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'CHAPTER XI

THE FIRST AMERICAN GOVERNMENT ON THE PACIFIC

Importance of the emigration of 1843. The emigration whose organization and movements have just been described marks a new starting point in the history of the Northwest. Up to this time we have been dealing with events which may be looked upon as introductory; now we begin actually to see the process of state building on the shores of the Pacific. Just as in Virginia the colony can hardly be said to have been planted prior to the arrival of Delaware's party in 1 6 10; as in Massachusetts it was the great company brought out by Winthrop in 1630 which firmly established the English people, although the beginnings of settlement already existed; so on the Pacific coast the emigration of 1843 closes the period of experiment, and gives us a true, self-supporting American colony. In the present chapter we shall do scarcely more than point out some of the changes produced in Oregon during the succeeding three years as a result of this influx of new people.

Beginnings of the agitation for a government. The earliest attempts to form a provisional government for the Willamette colony were made several years prior to 1843; but, as we shall see, the organization