Jewitt etc

[Mike Cleven]

At 12:30 PM 1/15/99 -0800, David Gene Lewis wrote:
>On Fri, 15 Jan 1999, Mike Cleven wrote:
>
>> At 01:31 PM 1/15/99 +0100, Henry Kammler wrote:
>>
>>
>> <snip>
>> >As for European loanwords other than English and French in CJ one could
>> >consider the number of trade vessels that had contact with the First
>> >Nations. During the boom time of the maritime fur trade (1795 - ca.
>> >1803), only 8 Russian and 3 Portuguese ships made it to the West Coast
>> >of Vancouver Island, as opposed to about 200 American, 100 English and
>> >maybe 60 Spanish vessels.
>>
>> Actually, the British and Spanish disappeared from the Coast from around
>> 1796 onwards, leaving it almost entirely to the Americans.  The heyday of
>> the English fur trade was from 1788 to 1794.  Both of the imperial powers
>> withdrew their presence from the area in response to the needs of the
>> Napoleonic Wars back in Europe; the Spanish also withdrew because Monterey
>> had been decided upon as their principal base north of San Blas.
>
>It is my impression from my own research that Hudson's Bay was active well
>into the 19th century and that the English were still claiming what is now
>Washington State up to about 1849 or so.

No.  The Oregon Treaty dividing the territory west of the Rockies dates to
1846; after that date the lands south of the 49th Parallel were given over
to the Americans (although the colonial military officer in the early 1860s
agitated for a repossession of Puget Sound during the Civil War).  The
Hudson's Bay Company's rights south of the 49th Parallel, however, remained
guaranteed as part of the treaty, including trading rights and physical
property.  The Hudson's Bay is _still_ active in Canada - mostly as a
merchandising outlet, but in the North its role as a fur trading company
continues (albeit much diminished).  The other day (the 13th), in fact,
marked the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Crown Colony of
Vancouver Island and the re-naming of Fort Douglas to today's "Victoria";
Fort Douglas had been founded as a redoubt for British interests in 1843 in
response to increasing American agitation concerning the mainland
territories (including lands north of 49); the company's HQ in the region
until then had been, I believe, Fort Vancouver.

And in speaking of the fur trade above, I was meaning the _marine_ fur
trade - the transit of furs from the NW to China to be exchanged there for
silver and porcelain, which went on from there to England.  British ships
disappear from the Coast from 1796 until after the Napoleonic Wars.  The
Hudson's Bay's overland trading system continued to operate unabated during
the Napoleonic Wars, and so the continued presence of the HBC in the region
is a separate matter; without it, the British would have had no claim at
all after their withdrawal from Nootka Sound.  Coastal HBC posts such as
Forts Nisqually and Puyallup (which were older than Douglas, IIRC) were
simply adjuncts to Fort Vancouver and the inland posts until the founding
of Fort Langley in 1827 (? 1826?), which was established to thwart American
intentions on the Fraser.  Actually, I have sometimes wondered if the lack
of a white presence on the Lower Fraser until then was due to the very
large native population and powerful chiefs in that area; the infamous
"mortality" (a plague of unknown origin and diagnosis, apparently a
hemorrhagic fever) of the mid-1820s devastated the Lower Fraser especially,
weakening the local society, perhaps, enough for the HBC to consider a post
in what had previously been very dangerous territory......


>There were massive "battles"
>between the different missionary sects over conversions. Catholic
>Missionaries were from Canada and Protestants, Methodists were from the
>United States.

Most missionary activity north of 49 did not occur until well after the
founding of the Mainland Colony in 1858.  Fort Douglas/Victoria, of course,
was heavily Anglican, although the Hawaiian church there was Methodist (I
think).  But missionaries in the untrammelled wilds of the Interior were
extremely rare; the Rev. Lunden-Brown (CoE, I think) conducted his missions
to the Shuswap and Thompson and Cariboo in the Gold Rush years (1858-64),
and he is among the earliest, if not _the_ earliest; most Gold Rush towns
were entirely godless places, of course, more concerned with drinking and
brawling than with learning hymns in the 30-seat church on the edge of
town.  The Oblates (so well known to Jargon enthusiasts) did not come along
until much later; the residential school system and its associated
resettlement into church-dominated villages did not begin until the 1890s.....

>Additionally, There were exploratory voyages up the coast
>to Puget Sound to map the coast for the US.

Which leads me to wonder why copies of Capt. Vancouver's works and maps
were not available in Boston and NYC.....

>The US Expeditionary forces
>were the principle agents.   After the leader of this mapping expedition
>presented his report, of the value of the deep water ports of Puget Sound,
>the US decided on the current border between US and Canada. (These records
>are in the National Archives, Wash DC, in "Reports Transferred to the
>Senate from the Department of the Military and the Department of the
>Interior," 33rd session to 38th session.) The Chief Factor at Fort
>Vancouver, John McGloughlin (sp?) founded Willamette Falls and claimed
>land in and around the town. There were many reports about what to do
>about and how to settle the Hudson's Bay land claims into the 1860s in the
>National Archive records, and many of the American pioneers were
>prejudicial toward the Catholics, British and Hudsons' Bay employees.

NB that many of the HBC employees - the French/Metis - _were_ Catholics....

>Thus,
>the wars in Europe probably affected the strength of the British in the
>Pacific Northwest, which help lead to their literal expulsion from Oregon
>and Washington, but the British were still around until the mid-century.

Some of Portland's "old families" have a markedly British feel to them, as
do some of Portland's grander old neighbourhoods......not so much with
Tacoma or Port Townsend, which are much more "American"....