Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/108

 100 FREDERICK V. HOLMAN not afraid of the Hudson's Bay Company, and Dr. John Mc- laughlin was the friend and benefactor of each of them. To them the Missionaries were not rulers nor dangerous. They were merely harmless and amusing. To attempt to coerce these, settlers would have been unwise. To interfere with their families, their rights, or their properties, would have been dan- gerous. And so they lived in an easy and careless fashion with their Indian wives and their half-breed children, without care and without need for laws, but always respectful of the rights of others. They, too, grew some wheat and vegetables, and hunted and fished, and occasionally did some trapping in an idle way for pleasure and profits, for Dr. McLoughlin took their surplus wheat and furs and sold them merchandise on the same basis he treated the French-Canadians. They had no more trouble than the latter, and took life nearly as easily. It was a pleasant way for trappers and frontiermen to spend the time, especially after the days of declining years began. It is one of the traditions or instincts of Americans to form temporary organizations where laws do not prevail. This was the case in Eastern Tennessee, where a provisional government was established in 1772, which was known as the "Wautauga Association," and the "State of Franklin" in 1784. It was done in the formation of mining districts in California before it became a State, and in early mining days of Oregon and Idaho. March 16, 1838, a mass meeting of the American citizens was held in the Willamette Valley, and a memorandum drawn up and sent to Senator Linn, who presented it to the Senate Janu- ary 28, 1839. It was signed by thirty-six settlers. After setting forth the fertility of the soil, and the commercial ad- vantages of Oregon, the petition set forth: "We have thus briefly shown that the security of our per- sons and our property, the hopes and destinies of our chil- dren are involved in the objects of our petitions." This petition also set forth that there was no civil code in Oregon, and that the petitioners could "promise no protection but the ulterior resort of self-defense." It ended as follows: "It is therefore of primary importance that the Government should take energetic measures to secure the execution of all