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Oregon Country or "Oregon" (to be distinguished from the State of Oregon) was a term that referred to a region of western North America consisting 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 region is roughly equivalent to a broad definition of the Pacific Northwest . Though the term was used to describe the area from the beginning of United States Government claims to the region until the Oregon Treaty of 1846 , it is very rarely used in this sense today. The equivalent British name for most of this area was Columbia District ; north of the Thompson River was part of the New Caledonia District which extended considerably north beyond 54°40'N. EARLY EXPLORATION Alexander Mackenzie was the first European to cross North America by land north of Mexico , arriving at Bella Coola on the Pacific coast in 1793 . Meriwether Lewis and William Clark scouted the territory for the United States on the Lewis And Clark Expedition , from 1804 to 1806 . David Thompson , working for British fur companies, explored much of Oregon Country. In 1811 he traveled down the entire Columbia River , the first European to do so. NAME ORIGIN 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'', which is a possible origin of the name "Oregon." 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". TERRITORIAL EVOLUTION The Oregon Country was originally claimed by the United States , Great Britain , France , Russia , and Spain . 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 explorations of the Columbia River. 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. France and Spain had divided their western, 18th-century territorial claims along the 42nd Parallel . France's loss at the end of the Seven Years' War effectively ended its claim to the area. Spain gave up its claims piecemeal, at the convention in 1790 that followed the seizure of Nootka Sound and 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 . Meanwhile, the United States and Britain negotiated the Anglo-American Convention Of 1818 that extended the boundary between their territories west along the 49th Parallel to the Rocky Mountains. The two countries agreed to "joint occupancy" of the land west of the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean. |
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