Page:History vs. the Whitman saved Oregon story.djvu/10

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INTRODUCTION.

published in the Oregonian, so as to be able to cut out a good deal of the matter in the review of M. Eells' "Reply" as it was originally written, and still have it complete by references to the appropriate pages in the "Strange Treatment."

The discussion of Professor Bourne's paper being a reprint from the electrotype plates of the Transactions of the American Historical Association for 1900, necessarily retains the paging it had in that volume.

My forthcoming book will for the first time give the public a full and connected history of the whole of the struggle for the acquisition of Oregon, as it appears from a very careful study of the original sources, and will have full chapters on the following (and other) topics:

  1. The Governmental Action to Secure Oregon from 1803 to 1872, Being a Full Record of Diplomatic Negotiations with France, Spain, England and Russia; of Congressional Debates, of Congressional Committee Reports and of the Explorations and Reports Thereon of United States Naval and Military Officers and Special Agents.
  2. The Truth About the Discovery of Routes Practicable for and the Development of the First Transcontinental Wagon Road, 1806 to 1846.
  3. The Truth About the Relation of the Hudson's Bay Company to the American Exploration, Occupation and Settlement of the Oregon Territory, as Stated in the Contemporaneous Letters, and Journals, and Reports to the Government, and Books, and Magazine Articles, of Every American—fur trader, scientist, missionary, private explorer or government officer or leader of a party of emigrants—who left any such contemporaneous documents (as far as known) down to the Treaty of 1846. Much of this has never yet been published and much more is difficult of access.
  4. The Long-Suppressed Evidence About the Origin and Purpose of Whitman's Ride.
  5. All the letters Whitman ever wrote making claims that the establishment of his mission and his ride had been of benefit to the nation. Most of this has been heretofore suppressed.
  6. The Long-Suppressed Evidence as to the Rapid Decadence of the Whitman-Spalding-Eells-Walker Mission after 1839–40, and especially after 1843.
  7. The True Causes of the Whitman Massacre, with the Conclusive Proof—some hitherto suppressed and the rest difficult of access—of the total falsity of the accusation that the Hudson's Bay Company and the Catholics instigated or were in any way responsible for that perfectly natural outburst of Indian ferocity.

These chapters will contain all (and much more than all) the evidence which submitted by me in manuscript, as stated