ed into the States of
Oregon, Washington and Idaho. President Jefferson had seen almost with
the vision of prophecy the future of that distant portion of the
Louisiana Purchase. "I looked forward with gratification," he said in his
later years, "to the time when the descendants of the settlers of Oregon
would spread themselves through the whole length of the coast, covering
it with free, independent Americans, unconnected with us but by the ties
of blood and interest, and enjoying, like us, the rights of
self-government." And yet, for forty years after the treaty which
transferred to the United States the possessions of France in America,
the leading statesmen of our republic, Jefferson excepted, remained blind
to the value of America's domain on the Pacific. In 1810, John Jacob
Astor's American Fur Company undertook to establish a post upon what they
regarded as American soil, at a place which the founders called Astoria.
The Hudson Bay Company then claimed Oregon as part of their territory,
and when the War of 1812 broke out the British attacked Astoria, took the
Americans prisoners, and changed the name of the post to Fort George. The
Astor attempt to found a settlement in Oregon was not without favorable
bearing on American claims to that territory, especially as the
enterprise had the sanction of the United States Government, and a United
States naval officer commanded the leading vessel in the expedition.
Under the treaty of Ghent, Astoria was to be restored to its original
owners, but it was not until 1846 that this act of justice was
consummated. In 1818 it was mutually agreed that each nation should
equally enjoy the privileges of all the bays and harbors on that coast
for ten years, and this agreement was renewed in 1827 for an indefinite
time. Practically this meant the occupation of the country by the Hudson
Bay Company, which found its forests and waters a mine of fur-bearing
wealth. The most eminent of America's statesmen, so far as the Pacific
Northwest was concerned, seemed to be under the spell of their own
ignorance and of the Hudson Bay Company's misrepresentations. The great
Senator Benton said that, "The ridge of the Rocky Mountains may be named
as a convenient, natural and everlasting boundary." Winthrop, of
Massachusetts, quoted and commended this statement of Benton, and
McDuffie of South Carolina declared that the wealth of the Indies would
be insufficient to pay the cost of a railroad to the mout