Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 15.djvu/11



OLD FORT OKANOGAN AND OKANOGAN TRAIL 3

objects of the company were two; one was commercial con- quest and profit for itself, the other was territorial expansion for the United States. Opinions appear to differ somewhat as to how much veneration and esteem we Americans of today should accord Mr. Astor for his efforts, but it seems to us that the evidence and proofs before the bar of history clearly entitle him to an unqualified verdict that the Pacific Fur Com- pany substantially fulfilled all its pretentions, and that it is no more than just to say, that it was an organization created and maintained by American capital, enterprise and patriotism for the purpose of securing to the United States, the trade and the possession of the vast region we now call the Pacific North- west, the title to all which was then, and for many years after- wards in dispute between this country and Great Britain.

As is well known the initial move in the great undertaking was to send out two expeditions. One came overland from St. Louis and attempted to follow the trail traveled by Lewis and Clark a few years before ; the other started from New York in one of Astor 's ships, the "Tonquin," and came around Cape Horn. The expedition by sea had a prosperous voyage and reached its destination at the mouth of the Columbia in March, 1811, and the proprietors forthwith proceeded to establish their head post which was called "Astoria." The overland expedition came near being a complete failure and did not arrive at the mouth of the Columbia till nearly a year after the "Tonquin" and then came straggling in by fragments.

As soon as the Astor project was actually launched it became an open secret in Montreal, and it is commonly accepted history that the Northwest Company immediately determined to put forth strenuous efforts to forestall, if possible, the American enterprise on the Columbia. But a careful examination into the subject reveals the fact that the Northwesters had already for several years been putting forth about all the energies they could spare from other quarters, in striving to extend their operations westward to the Pacific ocean. Before Astor ever started to organize his big scheme of Oregon occupation by a great American commercial company, men of the North-