Tag Archives: George Simpson

HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY – HBC – DISAPPEARS IN THE OREGON MISTS

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Kristi Cameron, of Metis ancestry, presents George Simpson in his canoe - Gathering Hall Exhibit of the Ontario Legislative Hall, Toronto.
Kristi Cameron, of Metis ancestry, presents George Simpson in his canoe – Gathering Hall Exhibit of the Ontario Legislative Hall, Toronto.

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.” 

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THE GREAT REINFORCEMENT – AMERICAN PUSH TO GAIN THE OREGON TERRITORY

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The Lausanne which carried members of the Great Reinforcement to the Oregon Country.
The Lausanne which carried members of the Great Reinforcement to the Oregon Country.

With a non-Native American population numbering in the low hundreds in the 1830s, the long-simmering struggle for control over the vast Oregon Country began its inexorable swing towards the United States.  Methodist missionaries doubled down on their numbers at their Willamette Mission sited a few miles north from today’s city of Salem along the Willamette River.  The Great Reinforcement brought fifty-one men, women and children from New York City all the way to the Hudson’s Bay Company fort at Vancouver. 

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SECRET AGENTS TO THE OREGON TERRITORY – TOO LATE IN THE GREAT GAME

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Canoe voyageurs passing a waterfall - painting by Frances Ann Hopkins 1869.
Canoe voyageurs passing a waterfall – painting by Frances Ann Hopkins 1869.

The United States and United Kingdom came to an agreement in 1818 in which they would share sovereign rule over the Oregon Country.  Oregon’s borders came into reasonable shape in the next couple of years with an agreement between Russia and the US followed by one between Russia and England demarcating the northern border to be at the point of 54°40’ latitude.

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ARTISTIC ESPIONAGE IN THE NORTHWEST – HENRY JAMES WARRE

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Falls of the Peloos River Henry J. Warre - note the Natives dressed in Plains Indian garb.
Falls of the Peloos River Henry J. Warre – note the Natives dressed in Plains Indian garb.

The Royal Army in 1845 sent out Lieutenants Henry James Ware and Mervin Vavasour to evaluate American presence in the Pacific Northwest and British ability to militarily respond. The political crisis brewing since the late 1830s responsible for Warre’s mission across the North American continent, however, dissipated by the time Warre returned to Britain. 

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MCLOUGHLIN AND OGDEN – HBC REMINDERS LYING IN OREGON CITY

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John Mix Stanley's painting of Oregon City 1850.
John Mix Stanley’s painting of Oregon City 1850.

The Hudson’s Bay Company provided the main source of European influence in the Oregon Country throughout the period of condominium rule shared by the United Kingdom and the United States – 1818-1846. The Treaty of Ghent noted sovereignty sharing over the vast northwestern regions but failed to say anything about how to conduct internal affairs. Into the void, the HBC.

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