Fort Vancouver
| Fort Vancouver National Historic Site | |||
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| Location: | Washington , Oregon , United States | ||
| Next city: | Vancouver and Oregon City | ||
| Surface: | 0.8 km² | ||
| Founding: | June 19, 1948 | ||
| Visitors: | 786,989 (2005) | ||
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Fort Vancouver was the name of the main fort of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in the Columbia District , which made up the northern half of what was then the Oregon Country . The name of the trading post on the Columbia River in what is now Vancouver in the US state of Washington goes back to George Vancouver . Up to 600 people were employed there, who controlled the long-distance trade and acquisition, especially of furs, and commanded a system of forts and trading posts. From 1846 the fort belonged to the USA and was used as a military base until 1946 . At times over 7,500 military personnel lived here. It has been a museum since 1948 and has been constantly expanded. Today's fort is a reconstruction.
British fort
The trading post was established in 1824, six years after Great Britain and the United States agreed to jointly manage the area. HBC had acquired Fort Astoria, but this post south of Columbia seemed less suitable to Sir George Simpson . When it was forced to merge with the North West Company in 1821, the HBC almost received state sovereignty.
Dr. John McLoughlin became the first chief factor and is considered the father of Oregon . Against British interests, he promoted the immigration of Americans.
The location was extremely convenient, as it was on one level and still offered flood-proof access to Columbia, the main trade axis in the region. The area was called "Jolie Prairie", or "Belle Vue Point".
Weapons and goods could be transported here over the river or overland via a transcontinental trade route called the York Factory Express . This trade path had been expanded by the North West Company between Fort George (the original Fort Astoria ) at the mouth of the Columbia to the Lake Superior at Fort William .
Each spring around 1825, one York Factory Express left Fort Vancouver, and another left York Factory on Hudson Bay at the same time . Each brigade consisted of 40 to 75 men in two to five boats. In exchange for the coveted goods, the Indian groups along the route supported the brigades with local knowledge and help with portages around waterfalls and rapids. The groups covered around 40 km a day and took a little more than three months for the route. They not only transported goods, especially furs, but also messages. Westward the furs went to China in order to be exchanged for Chinese goods such as china and silk, which were in great demand in London.
The fort's 6 m high palisades covered an area of 230 by 140 m, on which there were around 40 buildings. In addition to the central department store, this included a school, library, chapel, and pharmacy. There was also a forge and outside the core area gardens and fields, a shipyard, a distillery, a sawmill and farms.
Auxiliary workers lived in a separate residential town, called Kanaka Village, especially the Hawaiians that gave them their name. The main language of communication within the fort was not English, but French. The mixed language Chinook was used as the main language in foreign relations, that is to say to the Indian traders and tribes living around them belonging to more than 35 different ethnic groups . However, the reports to corporate headquarters were written in English.
Fort Vancouver supervised up to 34 outposts, 24 ports, 6 ships and up to 600 employees.
From 1838 onwards an influx of settlers from the American East began, initially in small numbers. Many gathered in St. Louis and followed the Oregon Trail .
Sir George Simpson tried to create a British-Canadian counterweight against this settlement and instructed Alexander Ross to bring settlers from the Red River Colony over the Rocky Mountains and to settle on HBC farms. Ross gave the job to James Sinclair, however . In 1841 he brought around 100 settlers to Fort Vancouver.
But the US backed up its claim to the area, and US immigration far exceeded that of the HBC. The importance of this dispute was demonstrated by the election campaign of the presidential candidate James K. Polk , who started with the slogan “Fifty-four forty or fight” (“Fifty-four-forty or fight”, which means the north latitude). The British, meanwhile, sent secret agents to the northwest to prepare for a possible war.
In 1846, however, the company had to cede the area because London and Washington had agreed on latitude 49 degrees north as the border between the British and the US area of interest. Well finished McLoughlin his service with the HBC and left the trading company to Oregon City in the Willamette Valley to found
US fort
In 1849 the US Army built the Columbia Barracks, the later Vancouver Barracks 6 m above the fort. In 1860 the HBC abandoned the fort, whereupon the US Army renamed it Fort Columbia, later Fort Vancouver. In 1861 the number of inhabitants had dropped to 60. Units of the 1st Regiment Washington Territory Volunteer Infantry were stationed during the Civil War , but in 1866 the fort largely burned down.
Fort Vancouver was rebuilt with two-story barracks around a parade ground. Seven log houses - you can still see the tree trunks in some places - and four more houses were built for the officers . During the Second World War, more buildings were built, the facility was now called Vancouver Barracks. The 5th Infantry Brigade was stationed here from 1936 to 1938, the last time the facility became an outpost of the Seattle Port Of Embarcation . At the time of its closure in 1946, it had grown to 12.22 km² and offered space for up to 250 officers and 7295 other employees.
Museum and National Historic Site
On June 19, 1948, the former fort was declared a US National Monument and rededicated on June 30, 1961 as a National Historic Site and part of the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site . It was not until 1996 that a further 1.48 km² were added around the fort, because now the area of the former Kanaka Village, the Columbia Barracks and part of the river bank belonged to it. It is managed by the National Park Service .
The National Historic Site also includes the McLoughlin House site . It is located approximately 22 miles away in Oregon City , Oregon . In it are the former homes of John McLoughlin and Forbes Barclay. The McLoughlin House is a museum for the life and work of the important HBC employee, the administration and museum shop are housed in the also historic Barcley House next door.
Washington State Route 14, better known as the Lewis and Clark Highway, has been crossed by a bridge since 2007, which connects the site to the river.
See also
Web links
- National Park Service: Fort Vancouver (official site; English)
- National Park Service: Fort Vancouver - Studies in History
Individual evidence
- ^ National Park Service: Public Use Reports, 2010 Statistical Abstract
- ↑ from the Hawaiian word for human , cf. kanaka in Hawaiian Dictionaries