Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 23/Review: Opening a Highway to the Pacific
(Reprinted from the American Historical Review, Volume XXVII, No. 2.)
REVIEW
The author tells in the preface:
The present monograph has grown out of a wish for more light on one early phase of this expansion [to the Pacific] ... The pioneers opened a road across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast the preface to territorial expansion because they wished to realize the benefits from its geographical position in opening a new market for agricultural produce, and because they could not await but must have a hand in making their own destiny.
The above quotations give by far the clearest statement of purpose which the book affords, and the reader does well to keep this declared purpose clearly in mind as he reads.
The author departs widely from the method of exposition through narrative, traditional with writers of histories on the scale of this one. His is pronouncedly a monographic "disquisitional" method. By this we do not mean that he fails to display a sufficient grasp on facts and incidents bearing on his theme. He has an abundance of these, but instead of causing them to stand up and tell their own story he, so to speak, makes them lie down while he explains what happened. This method always involves the temptation to subordinate the facts to the discussion of their meaning, and it is to be feared the author has not always been able to resist that temptation. One of the outstanding merits of the book is the thoroughness of his search for the printed sources, and the author has used some imprinted material in addition.
As interpretation the book seems needlessly long and repetitious. The interpretation, in fact, is given practically in chapter IX., which is a review and restatement of what has gone before and is far clearer than the argument of the body of the book. Another partial restatement occurs in the appendix which follows chapter IX. And there is in the main section of the book, much repetition of ideas and facts, and much "cutting and fitting" of facts to new turns in the discussion.
This last tendency is particularly disheartening to the reader. The author's statements have an inveterate habit of modifying themselves from chapter, and page to page, as the discussion proceeds on its easy, leisurely course.
On some points, however, he is very decided. He is convinced that the Lewis and Clark expedition was "almost negative as far as commercial exploitation and settlement were concerned" (p. 22), therein denying that the succession of American events following that expedition, the attempted exploitation of the upper Missouri trade from St. Louis, the Astor enterprise, and the restoration of Astoria, were related to it as affects to a cause, which is the usual view. He is clear that the "earliest effort made by any group of American citizens with material interests in the country west of the Rocky Mountains to terminate the joint occupation status of Oregon and determine upon a definite boundary, came from these St. Louis fur traders" (Rocky Mountain Fur Company). In this he denies the facts brought out by Professor E. G. Bourne in regard to the Astor influence behind Floyd's efforts. He minimizes the significance of Floyd's pioneer agitation in Congress, charging that "the purpose of the move was probably to lend dignity to his opposition to John Q. Adams" (p. 64 n.), as if motive and result were in such a case interchangeable terms.
Students will be grateful to Mr. Dell for giving us a new interpretation of the beginnings of Pacific Coast history, and this gratitude would be all the greater if we could agree that the new is also a true interpretation in its general scope, as it assuredly is in some subordinate particulars. He has presented a perfectly sound view of the Rocky Mountain fur-trade; has shown with a clearness never before equalled how large a part the mountain trappers assumed in the emigration movement, and in chapter VI (Agrarian Discontent) he has brought together a good many interesting historical facts not heretofore fully considered in determining the motives of the Oregon emigrants. But the present reviewer cannot convince himself, on the basis of that showing, that it was economically prudent for a few thousand to go to the Pacific at a time when many thousands were making shift to find suitable new homes along the older frontier; nor can he agree that the search for a new market probably constituted the dominant motive behind the Oregon movement. Of course the question is incapable of evidential solution. But it seems incongruous to assume that the Oregon emigrants had so reflected on the subject of world markets as to convince themselves of the inadequacy of existing markets for farm produce and the adequacy of the markets on the Pacific.
The book is an attempt, not altogether successful as I think, to prove an hypothesis that stated in the words at the beginning of the review. But it is a well documented effort, it abounds in penetrating observations, and there is in it much that any student of western history needs to know. Some minor errors occur in the text, as is always the case; but these can easily be corrected.
Joseph Schafer.