Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/326

314 to say that the territory to which the Oregon trail was made fifty-eight years ago will some day be made to support forty millions in comfort.

This paper, it will be observed, has dealt entirely with the native race in Northwestern Oregon, because this was the field of the race contest. The point to which the guiding minds of the white race looked as most desirable. Jefferson said, and Benton repeated: "Plant thirty thou- sand rifles at the mouth of the Columbia." The first ex- ploring party sent out by the former selected as the most interesting region in which to make excursions, the dis- trict now containing the first and second chosen commer- cial centers,— Vancouver and Portland.

The native race amid whom these were planted were described in their average manhood as mean, cowardly and thievish. Forty years later, to this description might be added ignorant, superstitious, and utterly without pub- lic spirit. The tribes east and south from this district were, excepting those located at the great fishing centers on the Columbia, less thievish, and much more bold and spirited in self-defense.

To the recent and valuable historical description of those tribes, including the natives in what is now Western Washington, I am indebted to the life of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, by his son, Hazard Stevens, for the number of natives west, as well as east, of the Cascades treated with by Governor Stevens in 1855, just before the natural lead- ers of the native race made their only united effort to stem the tide of inflow of the white race.

{{quote|{{smaller block| {{dotted TOC line|{|Total number found west of the Cascades|9,712}} {{dotted TOC line|{|Total number with whom treaties were made |8,597}} {{dotted TOC line|{|Total number east of the Cascade Mountains |12,000 }} {{dotted TOC line|{|Total number treated with|8,900 }} {{dotted TOC line|{|Total number found in Washington Territory |21,000}} {{dotted TOC line|{|Total number treated with|17,497}} }}}}