Fort Astoria - British Tenure

British Tenure

The War of 1812 between the British and Americans brought tension to this fort, though not as a result of hostilities between the fur companies. In 1813, the Pacific Fur Company officials, desiring to abandon the fort, sold it to officers of the British-owned North West Company. They had arrived at the coast after running low on food supplies in the Interior. Despite this sale to a British company, the British seized the fort with war-sloop Racoon. Its captain William Black renamed the post Fort George. It soon became the centre of North West Company operations in the region, where the company had no competition for the land-based fur trade. It became an important port-of-call for the Maritime Fur Trade.

for the first time, the North West Company had a competitor in the territory west of the Rocky Mountains. That competition did not last long. From beginning to end fortune frowned upon the American Fur Company. Its ships were wrecked, its overland expedition suffered losses and hardships; its affairs were mis-managed, and jealousies and bickerings marked its councils; then war broke out between Great Britain and America, and HHM Raccoon was despatched to take Fort Astoria. The officers of the warship looked forward to winning much prize-money, as the post was said to be weel-stocked with furs. However, it was already in possession of the British. Without supplies, and without an adequate force to defend the place, Donald McDougall, who in Hunt's absence was in command of the place, had disposed of the fort and all it contained to the North West Company, whose agents had found their way to the Columbia. Upon his return from a tour of the Russian settlement and the Sandwich Islands, Wilson Price Hunt found that the fort and its supplies and stores that it contained had been transferred to J.G. McTavish and John Stuart, the representatives of the North West Company. He was not, perhaps, altogether in favour of this disposition....nevertheless he acquiesced at the time....thus all the efforts and expenditure of John Jacob Astor, who had aspired to be supreme in the new region, went for naught and his British rivals acquired sole control of the whole field. No sooner had the North West Company acquired Astoria than it energetically proceeded to occupy the rich territories lying between the Fraser River and Columbia River. Fort George, formerly Astoria, became the capital of the Oregon Territory, and all supplies for the transmontane region were shipped to that place around the Horn, or through the Strait of Magellan. Fort George became a Fort William in miniature. Fields were cultivated, several large buildings erected, and the pallisades and bastions strengthened. The Nor'Westers were noted for their hospitality and bonhomie. The banqueting hall was often the scene of the revelries of as jovial a set as ever gathered together. Nevertheless the officers were jealous of each other and life at Fort George was not always as depicted by Commander Wilkes, the author of this picture.

By 1818, complications of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, resulted in an odd scenario: a fort never conquered was returned as booty-of-war. This led to additional complications of international law concerning the region, and circumstances set the stage for the "joint occupancy" of what became known as the Oregon Country afterward. British Columbian historians E.O.S. Scholefield and F.W. Howay state it this way:

During the war of 1812–14 the British government at the earnest solicitation of the North West Company sent out the sloop of war Raccoon to demolish Astoria; but before her arrival Astoria had passed into the hands of the North West Company by purchase, yet Captain Black could not resist the temptation of "taking" the fort, and as we have already shown, he went through a little demonstration of hauling down the American flag and running up the British in its place. When the war was settled by the Treaty of Ghent, the first article provided that "all territory, places and possessions whatever, taken by either party from the other during the war, or which may be taken after the signing of the treaty excepting the islands hereinafter mentioned (in the Bay of Fundy) shall be restored without delay." In the negotiation of that treaty the word "possessions" was introduced by Henry Clay, as he later proudly stated for the very purpose of including Astoria, even though it was not known at the time that it was captured. In accordance therewith in October 1818, commissioners representing the two nations met at Astoria and exchanged acts of delivery and acceptance whereby the British Commissioner Captain Hickey of HMS Blossom and J. Keith for the North West Company "did in conformity to the first article of the Treaty of Ghent restore to the Government of the United States through its agent J.B. Prevost, Esq., the settlement of Fort George on the Columbia River." The North West Company after they had obtained possession of Astoria had given it the name of Fort George. it was strongly contended that the effect of this transaction was a formal recognition of the territorial rights of the United States at the mouth of the Columbia. In addition to these claims in her own right the United States also claimed by contiguity that portion of Oregon west of the boundaries of Louisiana. And, further, claim was made by them as a result of the Florida Treaty of 1819. by that treaty, all of Spain's rights passed to the United States. It was urged that as the heir of Spain the United States obtained strength from the discoveries of the Spanish explorers Heceta, Bodega, and Maurelle. In order to escape the difficulty which the Nootka convention naturally placed in the way of any claim of exclusive sovereignty the United States were forced to argue, as they did most energetically, that by reason of the war which broke out between Spain and Great Britain in 1796, the convention of 1790 ceased to have any effect. The British claims, however, did not allege any exclusive right or sovereignty of Great Britain in the disputed territory. The claim was that the Nootka convention entitled Great Britain to a sort of joint right to settle upon and thereby obtain the sovereignty of such portion of the territory as were desired.

Despite the ceremony of possession, actual North West Company and ownership went on as before, and no actual American presence was established in the region from the symbolic repossession.

In 1821 the North West Company was merged into the Hudson's Bay Company, which took ownership of the fort. George Simpson, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, visited the Columbia River region in the mid-1820s and spent the winter of 1824–25 at Fort George. He did not like the fort, finding it inappropriate both as a fur post and a regional depot. He ordered the construction of Fort Vancouver, a new post and depot upriver at a site with better potential for agriculture, to be the administrative center of Columbia District.

Fort George was used as the company's main depot in the region from 1821 until Fort Vancouver was completed in April 1825. Fort George was abandoned from June 1825 to 1829. The Hudson's Bay Company reoccupied it on a small scale from 1830 to 1848. During this time, the fort became the center of the Hudson Bay's Company's emerging salmon fishery. The company used the salmon to feed its town employees, as well as exporting some to the Hawaiian Islands market.

The post finally became United States territory only after the Oregon Treaty ended the Oregon boundary dispute. Great Britain ceded its territorial rights south of the 49th parallel. The Hudson's Bay Company gave up its possessions in the region, though the treaty had guaranteed their continued existence.