Métis Family in Ontario – photo by Robert Bell, courtesy of Library and Archives Canada, e011156727_s1
Hudson’s Bay Company – HBC – ran things in the Pacific Northwest from 1813 until the mid-1840’s. Then American emigrant numbers began to overwhelm their control. While political control in 1818 over the Oregon Country officially split between the governments of Great Britain and the United States, true economic control from a Eurocentric standpoint remained in the bailiwick of the HBC. The story of the Red River colonists featured an attempt by the HBC to help out on the political side.
As school children, we bused out on field trips to Champoeg State Park to see where Oregon was “born”. Most of us kids had little idea of the events which transpired here. We, like our parents, also lack a fundamental knowledge of a history of the times in which the meetings and subsequent events took place. The Provisional Government of Oregon simply did not mean much then or later.
But Champoeg gave the Northwest got its first version of a Eurocentric government. The United States and England decided to agree to not agree in 1818 forming a condominium of political control over the vast region. A major problem with the agreement, no mention made of internal government. That was not much of a problem when the only Europeans in the region were busy searching for animal pelts. However, events took a big turn as the 1830’s became the 1840’s and American settlers began coming onto the scene.
Cayuse men on horseback – from Lee Moorhouse photo collection – University of Oregon Special Digital Collections; photo is from about 1900.
Warfare erupted from the killings of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman at their mission along the Walla Walla River at Waiilatpu. Like most wars, they are easier to extinguish than to begin. Here are some of those involved with the Cayuse War, a “war” having grievous results for the Natives belonging to the Cayuse peoples and directly transforming the state of government in the Pacific Northwest.
Sign noting McClellan’s passage through the dense forests of the southern Cascades.
As future generals for the Federal Army during the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant and Philip Sheridan are also remembered for their service in the Pacific Northwest during the 1850’s. Another, George Brinton McClellan made a cameo appearance. He led a group tasked with identifying a possible rail route through the Cascades. In addition, they potential were to build a military road across the mountain chain so emigrant wagons could more easily reach the Puget Sound of Washington Territory. This reconnaissance gave McClellan his first extended period of independent command since graduating from West Point with the Class of 1846.
Before George McClellan became the leading Federal general in the early Civil War, he served in the wilds of Washington, surveying for railroad routes.
1854 view of Columbia Barracks looking south across the Columbia River to Oregon. James Madison Alden – Yale Collection of American Literature, Yale University, CT
Oregon, California and the western territories of the United States played little roles in the devastation seen in the East known as the American Civil War. In the era before transcontinental rail, the two Pacific states were simply too far away to matter much in the conflagration. To reach the far west, six months needed to come into play, whether the journey was overland or by sea – choice there of around Cape Horn or across the disease-ridden Isthmus of Panama. A surprisingly number of men with Oregon ties did play roles in the titanic struggles. Most of those men had military ties to the Northwest, spending time on duty in the 1850’s helping bring order and stability to the newly settling lands of Oregon, California and Washington Territory. The most famous soldiers who spent time in Oregon, one Ulysses S. Grant.
Oregon in its early days featured many folks who by today’s standards would score very low with Political Correctness points. James Willis Nesmith falls into that category, but with some redeeming qualities. One of Oregon’s first politicians, his time began with the Provisional Government, extending through the Territorial period well into Oregon’s early Statehood years. A member of the so-called Salem Clique, a group of Democratically inclined politicians who were prominent in that era, Nesmith outlasted the Clique’s breakup with the Civil War, serving as one of Oregon’s senators through the war years.
He was one of only eight Democratic senators – four Border State Democrats and four Union Democrats – to vote in favor of the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery. He abstained from the senate vote on the 14th allowing equal rights to all citizens under the law. Here, he was following the lead of President Andrew Johnson, a fellow Unionist. His allegiance to his fellow Democrat would cost him in the years to come.
Print from a wood-engraving by N. Orr & Co., originally published in Frances Fuller Victor’s, The River of the West, circa 1870.
Early relationships between European newcomers and Native Americans living in the Pacific Northwest certainly went no better than in most other regions of the Americas. European supremacy became much easier through early introduction of disease, an actual prelude in many cases to actual ethnic introductions. Bad as the era directly before the two peoples came together face to face was, disease continued to inflict the Native populations, a factor leading directly to ill will and what became known as the “Cayuse War” in 1847.
Pillars of Hercules rise to the right of Cigar Rock.
Flying along Interstate 84, you might catch an ephemeral glance at a waterfall or two. If you know when to look. Traffic speeds along well above the speed limit of 65 mph. The number of cars and trucks seem to exponentially increase with the years. Pity the traveler who finds themselves stuck behind one of the giant propellors heading to the wind farms just south of the east end of the Columbia River Gorge. Road travel has come a long way since the first road was put in over 150 years ago. Basalt columns occur in many areas along the way. So, the columns and cliffs jutting up to the south of the freeway just west of the Bridal Veil exit – exit 44 – might not garner an extra glance from a speeding car. You have just missed noting the Pillars of Hercules.
On the old railbed of the Des Chutes Railroad with the river below.
Type in a query for ‘railroad wars’ and you will find three events under the Wikipedia entry for “railroad wars”. The last event was the “Deschutes Railroad War”. Of the three, this is the shortest entry. The entry focuses on the actual building difficulties of the two Deschutes railroads erected on either side of the river. But to really understand the real reason for the enmity between the competing rail companies, we need to go further back before the 1912 construction of the two lines.
Oregon & California lands given back to the federal government include much of the BLM lands – orange. These were part of the original land grants given to the O&C Rail Road.
Looking at maps showing Federal lands of the West, you quickly notice a checkerboard arrangement incongruously drawn without seeming reason. Certainly, no topographical purpose. You now see the result of the rail land grants – grabs – of the 19th century.
One of Abraham Lincoln’s main planks to his 1860 presidential campaign became realized by the 1862 Pacific Railway Act. This gave Congress the ability to grant land and low-cost loans to railway companies building lines across the West. Lincoln’s goal was a transcontinental line to unite California and the Pacific Coast to the rest of the country.
