Fort Vancouver

Throughout 1825 and 1826, British officials would continue to offer Americans partition plans for the Pacific Coast of North America. These largely originated in part from correspondence with the NWC and later HBC. The border would continue to extend west on the 49th parallel to the Rocky Mountains, where the Columbia (and some times the Snake River) would be used as the border until it reached the Pacific Ocean. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs George Canning has been appraised by later historians most supportive British Foreign minister in securing a border along the Columbia.[7] United States Secretary of State Henry Clay had given instructions to the American plenipotentiaries to offer a partition of the Pacific Northwest along the 49th parallel to the Pacific Ocean.[8] The difference in the two considered plans were too much to solve, making the diplomats put off a formal colonial division once more.

An employee of the HBC, wrote a general description of Fort Vancouver and its structural composition as it was in 1843:

The fort is in the shape of a parallelogram, about 250 yards long, by 150 broad; enclose by a sort of wooden wall, made of pickets, or large beams firmly fixed in the ground, and closely fitted together, twenty feet high, and strong secured on the inside by buttressess. At each angle there is a bastion, mounting two twelve pounders, and in the centre there some eighteen pounders; ... these cannon have become useless. The area within is divided into two courts, around which are arranged about forty neat, strong wooden buildings, one story high, designed for various purposes...[11]

The fort was substantial. The palisades that protected it were 750 ft (230 m) long, 450 ft (140 m) wide and about 20 ft (6.1 m) high. Inside, there were 24 buildings, including housing, warehouses, a school, a library, a pharmacy, a chapel, a blacksmith, plus a large manufacturing facility. The Chief Factor's residence in the center of Fort Vancouver was two stories tall. Inside was a dining hall where company clerks, traders, physicians, and others of the gentleman class would dine with the supervising Chief Factor.[12] In general, the entirety of the Chief Factor's House and its meals were typically barred for general laborers and fur trappers.[13] After dinner the majority of these gentlemen would relocate to the "Bachelor's Hall" to "amuse themselves as they please, either in smoking, reading, or telling and listening to stories of their own and others' curious adventures."[14] As Dunn recalled;

The smoking room ... presents the appearance of an armory and a museum. All sorts of weapons, and dresses, and curiosities of civilized and savage life, and of the various implements for the prosecution of the [fur] trade, may be seen there.[13]

Outside the ramparts there was additional housing, as well as fields, gardens, fruit orchards, a shipyard, a distillery, a tannery, a sawmill, and a dairy. By 1843, situated roughly 600 yards outside Fort Vancouver were about sixty wooden houses. This small settlement was inhabited by fur trappers, machinists and other laborers of the fort. There they resided with their Indigenous or Métis wives and families. The dwellings were organized into orderly rows.[15] The settlement was commonly referred to as Kanaka Village because of the many Hawaiians in company employ who lived there. In fact, it has been suggested that the Fort had the "largest single group of Hawaiians ever to congregate outside their home islands."[16]

With high demand from Europe for fur-based textiles in the early 19th Century, the Hudson's Bay Company was forced to expand its fur trade operations across North America to the Pacific Northwest. Prior to the establishment of Fort Vancouver, the Hudson's Bay Company's largest westward fort was Fort William in present-day Ontario, which the company gained through its merger with the North West Company. From its establishment, Fort Vancouver was the regional headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's fur trade operations in the Columbia District.[17] The territory it oversaw stretched from the Rocky Mountains in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and from Sitka in the north to San Francisco in the south. Fur trappers would bring pelts collected during the winter to the fort to be traded in exchange for company credit. The credit, issued by the company clerks, could be used to purchase goods in the fort's trade shops. Furs from throughout the Columbia District were brought to Fort Vancouver from smaller Hudson's Bay Company outposts either overland, or by water via the Columbia River. Once they were sorted and inventoried by the company's clerks, the furs were hung out to dry in the fur storehouse, a large two-story post-on-sill building located within the walls of the fort. After the furs had been processed, they were mixed, weighed into 270 lb (120 kg) bundles, and packed with tobacco leaves as an insecticide. The 270-pound bundle of furs would be placed in a large press and wrapped in elk or bear hide to create overseas fur bales. The large 270-pound bales were then placed on boats on the Columbia River for shipment to London via the Hudson's Bay Company trade routes. The furs would then be auctioned off to textile manufacturers in London. A large demand came from hatters who produced popular beaver felted hats.

For most of its existence, Fort Vancouver was the largest non-indigenous settlement in the Pacific Northwest. The population of the fort and the environs was mostly French Canadians, Métis, and Kanaka Hawaiians; there were also English, Scots, Irish, and a variety of Indigenous peoples including Iroquois and Cree. The common language spoken at the fort was Canadian French, while company records and official journals were kept in English. However, trading and relations with the surrounding community were done in Chinook Jargon, a pidgin of Chinook, Nootka, Chehalis, English, French, Hawaiian, and other elements.

A survey of the total personnel at Fort Vancouver in 1846 reveals a culturally and materially diverse populace. Notably, the number of employees from the Hebrides, Orkney, and Shetland Islands was 57 men. This is exactly the same number as the combined number of workers from England and mainland Scotland.[18] The number of men hired from Upper Canada, Lower Canada, and Rupert's Land was in total 91. These men came from English, French Canadian, Métis, Iroquois, Cree, and other cultural backgrounds. Most notable however, was that Kanaka Hawaiians totaled 154 that year, or 43% of the total fort population.[18]

Chief Factor Dr. John McLoughlin was its first manager, a position he held for nearly 22 years, from 1824 to 1845.[9] McLoughlin applied the laws of Upper Canada to British subjects, kept peace with the natives and sought to maintain law and order with American settlers as well. McLoughlin was later hailed as the Father of Oregon for allowing Americans to settle south of the Columbia River. Against the company's wishes, he provided substantial aid and assistance to westbound American settlers in the territory. He left the company in 1846 to found Oregon City in the Willamette Valley.

James Douglas spent nineteen years in Fort Vancouver; serving as a clerk until 1834 when he was promoted to the rank of Chief Trader. From October 1838 to November 1839, while McLoughlin was on furlough in Europe, Chief Trader Douglas was in charge. In November 1839 Douglas was promoted to the rank of Chief Factor. Douglas took on several temporary assignments elsewhere, to set up HBC's trading post at Yerba Buena (San Francisco) California in 1841, and to establish Fort Victoria in 1843, but from 1839 to 1845 there were normally two Chief Factors based at Fort Vancouver, with McLoughlin in charge and Douglas as his subordinate.[19]

At its inception, Governor George Simpson wanted the fort to be self-sufficient as food was costly to ship. Fort staff typically maintained one year's extra supplies in the fort warehouses to avoid the disastrous consequences of shipwrecks and other calamities. Fort Vancouver eventually began to produce a surplus of food, some of which was used to provision other HBC posts in the Columbia Department. The area around the fort was commonly known as "La Jolie Prairie" (the pretty prairie) or "Belle Vue Point" (beautiful vista). In time, Fort Vancouver would diversify its economic activities beyond fur trading and begin exporting agricultural foodstuffs from HBC farms, along with salmon, lumber, and other products. It developed markets for these exports in Russian America, the Hawaiian Kingdom, and Mexican California. The HBC opened agencies in Sitka, Honolulu, and Yerba Buena (San Francisco) to facilitate such trade.[20]

Map of the Pacific Northwest "jointly occupied" by the US and Britain. The influence of Fort Vancouver and its secondary stations extended from Russian America to Mexican ruled Alta California.

Route of the HBC York Factory Express, 1820s to 1840s. Modern political boundaries shown.