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Historical Background

The Spanish Conquistadors and Padres (continued)

IMPERIAL CONFLICT ON THE PACIFIC COAST

During the final decades of her tenure in North America, Spain be came alarmed because of English and Russian expansion on the Pacific coast, between California and Alaska, and sought to assert her own claims in the region. Deciding to explore the area further and determine her ability to maintain her interests, she sent out a series of exploring expeditions, which also acquired much data on geology and natural history.

In 1774, Juan Peréz sailed almost to the tip of southern Alaska to observe Russian activity, but he learned nothing. The following year the Spanish dispatched Bruno Heceta and Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra on a similar mission. Heceta mapped the estuary of the Columbia River and was the first European to land in the present State of Washington, at Point Grenville, where he proclaimed Spanish possession of the Pacific Northwest. He then returned to his home base. Bodega continued northward alone, landed at several points along the coast, and reached as far as Bristol Bay, in southwestern Alaska.

In 1778, Capt. James Cook of the British Navy explored the northwestern coast of the present United States in a search for the Northwest Passage. In 1789, as the Spanish set out with a similar aim, as well as to establish sovereignty over the Pacific Northwest, they were alarmed to find both British and American ships at Nootka, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, where in 1788 Capt. John Meares, an Englishman, had erected a fort. The Spanish seized the British ships, and built new fortifications. As a result, England and Spain were on the verge of war. In 1790, unable to obtain allies, Spain signed in Madrid the Nootka Sound Convention, which granted the British the right to explore, settle, and trade in the region north of San Francisco. Spain, however, did not agree to abandon her existing settlements there.

England immediately dispatched Capt. George Vancouver to reconnoiter the region. En route, in 1792, he visited Monterey, San Francisco, and various other Spanish settlements along the California coast, causing the Spanish to strengthen their defenses. Passing the Columbia River, he moved on to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Puget Sound, where the Spanish expedition of Alejandro Malaspina was still exploring after its return from Lituya Bay, Alaska.

Capt. George Vancouver's Discovery on the rocks, in Queen Charlotte Sound, Canada, in 1794. Its sister ship stands by. Vancouver explored the west coast of North America during the years 1791-95. From an engraving by B. T. Pouncy, after an on-the-scene drawing by Z. Mudge. (Courtesy, Bancroft Library, University of California.)

The Spanish, who had just founded a small settlement called Nuñez Gaona at Neah Bay, in the present State of Washington, moved it to Nootka. While Vancouver was probing northern Washington, Capt. Robert Gray, an American, arrived in the Pacific Northwest to search for sea-otter and other skins. In 1792, he sailed a few miles up the Columbia River, the first white man to do so, and laid the basis for later claims by the United States. The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-6) reinforced these claims.

Fort Ross, California, in 1828. In 1812, the Russians founded the fort as a fur trading post and agricultural center to supply their colonies in Alaska. In 1841, they sold it to John A. Sutter. From a sketch by an unknown artist, published in 1834-35. (Courtesy, Bancroft Library, University of California.)

In 1812, about a decade before Spain lost California and the rest of her territory in North America, the Russian-American Fur Company established Fort Ross, about 60 miles north of San Francisco, as a fur trading post and agricultural center for supplying her settlements in Alaska. The Spanish were somewhat alarmed by this new incursion of a foreign power. In only a few years, however, they lost all their possessions in North America to the United States and the newly independent Mexico.

Russian house at Fort Ross, California, in 1841. From a sketch by an unknown artist, published in the year 1844. (Courtesy, Bancroft Library, University of California.)