Oregon Country - The Oregon Treaty

The Oregon Treaty

In 1843, settlers in the Willamette Valley established a provisional government at Champoeg, which was personally (but not officially) recognized by John McLoughlin of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1845.

Political pressure in the United States urged the occupation of all the Oregon Country. Expansionists in the American South wanted to annex Texas, while their counterparts in the Northeast wanted to annex the Oregon Country whole. It was seen as significant that the expansions be parallel, as the relative proximity to other states and territories made it appear likely that Texas would be pro-slavery and Oregon against slavery.

In the 1844 U.S. Presidential election, the Democrats had called for expansion into both areas. After his election as president, however, James K. Polk supported the 49th parallel as a northern limit for U.S. annexation in Oregon Country. It was Polk's uncompromising support for expansion into Texas and relative silence on the Oregon boundary dispute that led to the phrase "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!", referring to the northern border of the region and often erroneously attributed to Polk's campaign. The goal of the slogan was to rally Southern expansionists (some of whom wanted to annex only Texas in an effort to tip the balance of slave/free states and territories in favor of slavery) to support the effort to annex Oregon Country, appealing to the popular belief in Manifest Destiny. The British government, meanwhile, sought control of all territory north of the Columbia River.

Despite the posturing, neither country really wanted to fight what would have been the third war in 70 years against the other. The two countries eventually came to a peaceful agreement in the 1846 Oregon Treaty that divided the territory west of the Continental Divide along the 49th parallel to Georgia Strait; with all of Vancouver Island remaining under British control. This border today divides British Columbia from neighboring Washington, Idaho, and Montana.