The Columbia District was a fur-trading district in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, in both the United States and British North America in the 19th century. Much of its territory overlapped with the temporarily jointly occupied and disputed Oregon Country. It was explored by the North West Company between 1793 and 1811 and established as an operating fur-trading district around 1810. The North West Company was absorbed into the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in 1821, under which the Columbia District became known as the Columbia Department. It was considered part of British North America and later became the brief first Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866) with the subsequent merger with the Colony of Vancouver Island (1849–1866) to form a larger second short-lived Colony of British Columbia (1866–1871). After protracted negotiations with British and Canadian authorities, the newly reorganized Province of British Columbia joined in 1871 with the new Canadian Confederation of 1867 further east, as the western-most province of the now trans-continental Dominion of Canada. The Oregon Treaty of June 1846, signed in Washington, D.C., by the United States and the United Kingdom, marked the effective end of the old Hudson's Bay Company's jurisdiction of the former western Columbia District / Department on the Pacific coast, although the HBC still continues a mercantile commercial business into the 21st century.
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👉 Columbia District in the context of Oregon Country
Oregon Country was a large region of the Pacific Northwest of North America that was subject to a long dispute between the United Kingdom and the United States in the early 19th century. The area, which had been demarcated by the Treaty of 1818, consisted of the land north of 42° N latitude, south of 54°40′ N latitude, and west of the Rocky Mountains down to the Pacific Ocean and east to the Continental Divide. Article III of the 1818 treaty gave joint control to both nations for ten years, allowed land to be claimed, and guaranteed free navigation to all mercantile trade. However, both countries disputed the terms of the international treaty. Oregon Country was the American name, while the British used Columbia District for the region.
British and French Canadian fur traders had entered Oregon Country prior to 1810 before the arrival of American settlers from the mid-1830s onwards, which led to the foundation of the Provisional Government of Oregon. Its coastal areas north of the Columbia River were frequented by ships from all nations engaged in the maritime fur trade, with many vessels between the 1790s and 1810s coming from Boston. The Hudson's Bay Company, whose Columbia Department comprised most of the Oregon Country and north into New Caledonia and beyond 54°40′ N, with operations reaching tributaries of the Yukon River, managed and represented British interests in the region.
Columbia District in the context of Oregon boundary dispute
The Oregon boundary dispute or the Oregon Question was a 19th-century territorial dispute over the political division of the Pacific Northwest of North America between several nations that had competing territorial and commercial aspirations in the region.
Expansionist competition into the region began in the 18th century, with participants including the Russian Empire, Great Britain, Spain, and the United States. After the War of 1812, the Oregon dispute took on increased importance for diplomatic relations between the British Empire and the fledgling American republic. In the mid-1820s, the Russians signed the Russo-American Treaty of 1824 and the Russo-British Treaty of 1825, and the Spanish signed the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, by which Russia and Spain formally withdrew their respective territorial claims in the region, and the British and the Americans acquired residual territorial rights in the disputed area. But the question of sovereignty over a portion of the North American Pacific coast was still contested between the United Kingdom and the United States. The disputed area was defined as the region west of the Continental Divide of the Americas, north of Mexico's Alta California border of 42nd parallel north, and south of Russian America at parallel 54°40′ north. The British generally called this region the Columbia District and the Americans generally called it Oregon Country.
Columbia District in the context of Treaty of 1818
The Convention respecting fisheries, boundary and the restoration of slaves, also known as the London Convention, Anglo-American Convention of 1818, Convention of 1818, or simply the Treaty of 1818, is an international treaty signed in 1818 between the United States and the United Kingdom. This treaty resolved standing boundary issues between the two nations. The treaty allowed for joint occupation and settlement of the Oregon Country, known to the British and in Canadian history as the Columbia District of the Hudson's Bay Company, and including the southern portion of its sister district New Caledonia.
The two nations agreed to a boundary line involving the 49th parallel north, in part because a straight-line boundary would be easier to survey than the pre-existing boundaries based on watersheds. The treaty marked both the United Kingdom's last permanent major loss of territory in what is now the Continental United States and the United States' first permanent significant cession of North American territory to a foreign power, the second being the Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842. The British ceded all of Rupert's Land south of the 49th parallel and east of the Continental Divide, including all of the Red River Colony south of that latitude, while the United States ceded the northernmost edge of the Missouri Territory north of the 49th parallel.
Columbia District in the context of Fort Victoria (British Columbia)
Fort Victoria began as a fur trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company and was the headquarters of HBC operations in the Columbia District, a large fur trading area now part of the province of British Columbia, Canada and the U.S. state of Washington. Construction of Fort Victoria in 1843 highlighted the beginning of a permanent British settlement now known as Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia. The fort itself was demolished in November 1864 as the town continued to grow as a commercial centre serving the local area as well as trading with California, Washington Territory, the United Kingdom, and others.
The location of Fort Victoria was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1924.