in a far-off land. In 1819 few knew and fewer cared anything about the region on the Northwest Coast of America. By 1846 it had become an issue, national and international. The "Oregon Question" more than the Oregon Country was the touchstone of political sentiment in the West; that is, in the region along the Ohio and Mississippi, which was then looked upon by the greater part of the people of the United States as the outermost frontier of the land A prominent factor in the presidential campaign of 1844, one of the two uppermost topics for Congressional consideration after that campaign, it also presented itself as the foremost international issue confronting the United States and one over which a goodly portion of our people would have lightly entered upon a war.
It is important to glance summarily at the major events which brought about the situation of 1819, and to consider how much—or perhaps better, how little—the Oregon or Columbia River country figured in the public consciousness at the time.
Early discoveries and explorations[1] which, during the period of the territorial controversy, entered so extensively into the discussions, seem to have begun, so far as the Northwest Coast is concerned, with those of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, who, under orders from Viceroy Mendoza, in 1542–3 sailed north along the western coast of America where Cabrillo's lieutenant, Bartholome Ferrelo, temporarily in command, observed land at 44° north latitude. The next European to venture into those parts was Sir Francis Drake, who, in the course of his long semi-piratical expedition beginning in 1577, touched the Northwest Coast at 43° N. L. (according to some accounts 48°) and claimed the land for his sovereign under the name of New Albion.
Following these pioneers were many others, Spanish, Russian, English, French and American. The following list enumerates the more important of them.
- ↑ Greenhow, History of Oregon and California, (1844) gives the story of early discoveries. The various works of H. H. Bancroft are based upon much original material and together form the most comprehensive study of the whole subject.
