Early western travels, 1748-1846, v. 21

Wyeth's Oregon, or a Short History of a Long Journey, 1832; and Townsend's Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains, 1834

With the present volume our series reverts to the far Northwest, and takes up the story of the Oregon country during the fourth decade of the nineteenth century. After the failure of the Astorian enterprise (1811-13), recounted with so much detail in the narratives of Franchre and Ross (reprinted in our volumes vi and vii), the Northwest Coast fell into the hands of the British fur-trade companies, who ruled the forest regions with a sway as absolute as that of a czar. The "Nor'westers" first occupied the field, sent out their daring "bourgeois" in all directions, and reaped a rich harvest of pelts. But upon the consolidation of the rival corporations (1821), the Hudson's Bay Company's men succeeded them, and for the first time law and order were enforced by the chief factors, and the denizens of the Northwest, white and red, soon learned to obey and revere their new masters. Prominent among the factors was Dr. John McLoughlin, the benevolent despot of Fort Vancouver, whose will was law not only for savages and fur-trade employs, but for all overland emigrants, British and American, who now began swarming to the banks of the Columbia. For twenty years he governed a province larger than France, and friend and foe alike testify to his probity and kindness, from which Americans profited quite as fully as those from his own land. To the world at large, during this long period, the land beyond the mountains remained unknown and almost unknowable. Occasionally a New England skipper ventured to the mouth of the Columbia, exchanging goods from Hawaii and the South Seas for the salmon and furs of the[10] Northwest Coast; but the inhabitants of the interior of our country long found the Rockies and their outlying deserts insurmountable barriers to Western passage. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 45238
Author: Townsend, John Kirk
Release Date: Mar 28, 2014
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Contributor (Author): Wyeth, John B. (John Bound), 1815-
Editor: Thwaites, Reuben Gold, 1853-1913