Oregon’s Early History of Race Relations (with sources).

Note: This will be published on July 15th, 2013. An essay written about the context of that era and how minorities, natives and those of certain religions were treated unfairly. However, there were even more cases of peace between the differing cultures but the importance and the evils of "social tyranny" must be addressed. Conformity and the mentality of the "mob rulership" should be exploited to promote and advocate for the minorities that are largely underserved. If this is something you agree with, then you agree with Libertarians, Neoliberals (modern liberals) and yes, Conservatives.

As we notice the power struggles faced between cultures, historians often realize that differences are often misunderstood. Racism and a lack of respect towards other races, has contributed to the racial bias in Oregon’s history. These differences in race that developed in Oregon were very influenced by the heavily used trade routes from native-Americans, the British, Americans, French-Canadians and the Chinese-Americans.  During this era, these minorities were subjected to numerous forms of racism and bigotry, usually based off of a few minor differences in color of their skin, cultural background or religious practices.

There are many early examples that have shown the duality of these relationships. Some examples include how early settlers being “fair” to the natives and actually marrying into their native families, as natives have done this for several generations. On the other hand, when other settlers were moving into the Oregon territory, there were times when both sides clashed. This clash was noticed in our written history but in some cases it was not fully researched by some historians and/or possibly ignored entirely. More examples include the press and media describing the accounts of settlers but not of the natives. With this non-Native point of view, the natives were left in the public eye as uncivilized or “savages,” without having a chance to describe themselves, or their feelings about the non-native presence. In the context of that time, it could be perceived that the lack of written history is in fact, racist. It could deem as racist because they implied a savage nature, when the natives simply perceived this as their land and wanted to keep it.

The ideas of racism and bias can be seen within American history. Before the major fur companies were massive in the area and its kinder relationships with the natives, the maritime fur trade was more involved in the trading economy and sometimes violence ensued. Even before some of the major British trading companies were established, Captain Robert Gray was notorious for his atrocities against the coastal natives and even destroying an entire native villages and even blowing their canoes out of the water (Robbins, "The Coming of Robert Gray"). The American Captain Robert Grey was still hailed as some sort of hero but racism may have played a part in not showing his violence against the natives.

The story of Captain Grey is a prime example of how many people have to come to terms with his questionable practices and how history was written from his examples. Throughout many years, history textbooks have neglected some of the awful things he’s done to the Natives. This remained true, even while history textbooks might have hailed him as a hero in his time. There is no doubt that he contributed a great deal to discovery and had many other examples of him and his crew being decent to the natives but disregarding his evil shows the racial bias in history. It is possible that several historians singlehandedly negated important facts in history, leaving much to be desired about our former heroes.

The history of the earliest account of Oregon’s first African-American, Markus Lopius, ended as fast as he arrived. Coming from West Africa’s Cape Verde Islands, Lopius was a crew member who dropped a cutlass and was later killed for it. A native supposedly stole this device and Lopius, knowing that was a prized possession, captured the native. When Robert Grays’ crew came to intervene with the situation, they noticed Lopius shot and killed by arrows and they all narrowly escaped (Allen). Since there was a great deal of controversy between what happened to Lopius and whether or not he survived, it is possible that Grey’s crew may have wrote down something inaccurate. It is even possible that Lopius was left to die or worse, murdered but some legends implied that he has survived though this is not the case.

Through understanding the duality between human nature and its bigotry, there are other examples in which historians have chosen to omit certain parts of history, even from primary sources. There are other cases in which the discoverers themselves might have omitted important facts. Captain William Clark, from the Corps of Discovery hardly described his African-America slave, York. There are several reasons historians attribute to this, such as the fact that their masters hardly cared to document about their slaves’ daily struggles. In the context of that era, it is easier for us to judge this misinterpretations and bias against their reasoning, especially when it comes to slave-holding. This is true even for prominent American leaders that owned slaves, even though many of them touted for freedom.

It is true that Native-American culture is certainly different but not entirely different from non-Native culture, in many respects. Though the natives perceived this as their land and would often steal from the settlers because of this, there were obvious times of peace and with this, trade. Both natives and non-natives thoroughly enjoyed trading common goods, a major economic concept they shared and valued. The racial history between natives and non-natives wasn’t always rocky, even considering their differences. There were traits within both cultures, though often over-looked in some respects, which have shown a great deal of understanding between these inherently different cultures and ethnic groups.

The relationships between Native-American trading partners also differed but these differences were typically circumvented by marrying themselves into the native band. European fur traders thought that this was an excellent idea for trade and would marry a Native-American woman for one of these benefits. This relationship-centered form of trade business was paramount to providing peace and increasing trade negotiations. This was also a major concept of native culture and it allowed room for longer trade relationships and these ideas existed for hundreds of years of before the settlers arrived (Robbins, “Indian Trading Groups”). 

Early settlers and natives often clashed at times but this wasn’t always an issue, especially when settlers adopted some of the values of the natives, and did something similar to the native custom of marriage. Although some settlers used marriage to form bonds between the native bands, there were cases of prejudices against the natives that sometimes induced hate. Because of this hatred, Oregon had a dark history in regards to race, when you think about the natives and their relationships between them and the settlers.

However, there are other examples in which people of the same “race” were often disgruntled with one another, albeit more subtly at times. Some of these examples include the differences between the British that have already established major companies, such as the Hudson’s Bay Company members, and the American missionaries. Some of these issues derived not only from race but mere cultural differences and different aspects of a similar religion. Missionaries would often clash with the natives and the prominent trading companies in the area, imposing some of their belief systems upon the people there.

One of the reasons racism was so prominent in Oregon territory was partly due to the fact that older settlers didn’t want any new settlers of different races moving there. A lot of this had to do with trading with the natives. If more people moved into Oregon, there would be a drastic increase in competition, making it hard for the Hudson’s Bay Company to trade with other settlers/natives. This would have made it harder to barter their products effectively to gain a substantial profit or trade route. A great example of this before the Americans starting moving here was the competition between the Hudson’s Bay Company and The North West Company, often getting into fighting and altercations resulting in some deaths.

Racism may have been sparked by a different set of ideals to begin with. It is possible that racism existed, in very subtle ways, towards those of the same race. Some of these examples stem of the idea of cultural racism, where someone (or a group of people) believes that their culture is superior to another culture. The example from Clergymen Beaver and how he differed from John McLoughlin in how to teach the children at Ft. Vancouver is an excellent example. Clergymen Beaver wanted the children to learn the proper schooling and Protestantism but McLoughlin, being the in charge of the overall company, wanted the children to learn farming and trade and to keep whatever religion they had (Fessett 1959).

The natives differed from the ideals of Europeans because “discovery and exploration had little meaning beyond expanded trading opportunities to acquire metal goods and other valued item” (Robbins, “Indian Trading Groups”). Compare this to the differences of the American or British settlers who would typically had better relations with the natives, and missionaries arriving after later, such as the Whitman and Spalding families. The Whitman’s were more interested in showing the natives about farming and Christianity along with some basic education. This was to assimilate part of the native culture into what would be the new culture, arriving within the next several decades. This came to no avail as many of the natives and European families clashed.

Before American settlers arrived, many of these large trading companies were already established. Though there were a few issues between the companies, and issues between the companies and the Native populations, there was far more peace than hate or war between them. Doctor John McLoughlin even married a Native women but it was obvious that a major reason for this was to allow for easier trade with the Native population. John McLoughlin, although far from perfect, could be an example of peace, by tolerating different traditions and farming. He tried to embrace the land that he lived in and to show others by example, often complaining about the Americans disrupting the relationships with the Native population.

Later on throughout Oregon’s early history, these racial biases shed their true light during the era of slavery. Many politicians outright were either for it or against slavery, like half of the country. Oregon later did not allow anyone of African descent to be in the state, freed or in slavery. There were even examples of a judge argued against slavery because it would cause no economic gain, or it wouldn’t be worth the time and money and would not benefit Oregon (Williams). From not allowing anyone of African descent into Oregon, it did not allow diversity within its borders and this can attribute to a lack of understanding towards differing cultures.

When the fur trade era started to slow down, the resource-based economy was full of examples with racism and bias. With the new gold economy sprouting in the late 1850’s, it had an influence in Oregon economy and especially Portland (Robbins, “Indispensable Signs of Civilization and Progress,”). With lumber, wheat, and flour as the major commodities, Portland became a major trading center (Robbins, “After the Gold Rush,”). Since this created a large influx of people in Oregon, it also created a lot of people from foreign countries as well. This is especially true for the Chinese who immigrated to Oregon when China was going through a long, grueling economic downturn, as seen in the video, “The Oregon Experience: Kam Wah Chung,” from Oregon Public Broadcasting (2010).  The stories of many of the Chinese miners in the mid 1800’s include many examples of hatred against them, even a senseless massacre.

            While the Chinese Americans were going through immense hardship, the natives were going through several forms of turmoil as well. The racial bias noted in the Oregon politicians was obvious because they relocated the natives into reservations and mixed many of the bands together. Granted, there was at least one reservation but grouping them together might imply that there was a racial bias against the natives. This is because each native tribe has a set of different cultural attributes and implying that they’re the same (by putting them into the same reservation) further proves the politician’s ignorance towards their culture.  The politicians, and many of the people supporting them, negated the fact that each Native tribe was different, in many respects.

            All of these changes were occurring during a political and economic shift within Oregon. You had lumber and wheat for the major forms of the economic base in Oregon but at the same time you had cattle.  Eventually, several issues occurred with the cattle because some of the cattle barons were creating monopolies. These monopolies were in control of much of the water supply, making water harder to come by for everyone else. Eventually, more politicians had to get involved with regulating this even if fraud still occurred.

All of these examples of natives being murdered or called “savages,” stealing livestock and farm food, are just some of the examples that have shown the single-sidedness of Oregon history. Oregon history is like many other territories, lacking the perspective coming from the natives, slaves, foreigners and women. Oregon’s history of race relations, although not seemingly bad when using older history textbooks, has some clear examples of racism and bigotry towards those who are different. Part of this may be because earlier historians failed to look for evidence in an objective matter or they may have neglected to show examples of evil from our non-Native perspective. Even as an amateur historian, a college student can focus on the positives of history, giving everyone the benefit of the doubt. Though this can refocus your thought process, it will allow you to put yourselves in their shoes easier. Taking this biased approach towards our past may further help us understand the reasons why people were mistreated in the past, and how we cannot allow these mistakes to be made again.