Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/20

xii it is entitled to its history, its origin, and its influence in moulding the general mass. So that this book is written not only to inform the newcomer to Oregon, but also to arouse an interest in the boys and girls in all the Oregon schools to read and find in the history of their state a more exciting and instructive story than they can find in any other country or in any creation of the most gifted imagination.

For more than three hundred years the territory of Oregon was a prize for which the most powerful nations in the world contended. And for this country one after another, Spain, Russia, France and England played the rights of discovery, the game of diplomacy and the bluff of threatened war; and all of them to see in the end the final word and the rightful decision rendered, almost wholly by half a hundred American farmers in the Willamette valley. Such a page of exciting incident, unlooked for surprises, and far-reaching consequences cannot be found in the history of any other state or nation.

Born to a conscious existence of its dignity as an organized community of civilized men, and influenced by the antecedent dangers and trials through which the community fought its way to recognition by congress, it is not singular that there should be found here types of men and women, and a civil government with laws and institutions out of the ordinary; and if not admitted to be superior it has for originality and force challenged the attention and led the champions of reform throughout the nation. A state isolated from the rest of the great body of the American people by two thousand miles of mountains and arid plains that can accomplish these results and secure this position among the states of the Union is no ordinary community, and must have a history at once both unique and forceful to an extraordinary degree.

To search out facts from twenty thousand pages of printed matter heretofore issued to the world as veritable history of Oregon, a great deal of which is uncertain, much of it romance and not a little of it in dispute, is the task set before the author. In taking up this task no bias in favor of or against any person, society, creed or party can be allowed to have any influence whatever. The truth of history, and justice to all the actors in the great drama of life to be recorded, must be the unwavering guide.

The history of Oregon has been so fruitful a field for writers of every description that it is safe to say that more pages, if not more books, have been written about this region, its discovery, its name, its missionaries, Indians, the trials and sufferings of its immigrants, its novel provisional government and its latter day new laws and politics, than about all the other states west of the Ohio river. From this vast storehouse of historical material it is plain that only so much as will give the general story and controlling facts and movements, can be included in a volume that the general reader will care to purchase.

In writing the history of a state a common plan has been to divide the whole period into parts or epochs, each limited by distinctive dates. To the reader desiring to know what took place at any given period this plan has its merits. But it has appeared to the author that in the case of Oregon the more instructive plan, especially to the younger readers whom it is desired to interest in this book, would be to divide the history into subjects, and then give all that is to be said on that subject in one chapter. By pursuing this plan it is believed that