To enable the reader to follow a critical investigation of how Marcus Whitman saved Oregon to the United States, a brief outline of the story must be given.
About the first of October 1842, while Dr. Whitman was dining at a trading-post of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Walla Walla the news comes of the arrival of a colony of Canadians from the Red River country. The assembled company is jubilant and a young priest cries out "Hurrah for Oregon! America is too late, and we have got the country." Whitman realizes that if Canadian immigration has really begun the authorities at Washington ought to know it, and a counter American immigration ought to be promoted, so that when the joint occupation of Oregon is terminated, the presence of a majority of American settlers may turn the balance in favor of the United States by right of possession. The government must be informed as to the value of Oregon and its accessibility by overland emigration. In spite of the protests of his fellow missionaries, he immediately starts for Washington, where he arrives March 2, 1843, most opportunely to secure the postponement of negotiations looking to the surrender of Oregon by pledging himself to demonstrate the accessibility of the country by conducting thither a thousand immigrants, which he does during the ensuing summer.[1]
The essential points in this statement are the cause and purpose of Dr. Whitman's journey to the East in 1842, his influence on the Oregon policy of the government and his organization of the great immigration of 1843. Incidental or collateral assumptions usually accompany this statement to the effect that great ignorance and indifference in regard to Oregon prevailed in Washington and generally throughout the United States, and that Dr. Whitman was able to dispel the ignorance and to transform the indifference into a deep and widespread interest. In both the essentials and the explanatory details the story of how Marcus Whitman saved Oregon is fictitious. It is not only without trustworthy contemporary evidence, but is irreconcilable with well established facts. No traces of knowledge
- ↑ Cf. Barrows's Oregon, p. 160 ff.; McMaster, With the Fathers, pp. 307–310.
historical romance. It is a most curious fact that although Bancroft's Oregon, which was published in 1885, contains a well digested and true account of the causes of Whitman's journey and his connection with the emigration of 1843, all carefully authenticated from contemporary sources, it has been entirely neglected by the authors of the books above mentioned.
My eyes were first opened to the intricacies and curious origin of the legend by a very careful investigation conducted under my supervision by one of my students, Mr. Arthur Howard Hutchinson. His study of the question convinced him that there was a larger amount of collusion and purpose in developing and disseminating the story than I have: it best to try to prove in this article.
vol. vi.—19.
