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OREGON EMIGRATING COMPANIES 21?

subordinate military officials under the captain, who was elected at the start) should be appointed until they reached the Rocky Mountains and numbered at least a hundred souls. 40 In nearly every case the final organization was effected after leaving the States. There were other reasons for this beyond this desire to postpone the period of military discipline. In the first place, so long as the emigrants remained east of the Missouri river, they were amenable to state laws and tri- bunals. To adopt a full system of self-government before entering the Indian country would be to create an absurd and invalid imperium in imperio. After they had crossed, however, they passed, as they themselves recognized and frequently noted, out of the jurisdiction, or at least the effective jurisdic- tion, of the United States and became in government, as in everything else, dependent on their own resources. 47 This frequently resulted in the adoption of a final organization by stages. Thus the Peoria Company of 1839 journeyed from Illinois to Independence organized as a joint stock company, a partial reorganization was effected there, and "at Elm Grove, about thirty miles from the Missouri boundary, on the Santa Fe road .... they remained to complete the organization of the company" by electing military officers. 48 The great company of 1843 held a preliminary meeting at a point twelve miles west of Independence, May 18, at which a committee was appointed to draft rules and regulations for the journey. The final organization with election of officers came June 1, as noted above, and after they had been under way for ten days. 49 A further reason for postponing the final organization is seen in the resolution adopted by the Bartleson California Company of 1841 "That inasmuch as other companies are expected to join us, the election of officers to conduct the expedition be deferred till the general rendezvous." 50

46 Bloomington, Iowa, Oregon Emigration Society, Report of a meeting in the Ohio Statesman, April 26, 1843, reprinted in Oreg. Hist. Quart. Ill, 392.

47 Cf. J. C. Moreland, Annual Address, O. P. A. Transactions, 1900, p. 28.

48 R. Shortess, First Emigrants to Oregon, O. P. A. Transactions, 1896, p. 93.

49 Burnett, Recollections and Opinions, Oreg. Hist. Quart., V, passim.

50 Bancroft, History of California, IV, 267, note 17, citing the Colonial Mag- azine, V, 229.