<P> Although the HBC maintained a monopoly on the fur trade during the early to mid-19th century, there was competition from James Sinclair and Andrew McDermot (Dermott), independent traders in the Red River Colony . They shipped furs by the Red River Trails to Norman Kittson a buyer in the United States . In addition, Americans controlled the Maritime fur trade on the Northwest Coast until the 1830s . </P> <P> Throughout the 1820s and 1830s, the HBC controlled nearly all trading operations in the Pacific Northwest, based at the company headquarters at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River . Although claims to the region were by agreement in abeyance, commercial operating rights were nominally shared by the United States and Britain through the Anglo - American Convention of 1818, but company policy, enforced via Chief Factor John McLoughlin of the company's Columbia District, was to discourage U.S. settlement of the territory . The company's effective monopoly on trade virtually forbade any settlement in the region . It established Fort Boise in 1834 (in present - day southwestern Idaho) to compete with the American Fort Hall, 483 km (300 mi) to the east . In 1837, it purchased Fort Hall, also along the route of the Oregon Trail . The outpost director displayed the abandoned wagons of discouraged settlers to those seeking to move west along the trail . </P> <P> The company's stranglehold on the region was broken by the first successful large wagon train to reach Oregon in 1843, led by Marcus Whitman . In the years that followed, thousands of emigrants poured into the Willamette Valley of Oregon . In 1846, the United States acquired full authority south of the 49th parallel; the most settled areas of the Oregon Country were south of the Columbia River in what is now Oregon . McLoughlin, who had once turned away would - be settlers as company director, then welcomed them from his general store at Oregon City . He was later proclaimed the "Father of Oregon". The company retains no presence today in what is now the United States portion of the Pacific Northwest . </P> <P> During the 1820s and 1830s, HBC trappers were deeply involved in the early exploration and development of Northern California . Company trapping brigades were sent south from Fort Vancouver, along what became known as the Siskiyou Trail, into Northern California as far south as the San Francisco Bay Area, where the company operated a trading post at Yerba Buena (San Francisco). These trapping brigades in Northern California faced serious risks, and were often the first to explore relatively uncharted territory . They included the lesser known Peter Skene Ogden and Samuel Black . </P>

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