Oregon Territory, or Columbia District
The Oregon Territory, in northwestern North America, was formed in part as a result
of US and British territorial claims and tensions. The Treaty of Ghent of 1814 decreed
that the British and US concede territory seized during the War of 1812. The port city of
Astoria, at the mouth of the
Columbia River, became for a time the focus of these repatriations, wherein both governments postured
as sovereigns. The Convention of 1818 quelled the stalemate's fury temporarily by decreeing co-occupation,
in which the lands
westward of the Stony Mountains
were made
free and open, for the term of ten years
to
the vessels, citizens, and subjects of the two Powers.
The British referred to the Oregon Territory as the Columbia District, while the United
States referred to it most commonly as Oregon Country—the regions in question were
subject to a variety of designations. Britain claimed a border as far south as the
42nd parallel, and the United States claimed as high as 54° 40'. Arguably, the hotly
contested regions, largely for reasons of trade, were the lands between the
Columbia River and the 49th parallel.
Eventually, and after much politicking, the 49th marked the territorial divide ratified
in the Oregon Treaty of 1846, whereby the British received
Vancouver Island and lands equal roughly to half of present-day
British Columbia. The United States secured the land up to the 49th, which included the region between
the Columbia and the 49th, roughly present-day Washington, Oregon, and Idaho States.
- 1. G. P. V. Akrigg and H. B. Akrigg, British Columbia Chronicle, 1788-1846 (Victoria: Discovery Press, 1975), 169.
- 2. Ibid.
- 3. Ibid., 170.
- 4. Arthur S. Morton, A History of the Canadian West to 1870-71 (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1939), 748-750.
- 5. Ibid., 149.