Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 21.djvu/351



NAME OF THE OREGON COUNTRY 339

days, so famous in Spanish history. It was a period when the number of those who fled from religious persecutions must have been enormous. The Kingdom of Aragon suffered and resisted those horrors possibly more than any other territory under Spanish rule. Religious refugees usually are more loyal to the old homeland and its traditions than any wandering adventurers, and when those refugees or even if some of them were but ordinary adventurers in search of fame or for- tunelanded in the Oregon country, they could not help find- ing here a picture so strongly resembling old Aragon. For be it remembered that the Kingdom of Aragon, which included Catalonia and Valencia, was noted for its long coast line, aus- picious climate, beautiful valleys, rivers dashing with exulting song into the glittering sunshine, forest covered hillsides, and the majestic mountains of the Pyrenees with their snow-clad sentinels all of which familiar scenes of beauty and grandeur they found here in their new abode. Under such circumstances it is but natural that they should have transferred the old name to the new home. Likewise, it is quite possible, as it had been suggested by my good friend, John Gill, who is one of the few well informed men on the subject of early Oregon history, that some bold hidalgos might have named the Oregon country after some Spanish ship by that name. In either case, if the Indians used this name in later years, it is not because of having invented it, but because they got this pure Spanish name from the Spanish settlers, and they retained it even though those Spaniards and Spanish names were doomed in the course of human events to disappear from the New World, because of the marvelous rise of New Albion at a time when rapidly decaying Spain was altogether too busy with burning heretics according to the policies of Torquemada and the Holy Inquisition. That is all there is to it.

Should anyone insist upon an explanation for the transform- ation of Aragon into Oregon, here it is, and it is simple enough. The chief, or primitive, vowels in the different Aryan languages are represented by "a," "i," and "u" (pronounced as