Francois Mathieu, Champoeg and the Birth of Oregon
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| Francois Mathieu, above left, in 1900 standing on the spot where the votes were cast |
Francois Mathieu had been a member of the Sons of Liberty as a boy, and remembered the Bloody Assize (click here) of Canada, as well as the history of the French people of Canada at the hands of the English (click here). He therefore voted with the Americans, and carried with him Etienne Lucier, ith whom he had spent the preceding several months:
"Among the subjects of conversations with Lucier were the laws and customs of the United States. The old Hudson Bay trapper was quite suspicious and had been told that our government imposed ery heavy duties, such as placing a tax on windows... told him that the laws od the United States were just and liberal, and under them all men were created equal; there was no tyranny." (quoted by Charles Carey, president Oregon Historical Society; General History of Oregon 1935)
With Lucier, the vote passed 52-50. Lucier had been active in bringing a Catholic priest to French Prairie. Both he and Mathieu were mortified when one of the first acts of the new government was to expel Catholics (click here)