The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

California and Oregon 301

“Going west” had always been laborious, but in the
1840s the distances covered were longer by far and the
comforts and conveniences of “civilization” that had
to be left behind, being more extensive than those
available to earlier generations, tended to be more
painful to surrender.
Travel on the plains west of the Mississippi was
especially taxing for women. Some assumed tasks tradi-
tionally performed by men. “I keep close to my gun and
dog,” a woman from Illinois wrote in her diary. But
most found the experience disillusioning. Guidebooks
promised them that “regular exercise, in the open air...
gives additional vigor and strength.” But the books did
not prepare women for collecting dried buffalo dung for
fuel, for the heat and choking dust of summer, for the
monotony, the dirt, the cramped quarters. Caring for an
infant or a two-year-old in a wagon could be torture
week after week on the trail.
In their letters and journals pioneer women mostly
complained of being bone weary. “It is impossible to
keep anything clean,” one recorded. “Oh dear,” another
wrote in her journal, “I do so want to get there, it is
now almost four months since we have slept in a house.”
What sort of house pioneer family members would actu-
ally sleep in when they reached their destination is a
question this woman did not record, which was proba-
bly fortunate for her peace of mind.

Geer,Oregon Trail Journalat
http://www.myhistorylab.com

California and Oregon

By 1840 many Americans had settled far to the west in
California, which was unmistakably Mexican territory,
and in the Oregon country, jointly
claimed by the United States and
Great Britain; and it was to these dis-
tant regions that the pioneers were
going in increasing numbers as the
decade progressed. California was a
sparsely settled land of some 7,000
Spanish-speaking ranchers and a hand-
ful of “Anglo” settlers from the
United States. Until the 1830s, when
their estates were broken up by the
anticlerical Mexican government,
twenty-one Catholic missions, stretch-
ing north from San Diego to San
Francisco, controlled more than
30,000 Indian converts, who were lit-
tle better off than slaves. Richard
Henry Dana, a Harvard College stu-
dent, sailed around South America to
California as an ordinary seaman on
the brig Pilgrimin 1834. His account

ReadtheDocument

of that voyage in Two Years Before the Mast(1840) con-

tains a fine description of what life was like in the

region: “There is no working class (the Indians being

practically serfs and doing all the hard work) and every

rich man looks like a grandee, and every poor scamp

like a broken-down gentleman.”

Oregon, a vaguely defined area between

California and Russian Alaska, proved still more allur-

ing to Americans. Captain Robert Gray had sailed up

the Columbia River in 1792, and Lewis and Clark had

visited the region on their great expedition. In 1811

John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company had estab-

lished trading posts on the Columbia. Two decades

later Methodist, Presbyterian, and Catholic missionar-

ies began to find their way into the Willamette Valley,

a green land of rich soil, mild climate, and tall forests

teeming with game. Gradually a small number of set-

tlers followed, until by 1840 there were about

500 Americans in the Willamette area.

In the early 1840s, fired by the spirit of manifest

destiny, the country suddenly burned with “Oregon

fever.” In dozens upon dozens of towns, societies

were founded to collect information and organize

groups to make the march to the Pacific. Land

hunger (stimulated by glowing reports from the

scene) drew the new migrants most powerfully, but

the patriotic concept of manifest destiny gave the trek

across the 2,000 miles of wilderness separating

Oregon from the western edge of American settle-

ment in Missouri the character of a crusade. In 1843

nearly 1,000 pioneers made the long trip.

The Oregon Trail began at the western border

of Missouri and followed the Kansas River and the

Indians dance beneath the cross of a mission in early nineteenth-century San Francisco.

Catholic missionaries often redefined Indian customs to accord with Catholic

religious principles.