Oregon boundary dispute
The Oregon boundary dispute or the Oregon Question was a territorial dispute over the political division of the Pacific Northwest of North America between several nations that had competing territorial and commercial aspirations over the region. Expansionist competition into the region began in the 18th century, with participants including the Russian Empire, the United Kingdom and the United States. By the 1820s, both the Russians, through the Russo-American Treaty of 1824 and the Russo-British Treaty of 1825, the Spanish, by the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, formally withdrew their territorial claims in the region. Through these treaties the British and Americans gained residual territorial claims in the disputed area; the remaining portion of the North American Pacific coast contested by the United Kingdom and the United States was defined as the following: west of the Continental Divide of the Americas, north of Mexico's Alta California border of 42nd parallel north, south of Russian America at parallel 54°40′ north.
The Oregon dispute began to become important in geopolitical diplomacy between the British Empire and the new American republic after the War of 1812. In the 1844 U. S. presidential election, ending the Oregon Question by annexing the entire area was a position adopted by the Democratic Party. Some scholars have claimed the Whig Party's lack of interest in the issue was due to its relative insignificance among other more pressing domestic problems. Democratic candidate James K. Polk appealed to the popular theme of manifest destiny and expansionist sentiment, defeating Whig Henry Clay. Polk sent the British government the offered partition along the 49th parallel. Subsequent negotiations faltered as the British plenipotentiaries still argued for a border along the Columbia River. Tensions grew as American expansionists like Senator Edward A. Hannegan of Indiana and Representative Leonard Henly Sims of Missouri, urged Polk to annex the entire Pacific Northwest to the 54°40′ parallel north, as the Democrats had called for in the election.
The turmoil gave rise to slogans such as "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!" As relations with Mexico were deteriorating following the annexation of Texas, the expansionist agenda of Polk and the Democratic Party created the possibility of two different, simultaneous wars for the United States. Just before the outbreak of the Mexican–American War, Polk returned to his earlier position of a border along the 49th parallel; the 1846 Oregon Treaty established the border between British North America and the United States along the 49th parallel until the Strait of Georgia, where the marine boundary curved south to exclude Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands from the United States. As a result, a small portion of the Tsawwassen Peninsula, Point Roberts, became an exclave of the United States. Vague wording in the treaty left the ownership of the San Juan Islands in doubt, as the division was to follow "through the middle of the said channel" to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. During the so-called Pig War, both nations agreed to a joint military occupation of the islands.
Kaiser Wilhelm I of the German Empire was selected as an arbitrator to end the dispute, with a three-man commission ruling in favor of the United States in 1872. There the Haro Strait became the border line, rather than the British favored Rosario Strait; the border established by the Oregon Treaty and finalized by the arbitration in 1872 remains the boundary between the United States and Canada in the Pacific Northwest. The Oregon Question originated in the 18th century during the early European or American exploration of the Pacific Northwest. Various Empires began to consider the area suitable for colonial expansion, including the Americans, Russians and British. Naval captains such as the Spanish Juan José Pérez Hernández, British George Vancouver and American Robert Gray gave defining regional water formations like the Columbia River and the Puget Sound their modern names and charted in the 1790s. Overland explorations were commenced by the British Alexander Mackenzie in 1792 and followed by the American Lewis and Clark expedition, which reached the mouth of the Columbia River in 1805.
These explorers claimed in the name of their respective governments sovereignty over the Northwest Coast. The knowledge of fur-bearing animal populations like the California sea lion, North American beaver and the Northern fur seal were used to create an economic network called the maritime fur trade; the fur trade would remain the main economic interest that drew Euro-Americans to the Pacific Northwest for decades. Merchants exchanged goods for fur pelts along the coast with indigenous nations such as the Chinookan people, the Aleuts and the Nuu-chah-nulth. A series of expeditions to the Pacific Northwest were financed by the Spanish to strengthen their claims to the region. Creating a colony called Santa Cruz de Nuca on Vancouver Island, the Spanish were the first white colonisers of the Pacific Northwest outside Russian America to the north. A period of tensions with the United Kingdom, called the Nootka Crisis, arose after the Spanish seized a British vessel; however the three Nootka Conventions averted conflict, with both countries agreeing to protect their mutual access to Friendly Cove against outside powers.
While the Spanish colony was abandoned, a border delineating the northern reaches of New Spain wasn't included. Despite the Nootka Conventions still allowing the Spanish to establish colonies in the region, no more attempts were made as other geopolitical and domestic matters drew the attention of the authorities. With the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, the Spanish formally withdrew all formal claims to lands nor
Portland, Oregon
Portland is the largest and most populous city in the U. S. state of Oregon and the seat of Multnomah County. It is a major port in the Willamette Valley region of the Pacific Northwest, at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers; as of 2017, Portland had an estimated population of 647,805, making it the 26th-largest city in the United States, the second-most populous in the Pacific Northwest. 2.4 million people live in the Portland metropolitan statistical area, making it the 25th most populous MSA in the United States. Its Combined Statistical Area ranks 18th-largest with a population of around 3.2 million. 60% of Oregon's population resides within the Portland metropolitan area. Named after Portland, the Oregon settlement began to be populated in the 1830s near the end of the Oregon Trail, its water access provided convenient transportation of goods, the timber industry was a major force in the city's early economy. At the turn of the 20th century, the city had a reputation as one of the most dangerous port cities in the world, a hub for organized crime and racketeering.
After the city's economy experienced an industrial boom during World War II, its hard-edged reputation began to dissipate. Beginning in the 1960s, Portland became noted for its growing progressive political values, earning it a reputation as a bastion of counterculture; the city operates with a commission-based government guided by a mayor and four commissioners as well as Metro, the only directly elected metropolitan planning organization in the United States. The city government is notable for its land-use investment in public transportation. Portland is recognized as one of the world's most environmentally conscious cities because of its high walkability, large community of bicyclists, farm-to-table dining, expansive network of public transportation options, over 10,000 acres of public parks, its climate is marked by cool, rainy winters. This climate is ideal for growing roses, Portland has been called the "City of Roses" for over a century. During the prehistoric period, the land that would become Portland was flooded after the collapse of glacial dams from Lake Missoula, in what would become Montana.
These massive floods occurred during the last ice age and filled the Willamette Valley with 300 to 400 feet of water. Before American pioneers began arriving in the 1800s, the land was inhabited for many centuries by two bands of indigenous Chinook people—the Multnomah and the Clackamas; the Chinook people occupying the land were first documented in 1805 by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Before its European settlement, the Portland Basin of the lower Columbia River and Willamette River valleys had been one of the most densely populated regions on the Pacific Coast. Large numbers of pioneer settlers began arriving in the Willamette Valley in the 1830s via the Oregon Trail, though life was centered in nearby Oregon City. In the early 1840s a new settlement emerged ten miles from the mouth of the Willamette River halfway between Oregon City and Fort Vancouver; this community was referred to as "Stumptown" and "The Clearing" because of the many trees cut down to allow for its growth. In 1843 William Overton saw potential in the new settlement but lacked the funds to file an official land claim.
For 25 cents, Overton agreed to share half of the 640-acre site with Asa Lovejoy of Boston. In 1845 Overton sold his remaining half of the claim to Francis W. Pettygrove of Maine. Both Pettygrove and Lovejoy wished to rename "The Clearing" after their respective hometowns; this controversy was settled with a coin toss that Pettygrove won in a series of two out of three tosses, thereby providing Portland with its namesake. The coin used for this decision, now known as the Portland Penny, is on display in the headquarters of the Oregon Historical Society. At the time of its incorporation on February 8, 1851, Portland had over 800 inhabitants, a steam sawmill, a log cabin hotel, a newspaper, the Weekly Oregonian. A major fire swept through downtown in August 1873, destroying twenty blocks on the west side of the Willamette along Yamhill and Morrison Streets, causing $1.3 million in damage. By 1879, the population had grown to 17,500 and by 1890 it had grown to 46,385. In 1888, the city built the first steel bridge built on the West Coast.
Portland's access to the Pacific Ocean via the Willamette and Columbia rivers, as well as its easy access to the agricultural Tualatin Valley via the "Great Plank Road", provided the pioneer city with an advantage over other nearby ports, it grew quickly. Portland remained the major port in the Pacific Northwest for much of the 19th century, until the 1890s, when Seattle's deepwater harbor was connected to the rest of the mainland by rail, affording an inland route without the treacherous navigation of the Columbia River; the city had its own Japantown, for one, the lumber industry became a prominent economic presence, due to the area's large population of Douglas Firs, Western Hemlocks, Red Cedars, Big Leaf Maple trees. Portland developed a reputation early in its history as a gritty port town; some historians have described the city's early establishment as being a "scion of New England. In 1889, The Oregonian called Portland "the most filthy city in the Northern States", due to the unsanitary sewers and gutters, and, at the turn of the 20th century, it was considered one of the most dangerous port cities in the world.
The city housed a large number of saloons
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada, the United States, parts of Europe including Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany; the company's namesake business division is Hudson's Bay referred to as The Bay. Other divisions include Home Outfitters, Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue. HBC's head office is located in Brampton, Ontario; the company is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "HBC". After incorporation by English royal charter in 1670, the company functioned as the de facto government in parts of North America for nearly 200 years until the HBC sold the land it owned to Canada in 1869 as part of The Deed of Surrender. During its peak, the company controlled the fur trade throughout much of the English- and British-controlled North America. By the mid-19th century, the company evolved into a mercantile business selling a wide variety of products from furs to fine homeware in a small number of sales shops across Canada.
These shops were the first step towards the department stores. In 2008, HBC was acquired by NRDC Equity Partners, which owns the upmarket American department store Lord & Taylor. From 2008 to 2012, the HBC was run through a holding company of NRDC, Hudson's Bay Trading Company, dissolved in early 2012. Since 2012, the HBC directly oversees its Canadian subsidiaries Hudson's Bay and Home Outfitters, in addition to the operations of Lord & Taylor in the United States; the Hudson's Bay Company bought Saks, Inc. in 2013, German department store chain Galeria Kaufhof in 2015, online shopping site Gilt Groupe in 2015, 20 former Vroom & Dreesmann sites in the Netherlands in 2015. Gilt Groupe was sold to online fashion store Rue La La in 2018. In the 17th century the French had a de facto monopoly on the Canadian fur trade with their colony of New France. Two French traders, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers, Radisson's brother-in-law, learned from the Cree that the best fur country lay north and west of Lake Superior, that there was a "frozen sea" still further north.
Assuming this was Hudson Bay, they sought French backing for a plan to set up a trading post on the Bay, to reduce the cost of moving furs overland. According to Peter C. Newman, "concerned that exploration of the Hudson Bay route might shift the focus of the fur trade away from the St. Lawrence River, the French governor", Marquis d'Argenson, "refused to grant the coureurs de bois permission to scout the distant territory". Despite this refusal, in 1659 Radisson and Groseilliers set out for the upper Great Lakes basin. A year they returned with premium furs, evidence of the potential of the Hudson Bay region. Subsequently, they were arrested for trading without a licence and fined, their furs were confiscated by the government. Determined to establish trade in the Hudson Bay and Groseilliers approached a group of English colonial businessmen in Boston, Massachusetts to help finance their explorations; the Bostonians agreed on the plan's merits but their speculative voyage in 1663 failed when their ship ran into pack ice in Hudson Strait.
Boston-based English commissioner Colonel George Cartwright learned of the expedition and brought the two to England to raise financing. Radisson and Groseilliers arrived in London in 1665 at the height of the Great Plague; the two met and gained the sponsorship of Prince Rupert. Prince Rupert introduced the two to his cousin, King Charles II. In 1668 the English expedition acquired two ships, the Nonsuch and the Eaglet, to explore possible trade into Hudson Bay. Groseilliers sailed on the Nonsuch, commanded by Captain Zachariah Gillam, while the Eaglet was commanded by Captain William Stannard and accompanied by Radisson. On 5 June 1668, both ships left port at Deptford, but the Eaglet was forced to turn back off the coast of Ireland; the Nonsuch continued to James Bay, the southern portion of Hudson Bay, where its explorers founded, in 1668, the first fort on Hudson Bay, Charles Fort at the mouth of the Rupert River. Both the fort and the river were named after the sponsor of the expedition, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, one of the major investors and soon to be the new company's first governor.
After a successful trading expedition over the winter of 1668–69, Nonsuch returned to England on 9 October 1669 with the first cargo of fur resulting from trade in Hudson Bay. The bulk of the fur – worth £1,233 – was sold to Thomas Glover, one of London's most prominent furriers; this and subsequent purchases by Glover made. The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson's Bay was incorporated on 2 May 1670, with a royal charter from King Charles II; the charter granted the company a monopoly over the region drained by all rivers and streams flowing into Hudson Bay in northern Canada. The area was named "Rupert's Land" after Prince Rupert, the first governor of the company appointed by the King; this drainage basin of Hudson Bay constitutes 1.5 million square miles, comprising over one-third of the area of modern-day Canada and stretches into the present-day north-central United States. The specific boundaries were unknown at the time. Rupert's Land would become Canada's largest land "purchase" in the 19th century.
The HBC established six posts between 1668 and 171
Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail is a 2,170-mile historic East–West, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of the future state of Kansas, nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming; the western half of the trail spanned most of the future states of Oregon. The Oregon Trail was laid by fur traders and trappers from about 1811 to 1840, was only passable on foot or by horseback. By 1836, when the first migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho. Wagon trails were cleared farther west, reached all the way to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, at which point what came to be called the Oregon Trail was complete as annual improvements were made in the form of bridges, cutoffs and roads, which made the trip faster and safer. From various starting points in Iowa, Missouri, or Nebraska Territory, the routes converged along the lower Platte River Valley near Fort Kearny, Nebraska Territory and led to rich farmlands west of the Rocky Mountains.
From the early to mid-1830s the Oregon Trail and its many offshoots were used by about 400,000 settlers, miners and business owners and their families. The eastern half of the trail was used by travelers on the California Trail, Mormon Trail, Bozeman Trail, before turning off to their separate destinations. Use of the trail declined as the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, making the trip west faster and safer. Today, modern highways, such as Interstate 80 and Interstate 84, follow parts of the same course westward and pass through towns established to serve those using the Oregon Trail. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson issued the following instructions to Meriwether Lewis: "The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, & such principal stream of it, as, by its course & communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Colorado and/or other river may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce."
Although Lewis and William Clark found a path to the Pacific Ocean, it was not until 1859 that a direct and practicable route, the Mullan Road, connected the Missouri River to the Columbia River. The first land route across what is now the United States was mapped by the Lewis and Clark Expedition between 1804 and 1806. Lewis and Clark believed they had found a practical overland route to the west coast. On the return trip in 1806, they traveled from the Columbia River to the Snake River and the Clearwater River over Lolo pass again, they traveled overland up the Blackfoot River and crossed the Continental Divide at Lewis and Clark Pass and on to the head of the Missouri River. This was a shorter and faster route than the one they followed west; this route had the disadvantages of being much too rough for wagons and controlled by the Blackfoot Indians. Though Lewis and Clark had only traveled a narrow portion of the upper Missouri River drainage and part of the Columbia River drainage, these were considered the two major rivers draining most of the Rocky Mountains, the expedition confirmed that there was no "easy" route through the northern Rocky Mountains as Jefferson had hoped.
Nonetheless, this famous expedition had mapped both the eastern and western river valleys that bookend the route of the Oregon Trail across the continental divide—they just had not located the South Pass or some of the interconnecting valleys used in the high country. They did show the way for the mountain men, who within a decade would find a better way across if it was not to be an easy way. Founded by John Jacob Astor as a subsidiary of his American Fur Company in 1810, the Pacific Fur Company operated in the Pacific Northwest in the ongoing North American fur trade. Two movements of PFC employees were planned by Astor, one detachment to be sent to the Columbia River by the Tonquin and the other overland under an expedition led by Wilson Price Hunt. Hunt and his party were to find possible supply routes and trapping territories for further fur trading posts. Upon arriving at the river in March 1811, the Tonquin crew began construction of what became Fort Astoria; the ship left supplies and men to continue work on the station and ventured north up the coast to Clayoquot Sound for a trading expedition.
While anchored there, Jonathan Thorn insulted an elder Tla-o-qui-aht, elected by the natives to negotiate a mutually satisfactory price for animal pelts. Soon after, the vessel was attacked and overwhelmed by the indigenous Clayoquot killing most of the crew except its Quinault interpreter, who told the PFC management at Fort Astoria of the destruction; the next day, the ship was blown up by surviving crew members. Under Hunt, fearing attack by the Niitsitapi, the overland expedition veered south of Lewis and Clark's route into what is now Wyoming and in the process passed across Union Pass and into Jackson Hole, Wyoming. From there they went over the Teton Range via Teton Pass and down to the Snake River into modern Idaho, they abandoned their horses at the Snake River, made dugout canoes, attempted to use the river for transport. After a few days' travel they soon discovered that steep canyon
Mission 66
Mission 66 was a United States National Park Service ten-year program, intended to expand Park Service visitor services by 1966, in time for the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Park Service. When the National Park Service was created in 1916, long-distance travel in North America was accomplished by train. There was no national road system, airline travel was in its infancy. Railroads were involved in the development of visitor services at such parks as Grand Canyon National Park, Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park, in many cases the railroads built and operated park visitor facilities. With the development of the US highway system as a public works project during the Great Depression, many remote parks became accessible via good roads and inexpensive automobiles; the explosion in prosperity following World War II brought a tide of automobile-borne tourists that the parks were ill-equipped to receive. By the mid-1950s it was apparent. Mission 66 was conceived as the means to accommodate increased visitor numbers and to provide high-quality interpretation services.
While Mission 66 involved a variety of infrastructure projects such as roads and employee housing, the most visible components were interpretive facilities and visitor centers. Visitor centers were the first point of contact between the Park Service and visitors, the Park Service put considerable emphasis on the appropriate orientation and learning opportunities that visitor centers could provide. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Park Service came under increasing criticism for neglect of the park system. An essay by Bernard DeVoto in Harper's Magazine proposed that the national parks should be closed until they were funded appropriately. While this had little immediate effect, it highlighted an increasing level of concern about the state and future direction of the park system. In 1955, Park Service Director Conrad Wirth proposed a decade-long program of capital improvement, to be funded as a single program by Congress; the expressed aim was to complete the upgrades in time for the Park Service's 50th anniversary in 1966.
In early parks, visitor orientation facilities were built on a small scale in the form of "trailside museums" for visitor edification. With the development of the visitor center concept, the visitor center was to be the main point of contact between the Park Service and visitors, providing orientation, toilets, public safety and administrative services in one location; as a new feature, visitor centers had to be built and in quantity. The National Park Service Rustic style, popular was suitable for the 1930s, when cheap and plentiful Civilian Conservation Corps labor was available, but was not practical on a large scale in a time of full employment. Managers such as Thomas Chalmers Vint, the Park Service director of design and construction, made a conscious decision to employ a more streamlined modern style of design for Mission 66 facilities; the simpler, cleaner design philosophy was faster and less expensive to implement, its public image fitted with the idea of a "new era" in park services.
Mission 66 involved substantial re-planning of entire park infrastructures, with new developments reaching the proportions of new towns. Grant Village and Canyon Village, together with the never-built Firehole Village were intended to diminish the impact of visitor accommodations on sensitive areas close to park attractions in Yellowstone National Park replacing heavy development at West Thumb, the Canyon Hotel, the Old Faithful Inn and Lodge; the similar Wuksachi Village in Sequoia National Park was planned to replace the Giant Forest and Camp Kaweah developments. Colter Bay Village in Grand Teton National Park included the relocation of cabins from guest ranches displaced by the expansion of the park into Jackson Hole. Mission 66 was controversial at the time that it was established, "and it continues to incite debate over the policies it represented. Hastening the advent of the modern environmental movement, it transformed the Sierra Club from a regional mountaineering club into a national advocacy organization."
While a large portion of the funding for Mission 66 was devoted to visitor facilities, attention was given to employee housing. Much of the existing housing amounted to little more than cabins. Using the model of postwar military housing, a series of standard designs was developed, focusing on the ranch style detached housing popular at the time. While most Mission 66 projects were intended for infrastructure improvements and visitor services, some urban projects involved the creation of new attractions at the expense of the urban landscape; the Gateway Arch National Park on the St. Louis, Missouri riverfront entailed the demolition of forty blocks of the city to create a new urban park at the feet of Gateway Arch; the old warehouse district had been targeted for demolition by the city to eradicate "urban blight", the arch and its park were seen as a means to this end, pursued since the 1930s. Much of the exploration and expansion the new project commemorated had originated from the demolished riverfront district.
In Philadelphia, the development of Independence National Historical Park involved the creation of Independence Mall. The mall was designed to provide a vista of Independence Hall, necessitating the demolition of numerous 19th-century buildings. While Mission 66 is most associated with physical improvements, it funded a number of continuing programs; the Historic
Kingdom of Hawaii
The Kingdom of Hawaiʻi originated in 1795 with the unification of the independent islands of Hawaiʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi under one government. In 1810, the whole Hawaiian Islands became unified when Kauaʻi and Niʻihau joined the Kingdom of Hawai‘i voluntarily and without bloodshed or war. Two major dynastic families ruled the House of Kalākaua; the Kingdom won recognition from major European powers. The United States became its chief trading partner; the U. S. watched over the Kingdom. Hawaii was forced to adopt a new constitution in 1887 when King Kalākaua was threatened with violence by the Honolulu Rifles, a white, anti-monarchist militia, to sign it. Queen Liliʻuokalani, who succeeded Kalākaua in 1891, tried to abrogate the 1887 constitution and promulgate a new constitution, but was overthrown in 1893 at the hands of the Committee of Safety, a group of residents consisting of Hawaiian subjects and foreign nationals of American and German descent. Hawaii became a republic until the United States annexed it using The Newlands Resolution, a joint resolution passed on July 4, 1898, by the United States Congress creating the Territory of Hawaii.
In ancient Hawaii, society was divided into multiple classes. At the top of the class system was the aliʻi class with each islands ruled by a separate aliʻi nui. All of these rulers were believed to come from a hereditary line descended from the first Polynesian, who would become the earth mother goddess of the Hawaiian religion. Captain James Cook was the first European to encounter the Hawaiian Islands, on his fourth voyage, he was killed in a dispute over the taking of a longboat. Three years the Island of Hawaii was passed to Kalaniʻōpuʻu's son, Kīwalaʻō, while religious authority was passed to the ruler's nephew, Kamehameha. A series of battles, lasting 15 years, was led by the warrior chief; the Kingdom of Hawaii was established with the help of western weapons and advisors, such as John Young and Isaac Davis. Although successful in attacking both Oʻahu and Maui, he failed to secure a victory in Kauaʻi, his effort hampered by a storm and a plague that decimated his army. Kauaʻi's chief swore allegiance to Kamehameha.
The unification ended the ancient Hawaiian society, transforming it into an independent constitutional monarchy crafted in the traditions and manner of European monarchs. From 1810 to 1893, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi was ruled by two major dynastic families: the House of Kamehameha and the Kalākaua Dynasty. Five members of the Kamehameha family led the government styled as Kamehameha. Lunalilo was a member of the House of Kamehameha through his mother. Liholiho and Kauikeaouli were direct sons of Kamehameha the Great. During Liholiho's and Kauikeaouli's reigns, the primary wife of Kamehameha the Great, Queen Kaʻahumanu, ruled as Queen Regent and Kuhina Nui, or Prime Minister. Economic and demographic factors in the 19th century reshaped the islands, their consolidation into one unified political entity led to international trade. Under Kamehameha, sandalwood was exported to China; that led to the introduction of trade throughout the islands. Following Kamehameha's death the succession was overseen by his principal wife, Ka'ahumanu, designated as regent over the new king, a minor.
Queen Ka'ahumanu eliminated various prohibitions governing women's behavior. They included women eating bananas, she overturned the old religion as the Christian missionaries arrived in the islands. The main contribution of the missionaries was to develop a written Hawaiian language; that led to high levels of literacy in Hawaii, above 90 percent in the latter half of the 19th century. The development of writing aided in the consolidation of government. Written constitutions enumerating the power and duties of the King were developed. In 1848, the Great Māhele was promulgated by the king, it instituted formal property rights to the land. It followed the customary control of the land prior to this declaration. Ninety-eight percent of the land was assigned to chiefs or nobles. Two percent went to the commoners. No land could be only transferred to lineal descendant land manager. For the natives, contact with the outer world represented demographic disaster, as a series of unfamiliar diseases such as smallpox decimated the natives.
The Hawaiian population of natives fell from 128,000 in 1778 to 71,000 in 1853 and kept declining to 24,000 in 1920. Most lived in remote villages. American missionaries converted most of the natives to Christianity; the missionaries and their children became a powerful elite into the mid-19th century. They provided the chief advisors and cabinet members of the kings and dominated the professional and merchant class in the cities; the elites promoted the sugar industry. American capital set up a series of plantations after 1850. Few natives were willing to work on the sugar plantations and so recruiters fanned out across Asia and Europe; as a result, between 1850 and 1900 some 200,000 contract laborers from China, the Philippines and elsewhere came to Hawaii under fixed term contracts. Most returned home on schedule. By 1908 about 180,000 Japanese workers had arrived. No more were allowed in; the Hawaiian army and navy developed from the warriors of Kona under Kamehameha I, who unified Hawaii in 1810.
The army and navy used both traditional canoes and uniforms including helmets made of natural materials and loincl
Fur trade
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued; the trade stimulated the exploration and colonization of Siberia, northern North America, the South Shetland and South Sandwich Islands. Today the importance of the fur trade has diminished. Animal rights organizations oppose the fur trade, citing that animals are brutally killed and sometimes skinned alive. Fur has been replaced in some clothing by synthetic imitations, for example, as in ruffs on hoods of parkas. Before the European colonization of the Americas, Russia was a major supplier of fur pelts to Western Europe and parts of Asia, its trade developed in the Early Middle Ages, first through exchanges at posts around the Baltic and Black seas. The main trading market destination was the German city of Leipzig. Kievan Russia, the first Russian State, was the first supplier of the Russian Fur Trade.
Russia exported raw furs, consisting in most cases of the pelts of martens, wolves, foxes and hares. Between the 16th and 18th centuries, Russians began to settle in Siberia, a region rich in many mammal fur species, such as Arctic fox, sable, sea otter and stoat. In a search for the prized sea otter pelts, first used in China, for the northern fur seal, the Russian Empire expanded into North America, notably Alaska. From the 17th through the second half of the 19th century, Russia was the world's largest supplier of fur; the fur trade played a vital role in the development of Siberia, the Russian Far East and the Russian colonization of the Americas. As recognition of the importance of the trade to the Siberian economy, the sable is a regional symbol of the Ural Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Siberian Novosibirsk and Irkutsk Oblasts of Russia; the European discovery of North America, with its vast forests and wildlife the beaver, led to the continent becoming a major supplier in the 17th century of fur pelts for the fur felt hat and fur trimming and garment trades of Europe.
Fur was relied on to make warm clothing, a critical consideration prior to the organization of coal distribution for heating. Portugal and Spain played major roles in fur trading after the 15th century with their business in fur hats. From as early as the 10th century and boyars of Novgorod had exploited the fur resources "beyond the portage", a watershed at the White Lake that represents the door to the entire northwestern part of Eurasia, they began by establishing trading posts along the Volga and Vychegda river networks and requiring the Komi people to give them furs as tribute. Novgorod, the chief fur-trade center prospered as the easternmost trading post of the Hanseatic League. Novgorodians expanded farther east and north, coming into contact with the Pechora people of the Pechora River valley and the Yugra people residing near the Urals. Both of these native tribes offered more resistance than the Komi, killing many Russian tribute-collectors throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries.
As Muscovy gained more power in the 15th century and proceeded in the "gathering of the Russian lands", the Muscovite state began to rival the Novgorodians in the North. During the 15th century Moscow began subjugating many native tribes. One strategy involved exploiting antagonisms between tribes, notably the Komi and Yugra, by recruiting men of one tribe to fight in an army against the other tribe. Campaigns against native tribes in Siberia remained insignificant until they began on a much larger scale in 1483 and 1499. Besides the Novgorodians and the indigenes, Muscovites had to contend with the various Muslim Tatar khanates to the east of Muscovy. In 1552 Ivan IV, the Tsar of All the Russias, took a significant step towards securing Russian hegemony in Siberia when he sent a large army to attack the Kazan Tartars and ended up obtaining the territory from the Volga to the Ural Mountains. At this point the phrase "ruler of Obdor and all Siberian lands" became part of the title of the Tsar in Moscow.
So, problems ensued after 1558 when Ivan IV sent Grigory Stroganov to colonize land on the Kama and to subjugate and enserf the Komi living there. The Stroganov family soon came into conflict with the Khan of Sibir. Ivan told the Stroganovs to hire Cossack mercenaries to protect the new settlement from the Tatars. From ca 1581 the band of Cossacks led by Yermak Timofeyevich fought many battles that culminated in a Tartar victory and the temporary end to Russian occupation in the area. In 1584 Ivan’s son Fyodor sent military governors and soldiers to reclaim Yermak conquests and to annex the land held by the Khanate of Sibir. Similar skirmishes with Tartars took place across Siberia. Russian conquerors treated the natives of Siberia as exploited enemies who were inferior to them; as they penetrated deeper into Siberia, traders built outposts or winter lodges called zimovya where they lived and collected fur tribute from native tribes. By 1620 Russia dominated the land from the Urals eastward to the Yenisey valley and to the Altai Mountains in the south, comprising about 1.25 million square miles of land.
Furs would become Russia's largest source of wealth during the seventeenth centuries. Keeping up with the advances of Western Europe required significant capital and Russia did not have sources of gold and silver, but it did have furs, which became known as "soft gold" and provided Russia with hard cur
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