Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 21.djvu/184



172 F. G. YOUNG

adequate supply of cattle from California for the young and growing settlement on the Willamette. These were to be driven north across deep rivers and through some five hun- dred miles of mountain fastnesses infested with savages, whose attacks had almost annihilated several parties attempting this route. This cattle expedition was the first community enter- prise backed by all the elements occupying the Oregon region and if successfully carried out as it was meant for this Pacific Coast settlement unity in associated effort, the means for a rapidly rising standard of living and fully assured suc- cess for the American settlers there in their venture as a far- removed colony of civilized humanity. Furthermore, the or- ganization of the Willamette Cattle Company with the leader- ship entrusted to Ewing Young signalized the secure ascendancy of democratic relationships where up to this time benevolent autocracy had ruled. The initiation of this project is to be credited to William A. Slacum. The management of it in the trying ordeals involved in the execution of it fell upon Ewing Young, aided by his company of hardy and stout-hearted mountaineers.

THE OREGON SETTLEMENT IN THE WINTER OF 1836-7 2

To appreciate fully the significance of this dramatic turn in the course of Oregon development it will be necessary to get a more intimate view of the situation on the Oregon stage when Slacum at the request of President Andrew Jackson made his visit of inspection. The authorities at Washington had probably been moved to this step by the then recently published reports of Captain Bonneville and Hall J. Kelley. The latter particularly had sounded a note of alarm for the American interests in Oregon. Under the arrangement of joint occupation, the British interests represented by the Hud- son's Bay Company had gained decided advantage which they were pressing to a limit that amounted to the oppression and certain discomfiture of such American traders and settlers

2 Ibid, pp. 183-198, for the facts used and the quotations made in th interpre- tation of the situation on the Willamette in the winter of 1836-7.