Jewitt etc

[Mike Cleven]

At 08:31 PM 1/15/99 -0800, R K Henderson wrote:
>To clear up the issue of British presence on the coast,  Esquimault was
>the Royal Navy's North Pacific station until well after Canadian
>independence in 1867. Dozens of geographic names (Alert Bay, Otter Bay,
>Barkley Sound) attest to its very high profile in these parts. When the
>Royal Navy left, ca. 1890, the Royal Canadian Navy took over. Thus, there
>was no time when the coast was actively possessed by the Crown.

I think you're missing a "not" in there.  But the period I was speaking of
was 1796-c.1820, when there was no specifically British port or anchorage
on the Coast (Astoria being the only notable port where a white presence
was maintained).  There was no formal British naval presence until the
establishment of HMS Esquimalt at the same time as Fort Douglas (1843).
Barkley Sound was named in the days of the early exploration, and IIRC (I'm
not sure) Capt. Barclay was a private trader and his vessel was not RN.

>HBC literally owned the dry into well into the 19th century, and its
>ships (notably the redoutable Beaver) were the only reliable public
>transport on the coast until the American invasion, ca. 1850.

Point of order - the HBC did not "own the dry", not in the formal sense of
its tenure east of the Rockies in Rupert's Land.  The HBC had no formal
legal rights west of the Rockies; only a persistent trading presence that
found itself forced to share territory with other fur companies (the NWC as
well as the Astoria Company).  It also did not assert its presence on the
Coast until the establishment of Fort Langley; not even Nisqually was
founded until long after the formal British occupation (and evacuation) of
Nootka Sound (I'm not sure of the date of the founding of Nisqually, but I
know it wasn't when Capt. Vancouver was around).  In the sense that the HBC
was the largest trading company, and more trade routes and more employees
and more customers, in _that_ sense they did "own" the lands away from the
Coast; but they were not alone, and did not have legal tenure or monopoly.


>Canada relinquished its claim to Washington when the treaty was
>finalised.

Correction - _Britain_ relinquished its claim to Washington and Oregon when
the treaty was finalized.  Canada was a far-off and unrelated colony at
this time.

>Prior to that time, the Company was the only duly-constituted
>authority in Puget Sound. The Company maintained an especially high
>profile in the current Olympia/Tacoma neighbourhood. The  capital of
>Puget Sound was Fort Nisqually, a Company stockade in what is now
>Steilacoom. Perhaps the greatest evidence of Company presence, aside from
>the stockade itself, were the more than 1000 head of Company cattle
>Nisqually contractors ran on the extensive prairies that existed there in
>those days. Interestingly, the Company maintained at least a cultural
>presence in the area even after the American invasion. HBC men were
>jailed during Leschi's War, on the pretext that they were married to
>Nisqually or Puyallup women. Really it was because Americans feared the
>British might take advantage of the situation to repossess the territory.
>Ludicrous, of course, but it points to the highly visible presence of
>British subjects in the region.

_After_ the re-assertion of British interests in the region following the
Napoleonic Wars, i.e. from the 1810s/20s onwards......

>
>So, rumours of Britian's disappearance from the Northwest are greatly
>exaggerated.

Again, with the critical exception of the period from 1796 to 1820.