CHAPTER 1

1492-1792

THE WORLD-ROUND WEST-BOUND MARCH OF MAN-WAS THE EARTH ROUND OR FLAT --THE PROPOSITION OF COLUMBUS-HOW AND WHY NAMED AMERICA-THE DREAMS OF NAVIGATORS—THE FABLED STRAIT OF ANIAN-DE FUCA'S PRETENDED DISCOVERY-MALDONADO'S PRETENDED VOYAGE-LOW'S REMARKABLE MAPVISCAINO AND AGUILAR REACH THE OREGON COAST IN 1603-CALIFORNIA AN ISLAND CAPTAIN COOK'S VOYAGE AND DEATH-BEGINNING OF THE FUR TRADE ON THE PACIFIC-SPAIN DRIVES ENGLAND OUT OF NOOTKA SOUND AND THEN MAKES A TREATY OF JOINT OCCUPATION-GRAY DISCOVERS THE COLUMBIA RIVER.

To connect Oregon with the greatest event in the world of science and discovery-the grand achievement of Christopher Columbus-we must take a long look backward and see that the train of events set in motion by that great man never halted or turned aside from the day Columbus sighted Cat Island in the West Indies until the Oregon pioneers organized the provisional government at Champoeg. The settlement of this last and most distant portion of the United States was clearly the result of that world-wide racial impulse to move west on isothermal lines, take possession of new lands and colonize the North American continent. That impulse already in existence before the American colonies declared their independence of the Old World, was vastly accelerated by the surrender of the British army at Yorktown.

As Columbus left no explanation of his studies of the great problem of sailing westward from Europe to find the east coast of Asia the world is left to judge him by contemporaneous events. That Columbus did ransack all possible sources of geographical knowledge in his day to get a clue to the mystery of the great western ocean there can be no doubt. It is known that he studied the works of the Greek geographer Ptolemy who wrote about 150 years after Christ. Ptolemy was the most learned man of his age; and the great problem with him and other learned men at that time was to determine the size of the inhabited world. It was the fixed belief at that age that the length of the inhabited world was not only longer than it was wide but that the length was twice that of its width. All the old Greek geographers, except Hipparchus, agreed on the proposition that the inhabited world was a vast flat plain island in the midst of a boundless ocean. Hipparchus flourished about 150 years before Christ, was the founder of the science of astronomy, calculated eclipses, discovered the precession of the equinoxes, and seeing that the heavenly bodies must be spheres concluded that the earth also was a globe. And it is a curious fact that all the calculations and speculations of those old geographers of eighteen hundred years ago continually kept pushing the coast of Asia-what we know as China and Siberia-farther and farther eastward into the supposed boundless ocean. Columbus had read and

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meditated on these imaginings of those ancient philosophers, and he was no doubt perfectly familiar with the tradition handed down to his age of the world that there was once a great island or continent occupying a portion of the area covered by the Atlantic ocean, but which had been by an earthquake submerged in the ocean. Plato, the most illustrious philosopher of all the ages, and Strabo, the first of geographers, both believed in the existence of such an island in the Atlantic ocean west of Europe, that had been submerged in the ocean by some mighty cataclysm of the earth. The lost island of "Atlantis" gave the name to the ocean. And this belief in an island or a continent being submerged in the ocean was not an unreasonable proposition. For there can be no uplift of the land in one place without a corresponding depression of land in some other place. And we now know from the testimony of the rocks that the area of our state of Oregon was once a part of the floor of the Pacific ocean. But what land was submerged in the ocean as our land of Oregon came up out of the ocean there is no record or tradition to tell. Columbus was familiar with all these theories and beliefs about the formation of the earth; and from them all was evolved his great proposition to sail west from Spain-and make some great discovery.

But what probably influenced his thoughts more than anything else was a little book or parchment written by the Venetian traveler, Marco Polo, in the year 1295 after his return from a long journey through the empire of Kublai Khan, what we now know as China. Polo's published account of his travels was the great sensation and wonder of that age, was discussed by learned men all over Europe and formed the basis of many new conjectures about the size and shape of the earth. Columbus read Polo's narrative, and was familiar with all the various theories of the earth and with all the new ideas inspired by Polo's extensive travels. The great subject had taken possession of all his thoughts. And of all the learned men of that age he alone seems to have been capable of the great idea which he finally carried out. But with him it was no sudden impulse, no scintillation of genius struck out of a reckless brain. He brooded over and revolved the great concept in his mind for years. And when finally he put forth the proposition that by sailing directly westward from Europe he could reach the east coast of Asia in the latitude of Cipango (Japan) as it was then known, he was so confident and assured of the correctness of his great idea that he never hesitated or halted until he had raised his anchors and set the sails that carried him to the New World.

The only man of any note of the age of Columbus who seems to have supported him in his views was the learned Italian, Toscanelli. And on hearing of the proposition of Columbus Toscanelli wrote him a letter heartily endorsing the views of Columbus; and to demonstrate to Columbus that he could reach the east coast of Asia by sailing west from Europe, Toscanelli amended Ptolemy's map of the world to make it correspond with the description of Asia by Marco Polo, and sent the copy to Columbus. On this map the eastern coast of Asia was outlined in front of the western coasts of Africa and Europe, with a little ocean flowing between them in which he placed the imaginary island of Cipango (Japan) and Antilla.

In taking up this proposition, Columbus was met with a storm of opposition and persecution which would have crushed any other man. The church denounced the scheme as heresy, and for nearly twenty years the great man

Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! And then a speck,
A light! A light! A light! A light!

It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!

It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.

He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: "On, sail on."

traveled, begged and toiled for recognition and favor from those who could give aid, and at last found a good priest who sympathized with his grand idea, and through whose influence, Queen Isabella of Spain was induced to recall a former refusal of aid.

How Columbus finally induced Queen Isabella to support his enterprise with money and two small ships, while a third ship was added by himself and friends, and how on August 3, 1492, he sailed out of Palos harbor with one hundred and twenty men in the three little ships-Santa Maria, Pinta and Nina-is an oft-told story and familiar tale. This exploratory voyage, all things considered, is the greatest enterprise ever planned and carried out by the genius and energy of a single man. The voyage itself was not a great affair, the little vessels of still less account, the use of the compass was then but little understood; the seamen were all ignorant and superstitious to the limit; but when we consider the weakness of such an outfit to venture out upon a vast and unknown ocean and brave all the terrors pictured by the imagination in addition to the real dangers of the sea, and then place over and against them all the glory and grandeur of the achievement in practically adding to the use and enjoyment of the race of man, a new world as large, useful and beautiful as the one already enjoyed, our minds are unable to grasp and no words can fully express the greatness of the achievement, or the honor, praise and obligation which mankind owes to the name of Christopher Columbus.

After seventy days' sailing westward, Columbus struck Cat Island in the West Indies. It was inhabited by red men. The people of Hindostan (India) were red. Columbus believed he had reached India-the east coast of Asia; and he called the natives Indians. The name stuck, and thus all the natives of America came to be called Indians. Columbus made three subsequent voyages from Spain to the West India islands, but never reached the mainland, and died in ignorance of his great discovery of a continent equal to the old world and separated from it by two great oceans.

It may seem irrelevant to go back over four hundred years to begin this narrative about the state of Oregon; but it must be remembered that it was Christopher Columbus who started and steered the tide of the Caucasian race across the Atlantic which finally overran the American continent and never halted until here on the Willamette to found a state. And believing that the readers of this book will take a genuine interest in the man who discovered America, and will be glad to have a lifelike, truthful portrait of his face, we have, at much trouble and expense, procured from the Marine Museum, at Madrid, Spain, and here print the best likeness ever made of the great man.

When we look into the books of geographical discovery, we find that Oregon was for a long period of time the center of a great unknown region of myths and mystery. To see how that idea got abroad in the world, it will be necessary to go back to the opening of the Fifteenth century and follow the current of geographical exploration around the world.

The proposition of Columbus to find a short cut to Asia by sailing west from Spain was not to perish with his death. It was the good fortune of the Italian navigator, Americus Vespucius, who made four voyages to America and finally to discover the mainland of the continent near the equator. And like Columbus, he too returned to Spain and died poor at Seville in 1512, without knowing he