Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/230

 222 THOMAS M. ANDERSON. migratory missions among the Indian tribes. They were brave, zealous, devout and self-denying men, who worked hard and did much good. On the other hand, there was ample testimony to prove that the priests were paid 100 a year by the company for their services ; that they ate at the company's table; slept in its houses; officiated among its dependents; and that finally the company, in 1846, built them a little chapel just outside the main fort. To get our historical bearing we must turn back to an. earlier date. After the close of our last war with Great Britain, both countries claimed the Pacific Coast, from the north line of California to 54 degrees 40 minutes north latitude. The English claim was based on the discoveries of Drake, Cook and Vancouver and the explorations of Mackenzie and Frazer. The basis of our claim has been stated. As early as 1834 American Protestant missionaries and a few settlers had entered the country south of the Columbia. North of the river the country was claimed by the Hudson Bay people. There were no Protestant missionaries among them. The Catholic missionaries were French priests from Canada. The Oblate Fathers, to which order Blanchet, De- mers and Brouillet belonged, took service under the fur company and became zealous partisans. When Mr. Polk became President, he was at first inclined to support our claim to the entire coast. The people -of the Middle West were enthusiastic and strenuous in their demands for the whole of the old "Oregon Country." Whitman's daring ride had impressed the imagination of all. "Fifty- four-forty or fight" was the war cry. Benton, Allen and Linn were the friends of the Northwest in the Senate. But the annexation of Texas induced the Polk administration to com- promise on the 49 degree parallel. Had it not been for this unfortunate concession, the Pacific Ocean would now be an American lake. In 1849 the Hudson Bay Company claimed control over a reservation of twenty-five miles by ten on the Columbia and exercised a kind of vague authority over all country north