Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/268

262 interests of Oregon, and his appeal to Washington, antedated the journey and the appeal of Whitman by five years.

We have said the contest between our own people and the subjects of Great Britain for possession of the Oregon Country was the key to our pioneer history. It stimulated the early migration and hastened the settlement. The missionary stations were outposts on the line of colonization. It was through their appeals, chiefly, that the Oregon Country was brought to the attention of the pioneer spirit, ever moving westward; and it is not too much to say that most of those who came to Oregon during the first twenty years of settlement and growth were moved to come by the agitation begun and carried on by those engaged in the missionary cause.

There is a vague instinct which leads restless spirits to leave their native country in early life to try fortune elsewhere. Each thinks, no doubt, that beyond his visual horizon there lies new moral space, with large, though unknown, opportunities. Change of place is the natural demand of this restlessness of spirit. The world, through all ages, has received the benefit of it; it has been one of the great moving forces in the history of our race. Our Oregon of to-day is a product of it.

The Indian races of Oregon, and in particular of Western Oregon, rapidly melted away. But among the white settlers, fast increasing in numbers after 1840, there was growing field of religious, moral, and educational work. Jason Lee had remarried; and again his wife was called away by death. Sore as was the bereavement, he pursued his work. New demands were constantly arising, and to meet these he deemed it necessary to make another journey to the Eastern States for additional assistance. Parting with his colaborers in the missions, and leaving his infant daughter, he sailed from the Columbia River in November, 1843, just after the arrival of the great