Page:California Historical Society Quarterly vol 22.djvu/108

98 Upon his arrival there Thompson found competitors in possession of the field. Americans sent out by John Jacob Astor had established a post, which they had named Astoria, and were engaged in trapping furs for shipment by sea. The Oregon Country, extending from the Spanish land of California northward, was claimed by both the United States and England, and the race to secure the furs of the region was stimulated by international rivalry which was sharpened by the threat of still another participant, the Russian American Company, now well established in Alaska and looking toward the south. As a concomitant of the War of 1812 Astoria was purchased by the North West Company, and was renamed Fort George. This company thereby gained trade supremacy in the area. In 18 18 a treaty of joint occupation was signed by England and the United States. This agreement was extended in 1827, and it was not until 1846 that a boundary line between the lands of the two countries lying west of the Rocky Mountains was definitely fixed.

In 1821 the long and bitter rivalry of the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company terminated in a coalition of the two firms under the name of the latter. George Simpson was named Governor of Rupert's Land, with jurisdiction extended to the fur posts of New Caledonia and the Columbia District. Under his energetic management the establishments of the Pacific Northwest became the scene of renewed activity. Headquarters were removed from Fort George to a more advantageous site on the north bank of the Columbia River, 112 miles upstream. The new post. Fort Vancouver, was the fur capital of the region. The brigades of trappers were increased in size and number, and each year saw the fur hunters ranging farther afield in an effort to secure the harvest before American rivals should arrive at the trapping grounds. The two nationalities clashed first in 1824, when Peter Skene Ogden and his Snake brigade encountered American trappers in the Rocky Mountains. Subsequently the English brigades were instructed to remain west of the continental divide. International boundaries at this time had not yet been surveyed and in some cases had not yet been determined upon by the disputing nations. The line between California, then a province of Mexico, and the Oregon Country was stipulated as the 42nd parallel of latitude. Gradually the Hudson's Bay Company brigades encroached upon Mexican territory, as the streams near the posts in the Columbia District were depleted of beaver and otter pelts, the furs in greatest demand.

An American trapper, Jedediah Smith, reached Fort Vancouver by way of California in 1828. The reports he gave of the quantity and quality of the furs in interior California streams led the Hudson's Bay men to hasten south to secure the furs before other Americans could arrive on the scene. Brigades were sent out from Fort Vancouver under Alexander Roderick McLeod in 1828-29 and under Peter Skene Ogden in 1829-30. Both brigades reached the great valley of California and found Smith's reports were not exaggerated. McLeod came to grief in the mountains on his way home and lost his furs. A portion of his journal has appeared in print, but the section published deals exclusively with Oregon. Ogden also met disaster when his boat cap-