Transcript Early Challenges

The Oregon Country
Chapter 12, Lesson 1
Rivalry in the Northwest
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Oregon Country – huge area between the Pacific Ocean
and the Rocky Mountains to the north of California.
 Included Oregon, Washington, and Idaho including parts of
Montana and Wyoming.
 The region also contained about half of what is now the Canadian
province of British Columbia.
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Four nations claimed this land.
 United States – Lewis and Clark expedition and Robert Gray’s
discovery of the Columbia River.
 Great Britain – Based on exploration of the Columbia River.
 Spain – exploring the Pacific coast in the late 1700s.
 Russia – had settlements that stretched south from Alaska into
Oregon.
Adams-Onís Treaty
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Many Americans wanted control of this area.
Adams-Onís Treaty (1819) – Treaty with Spain that set
the limits of their territory at what is now California’s
northern border and gave up any claim to Oregon.
 Russia also surrenders its claim to the land south of Alaska.
 Only Britain remained to challenge America control of Oregon.
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In 1818 Adams worked out an agreement with Great
Britain for joint occupation (People from both the United
States and Great Britain could settle there.)
 Adams attempted to work out a treaty dividing the territory using
the 49°N line of latitude but Brain wanted a larger share.
 They extend their joint occupation and in the following years,
thousands of Americans streamed into Oregon, and pushed the
issue into resolution.
Mountain Men
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First Americans in the Oregon country were fur traders not
farmers.
 Came to trap beavers which were in high demand in the eastern
United States and Europe.
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British established several trading posts as did John Jacob
Astor of New York.
 Astor created the American Fur Trade Company which became the
most powerful of fur trade companies in America.
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built up trade with the East Coast, Pacific Northwest, and China.
At first merchants traded with the Natives for fur, but over
time, Americans adventurers joined in.
 The people who spent most of their time in the mountains became
known as mountain men who were tough and independent, and
made their living by trapping beaver.
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married Native American women, adopted Native American ways,
lived in buffalo-skin lodges, and wore buckskin pants, moccasins, and
beads.
Mountain Men
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Some mountain men worked for fur trade companies while
others sold their furs to the highest bidder.
 They set traps up during the spring and summer across the
mountain sides to collect beaver pelts.
 In late summer they gathered up for a rendezvous (meeting.)
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The rendezvous was the high point of their year.
 Met with the trading companies to exchange their “hairy
banknotes” (beaver pelts) for traps, guns, coffee, and other goods.
 Also met with friends and exchanged news.
 Competed in races and other contests.
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In search of Beaver pelts they explored much of the
mountains, valleys, and trails of the west.
 Jim Beckworth – African American who explored the Green River.
 Robert Stuart and Jedediah Smith – Found the South Pass (broad
break through the Rockies that later became part of the main route
to Oregon.)
Mountain Men
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Mountain men needed to be skillful and resourceful to
survive.
 Trapper Joe Meek – told a story of when faced with starvation, he
put his hands “in an anthill until it was covered with ants, then
greedily licked them off.”
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In time most of the mountain men killed off most of the
beavers and could no longer trap.
 They moved onto farms in Oregon.
 Others like Jim Bridger and Kit Carson, served as guides leading
parties of settlers now streaming west.
Settling Oregon
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Americans first began heading into Oregon Country in the
1830s.
Economic trouble at home made new opportunities in the
West look attractive as well as reports of fertile land.
The Whitman Mission
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Some of the first settlers in Oregon were missionaries who
wanted to bring Christianity to the Native Americans.
Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife, Narcissa, went to
Oregon in 1836 and constructed a mission among the
Cayuse people near present day Walla Walla, Washington.
 New settlers unknowingly brought measles with them and an
epidemic killed many Native American children.
 The Whitmans were blamed for the sickness, and the Cayuse
attacked the mission in November 1847, and killed them along with
11 others.
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Despite this many settlers continued to Oregon.
The Oregon Trail
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In the early 1840s, “Oregon fever” swept the Mississippi
valley.
 The depression caused by the Panic of 1837 reached the area and
people began forming societies to make the long trip to Oregon
known as “the great migration.”
 Tens of thousands of people made the trip and became known as
emigrants because they left the United States to go to Oregon.
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They packed their canvas-covered wagons (known as
prairie schooners; because they looked like schooners in
the distance) with supplies for the difficult 2,000 mile long
journey.
 They gathered in Independence, Missouri and followed the Oregon
Trail across the Great Plains, along the Platte River, and through
the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains.
 Once on the other side of the Rockies,
 They took the trail north and west along the Snake and Columbia
Rivers into Oregon country.
The Division of Oregon
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Many headed to Willamette Valley located South of the
Columbia River.
Between 1840 and 1845, population in the area went from
500 to 5,000.
 British population remained at 700.
Expansion of Freedom
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Since colonial times many Americans had believed their
nation had a special role to fulfill.
 Many believed the nation’s mission should be to serve as a model
of freedom and democracy by occupying the entire continent.
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In 1819, John Quincy Adams expressed what many
Americans were thinking when he said expansion to the
Pacific was inevitable “as that the Mississippi should flow to
the sea.”
Manifest Destiny
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John O’Sullivan (1840s) – Newspaper editor who put the
idea of the national mission into more specific words.
 He declared America’s “Manifest Destiny to overspread and to
possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us.”
 He believed the United States was clearly destined to extend its
boundaries all the way to the Pacific.
“Fifty-four Forty or Fight”
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Many settlers in Oregon began to insist that the United
States have sole ownership of the area.
 More Americans began to agree and became a significant issue in
the 1844 Presidential election.
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James K. Polk – Given Democratic Party’s nomination for
president since he supported sole ownership of Oregon.
 Democrats used the campaign slogan “Fifity-four Forty or Fight.”
(Referring to the line of latitude that Democrats believed should be
the nation’s northern border in Oregon.)
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Henry Clay – Whig Party Candidate, did not take a strong
position on the issue.
Polk wins the election because the antislavery Liberty Party
took so many votes from Clay in New York that Polk won
the state.
 Polk won 170 electoral votes to 105 for Clay.
Reaching a Settlement
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President Polk was determined to make Oregon a part of
the United States.
 He was filled with the spirit of Manifest Destiny.
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Britain did not agree with the border being set at “Fiftyfour Forty.”
 It meant they had to give up its claim entirely.
 In Jun 1846, they compromise at setting the boundary between the
American and British portions of Oregon at latitude 49°N.
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During the 1830s Americans sought to fulfill Manifest
Destiny by looking much closer to home than Oregon.
 They set their focus on Texas.