The Oregon Question.
Very soon after the return of Lewis and Clark a merchant
whose name is still a synonym for boundless wealth formed the Pacific Coast
Fur Company to establish the fur trade on the Pacific Coast. John Jacob
Astor was a German by birth, who had made his home in New York and had
prospered greatly. He had for many years been engaged in commerce on the
Pacific Coast and with China, and in trade with the Indians in the center of
the American continent. He now determined to obtain control of the whole fur
trade of the unsettled parts of the United States and of the Russian
establishment in North America. He intended to establish trading posts on
the Missouri, the Columbia and the coasts contiguous to that river. By
exporting the furs gathered in America to China and exchanging them for the
products of the east, he hoped to extend the commerce of the Pacific Fur
Company around the world. Astor tried to avoid the danger of the competition
of the Northwest Company by inviting it to share his enterprise, an offer
which that powerful and energetic body declined. He was, however, able to
enlist several individual members of the company as partners and to engage a
number of its old employes. A ship was sent out to view the coast and agents
were sent to St. Petersburg to conclude an arrangement with the Russian Fur
Company by which that body would sell its fur to the Astor Fur Company and
obtain supplies of food and merchandise at the station to be established at
the mouth of the Columbia. These preliminaries concluded, an expedition was
sent out in 1810 on board the good ship Tonquin, Captain
Thorn master, to build the fort and establish the fur trade. It called at
the Hawaiian Islands for fresh supplies, and on the 12th of April, 1811,
began to build a fort at Point George, on the south side of the Columbia,
about twelve miles from its mouth. The fort was called after the founder of
the enterprise, Astoria. As soon as the work was well under way Captain
Thorn departed on the Tonquin on a trading cruise to the west coast of
Vancouver Island. Neither the ship nor captain ever returned. The captain
and most of the crew were massacred by the Indians in return for an insult
which Thorn had put upon one of the chiefs. The ship itself was blown up,
whether by accident or design could never be learned. The survivor of the
crew of the Tonquin was an interpreter, who surrendered himself as a slave
to the women who accompanied in their canoes the infuriated savages. On the
15th of July, before the fort was completed, a boat came down the Columbia
bearing a party of the Northwest Company's men whose leader, David Thompson,
had been for years exploring the region in which the northern waters of the
Columbia had their source, and who had hoped to be the first to reach the
Pacific and build a trading post at the mouth of the river of which he
believed himself to be the discoverer, and had hoped to be the first to
explore. McDougall, the commander of the Fort Astoria, treated his visitor
with the greatest courtesy, and after a few days Thompson departed for
Montreal accompanied by Stuart, who was in charge of an expedition to build
a trading post in the interior. The place chosen by Stuart for the fort was
on Okanagan River; the Northwest Company had already reached the Spokane. A
few months later Clarke, of the Pacific Fur Company, planted another
establishment on the latter river. On the 18th of January, 1812, an overland
expedition in charge of Hunt, chief manager of the Pacific Fur Company,
arrived at Astoria after having suffered many hardships and losses. When
Astor heard of the loss of the Tonquin he sent a ship, namely, the Beaver,
to Astoria with supplies and merchandise to trade with the Russians for
furs. In August Hunt proceeded up the coast in the Beaver to conclude some
arrangements begun in St. Petersburg some time before by which the Pacific
Coast Fur Company would buy all the furs of the Russia Company and supply
them with all necessaries for their trade with the natives. Having
satisfactorily fulfilled his mission Hunt sailed for the Sandwich Islands,
but it was six months before he could find a vessel to bring him to Astoria.
During his absence the Northwest Company had established many trading ports
on the Upper Columbia and its branches. The war of 1812 had broken out and
the partners of the Pacific Fur Company having no ship and small means of
defense were becoming anxious for the safety of their position. On the nth
of April, 1813, Astoria was visited by John George McTavish and Joseph
Leroche with a large party of nor'westers. The Northwest Company wanted to
purchase Astoria and McTavish had come to show the partners there the danger
of their position, the unlikelihood of their receiving supplies now that
British cruisers were sailing the position and the wisdom of selling their
post before it would be captured. McDougall and his associates were not
easily persuaded. At last they agreed that if during the year supplies did
not arrive arid if the war was not over, they would disband and having sold
the post at a good price hand the money over to Astor. When Hunt returned
shortly after the departure of McTavish he was sadly disappointed at the
position of affairs, but could propose no better plan. In October of the
same year McTavish came back, this time accompanied by Alexander Stewart,
and the purchase of Astoria was concluded, the price being $80,500. Two
weeks after H. M. S. Raccoon arrived and great was the disappointment of her
officers to find that the Northwest Company by purchasing the trading-post
had deprived them of a rich and easily obtained prize. The captain changed
the name of the place to Fort George and took possession of the place in the
name of Great Britain. In 1814 the treaty of Ghent was signed and by one of
its clauses all territory, places and possessions taken during the war, with
the exception of certain islands in the Bay of Fundy were to be restored. It
was the 9th of August, 1818, before the British authorities finally restored
Fort George in the following formula:
"We, the undersigned, do in conformity to the first
article of the treaty of Ghent, restore to the government of the United
States the settlement of Fort George on the Columbia River."
No attempt was made by the United States for several
years after the sale of Astoria to settle or establish trading posts in what
came to be known as the Oregon Country. In-1819 Long's expedition, of which
an account was published in 1823, ascertained that the whole division of
North America drained by Missouri and Arkansas and their tributaries between
the meridian of the mouth of the Platte and the Rocky Mountains is a desert.
The Northwest Company carried on their trade from Fort George at the mouth
of the Columbia to Fort St. James near the head waters of the Fraser without
a rival. By a convention made in 1818 between Great Britain and the United
States it was agreed that the country westward of the Rocky Mountains should
be free and open for ten years from the date of the convention, to the
vessels, citizens, and subjects of both powers, without prejudice to the
claims of either country. In the year 1821 the Hudson's Bay Company and the
Northwest Company united and the courts of judicature of Upper Canada were
empowered to take cognizance of all causes, civil or criminal, in the
Hudson's Bay Territories or other ports not within the limits of Upper
Canada, Lower Canada, or the United States. This company received a license
to trade in the regions which had not originally formed part of Rupert's
land for a period not exceeding 21 years, and persons in the service might
act as justices of the peace. The Hudson's Bay Company being now a very
powerful organization extended their fur trade along the coast to the
borders of Alaska and increased and improved their establishments in the
interior. Peace and good order were the rule wherever the company's
authority reached. The manager of their affairs on the Pacific Coast was
John McLoughlin, a man eminently fitted for his position. He moved from Fort
George and built Fort Vancouver on the north bank of the Columbia near the
mouth of the Willamette. Large farms were cultivated at Vancouver and at
other places in the Columbia valley and on Puget Sound.
While the dispute about the ownership of the Northwest
coast was arising between England and the United States, a third claim was
made. The Russian emperor issued a ukase claiming the ownership of
the whole west coast of America north of the fifty-first parallel and of the
east coast of Asia north of forty-five degrees forty-five minutes north
latitude and forbidding foreigners to come within one hundred miles of the
coast. Both England and the United States protested against this extravagant
assumption on the part of Russia and a treaty was made by each of them. That
with the United States was concluded first in 1824. By this treaty it was
agreed that the subjects of both nations should be free to navigate the
waters of the Pacific Ocean or to resort to its coasts to trade with the
natives, though United States citizens must not resort to any points where
there is a Russian establishment nor found establishments north of
fifty-four degrees forty minutes. The subjects of either nation could
frequent interior seas, gulfs, harbors and creeks for the purposes of
fishing and trading with the natives.
An important provision of the treaty of 1825 made with
Great Britain provides that: "the line of demarcation between possessions of
the high contracting parties upon the coast of the continent and the islands
of America to the northwest shall be drawn from the southern most point of
Prince of Wales Island, eastward to the great inlet in the continent called
Portland Channel and along the middle of that inlet to the fifty-sixth
degree of latitude, whence it shall follow the summit of the mountains
bordering the coast within ten leagues northwestward to Mount St. Elias and
thence north in the course of the twenty-first meridian from Greenwich,
which line shall form the limit between the Russian and British possessions
in the continent of America to the Northward." This clause of the treaty
plainly acknowledged the Russian belief in the right of Great Britain to
possessions on the northwest coast of America.
' As the time of the expiration of the convention of 1818
drew near there was a strong feeling both in England- and the United States
that the boundary between their possessions should be determined, and
plenipotentiaries were appointed. England proposed that the southern
boundary of her possessions should be the forty-ninth parallel to the
northeasternmost branch of the Columbia River, thence down the middle of the
stream to the Pacific. The utmost that the United States would concede was
that the forty-ninth parallel should be the boundary line to the Ocean. As
neither side would yield on the sixth of August, 1827, it was resolved "that
the provisions of October 20th, 1818, rendering all territories claimed by
Great Britain or by the United States west of the Rock Mountains free and
open to the citizens or subjects of both nations for ten years should be
extended for an indefinite period, and that either party could annul or
abrogate the convention by giving a year's notice."
So far the only settlers in Oregon had been fur traders,
but from this time immigrants from the United States began to arrive in very
small numbers at first, but gradually increasing till about the year 1842 it
was felt that joint occupation was no longer practicable. In that year the
Northeastern boundary of the United States was fixed by the Ashburton
Treaty, but the contracting powers did not consider it wise to complicate
the situation by introducing into the negotiations the Oregon Question.
There was a party from the United States who claimed the
whole region west of the Rocky Mountains from the forty-second parallel of
north latitude to that of fifty-four degrees forty minutes, that is, from
California to Alaska. Some of its members asserted their determination to
take up arms and drive Great Britain from the Pacific Slope. They rested
their claim on right derived from the purchase of Louisianan in 1803 and on
the Florida Treaty with Spain in 1819. When by the Treaty of Versailles the
Independence of the United States was acknowledged the Mississippi formed
its western borders. In 1803 the young Republic extended its borders by the
purchase from France of Louisiana. Concerning the western boundary of this
new acquisition Greenhow says: "In the absence of all light on the subject
from history we are forced to regard the boundaries indicated by nature,
namely the highlands separating the headwaters of the Mississippi from those
flowing into the Pacific or Californian Gulf, as the true western boundaries
of Louisiana." By the Florida Treaty Spain ceded to the United States all
rights, claims and pretentions to territories beyond Louisiana, which by the
words of that Treaty reached on the north to latitude forty-two degrees, and
on the west to the Pacific Ocean. Spain, these claimants contended, owned
the Northwest Coast by virtue of discovery, and that right she ceded by the
treaty of 1819 to the United States. The moderate party claimed the valley
of the Columbia from Gray's discovery in 1792, the exploration of Lewis and
Clark in 1804-5, the settlement of Astoria and others made by the Pacific
Fur Company and on the ground of contiguity to what was their undisputed
territory. The British on their part based their claims on the discovery of
Cook, the Nootka Convention which gave them the right of settlement in what
had previously been claimed as Spanish possessions, the explorations of
Vancouver and the journeys and discoveries of Mackenzie, Fraser and
Thompson. Their strongest argument, however, was that for nearly thirty-five
years British subjects had been the chief occupants of the whole region and
for the greater part of that time no United States subject had lived west of
the Rocky Mountains. Many other matters were imported into the controversy
between the nations, which grew more and more bitter as time went on.
Negotiations having continued through the years 1844 and 1845 without
result, and notice of the abrogation of the Convention by the United States
having been received in England, the British plenipotentiary was instructed
to present to the United States government a new scheme for the settlement
of the difficulty. This was accepted and became in 1846 the Treaty of
Oregon.
By this treaty it was provided that the forty-ninth
parallel should be the boundary between the United States and the British
possessions to the middle of the channel that separates the continent from
Vancouver Island; that the navigation of the Columbia should be free to
British subjects; that the possessory rights of all British subjects shall
be respected and the farm lands and other property of the Puget Sound
Agricultural Company should be confirmed to it. There were many in Canada
and in Great Britain who viewed the Oregon treaty as a weak concession to'
the claims of the United States, while on the other hand the extremists in
the Republic believed that the Monroe Doctrine promulgated in 1818 should
have been followed and "that the American continents by the free and
independent condition which they have assumed and maintain are henceforth
not to be considered as subjects for colonization by any European power."
Simon Fraser.
While Lewis and Clark were making their way down the
Columbia the Northwest Company were preparing to occupy the Pacific Slope.
In 1805 Simon Fraser was at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, having received
directions to follow Mackenzie's route, establish the fur trade among the
tribes near the headwaters of the Peace, and the yet unnamed river
discovered by the great explorer, and to follow, if possible, that river to
its mouth and find out whether or not it was the Columbia. About the same
time David Thompson received instructions to find a pass further to the
south and seek in that direction the headwaters of the Columbia. As we have
seen that members of .the Northwest Company met Lewis and Clark in the
Mandan country the previous year, it is possible that news of the United
States expedition had reached the headquarters of that enterprising body and
stimulated its efforts to prevent the trade of the great unexplored region
to the west from falling into the hands of the shrewd citizens of the young
republic.
The only explorations of which we have any record during
the twelve years since Mackenzie crossed the Pacific Slope is that of James
Finlay, who in 1797 ascended the Finlay River, the northern branch of the
Peace River.
The first building erected by a white man west of the
Rocky Mountains . was Fort McLeod, built on McLeod Lake by James McDougall.
No one since 1793 had ventured to launch a boat on the terrible river, whose
dangers -even the intrepid Mackenzie "had feared to brave. The man to whom
the arduous task of exploring it was one of the youngest of the partners of
the Northwest Company. Simon Fraser was the son of a Loyalist, who served
under Burgoyne and who died not long after the surrender of the army of that
ill-fated general. His widow with her child removed to Cornwall, Upper
Canada, and when her boy was sixteen years old he received a position in the
Northwest Company. Being hardy and adventurous as well as industrious the
boy succeeded and by the time he was twenty-six years old had become one of
the advance guard of the Northwest Company. Leaving Fort Dunvegan on the
Peace River in the autumn of 1805 he made his way to the Rock Mountain
portage where he with fourteen of his men spent the winter. From Rocky
Mountain House he proceeded by the Peace River to the Pacific Slope, finding
as Mackenzie had done, great difficulty in passing. from the headwaters of
the Parsnip to those of the Fraser. In this region of lakes and mountains
Fraser remained building forts and establishing the fur trade for more than
two years. It was he who, recalling his mother's stories of her childhood's
home, first gave this rugged land the appropriate name of New Caledonia. In
a beautiful situation on Stuart Lake in 1806, Fraser built Fort St. James,
which has been ever since the principal depot of the fur trade of northern
British Columbia. The lake was called after John Stuart, a clerk of the
Northwest Company and Fraser's friend and lieutenant. At the confluence of
the Fraser and Nechaco the explorers met a band of Indians to whom tobacco
and soap were alike unknown luxuries. Proceeding up the Nechaco, Stuart
discovered a lake which from its position he considered would make a good
trading center. He gave it the name of his leader and Fort Fraser was built
where the lake falls into the river. The following winter, was passed at
Stuart Lake. The difficulty of obtaining supplies induced Fraser to send for
more men. While he was awaiting their arrival he erected Fort George at the
confluence of the Nechaco and the Fraser. The reinforcement arrived in 1807
in charge of Hugh Fairies and Maurice Quesnel, bringing rumors of Lewis and
Qark and a request to hurry the expedition.
On the 26th of May Fraser set out on his journey to the
sea. Every hour of the long- summer days, during which the explorers
followed the windings of the tumultuous river around towering mountains and
over jagged rocks which tore its waters into foam, was full of peril. The
coolness with which they overcame the boiling surges of the river and crept
along its precipitous banks, often making a foothold for themselves with
their daggers. showed that these rugged fur traders were as fearless as the
vikings of old. Their canoes were repeatedly broken, often destroyed. At
length the attempt to navigate the river was abandoned and the party toiled
over the mountains till at length the smoother current showed that they were
nearing the sea. On the way down Fraser had observed and named the rivers
Quesnel and Thompson, which contributed their waters to the volume of the
river. Fraser reached the tide waters of the Pacific in the vicinity of the
site of the city of New Westminster on the second day of July, 1808. He was
prevented from proceeding to the ocean by the attacks of hostile Indians,
but he had learned that the river he had been exploring was not the
Columbia.
David Thompson.
The leader of the northern expedition of the Northwest
Company was a remarkable man. David Thompson had in his youth received a
good education. and having- adopted the calling of a surveyor received a
position in the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1795 he found a route from Hudson's
Bay to Lake Athabasca. On his return he learned that his services were no
longer needed and immediately set out for the headquarters of the Northwest
Company. He was immediately engaged and on August 9th, 1796, began a series
of surveys lasting for many years, during which he traced the courses of the
Saskachewan, the Assiniboine and most of the rivers between Lake Superior
and the Rocky Mountains. He visited the Mandan country and sought and
thought he had found the sources of the Mississippi. In his busy, though
often lonely life, the explorer found time and opportunity to pursue the
study of the heavens, and has been distinguished by the title of astronomer.
In 1805 Thompson was commissioned to ascend the
Saskachewan to explore the Columbia and examine the region between the
mountains and the Pacific Ocean.
During the five years from 1806 to 1811 Thompson spent
most of his time in southeastern British Columbia. He discovered the source
of the Columbia and explored its northern waters. He followed the course of
the Kootenay and finally reaching the Lower Columbia by way of the Spokane
and Pend d'Oreille branches rowed down to its mouth, as has been before
related, on the 15th of July, 1811. He established the fur trade at points
as far distant as the Bend of the Columbia, the Forks of the Thompson and
the United States boundary line. The explorer made frequent journeys
eastward, and is said to have come through the wall of mountains by the
Kicking Horse, the Yellowhead, Howe's and Athabasca passes. The importance
of his labors can hardly be overestimated though they were very
ill-requited. It is largely due to the achievement of these explorers and
pioneers of the fur trade, Fraser and Thompson, that. Great Britain owns the
magnificent province of British Columbia.
San Juan.
When in 1846 the Oregon Treaty was signed it was believed
that the question of the northern limits of the territory of the United
States was settled at once and forever; yet the ink was hardly dry on the
paper when events took place which at an earlier period would have
ended in a fratricidal war.
Seven miles to the southeast of Victoria, now the capital
of British Columbia, at the time of the signing of the treaty a Hudson's Bay
Company trading post, lies the island of San Juan, the largest of the Haro
Archipelago. About the time of the founding of Fort Camosun, when the
Hudson's Bay Company were seeking new pastures for their flocks and herds at
a distance from those of the settlers in Oregon, they sent a number of sheep
and cattle in charge of some of their servants to the island of San Juan.
These throve so well that when disputes arose as to the ownership of the
place they had five thousand sheep and a great number of cattle, pigs and
horses. In 1851 W. J. McDonald, one of the Hudson's Bay Company's employes,
established a salmon fishery at San Juan and warned the United States
fishermen in the vicinity that they must not fish inshore as the island was
British territory.
On the other hand, the Legislature of Oregon in 1852
organized Whid-by Island and the Haro Archipelago into a district called
Esland County. The next year Oregon was divided and the district placed
under the jurisdiction of Washington. In 1854 the collector of customs for
Puget Sound, I. N. Ebey, came over to collect dues
from the Hudson's Bay Company agent for pure bred stock which had been
lately imported. The customs house officer met Charles John Griffen, a clerk
of the company and justice of the peace for the colony of Vancouver Island,
who asserted that San Juan was British territory and that no duties could be
collected on behalf of the United States. When Governor Douglas heard of the
matter he came over from Victoria in the steamer Otter, with Charles
Sangster, collector of customs for that port. Sangster came on shore,
declared the island British territory and hoisted the British flag. Ebey
unfurled the United States revenue flag, swore in Henry Webber as a deputy
and sailed away. Within the year, fear of the northern Indians caused Webber
to leave the island. During this year an appraiser was sent over from
Washington to assess the property of San Juan. As the Hudson's Bay Company
refused to pay the assessment the sheriff of Whatcom arrived and seized and
sold at auction a number of the company's sheep. The protests against this
action caused Governor Stephens to apprise the executive of the United
States of what he had done. He was told to instruct the officials of the
territory not to attempt to enforce the payment of any taxes on the island
of San Juan as long as there was any dispute as to its ownership. At the
same time they were not to acknowledge that it was a British possession.
Accordingly assessments continued to be made and imports valued as before
though the officials sent to perform these services were frequently obliged
to seek from the Hudson's Bay Company's men protection from the northern
Indians, who were frequent and dangerous visitors. Affairs had reached this
point when in 1856 a commission was appointed to fix the boundary line laid
down in the Treaty of Oregon in 1846. The commissioners were Captain Prevost
and Captain Richards for the British government and Archibald Campbell, with
whom was associated Lieutenant Parke, for that of the United States.
Expeditions were fitted out by both nations. That of the United States, the
first to arrive, was on board the surveying ship "Active," and the brig
"Fauntleroy." Captain Prevost came out in H. M. S. "Satellite" in June,
1857, followed some months later by Captain Richards in H. M. S. " Plumper."
There was no question as to the boundary between the
British and United States possessions .until the sea was reached. The
position of the forty-ninth parallel was ascertained and monuments placed
from the north shore of Semiahmoo Bay to the southeastern limit of East
Kootenay. But as to the boundary through the water after it left the
forty-ninth parallel there was an irreconcilable difference of opinion
between the commissioners. The words of the Oregon Treaty which refer to
this part of the boundary are: "From the point on the forty-ninth parallel
of north latitude, where the boundary laid down by existing treaties and
conventions between Great Britain and the United States terminates, the line
of the boundary between the territories of her Britannic Majesty and those
of the United States shall be
continued westward along the
forty-ninth parallel of north latitude to the middle of the channel which
separates the continent from Vancouver Island and thence southerly through
the middle of said channel, and of Fuca Strait to the Pacific Ocean,
provided, however, that the navigation of the said channel and straits,
south of the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, remain free and open to
both parties."
If there had been only one
channel between Vancouver Island and the continent, there could have been no
dispute, as the words of the treaty are very explicit. But the water
immediately south of the forty-ninth parallel is divided by the Haro
Archipelago, into three navigable channels. The largest of these, some seven
miles wide, called the Canal de Haro, separates Vancouver Island from the
Archipelago. Rosario Straits lies between Washington and the islands of
Orcas and Lopez. Through which of these channels should the boundary run?
The United States commissioners declared that the framers of the treaty had
in mind the Canal de Haro, the widest channel and the one nearest Vancouver
Island. The British commissioners contended quite as strongly that Rosario
Strait fulfilled the conditions of the treaty and that moreover at the time
it was drawn up, San Juan, the largest of the islands, belonged to Vancouver
Island, the Hudson's Bay Company having occupied it since 1843. In August,
1859, Lord Jorm Russell, head of the foreign office, in a dispatch to Lord
Lyons, the British minister at Washington, proposed that rather than
continue the irritating controversy the middle channel should be adopted as
the one through the middle of which the boundary line should pass. This
would give all the islands except San Juan to the United States. The
compromise was not accepted and when, having thoroughly surveyed the three
channels the commission found that they could come to no agreement, the
matter was in 1867, ten years after they had begun their labors, referred to
their respective governments,
While surveyors and
diplomatists were striving to. arrive at a peaceful solution of the boundary
question a trivial incident rendered its settlement still more difficult. A
United States settler named Lyman A. Cutler, had gone in April, 1859, to
live on San Juan Island, and planted a patch of potatoes near the Hudson's
Bay Company's establishment. One of the Company's hogs on the 15th of June
had rooted up some of Cutler's potatoes and was shot by the angry farmer.
The manager of the Company's farm demanded a high price for the animal,
which Cutler refused to pay. During the day it happened that three of the
leading men of the company, Dallas, Tolmie and Fraser, came over to San Juan
on the steamer "Beaver." Dallas on hearing of the occurrence insisted on the
payment demanded and warned Cutler against any further injury to the
company's property. High words and even threats were said to have passed
between the two men.
General Harney was at that time commander of the military
department of Oregon. The American settlers, of whom there were about
thirty, had in May asked the general to send them a guard of twenty soldiers
to protect them from, the northern Indians. He did not comply with their
request at the time, but on the 9th of July he visited the island. He was
presented by Cutler and other settlers from the United States with a second
petition asking for protection, not only from the Indians, but from the
authorities on Vancouver Island, who they stated had threatened Cutler's
arrest. General Harney without communicating with his superior officer or
with the authorities at Washington, issued an order to Captain Pickett to
transfer his company from Fort Bellingham to San Juan Island. On the day of
the arrival of Pickett's deatchment (July 27th), Major de Courcy came over
from Victoria on H. M. S. "Satellite" to fill under British law the office
of Stipendiary Magistrate on the Island of San Juan.
Captain Pickett proceeded to establish a military camp,
and on the 31st was reinforced by another company under Colonel Casey from
Steilacoom. There were then stationed at the island 461 United States
soldiers, with eight 32 pounders.
It was September before the British minister in
Washington learned that the disputed territory had been
occupied by United States soldiers. The ambassador represented the matter to
the president as likely to occasion a grave breach of the friendly relations
between the two governments. The executive of the United States immediately
sent General Scott to inquire into the cause of General Harney's action, and
to make such arrangements as would tend to preserve peace between England
and the United States. On his arrival at the Pacific Coast General Scott
ordered the removal of all the cannon from San Juan and left but one company
of soldiers there. As Pickett had rendered himself objectionable to the
British residents of the island an officer named Hunt was put in his place.
He urged upon Governor Douglas the advisability of sending an equal force to
occupy the island on behalf of Great Britain. After some delay this plan was
agreed to and on the 20th of March, 1860, a detachment of Marines under
Captain George Bazalgette was sent to San Juan. This joint occupation
continued for twelve years. The greatest harmony and good feeling prevailed
between the military men stationed at San Juan and many pleasant social
gatherings attended by the young people of Victoria and Esquimalt, took
place on the island. That no collision took place while General Harney was
placing the troops on San Juan was entirely owing to the wise forbearance of
General Baynes, who would allow neither the provocation of his enemies nor
the rashness of his friends to hurry into ill-considered action. This was
the more to be commended as he had, by the admission of the American
officers; a force amply sufficient to prevent the landing of the troops or
to effect their capture afterwards.
The San Juan difficulty still remained unsettled when in
1871 the Joint High Commission met at Washington. By one of the terms of the
treaty then drawn up it was decreed that the matter of the disputed boundary
should be submitted to the arbitration of the Emperor William of Germany,
whose decision would be final. George Bancroft the American minister to
Germany was appointed to prepare the case of the United States, while Mr.
Petre the British charge d'affaires conducted that of Great Britain. The
award was made in favor of the contention of the United States on October
ioth, 1872. By this time British Columbia had become a province of Canada,
whose southern limit from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific was not
completely defined.
The Alaskan Boundary.
To the modern tourist the name of Alaska suggests a scene
of rugged grandeur whose chief features are high rocky islands, deep fiords
and mighty mountains, whose immense glaciers glisten in the sunlight. The
sea sheltered by rocks on either hand is peaceful and the only dangers to be
feared are the sunken rock or the hidden iceberg. As he floats along during
the endless midsummer days it requires an effort to remember that the
ownership of these picturesque fiords and barren shores has been a subject
of grave dispute between two powerful nations. Yet a great deal of time and
thought has been spent by some of the wisest men in England and the United
States and much money has been expended in the effort to settle the Alaskan
Boundary Question. All that can be done here is to give a brief outline of
the history of the dispute and of the terms of settlement.
The peninsula of Alaska was discovered in the year 1741
by Behring on his third voyage. Its shores were soon frequented by Russian
fur traders, and in 1789 the Russian American Fur Company was formed, and
given exclusive privileges of trade in the whole of Alaska, which seems at
that time to have been undefined territory. When at the end of the
eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century British explorers
found their way either by land or sea to the territory to the south and east
of her possessions, Russia does not seem to have concerned herself much
about their doings. It was another matter when fur traders began to occupy
the country and to deplete the waters of the sea-otter and seal and the land
of beaver, marten and other fur-bearing animals. The Russian monopolists
-viewed with great disfavor the neighborhood of the British monopolists. In
1821, the year when the great fur companies united, the Russian emperor
issued a ukase, claiming the whole west of America north of
the fifty-first parallel of north latitude and forbidding the subjects of
any foreign nation to approach within one hundred miles of the coast.
England hastened to protest against the extravagant claims, and in 1825 a
treaty was made defining the boundary between the respective possessions of
England and Russia in America.
The Peninsula of Alaska was
divided from1 the British possessions to the east of it by the one hundred
and forty-first degree of longitude, about which no dispute could arise.
Russia, however, claimed a strip of seacoast reaching as far south as
latitude fifty-four degrees forty minutes. Though the coast had been
explored by Vancouver the land was untrodden by the foot of civilized man.
It was traversed by mountains, crossed by rivers, and indented by many arms
of the sea. An archipelago of islands stretched along its coast. The
definition of the eastern boundary of this part of Alaska was laid down very
elaborately by the negotiations. It was more than half a century before
there was any necessity for ascertaining where this boundary lay and then
many difficulties presented themselves as to the interpretation of the
treaty. There was also a clause which gave British subjects "the right of
navigating freely and without any hindrance whatever, all the rivers and
streams which may cross the line of demarcation upon the line of coast
described in article III of the present Convention."
While the Russians held
Alaska no dispute arose with regard to the provisions of the treaty. Between
the years 1839 and 1849 the Hudson's Bay Company leased the Russian
territory between latitudes fifty-four degrees forty minutes and 58 degrees
North.
In 1867 the United States
purchased Alaska from Russia in the same year the Dominion of Canada was
formed. When in 1871 British Columbia entered into confederation Alaska and
Canada became adjoining territories. In that year the treaty of Washington
was signed and it contained a clause which was interpreted to mean that
England gave up the right of her subject to navigate the rivers and streams
of Alaska for any purpose save that of commerce.
Gold was discovered in the Cassiar District of British
Columbia in 1872. The nearest route into the country was by the Stikine
River, which was declared to run through the United States territory; this
caused an agitation for a definition of the boundary and surveyors went into
the country to try to locate it, but little was done till in 1896 the great
discovery of gold in the Klondike, a tributary of the Yukon situated in the
northwest of Canada, showed still more plainly the dangers and
inconveniences that might arise from an uncertain boundary. From every
quarter men rushed to the gold-fields carrying with them valuable outfits.
The most direct entrance was by Lynn Canal in Alaska. The. United States
town of Skagway was on this canal, and Canada claimed, but was refused the
right to build one near it. A provisional boundary was perforce agreed upon
at this place.
The Alaskan Boundary controversy must be allowed to exist
no longer. All the points in dispute resolved themselves into one. To whom
did the inlets belong? The treaty declared that the width of the Russian,
now the United States possessions should be ten marine leagues measured by a
line drawn "parallel to the windings of the coast." Canada contended that
the "coast" meant the shores of the Archipelago while the United States
maintained that the ten marine leagues were to be measured from the
continental coast-line. The wheels of diplomacy were at last set in motion
and in January, 1903, a commission was appointed, consisting of Lord
Alverston, Chief Justice of England, Sir Louis Jette, a retired judge of the
Supreme Court of Canada, and A. B. Aylesworth, a Canadian lawyer,
representing British interests, and Elihu Root, Secretary of War, Henry C.
Lodge, Senator of Massachusetts, and George Turner, formerly Senator from
Washington, on behalf of the United States. It was agreed that the decision
of a majority of the commission should be binding on both nations. After
many months' de-r liberation the award was given in October in spite of the
protest of the Canadian commissioners, who refused to sign
it. By the verdict of the commission the United States retained possession
of the inlets of Alaska. At the< mouth of Portland Channel, the beginning of
the boundary, are four islands. Two of these, Pearse and Wales Islands, were
awarded to Canada, while the United States received Sitklan and Kamaghmnut.
