Globalization of the United States, 1789-1861

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Greenhow, Robert. The History of Oregon and California, and the other Territories of the North-West Coast of North America.... Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown; London: John Murray, 1845.

Robert Greenhow. The History of Oregon and California, and the other Territories of the North-West Coast of North America.... Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown; London: John Murray, 1845. Fold-out map.

Librarian to the State Department, Greenhow drafted this history in order to stake the United States’ claim to Pacific coast territory contested by the British empire.

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The following pages are devoted, principally, to the description and history of the portion of North America bordering on the Pacific Ocean, between the 40th and the 54th parallels of latitude, which is traversed and in a great measure drained, by the River Columbia, and to which the name of Oregon is now usually applied. It has, however, been found necessary, for the objects of the work, to bestow almost equal attention on the regions embraced under the general appellation of California, extending southward from the Columbia countries, to the arm of the Pacific, called the Californian Gulf; and also to take into consideration the coasts and islands north and north-west of those countries, as far as the Arctic Sea.

The vast division of America, comprehending these territories, remains, with the exception of a few isolated spots on the coasts and on the margins of the larger streams, uncultivated and inhabited only by tribes of wandering savages. Its shores and some of its rivers have been examined with care, and their course may be found delineated with considerable minuteness on maps. Of its interior regions, some have never been explored, and are indeed apparently impenetrable by man; others, which offer fewer obstacles to the traveller, are only known through the vague and imperfect accounts of traders or missionaries; and in those which have been the most frequented by civilized persons, much remains to be effected by the aid of scientific observations, in order to obtain satisfactory ideas of their geography and physical characteristics.

These territories, unoccupied, partially explored, and remote from all civilized countries, nevertheless present much that is interesting in their political history, as well as in their natural conformation and productions; and events are now in progress which seem calculated, ere long, to attract towards them the views of the governments and people of many powerful nations.

Every part of this division of America is in fact claimed by some civilized state as its exclusive property, in virtue either of discoveries or settlements made by its citizens or subjects, or of transfer or inheritance from some other state claiming on similar grounds, or of contiguity to its own acknowledged territories. On these points, the principles of national law are by no means clearly defined, nor is it easy to apply such as are most generally admitted, to particular cases; nor are governments ordinarily found ready to relinquish claims merely because they prove to be unfounded, agreeably to such principles: and disputes have in consequence arisen between different nations asserting the right of possession to the same portion of Western America, which have more than once threatened to disturb the peace of the world. Attempts have been made to settle the questions at issue by negotiation; and certain lines of boundary have been agreed on by treaties between one and another of the claimant powers: but the arrangements thus made, can scarcely in any instance be considered definitive, as they have not received, and will probably never receive, the assent of the other parties interested.

In the mean time these territories are daily becoming more important from the advancement of the population of adjoining countries towards them, and from the constant increase of the trade and navigation of several of the claimant powers in the Pacific, which would render the undisputed possession of establishments on the coasts of that Ocean most desirable for each. The difficulty of effecting an amicable partition of the territories thus becomes daily greater, and more urgent therefore is the necessity of endeavoring to attain that end without delay.