The Oregon Country

Chapters 16-17

Where: Today’s Oregon, Washington, Idaho, parts of Montana and Wyoming. Also part of the Canadian Province of British Colombia

•4 countries had claims to this area (originally):

- United States- based on Robert Gray’s discovery of the Columbia River and the Lewis and Clarke expedition

- Great Britain- on its claim on British explorations of the Columbia river

- Spain- explored Pacific Coast and controlled California to the South (lost claim in the Adams-Onis Treaty)

- Russia- had settlements that stretched south from Alaska into Oregon (lost claim in the Adams-Onis Treaty)

The British and US had jointed Occupancy of this area

President Adams wanted to divide country at the 49° line- Great Britain refused

•Many wanted to travel to Oregon land (rumors of fertile land, pretty view, leaving economic troubles)

-to travel they had to take trails- Oregon trail was the best to take their thanks to the South Pass (broad breakthrough in the Rockies) Journey became know as The Great Migration – 2,000 mile journey (emigrants)

- Oregon Trail went through the Great Plains, Platte River and the South Pass of the Rockies- very challenging

The Oregon Trail

The Division of Oregon

-Great increase in American population (500-5000)

-Britain's population did not increase (700)

-Manifest Destiny- belief it was United States nation mission to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us (expanding to the West Coast)

Led To:

-“Fifty-four Forty or Fight”- sole ownership of Oregon

-refers to the line of latitude that Democrats believed should be the nation's northern border in Oregon

* Polk’s strong support of this led to his Presidential victory over Henry Clay

Results: Britain didn’t want that to happen

- 1846 compromised- the boundary between American and British portions was set at 49° latitude

Mormons

Joe Smith founded this religion in 1830Believed property should be held in common, believed in polygamy (the idea that a man can have more than one wife)Angered a lot of ChristiansMormons were pushed around the United States finally settling around Salt Lake City, Utah (Brigham Young did this)Mormons conflicts with the government kept Utah from becoming a state for a long while (1896)