Page:A History of the Pacific Northwest.djvu/168



origin and purpose. We have now to describe a movement arising outside of Congress in the summer of 1838, which added largely to the effect of the agitation begun by Linn and Gushing. This was the socalled Oregon Provisional Emigration Society, organized at Lynn, Massachusetts, in August, 1838. The society was not a missionary organization purely, though most of its leading members belonged to the Methodist denomination. Its aim was "to prepare the way for the Christian settlement of Oregon." It proposed to enlist several hundred Christian families, send them to Oregon overland, and encourage them to make use of all the advantages for stock raising, commerce, fishing, etc., that the country afforded. But this was not to be the only aim of the settlement, for which the founders of the society had "nobler purposes in view." They believed it might be possible to Christianize the Indians, educate them, and make them citizens of a new commonwealth in which they were to have all the rights and privileges of white citizens. The theory was that while the Indians east of the Rockies had already become hopelessly degraded, through contact with white men, those in the Oregon country were still mainly sound, and if taken in time might be saved.

The Oregonian. The society published a monthly magazine called at first The Oregonian. The phrase oud Indian's Advocate was afterward added to the title. It was edited by Rev. Frederick P. Tracy, of Lynn, Massachusetts, who was also the secretary of