Page:Oregon, End of the Trail.djvu/79



accepted this otter, and the post was renamed Fort George by its new owners.

Astoria was restored to American ownership in 1818, and the United States and Great Britain agreed to a ten-years' joint occupancy of the Oregon country. Spanish claims in the nebulous southern area were eliminated a year later, when the southern boundary was fixed at the 42nd parallel; and Russia in 1824 renounced all interests below 54° 40' north latitude. After its purchase of Astoria in 1813, the North West Company continued to control the Oregon fur trade until 1821, when it was merged with its British rival the Hudson's Bay Company. Soon thereafter, American trappers and traders began to push westward beyond the Rockies into the rich domain of the British traffic, and their frequent clashes with men of the Hudson's Bay Company together with the beginnings of organized immigration brought the vexed question of sovereignty over the Oregon country increasingly to the fore. By the late 1830'$ many Americans were demanding in bellicose tone that Great Britain should relinquish all jurisdiction south of 54° 40', and "Fifty-four forty or fight" proved a popular slogan in Folk's compaign for the presidency. The issue was finally settled in 1846, when the two countries compromised on a boundary along the 49th parallel, and the Oregon country between that and the 42nd parallel on the south became undisputed American soil.

The treaty of joint control was in effect when Dr. John McLoughlin destined to be the most powerful individual in the territory for 20 years, came down the Columbia to Fort George. Appointed Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1824, within a year he built Fort Vancouver on the north bank of the Columbia River, a few miles east of the mouth of the Willamette. Six-feet-two, beaver-hatted, already white-haired at 40, McLoughlin knew how to control his half-wild white trappers; he made beaver-hunting vassals of the Indians and foi a long time succeeded in crushing all competition—though many of his competitors were given places in the Georgian mahogany chairs at his table. With Fort Vancouver as the capital, he was king of a vast do main stretching from California to Alaska and from the Rocky Moun tains to the sea.

Jedediah Smith, a Yankee trader, reached Oregon by way of California in 1828. Indians near the i.iouth of the Umpqua had attacked his party, killing all but himself and three companions, and taking his furs. McLoughlin sent an expedition to secure the pelts, which he then