their ox teams a wagon road to the mines on the American River." By 1850 trade on Puget Sound was opened and this increased considerably by 1853 because of the demand for lumber at San Francisco. Olympia, Steilacoom, Alki, Seattle, and Port Townsend, though still in their infancy, were participating in this trade. Settlements had been made on Shoalwater Bay and Gray Harbor, and on the principal rivers which entered them, and at Cowlitz Landing. A town was surveyed at the Cascades of the Columbia in 1850, and trading establishments were made at the upper and lower falls. In fact "the map of that portion of Oregon north of the Columbia had marked upon it in the spring of 1852 nearly every important point which is seen there today."

1954

As early as 1851 a movement was made by the settlers north of the Columbia to organize a new territory. There was little or no opposition from the legislature of Oregon or from Congress. A memorial from the territorial legislature was drawn up in December, 1852, and forwarded to Congress requesting that a separate territory might be made of the country to the north to be known as the Territory of Columbia. Congress changed the name to Washington and extended the boundaries from a point near Fort Walla Walla along the forty-sixth parallel to the Rockies, making a nearly equal division of Oregon territory, and in 1853 the new territorial government was established. A census taken in that year showed Washington to have a white population of 3,965.6

Oregon at close of this period.-The conditions of the southern territory continued to improve and the population spread rapidly. By 1853 there were over twenty thousand people, most of whom were scattered over the Willamette valley on farms. The mania for

54 Ibid., 250, 251.

55 Swan, Northwest Coast, 401.

town building which was at its height from 1850 to 1853 prevented the growth of any one town in particular. Oregon City was the oldest and had a population of little more than a thousand. Portland had grown to about two thousand. Salem, Corvallis, Albany, Eugene, Lafayette, Dayton, Hillsboro, and the newer towns farther south all contained less than a thousand each. The farmers were multiplying and prospering. In 1853 Meek and Luelling of Milwaukee sent four bushels of apples to San Francisco where they are said to have sold for five hundred dollars, and forty bushels in the same market the following year brought twentyfive hundred dollars. In 1861 Oregon shipped seventyfive thousand bushels of apples, but they no longer sold at the fabulous prices of earlier days."

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Settlement of Oregon: There is considerable material on the settlement of Oregon. The subject was discussed in the press of the country quite extensively before the people had moved into the territory in very large numbers. This is indicated by the numerous meetings held in the northern states preceding the presidential nominating conventions of 1844. Local accounts of some of these have been preserved in the newspapers of the respective localities.

The following works contain the most satisfactory accounts of the settlement: H. H. Bancroft, History of Oregon, 2 vols., San Francisco, 1886 to 1888 (Vols. XXIV and XXV of The Works of); James Christy Bell, Jr., Opening a Highway to the Pacific, 1838-1846, New York, 1921; S. A. Clarke, Pioneer Days of Oregon Territory, 2 vols., Portland, 1905; Gabriel Franchère, Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in 1811-1814 (in Thwaites, Early Western Travels); W. H. Gray, History of Oregon, 1792-1849, Portland, Oregon, 1870; Rev. Gustavus Hines, Oregon, its History, Condition and Prospects, Containing a Description of the Geography, Climate, and Productions with Personal Adventures among the Indians during a Residence of the Author on the Plains bordering the Pacific while Connected with the Oregon Mission, Embracing Extended Notes of a Voyage around the World, New York, 1859; Washington Irving, Astoria, various editions; 56 Overland Monthly, I. 39.

Texas and talked glibly to both Jackson and his Secretary of State, Van Buren, of conditions there. He prepared two papers on Texas, one giving an account of the geography and products of the country and the other setting forth arguments that might properly be submitted to Mexico to urge her to sell Texas to the United States. The presentation of these papers by Butler, who was then a speculator in Texas lands, seems to have first aroused Jackson's interest in the acquisition of that country.

Jackson makes an offer.-With these documents before him, on August 13, 1829, Jackson directed the Secretary of State to have Poinsett renew the proposal to Mexico for a change in the boundary as fixed in the treaty of 1819. The President favored a new boundary to be drawn along the watershed between the Nueces and the Rio Grande rivers, "north, to the mountains dividing the waters of the Rio Grande del Norte from those that run eastward to the Gulf, and until it strikes our present boundary at the 42nd degree of north latitude." 2 Poinsett was authorized to offer four million dollars for this territory; if it were impossible to procure it for that amount he might offer five million. Other boundaries were suggested, providing this one did not prove acceptable to Mexico, which would have brought less territory to the United States than the first one proposed. If any of the lines submitted were agreed upon, payment was to be made in proportion to the amount of land obtained.

Sentiment in the United States.-In his instructions to Poinsett in 1827 Clay suggested an argument that might be used in negotiations with Mexico, the purpose of which would be to show that nation that it was to her interest to surrender Texas to the United States. The increasing number of Anglo-Americans settling in Mexican territory, he said, who bore with them the

2 Marshall, T. M., The Western Boundary of the Louisiana Purchase, 87.

T

political principles of their own nation must ultimately produce trouble. Poinsett was shrewd enough not to use this argument but its significance occurred to Mexican leaders and was magnified by them. In the United States the possible transfer of Texas was a subject of frequent written and oral discussion. A friend wrote Austin from Lexington, Kentucky, in the fall of 1829:

We are all anxious to purchase Texas from Mexico and the subject is beginning to excite a great deal of warm discussion in our public prints. If Mexico will dispose of it on reasonable terms, I believe our government will no doubt be glad to obtain it, and I am sure will meet the almost universal desire of our citizens. The consequences to the holders of property in Texas would be very important and it would promote the happiness and prosperity of all the citizens of the province. A great many citizens of Kentucky would move to your settlement instantly if it were under our government.

Just a few days later a Texas colonist who had returned to the states wrote to Austin from Nashville, Tennessee:

The prosperity of your colony . . . has now become a leading topic in conversation and one of the most interesting subjects of discussion in the political papers. A trong and simultaneous effort is at this moment making from one end of the country to the other to induce this government to purchase it. I incline to the belief that if the Mexican government will sell, this government will buy.3

Mexico was well informed concerning these facts. The discussions evidently became less frequent, however, when it was learned that Poinsett would not be able to conclude a treaty. He was then given permis

3 Howren, Alleine, "Causes and Origin of the Decree of April 6, 1830," in The Southwestern Historical Quarterly (1912-1913), XVI, 384.

Texas and talked glibly to both Jackson and his Secretary of State, Van Buren, of conditions there. He prepared two papers on Texas, one giving an account of the geography and products of the country and the other setting forth arguments that might properly be submitted to Mexico to urge her to sell Texas to the United States. The presentation of these papers by Butler, who was then a speculator in Texas lands, seems to have first aroused Jackson's interest in the acquisition of that country.

Jackson makes an offer.-With these documents before him, on August 13, 1829, Jackson directed the Secretary of State to have Poinsett renew the proposal to Mexico for a change in the boundary as fixed in the treaty of 1819. The President favored a new boundary to be drawn along the watershed between the Nueces and the Rio Grande rivers, "north, to the mountains dividing the waters of the Rio Grande del Norte from those that run eastward to the Gulf, and until it strikes our present boundary at the 42nd degree of north latitude." Poinsett was authorized to offer four million dollars for this territory; if it were impossible to procure it for that amount he might offer five million. Other boundaries were suggested, providing this one did not prove acceptable to Mexico, which would have brought less territory to the United States than the first one proposed. If any of the lines submitted were agreed upon, payment was to be made in proportion to the amount of land obtained.

2

Sentiment in the United States.-In his instructions to Poinsett in 1827 Clay suggested an argument that might be used in negotiations with Mexico, the purpose of which would be to show that nation that it was to her interest to surrender Texas to the United States. The increasing number of Anglo-Americans settling in Mexican territory, he said, who bore with them the

2 Marshall, T. M., The Western Boundary of the Louisiana Purchase, 87.