A month later, they crossed the Great Divide by the South Pass,
"discovered," six years later, by Fremont; and toward the end of July,
they came to the great mountain rendezvous of traders and trappers high
in the mountains near Fort Hall. Some of those men had not seen a white
woman for a quarter of a century. You can imagine, then, what a
sensation the arrival of Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding occasioned, and
with what warmth they were welcomed. Ten days they tarried there, then
pressed on westward, and on September 2, 1836, after a journey of
thirty-five hundred miles, the gates of Fort Walla-Walla, on the lower
Columbia, opened to receive them, and the conquest of Oregon began.
Fort Walla-Walla belonged to the Hudson Bay Company, which had
undisputed control of the rich Oregon fur trade, and which was
determined to retain it at any cost. So the difficulties of the Oregon
trail were invariably exaggerated, and immigration from the states
systematically discouraged. Nevertheless, in the years following
Whitman's arrival, other parties of missionaries and settlers worked
their way into the country, until, in 1842, their number reached about a
hundred and fifty. The Hudson Bay Company realized that neither England
nor America had a clear title to the region, and that its population
must, in the end, determine its nationality.
Pages:
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264