They did not long enjoy unmolested the sway which they had somewhat
surreptitiously attained. A fierce competition ensued between them and
their old rivals, the Hudson's Bay Company; which was carried on at
great cost and sacrifice, and occasionally with the loss of life. It
ended in the ruin of most of the partners of the Northwest Company; and
the merging of the relics of that establishment, in 1821, in the rival
association. From that time, the Hudson's Bay Company enjoyed a
monopoly of the Indian trade from the coast of the Pacific to the Rocky
Mountains, and for a considerable extent north and south. They removed
their emporium from Astoria to Fort Vancouver, a strong post on the left
bank of the Columbia River, about sixty miles from its mouth; whence
they furnished their interior posts, and sent forth their brigades of
trappers.
The Rocky Mountains formed a vast barrier between them and the United
States, and their stern and awful defiles, their rugged valleys, and the
great western plains watered by their rivers, remained almost a terra
incognita to the American trapper. The difficulties experienced in 1808,
by Mr. Henry of the Missouri Company, the first American who trapped
upon the head-waters of the Columbia; and the frightful hardships
sustained by Wilson P. Hunt, Ramsay Crooks, Robert Stuart, and other
intrepid Astorians, in their ill-fated expeditions across the mountains,
appeared for a time to check all further enterprise in that direction.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25