Isolation and Empire

Early Explorers in the PNW

Early Exploration

• Search for Northwest Passage– Waterway to the Pacific

• 1579 Sir Francis Drake (England) sailed north as far as Oregon or British Columbia

• Described the area as one of “most vile, thicke, and stinking fogges.”

• He claimed it for England and left• The Spanish and Russians also claimed it

Captain James Cook

• British Explorer• Left Britain on 3rd

voyage in 1776• Never found Columbia

River or Puget Sound• Spent one month in

1788 at Nootka Sound• Dismembered in Hawaii

Replica of Endeavour

Cook’s 3 Voyages

Two Major Results of Cook’s 3rd Voyage

• Established northwest Fur Trade– Picked up sea otter pelts in PNW, traded them in

China for $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

• Training voyage for future mariners who would return to the Pacific Northwest– George Vancouver would return in 1790s and put

Puget Sound on map (and name it for his lieutenant, Peter Puget

One Problem Remained…

• Europeans began to show up in greater numbers to profit from the resources in the PNW, but…

• This newly “discovered” territory that they claimed as their own was already home to someone else

• Cook – 1788 Nootka (Vancouver Island)

• Vancouver – 1792 explored Puget Sound

• Robert Gray (US) – 1st American Circumnavigation– 1792 – Sailed up Columbia

Lewis and Clark (1804-1806)

• Followed Alexander Mackenzie’s voyages (1793) to Bella Coola

Fort Astoria, Oregon (1811)

• Founded by John Jacob Astor– German-American businessman – Pacific Fur Company

• Near the mouth of Columbia River• First Permanent American settlement in the

PNW• Failed, sold to British in 1813, U.S. got it back

in 1818

Fort Vancouver (1824)

• Hudson’s Bay Company (British) Trading Fort on North (WA) side of Columbia River

• Would be in British territory if Columbia River became boundary

Treaties with British

•Treaty of 1818– Established “Joint-Occupancy” of Oregon Territory

between British and U.S.

•Treaty of 1846 (“Oregon Treaty”)– British ceded territory south of 49th Parallel to U.S.

– British moved from Fort Vancouver to Fort Victoria

Euro-Americans in the PNW

• Explorers – Spanish, Russians, British, French, Americans

• Fur Traders/Mountain Men – 1780s-1840s• “Mission Era” (Missionaries) – 1834-1848• Settlers (Oregon Trail) – 1840-1860 saw

53,000 move west– Willamette Valley– Railroad eventually replaced trail

The Oregon Trail

• Over 2,000 mile journey• Free land in Oregon Territory (up to a square

mile per family)• Helped U.S. to implement goal of Manifest

Destiny

“Prairie Schooner”

• The name "Walla Walla" is translated several ways but most often as "many waters."

Whitman Massacre

• Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa• 1837 mission near Walla Walla• Spread measles to Cayuse • 1847, they and 11 others killed

Takes notes on:

•Missionaries– Who, why, when, where, what?

•Early Settlers– Who, why, when, where, what?