LEGISLATION FOR WOMEN IN OREGON PART I. 1. EARLY STATUS OF WOMEN IN OREGON. The territory now included in the State of Oregon came into the undisputed possession of the United States by the Treaty of Washington with Great Britain on June 15, 1846, when the northern boundary of our country west of the summit of the Rocky Mountains was fixed at the 49th parallel.1 The "Oregon Country" then included the present states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and a small part of Montana. It had been held in Joint Occupation with Great Britain since 1818 by two successive treaties which gave the Americans and the English "the equal right to trade and settle in any part of the country" but "neither could have absolute control over any part of it till the question of ownership or of boundary was settled"? In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, neither nation had made any effort to colonize the section. Captain Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had made their memorable expedition for our government in 1805 and had chartered the MissouriColumbia trail. John Jacob Astor had established a fur trading post at Fort Astor on the mouth of the Columbia in 1811 which, in 1814 was sold to the Northwest Company, a British organization eventually coalesced with the Hudson's Bay Company. Dr. John McLoughlin who was put in charge as Chief Factor in 1824, moved the trading post from Fort George at Astoria to Fort Vancouver which he built about 100 miles eastward on the Columbia River where the Willamette River empties into it, nearly opposite the site of the present city of Portland, Oregon. From this time on for almost twenty years, "the history of the government (of the Oregon Country) is summed up in the person of one man, Dr. John McLoughlin's Undoubtedly, his "fathering" of the first American missionaries and settlers who came thither was one cause of the preservation of this section to the United States. The first white settlers in Oregon were retired employes of the Hudson's Bay Com pany, with their native wives and half breed children. During the decade of the thirties the number of whites was increased by the arrival of American missionaries and a few immigrants so that by 1840 there were about 137 white persons, including 34 white women and 32 white children in the Willamette Valley.5 Between 1836 and 18406 three memorials had been sent by the Americans to Congress, petitioning the extension of the authority of the United States over them. "We flatter ourselves that we are the germ of a great state; the country must populate. The Congress of the United States must say by whom. The natural resources of the country with a well judged civil code, will invite a good community. But a good community will hardly emigrate to a country which promises no protection to property". Thus wrote the thirty-six signers of the petition but because of the Joint Occupation Treaty and because affairs nearer Washington seemed more important, none of the petitions resulted in action by Congress. Early in 1841, an attempt was made by a minority of the settlers to organize and adopt a code of laws, but they were dissuaded from this by several who thought that numbers and conditions in the colony did not warrant it. Among these was Commodore Charles Wilkes who observed that "after all the various officers they proposed making were appointed, there would be no subjects for the law to deal with". An increase of immigrants in 1842 and ravages of wild animals among the herds in the winter, brought the question of organization up for fresh discussion early in 1843, with the result that the Provisional Government of Oregon was formed. This stood in the anomalous position of being independent of both the United States and Great Britain, though its own organizers claimed allegiance to one or the other nation. The oath of office was framed to cover the situation. It read, "I do solemnly swear that I will support the Organic Laws of the Provisional Government of Oregon so far as the said Organic Laws are consistent with my duties as a citizen of the United States or a subject of Great Britain. 10 But the intentions |