Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/16

Rh to the red race and to the white. The two seldom profitably intermix. And this happy consummation, the swift and sharpest means of sweeping from the earth every human encumbrance, the people of the United States have never been backward about. However merciless the conquerors, Spain's government, aided by the church, was ever tender of her native American subjects, and we see the result in Mexico and Central America. The British fur-traders would not permit the killing of their hunters, and we see the result in British Columbia. Avarice, war, injustice, and inhumanity are often the most important aids to civilization. In this respect, with noble intentions and devout aspirations far higher than ordinary, the settlers of Oregon but followed their destiny. They labored for the best, and quarrelled not with the inevitable.

It is proper to remember here that the United States first reached the Pacific in the latitudes of Oregon, thus completing the great zone of states from ocean to ocean; that the first proposals to build a line of military posts, a wagon-road, and a railway across the continent were made in connection with the occupation of the Columbia Valley; likewise in the first project to connect the eastern and western coasts by steamships Oregon was the objective point.

Through the generosity and frankness of the people of Oregon I am enabled to present this history in the fulness of its details, and I sincerely hope they have not found their confidence misplaced. It has been my earnest endeavor, here as everywhere, rightly to understand facts and properly to construe motives. Hist Or., Vol. I. b