Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/99

 OREGON PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT 91 quarters of the company from Astoria, near to what is now the City of Vancouver, Washington, naming the place Fort Van- couver. From his arrival in Oregon until 1840, and for a few years after that year, he was the great and noble auto- crat of the whole Oregon Country, its ruler and the protector of all peoples therein, not only of the Indians, but of the white people, without regard to race, citizenship, or religion. And this came about by common consent, and by the fact that he was by nature a great leader and captain of men absolute, severe, just, honest, humane, kindly, and courteous to all white people to those connected with his company as well as to those having no relation to it. He was the absolute, but just, master of the Indians, of whom, it is estimated, there were one hundred thousand in the Oregon Country when he came, in 1824. THE JOINT-OCCUPANCY OF THE OREGON COUNTRY. Unfortunately, the Treaty of Ghent did not settle the Ore- gon question. By what is called a convention, instead of a treaty, between the United States and Great Britain, signed October 20, 1818, it was provided that the Oregon Country should be free and open for a period of ten years, to the citi- zens and subjects of the two countries, i. e., what was called joint-occupancy. Another convention for joint-occupancy be- tween these countries was signed August 6, 1827, which con- tinued in force until the boundary treaty of 1846 went into effect. There were no laws of the United States in effect in this whole Oregon Country. There was little trouble between the white people, or between the white people and the Indians, for the great command of Dr. John McLoughlin was practi- cally supreme; although it had no more than a moral force with citizens of the United States, for he did not attempt to exercise authority over them. By the Act of the British Parliament in July, 1821, the Courts of Judicature of Upper Canada were given jurisdic- tion of civil and criminal matters in the Indian Territory and