# Portland, Oregon: Its History and Builders/Volume 1/Chapter 8

CHAPTER VIII.
1774— 1846.
The Title to the Country — Titles by Discovery — Paper Titles of Spain, France and England — Title by Contiguous Settlement and Possession — The Question in Politics and in Congress — The Treason of President Polk — Oregon Saved by American Settle- ments.
The vast region west of the Rocky mountains fronting on the Pacific ocean from the northern boundary of CaHfornia up to Alaska became known to the world under the name of "Oregon," about the year 1770. And the first tangible acts to obtain title to this vast country, date back to the voyages of Spanish ex- plorers in 1774; followed by the English navigator, Cook, in 1776, the year the American Colonies declared themselves independent of Great Britain. Sixteen years after the Englishmen filed a discovery claim to the country. Captain Robert Gray, the American trader, discovered the Columbia river, which practically drains the whole region and laid the foundation for the claim of the United States.
Here then are the claims of the three nations — Spain, England, and the United States — mere paper titles, founded on the trifling incidents of landing on the sea coast of a vast country of then unknown extent. Neither of these parties had contributed anything whatever to the value of the country, or, to any extent worth mentioning, made known to the world its resources, population or boundaries. The law, or custom, upon which any shadow of title to the country could be founded by either of these parties was nothing more than the comity or courtesy conceded among the maritime nations down to that period ; a right, comity, or courtesy, which was always ignored and repudiated by the strongest, whenever it was their interest to do so.
The Indians were the original possessors of the country, and held their title from occupancy for unknown thousands of years. But all three of these so-called civilized nations united to deny and overthrow the title of the native barbarian. To deny the title of the Indian, because he was ignorant, superstitious and a barbarian or savage, was to found rights on educational opportunities rather than upon the foundation set forth by the American Declaration of Independence. To deny the right of the Indian, and then concede his humanity by offering him the teachings of the Bible, was an inconsistency too absurd for argument. And so the moralist and publicists were forced to take grounds with the defenders of Afri- can slavery and boldly proclaim the doctrine that neither the red man nor the black man had any rights which the white man was bound to respect.
And so this conclusion gives a clear field to consider what nation had the title to the vast region of old Oregon of which the city of Portland is the commercial metropolis. ​
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For clearness of understanding-, we will state, that on the 25th of January, 1774, about two and a half years before the American Declaration of Independ- ence, the Spanish sloop of war Santiago, sailed from San Bias, Mexico, under comrnand of Lieut. Juan Perez. The Spanish viceroy in Mexico directed Perez to sail northward along the Oregon coast up to sixty degrees of north latitude; which would be a few miles above the extreme southern limit of the present United States territory of Alaska. And from that point survey the coast south- ward to Monterey, (now in California), and landing at convenient places and taking possession of the same in the name of the King of Spain. Under these orders Perez sailed with the king's ship, and the king's men on June i6th, 1774. On the 13th of July, he made the land in fifty-four degrees north (now known as Queen Charlotte's Island), and named the point, Cape Santa Margarita — the Cape North of our geography — then rounded the north point of the island and sailed into Dixon's Channel. From this point Perez turned south, coasting along the shore and trading with the natives. On the 9th of August, he made the land on the west coast of Vancouver Island at the point known as Nootka Sound. From Nootka again coasting- southward, the pilot claimed to have seen what is recognized now as the opening- to the Straits of Fuca ; and still further south made out, and named Moimt Olympus, passed Cape Mendocino and the Oregon coast August 2 1 St, and reached Monterey on August 27, 1774.
On the return of Perez, the Mexican viceroy decided to send another expedi- tion to the north, and made preparations to send the schooner Senora, along with the Santiago, giving- to Captain Bruno Heceta, the command of the Santiago, and to Angala, the command of the little schooner. This expedition sailed from San Bias for the north, and on June 10, 1775, made a landing on the coast in an open roadstead at forty-one degrees, ten minutes north, a little below the present south boundary of Oregon. Here they spent nine days and claimed the country for Spain. Again sailing north, the expedition made land the second time at forty- eight degrees, twenty-six minutes north, which is a little south of the entrance to the Straits of Fuca. From this point they cruised southward looking for the Straits. On the 14th of July, in latitude forty-seven degrees, twenty minutes north, which is a little north of Grays Harbor in the state of Washington, seven men of the crew of the Senora in their only boat, landed on the mainland to get fresh water and were overpowered by the natives, and all killed ; and the schooner itself was surrounded by hundreds of Indians in canoes who made unsuccessful attempts to board her. Here Heceta desired to return to California, but was over- ruled by Perez, Bodega, and Maurelle, and the expedition again sailed north- ward, making their next landing at forty-nine degrees, and thirty minutes north, which is thirty miles north of the present north boundary of the United States ; but being on the west coast of Vancouver Island, is still on British territory. From this point Heceta turned southward, and at about forty-six degrees, and ten minutes, discovered a great bay, July 17th, 1775. On account of the currents and eddies, setting out seaward, he could not enter it with his ship, but recorded the event in his log book, as, "The mouth of some great river, or a passage to another sea." This was the mouth of the Columbia river, and we see hpw close the Spaniard came to making the discovery, which has made Robert Gray famous. The Spaniard kept on south and made Monterey on August 30th, 1775, a few days after the never to be forgotton battle of Bunker Hill.
We have been thus particular to set out the facts constituting the rights of Spain to claim the Old Oregon country from the California line clear up to Alaska. According to the theories of the European nations in vogue one hundred and fifty years ago, the King of Spain had done everything necessary to give his nation a good title to the Oregon country ; for according to this historical record, the Spanish naval officer and ships, flying the flag of Spain, in lawful exploration of the high seas, were the first discoverers of the Oregon country.
It was doubtless the fact that Captain Francis Drake had been on the Oregon coast before the Spaniard. But he was here, as has been before stated, ​as a free-
booter or pirate, plundering Spanish merchant vessels, and as such, his acts could not confer any title on the English government ; and for that reason his govern- ment never took advantage of any discoveries he made.
And notwithstanding the fact, that the Spaniards were the first discoverers of the Oregon coast, for some reason, never explained, they did not make these dis- coveries known to the world at that time ; but waited until after Captain James Cook, as the representative of Great Britain, made his famous voyage to the Oregon coast in 1778. Cook sailed from Plymouth, England, eight days after the American Declaration of Independence had been signed up by the Continental Congress ; a fact which could not have been at that time known in England. These dates are given to show that the new born nation of the United States, had not, at the time the Spanish and English claims to Oregon were set up, yet achieved a national organization, existence or recognition before the world ; and was not therefore bound by the comity laws of nations which gave away great countries on rights of discovery.
But Captain Cook saw no part of the coast of America on this voyage, which had not been previously seen by the Spanish navigators, Perez, Heceta and Bodega.
The question was raised later on by England, that Spain had negotiated away its rights to Oregon, by a treaty entered into October, 1790; which provides that Spain should restore to Great Britain, the possession of property and ships taken from the British by force at Nootka Sound, by the Spanish Captain Martinez, in May, 1779. And as this incident has figured prominently, not only in the history of those times, but also in the diplomacy and treaty rights of the United States and England, a resume of the facts therewith connected, will now be given. From a trifling incident of Captain Cook's voyage to the west coast of Oregon in 1778, the attention of all the trading nations was attracted to this country. Cook got from the Indians, and carried away to China, a small bale of furs, which on being ofifered for sale, at once dazzled the eyes of all traders in Chinese ports for their superiority to anything of the kind ever seen before, and the vast fur trade to northwest America started right there.
But when the British sea-rovers and independent traders sought to go into the fur trade, they were handicapped by the regulations and franchise grants of their own country. In pursuance of its immemorial policy of granting spe- cial privileges to royal favorites, the British government had divided up the earth between two chartered companies, and had granted to the South Sea Company the sole right to trade in all seas and countries westward of Cape Horn ; and to the British East India Company, the sole right to trade in all seas and countries east of the Cape of Good Hope; and by these grants all British subjects, not connected with either one of these great monopolies, were prohibited from trading in all seas, territories and islands in that vast portion of the world lying between the Cape of Good Hope eastward to a line drawn north and south through Cape Horn, or vice versa, westward from the merid- ian of Cape Horn to the meridian passing through the Cape of Good Hope; and British subjects desiring to engage in Pacific ocean commerce or Pacific coast fur trade in America, or in the China or East India trade, were obliged to obtain permission of one of these great companies and fly their flag, or not trade at all. If old England has not set the pace for monopolies, where did they begin? /
Of course, these monopolies could not prevent the Chinese, as an indepen- dent nation, from trading here ; or from granting ships rights to trade. But old China was not slow at a bargain, and put up the price of grants and port charges to excessive prices on everybody except the Portuguese.
To evade these exactions of the Chinese, and the prohibitions of these Brit- ish charters, several British merchants residing in India, desiring to engage in the rich fur trade to America, associated themselves together under the name of a Portuguese merchant, and procured from the Portuguese gove ​rnment of
Macao a license for two ships — the FeHce and Iphegenia — to sail under the Portuguese flag to the northwest coast of America. To further carry out their enterprise, these British merchants procured Lieut. John Meares, of the British navy, on leave, to command this fur trading expedition. Meares' character in the venture was further complicated by the fact that he was at that time in the British East India Company service as an English subject, which company held the sole right to trade in these parts, and which company had given Meares the license of its company to make a trade venture to the Oregon coast on his own account. To further complicate matters, the adventuring merchants took out the papers of the two ships in the Portuguese language, and in the name of Portuguese captains, who were to go along as figure heads, and who were referred to in Meares' reports as "second captains."
And in the letter of instructions issued to Lieut. Meares by these merchants, they tell him: "That if any Russian, English or Spanish vessels attempt to seize him or his ships, or to carry him out of his way, you must prevent it by every means in your power and repel force by force ; and should you, in such conflict, have the superiority, you will then take possession of the vessel that attacked, as also her cargo, and bring both, with the officers and crew to China, that they may be condemned as legal prizes, and their crews punished as pirates."
And thus officered and authorized, the two ships — Iphegenia and Felice — sailed for the Oregon coast and reached Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island May 13, 1788. A few days after their arrival, the Indian chief Maquinna, who claimed the island as his real estate, granted to Meares "a. spot of ground in his territory whereon a house might be built for the ac- commodation of the people intended to be left there, and promised also the as- sistance of his Indians in building houses, and the protection of the Indians for the people who were to remain during the absence of the ships. In return for this permission to build the house, Meares presented Maquinna with a pair of pistols ; and to secure the further attachment and protection of Maquinna, he was promised that when the people of those ships finally left the coast, he should enter into the full possession of the house and all the goods belonging therewith."
This was the first house built on all the vast region of old Oregon, and these were the circumstances under which it was erected. It was a mere tem- porary shelter from the weather, with some stockade defense against an attack from the Indians.
Hearing of these operations of the fur traders, great uneasiness was aroused in Spain. And in 1789, the Spanish viceroy in Mexico dispatched two ships to the north with instructions to proclaim and enforce the rights of Spain to the country. These ships — the Princesa and San Carlos — commanded by Lieut. Martinez, reached Nootka Sound, May 5, 1779, and found there the American ship Columbia ; and the ships Iphegenia and the Felice, with Captain Meares, arriving a few days afterward.
The Spaniard promptly announced his business, and the American as promptly recognized the rights of Spain to the country. The captain of the Iphegenia gave an evasive and untruthful reply, saying he had put in there in distress to await the arrival of Captain Meares. But the Spaniard hearing that- the Iphegenia carried orders to capture any Russian, Spanish or English vessel, he seized the ship, and subsequently the Northwest America, another ship in the same service as the Iphegenia.
Captain Meares, not returning on account of a reorganization of the adven- turing merchants, which had replaced Meares with Captain Colnett, also hold- ing a commission in the British navy, now ofif on leave, events dragged until Colnett came into Nootka oflf the ship Princess Royal. Colnett's instructions directed him "to establish a factory to be called Fort Pitt, for the purpose of permanent settlement, and as a center of trade around which other ​stations may
be established." And he informed the Spanish captain, Martinez, that he should take possession of Nootka Sound in the name of Great Britain and hoist the British flag. The Spaniard repHed that possession had already been taken in the name of Spain, and that he would resist any attempts to take possession in the name of Great Britain. The Englishman inquired if the Spaniard would object to building a house; the Spaniard said, "Certain, I will object; you can erect a tent to get wood and water, but no house." The Englishman re- plied that he would build a block house ; whereupon the Spaniard arrested the British captain and all his crew, and seized the ships — Princess Royal and Ar- gonaut — and sent them down to San Bias, Mexico as prizes.
Here, then, was a veritable "tempest in a teapot." Consider, for a moment, the surroundings of these men and the future weight given to their acts. Here they were in a little pocket of a bay on Vancouver island; the Americans twenty thousand miles from their home port; the English-Portuguese merchant adventurers no better than pirates, as they were sailing under false colors, six thousand miles from their base of operations, and the Spaniard three thousand miles from his governor; with an onlooking audience of hundreds of savages, and not a single civilized man within thousands of miles. The Spaniard bravely asserts the rights and authority of his king, and the bluffing British captain tamely submits to arrest.
It was ten months after the capture of the British ships before the news reached Europe; whereupon England demanded of Spain immediate reparation for the insult to her flag, and thus assuming responsibility for all the crooked- ness which had set afloat the so-called Portuguese merchant fur trading ships. To the outburst of England the king of Spain issued a proclamation to all other nations on June 4, 1790, temperately reciting the rights of Spain to the conti- nents and islands of the South Sea, concluding with : "Although Spain may not have establishments or colonies planted upon the coasts or in the ports in dispute, it does not follow that such coast or port does not belong to her. If this rule were to be followed, one nation might establish colonies on the coast of another nation — in America, Asia, Africa and Europe — by which means there would be no fixed boundaries — a circumstance evidently absurd." Such were the hard facts of the case down to the beginning of the dispute between Spain and England, as to the title of old Oregon.
And now we reach the chapter of diplomatic negotiations between these two nations to settle that dispute. Spain opened the negotiations with a proposition to refer the dispute about the insult to the British flag to the sovereign of some European nation, and England declined the proposition. Then Spain appealed to France for assistance in resisting the power of England should war ensue out of these matters. But France declined to commit her government to any assistance. Down to this period, England had not set up any claim to or ownership of Vancouver Island covering the spot where Captain Martinez seized the ships. Hope of assistance from France being abandoned, Spain was forced into a treaty with England, October 28, 1790, whereby the buildings and tracts of land on the northwest coast of America, of which British subjects had been dispossessed in 1789 by Martinez, were to be restored to the British subjects; and the ships and other property of British subjects were to be re- turned with compensation for any losses sustained by reason of the acts of the Spanish officer. In addition to these provisions, a right in common with Spain was to be enjoyed by the subjects of both Spain and England to navigate the Pacific ocean and the South Seas ; and to land on places on the coast thereof not already occupied; to carry on commerce with the natives, and to make set- tlements with the following restrictions: "The king of Great Britain agreed to prevent navigation or fishery in those seas being made the pretext for unlawful trade with the Spanish settlements. No British subject was to navigate or carry on a fishery in said oceans within ten leagues of any part of the coast ​
occupied by Spain. When settlements were made by subjects of either power, free access to, and full privilege to trade were confined without molestation."
Such was the treaty between Spain and England about old Oregon. At the very most, it was only a treaty of joint occupancy for trade; no provisions having been made by either party for the policing or government of the country. Spain did not renounce the sovereignty of the country, and neither of the par- ties or both combining could make an effective treaty to bar out other nations while themselves pretending to hold the country in common. It is a funda- mental principle of the law of nations, that the territorial boundaries and limits of sovereignties shall be definite and fixed, so that the nation claiming jurisdic- tion over any country can be held to accountability for conduct within or pro- ceeding from such country. Joint occupancy defeats that principle of law, and is, therefore, absurd and nugatory.
And to show that Spain never intended to surrender the sovereignty of the country, the reader has only to follow the history of that treaty and see how its provisions were carried out.
The British government appointed Captain George Vancouver commissioner to receive the personal property seized by the Spaniards, and carry out the pro- visions of the treaty on the part of England; and Spain appointed as Spanish commissioner Senor Bodega y Quadra, and the two representatives of their respective countries met at Nootka Sound on August 28, 1792. After haggling and negotiating over the matter for two weeks, the Spaniard refused absolutely to deliver possession of any land except the ground on which the British house had been erected, probably about an acre. The ships and personal property had been returned to the Englishmen more than a year before, and the Spanish com- missioner now refused to give up more land than what was used with the one temporary house, and would not permit the English commissioner to raise the British flag over even that. This, the English commissioner refused, and sailed away. The English were never put in possession of a foot of the Pacific coast by Spain, and its territory was never surrendered to England in any manner whatever.
Spain's title to old Oregon by the right of prior discovery, whatever that amounts to, and continuous possession and assertion of that right, as against England, is therefore found to be perfect and indefeasible.
But this was not all of Spain's title. In the year 1763, thirteen years before the American colonies threw off their allegiance to Great Britain, England en- tered into a treaty with Spain, defining the boundaries of the respective terri- torial rights and possessions in North America. And by that treaty, the Mis- sissippi river, flowing from north to south in a direct course for fifteen hun- dred miles, was declared to be the perpetual boundary between the possessions of Spain, and the possessions of Great Britain in America ; and the entire coun- try west of that river lefas declared to be the territory of Spain.
There was, after the disagreements of Quadra and Vancouver, a subsequent effort to settle the matter at Nootka, in which, according to the British version. General Alava, on the part of Spain, surrendered the ground on which the Brit- ish buildings stood to Lieut. Pierce of the British navy. But the English never took possession or occupied the place. And commenting on these facts, the British historian, William Belsham, says :
"But though England, at the expense of three millions, extorted from the Spaniards a promise of restoration and reparation, it is well ascertained : First, that the settlement in question was never restored by Spain, nor the Spanish flag at Nootka ever struck; and secondly, that no settlement had been subse- quently attempted by England on the California coast. The claim of right set up by the court of London, it is therefore plain, has been virtually abandoned."
And now having set out the historical facts which conclusively show that Spain had, according to the law of nations, a good and sufficient title to the ​
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whole of old Oregon, from Mexico clear up to the Russian possessions of Alaska at fifty-four degrees and forty minutes north latitude, we will give the record showing Spain's transfer of that title to the United States. On Feb- ruary 22, 1819, the United States made a treaty of amity settlement and limits with Spain in which the king of Spain ceded to the United States all the rights of Spain to all the territory on the American continent east of the Arkansas river, and all north of the forty-second parallel of north latitude ; and the United States ceded to Spain all claims and pretentions to territory west of the Arkan- sas river and south of said parallel of north latitude. This gave to the United States all of Spain's rights to old Oregon ; being all the territory west of the Rocky mountains lying north of said parallel of latitude and up to fifty-four degrees and forty minutes north.
In a treaty with the Russian empire signed at St. Petersburg, April 17, 1824, Russia recognized this right of the United States in the third article of said treaty, which reads :
"Article 3. It is, moreover, agreed that hereafter, there shall not be formed by the citizens of the United States, or under the authority of the said states, any establishment on the northwest coast of America, nor in any of the islands adjacent to the north of fifty- four degrees and forty minutes of north latitude; and that in the same manner, there shall be none formed by Russian subjects or under the authority of Russia south of the same parallel."
No nation has ever been more careful of its treaty obligations or better in- formed of the boundary rights of other nations than the empire of Russia; and it is not to be thought of for a moment, that Russia would in this manner recognize the rights of the United States to make settlements up to its own south boundary on the Pacific, if we did not possess such right.
In addition to the grant from Spain, the United States had the further grant from France in the sale of Louisiana in 1803. By that purchase from France the United States acquired the rights founded on the doctrine of con- tinuity, the right arising from holding contiguous unclaimed lands. In the treaty of Utrecht, made between England and France in 1713, France was con- firmed in all the territory from the Mississippi line Vv^estward to the Pacific ocean. By that treaty England received Canada and Illinois, and renounced to France all west of the Mississippi and from the heads of all streams empty- ing into Hudson's Bay clear over to the Pacific ocean, subject, of course, to any claims of Spain. For the integrity of this principle of continuity of terri- torial rights. Great Britain waged the war of 1763 against France, and by the treaty which ended that war. Great Britain transferred to France whatever rights or benefits that might accrue from the recognized doctrine of continuity, and forever barred England from asserting any claims to anything west of the north and south Mississippi line. And when the United States made the treaty with England in 1783, at the close of the Revolutionary war, this country be- came the successor of Great Britain to all territorial rights west of the Missis- sippi line, and in purchasing out the rights of France in 1803, in the Louisiana purchase, this country furthermore became the sole owner of all rights of both England and France to all the region west of the Mississippi. So that the only tract of territory that there could be any possible dispute about, was that part of old Oregon west of the Rocky mountains, north of the 49th parallel of north latitude up to Alaska. And that, as we have shown clearly, belonged to Spain and was transferred to the United States by Spain in the Florida treaty of 1819.
But nothwithstanding this clear record title, when our government came to deal with the actual possession of the country, when American citizens wanted to come in for settlement and trade, it made a sorry mess of the business. When President Thomas Jefferson purchased Louisiana of France, and hastily sent out Lewis and Clarke to explore the country, he unquestionably believed the United States had a right to colonize the country. As has been stated be​fore, his mind had for a long time been studying the future of the far west. Captain Gray had discovered the great "river of the west," and his discovery had been hailed by our people as settling the title to a vast and important territory. And the same spirit which had taken possession of and held the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, was ready to move on to the Pacific when the advance was necessary. The report of Lewis and Clarke had electrified the whole nation with the wonders of the far west they had made known to the world. The Napoleonic commercial spirit of John Jacob Astor leaped across a continent, and without national recognition or protection, founded the semi-military post at the mouth of the great river, and flung the stars and stripes to the world in claiming for his adopted country its most valuable and grandest national outpost.
And while England made a pretense that Captain Gray did not really enter the Columbia river, but had only sailed into a bay into which the river emptied, and that an English ship had, subsequent to Gray, sailed up the Columbia a hundred miles, and therefore the English discovered the river, yet that pretense had to be abandoned when actual sea-faring men proved that the Columbia was a real irresistible river clear down onto the ocean bar.
And England never disputed the right of Lewis and Clarke as a government expedition to explore this region in 1805; nor did the British object to the founding of Astoria until the war of 1812 gave them an excuse to rob American citizens of their property wherever they could find them; and so they robbed Astor of what his treacherous partners had not already stolen. But this gave England nothing but a robbers title to Astoria, which they surrendered after the close of the war.
President Jefferson attempted to get the northern boundary line settled with England in 1807; and because the English negotiators attempted to insert a paragraph in the treaty that would make Spain believe that the United States and England intended to claim Spanish territory west of the Rocky mountains, Jefferson rejected the whole business as an unfriendly intimation to Spain. In 1814, after the close of the war of 1812, President Madison renewed the effort to have the northern boundary line settled, and offered the proposition of 1807, to wit: that the boundary should run west from the most northern point of the Lake of the Woods (at the head of the Mississippi river) to the,, summit of the Rocky mountains, but, "that nothing in the present article be construed to extend to the northwest coast of America, or to the territory claimed by either party westward of the Rocky mountains."
The British ministry offered to accept this article, provided, England was granted the right of navigation of the Mississippi river from British America to the Gulf of Mexico. And this, of course, was rejected by the Americans.
In 1815 our government notified the British that immediate possession would be taken of Astoria and the mouth of the Columbia river, and ordered the sloop of war, Captain James Biddle, to make ready to sail for the Columbia. The British minister at Washington objected and remonstrated, but finally agreed to the unconditional surrender of Astoria by the British, and that the status quo before the war should be restored; and that in treating about the title to old Oregon, the United States should be in possession.
And again for the third time, 1817, negotiations were renewed to establish the boundary line. President Madison offering to extend the 49th parallel of north latitude boundary from the Lake of the Woods through to the Pacific ocean, but without prejudice to the rights or claims of Spain. But to this proposition the British would not agree unless they could have free navigation of the Mississippi river. And this was again rejected by the Americans.
And again for the fourth time, 1818, negotiations were renewed to settle the northern boundary, James Monroe having become president, he appointed the two able statesmen. Albert Gallatin aid Richard Rush to manage the business. The whole history of the discovery and exploration of the North Pacific ​th Pacific
coast was gone over, and every argument and consideration that could be pro- duced or invented was brought forward. Agreement was impossible, and the negotiations brought to an end by the treaty of October 20, 1818, which deter- mined the boundary line of the United States zvestzvard to the Rocky iiwiiu- tains, but no further; and then adopting the following third article of the treaty: *Tt is agreed that any country that may be claimed by either party on the northwest coast of America, westward of the Stony (Rocky) mountains, shall, together with its harbors, bays and creeks, and the navigation of all rivers within the same, be free and open for the term of ten years from the date of this treaty to the vessels, citizens and subjects of the two powers. It being well understood that this agreement is not to be construed to the preju- dice of any claim which either of the two high contracting parties may have to any part of said country." This is the treaty of joint occupancy.
Immediately after the treaty of joint occupancy with England, President Monroe renewed negotiations with Spain, and on February 22, 1819, concluded the treaty by which the 42d parallel of north latitude from the meridian north of the head of the Arkansas river, west to the Pacific ocean, was made the boundary line between Spain and the United States, and in the same article Spain ceded to the United States "all rights, claims and pretensions to any coun- try north of the said forty-second parallel." And this gave to the United States all the rights of prior discovery to all the country west of the Rocky moun- tains and north of California, clear up to Alaska; and made perfect the title of the United States to the zvhole of old Oregon.
The ten years of joint occupancy expiring in 1828, the effort was renewed by our government to secure a settlement of the boundary line west of the Rocky mountains. The Russian government had by treaty, conceded the rights of the United States up to fifty-four degrees and forty minutes north. John Quincy Adams had become president and made Henry Clay secretary of state. Clay now renewed the negotiations for a settlement of the northern boundary line with England, being the fifth attempt by the United States to get the vexed question settled.
In an able letter to the American minister at London, Richard Rush, Mr. Clay points out that, "our title to the whole of the coast up to the Russian pos- sessions is derived from prior discovery and settlement at the mouth of the Columbia river, and from the treaty which Spain concluded on the 22d of F.;b- ruary, 1819. The argument on this point is believed to have conclusively es- tablished our title on both grounds. Nor is it conceived that Great Britain has, or can make out, even a colorless title to any portion of the northern coast. By the renunciation and transfer contained in the treaty with Spain of 1819, our rights extended to the sixtieth degree of north latitude."
No conclusion having been reached by these negotiations, the joint occu- pancy treaty was extended indefinitely, with a proviso that it might be termi- rid^ted by either party on giving twelve months' notice to the other party to the treaty. And on this indefinite, uncertain position Oregon was left by our gov- ernment i/rom 1828 to April 28, 1846, when, by direction of congress. Presi- dent James \X., Polk was instructed to notify the government of Great Britain that the treaty^ of joint occupancy would be terminated in twelve months from that date. And-' thus we see that for twenty-eight years the legal position and sovereignty of th. jg Portland townsite was up in the air ; and the people did not know to whom^^ or to what government their allegiance was due, or what government, if any,^ would protect their rights.
The title to Or egon was carried into the political arena of 1844. The national democratic c convention meeting at Baltimore on the 27th of May, 1844, adopted a resolution J that the democratic party and its candidate for president would make good the-ir claim of the United States for the whole of Oregon territory up to fifty-fi^^ur degrees and forty minutes of north latitude. Upon that platform, James K Polk was nominated for president, and in accepting the ​
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nomination, promised if elected, to make good the claim to Oregon as set forth in the platform. He was elected over the Whig candidate, Henry Clay, by a majority of sixty-five votes in the electorial college. Before Polk's nomination or election, the Oregon question came up in the United States senate for dis- cussion, and on January 4th, 1844, James Buchanan afterwards president, de- clared in the senate :
'T will never agree to relinquish one foot of Oregon. If we rested our claim on discovery, it would not extend beyond the valley of the Oregon. But our claim is good as this book shows (referring to Greenhow's history) for it rests on the old Spanish claim. Here in this book are translated copies of old Spanish voyages and documents, proving their title; and thus also ours, by abundant testimony up to fifty-four degrees and forty minutes to a certainty.
Senator Thomas H. Benton speaking at the same time said :
"As to the character of our title to Oregon, there was a much broader and clearer claim than any mentioned by Senator Buchanan.. We settled that terri- tory. The settlement of it was the basis of our claim. The British never saw or heard of Oregon till we discovered it and put a badge of our sovereignty on it. Then Great Britain jumped down on Oregon, and now she was going to fight us for it. He would assure the gentlemen that we are not going to have another Massachusetts and Maine boundary question. There was to be no trembling and yielding in this case, as there was in the former one. No trembling hearts were to be found in the west. This was a western question, and the west had a regard for the national honor."
Much more could be given of the same quality showing the temper of the western people, and the right of the nation to the whole of old Oregon. The presidential campaign of 1844 was fought out on the democratic cry of,
"fifty-four, forty or fight."
The writer of this book remembers distinctly seeing those words emblazoned on the democratic banners; and the hue and cry of the campaign orators de- nouncing the British in their attempt to steal a part of old Oregon, and appealing to the voters to rally to the support of Polk and drive the British out of the Oregon wilderness, root and branch.
The democratic convention which nominated James K. Polk for the presi- dency, proclaimed one of its party principles that "our title to the whole of Oregon is clear, and unquestionable, and its re-occupation at the earliest prac- ticable period is a great American measure, to be recommended to the cordial support of the democracy of the Union." And after Polk was selected, and in his inaugural address on March 4th, 1845, he repeated the declaration of his party that nominated him in the very words of the platform on which he was elected. And then after being thus overwhelmingly elected on this very issue, on a direct referendum to the people, he hauled down the national colors and made the treaty of June 15th, 1846, which gave away to the British all the territory now included in British Columbia.
The surrender of the northwest Oregon territory to the British was the most humiliating and disgraceful piece of diplomacy that ever disgraced any nation. Fortunate that it is, it stands alone in the history of the republic. Cowardly, truckling, and damaging, alike to national interests and national honor, the reason and excuse for it was even more infamous. The whole north and west was so outraged and incensed beyond any words to describe the public senti- ment that Robert J. Walker, secretary of the treasury under President Polk was compelled to give an excuse for the great wrong; and in doing so, admitted that the southern slave state president and senators (with of course their northern dough-face supporters) had given up northwest Oregon to England, for the reason, it might at some future time come into the Union as anti-slavery state.
We can have no cenception now of the bitterness of the fight against Oregon, by the slaveholders on one hand, and the British on the other ; and of the tremendous odds and forces the friends of Oregon in congress and the pioneers ​
on the trail had to overcome. As a sample of the public sentiment in large portions of the eastern states we give two extracts from speeches of United States senators. Senator W. L. Dayton of New Jersey in the senate on February 23, 1844, said :
"What there is in the territory of Oregon to tempt our national cupidity, no one can tell. Of all the countries on the face of the earth, it is one of the least favored of Heaven. It is the mere riddling of creation. It is almost as barren as the desert of Africa, and quite as unhealthy as the Campania of Italy. We would not be subjected to all the innumerable and indescribable tortures of a journey to Oregon for all the soil its savage hunters ever wandered over. All the writers and travelers agree in representing Oregon as a vast extent of mountains, and valleys, of sand dotted over with green, and cultivable spots. Russia has her Siberia, and England has her Botany Bay, and if the United States should ever use a country to which to banish its rogues and scoundrels, the utility of such a region as Oregon will be demonstrated."
And then the wise senator from Jersey ventilates his wisdom on the possi- bility of a railroad to this "riddling of creation," and says :
"The power of steam to reach that country has been suggested. Talk of steam communication — a railroad to the mouth of the Columbia ! a railroad across 2500 miles of desert, prairie and mountains ! The smoke of an engine through those terrible fissures of that great rocky ledge, where the smoke of the volcano has rolled before! Who is to make this vast internal — rather external improvement? All the mines of Mexico and Peru, disembowelled would scarcely pay a penny of the cost."
Dayton lived long enough to become the candidate for vice-president on the ticket with Fremont in 1856, and died in Paris in 1864, after the railroad had started across the deserts of Kansas and Nebraska towards Oregon; and if he could arise from his grave and see the two railroads on the Columbia river daily carrying more freight than is produced in the State of New Jersey in a year, he would give up the delusion that Oregon was a desert.
But Dayton was not alone in the opposition, from the northern states to securing the territory of Oregon. As great a man as Daniel Webster made open as well as secret opposition to the acquisition of Oregon. In a public address on November 7, 1845, at Faneuil hall in Boston, in discussing the Oregon question said "that the vast importance of peace with England, he took for granted; but the question that now threatened that peace, and was causing great alarm, was of forty years standing, and was now coming to a crisis. It is a ques- tion that is a fit subject for compromise and amicable adjustment, but one which in my opinion can be settled on an honorable basis by taking the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude as the boundary line, the two countries would then keep abreast on that line to the Pacific ocean."
Later on Mr. Webster declared that the title and government of Oregon would go to the people which had the greatest population in the territory. And still later on, in the United States senate, as showing his position generally, he declared in a speech on March ist, 1847:
"In the judgment of the whig party, it is due to the best interests of the coun- try, to declare at once, and proclaim now, that we want no new states, nor terri- tory to form new states out of us, as the end of conquest. For one, I enter into this declaration with all my heart. We want no extension of territory, we want no accession of new states. The country is already large enough."
This shows why Dr. Whitman could not move Webster, while secretary of state, to help Oregon. And shows the undercurrent of apathy, not to say dis- loyalty to the west, with which Benton, Lynn Semple and other western states- men had to contend to save Oregon to the nation.
Now, sixty years after that disgraceful surrender to England the commercial interests, and all the people of this city and the Pacific coast can see the damage wrought to national interests by having a British state sandwiched in between ​the state of Washington and our territory of Alaska. Here is our old invet- erate and historical enemy with all its forts, and harbors and battleships, and trans-continental railroads, ready to harbor the Japansese and combine against
' American interests, and Oregon commerce, and do us more damage from these advantages cowardly given away by the Polk administration, than any army of a hundred thousand men could do attacking us from any point east of the Rocky mountains. H our government had courageously held on to all of Oregon, as the people told them to do in the presidential election of 1844, and as senators Benton and Linn vainly besought them to do, we would have had all of old Oregon today, and the Pacific ocean with all its vast commercial advantages would be practically an American lake. And for just retribution of this great wrong, some day the American people will raise up and place another Andrew Jackson in the presidential chair, and then look out, if the British flag is not pulled down from New Foundland to Vancouver island, and the Canadians told to go it alone, or come in under the stars and stripes.
And now after reviewing the history of the country for over sixty years, and considering the desperate and horrible course of the slave states in plung- ing the nation into all the horrors of the civil war, and putting the life and existence of the nation at stake, there can be but little doubt that had it not been for the American settlements in the Willamette valley, and the organization of the provisional government, which had declared against slavery, the pro- slavery president and his supporters would have given up the whole of Oregon to England to prevent the addition of another free state to the union.