Fort Vancouver Cultural Landscape Report

Administrative and Political Context
(continued)

Boundary Issues

As noted previously, in the summer of 1824, Great Britain and the United States suspended boundary negotiations regarding the territory between the 49th parallel and the lower Columbia River, leaving its ultimate fate unresolved and resulting in the Hudson's Bay Company's determination to exploit the region's fur resources and the development of its west coast operations, particularly Fort Vancouver. However, between 1829 and 1846, immigrants from the United States--spurred by published reports of fertile land from a trickle of early settlers and from American missionaries--began to settle in what became known as the Oregon Country, particularly in the Willamette Valley south of the Columbia River. From a total of sixty-five Americans settled in the Willamette Valley in 1841, by 1843, the number had grown to over one thousand. British attempts to counter American numbers with presumably loyal British subjects--most notably the Hudson's Bay Company attempt to resettle Red River colonists north of the Columbia River in 1839--were not successful. [105]

By the early 1840s it appeared that the boundary between British territory and the United States might well be drawn north of the Columbia River. In the spring of 1842, George Simpson, who, on an 1841 visit to the Columbia, had determined that a site on the south end of Vancouver Island was a more suitable and accessible location for the Company's shipping business--a new main depot to replace Fort Vancouver--directed Chief Factor McLoughlin to begin construction of a new post on that site. Construction of Fort Victoria on the harbor at the south end of the island under the supervision of Chief Factor James Douglas began in 1843. By 1845, a portion of the London cargo once shipped to Fort Vancouver for distribution was being shipped directly to Fort Victoria, and Columbia Department furs were sent directly to the new depot, rather than Fort Vancouver, for shipment to England. [106]

On June 15, 1846, the Oregon Treaty between Great Britain and the United States was concluded, fixing the boundary between British territory and the United States at the 49th parallel. Among the clauses of the treaty were guarantees respecting the "possessory rights" to land and property of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company south of the border and guarantees of free navigation of the Columbia River for the Company. To determine the value of the lands and property of the Company now in United States territory, already being appropriated by American squatters and clearly unlikely to be retained in the future, Governor Simpson ordered an inventory of all property owned by the Company and its subsidiary, which was performed in late 1846 and early 1847. Using this inventory as a basis, the Company assigned monetary value to all its property, including structures and improvements, and submitted it as a claim to the U.S. government; representatives of the United States independently assessed the value of the Company's holdings. Ultimately, an international commission was established to settle the Company's claims and gather testimony; the process dragged on for over twenty years. [107]

Relationship with Americans

Generally speaking, American immigrants were well received at Fort Vancouver by Chief Factor McLoughlin. Among those who stayed at Fort Vancouver and received assistance were Methodists Rev. Jason Lee and Rev. Daniel Lee, who were to establish the Methodist Mission near Salem, Oregon, an institution which later contributed much to the American settlers' demands for the establishment of the Oregon Territory: it was McLoughlin who sent the Lees to the Willamette Valley--well south of the Columbia River--after their arrival in 1834. The Methodist mission size was enlarged somewhat in 1837, and considerably in 1840 when the Lausanne arrived from the States via Cape Horn. In 1835 the Rev. Samuel Parker, from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, arrived at Fort Vancouver, where he received free board and lodging, and free travel for his investigations of missionary work among the Nez Perces and Flathead Indian tribes. He was followed by Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife, Narcissa, the Rev. Henry H. Spalding and his wife, and W.H. Gray, all of whom lodged at the fort, received assistance in the form of tools, livestock and seed, and who were aided in establishing their missions near Walla Walla and Lapwai.

Up until 1842-43, Fort Vancouver served as the principal supply for food, clothing, and materials to start a farm for Americans arriving overland: in 1833 John Ball wrote to friends back east, "He [John McLoughlin] has liberally engaged to lend me a plough, an axe, oxen, cow &c." [108] Reports of such aid, printed in newspapers in the states, furthered interest in migration. In the following years, reports from missionaries and other early travelers and settlers who found the Oregon country hospitable and fertile, sparked increasing numbers immigrants. Jason Lee, of the Methodist Mission, began to lecture on the advantages of the Oregon Country when he visited the east coast in the late 1830s, and his speeches and the 1838 published journal of his travels contributed to the spread of Oregon fever. By 1841 there were sixty-five Americans in the Willamette Valley, to whom McLoughlin had loaned seed, livestock and agricultural implements. By 1843 over one thousand American settlers had established themselves in the valley, and the economic base had begun to shift to there from Fort Vancouver. That year settlers in the Valley voted to form a Provisional Government, which McLoughlin felt obliged to join and pay taxes to, to protect the Company's interests. But for most of this period, it was John McLoughlin at Fort Vancouver who aided the Americans: his reasons have often been described as humanitarian--without aid, the settlers would almost certainly have starved--but assistance was also forthcoming to avoid confrontations and probable looting.

By the mid-1840s, squatters were claiming increasing amounts of Company lands. In March of 1845 James Douglas reported to Governor Simpson that Americans were attempting to establish claims at Fort Vancouver in the vicinity of Prairie du The', "above" the sawmill, on Sauvie Island, and west of the fort as far as the Lower Plain, where a Henry Williamson was attempting to lay out building lots near the Company's employee village. "We," Douglas wrote, "are determined to eject him at all hazards, otherwise they will go on with their encroachments until they take possession of our very garden..." Successful appeals to a still sympathetic Oregon Provisional Government, which upheld the Company, managed to forestall some efforts by squatters, and the Company embarked on a largely unsuccessful scheme to counter American claims by having their officers and employees take out claims to various portions of Fort Vancouver lands in their own names. [109]

After news of the settlement of the boundary issue in the spring of 1846 reached the Pacific Coast, the claims by American settlers of Company lands at Fort Vancouver and elsewhere below the 49th parallel accelerated. The interaction between settlers and the Company over the following fifteen years is discussed in the section of this document covering the transitional period of 1847 to 1860.