| [accepted revision] | [accepted revision] |
Content deleted Content added
Anomalous+0 (talk | contribs) →Film: added passage re The Way West |
Citation bot (talk | contribs) Add: pages, title. | Use this bot. Report bugs. | Suggested by Headbomb | #UCB_toolbar |
||
| (46 intermediate revisions by 33 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{short description|Historic migration route
{{Other uses}}
{{pp-pc}}
Line 29:
[[File:Carte Lewis-Clark Expedition-en.png|thumb|upright=1.15|Route of the Lewis and Clark expedition]]
===Pacific Fur Company===
{{Main|Pacific Fur Company}}
Founded in 1810 by [[John Jacob Astor]] as a subsidiary of his [[American Fur Company]] (AFC)
[[File:U.S. Territorial Acquisitions.png|thumb|[[United States territorial acquisitions|U.S. territorial acquisitions]]{{endash}}portions of each territory were granted statehood since the 18th century.]]
Under Hunt, fearing attack by the [[Niitsitapi]], the overland expedition veered south of Lewis and Clark's route into what is now Wyoming and in the process passed across [[Union Pass]] and into [[Jackson Hole]], Wyoming. From there they went over the [[Teton Range]] via [[Teton Pass]] and then down to the Snake River into modern [[Idaho]]. They abandoned their horses at the Snake River, made dugout canoes, and attempted to use the river for transport. After a few days' travel, they soon discovered that steep canyons, waterfalls, and impassable rapids made travel by river impossible. Too far from their horses to retrieve them, they had to cache most of their goods and walk the rest of the way to the Columbia River where they made new boats and traveled to the newly established Fort Astoria. The expedition demonstrated that much of the route along the Snake River plain and across to the Columbia was passable by pack train or with minimal improvements, even wagons.<ref>{{cite web |title = Map of Astorian expedition, Lewis and Clark expedition, Oregon Trail, etc. in Pacific Northwest, etc |url = http://www.oregon.com/history/oregon_trail_maps.cfm |publisher = oregon.com |access-date = December 31, 2008 |url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090202113800/http://www.oregon.com/history/oregon_trail_maps.cfm |archive-date = February 2, 2009}}</ref> This knowledge would be incorporated into the concatenated trail segments as the Oregon Trail took its early shape.
Line 44:
===North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company===
{{See also|North West Company|Hudson's Bay Company}}
[[File:Alfred Jacob Miller - Fort Laramie - Walters 37194049.jpg|thumb|The first [[Fort Laramie]] as it looked prior to 1840. Painting from
In August 1811, three months after [[Fort Astoria]] was established, [[David Thompson (explorer)|David Thompson]] and his team of North West Company explorers came floating down the Columbia to Fort Astoria. He had just completed a journey through much of western Canada and most of the Columbia River drainage system. He was mapping the country for possible fur trading posts. Along the way, he camped at the confluence of the Columbia and Snake Rivers and posted a notice claiming the land for Britain and stating the intention of the North West Company to build a fort on the site. When the War of 1812 broke out, the managers at Fort Astoria were concerned the British navy would seize their forts and supplies, and in 1813 they sold out to the North West Company.
By 1821, intense competition between the [[Hudson's Bay Company]] (HBC) and the North West Company reached the point of armed hostilities, and the British government pressured the two companies to merge. The newly reconfigured HBC had
From 1813 to the early 1840s the British, through the NWC and HBC, had nearly complete control of the Pacific Northwest and the western half of the Oregon Trail. In theory, the [[Treaty of Ghent]], which ended the War of 1812, restored possession of U.S. property in Oregon territory to the United States. "Joint occupation" of the region was formally established by the [[Anglo-American Convention of 1818]]. The British, through the HBC, tried to discourage any U.S. trappers, traders, and settlers from work or settlement in the Pacific Northwest.
Line 60:
The HBC built a new much larger Fort Vancouver in 1825 about 90 miles upstream from Fort Astoria, on the north side of the Columbia River (they were hoping the Columbia would be the future Canada–U.S. border). The fort quickly became the center of activity in the Pacific Northwest. Every year ships would come from London to the Pacific (via [[Cape Horn]]) to drop off supplies and trade goods in its trading posts in the Pacific Northwest and pick up the accumulated furs used to pay for these supplies. It was the nexus for the fur trade on the Pacific Coast; its influence reached from the Rocky Mountains to the [[Hawaiian Islands]], and from [[Russian Alaska]] into Mexican-controlled California. At its pinnacle in about 1840, the manager of Fort Vancouver watched over 34 outposts, 24 ports, 6 ships, and about 600 employees.
When American emigration over the Oregon Trail began in earnest in the early 1840s, for many settlers the fort became the last stop on the Oregon Trail where they could get supplies, aid, and help before starting their homesteads.<ref name="Mackie1997"/> Fort Vancouver was the main re-supply point for nearly all Oregon trail travelers until U.S. towns could be established. The HBC established [[Fort Colvile]] in 1825 on the Columbia River near [[Kettle Falls]] as a good site to collect furs and control the upper Columbia River fur trade.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/FortColville.asp |title = Fort Colville |publisher = Nwcouncil.org |access-date = March 19, 2011 }}</ref> [[Fort Nisqually]] was built near the present town of [[DuPont, Washington|DuPont]], Washington, and was the first HBC fort on Puget Sound. [[Fort Victoria (British Columbia)|Fort Victoria]] was erected in 1843 and became the headquarters of operations in British Columbia, eventually growing into modern-day [[Victoria, British Columbia|Victoria]], the capital city of British Columbia.
[[File:Oregoncountry.png|thumb|left|The Oregon Country/Columbia District stretched from 42'N to 54 40'N. The most heavily disputed portion is highlighted.]]
Line 115:
===Women on the Overland Trail===
Consensus interpretations, as found in John Faragher's book, ''Women and Men on the Overland Trail'' (1979), held that men's and women's power within marriage was uneven.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Faragher |first1=John Mack |title=Women and Men on the Overland Trail |date=2001 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven |isbn=0300089244}}</ref> This meant that women did not experience the trail as liberating, but instead only found harder work than they had handled back east, all the while upholding the virtues of the [[Culture of Domesticity]]. Some of the additional tasks women had on the wagon trail included collecting "buffalo
chips" for fire fuel, unloading and loading up the wagons, driving teams of oxen, pouring bullets to help in Indian attacks, and striving to keep their men and children at peace. They were the backbones of life on the wagon trail and took up not only their regular duties but many duties of men as well.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Schlissel |first1=Lillian |title=Mothers and Daughters on the Western Frontier |journal=Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies |volume=3}}</ref> However, feminist scholarship, by historians such as Lillian Schlissel,<ref>Lillian Schlissel, "Women's diaries on the western frontier." ''American Studies'' (1977): 87–100 [https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/amerstud/article/viewFile/2301/2260 online].</ref> Sandra Myres,<ref>Sandra L. Myres, ed., '' Ho for California!: Women's Overland Diaries from the Huntington Library'' (Huntington Library Press, 1980)</ref> and Glenda Riley,<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 969452 |title = The Specter of a Savage: Rumors and Alarmism on the Overland Trail |journal = The Western Historical Quarterly |volume = 15 |issue = 4 |pages = 427–444 |last1 = Riley |first1 = Glenda |year = 1984 |doi = 10.2307/969452 }}</ref> suggests men and women did not view the West and western migration in the same way. Whereas men might deem the dangers of the trial acceptable if there was a strong economic reward at the end, women viewed those dangers as threatening to the stability and survival of the family. Once they arrived at their new Western home, women's public role in building Western communities and participating in the Western economy gave them a greater authority than they had known back East. There was a "female frontier" that was distinct and different from that experienced by men.<ref>Kenneth L. Holmes, ''Covered Wagon Women,'' Volume 1, Introduction by Anne M. Butler, ebook version, University of Nebraska Press, (1983) pp 1–10.</ref> Women's diaries kept during their travels or the letters they wrote home once they arrived at their destination support these contentions. Women wrote with sadness and concern about the numerous deaths along the trail. Anna Maria King wrote to her family in 1845 about her trip to the [[Luckiamute River|Luckiamute Valley]] Oregon and of the multiple deaths experienced by her traveling group:
Line 126 ⟶ 130:
<blockquote>The mountains looked like volcanoes and the appearance that one day there had been an awful thundering of volcanoes and a burning world. The valleys were all covered with a white crust and looked like [[salaratus]]. Some of the companies used it to raise their bread.<ref>From the letter of Betsey Bayley, in ''Covered Wagon Women,'' Volume 1, by Kenneth L. Holmes, ebook version, University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln, 1983, p. 35.</ref></blockquote>
While women experienced many deaths and hardships on the trail, the trail was also a place for women to take on roles they had previously not been allowed to take on back east. Women started to use their journals on the trails to express themselves as “reporters, guides, poets, and historians.” They would jot down botany and different species on the trail to help feed their family. Women used their resourcefulness and creativity on the trail. <ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bledsoe |first1=Lucy Jane |title=Adventuresome Women on the Oregon Trail: 1840-1867 |journal=Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies |year=1984 |volume=7 |issue=3|pages=22–29 |doi=10.2307/3346237 |jstor=3346237 }}</ref>
===Mormon emigration===
Line 139 ⟶ 145:
{{Main|California Trail}}
In January 1848, James Marshall found gold in the Sierra Nevada portion of the [[American River]], sparking the [[California Gold Rush]].{{sfnp|Peters|1996|p=[https://archive.org/details/seventrailswest00pete/page/109 109]}} It is estimated that about two-thirds of the male population in Oregon went to California in 1848 to cash in on the opportunity. To get there, they helped build the Lassen Branch of the Applegate-Lassen Trail by cutting a wagon road through extensive forests. Many returned with significant gold which helped jump-start the Oregon economy. Over the next decade, gold seekers from the [[Midwest|Midwestern United States]] and [[East Coast of the United States]] dramatically increased traffic on the Oregon and California Trails. The "forty-niners" often chose speed over safety and opted to use shortcuts such as the [[Sublette Cutoff|Sublette-Greenwood Cutoff]] in Wyoming which reduced travel time by almost seven days but spanned nearly {{convert|45|mi|km}} of the desert without water, grass, or fuel for fires.<ref>{{Cite web |url = http://americanwest.com/trails/pages/oretrail.htm |title =
===Later emigration and uses of the trail===
The trail was still in use during the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], but traffic declined after 1855 when the [[Panama Railroad]] across the [[Isthmus of Panama]] was completed. Paddle wheel steamships and sailing ships, often heavily subsidized to carry the mail, provided rapid transport to and from the East Coast and [[New Orleans]], Louisiana, to and from [[Panama]] to ports in California and Oregon.
Over the years many ferries were established to help get across the many rivers on the path of the Oregon Trail. Multiple ferries were established on the Missouri River, [[Kansas River]], [[Little Blue River (Kansas/Nebraska)|Little Blue River]], [[Elkhorn River]], [[Loup River]], Platte River, [[South Platte River]], North Platte River, [[Laramie River]], Green River, [[Bear River (Great Salt Lake)|Bear River]], two crossings of the Snake River, [[John Day River]], [[Deschutes River (Oregon)|Deschutes River]], Columbia River, as well as many other smaller streams. During peak immigration periods several ferries on any given river often competed for pioneer dollars. These ferries significantly increased speed and safety for Oregon Trail travelers. They increased the cost of traveling the trail by roughly $30 per wagon but decreased the speed of the transit from about 160 to 170 days in 1843 to 120 to 140 days in 1860. Ferries also helped prevent death by drowning at river crossings.
In April 1859, an expedition of [[United States Army Corps of Engineers|U.S. Corps of Topographical Engineers]] led by Captain [[James H. Simpson]] left Camp Floyd, [[Utah]], to establish an army supply route across the [[Great Basin]] to the eastern slope of the [[Sierra Nevada (U.S.)|Sierras]]. Upon return in early August, Simpson reported that he had surveyed the [[Central Overland Route]] from [[Camp Floyd]] to [[Genoa, Nevada]]. This route went through central Nevada (roughly where [[U.S. Route 50 in Nevada|U.S. Route 50]] goes today) and was about {{convert|280|mi|km}} shorter than the "standard" [[Humboldt River]] [[California trail]] route.<ref>{{Cite report |last = Simpson |first = J. H. |author-link = James H. Simpson |year = 1876 |title = Report of Explorations across the Great Basin of the Territory of Utah |place = Washington, D.C. |publisher = U.S. Government Printing Office |pages = [https://archive.org/details/reportexplorati00simpgoog/page/n27 25]–26 |url = https://archive.org/details/reportexplorati00simpgoog }}</ref>
Line 165 ⟶ 171:
===Trail decline===
The first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, providing faster, safer, and usually cheaper travel east and west (the journey took seven days and cost as little as $65, or {{Inflation|US|65|
==Routes==
Line 173 ⟶ 179:
As the trail developed it became marked by many cutoffs and shortcuts from Missouri to Oregon. The basic route follows river valleys as grass and water were necessary.
While the first few parties organized and departed from Elm Grove, the Oregon Trail's primary starting
The Oregon Trail's nominal termination point was [[Oregon City, Oregon|Oregon City]], at the time the proposed capital of the [[Oregon Territory]]. However, many settlers branched off or stopped short of this goal and settled at convenient or promising locations along the trail. Commerce with pioneers going further west helped establish these early settlements and launched local economies critical to their prosperity.
Line 213 ⟶ 219:
Because of the Platte's brackish water, the preferred camping spots were along one of the many freshwater streams draining into the Platte or the occasional freshwater spring found along the way. These preferred camping spots became sources of cholera in the epidemic years (1849–1855) as many thousands of people used the same camping spots with essentially no sewage facilities or adequate sewage treatment. One of the side effects of cholera is acute diarrhea, which helps contaminate even more water unless it is isolated and/or treated. The cause of cholera (ingesting the ''[[Vibrio cholerae]]'' bacterium from contaminated water) and the best treatment for cholera infections were unknown in this era. Thousands of travelers on the combined California, Oregon, and Mormon trails succumbed to cholera between 1849 and 1855. Most were buried in unmarked graves in Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming. Although also considered part of the [[Mormon Trail]], the grave of [[Rebecca Winters (pioneer)|Rebecca Winters]] is one of the few marked ones left. There are many cases cited involving people who were alive and healthy in the morning and dead by nightfall.
Fort Laramie was the end of most cholera outbreaks which killed thousands along the lower Platte and North Platte from 1849 to 1855. Spread by cholera bacteria in fecal-contaminated water, cholera causes massive diarrhea, leading to dehydration and death. In those days its cause and treatment were unknown, and it was often fatal—up to 30
===Colorado===
Line 745 ⟶ 751:
The 1930 [[Western (genre)|Western]] film ''[[The Big Trail]]'' featured [[John Wayne]] in his first starring role as a [[fur trade|fur trapper]] leading a large [[wagon train]] of settlers across the Oregon Trail.
The 1967 film ''[[The Way West (film)|The Way West]]'', starring [[Kirk Douglas]], [[Robert Mitchum]], and [[Richard Widmark]], was based on the [[The Way West|novel of the same name]] by [[A. B. Guthrie, Jr.]] It follows a wagon train of settlers as they make their way from Missouri to Oregon in 1843.
The animated film ''[[Calamity, a Childhood of Martha Jane Cannary]]'' portrays the expedition of a dozen wagons to Oregon, part of which was the young [[Calamity Jane]].
| |||