Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/78

 great rivers

ran down from these mountains in every direction. Tliis was true. From tlieir description, Carver made a map which we insert in this book. On this map Carver shows our Columbia as the River of the West, although the natives gave him the name of Oregon in connection with the country or the river, and it is not certain which. But it was from these Dacotah Indians, and through Carver, we get the word Oregon as the name of the Old Oregon Country, and the name of our state. Gallons of ink and reams of paper have been wasted in trying to solve the origin and mystery of this name ; and still it goes back to those unlettered sons of the forest. Carver undoubtedly tried his best to catch their meaning, and the true name of everything, and it is very probable that he did, for he was with them for seven months, and certainly had their utmost trust and confidence. It must be accepted as a mere designation, name of a place or country without any known reason or signification for it, just as thousands of other places have names without rhyme or reason.

Carver's idea in this exploration, besides studying the Indians, was to cross the continent and ascertain its breadth from east to west between the forty- third and fortj'-sixth parallels of latitude, after which he intended to have the British government establish a post somewhere on the straits of Anian. In his first expedition with promised support, the supplies never reached him; and when afterwards he revived the scheme with a wealthy member of the British parliament, their plans were iipset by the breaking out of the American rebel- lion and the war for independence. The British government had sanctioned the Carver plan which was to take fifty men to ascend the Missouri river to its headwaters, cross over the Rocky mountain divide and then descend the River of the West to the Pacific ocean, and build a fort at some strategic point. And it is perfectly clear from this chapter of Carver's report that the British did not intend to respect the rights of Spain under the treaty of Paris to the country west of the Mississippi. England was even then, within three years after sign- ing the treaty of Paris, making plans and taking steps to drive Spain out of her possessions west of the Mississippi, just as they had driven Prance out of Can- ada. But now they were counting without their host. In driving France out of Canada, they had Washington and the colonists to help ; but now they were to have Washington and the colonists to oppose them.

We cannot realize that at the opening of the nineteenth century the interior of the North American continent, now so familiar to every reader of public journals, was less known to the world than is the heart of Africa today. French fur traders had penetrated its wilderness depths to the base of the Rocky moun- tains; but what they found, or what they knew, they jealously kept to them- selves, so that there could be no inducement to other venturesome spirits to go searching for peltries and poaching on their preserves. In addition to this trade reason, they had been able to make doubly sure the silence of the Indian, as to what the rivers and forests contained. Of all the people brought in con- tact with the American Indian, the French were the most successful in getting and holding his good will.

Indians had no doubt crossed the continent from the Ohio river to the Pa- cific ocean. M. La Page du Pratz, in his history of Louisiana, gives a long ac- count of an Indian having become endued with a burning desire to find oiit whence came the American Indians, crossed the continent from Natchez