Benton County, Oregon - Chapter 5: Russia Enters the Pacific, 1885

Chapter 5: Russia Enters the Pacific

Russia a New Factor in the Contest of Nations - Plans of Peter the Great - Behring's First Voyage Proves that Asia and America are Distinct Continents - Voyage of the St. Paul - Bearing Reaches the American Coast and Expires on the Return Voyage - Terrible Suffering of the Crew - Beginning of the Pacific Fur Trade - Result of Russian Explorations.

Though France confined her attention to inland explorations from her Canadian colonies, England to fostering her colonies in America and exploring the north Atlantic coast, and Holland to the founding of New Amsterdam and the plundering of the Spanish commerce and settlements in the south Pacific ; yet the North Pacific coast was not wholly neglected during the first half of the eighteenth century. A new and almast unexpected factor made itself felt in the Pacific, and this was the powerful and autocratic monarch of Russia. Peter the Great had redeemed Russia from a state of almost utter barbarity and set it on the highway to civilization and national pow T er. In the arts of war and peace he had patiently instructed his people, had cemented their national union, had awakened a national pride and love of power w ithin their bosoms, had extended his domain and increased the number of his subjects, and had made of a people formerly scarcely thought of when the affairs of Europe were discussed, one of the most influential nations of the world. It was his constant aim and the legacy he left* to his successors, to extend the power of Russia on all sides, to build up the nation and make it the foremost on the globe, and the czars have never relaxed their efforts to accomplish this mighty purpose. Gradually the dominion of the czar was pushed eastward until his authority extended across the whole of Siberia to the Pacific at the peninsula of Kamtchatka. The rich furs of that region became a source of revenue to the government which Peter w r as desirous of increasing. He wanted to extend his power still further east to the American settlements of the English, Spanish and French, though how far that was neither he nor anyone else had the least conception. To this desire is due the discovery and exploration of the northern Pacific coasts of both Asia and America. Peter commanded vessels to be built at Kamtchatka, and at Archangel on the White sea, that thev might endeavor, the one in the Arctic and the other in the

Pacific, to find the long-sought northwest passage, or as they viewed it a northeaxt passage. It was Peter's idea that vessels could sail from the Atlantic through the Arctic ocean and enter the Pacific by the way of this passage, provided America did not prove to be simply an eastern extension of Asia; but Peter died before his project was executed, and the scheme lay dormant for a few years.

In 1728 the great Catherine determined to carry out her husband's plans for Pacific exploration, and agreeably to his former instructions she ordered an expedition to be prepared on the northeast coast of Kamtchatka, which she placed under the com- raand of a Danish navigator of skill and courage, Vitus Behring, who had been designated by Peter for that position before his death. He sailed on the the fourteenth of July in a small vessel, and followed along the coast of Asia east and north until in latitude 67° 18' he found it steadily trending westward, and was satisfied he was then in the Arctic and following the northern coast to the west. Convinced that he had fulfilled his instructions and demonstrated the fact that Asia and America were separate continents, and being unprepared for a winter voyage, he returned to Kamtchatka. How far America lay to the eastward of Asia he knew not, for no land had been observed in that direction, and he was totally ignorant of the fact that he had, both in going and returning, passed through the narrow channel separating the two continents and been within a few miles of the American shore. This was made evident a few years later, and Behring's name was bestowed upon the straits. The elusive northwest passage had been found, though it took many years to discover that as a means of communication between the Atlantic and Pacific it was absolutely impracticable. That Behring's passage meets the requirements of the Straits of Anian as depicted by Maldonado, both in latitude and general features, cannot be denied, but to navigate the North sea as described by him and to pass through the tortuous straits he locates in the 75th parallel into the Atlantic is utterly impossible; and, therefore, Behring's straits cannot be looked upon as lending any support to the romance with which the unscrupulous Maldonado regaled the Council of the Indies.

The next year Behring undertook to reach America by sailing directly eastward, but adverse winds forced him into the Gulf of Okotsk, and he abandoned the undertaking and proceeded to St. Petersburg. During the next few years many other expeditions by land and sea, one of which was driven upon the coast of Alaska in 1732, more clearly defined the Asiatic coast, and the nature of the passage between it and America. The Empress Anne prepared for another expedition, but dying before it was ready to sail, was succeeded by Elizabeth, who dispatched two vessels, the St. Peter and St. Paid, from the Bay of Avatscha on the fourth of June. The former was commanded by Behring and the latter by Alexei Tchirikof, who had been his lieutenant on the former voyage. The vessels were soon separated in a gale and were not again united. Tchirikof returned on the eighth of October, having reached a group of islands on the coast in latitude 56 degrees, where sixteen of his men were slaughtered by the natives, and having lost twenty-one of his crew by scurvy, including the distinguished French naturalist Delile de Crayere.

Of the discoveries made by Behring and the sufferings endured by the crew of the St. Peter, the only record is that of a journal kept by Steller, the German surgeon and naturalist, which was first published in full in 1795, though its tenor and leading features were known at a much earlier date. Its nautical and geographical details are not as definite as could be desired. It seems that Behring sailed south-easterly as far as the 46th parallel without encountering land and then steered to the northeast as far as the 60th degree, when he discovered an immense snow-covered mountain which he named St. Elias because it was first seen on the eighteenth of July, the day assigned to that saint in the Russian calender. Entering a narrow passage between an island and the mainland a strong current of discolored water was observed, indicating the pres- euce of a large river whose size proved the land through which it flowed to be of continental proportions. The conclusion was at once reached that America had been found; but Behring, who was ill, refused to explore the coast to the southeast in the direction of the Spanish possessions, and set out upon the return voyage. Delayed and baffled by violent winds and the many islands of the Aleutian group, but slow progress was made. For two months they wandered or were driven about by furious winds in the open sea to the south of the archipelago, famine and disease claiming their victims almost daily. "The general distress and mortality ," says the journal of the surgeon, "increased so fast that not only the sick died, but those who pretended to be healthy when released from their posts fainted and fell down dead; of which the scantiness of water, the want of biscuits and brandy, cold, wet, nakedness, vermin, and terror, were not the least causes." On the fifth of November they landed upon an island with the purpose of spending the winter there, and constructed huts from the wreck of their vessel which was dashed by the waves upon the beach soon after the landing was effected. Behring died on the eighth of December, and during the winter thirty of the crew followed him. The survivors, having lived upon sea and land animals killed on the island, constructed a small vessel from pieces of the wreck, and succeeded in reaching the Bay of Avatscha the following August. The little island where they had spent the winter and where were buried their commander and so many of their comrades, they named Behring's Isle ; it lies about eighty miles from the Kamtchatkan coast, and consists of granite peaks thrust up from mid ocean, against which the waves dash with ceaseless fury.

No disposition was manifested by the rulers of Russia to prosecute further discoveries for more than twenty years. Individual enterprise, however accomplished something. The returning survivors of Behring's ill-fated expedition took with them the skins of animals which had served them as food during that terrible winter, and sold them at high prices. This led to short voyages eastward in quest of furs, the beginning of that enormous fur trade in the Pacific which was for years a bone of contention between nations and which led to the first settlement and occupation of Oregon. It is thus described by Greenhow:

" The trade thus commenced was, for a time, carried on by individual adventurers, each of whom was alternately a seaman, a hunter, and a merchant ; at length, however, some capitalists in Siberia employed their funds in the pursuit, and expeditions to the islands were, in consequence, made on a more extensive scale, and with greater regularity and efficiency. Trading stations were established at particular points, where the furs were collected by persons left for that object; and vessels were sent, at stated periods, from the ports of Asiatic Russia, to carry the articles required for the use of the agents and hunters, or . for barter with the natives, and to bring away the skins collected.

" The vessels employed in this commerce were, in all respects, wretched and insecure, the planks being merely attached together, without iron, by leathern thongs ; and t as no instruments were used by the traders for determining latitudes and longitudes at sea, their ideas of the relative positions of the places which they visited were vague and incorrect. Their navigation was, indeed, performed in the most simple and unscientific manner possible. A vessel sailing from the Bay of Avatscha, or from Cape

Pacific Coast

Lopatka, the southern extremity of Kamtchatka, could not have gone far eastward, without falling in with one of the Aleutian islands, which would serve as a mark for her course to another ; and thus she might go on from point to point throughout the whole chain. In like manner she would return to Asia, and if her course and rate of sailing were observed with tolerable care, tfiere could seldom be any uncertainty as to whether she were north or south of the line of the islands. Many vessels were, nevertheless, annually lost, in consequence of this want of knowledge of the coasts, and want of means to ascertain positions at sea ; and a large number of those engaged in the trade, moreover, fell victims to cold, starvation and scurvy, and to the enmity of the bold natives of the islands. Even as late as 1806, it was calculated that one-third of these vessels were lost in each year. The history of the Russian trade and establishments on the north Pacific, is a series of details of dreadful disasters and sufferings; and, whatever opinion may be entertained as to the humanity of the adventurers, or the morality of their proceedings, the courage and perseverance displayed by them, in struggling against such appalling difficulties, must command universal admiration.

" The furs collected by these means, at Avatscha and Ochotsk, the principal furtrading points, were carried to Irkutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia, whence some of them were taken to Europe ; the greater portion were, however, sent to Kiakta, a small town just within the Russian frontier, close to the Chinese town of Maimatchin, through which places all the commerce between these two empires passed, agreeably to a treaty concluded at Kiakta in 1728. In return for the furs, which brought higher prices in China than anywhere else, teas, tobacco, rice, porcelain, and silk and cotton goods, were brought to Irkutsk, where all the most valuable of these articles were sent to Europe. These transportations were effected by land, except in some places where the rivers were used as the channel of conveyance, no commercial exportation having been made from Eastern Russia by sea before 1779 ; and when the immense distances between some of the points above mentioned are considered (Irkutsk to Pekin, 1,300 miles ; to Bay of Avatscha, 3,450 miles; to St. Petersburg, 3,760 miles), it becomes evident that none but objects of great value, in comparison with their bulk, at the place of their consumption, could have been thus transported with profit to those engaged in the trade, and that a large portion of the price paid by the consumer must have been absorbed by the expense of transportation. A skin was, in fact, worth at Kiakta three times as much as it cost at Ochotsk."

Such was the crude beginning of that enormous trade in furs which in a few years sprang up in the Pacific, and for which English, American and Russian traders competed. China was then, and is to-day, the greatest consumer of furs, which were for years taken to Pekin overland, as described above; but in 1771 a cargo of peltries was taken direct to Canton under peculiar circumstances. In the month of May a few Polish exiles, sent to that bleak and inhospitable wilderness for political reasons* succeeded in escaping to sea in a small vessel from a harbor on the southwest coast of Kamtchatka, being led by Count Maurice de Benyowsky, a Hungarian. They entered the Pacific and after being driven hither and thither among the islands, stopping frequently to procure furs, they finally arrived at Canton, the first vessel from the North Pacific to reach any ports frequented by ships of other nations, demonstrating the fact that the icy waters about Kamtchatka and Alaska belong to the same great ocean as

Other Russian voyages of exploration were made to the eastward of Kamtchatka in 1766 and 1769 ; and in 1774 an official account of these voyages was published in St. Petersburg, entitled " Dascription of the Newly Discovered Islands in the Sea between Asia and America. ,, This was accompanied by a map which embodied the ideas of Pacific coast geography which then prevailed. By it the American coast north of California was made to run northwesterly to the 70th parallel. Between this point and the coast of Asia was represented a broad open sea dotted with islands, many of which bore the same names and were identical with the larger ones of the Atlantic group, though by no means properly located. Alaska, or Aliaska, was represented as a great island with Asia on one side and America on the other, separated from Asia by the narrow channel of Behring's straits, and it was many years before it was known that Alaska was a portion of the main land of America.

Spain Appeals to the Jesuits for Aid - The Society of Jesus - Plan of Father Kino - The Mission of Our Lady of Loretto Founded by Father Tierra - Attack upon the Mission - Method of Conducting Missionary Work - Expulsion of the Jesuits - The Pearl of Our Lady of Loretto - The Franciscans Invade Alta California - San Diego Founded by Father Junipero Serra -Discovery of San Francisco Bay The Mission at San Diego Saved from Abandonment by the timely Arrival of Supplies - Founding of Missions at Monterey and San Antonia de Padua - The Growth and Downfall of the Mission System.

For a century and a half after Cortes planted the first colony on the peninsula of California, the viceroys of Mexico, in an indissolute manner, had undertaken to carry out the will of their sovereigns that colonies be established and maintained on the coast of California, but without success. When the Mexican authorities decided that such an undertaking was impossible of accomplishment, the government appealed to the powerful Society of Jesus to undertake the task, hoping thus to win by the cross what could not be conquered with the sword ; but an offer of $40,000 annually from the royal treasury to aid them in establishing missions was refused by the Jesuits, and the crown abandoned the hope of accomplishing anything whatever.

At that time the Society of Jesus was the most wealthy and by reason of its secrecy and perfect discipline and the intelligence, devotion and influence of its members, the most powerful organization which has ever existed. It had its ramifications in every land where was the symbol of the cross, and its faithful subjects hesitated not to plunge into the unknown wildernesses of the New World to carry the light of Christianity to the "nations sitting in darkness" far beyond the confines of civilization.