Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/75

Rh of desert between them; did reach and people Oregon. There remains the inquiry: What manner of people were they who dared to do this? For surely it was the coming of the women and children of these pioneer wagon trains that won Oregon for the Stars and Stripes.

First of all, then, these pioneers were all frontier people. In 1842 the only people who cared about the question of a migration to Oregon were frontier people of these Western States; people already familiar with the modes and the dangers of travel beyond the safeguards of civilization. And this fact gives us our first test in the classification of our pioneers they were all frontier people. This limitation was not intended, was not the result of any choice or purpose of those concerned. As an applied test it developed itself from the very nature of the case; for nobody but frontiersmen thought of going, or cared to go.

Another important limitation developed itself in welldefined outlines from the beginning of the movement and lasted throughout the real pioneer period. It was the practical exclusion of capital from the forces that originated its companies, purchased their supplies, or paid for the help they needed on the journey. No people knew better than the border Americans the power of money; but here again its absence was not planned, was not desired. Its absence resulted from the nature of the case; and the forces that moved those trains of farm wagons moved without the stimulus of sustaining capital. The simple fact was that capital saw in the migration of these pioneers no return of any appreciable per centum of the funds to be expended. And thus it came to pass that the wealthy were effectually excluded from the ranks of our Oregon pioneers.

Frontier life has in it ordinarily less of poverty than any other condition of society; a fact, doubtless due to