FRONTIERSPIECE 



over the Appalachian passes, onward to the Mississippi 

 and Missouri, and the frontier of Europe was 

 advanced. 



The search for the Northwest Passage had of neces- 

 sity brought those early explorers in close contact with 

 the Pacific coast, but the immense supply of skins to 

 be purchased from the Amerinds 1 sidetracked the navi- 

 gators. It was no wonder that when one could pur- 

 chase two hundred otter skins for a chisel, as did 

 Captain Gray, that their passion was shifted from 

 ''passage to peltries." Gray later traded in China his 

 cargo of skins for tea, and returned to Boston around 

 the Cape of Good Hope, the "first sailor under the 

 American flag to circumnavigate the globe." 



About fifteen years later, those courageous young 

 explorers, Lewis and Clark, starting from St. Louis 

 and following the Missouri River, explored portions 

 of the Northwest clear to the Pacific. Despite the fact 

 that the Hudson's Bay Company pushing on to 

 the Columbia and south of it, had thrown out a west- 

 ern flank of conquest, Lewis and Clark's exploration 

 coupled with Gray's discovery established for the 

 United States a definite and recorded claim upon the 

 Oregon country, which at that time included the great- 

 er portion of the Northwest. 



Americans pushed their claims and trade still harder 

 when John Jacob Astor of New York, the founder of 

 the great line of merchant princes, outfitted his ships 



*The term Amerind derived by combining syllables of the 

 words American Indian is used to signify an aboriginal inhab- 

 itant of North or South America in order to distinguish be- 

 tween him and the Indian, the autochthonous inhabitant of In- 

 dia. The term Amerind was first used by Major Powell of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. 



