One of the cool things a king – or queen – in an absolute monarchy can do is to give away land. So popular, democracies have tried similar editions of their own. One of the largest giveaways happened in British North America where King Charles II gave away lands within the drainage system of Hudson’s Bay. That included lands within the James Bay drainage since James is simply a bay off the main Hudson’s. He gave them to a group headed by his cousin Prince Rupert in 1670. The HBC many exclaimed as an “empire within an empire.”
A COMPANY OF ADVENTURERS
Now the company – Hudson’s Bay Company or the HBC – did not own the land outright. It simply gained the right of “sole trade and commerce” equating to a commercial monopoly in that area. It was all about controlling the fur trade in much of North America. Until 1869, the HBC served as de facto rulers over what was known as Rupert’s Land and then some. The Company – or The Bay as it was later commonly known – gained its peak in the years just after its enforced merger with its rival, the North West Company in 1821.
Expansion into regions in the far west of North America brought the country to rule over a truly vast region of North Americ. Operations in the Oregon Country, an area formerly served by the Nor’Westers, would see the Company making a series of bets on what the future might hold. Those bets turned out wrong, though in hindsight, they might have had few other choices.
THE IDEA
Fur trade in North America in the 17th century was a French colonial affair. Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers, two French fur traders and brothers-in-law, learned of superior fur country found out west and north of Lake Superior. They sought backing from the government of New France to establish a trading post on the shore of Hudson Bay. Permission to explore the backcountry, however, was denied.
Some historians say the refusal linked to a concern that a change to the Bay might take the fur focus away from the St. Lawrence River. The two traders ventured into the backcountry above the Great Lakes in 1659 coming back to Montreal with magnificent furs showing the potential of the region for all to see. The government confiscated much of their furs, arresting and fining the two men for trading without a license. The governor promptly decamped for France with his profits. The population of New France in 1660 was only just over 3,200 with two-thirds being male.
The two men headed south next to Boston where they found a group of merchants putting up cash to finance an exploration, but the ship they sent in 1663 could not penetrate the pack ice in Hudson Strait. While the expedition failed, the two men did meet up with Colonel George Cartwright, one of a group of commissioners sent out by Charles II to bring more British oversight to the administration of New England’s various governments (Massachusetts Bay, New Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Haven). They arrived in Boston in the summer of 1664.
TO ENGLAND
That same year, Charles handed out lands in North America, some of which still under Dutch control, to supporters of the Royal side of the English Civil War – Lord John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret – as well as to his brother James, Duke of York. While the commissioners failed to make much headway getting the New Englanders to accept the encroachments of the attempts to centralize overall British rule – this took place especially in the reigns of Charles II (1660-1685) and James II (1685-1688) – they were successfully in capturing the Dutch settlements of New Holland along the Hudson River.
Cartwright found his best success in extending an invitation to the two Frenchmen to cross the Atlantic and lay their project before Charles II, himself. And what a plan. They wanted to use ships to venture directly into Hudson and James Bays, the heart of the beaver reserves they had discovered. Using Hudson Bay bypassed New France and the St. Lawrence River completely. Sailing vessels could convey much larger quantities than the canoe flotillas. Traders could deal directly with the Cree nations who dwelt there, thus cutting out the middleman. A series of forts would be established on the coasts of the bays attracting the Cree to bring their wares. The furs would then come to London for processing and re-distribution across Europe. The finest furs, simple logistics with the added possibility of damaging French political and economic interests in New France while turning a profit for themselves.
THE VOYAGE
The two brothers arrived at the height of the Great Plaque in London. Disease and other complications conspired to put their plans on hold, but the Frenchmen gained a government pension and housing while awaiting their chance. One of those who listened to their plans closely was Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
Rupert served as the quintessential 17th century cavalier. Born in Prague, he served at sea and as the commander of the Royalist cavalry during the English Civil War. Brave, dashing with a bevy of mistresses – much like his first cousin, Charles II, both he and Charles spend years after the Parliamentarian defeat of Charles I banished from England. With the restoration in 1660, Rupert’s staunch support for his cousin held rewards for patience. The Duke of Cumberland, Earl of Holderness and Count Palatine of the Rhine, Rupert served on Charles’ Privy Council, as well.
Rupert the man, was seen as an aloof person, courageous, obstinate, brutal, one of his contemporaries described him as having “a stern look, even when he wished to please; but, when he was out of humour, he was the true picture of reproof.” But he was also intelligent. Known as the “philosophic warrior”, his interest in geography, commerce and politics made him a natural pot for the ideas of the Frenchmen.
With their plans, Rupert saw possibilities to increase government revenues, access to valuable resources – Raddison and Groseilliers also talked of large copper outcroppings in the region they noted – and an opportunity to stick it to the French. Rupert got together with a group of investors to test the opportunity. He persuaded Charles to lease two ships, for a tiny sum, the Eaglet and the Nonsuch.
THE JOURNEY
But the plans became delayed one year by the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the Dutch victory at Medway at the end of the following year. Finally, after almost eight years in England, the two brothers-in-law sailed out of Gravesend on 3 June 1668. The two ships ran low in the water, heavily loaded with trade goods deemed desirable to the Cree. They went out with a host of objectives, but the main goal remained to return with a full load of furs. A storm off Ireland left the Eaglet just able to limp back to London with Radisson aboard. Groseilliers aboard the Nonsuch sailed on.
The Nonsuch reached James Bay and put in at the mouth of the Rupert River. Here they built their first fort, Charles Fort – later Rupert House – and overwintered. The Cree discovered them in spring and hundreds came down to barter their fur coats for an assortment of trade goods, much cheaper for them since they also cut out middlemen. By mid-June, the Nonsuch, full of beaver pelts, made her way back to London uneventfully after a three-month journey. With profits made, it was soon that more voyages became planned.
THE ROYAL CHARTER
Persuasion and glowing prospects swayed Charles to grant Rupert – 2 May 1670 – the “Sole Trade and Commerce” of the Bays as “true and absolute Lordes and Propietors” of the region including “all those Seas Streights Bayes Rivers Lakes Creekes and Sounds in whatsoever Latitude they shall bee that lye with the entrance of the Streightes commonly called Hudsons Streightes together with all the Landes Countryes and Territoryes upon the Coastes and Confynes of the Seas … aforesaid.” The charter gave Rupert a mandated monopoly covering four million square kilometers or 1.49 million square miles – almost 40% of Canadian provinces today. The true extent of their grant would not be known for several generations.
The charter granted Rupert as the first governor of the Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson’s Bay. Rupert had a committee of seven connected gentlemen to assist him in his new venture. Based upon other European monopolies like both the Dutch West and East Indies Companies and the English East India Company, the charter created monopolies protecting investors against competition so they could run risk ventures. There was nothing about colonies in the charter. It was strictly business, and profit was the motivator for the first century of the Company’s existence. Unlike other commercial businesses working out of London, the Company maintained a legal responsibility for loyalty to the Crown.
NO SETTLERS OR PRIESTS
Settlement was of no interest to the Company nor was it proselytizing the Natives. In the first 150 years, Europeans other than its own employees were not allowed even to travel through the lands of the Charter. Those that did so and caught forfeited all goods or properties they had acquired along the way. Half of the proceeds went to the King, and the other half kept by the Company. Since the defense of their monopoly was their own affair, this was considered just compensation. All justice was also the Company’s responsibility for all English subjects within Rupert’s Land without the ability to appeal to the government in London. The Company, in addition, needed to outfit and support its own armed forces to defend its interests.
no wars
Guidelines called for the Company to refrain from policies which could inflame relations between the English and the Natives. At the same time, they were not to make was against any other Christian nation or Monarch – specifically, the French since there was no other European country anywhere near on the scene at the time. In return, the Company operated independently though they did have a ceremonial required payment of two elks and two black beavers “whensoever and as often as Wee our heirs and successors shall happen to enter into the said Countryes. Since no monarch or aristocratic London governors ever visited the domains of the Charter until the 20th century, the Company did not have to worry about this clause.
Eventually the Company would erect over 500 outposts, but between 1668 and 1717, only six forts existed – three on James Bay and three on the western shore of Hudson Bay. York Factory became the most important post after 1774 when the HBC began venturing inland using the vast river systems of the Saskatchewan and Red Rivers. The main person in charge was the Chief Factor so the forts became known as factories.
INLAND MOVES THE HBC
The Company during the 18th century was still wedded to the coastlines for the first 74 years. During the fall and winter, Native Americans and European fur trappers – Company men – trapped and prepared pelts. They brought their pelts to the forts to sell, in exchange, receiving trade goods. In contrast, the French had moved to a fur system where they established a system of inland posts at Native villages. Traders moved to live among the tribes, learning their languages and customs, often forming alliances through marriage.
Much of the period between 1686 and 1763, the French and English involved themselves in a series of six wars which carried over into the Hudson Bay. The HBC forts rotated between French and HBC control until the Treaty of Paris signed on 10 February 1763 marking the end of New France. And while the HBC enjoyed now-unfettered monopoly in the area of Hudson Bay, the change in government in Lower Canada led to an influx of fur trading groups working out of Montreal operating in lands mostly to the south of Rupert’s Land. The most significant, the North West Company – NWC, founded in 1779, became a major competitor to the HBC.
nwc challenge
The Nor’Westers began by working the river systems south of Rupert’s Land. They developed a slew of trading posts with shares in the company divided between agents in Montreal and “wintering partners” who spent the trading season in the fur country living among the Native Americans there. The partners met once a year – first at Grand Portage and later Fort William (both on the northwest shores of Lake Superior). While the Nor’Westers had an advantage over the HBC by aggressively working inland waterways – something the HBC began in 1774 – they lay hampered by the long supply route with which they needed to move furs in one direction and trading goods in the opposite. Their main base was Montreal while for the HBC, the forts – especially York Factory.
Enter John Jacob Astor
John Jacob Astor immigrated from Germany first to England from and then onto the United States after the Revolutionary War. Meeting with a fellow trader on the ship over the Atlantic involved in the fur trade, Astor became involved himself. With the Jay Treaty of 1794, British fur traders lost their ability to trade in the Ohio River Valley. Astor filled the void. By 1800, he was one of the leaders of the fur trade. He formed the American Fur Company in the spring of 1808 which became an American version of the HBC dominating the American market.
Astor allowed the Nor’Westers to ship furs to China getting around the British shipping monopoly of the East India Company. He tried to entice the North West to join him in setting up a Pacific Coast trade post which could ship direct to the Orient instead of having to work out of New York. When that effort failed, he set up a subsidiary trade company to the AFC – the Pacific Fur Company which he employed many disgruntled Nor’Westers into. With the PFC, in 1811, he established the first American outpost on the Pacific Coast at Fort Astoria. In setting up the post, he sent out a supply ship by sea while an overland party reached the post discovering South Pass – the pass over the Rocky Mountains on which the Oregon Trail crossed – along the way.
FORT ASTORIA
Fort Astoria lasted only two years. The fort was to be re-supplied with an annual ship sent from the east. Taking on furs, the ship would proceed to China with a possible stop in Russian Alaska on the way. The post at Astoria went up from the men of the Tonquin. The Tonquin carried all of the supplies for the first year of settlement – the overland party did not reach Astoria until 1812. The fort was fairly erected when the Tonquin ventured north heading for Russian America in June 1811. A disagreement with local Natives at Clayoquot Sound off Vancouver Island led to the Tonquin and its valuable trade goods and foodstuffs lost to an attack.
By June 1812, the number of men at Fort Astoria numbered 39 Europeans and 11 Hawaiians. The men in the fort remained vigilant in case the local Chinooks decided to friendship was not in the cards. The supply ship of 1812 arrived – the Beaver – bringing an additional 26 Hawaiian workers. Pelts stockpiled at Fort Astoria were loaded onto the vessel which headed for New Archangel (Sitka). From there, the vessel sailed to Guangzhou, China where the captain learned of the war between Britain and the US. With this knowledge, the ship stayed put until the war finished. The Beaver returned to New York in 1816.
FORT GEORGE
With the June declaration of war between the United States and England, the PFC men at Fort Astoria knew there no help would come in the way of American naval ships. Contact between the NWC and PFC already occurred before the men at the fort became aware of a British naval ship en route to capture the fort. With the summer of 1813, the PFC men realized there was no help coming from the States, so they sold the fort and its allied trading station – a small outpost near Champoeg in the Willamette Valley – to the NWC.
The British ship, the HMS Racoon, finally arrived 12 December 1813. Her captain, William Black, discovered the fort was already British. Captain Black and his officers were dismayed after sailing halfway around the world “on a fool’s errand”. Regardless, Black sailed across the Columbia from Baker’s Bay to Astoria. He had the Union Jack lowered and raised again taking official possession of the lower Columbia for the king. Ramifications resulted from this in a few years’ time.
On the way back across the Columbia bar, the Racoon lost a 12-foot section of her keel, striking ground twice on the passage. That section still seen today in the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria.
Ramifications
The War of 1812 ended with the signing of the Treaty of Ghent on 24 December 1814. The signers of the treaty spent only a brief time talking about the Pacific Coast. By the terms of the treaty, all lands captured during the war returned to their original owners. Captain Black claimed the Oregon Country as a spoil of war for England and American negotiators saw the need to “reclaim” the fort. This was done in August 1818 when the sloop USS Ontario arrived off Cape Disappointment sending three boats over to the now Fort George. Here, Captain James Biddle reclaimed the fort, lowering the Union Jack and raising the American flag. He also claimed both sides of the Columbia for the United States. The fort remained the possession of the NWC since they had already purchased the fort.
The two separate “occupations” figured in the border talks between the US and Great Britain held in 1818. Both sides claimed the Oregon Country with Astoria/George figuring strongly in the discussions. Unable to come to a definitive agreement, both sides agreed to punt forming a co-occupation zone where both sides could freely move inside the region. Of course, at the time, the only Europeans living in the Country were the maybe 100+ men at Fort George and other Columbia River NWC posts.
MERGER OF AIMS
The two huge trading firms of the HBC and the NWC came to grips with each other in the early part of the 19th century. Violence often resulted in those associations. Trading posts on both sides were raided. A low-scale war erupted for a short time on the Red River – the Pemmican War. The bloodshed and loss of profits on both sides led the British government to merge the two firms under the flag of the HBC in 1821. Here was the zenith of the Company in its long history. The HBC looked to going on to bigger things and for the decade of the 1820’s, there was no reason to not think that way. But things were about to change.
With 1821, the Company outgrew its original charter. With the absorption of the NWC, the new HBC extended into new vast territories west of the Rockies and they pushed north to the Arctic, as well. These lands, the HBC, traded, trapped and generally extended their de facto rule over by means of a twenty-one-year license granted to them. The license, unlike the charter, needed to be renewed each cycle. With the licensed lands, the HBC now extended itself over
THE COMPANY MEN
Sir george Simpson
George Simpson was an illegitimate offspring of his father George Simpson, Sr., a lawyer in Scotland. Raised by two aunts and his paternal grandmother, he studied in Dingwall, Scotland until he was 16. Sir Charles then joined his uncles at their sugar brokerage firm in London. There he absorbed lessons in accounting, office management and record keeping during his ten-year stint, serving him well in the decades to come.
In 1812, the firm merged with Wedderburn and Company, another sugar firm, in which Andrew Colville was the owner. Colville was also a shareholder with the HBC, and in the same year as the merger, he became a board member. George Simpson became Colville’s protégé, impressing with his abilities. The Company sent Simpson to North America in 1820 as a governor locum tenons, meaning he would take over if their North American governor, William Williams, was incapacitated at some point – Williams was under danger of arrest at the time.
the merger
The governing board of the HBC decided the time ripe for the two fur companies – HBC and NWC – to come to an agreement. Simpson served as the board’s emissary at the NWC partners meeting on 28 May 1820. His focus on promoting economy and efficiency won the day – with the help of wintering NWC partners led in part by Dr. John McLoughlin – and the two companies merged in March 1821. The new HBC would reign over the fur trade in British North America for over forty years. Two regions were agreed upon with a governor for each. The Northern Department fell to Simpson when Williams, as the senior governor, chose the Southern.
Over the next few years, Simpson showed ability in bringing together the strong personalities of the once deadly rivals. He kept the commissioned officers happy by making the company prosperous and those officers also received shares of the profits. His economy of force measures – including releasing men from employment and closing of unprofitable or replicative trading posts faced the lower ranks of employees.
Simpson and the Columbia Department
The Columbia drainage region, earlier a bailiwick of the NWC, was seen as a less promising economical region. Still, it also held strategic importance as a buffer to keep American fur traders away from richer grounds to the north. The Board instructed Simpson to visit and evaluate the region. Coming west in 1824, along with the newly appointed Chief Factor for the Columbia Department John McLoughlin, they arrived at Fort George to figure out long term goals and plans for the Company in the Oregon Country. This was the first of three trips Simpson would make to the far west – 1824-1825, 1828-1829 and 1841-1842.
Both men concurred, deeming Fort George not adequate to stay as the main trading post for the HBC in the Columbia Department. The re-possession of the post, albeit symbolically at best, leant the impression, the United States could easily lay claim to the region of the Oregon Country south of the Columbia River. Fort George lay on the south side. There existed little land near the fort for agriculture needed to make the post more self-sufficient. Ocean-going ships able to get across the river bar found little difficulty in moving further upstream, so a post upstream on the north side with land available for agriculture became the order of the day.
time to move
Simpson thought “the principal Depot should be situated North of this place about Two or Three Degrees at the mouth of Fraser’s or as it is sometimes called New Caledonia River as it is more central both for the coast and interior trade an as from thence we could with greater facility and at less expense extend our discoveries and Establishments to the Northward and supply all the Interior Posts now occupied.” He also looked on the former plan of the PFC and the NWC to ship furs directly to China from the Pacific Coast instead of overland all of the way back to the east. One big problem stood in the way of that proposal, the other monopoly, the East India Company vested with sole British trading rights to China.
Another problem with the idea of a main Depot slotted further to the north was the lack of information regarding the feasibility of a route up the Fraser into the interior. It turned out to not be the easier route offered by the Columbia River. A last problem, John McLoughlin’s opposition to abandoning the Columbia. Both the chief factor and the governor sent out teams to search for suitable lands for each of their schemes. McLoughlin found a fine location ninety miles upriver at Belle Vue Point while Simpson’s team reported the Fraser River hazardous, so the governor acceded to the good doctor. Several years later, the Board of the Company finally decided against trading directly with China, rending that hope mute, as well.
A New Trading Post
Simpson agreed with the location chosen by McLoughlin giving it the name of Fort Vancouver after the British explorer of 1792. He already had an idea of the official British position regarding a future division of the Oregon Country. George Canning, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had already intimated that Great Britain had given up hope of permanently holding onto territory south of the Columbia. By establishing the post on the north side of the river and giving it a thoroughly British name, they hoped to improve their hold over the lands to the north.
The lands at Belle Vue, noted by McLoughlin, afforded fine opportunities for both pastures and farming, important considering Simpson’s call for self-sufficiency. The river also provided deep-water access for many ocean-going vessels. The location furnished a good starting point for parties to head south into the Willamette Valley or north to the Puget Sound, as well as serving as a terminus for parties heading inland into other regions of the Columbia River drainage.
By March 1825, the new post open for occupancy. On the morning of 18 March, Simpson arrived at the new fort from Fort George where he had stayed until Fort Vancouver had finished. Well pleased with the new fort, he wrote, “I have rarely seen a Gentleman’s Seat in England possessing so many natural advantages and where ornament and use are so agreeably combined.” The next day, Simpson began his return trip to the east after christening the flagstaff of the new post with a bottle of rum.
THE GAMBLE
The 1818 Covenant allowed free access to citizens of both the US and Britain to the Oregon Country. The Board through Simpson let McLoughlin know he was to strictly discourage colonization while exploitation of the land could take place. This point was not tested, luckily for McLoughlin, for the next 17 years.
Before leaving, Simpson let McLoughlin know of some doubt that HBC would retain the small fort near the confluence of the Snake and the Columbia, Fort Nez Percé. Nor was he sure about the Snake Country either. Because of his doubts, he had McLoughlin send Peter Skene Ogden into that region to trap the region clean with no eye of preservation. Quick profits would come, and American trappers would have no incentive to cross the Rockies into a country cleared of beaver. The problem for Simpson was he failed to understand mountain men were not settlers by nature. The colonists who eventually came did so not to find furs but land.
But that was still in the future. First, Ogden had to create a “fur desert”, which he tried to do with limited success. American trappers still made their way into parts of the Snake Country, even luring away some of Ogden’s men with better pay and working conditions.
Covenant RenewAL
Yet, there were few European-oriented people in the region by the time negotiations began between the US and Britain for a permanent settlement to the border question. Simpson visited London in the fall of 1825 taking some small part in counselling the English moderators. He let the British government know the HBC would need to give up its trade on the Pacific coast if Great Britain did not maintain control of the Columbia River. In the end, both governments had really given not much thought to Oregon. They were inclined to let things ride and another ten-year agreement was signed eventually.
Simpson, later in October 1828 – paid another visit to the west. Before his return from London in 1826, he had been made HBC governor for both the Northern and Southern Departments (They officially did not join into one unit until 1839) moving his headquarters from York Factory to Lachine, next to Montreal. In Oregon, Simpson wanted more posts erected north along the Pacific Coast with an expansion of the maritime effort beyond an annual supply ship visiting Fort Vancouver.
simpson miscalculates
Staying at Fort Vancouver until the following spring, Simpson encountered a few American traders who showed up. Not impressed, Simpson thought of them as little men, a mere nuisance. One of those traders, Jedediah Smith, told him the word in Missouri was of amazingly fertile lands to be tilled in the Willamette Valley. These rumors of potential settlers, Simpson discounted. He thought the few routes through the mountains impassable to those looking for new lands to settle. Few could survive the trek, in his mind, and those who did would arrive destitute.
Under continued joint control, American maritime trade became stamped out and American trappers into the Snake Country did lessen with the number of animals disappearing in response to continual HBC fur brigades being sent out. With the 1830s, changes slowly came into focus which shifted the balance dramatically.
OREGON FEVER
After receiving a petition written by Jason Lee and Philip L. Edwards in December 1839, a Congressional bill was introduced to establish American military protection for citizens in the disputed region by Senator Lewis Linn. The bill gained more resolutions with the help of Senator Henry Clay in mid-April 1840 to establish a series of military forts along what would become the Oregon Trail and land grants to potential settlers. The military aspect of the bill caused the bill to be tabled, however.
A new petition a year later sent by Thomas Jefferson Farnham, signed by more than sixty signatures, called for American takeover of the Oregon Country while bringing anti-HBC feelings into the game. Senator Linn again presented a bill advocating Oregon occupation by the US, but that bill died in committee meetings.
In response to these American moves, Simpson instructed company officers to secure possession of all locations on the Columbia suitable for American military establishments – two such being at Cape Disappointment and Tongue Point near the mouth of the river. If the Americans tried to oust them, they were to resist. In such a case, the British government would be forced to back the Company.
THIRD TRIP
Simpson decided upon a third trip to Oregon in 1841, a part of an exotic around-the-world trip he embarked upon. Now “Sir” George in response for his efforts at promoting Arctic exploration, he left London 3 March 1841 arriving at Fort Vancouver by the end of August. Interestingly, at his visit, he chanced to meet with Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, commanding officer for the United States Exploring Expedition. Dining with Simpson and McLoughlin, Wilkes told the governor he intended to recommend the US claim the lands north to the 54°40’ north latitude. Simpson wrote to the British Foreign Office later recommending they should give up lands south of the Columbia but not north.
But the appearance of two American warships – the Porpoise and the Oregon – off of Fort Vancouver along with Wilkes’ discussion influenced a decision already made to begin moving their operations further north to a new post erected on the south end of Vancouver Island at Fort Victoria. That move and Simpson’s subsequent visit to Fort Stikine near the border with Russian America would irreparably destroy the slowly fraying relationship between the governor and his chief factor for the Columbia Department.
GAMBLE ENDS
The Company never had more than a few hundred men in the Oregon Territory with which they ran their fur monopoly. American interests in Oregon soared as the 1840s began, especially with a continuing economic crisis making life harder in the east. Formation of the Provisional Government and its land grants of 640 acres for immigrant couples opened the floodgates for American families to move west. In 1840, there were about 150 Americans living in the Oregon Country. By 1845, there were more than 5,000. That number would increase to over 50,000 in 1859 when Oregon became a State.
Simpson had tried to counter the number of American pioneers with some of his own recruited from the Red River Settlement (Manitoba). Catholic priests had finally been allowed to evangelize in the Oregon Country by the HBC in 1838 with the initial proviso they establish a mission station at the Cowlitz Plains. This was to avoid the Protestant missionaries already present in the Willamette Valley and the hope that HBC retirees living in the French Prairie south of Fort Vancouver would move north to rejoin their faith.
The main problem was those living and farming at the Cowlitz Station would continue doing so for the Company, renting their lands. By moving south of the Columbia, they could take out their own land claims and do soil in much better agricultural conditions. As Dr. McLoughlin warned the governor, no sensible person would be content to farm on the Cowlitz when they could have their own farm on the Willamette. And, for the most part, that is what happened.
time ends the gamble
So, moving into the 1840s not only were American settlers beginning to settle things on the ground with their movements, but European fashion began to change curtailing the global demand for beaver fur. The apogee of the Company in Oregon had passed. Their gamble to first hold Americans out of Oregon and second, south of the Columbia River failed. The British government, faced by the annexationist policies of James Polk and not desirous of a war in which the only British interests were that of a monopoly based upon fur, gave into the compromise of simply extending the 49th parallel across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific with the small inclusion of Vancouver Island in their favor.