Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/386

380 to their future, caused the Oregonians trouble and expense enough. When this trouble did come in the Cayuse war, beginning in the last month of 1847, the Oregon Legislature planned to keep the finances for it separate from their regular system, and succeeded in so maintaining them.

From the beginning there was an organization of volunteers under public authority, but it did not receive financial support. From the autumn of 1842 until the summer of 1845 there was among them a "sub-Indian agent," commissioned by the National Government, who was recognized as the mediator in all affairs between the colonists and the Indians. When he returned East a small appropriation was made for the office of Superintendent of Indian Affairs. For a few years the Governor was elected to this office, and in his annual messages he reports the growing discontent of the natives as they see their lands monopolized by the settlers and even the bounds of their villages invaded. The Indians were put off with promises that a great chief would come from Washington with blankets to pay them for their lands.

The desire for land constituted the strongest motive for the transcontinental migration of the Oregon pioneer. The immigrants were almost solely farmers. Legislation affecting the conditions of acquiring land and securing titles to it was second to none in the interest it aroused. The recorder of claims who remained a territorial official during this period was an important administrative official. While his compensation was mainly in fees, his salary was a regular item in the budget.

The matter of locating the highways also took considerable of the time of the Legislatures. There were no national surveys so that the roads could by a general act be located on the section lines as was commonly done in the Mississippi Valley. As the settlers regularly claimed 640 acres they were widely scattered and there were long lines of