The English and Corvallis, Oregon

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Above: Charles I granting all of British North America to the corporation of his cousin Rupert.

Until after our Civil War, it was impossible for Americans to comprehend a  corporation determining a nation's foreign policy. As a consequence, the royal grant that gave Oregon and Washington as well as all of the remaining territory claimed by the British in North America, to the Hudson Bay Company, was regarded by Americans as a monstrosity, although by and large it treated American colonists quite handsomely (click here).

The Hudson Bay Co. was not the first corporation to receive a royal grant in Canada. The Portuguese (Labrador is a Portuguese word, and New Found Land was used on may Portuguese maps to describe North America, of which only Newfoundland and Labrador were regarded as being of value, because of the Grand Banks Fisheries) granted Gaspar Corte-Real a royal charter for the islands as well as Greenland, for fish timber and slaves (kidnapped native Americans). 

Above: a 1501 Portuguese map of Newfoundland. Below, a 1502 map of Labrador and Newfoundland. The vertical line is the papal division of the world between Spain and Portugal at the time (click here).

Below, a 1534 Portuguese map of Labrador

The French granted a series of royal charters, or Seigneuries, in Labrador, and these in turn granted tenancies. Real settlement of the area actually was dominated by Basque fishermen and whalers from France.

Few were the profits derived from these settlements, because the harsh climate on the Atlantic Coast precluded the cultivation of 'cash crops', but the French settlers clung tenaciously to their farms until the English deported the entire population  of Acadia (click here; the word Cajun is derived from these refugees) and the remaining French retired to Quebec and Louisiana under pressure from the weather, the British military, and the Hudson Bay Co. 

In the interim of course, a variety of grants had been extended by the Swedish and English crowns, and the Dutch Republic, along the Atlantic coast, resulting in time in the states which rose in rebellion in 1776 and in the creation of the United States. 

In Canada, meantime, life remained largely unchanged for a time, and the Hudson Bay Company extended itself increasingly westward until the Pacific was reached, where Fort Vancouver and its 'chief factor John McLoughlin dominated the landscape (click here). McLoughlin had himself run afoul of the English in Canada and had fled westward in the Company's employ.

John McLoughlin

(When speaking of 'the Company' in the Northwest, it was always understood to refer to the Hudson's Bay Company even more so than has been the case, for example, with the American United Fruit Co. in Central America,  Castle & Cooke (Dole) in Hawaii,  or Standard Oil in the Middle East the past century. Even today, the Hudson Bay's Company remains a retail giant).

The perspective of the 'The Company', like the perspective of all fur traders, and of all monopolies in primary industries (such as oil or agriculture), was simple enough: Perpetual Expansion was absolutely necessary because of unsustainable 'harvests'. It was a policy that brought them into the Corvallis area (click here), but also into  conflict with Americans, Russians and Spanish (click here). 

"It is the peculiar nature of the Fur Trade to require a continual extension of its limits, into new Countries; because the number of animals diminishes in those Countries where the Trade has been for any considerable time established." -Northwest fur Petition of 1812

An idea of the number of animals slain in the fur trade may be evident in this picture of a  Hudson Bay fur loft

Like the Russians and the Spanish, the Company - and thus the British - actually had little interest in colonies other than the monopoly this secured for them in the fur trade. It strengthened the monopoly to have the French government out of Canada but Quebec (click here), when Quebec fell to them, was little more than a nuisance except as a depot for trapping recruits and supplies. 

When the Tories ('United Empire Loyalists', they are called in Canada) necessarily removed to Canada after the American Revolution, they were settled in Quebec, rather than being encouraged to go west where fur bearing animals remained in significant numbers. 

Colonists, especially English and American colonists, tended to disrupt the habitat of fur bearers and to disturb relations with native and French trappers.  Retiring trappers had to return to Ottowa for their discharge and pay, so there would be no one not in Company employ wandering the fur lands.

The variety of royal charter that granted the Companyall of Canada, had also granted the East India Company control of Asia and the Pacific Ocean, and the Hudson Bay Company therefore had to export its furs to London rather than conveying them directly from the West Coast to China. Costs were therefore necessarily minimized since transporting the furs to markets was itself expensive. The company encouraged trappers to buy  slaves from the local native American tribes which sold them. The Company minted its own coins, owned mills of every variety and great herds as each post sought to be self sufficient, so as to maximize profits from the furs. For a contemporary description of the Company's organization, click here.

In command of British policy in North America, and thus of the British armed forces (click here), the HBC also had its own army and navy for immediate use. Both were used in the Wars against the French and in the War of 1812 extensively, and cooperated in the capture and evacuation of Americans at Astoria(click here).

There were revolts in Canada against the rule of the Company and the associated elite which arose in the rear of its westward advance (the 'Family Compact' -click here- in Upper Canada - Ottowa, the Chateau Clique(clique here) in Lower Canada - Quebec). The 1838 invasion by American filibusters,  and the 1871 invasion by the Irish Fenian Brotherhood (our local performer,Kellee Bradley, does a marvelous version of 'Our Bold Fenian Men') had limited Canadian suppport but the Northwest Fur Company (Nor'westers), the Bloody Assize of 1812, William Mackenzie, and especially the Rebellions were symptoms of dissatisfaction with the Regime. Our own Francois Mathieu and Lucienne Etier, both former Hudson Bay trappers, were involved in the latter and their vote was crucial in swinging Oregon to the camp of the United States, at Champoeg.

After Champoeg, a series of negotiations ended in the Hudson Bay Company selling its assets (and thus effectively, Oregon and Washington) to the United States for 300,000.00 dollars. 

In the preceding few years, the United States and England had collided not only over the Oregon territory, but over the Fugitive Slave Act and the demands of slavers for the return of slaves who had fled to Canada. There had been even more threatening frictions during the Civil War, when the English aristocracy favored the secessionists. The Trent Affair, involving our own Charles Wilkes, the refugees from the British suppression of Canadian Independence aspirations, living in the U.S., and the Vallandigham case had further complicated matters. Images of the British regime in Ireland where the Famine and the Poor Laws resulted in a near-genocidal decline of the Irish population by 40%, flooded the world. An idea of the impact of such news locally can be seen in the Irish birthplaces of many of the US Army troops at nearby Fort Hoskins in 1860:

In the 1870 census, the nonmilitary personel of Benton County included 34 born in Ireland, of whom a quarter lived in Monroe.

In 1868, Rupert's Act began the long process of disestablishing the Company as overlord of Canada with the sale of the Northwest to the new Dominion of Canada although the rebellion of the settlement at Red River, resulted in the creation of Manitoba. 

To Americans, the Act made Canada a little less threatening, perhaps a little less resented even, as an outpost of the British Empire, and it removed the Hudson Bay Company as a target for residual American resentments of the Empire which sometimes are dated from well before  the English Civil War which drove immigrants to the Atlantic seaboard.

Following the American Civil War, a new wave of English immigrants arrived, all speculators in land and railroads. In Corvallis, Wallis Nash was a typical example. There were 28 English immigrants in Corvallis in 1870. Raised in a nation where 10% of the population owned 90% of the land, where the stockholders of the English East India Co. decided, legally, all of England's Asian policy, and the Hudson Bay Company it policies in the Americas, these English colonists were not the descendants of the religious emigres of Plymouth Rock.

 They were men like Wallis Nash,  descendants of those who sent Oglethorpe hither, since hardened by three centuries of avarice and murder, now dreaming of Empire and lucre and influenced heavily by the freebooters of Rudyard Kipling, and on the verge of engaging in an African episode of the British Empire nearly as sordid as that in India or China.

Executions of rebels after military trials in Delhi. - London Illustrated News

Here, in the United States, they encountered the descendents of Oglethorpe himself, the Joseph Averys and T.E. Hoggs, until very recently slavers, who relinquished the pernicious practice only when overwhelming violence was brought to bear upon them. And here they sometimes made a fortune, at the expense of our community, and of others.

English capital was everywhere after the Civil War, from Corvallis to Hanford, to the Lincoln County Wars in New Mexico. The raw materials of the continent were newly 'up for grabs' in an unregulated free for all. Some of these English immigrants, especially those without significant scruples, became wealthy, as did Wallis Nash, establishing alliances which would become of inestimable value 30 years later,  when the teetering British Empire stood on the brink of extinction. Others, like, John Tunstall, were killed. Most simply faded into the fabric of a nation which was a maelstrom of nationalities.

The next formative encounter of Corvallis and England occurred in 1917, when Earl Bilderback, Clifford Francisco, George Schubert and nearly 2 dozen other Benton County boys forever disappeared in the trenches of WWI (click here), never to be seen again. Others died in the Navy. OSU students from Corvallis and other cities, like Albany, including Ralph Ordell Wade (Corvallis), Yoshio Wagatsuma (Albany), Erroll John Wolcott (Corvallis), Rodney M Whitmore (Corvallis) were conscripted.
The British Empire was fighting for its life, not an unhappy turn of

EDWARD C. ALLWORTH Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Army, 60th Infantry, 5th Division. Place and date: At Clery-le-Petit, France, 5 November 1918. Entered service at: Corvallis, Oreg. Born: 6 July 1887, Crawford, Wash. G.O. No.: 16, W.D., 1919. Citation: While his company was crossing the Meuse River and canal at a bridgehead opposite Clery-le-Petit, the bridge over the canal was destroyed by shell fire and Capt. Allworth's command became separated, part of it being on the east bank of the canal and the remainder on the west bank. Seeing his advance units making slow headway up the steep slope ahead, this officer mounted the canal bank and called for his men to follow. Plunging in he swam across the canal under fire from the enemy, followed by his men. Inspiring his men by his example of gallantry, he led them up the slope, joining his hard-pressed platoons in front. By his personal leadership he forced the enemy back for more than a kilometer, overcoming machinegun nests and capturing 100 prisoners, whose number exceeded that of the men in his command. The exceptional courage and leadership displayed by Capt. Allworth made possible the re-establishment of a bridgehead over the canal and the successful advance of other troops.

circumstances for much of the world.

Stretcher bearers in the WWI mud

Russia, England's ally on the Eastern Front, had been bled white by the War and the first stage of the Revolution occurred. The French Army had experienced 187,000 casualties in the Aisne offensive and had mutinied, after which, Marshall Petain (later executed for collaborating with the Nazis a World War later) was brought in as a replacement for Nivelle and 49 soldiers were randomly executed. Petain himself  visited every unit and assured them no more such suicidal offensives would occur.

Chateau Wood: Death of a friend.

England's empire was itself drained of soldiers. The only reserve available lay in the United States.

 Pathetically, for a man who had campaigned on a Neutrality platform, and in opposition to the wishes of many Oregonians and other Americans, Woodrow Wilson complied.

The opposition to entering into the war was immense. 170,000 American boys risked being sent to the nation's penitentiaries for refusing to go to War, rather than serve with the 2,810,296 who were conscripted and herded into the trenches. To suppress this opposition, the government used appeals to a misguided patriotism and suppressive measures that effectively dismantled the Progressive movement which had arisen in Oregon following the School land frauds (click here).

The logging industry in Oregon, where long hours, poor wages and timber company cruelties had resulted in years of turmoil and a high proportion of immigrant labor, was put under martial law.

 Vigilantes were armed by the timber companies and local business groups to drive out the timber workers' organization, the Industrial Workers of the World. Any one who wanted to work in the industry  joined the Army's 'Loyal Legion of Lumbermen and Loggers'.

The Army built mills throughout the Northwest, including the mill at Toledo in Benton County, militarily staffed and policed those working in them and later turned them over to the timber companies.

The Ku Klux Klan was revived and emerged locally as a very powerful organization with the encouragement of government and industry. The American Legion was formed of those returning soldiers whose commitment to the War was unquestioned. Political speech was confined to these organizations under pain of arrest.

 For the first time since the Alien and Sedition Acts,  immigrants were subject to deportation for political views, a practice since resurrected by the reactionary Bush regime.. A political police force was set up by Wilson's attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer, under J. Edgar Hoover. The force raided homes and offices across the nation.

Office of the Industrial Workers of the World after a 'Palmer Raid'

249 immigrants from all nations were packed onto a ship and dumped in Russia, in the harshest month of the year. Immigrants tried to have as low a public profile as possible.

The repression of immigrants has always been coupled with race riots in the United States, and WWI was no exception, both during the war and after.

'Little Africa', in Tulsa set afire by EuroAmericans.

This was particularly ironic because the nickname of the commander of the American Expeditionary Force in WWI was 'Black Jack' - earlier 'Nigger Jack' - Pershing, based upon his long association with the 10th Cavalry's 'Buffalo soldiers' of the Plains, and Pershing's insistence upon the value and rights of African American soldiers.

Above: Pershing

Locally, xenophobic sentiment was high. A police chief at Toledo, Oregon - where an anti-Japanese pogrom occurred -  was to boast 20 years later that they had used shotguns to run foreigners out town. 

However, among immigrants, the English have fared better the past century than most. The insistence by anti-immigration advocates upon English as the 'one true language' has tended to reinforce a certain mythical connection with England that has only been a reality since England has become a dependent, within the very recent past. Nonetheless, it is a widely accepted myth. Thus, the only local 'minutes' for meetings of the Ku Klux Klan which have survived, include a suggestion for setting up an auxiliary for English immigrants, who were ineligible for membership in the KKK due to foreign birth.

In the ruins of WWI, Wilson had supported the League of Nations proposed by the Englishman, Henry  Brailsford. Wilson's proposal failed in the U.S.,  a nation newly and sadly reacquainted with European Empires and European Wars.

In the subsequent election, Wilson appealed to the nation to elect Democrats as a referendum on his War conduct and the upon the Armistice.

The xenophobia Wilson had reintroduced into American politics was turned upon him by the right wing of American politics. His fascination with repression and violence alienated left wing Americans. His 14 Points were full of internal contradiction, with "A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims" shamefully at odds with the assertion of "the principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another, whether they be strong or weak",  were exposed as no more than a slogan insofar as the 14 Points concerned Empires - at the end of the War, only - and all of - the British and French Empires remained intact, despite the best efforts of the colonial subjects of each at the Peace Conference.

Republicans were elected in huge numbers and Wilson was humiliated. He had a stroke shortly thereafter.

However, Americans had meantime absorbed from him important lessons about disregard for civil liberties and the niceties of law, and xenophobia. The Twenties were an era of Al Capone and the Chicago Black Sox, and of a Ku Klux Klan governor in Oregon.

Above: The Corvallis Ku Klux Klan parades with its Linn County sister in downtown Albany in 1927.

The world wide depression came and went and we in the United States were quite content to allow the Europeans to go too. We had our hands full until the rise of fascism in Europe became such an affront to simple humanity, and such a threat to the world's peoples. Simultaneously, Japanese expansion threatened European and American hegemony in Asia. The horrors accompanying the invasion of China lent a humanitarian facade to the anti-Japanese sentiments which had actually arisen earlier and then flowered in the Klan era.

In December 1941, the Japanese declared war against the Americans and the Europeans in Asia. The United States allied itself once again to England, in WWII, thereby initiating 'the Special Relationship", also called 'the Dependency' which began under Winston Churchill and has fully matured under Blair.

Above: A cartoon of Tony Blair as Bush' poodle

Since the end of WWII, a variety of English immigrants have migrated into the Corvallis area. Some have opened shops like Buckingham Palace, while others have joined the labor force. Their dry wit, sense of history and adventure, they have made a valuable contribution to a community wherein 'education', until a mere 50 years ago, sometimes referred to the 3rd grade.

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