticut, extending "from sea to sea." Disputes had arisen between
the colonies over their boundaries, as when the Dutch had established
New Netherlands on the Hudson River, cutting in two the grant of
Connecticut. It was not until 1733 that the boundary of New York
(formerly New Netherlands), was settled, and Connecticut still claimed
the lands west of New York. From Maine to Georgia there were boundaries
to be settled.