Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/302

290 that American mines and privileges for which many millions of dollars had been paid to Mexico should be preserved to American citizens and worked for the benefit of this country, and not be turned over to the speculators and contractors of the whole world.

By this proclamation the Mexican and Chelano peons were required to return to their own country. The system of equality which the Oregonians rudely, but rightly represented, was established. Thousands of miners in California who never heard of this little contest which was worked out principally by a few rugged young mountain men from Oregon, began to enjoy thenceforth the free and equal opportunity of the California mines, and California thus became Americanized, and in the end a great free state. The influence of Oregon, therefore, cannot be disregarded although the actions of the Oregon men at the time created intense feeling against themselves, and Mr. Case considers this the source of the still persistent dislike of Oregon shown by Californians; which has hardened into a sort of tradition.

The journey overland from the Sacramento up to the Willamette was, in 1849, one long adventure; and, on three hundred miles of the distance, that of no peaceful kind. Case had had enough of sea voyaging in going to California, and when, in the early fall, he counted over his earnings, amounting to about $2,800, he said that he would go home by land. The Indians of Northern California and Southern Oregon were hostile, being declared enemies to the whites. The Oregon men had, during the previous autumn, built a road through, making a long detour from the Rogue River Valley to the borders of Klamath Lake by the old Applegate route, and thence by