Benton County, Oregon - Chapter 7: Discoveries Westward from the Atlantic, 1885

Chapter 7: Discoveries Westward from the Atlantic

Great Britain, France relinquished her claim to Hudson's bay, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. During the next quarter of a century the energetic Frenchmen established a chain of forts and settlements from Quebec to New Orleans, taking absolute and actual possession of the country and cutting off the westward extension of Florida on the one hand and the northeastern limits of Mexico and California on the other.

Thus matters stood until the disastrous war between England and France involved the American colonies in bloody strife and turned over the exposed settlements to the tender mercies of the Indian tomahawk and scalping knife. Worsted in the strife, France, after her colonial star was stricken from the sky by the gallant Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham, but before the final seal to her defeat was affixed by the treaty of Paris, secretly conveyed to Spain her province of Louisiana, and thus robbed her victorious enemy of one of the greatest fruits of her conquest. The terms of the conveyance, made in 1762, defined the western and southern limit of Louisiana and the eastern and northern boundary of Mexico and California, to follow the course of the Sabine river from its mouth to latitude 32 degrees, thence north to the Red river, and following that stream to longitude 23 degrees, thence north to the Arkansas and up that river to latitude 42 degrees, which line it followed to the Pacific. It was thus that even after the acquisition of Canada, England found her possessions bounded on the west by the great " Father of Waters." This was the situation in America when the Russians opened the Alaskan fur trade and Spain perfected her claim to California by planting there the missions of St. Francis.

It was now a century since the Hudson's Bay Company was chartered, and it had not yet discovered the northwest passage, though that was the leading object stated in the charter ; nor, indeed, had the company made any earnest effort so to do. The belief still obtained that the Straits of Anian existed, or, at least, that some great river, such a stream, possibly, as the Rio de los Reyes, could be found flowing into the Pacific, which was navigable eastward to within a few miles of some harbor accessible to vessels from the Atlantic. If either of these existed, they were naturally to be looked for in the region dominated by the great fur monopoly. The discovery of such a means of communication was earnestly desired by the English crown, yet the company was sufficiently powerful to prevent or at least render fruitless all efforts to explore its dominions. All explorations that gave any new geographical light were conducted beyond the company's domain and contrary to its desires.

It has been shown how the headwaters of the Mississippi had been visited by French missionaries and explorers, both from Canada and Louisiana, who had established a fur trade with the natives of considerable value. Immediately after Canada fell into the hands of the English, an expedition was made into that region by Captain Jonathan Carver, a native of Connecticut, who had served with distinction in the war against France so recently brought to a successful termination. He left Boston in 1766, and traveling by the way of Detroit and Fort Michilimacinac, reached the headwaters of the Mississippi. The object of his journey, as stated in his account, was, " after gaining a knowledge of the manners, customs, languages, soil and natural productions of the different nations that inhabit the back of the Mississippi, to ascertain the breadth of the vast continent which extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, in its broadest part, between the 43d and 46th degrees of north latitude. Had

Pacific Coast

I been abie to accomplish this, I intended to have proposed to the government to establish a post in some of those parte, about the Straits of Anian, which, having been discovered by Sir Francis Drake, of course belongs to the English. This I am convinced, would greatly facilitate the discovery of a northwest passage, or communication between Hudson's bay and the Pacific ocean." His idea that the Straits of Anian, or any other passage inland from the Pacific, had been discovered by Drake was an exceedingly erroneous one.

Just how far west Carver penetrated is uncertain, and his claim of a residence of five months in that region is a doubtful one, since the accounts of the manners and customs of the natives given in his narrative (published twenty-five years later in London at the suggestion of a number of gentlemen who hoped the proceeds of its sale would be sufficient to relieve the author's necessities; he died in 1780, in penury), are but translations into English of the writings of Hennepin, Lahontan, Charlevoix and other French explorers. To him, however, must be credited the first use of the name " Oregon," which is given in the following connection : u From these natives, together with my own observations, I have learned that the four most capital rivers on the continent of North America - viz., the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, the River Bourbon (Red River of the North), and the Oregon, or River of the West - have their sources in the same neighborhood. The waters of the three former are within thirty miles of each other ; [This is practically correct, and this point, somewhere in Western Minnesota, is probably the limit of his westward journey.] the latter, however, is rather further west. This shows that these parts are the highest in North America ; and it is an instance not to be paralleled in the other three quarters of the world, that four rivers of such magnitude should take their rise together, and each, after running separate courses, discharge their waters into different oceans, at the distance of two thousand miles from their sources, for in their passage from this spot to the Bay of St. Lawrence, east, to the Bay of Mexico, south, to Hudson's Bay, north, and to the bay at the Straits of Anian, west, each of these traverse upwards of two thousand miles."

It will be observed that Carver lays no claim to having visited even the headwaters of the "Oregon, or River of the West," and the probability is that all he knew of it was gathered from the same works of the French explorers which had supplied the other leading features of his book, though, possibly, like them, he may have heard such a stream spoken of by the Indians. In many of these French narratives to which he had access, a belief is asserted in the existence of a large stream flowing westward from the vicinity of the headwaters of the Mississippi into the Pacific, founded upon information given by the natives ; and on many maps of the eighteenth century such a stream was indicated, bearing variously the names " River of the West," "River Thegayo" " Rio de los Reyes," and " River of Aguilar" (the one whose mouth Aguilar reported having seen in latitude 43 degrees, in the year 1603.) All that was new in Carver's account was the name " Oregon," and of that he fails to give us any idea of its meaning or origin. Many theories have been advanced, plausible and even possible, but none of them susceptible of proof, and the probabilities are that the word is one of Carver's own invention. The fact that he stands sponsor for the name of this great region, is all that entitles Carver and his plagiarisms to any notice in this volume whatever. The first definite account of the River of the West was one given by a Yazoo Indian to Lepagn Dupratz, a French traveler, many years before Carver's journey. The Indian asserted that he had ascended the Missouri northwesterly to its source, and that beyond this he encountered another great river flowing towards the setting sun, down which he passed until his progress was arrested by hostilities existing between the tribes living along the stream. He participated in the war, and in a certain battle his party captured a woman of a tribe living further west, from whom he learned that the river entered a great water where ships had been seen sailing and in them were men with beards and white faces. There is nothing improbable in this narrative, in the light of ascertained geographical facts, unless it be the portion relating to ships ; even that is possible, or may, perhaps, be simply an embellishment of the story by the Indian or Dupratz. Several maps published about fifteen years prior to Carver's journey, on the authority of this narrative, had marked upon them such a stream with the name " Great River of the West" attached to it. This fully accounts for the valiant captain's knowledge of such a stream, though it clears up none of the darkness surrounding the title " Oregon."

In 1771 the Hudson's Bay Company sent Samuel Hearne on a tour of exploration of the regions lying to the westward of the bay, for the purpose of finding a rich mine of copper which the Indians had frequently spoken of and whose name translated into English, was The Far-off Metal River. He was also instructed to determine the question of a passage westward from Hudson's bay, in whose existence the directors had now no faith whatever, and in consequence were anxious to make a showing of great zeal in searching for it. Hearne discovered Great Slave lake and its connecting rivers and lakes, finally reaching the Coppermine river and following the stream to it» point of discharge into the Arctic ocean. This body of water he conceived and reported to be a great inland sea of a character similar to Hudson's bay, between which two bodies of water there was evidently no connecting passage. He also learned from the natives that the land extended a great distance further west, beyond high mountains. The result of his journey, since it tended to prove that no passage to the Pacific from Hudson's bay could be possible, was quickly communicated to the British Admiralty by the company, though the journal kept by Hearne was not published for the benefit of the public till twenty years later.

The Admiralty were now satisfied that a further search for a strait leading westward from Hudson's bay would be futile; but t still hoped that a navigable passage could be found leading from Baffin's bay into the sea discovered by Hearne and still another one from this new ocean into the Pacific. Parliament had in 1845 offered a reward of £20,000 to anyone discovering a passage from Hudson's bay, which the company had carefully rendered nugatory, and now Parliament, in 1776, again passed an act offering a like reward to any English vessel entering and passing through any strait, or in any direction, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific, north of latitude 52 degrees, which was about the southern limit of Hudson's bay. This led to a series of voyages by English navigators in the Pacific ocean, stimulated especially by the reports which about that time reached England of voyages and settlements made by representatives of Spain. The era of positive discoveries in Oregon was coming on apace.