Editing Oregon Trail (section)

===North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company===
{{See also|North West Company|Hudson's Bay Company}}
[[File:Alfred Jacob Miller - Fort Laramie - Walters 37194049.jpg|thumb|The first [[Fort Laramie]] as it looked prior to 1840. Painting from memory by Alfred Jacob Miller]]

In August 1811, three months after [[Fort Astoria]] was established, [[David Thompson (explorer)|David Thompson]] and his team of North West Company explorers came floating down the Columbia to Fort Astoria. He had just completed a journey through much of western Canada and most of the Columbia River drainage system. He was mapping the country for possible fur trading posts. Along the way, he camped at the confluence of the Columbia and Snake Rivers and posted a notice claiming the land for Britain and stating the intention of the North West Company to build a fort on the site. When the War of 1812 broke out, the managers at Fort Astoria were concerned the British navy would seize their forts and supplies, and in 1813 they sold out to the North West Company.

By 1821, intense competition between the [[Hudson's Bay Company]] (HBC) and the North West Company reached the point of armed hostilities, and the British government pressured the two companies to merge. The newly reconfigured HBC had a near monopoly on trading (and most governing issues) in the Columbia District, or Oregon Country as it was referred to by the Americans, and also in [[Rupert's Land]]. That year the British parliament passed a statute applying the laws of [[Upper Canada]] to the district and giving the HBC power to enforce those laws.

From 1813 to the early 1840s the British, through the NWC and HBC, had nearly complete control of the Pacific Northwest and the western half of the Oregon Trail. In theory, the [[Treaty of Ghent]], which ended the War of 1812, restored possession of U.S. property in Oregon territory to the United States. "Joint occupation" of the region was formally established by the [[Anglo-American Convention of 1818]]. The British, through the HBC, tried to discourage any U.S. trappers, traders, and settlers from work or settlement in the Pacific Northwest.

[[File:Alfred Jacob Miller - Breaking up Camp at Sunrise - Walters 371940142.jpg|thumb|left|''Breaking up Camp at Sunrise'', by [[Alfred Jacob Miller]]]]

By overland travel, American missionaries and early settlers (initially mostly ex-trappers) started showing up in Oregon in the late 1820s. {{Citation needed|date=May 2013}} Although officially the HBC discouraged settlement because it interfered with its lucrative fur trade, its manager at Fort Vancouver, [[John McLoughlin]], gave substantial help, including employment, until they could get established. In the early 1840s thousands of American settlers arrived and soon greatly outnumbered the British settlers in Oregon.<ref name="Mackie1997">{{cite book |last = Mackie |first = Richard Somerset |title = Trading Beyond the Mountains: The British Fur Trade on the Pacific; 1793–1843 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=VKXgJw6K088C&pg=PA318 |access-date = May 11, 2013 |year = 1997 |publisher = UBC Press |isbn = 978-0-7748-0613-8 |page = 318 }}</ref> McLoughlin, despite working for the HBC, gave help in the form of loans, medical care, shelter, clothing, food, supplies and seed to U.S. emigrants. These new emigrants often arrived in Oregon tired, worn out, nearly penniless, with insufficient food or supplies, just as winter was coming on. McLoughlin would later be hailed as the Father of Oregon.

The [[York Factory Express]], establishing another route to the Oregon territory, evolved from an earlier express brigade used by the North West Company between Fort Astoria and [[Fort William, Ontario|Fort William]], Ontario on [[Lake Superior]]. By 1825 the HBC started using two brigades, each setting out from opposite ends of the express route—one from [[Fort Vancouver]] on the Columbia River and the other from [[York Factory]] on Hudson Bay—in spring and passing each other in the middle of the continent. This established a "quick"&mdash; about 100 days for {{convert|2600|mi|km}} one way&mdash; to transport personnel and transmit messages between Fort Vancouver and York Factory on Hudson Bay.[[File:York-Factory-Express.png|thumb|HBC's York Factory Express trade route, 1820s to 1840s. Modern political boundaries shown.]]

The HBC built a new much larger Fort Vancouver in 1825 about 90 miles upstream from Fort Astoria, on the north side of the Columbia River (they were hoping the Columbia would be the future Canada–U.S. border). The fort quickly became the center of activity in the Pacific Northwest. Every year ships would come from London to the Pacific (via [[Cape Horn]]) to drop off supplies and trade goods in its trading posts in the Pacific Northwest and pick up the accumulated furs used to pay for these supplies. It was the nexus for the fur trade on the Pacific Coast; its influence reached from the Rocky Mountains to the [[Hawaiian Islands]], and from [[Russian Alaska]] into Mexican-controlled California. At its pinnacle in about 1840, the manager of Fort Vancouver watched over 34 outposts, 24 ports, 6 ships, and about 600 employees.

When American emigration over the Oregon Trail began in earnest in the early 1840s, for many settlers the fort became the last stop on the Oregon Trail where they could get supplies, aid, and help before starting their homesteads.<ref name="Mackie1997"/> Fort Vancouver was the main re-supply point for nearly all Oregon trail travelers until U.S. towns could be established. The HBC established [[Fort Colvile]] in 1825 on the Columbia River near [[Kettle Falls]] as a good site to collect furs and control the upper Columbia River fur trade.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/FortColville.asp |title = Fort Colville |publisher = Nwcouncil.org |access-date = March 19, 2011 }}</ref> [[Fort Nisqually]] was built near the present town of [[DuPont, Washington|DuPont]], Washington, and was the first HBC fort on Puget Sound. [[Fort Victoria (British Columbia)|Fort Victoria]] was erected in 1843 and became the headquarters of operations in British Columbia, eventually growing into modern-day [[Victoria, British Columbia|Victoria]], the capital city of British Columbia.

[[File:Oregoncountry.png|thumb|left|The Oregon Country/Columbia District stretched from 42'N to 54 40'N. The most heavily disputed portion is highlighted.]]

By 1840, the HBC had three forts: [[Fort Hall]] (purchased from [[Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth]] in 1837), [[Fort Boise]] and [[Fort Nez Perce]] on the western end of the Oregon Trail route as well as Fort Vancouver near its terminus in the [[Willamette Valley]]. With minor exceptions, they all gave substantial and often desperately needed aid to the early Oregon Trail pioneers.

When the fur trade slowed in the 1840s because of fashion changes in men's hats, the value of the Pacific Northwest to the British was seriously diminished. Canada had few potential settlers who were willing to move more than {{convert|2500|mi|km}} to the Pacific Northwest, although several hundred ex-trappers, British and American, and their families did start settling in what became Oregon and Washington. In 1841, [[James Sinclair (fur trapper)|James Sinclair]], on orders from HBC Governor Sir [[George Simpson (administrator)|George Simpson]], guided nearly 200 settlers from the [[Red River Colony]] (located at the junction of the [[Assiniboine River]] and [[Red River of the North|Red River]] near present [[Winnipeg]], [[Manitoba]], Canada) into the Oregon territory.<ref>[http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~orgenweb/furtrade.html Red River Settlers in Oregon], Retrieved February 22, 2009</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url = https://www.newpghs.com/historical-maps |title = Area Histories: Historical Maps |website = North East Winnipeg Historical Society Inc. (2010) |access-date = October 12, 2017 }}</ref> This attempt at settlement failed when most of the families joined the settlers in the Willamette Valley, with their promise of free land and HBC-free government.

In 1846, the [[Oregon Treaty]] ending the [[Oregon boundary dispute]] was signed with Britain. The British lost much of the land they had so long controlled. The new [[Canada–United States border]] was established at the [[49th parallel north|49th parallel]] to the Pacific Coast, then dipping south around Vancouver Island. The treaty granted the HBC navigation rights on the Columbia River for supplying their fur posts, clear titles to their trading post properties allowing them to be sold later if they wanted, and left the British with a good anchorage at Victoria. It gave the United States most of what it wanted, a "reasonable" boundary and a good anchorage on the West Coast in Puget Sound. While there were few United States settlers in the future state of Washington in 1846, the United States had already demonstrated it could induce thousands of settlers to go to the Oregon Territory, and it would be only a short time before they would vastly outnumber the few hundred HBC employees and retirees living in the region.