Katharine Berry Judson’s presentation of Dr. John McLoughlin's last letter to the Hudson's Bay Company, as chief factor, in charge at Fort Vancouver, 1845 provides a critical primary source documenting the geopolitical tipping point of the Pacific Northwest. Written from the administrative hub of Fort Vancouver—a massive fur-trade headquarters strategically mapped onto the ancient Columbia River trade corridors of the Chinookan peoples—McLoughlin’s correspondence details the inevitable collapse of the British fur monopoly in the face of mass American migration. The letter fiercely defends his controversial decision to extend vital credit, seeds, and supplies to waves of starving overland immigrants, emphasizing how these desperate homesteaders relied on unexpected interdependent alliances with the Hudson's Bay Company to survive the final, brutal stretch of the Oregon Trail. Ultimately, this foundational document captures the tense transition from a corporate resource-extraction frontier to an agricultural territory, highlighting how McLoughlin’s pragmatic humanitarianism and local community bonds inadvertently laid the civic infrastructure for American dominion over the region.

Hudson's Bay Company

Caption title"Reprinted from the American historical review. vol. XXI, no. 1, Oct., 1915."

Caption title"Reprinted from the American historical review. vol. XXI, no. 1, Oct., 1915."