The Oregon Boundary Dispute and the Treaty of 1846

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During the late 1700s, four European nations, Russia, Spain, Britain, and the United States, asserted claims to certain regions of the North Pacific coast. The Russians were first on the scene, when Vitus Bering visited Alaska in 1741. British explorers were soon to follow after the late 1770s, as the expeditions of Britain’s James Cook and George Vancouver arrived on the Pacific coast seeking territorial advantage and the benefits of a potentially lucrative fur trade in sea-otter skins with China. After the Spanish conquest of South and Middle America, Spain's Juan Perez also ventured northward in 1774, hoping to stretch the Spanish claim to the Pacific coast beyond California to the Alaskan panhandle, followed a year later by Bruno de Heceta and Bodega y Quadra. The latter sea captain received praise and recognition by the British for his co-operation and involvement in the Nootka Convention that settled their differences on Vancouver Island. From their seaport at Nootka, the Spaniards also looked further west beyond the Pacific to Southeast Asia for supplies of mercury, an essential ingredient in their gold and silver operations in Mexico.

Previously active on the east coast, the Americans also turned to the Pacific in great numbers after the American Revolution of 1776, when Britain took steps to shut them out of the British and West Indies commercial trade market. American sailing ships consequently began trading in the South China Seas and ultimately the Pacific Northwest coast where, by the end of the century, their sleek trading vessels were soon outnumbering those of their competitors. And as it turns out, it was an American discovery and territorial claim here at that time, that proved most consequential for the future settlement of the Pacific Northwest Interior.

The Pacific Northwest at the time, though substantially inhabited by indigenous populations, was very sparsely settled by Europeans, although there had been much wishful thinking on their part, that an inland waterway, a potential "Northwest Passage ", could one day be found to make this remote frontier region more accessible to trade and settlement. The Columbia River, the longest river in the Pacific Northwest, flowing nearly 2000 kilometers from the Rockies in southeastern B.C. through Washington and Oregon states to the Pacific Ocean, would have undoubtedly met the challenge. Yet it had historically been either overlooked or avoided by early coastal explorers including Captains Cook, Vancouver, Perez, Quadra, and numerous others for decades, because of the expansive coastal sandbars that obscured its existence, and because of the turbulent water currents and breakers at its mouth.

Robert Gray, an American merchant sea Captain, while sailing to and from Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island, finally spotted a potential opening in the sandbars and cautiously navigated his ship, the Columbia Rediviva, across the breakers and turbulent waters on May 11th, 1792. He planted the Stars and Stripes on the river bank at what is now Astoria, explored the river for a few miles, and having observed a number of Native American villages, soon departed. Elated with his discovery, and as a gesture of good will, he shared the news and his nautical charts with Captain Quadra, who in turn showed them to Captain George Vancouver who happened by chance, to be also sailing in the region. Vancouver mounted his own expedition to the river mouth a few months later and arranged for his Lieutenant, Broughton, to make a similar attempt across the sand bars in his small brig, the Chatham, on October 10th 1792. Broughton stayed longer than Gray, exploring and surveying the Columbia river further eastward at least 100 miles upstream.  View historic map of the Columbia River entrance (from davidrumsey.com) ...

But although the British were undoubtedly interested in this discovery, there was no doubt that the first flag, a symbolic claim to the Columbia River, was planted by an American and that the river was named the Columbia by an American. In short order, news of Gray’s discovery spread widely on the east coast of the United States, as American fur trading interests anxiously awaited just such an opportunity to expand their involvement into the interior, previously monopolized by the British North West and Hudson’s Bay Companies.

After the U.S. purchase of French Louisiana in 1803, President Jefferson expressed further interest in the Pacific Northwest, funding a reconnaissance mission to explore the Missouri River region and investigate a potential American inland route to the Lower Columbia. At his request, Lewis and Clark assembled an expeditionary force and embarked on this historic overland mission in 1805, reaching the coast a few months later along the southern leg of the Columbia River. Unable to find seaward transportation home, the expeditionary corp built a fort at Clatsop and wintered there, then returned home by land the following spring, bringing with them plant and animal specimens, drawings, maps and even a Native American Indian chief, befriended on the expedition. Although a resounding success in terms of identifying and documenting Native American cultures, topographical features, and a potential route westward via the “Oregon Trail”, the expedition confirmed that the road would not be an easy one. And as it turned out, nor was it an immediate priority. The United States was preoccupied at the time with other territorial adventures in the South West ... in Texas, California and New Mexico.

Meanwhile, the Canadians took steps to counter what appeared to be an imminent threat to their own northwestern interests. Alexander Mackenzie, sponsored by the North West Company, ventured westward across the northern plains to locate and secure a northern route to the Pacific coast, arriving in Bella Coola in 1801. Simon Fraser turned southward and explored the Fraser River to its delta at the Pacific coast in 1808. And David Thompson embarked on a subsequent expedition, attempting to navigate and explore the length of the Columbia River from its source in the interior Rockies to its mouth downstream, in order to establish a foothold on the Lower Columbia sea coast. Thompson canoed, portaged and trekked downriver and arrived at the coast in 1811, but to his dismay, found an American fort already under construction there at what is now Astoria, on the southern bank of the river. An American entrepreneur, John Jacob Astor, was in charge, at Fort Astoria, seemingly naming the fort after himself, and soliciting other business associates to form an all-American fur trading company, the American Pacific.

As it turned out the company was not immediately successful and was soon to be taken over by the British-Canadians. American Pacific Fur was sold to the Montreal based North West company in 1813, which was itself merged with the Hudson's Bay Trading Company in 1821. The newly restructured Hudson’s Bay Company was thereby poised to monopolize the fur trade and exert its British mandated influence over the British settlement and traffic on the Columbia River for the next several decades. The Columbia region was administered by Chief Factor John McLoughlin, and the HBC trading headquarters was relocated from Fort Astoria, upriver a 100 miles, to Fort Vancouver, under the management of James Douglas. As the fur trade continued to flourish, additional trading centres were located northward along the river, at Fort Nez Perces, Fort Okanagan, Fort Colville and Fort Shepherd. Hudson's Bay fur traders adopted the Columbia River route for the last leg of their annual fur brigades originating from the far-east at York Factory on the Hudson's Bay itself. Long and arduous as it was, the route became known as the "York Factory Express".

But American enthusiasm for the Pacific Northwest was not about to wane. Spanish involvement in the region was minimized in 1819 when the US negotiated the Adams-Onis Treaty with Spain to limit their influence no further north than the 42nd parallel. In 1824, they negotiated a similar treaty with Russia to restrict Russian Pacific coast claims no further south than the 54th Parallel. With these two nations out of the way, the Americans focused their attention on British held territory. By then, the United States and Britain had already signed an agreement in 1818 to establish the northern boundary of the recently acquired U.S. Louisiana Territory, at the forty-ninth parallel between the Lake of the Woods and the Rocky Mountain Divide. At this time the Americans had also hoped to extend the 49th parallel all the way through to the Pacific, but Britain countered by claiming that their previous occupation of the Columbia District by the Hudson’s Bay Co. justified a more southerly border along the Columbia River to its mouth. Their differences remained unresolved and the two nations agreed to jointly administer the Oregon Territory stretching between 42 degrees south and 54 degrees, 40 minutes north latitude for the next ten years.

By the 1840s, many Americans were presumptuously beginning to feel that they were perhaps even entitled or destined by God, to expand their territory, and their democracy and capitalism ever westward, as if it was their "Manifest Destiny" to do so. And the movement did indeed begin manifesting itself ... on the Oregon Trail along which thousands of former prairie pioneers began emigrating to the Willamette River Valley near the present city of Portland. The American population in this region expanded from approximately 150 settlers in 1840 to about 5000 in 1845.

In anticipation of the coming U.S. immigrant wave and the potential loss of the Columbia region to the Americans by virtue of its simple occupancy, the HBC’s Governor Simpson strategically ordered James Douglas to move its fur trading and administrative assets from Fort Vancouver to Fort Victoria on Vancouver Island to solidify its presence there and to maintain British jurisdiction over that northern region.  With the closure of their fort at the mouth of the Columbia River, the HBC  preemptively began exploring alternatives to the river as their main north-south trade artery. Fort Colville, the last HBC fort in the southern Columbia District, and Fort Shepherd in New Caledonia, became the nucleus of their new strategy as their trade routes shifted inland, northward and then westward across the BC southern interior Kootenay, Kettle, Boundary, Similkameen and Okanogan Valleys to the northwest Pacific coast.

Seizing the moment, the Oregonian Americans also wasted no time setting up their own Provisional Government in 1845, to provide their settlers with an American form of government and system of laws. A territorial confrontation appeared inevitable during the 1845 presidential election campaign, when American Democratic candidate, James Polk, lobbied strenuously to claim the whole of Oregon Country (Territory) to the 54th parallel. The British Colonial Office in London, on the other hand, fearing the worst, didn’t appear to be too interested in war over its western colonies, content at best to maintain its presence on Vancouver Island.

The Oregon boundary dispute was ultimately settled diplomatically in 1846 by the Oregon Treaty, at which time the 49th parallel boundary was finally extended all the way west to the Pacific Strait of Georgia and westward midway through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to the ocean. The U.S. was granted the “Disputed Territory” along the Columbia River, while Britain conceded to a settlement confirming their claim to Vancouver Island and all of New Caledonia. The treaty was ratified in the US Senate and signed on June 15th by Secretary of State, James Buchanan and by none other than Mr. Polk himself who had by then become the next US president. It was soon later signed by the British Prime Minister and Queen Victoria in London.

Vancouver Island subsequently became a British Colony in 1849, and New Caledonia, previously under HBC management, became the new Colony of British Columbia in 1858, largely in response to the Fraser Gold Rush, with James Douglas as Governor of both colonies until his retirement in 1864. Vancouver Island subsequently became part of the colony of British Columbia in 1866, with Victoria as the united colony's capital. In 1871, British Columbia became the sixth province of Canada.

From a 21st century perspective, it can be argued that the peaceful settlement of the 49th parallel dispute has withstood the test of time in the sense that we have essentially remained good neighbours with the Americans until this day. Yet there remains some doubt, at least as we consider our own Pacific Northwest experience, as to whether the treaty’s formulators were prepared or able to assess the complexity of the "pre-existing conditions" in our region on the ground, nor were they able to predict potential "unexpected consequences" of imposing what was essentially an arbitrary artificial boundary. It is rather telling that there was no consideration in the border settlement for what were undeniably justified historic aboriginal land entitlements in the region. And these questions remain unresolved to this day.

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