American farmers began to drift to the Columbia Valley. At first there was no general movement. The thing was almost imperceptible. Wandering trappers turned farmers and squatted down with their families in the valleys of the Willamette and the Walla Walla and the Cowlitz. Then, as early as 1838, four families from the East came riding over the mountains seeking homesteads. McLoughlin shook his head. The thing seemed almost impossible. He remembered what the coming of the colonists had meant in Red River—the beginning of the end with the fur trade; and in Oregon, the coming of the colonist would be fraught with more importance. If American settlers outnumbered English traders, diplomacy might fold its hands. Joint occupancy would end in American possession. From the first, McLoughlin had encouraged his old traders and trappers to settle on farms in the Willamette Valley—at the famous Champoeg Colony. Fort Vancouver, itself, now comprised thirty miles of cultivated land, but between the Columbia and the Russian posts to the north was no settlement, only fur posts, and this was the very region where hinged the dispute between England and the United States for possession.
“Fifty-four forty or fight,” became the slogan of the jingoists, which meant the United States claimed territory as far as 54°; in a word to the Russian possessions. In a nutshell, the reasons for the claim were these:
When the United States took over Louisiana, Louisiana extended to the Columbia. Gray, the Boston trader, had discovered the Columbia River. Lewis and Clarke, the American explorers, had erected their wintering fort on its banks. Astor, the American trader, had built his fur post on the Columbia before the Canadians had come; and though the fort was sold to the Canadians, after the war of 1812, the American flag had been restored to Astoria, though it remained in possession of the Canadians.
Answered the British to these claims: Louisiana may extend to the Columbia, but it does not extend beyond it. Gray, the Boston man, may have discovered the mouth of the Columbia, but Vancouver, the Englishman, in the same year as Gray’s voyage, ascended the Columbia, and explored every inch of the coast from the Columbia to the Russian settlements, taking possession for Great Britain. Especially, did he discover all parts of Puget Sound. Astor, the American, may have built the first fur post on the Columbia, but Astor’s managers sold that post to the Canadian Company; and though the American flag was restored to Astoria, it was distinctly on the specified understanding that the treaty of joint occupancy should not prejudice the final decision of possession in Oregon.
Jingoists in England wanted all of Oregon. Jingoists in America wanted all of British Columbia’s coast up to Sitka. Wise heads in England were willing that the boundary should be compromised at the north bank of the Columbia. Wise heads in America were willing to relinquish United States claims beyond the forty-ninth parallel; but the foolish catch cry of “Fifty-four forty or fight” was being used as an election dodge and stirred up ill feeling enough to prevent compromise on either side.
While pompous statesmen, who knew absolutely nothing about Oregon, were deluging Congress and Parliament with orations on the subject of the boundary, ragged men and women, colonists in homespun, colonists many of them too poor for even homespun, with barefooted children, and men and women clad in buckskin, were settling the question in a practical way. They were not talking about possessions. They were taking possession.
This was the situation as McLoughlin and Simpson laid it before the Governing Board in the winter of 1838-39. Now fur traders never yet welcomed colonists. The coming of the colonists means the going of the game; but something must be done to counteract these American settlers and if possible hold the Columbia River as a highway for the Hudson’s Bay brigades. The Puget Sound Agricultural Company was formed with Hudson’s Bay men as stockholders and McLoughlin as manager, to hold the country between Columbia River and Puget Sound—modern Washington—for the English. The capital was £200,000 in 2000 shares; but there never was any intention that the venture should pay. Very little of the capital was ever paid in. The aim was to hold a region as large as England and Scotland for the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Coming back to Oregon, in 1839, with his son David, now a graduated doctor, McLoughlin sent his old trappers into the Cowlitz Valley as settlers, and had a farm of five thousand acres measured off for the Puget Sound Company. Here the stock was raised that supplied the inland posts with food. Hudson’s Bay men from Red River were sent overland to colonize the Puget Sound region.