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Fort William was a fur trading outpost built in 1834 by the American Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, a mountain man, backed by American investors. It was located on the Columbia River on Wappatoo Island in what is now part of Portland, Oregon. After a few years, in 1837 Wyeth leased the post to the British Hudson’s Bay Company, which had much more power in the region from its base at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River near the ocean. In 1835 the fort settlement was the site of a murder and the first Euro-American trial to be held in what is now the state of Oregon. ==Background== The fort was built by Wyeth and his company as part of the Pacific Trading Company, a joint-stock company formed by Wyeth to exploit the fur trade in the Oregon Country. Henry Hall of Boston's xx He also held Fort Hall in southeastern Idaho, to take advantage of trade in the Rocky Mountain region. His intention was to establish a fishery at Fort William, and export salmon to the East and Hawaii.〔 〕 The island chosen was previously visited by the Lewis & Clark Expedition, and was previously inhabited by Native Americans. By the time Wyeth established his outpost, the island was void of any human habitation due to epidemics of infectious diseases that had swept through the lower Columbia region. As the Natives did not have any immunity to the new Eurasian diseases, nearly 90% of them died from smallpox, measles and other illnesses following European contact.〔〔(Oregon History Project: Spreading Old World Contagions. ) Oregon Historical Society. Retrieved on February 26, 2008.〕 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 William (Oregon)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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