A History of the Pacific Northwest/Chapter 7

by Joseph Schafer

CHAPTER VII

EARLY PHASES OF THE OREGON QUESTION

At the conclusion of the War of 1812 the Columbia River region might have passed at once into the hands of Mr. Astor, for fur trading purposes, had it not been for a series of delays which gave the British company opportunity to establish itself firmly.

Astor continues to be interested in the Columbia. Mr. Astor in 1813 advised the government concerning the progress of his business on the Columbia and pointed out that if the government had granted him military support, even to a slight extent, Astoria could have been held against a British attack by sea. It was doubtless due to Mr. Astor's warnings that in March, 1814, the government Instructed our peace commissioners to keep the Columbia fort in mind when discussing the terms of a treaty with Great Britain. In case that place had been captured during the war, and in case the commissioners could agree on a treaty clause restoring to each nation places and possessions taken by either party during the war, then the post at the mouth of the Columbia ought to be restored. Secretary of State Monroe in writing the instructions expressed the view that Britain had no right to any territory whatever on the Pacific coast, and he asserted roundly: "On no pretext can the British Government set up a claim to territory south of the northern boundary of the United States."^[1]

While the commissioners were carrying on their negotiations at Ghent, a gentleman who represented Mr. Astor was at hand eager to learn what would be done and finally what was done about the Columbia River fort. He stated that if its restoration was agreed upon, it was Mr. Astor's intention to reoccupy it at once and resume the trade.^[2]

What the treaty stipulated. The treaty did not mention Astoria specifically, but it provided, in general terms, that: "All territory, places, and possessions whatsoever, taken by either party from the other during the war, . . . (should) be restored without delay. . . ." Mr. Astor seems to have thought that since his fort on the Columbia had been taken possession of by a British warship, the Northwest Company should now be compelled to give it up, without regard to the fact that, before the warship arrived, his partners had accepted from that company a sum of money in payment for the fort and its appurtenances.

Restoration of Astoria demanded. In July, 1815, six months after the signing of the treaty, Monroe as Secretary of State gave notice to the British government that the United States expected to reoccupy the Columbia under the treaty, but two years elapsed before any definite step was taken. The delay may have been due to Mr. Astor, for it is almost certain that the government was merely trying to clear the way for his reoccupation of Astoria. But in September, 1817, the ship Ontario, Captain Biddle, was ordered to the Columbia to "assert the claim of the United States to the (Columbia) country in a friendly and peaceable manner. . . ."

British claims stated. When the British minister at Washington, Mr. Charles Bagot, learned about the orders given Captain Biddle he protested to J. Q. Adams, Secretary of State. Astoria was not one of the "places and possessions "referred to in the treaty, since the fort had been purchased by British subjects before the Raccoon entered the river. Nor was the Columbia valley "territory . . . taken . . . during the war "; it was rather a region "early taken possession of in His Majesty's name, and considered as forming part of His Majesty's dominions."^[3] This was the formal opening of the Oregon Question, which required nearly a generation for its settlement, and at one time threatened to bring on a war.

The Northwest Company interested. It is interesting to find that, just as the American government was acting in these matters at the behest of Mr. Astor, so the British government was acting under the impulse supplied by the Northwest Company. That government, indeed, knew nothing about the situation at the mouth of the Columbia except what it learned from the Northwest Company partners, especially Simon McGillivray, who resided generally in London and had charge of the outfitting of the company's ships. It was McGillivray who learned in some way to us unknown that Captain Biddle of the Ontario had orders to sail to the Columbia and it was he who furnished Mr. Bagot that exciting piece of news; he also furnished Bagot the history of the British claim to the Columbia on which he based his protest to Mr. Adams.^[4] We glean from McGillivray that the Northwest Company had planned in 1 810 to take possession of the mouth of the Columbia but that they were delayed by government red tape until it was too late because Astor had forestalled them. When the war broke out, however, they persuaded the admiralty to send a warship to the Columbia to capture Astoria while the company sent the Isaac Todd to begin their establishment.

Excitement over the Ontario's mission. The sending of the Ontario created a decided sensation. The British minister wrote in some alarm to his government, and for the moment it looked as if a serious issue might be made of the incident. Lord Castlereagh, however, the British Foreign Secretary, found reasons of policy for conceding the right of the United States to be placed in possession of Astoria, under the treaty of Ghent, although he refused to concede the American right to the territory. He therefore offered to restore the post, and suggested that the question of title to the territory, together with other differences between the two countries, be submitted to arbitration.

Astoria formally restored. John Quincy Adams was quick to accept the offer of the restoration of Astoria, which was turned over by the Northwest Company to Mr. J. B. Prevost on the 6th of October, 1818. But Mr. Adams refused the offer of arbitration, believing that direct negotiation was a surer way of gaining American rights.

The joint occupation treaty. Two weeks after the formal restoration of Astoria, on October 20, 1818, representatives of the two nations signed at London a treaty in which the Oregon Question was mentioned but not settled. The questions at issue, besides the Columbia territory question, were the rights of Great Britain to navigate the Mississippi, and the northern boundary of Louisiana from the Lake of the Woods to the crest of the Rockies. Great Britain at last abandoned her claim to the Mississippi, and was therefore willing to permit the boundary to be extended westward on the forty-ninth parallel from the Lake of the Woods to the Rockies. But she refused to extend that line of boundary from the Rockies to the sea, as the United States suggested, which would have settled the Oregon Question at one stroke. Instead the two governments agreed upon a clause which subjected the Oregon country to a "joint-occupation" for ten years by citizens and subjects of both nations. This meant simply that Americans and Englishmen had equal right to trade and settle in any part of the country, but that neither the one party nor the other could have absolute control over any part of it till the question of ownership, or of boundary, was settled.

Cession of Spanish rights to the United States. This treaty of joint occupation also professed to safeguard the rights of other nations. This was necessary, because at the time neither Spain nor Russia had formally yielded up their respective claims to territory in that region. But it so happened that J. Q. Adams at that moment was engaged in negotiating a treaty with Spain concerning Florida and he made use of his opportunity to gain an additional basis of title to the Columbia region. It had been proposed that Spain and the United States should agree on boundaries west of the Mississippi, defining the Louisiana purchase to the Rocky Mountains. In connection with that proposal, on October 31, 1818, only eleven days after the date of the treaty with Britain, Adams demanded that Spain agree to draw a boundary line also from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific. This was done, the forty-second parallel being taken, and each of the two contracting nations agreeing to abandon to the other all claims and pretensions they had to territory north and south of that line respectively.

Its importance. Adams regarded this as a great diplomatic triumph.^[5] No doubt it had a certain importance. In the negotiation with Britain the American commissioners were somewhat at a loss to produce satisfactory arguments in support of their claim to the coast to the northward of the Columbia, however easy it was to maintain a claim to the valley of the river itself. Gray had discovered the river, Lewis and Clark explored from its fountains to the sea, and Mr. Astor took possession at its mouth, holding the territory firmly until the war compelled him to retire. But all of this gave no direct claim to territory outside the Columbia basin and we were asking for a boundary along the forty-ninth parallel to the sea.

The new American argument. After the treaty with Spain Americans could insist, as they did, that since the first exploration of the coast line, well up beyond the fiftieth parallel, had been made by Spain, whose rights we now held, and since the Columbia River, discovered, explored, and first occupied by Americans, had some of its sources in these high latitudes also, we were not merely within our rights in demanding the forty-ninth parallel boundary, but the offer of that line might be looked upon as a very generous concession to Great Britain.

Settlement with Russia. The Russian claim, which was based originally on the discoveries of Vitus Bering and Tchirikoff, on the occupation of Alaska by Russian fur traders, and on a grant of trade and settlement privileges to the Russian American Fur Company chartered in 1799, was likewise indefinite and had at times a tendency to advance in a menacing manner. However, soon after the conclusion of the Florida treaty, the American government began negotiations with Russia and after some delays, in 1824, a treaty of limits was secured. By this instrument it was agreed that Russian subjects would not push their activities, in trade and settlement, below the line of the parallel of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes, and that American citizens should not operate to the north of that line. The next year a similar agreement was entered into between Great Britain and Russia, the boundary between the northern territories of the two nations being fixed at the same time.^[6]

On many accounts it seems most unfortunate that Great Britain and the United States failed in 1818 to dispose of the Oregon Question by agreeing on the forty-ninth parallel. Had they done so, no other power would have entered to disturb the arrangement, and it would have saved the two interested nations a long and acrimonious contest. Possibly a more strenuous attitude on our part might have brought about a satisfactory solution. But our government was not prepared to act with vigour, and was unwilling also to risk a failure to settle the Louisiana boundary for the sake of its claims on the Columbia.

Lack of interest in Oregon, except among Astor's connections; John Floyd's first report on Oregon. The truth is, that in 1818 very few Americans had the slightest interest in the region west of the Rocky Mountains. Bryant wrote of it, in 1817, as,—

"The continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound
Save his own dashings,"^[7]

So far as we know, those who had been directly or indirectly interested in the Astor enterprise were the only agitators for the adoption of an Oregon policy by the government. Some of the Astor partners, it appears, were in touch with Representative John Floyd of Virginia at Washington.^[8] Possibly their accounts of Oregon aroused his interest in the country as a valuable future possession of the United States. At all events, on the 20th of December, 1820, Mr. Floyd brought the question forward for the first time in the Congress of the United States. He wished "to inquire into the situation of the settlements on the Pacific Ocean, and the expediency of occupying the Columbia River." One month later, Floyd, at the head of a committee of Congress, made a report on the subject of our rights west of the Rockies.^[9]

The first congressional debate on Oregon; Floyd's speech. It was many months before Floyd was able to get a hearing; but in 1822 he brought in another bill which aroused much interest in Congress and drew the attention of the country to the Oregon question. In the debate which occurred Floyd took the leading part. He was one of those men who have the power of looking beyond the present, and seeing in imagination the changes likely to occur in future years. Though he lived in Virginia, Floyd knew what was going on beyond the mountains, and was thrilled by the spectacle of America's wonderful growth, which he believed, rightly or wrongly, to be due largely to her free system of government. In the space of forty-three years, he said, Virginia's population had spread westward more than a thousand miles. He evidently believed it would not be long before Americans would reach the Rockies, and stand ready to descend into the Oregon country. This was a new thought, just beginning to take hold of the American people, and as yet quite startling to most men who, in spite of what had already been done, found it difficult to conceive of the American population expanding till it should reach the Pacific. But he only hinted at these things, knowing very well that most members of Congress would regard predictions of this kind as the merest folly.

Floyd's argument. Floyd's main argument had to do with the importance of the Columbia River to American commerce. Our people ought to have the benefit of the fur trade now going to British subjects; many whalers from New England annually visited the Oregon coast and needed some safe port in which to refit and take supplies; the trade with China would be greatly advanced by maintaining a colony on the Pacific. He tried to show that the Missouri and Columbia together would form a good highway for commerce across the continent, and that the entire distance between St. Louis and Astoria could be traversed with steamboat and wagon in the space of forty-four days.

Mr. Bailies's remarkable predictions. Other speakers also urged the commercial importance of a fort at the mouth of the Columbia. Mr. Bailies of Massachusetts declared that in all probability there would one day be a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, which would be an added reason for maintaining a colony on the Pacific. Most persons feared that Americans going to this distant land would separate from us and set up a government for themselves; but Mr. Bailies pointed out that such a canal would bind them closely to us. Yet, if they should form an independent American state on the Pacific, even this would be better than to have that region pass into the hands of foreigners, or be left a savage wilderness. "I would delight," said the speaker, "to know that in this desolate spot, where the prowling cannibal now lurks in the forest, hung round with human bones and with human scalps, the temples of justice and the temples of God were reared, and man made sensible of the beneficent intentions of his creator." The country, he said, had made marvellous progress within the memories of living men, and with the fervour of an ancient prophet he continued: "Some now within these walls may, before they die, witness scenes more wonderful than these; and in after times may cherish delightful recollections of this day, when America, almost shrinking from the * shadows of coming events,' first placed her feet upon untrodden ground, scarcely daring to anticipate the greatness which awaited her."

The practical man's view of the Oregon question. To show how the hard-headed, practical men comprising the majority in Congress treated such idealists as Floyd and Bailies, we have only to turn to the opposition speech of Mr. Tracy of New York. He declared that there was no real demand for a fort and colony on the Columbia. No one had shown that it would benefit commerce. It was visionary to expect an overland commercial connection with the Pacific Ocean. Military posts ought not to be used to draw population far away into the wilderness, but merely to protect the frontier. Mr. Tracy had received accurate information about the territory along the Columbia, from men who had visited that region, and was sure that its agricultural possibilities had been greatly overestimated. As a final agrument, he declared that the people on the Pacific and those on the Atlantic could never live under the same government. "Nature," said Mr. Tracy, " has fixed limits for our nation; she has kindly interposed as our western barrier mountains almost inaccessible, whose base she has skirted with irreclaimable deserts of sand."^[10]

Defeat of Floyd's bill. On the 23d of January, 1823, after a long and vigorous debate, Floyd's bill came to a vote in the House of Representatives and was defeated, one hundred to sixty-one. The time had not yet come for an American colony on the Pacific, because the government was unwilling to plant such a settlement, and the people were not yet thinking of Oregon as a "pioneer's land of promise." Only a few men, and those of the rarer sort, looked forward to the occupation of the Columbia region as a step toward the establishment of a greater America, with a frontage on the Pacific Ocean similar to that which we then had upon the Atlantic.

Strangely enough none of the speakers in the House seemed to suspect that we might not have a right, under the treaty of joint occupation, to plant a military colony at the mouth of the Columbia, or that Great Britain had an actual claim to the country which was protected by that treaty. Only one man appeared to understand the situation clearly, Senator Benton of Missouri. He believed that if the British remained in sole possession of Oregon till 1828, the year that the treaty of joint occupation was to expire, they would remain for a still longer period; and in a speech in the Senate he favoured an American colony on the Columbia as a means of maintaining our rights in the country.

Diplomatic negotiations resumed. We must now turn from Congress where Oregon bills were brought up almost every session, till the end of 1827, and see what was being done for Oregon elsewhere. In 1824, stimulated by the agitation in Congress, and taking advantage of the fact that other matters were pressing for settlement between Great Britain and the United States, our government sought a new diplomatic negotiation on the Oregon question.

The British government had carefully avoided the question since 1818. The reason doubtless was that since British traders were in monopolistic control of the fur trade of the Columbia, it was good policy to leave the boundary question in abeyance as long as possible, for so long as Americans failed to take advantage of their rights under the treaty of joint occupation the British claim was in no danger of becoming weaker.

Basis of the American claim. Mr. Adams, in instructing Richard Rush, American minister at London, to bring up the Oregon question, described the American claim "to the Columbia river and the interior territory washed by its waters," as resting (1) upon Gray's discovery and naming of the river; (2) Lewis and Clark's exploration; (3) the Astoria settlement, and the restoration of Astoria in 1818; (4) the acquisition of the Spanish title. Spain, he held, was the only European power who had any territorial rights on the northwest coast prior to the discovery of the river itself. The river was supposed to rise as far north as the fifty-first parallel, giving us a good right to territory up to that line. But, since the forty-ninth parallel had been already adopted to the Rockies, he was willing to extend that boundary west to the Pacific.

Canning's Oregon policy. At the time of the negotiation of 1824 the brilliant and not always amiable George Canning was British foreign secretary. Canning disliked Mr. Adams personally, and besides, for reasons of policy, he was in no mood to humour him in the Oregon matter. Accordingly, when he learned the extent of the American claims, Mr. Canning wrote the famous dispatch of May 31, 1824, to the British commissioners, which established the British Oregon policy for many years to come on a basis that made agreement with the United States impossible. Briefly stated, that policy was to claim (1) an equal right with the United States and all other powers to make use of the entire territory from 42° to 54°40′. This right was based on the fact that when Spain tried to exclude Britain from Nootka Sound in 1789–1790 Great Britain, at the risk of war, compelled Spain to recognize the equal right of her subjects to trade and make settlements in any part of the country north of California. (2) A willingness to agree on a division of the territory with the United States, then the only power aside from Britain which had real interests there, on "the joint principles of occupancy and reciprocal convenience." (3) Canning repelled the idea that Britain should give up the portion of the coast line containing Nootka Sound, since that place was the subject of dispute with Spain which led to the Nootka Convention of 1790, a great victory for British policy. (4) But he was still more determined not to give up the free use of the Columbia, "the only navigable communication, hitherto ascertained to exist, with the interior of that part of the country. The entrance to this river," he says, "was surveyed by British officers, at the expense of the British government, many years before any agents of the American government had visited its shores,^[11] and the trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company are now and have for some time been stationed on its waters." (5) The Americans, Canning points out, are claiming under a French title, a Spanish title, and an American title, and they are supplying the deficiencies of each one of these titles by arguments drawn from the others. This could not be permitted. They might select the title they deemed best, and stand upon that, but must not attempt to use all three at the same time.

Results of the negotiations of 1824 and 1826. The result of Canning's attitude was, of course, the failure of the negotiations in 1824, Two years later Gallatin, our ablest and best known diplomatist, was sent to London to settle this question, with others. But the Canning policy stood athwart the path again and all the argumentation used, much of it able and vigorous, was in effect a mere process of marking time. Things must happen to change the general situation of the two countries relative to Oregon before a boundary could be fixed.

1. Am. State Papers, III, 731. Monroe was especially concerned for the safety of the Mississippi and the upper Louisiana territory, where earlier negotiations had failed to establish a definite boundary between American and British territory. He probably cared little for the Columbia region for its own sake.
2. J. Q. Adams's Memoirs, XI.
3. It was claimed that Lieutenant Broughton took formal possession of the Columbia country when he entered the river in October, 1792.
4. McGillivray's "Statement Relative to the Columbia River," etc. was found with Bagot's dispatch No. 74, Public Record Office, F. O. America 123. The McGillivray statement abounds in errors, but it was all that Bagot had to guide his course.
5. Adams's Memoirs, IV, 275.
6. It was the treaty of 1825 between Russia and Great Britain which defined the boundary of Alaska on the land side, as it is today. Russia held the great peninsula west to the 141st meridian of longitude, and a coast strip thirty miles wide extending to latitude 54°40".
7. Because of the popularity of Bryant's "Thanatopsis "in which the lines occur, the name Oregon was brought prominently before the public. Bryant doubtless obtained it from Carver's Travels.
8. See Bourne, E. G. Aspects of Oregon History Previous to 1840. Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Vol. IV, p. 255.
9. This report, which is reprinted in the Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, VIII, 51-75, contains the first general discussion of Oregon and the Oregon Question from the American point of view. The bill for the creation of an Oregon Territory, which followed, fixed the name Oregon upon the country. Many things contained in the report cannot be accepted as impartial history, but the writer was more concerned with the future than with the past, and it certainly held the prophecy of great things.
10. From the time of Long's exploring expedition to the Rocky Mountains (1819), the western portion of the Great Plains was called the "Great American Desert."
11. Canning did not recognize Gray, the discoverer of the river, as an agent of the American government, so Lewis and Clark would be the first of those agents, arriving thirteen years after Vancouver.