The Hudson’s Bay Company provided the main source of European influence in the Oregon Country throughout the period of condominium rule shared by the United Kingdom and the United States – 1818-1846. The Treaty of Ghent noted sovereignty sharing over the vast northwestern regions, but failed to say anything about how to conduct internal affairs. Into the void, the HBC.
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After the crushing loss suffered by the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the battle of Sadowa in 1866, The Empire lost more lands in Italy to the Kingdom of Savoy. The entire Veneto added to earlier losses of Lombardy and smaller duchies in central Italy like Tuscany. Austria’s old defense system centered around the forts of the Quadrilateral. Those forts were all given up after 1866 with the loss of the Veneto and Friulian. A totally new defensive system became needed – enter the Kärtner Sperren.
In the far northeast of Italy, Austrian fortifications were not as elaborate as those in South Tyrol. Here, a modern fort system developed in the early 20th century to both defend and to serve as a potential base for offensive operations against potential Italian aggression – even though, Italy supposedly was an ally to Austria-Hungary.
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When is an ocean not an ocean? When is a river, a bay? A bay the sea? William Clark on 7 November 1805 looked downstream from the camp of their expedition near Pillar Rock writing famously in his journal, “Ocian in view. Oh what joy!”
This is one of the most famous quotes from the annals of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Clark wrote the note describing the party’s view from their camp on the north bank of the Columbia River opposite Pillar Rock. Historically, the quote was not the first note Clark wrote down. This note actually written some months later in a third edit by the explorer. His first two journal entries were a little less emotional, though still maintaining the ocean they had sought finally found.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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After just returning from a series of eye clinics in Albania, I will share a few thoughts on the sights seen outside the window from over 34,000 feet as I made my way back on a long transatlantic sojourn. This was the second set of clinics I have worked in Albania.
My transatlantic journey began too early at a crowded Nënë Tereza Airport just to the northwest of Tirana. The first of three flights involved in my return to Oregon was scheduled for 0600. Another colleague was flying to Rome at 0530, so we shared a cab. We left our hotel out in the western Albanian countryside near Durrës at 0330. This coming after our last day of clinics. In an unheated building, we saw over 700 patients in Kukës, Albania, three hours north of where we were staying close to the border with Kosovo.
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