|
}} Fort Astoria (also named Fort George) was the primary fur trading post of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company (PFC). Built at the entrance of the Columbia River in 1811, it was the first American-owned settlement on the Pacific coast. With the onset of the War of 1812, the Montreal-based North West Company (NWC) bought out the assets of the PFC in 1813, including Fort Astoria. They renamed it as Fort George. It was the first British port on the Pacific coast of the Americas. In 1821 the Hudson's Bay Company took over the NWC, and Fort George was incorporated into its posts. Competition for control of Fort Astoria was a factor in the British and the Americans' resolving their disputed claims to the Oregon Country. The Fort Astoria Site was added to the list of National Historic Landmarks on November 5, 1961. It is marked by a reconstructed block house.〔 ==Pacific Fur Company== John Jacob Astor planned to have his Pacific Fur Company begin operations on the Pacific Coast by sending men by both land and sea, a large effort known as the Astor Expedition. Captain Jonathan Thorn's ship, ''Tonquin'', was used to carry a detachment of employees to the Pacific. After several days were spent surveying the mouth of the Columbia River, 33 men disembarked on 12 April 1811.〔Ross, Alexander. (''Adventures of the first settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River.'' ) London: Smith, Elder and Co. 1849, pp. 69-71.〕 Among the PFC men were eleven Kanaka laborers from the Kingdom of Hawaii, including ''Naukane'' (also known as John Coxe).〔 Notable among the early staff of Fort Astoria were two Scottish emigrants to Canada, Alexander MacKay, who had previously been with the North West Company, and Alexander Ross. Mackay died in the 1811 battle with natives that destroyed the ''Tonquin'' near Vancouver Island. Ross recalled that in almost two months, "scarcely yet an acre of ground cleared"〔Ross (1849), p. 74.〕 due to the many initial difficulties the PFC employees faced in establishing Fort Astoria: "The place thus selected for the emporium of the west, might challenge the whole continent to produce a spot of equal extent presenting more difficulties to the settler: studded with many gigantic trees of almost incredible size, many of them measuring fifty feet in girth, and so close together, and intermingled with huge rocks, as to make it work of no ordinary labour to level and clear the ground."〔 The PFC had built much of Astoria, initially out of bark-covered logs enclosing a stockade and guns mounted for defense, by the end of May.〔Skinner, Constance L. (''Adventurers of Oregon: A Chronicle of the Fur Trade.'' ) New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 1920, p. 133.〕 Another 26 Hawaiian Kanakas were hired and transported in 1812 by the ''Tonquin'' to Astoria.〔Koppel, Tom. ''Kanaka, the Untold Story of Hawaiian Pioneers in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest.'' Vancouver, B.C.: Whitcap Books. 1995, p. 16-18.〕 By the time an overland party joined them in February 1812, the PFC laborers had constructed a trading store, a blacksmith's shop, a house, and a storage shed for pelts acquired from trapping or trading with the local Native Americans. The traders arranged cannons around the perimeter for defense. The post was to serve as an administrative center for various PFC satellite forts such as Fort Okanogan. In 1811 British explorer and NWC employee David Thompson navigated the entire length of the Columbia River. He reached the partially constructed Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia, two months after the PFC's ship ''Tonquin''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fort Astoria」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|