Chapter VI

Spain renews activity in the North Pacific Ocean

          The traditionary policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company to head off or render nugatory all attempts by the English government to explore its chartered domains in search of the Straits of Anian, or some other passage into the Pacific Ocean from the North Atlantic, was strictly adhered to during the eighteenth century. This organization did not want the government itself, or the people, to have any knowledge whatever of the regions lying contiguous to Hudson’s Bay.

          Meanwhile the rapidity with which Russia was extending her outposts in Alaska began to cause serious alarm in Spain, and she was aroused to a display of great activity, apparently combined with the purpose of discovering and taking possession of all the coast not already occupied by the Muscovites.

          After her long absence from the west coast of America the first movement made by Spain was the colonizing of California. Under royal warrant the Jesuits commenced establishing missions in Lower California in 1687; and in 1767, when the Jesuit Fathers fell from royal favor, there existed in Lower California sixteen thriving missions and thirty-six villages. This rich inheritance was bestowed upon the Dominicans, while at the same time the Franciscans were granted full and exclusive authority to found missions in Alta California, and take possession in the name of the Spanish crown.

          The first mission in Alta California was founded at San Diego July 16, 1769. Others followed at later dates, to the total number of twenty-two. The missions became so numerous and powerful that the Mexican government in 1825 began a series of hostile acts which in 1845 ended in the complete secularization of the missions just one year before the country was conquered by the United States.

          Following the mission movement, Spain turned her attention to a series of explorations by sea, among them, in 1774, the voyage of Juan Perez, who reached latitude 54° north, off the coast of Queen Charlotte’s Islands. Returning, Perez followed the coast for one hundred miles, enjoying a highly profitable trade in furs with the natives. Following this another expedition was despatched, composed of two vessels, under Bruno Heceta. On August 15, 1775, Heceta discovered the entrance to the Columbia River. Attempts were made to enter the river, but were abandoned because of the strong current. Sailing southward again, Heceta for the first time observed the coast of Oregon with sufficient carefulness to enter upon his journal quite accurate descriptions. This was the first time the coast of Oregon was actually explored by the Spaniards, or any other nation, while the journey recounted in “Carver’s Travels,” in which first appeared the word “Oregon,” was made some seven or eight years earlier. It is plainly evident that the name “Oregon” was not bestowed by the Spaniards. Upon his chart Heceta entered the river not as a river, since he had not proved it to be such, but as an inlet, calling it “Entrada de Asuncion.” The other ship of the Heceta expedition, commanded by Bodega and Maurelle, continued northward, and sighted land just above the fifty-sixth parallel of north latitude, in the vicinity of a huge snow-mantled peak, rising abruptly from a headland on the coast, which they christened Mount San Jacinto. This is the one named Mount Edgecumbe by Captain Cook, and stands on the chief island of King George III’s Archipelago. Supposing it to be a portion of the mainland, the Spaniards landed to take possession in the name of their sovereign with religious formalities. They remained long enough to obtain some fresh water, and fought and traded with the natives, who appeared to have very distinct ideas of their own rights of property in the soil.

          Thus ended the first effort of Spain to take possession of the coast north of California. The explorers then continued their northward journey as far as latitude 58°, and, returning, examined the coast more thoroughly. They landed again on August 27^th, in a little harbor on the west coast of Prince of Wales Island, where they took possession without interference from the Indians.

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