Oregon Country or
Oregon (to be distinguished from the
American State also called
Oregon) was a predominantly
American term referring to a region of the
Pacific Northwest of
North America. The region was occupied by
British and
French Canadian fur traders from the
1810s, and American settlers from the mid-
1830s until the
Oregon Treaty of 1846 established a clear boundary between present-day
Washington and
British Columbia.
The Oregon Country, as termed by Americans intent upon its annexation, consisted of the land north of 42°N latitude, south of 54°40'N latitude, and west of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. The area now forms part of the present day Canadian province of British Columbia, all of the US states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming. The British presence in the region was generally administered by the Hudson's Bay Company, whose Columbia Department comprised most of the Oregon Country and extended considerably north beyond 54°40'N, with operations reaching to tributaries of the Yukon River.[1]
The origin of the word Oregon is not known for certain. One theory is that French explorers called the Columbia River "the river of storms," ouragan. Other possibilities have been suggested based on words from French and Spanish (since the region was explored by their nationals), but an official origin of the name is not known. George R. Stewart argued in a 1944 article in American Speech that the name came from an engraver's error in a French map published in the early 1700s, on which the Ouisiconsink (Wisconsin River) was spelled "Ouaricon-sint", broken on two lines with the -sint below, so that there appeared to be a river flowing to the west named "Ouaricon". This theory was endorsed in Oregon Geographic Names as "the most plausible explanation".
The Oregon Country was originally claimed by the Great Britain, France, Russia, and Spain; the Spanish claim was later taken up by the United States. The U.S. based its claim on Robert Gray's discovery of the Columbia River in 1792 and on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Great Britain based its claim on British overland explorations of the Columbia River and on prior discovery and exploration along the Coast. Spain's claim was based on the fact that they had explored the Pacific coast in the late 1700s. Russia based its claim off the settlements it had stretching from Alaska into Oregon. In the 18th century, France and Spain had divided their territorial claims in western North America along the 42nd parallel, with Spain claiming the land south of that line and France claiming the land north of it. France's loss at the end of the Seven Years' War effectively ended its claim to the area[citation needed]. Spain gave up its claims piecemeal, via the Nootka Conventions in the early 1790s that followed the Nootka Crisis and, later, relinquishing any remaining claims to territory north of the 42nd parallel to the United States as part of the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819. Russia gave up its claims in separate treaties with the United States in 1824 and with Britain in 1825.
