Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/34

16 First. That the United States, while refraining from openly violating treaty obligations, was encouraging the people of the older communities to possess themselves of the Oregon territory, and hold it for the government, or at least to maintain the balance of power between itself and the English government.

Second. That the reports sent at every opportunity by missionaries in western Oregon served to keep up that interest among the people first awakened in congress by discussions of the boundary question; that their presence in Oregon enabled agents of the government to aid colonization; and that the government did secretly aid the settlement of the country through the missions of western Oregon.

Third. That the position of the mission settlements but for the presence of the powerful British fur company would have been most dangerous, and have required the establishment of military stations in various parts of the country; and that in its own interest the Hudson s Bay Company must have protected the American settlers in order to keep the Indians under control.

Fourth. That the missionaries of western Oregon were not successful as religious teachers; but were not averse to becoming settlers, and were active in keeping alive the rivalry between the two governments by frequently memorializing congress upon what they named the aggressions of the Hudson s Bay Company; and by setting forth their own loyalty to the government of the United States, and their desire to have it extended over them.

Fifth. That the arrival of White s party marked the close of active missionary effort, and inaugurated that of open colonization by the people of the United States; hence, that to the Methodist missionaries and their friends in Washington and elsewhere was due the Americanization of the Wallamet valley, and the inaugural movement towards a provisional government in Oregon, with all that it implied.