Mythology – a popular belief or assumption that has grown up around someone or something; one of the definitions of the word. Synonyms include “legend”, “tradition”, “lore”, “legend”, “knowledge”, “wisdom”, “folktale” and “anecdote” among other words. These words go a long way in describing the events at Champoeg, Oregon on 2 May 1843 and how those events lie remembered in our minds today.
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With a non-Native American population numbering in the low hundreds in the 1830s, the long-simmering struggle for control over the vast Oregon Country began its inexorable swing towards the United States. Methodist missionaries doubled down on their numbers at their Willamette Mission sited a few miles north from today’s city of Salem along the Willamette River. The Great Reinforcement brought fifty-one men, women and children from New York City all the way to the Hudson’s Bay Company fort at Vancouver.
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A long time in planning, preparing and recruiting, the United States Exploratory Expedition finally sailed out from Hampton Roads, Virginia, 18 August 1838, under the command of Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes en route for Madeira. The six-ship squadron would spend the next four years at sea moving around the world, exploring, charting and discovering. During their voyages which took them to six of the seven continents – they only missed Europe. In 1841, the ships visited the Oregon Country. An adjunct to their scientific missions was to visit Oregon to report on specific conditions there as American interest in those lands were on the upswing. Only one official American probe ventured into the Oregon Country previously.
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Most stories – articles or books – discussing the Methodist Mission of Jason Lee to Oregon which lasted from 1834 until 1843, start with the same story. The story of four Native Americans who came to St. Louis to ask Missouri governor William Clark – yes, the same “Clark” of the Lewis & Clark fame – for teachers to provide them with the power of white man’s religion. Of the Native Americans, three were of the Nez Percé tribe and one was a Flathead elder. The two tribes were both neighbors and friends. They reached St. Louis early in October 1831, soon after meeting with Governor Clark, also the superintendent of Indian Affairs.
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William Slacum joined the US Navy in the summer of 1829 at the age of 30. Two years later, he served as the purser aboard the USS Potomac. A naval purser served as a supply and financial officer aboard ships. He acted both as the maintainer of ship’s pay and muster roles but also ran a ship’s store from which a sailor’s pay would be deducted for articles of clothing or luxury items like tobacco, sugar, tea or coffee. Purser positions were highly sought after. The title of purser in the American navy would change in 1860 to paymaster. Today, they men and women officers belong to the Pay Corps of the navy.
Aboard the Potomac, he spent four years circumnavigating the world. In December 1833, Slacum found himself posted as Special Agent of the Pacific Squadron in Valapraiso, Chile. This gave him time to recover from a bout of trigeminal neuralgia – tic douloureux. His posting was subject to confirmation from Washington, which he failed to obtain when the Navy appointed someone else to fill the post.
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Canadian trappers were among the first non-Native Americans to spend extended periods of time in the nascent Oregon Country during the early years of the 19th century. Most were French speakers from rural Lower Quebec. Many took on Native American women as their wives. Common law marriages and the resultant children failed to receive recognition from either British law. Catholic priests ventured out slowly behind the trappers to bring a modicum of religious stability to those living beyond the pale of society. Most of the retired trappers settled on what is today the French Prairie.
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