Short History of Oregon Chapter 4

Chapter IV

Relative Claims of Contending Nations in North America

In order to fully understand the various acts of each which led to the discovery and settlement of Oregon, it is now necessary to consider the relative claims of the contending nations in North America. To do this requires a return to the seventeenth century.

The Treaty of Ryswick in1697, participated in by England, France, Spain, Holland, and German, which established in large measure the peace of Europe, contained a provision defining the boundaries of the colonial possessions of the various rival nations in America. This was definite and positive, but, owing to the crude ideas of American geography which prevailed at that time, was imperfect in many respects.

Florida, as the Spanish possessions north of Mexico were called, was bordered on the north by the Carolinas, but farther west the boundaries were quite indefinite, conflicting with the Louisiana for the French. France claimed as Louisiana all north of the mouth of Mississippi and west of the Alleghanies, the western boundary being indefinite because no one knew how far toward the west the continent extended. France also claimed the region of the St. Lawrence and the chain of Great Lakes under the general title of Canada, these two provinces joining and interlacing without any line of division either expressed or understood. The Hudson’s Bay country was also claimed by France, though not with much persistence, and it was at that time actually in the possession of England, in the person of the Hudson’s bay Company. The English colonies were east of the Alleghanies, from Maine to Georgia. In 1713 France relinquished to England her claim upon the Hundon’s Bay region, and turned her attention to strengthening her position in Canada and Louisiana.

During the latter part of the seventheenth century and the first half of the eighteenth, French explorers and Jesuit missionaries traversed the Mississippi valley, established a chain of stations between Canada and Louisiana, among them the city of St. Louis, and even penetrated the unknown wilderness lying between the head waters of the Mississippi and the “Shining Mountains,” whose snowy sides and lofty spires of rock reflected the bright rays of the sun for hundreds of miles. The most noted of these French pioneers were La Salle, Père Marquette, Baron La Hontan, Chevalier La Verendrye and his sons, Father Hennepin, Dupratz, and Charlevoix. Nearly all of these wrote accounts of their travels, gave descriptions of the country and the native tribes, and from their own observations and the information gleaned from the Indians made maps of that region, embracing a little which they knew and great deal which they guessed at.

One feature is very prominent in the reports of nearly all these early French explorers,-the fact that beyond the “Shining Mountains” was a large river flowing westward to the “Great Water,” in the latitude of the head waters of the Mississippi. This they learned from the Indians with whom they came in contact. Coming from different tribes, through sources that were recognized as being totally distinct, it was accepted as a geographical fact that such a river existed, and a stream of that nature was indicated on the maps of the period, bearing the various titles of “River of the West,” “River Thegayo,” “Rio de los Reyes,” and “Rio de Aguilar.”

The most definite account published of this great stream was given by Lapage Dupratz, a French traveler of note, who received it from a Yazoo Indian. It was to the effect that this Indian ascended the Missouri northwesterly to its head, and going still farther west came upon another large river flowing to the westward. He passed down the stream until he was compelled to halt because of a war existing between natives living along its banks and a tribe farther west. He participated in the hostilities, during which his friends captured a squaw of the western tribe, and from her he learned that the river flowed for many miles until it emptied into a great water where ships had been seen, on which were men with beards and white faces. The geographical statements are so accurate that there is no room to doubt the knowledge of the Yazoo savage of the existence of the Columbia River; but his statement about ships and white men is historically impossible, since no vessel had ever visited the mouth of the Columbia, or even been so far north as that, unless it admitted that Sir Francis Drake reached latitude 48°, and was near enough to the coast to have the faces and beards of his men recognized; but that was a century and a half before, and if his visit was known to the Indians at all it would probably have been in the form of a legend.

De L’Isle, geographer of the Academy of Science, Paris, wrote, March 15, 1716: “They tell me that among the Scioux of the Mississippi there are always Frenchmen trading; that the course of the Mississippi is from north to west, and from west to south [evidently the Mississippi is here confounded with the Missouri], from that it is known that towards the source there is in the highlands a river that leads to the western ocean.” De L’Isle warmly urged the government to explore the far West in search of this river and in search of this river and the “Western Ocean” into which it flowed, and was seconded in his efforts by a learned priest named Bode. Temporary posts had been established many years before in various parts of Minnesota.

The importunities of De L’Isle and Père Bode caused the government to begin an energetic policy of Western exploration and occupation in 1717, commencing with the re-establishment of the fort of Du Luth, and another father west among the Sioux. Other posts followed in rapid succession.

In1731 the Verendryes commenced a series of explorations which covered a period of about fifteen years. I their accounts of these journeys they speak of the Flathead Indians, living just west of the main chain of the Rockies and within the limits of Oregon, as that Territory was known at that time, but now in the western extremity of Montana, and this is as far west as the information gained by the Verendryes extends.

These French travelers encountered a band of Flatheads, who told them of their country west of the mountains, and of the great lake from which a river ran. This lake, they understood the Indians to say, was the source of a tributary of the Missouri, but the cause of their error is evident, as Sun River flows from the mountains in that direction. They were also told of the great river running westward to the ocean, but were not able to cross the divide to explore it. The river to which the Indians referred was probably the stream first reached by Lewis and Clark when they crossed the main divide, and which they named “Clark’s River.” This stream is now known at various points along its course as “Deer Lodge,” “Hellgate,” “Bitter Root,” “Missoula,” “Clark’s Fork” and “Pend d’Oreielle,” though a commendable fidelity to history and a proper regard for the honor of one of our greatest explorers demand that the use of every name but that of “Clark’s River” be at once abandoned.

These early French explorations ended with the war between England and France, which was participated in by their respective colonies in America, and which is known on this side of the Atlantic as the “French and Indian War.” As that struggle drew toward its close and France realized that her possessions in America were about to fall into the grasp of her immemorial enemy, she secretly conveyed to Spain her province of Louisiana; and when in 1763 the Treaty of Paris terminated the war and conveyed Canada to Great Britain, France was shorn of all her possessions in America. All these frontier posts were abandoned, and the Rocky Mountains again became the undisputed home of the aborigine. Quite thirty years elapsed before explorations were resumed by subjects of the new rulers of Canada.

Meanwhile the American colonies had fought and gained the War of Independence, and, as a result, England was deprived of all her possessions south of the great chain of lakes. Spain’s purchase of Louisiana, in conjunction with her California possessions, gave that nation proprietary claim to the whole country lying between the Mississippi River and the pacific Ocean and extending indefinitely northward. How extensive that region was, or what it contained, no one knew, and the Spanish owners were not inquisitive enough to find out. England was cut off from it except in the region lying north of Minnesota,-certainly not a very inviting field for exploration; and the young republic was too busy setting its government I good running order to engage in explorations of new territories. When westward journeys were again undertaken, it was solely by private enterprise in the interests of trade, and the first notable efforts were the energetic attempts of strong Canadian trading companies to obtain control of the Indian traffic of the Northwest. Prominent among these trading companies were the Hudson’s Bay Company, established in 1670,and the Northwest Company, established in 1787.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century traders covered the whole country east of the Rocky Mountains, almost to the Arctic. One of these was Alexander Mackenzie, a partner in the Northwest Company, who made a journey to the north in 1789, discovered the Mackenzie River, and followed it from its source in Great Slave Lake to where it discharges its icy waters into the Arctic Ocean. In 1791 he started with a small party upon a western trip, intent upon reaching the Pacific. Coming upon the Fraser River, he passed down this in canoes a distance of two hundred and fifty miles. Finally abandoning the river, he struck directly westward and reached the coast at the North Bentinck Arm, only a short time after it had been explored by Vancouver’s fleet. When Mackenzie learned, upon his return, that the mouth of the Columbia had been discovered, he supposed that the large river which he had followed so far southward must be that great stream; and so it was considered to be until twenty years later, when Simon Fraser, a representative of the same fur company, descended it to its mouth in the Gulf of Georgia, and ascertained its true character. This stream was then christened Fraser River.

The various sea and land expeditions that have been recounted, and others, had proved three very important facts: First, that there was no water passage for vessels across the continent; second, that by following the courses of streams and lakes the overland journey could be nearly accomplished in boats; third, that this vast unexplored region abounded in fur-bearing animals, which latter fact invited the attention of rival fur traders, both English and American. At this time the Spanish claim of Louisiana clouded the whole country west of the Mississippi, and though its limits were uncertain, it extended indefinitely into the unknown region lying north of Mexico and California.

Americans were especially hampered in their trading operations on the frontier. The Mississippi formed a definite and recognized western boundary to the territory of the United States, and the line of forts along the south side of the chain of Great Lakes was still held by Great Britain, notwithstanding they should have been surrendered under the Treaty of 1783. When that convention was formed, the representatives of England endeavored to have the Alleghanies fixed as the western limit of the new nation; but the American commissioners insisted that as British colonies the States had previously exercised jurisdiction as far west as the Mississippi, and the safety of the republic required that she still continue to do so; and they carried their port. By a special treaty made in 1794, England surrendered possession of the lake posts, and the two nations agreed that both should have unrestricted intercourse and trade in the great western region. From that time American traders extended their operations farther westward. The Hudson’s Bay Company also began to invade the field occupied by its great rival, the Northwest Company of Montreal.