Page:The Columbia river , or, Scenes and adventures during a residence of six years on the western side of the Rocky Mountains among various tribes of Indians hitherto unknown (Volume 1).djvu/16

 not be easily served, nor obedience to it enforced, in a country fifteen hundred or two thousand miles beyond the limits of any recognised jurisdiction.

After establishing opposition trading posts adjoining the different factories of the Hudson's Bay Company in the interior, the indefatigable Nor-Westers continued their progress to the northward and westward, and formed numerous trading establishments at Athabasca, Peace River, Great and Lesser Slave Lakes, New Caledonia, the Columbia, &c.; to none of which places did the officers of the Hudson's Bay attempt to follow them. By these means the North-West Company became undisputed masters of the interior. Their influence with the natives was all-powerful; and no single trader, without incurring imminent danger from the Indians, or encountering the risk of starvation, could attempt to penetrate into their territories.

A few independent individuals, unconnected with either company, the chief of whom was Mr. John Jacob Astor, a wealthy merchant of New York, still carried on a fluctuating trade with the Indians, whose lands border Canada and the