Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/476

CHAPTER XVI.

LEGISLATIVE PROCEEDINGS.

1844.

Character of the Immigration of 1843—The Land Law—Old and New Settlers—Organic Laws—Personnel of the Committees—Message of the Executive Committee—Revision and Correction of Legislative Errors—Judicial Affairs—The Blessings of Land and the Ballot—Willamette Falls the Seat of Government—The Question of Boundary—Law Relating to Marriage—Liquor Law—Slavery—Negroes and Mulattoes—Attitude toward the British Fur Company—Independence of Oregon.

 

The immigration of 1843 was composed of people of pronounced character, rudely arrogant and aggressive rather than tame and submissive. The poorest might claim the liberal grant of land offered by congress to actual settlers, while the leaders aspired to achievements no less than founding a state, and framing laws to govern it. If what had been already done suited them, well; if not, they would undo, if strong enough. Hence immediately on arrival they were deeply interested in what had been done by the provisional government. They then discussed the laws passed by the legislative committee, the most important of which was the land law, whose objectionable parts were the proviso allowing the missions six miles square of land, and granting but twenty days to new settlers in which to record their claims, the old settlers having a year.^[1]

This injurious discrimination against new-comers, joined to the greed of the missionaries, and the inti-

1. Grover's Or. Archives, 35.