No European set foot in the Pacific Northwest during this century, but the forces that would eventually reach it were already in motion elsewhere in the Americas.
Spanish Pacific Voyages Begin
Spanish galleons begin regular voyages between Mexico and the Philippines, establishing a limited Spanish presence in the North Pacific. The colonization of the Americas was already underway elsewhere, setting in motion forces that would eventually reach the Northwest.
No direct European contact took place in the Pacific Northwest during this century — but European diseases and goods were already traveling between Native peoples across the continent through established trade networks.
The Horse Reaches the Plateau
Over this extended period, horses spread into the Columbia Plateau through intertribal trade networks from the south. By the time direct European contact began, Plateau tribes had already been reorganizing their societies around horses as a means of transportation and a measure of wealth for decades.
Direct contact begins, and with it, the fur trade that would draw European and American ships to the Northwest Coast.
Shipwreck at Nehalem Beach
The Spanish galleon San Francisco Xavier, sailing from Manila to Acapulco, wrecks on the Oregon coast near Nehalem Beach — one of the earliest documented European objects, and possibly people, to reach the Northwest Coast.
Russian Expeditions Reach Alaska
Russian expeditions led by Vitus Bering discover the Bering Strait (1728) and sight Alaska and the Aleutian Islands (1741). Russian interest in Pacific fur resources spurs other European powers to explore the Northwest Coast.
First Documented Contact
Spanish explorer Juan José Pérez Hernández lands at Vancouver Island and meets with Native peoples, commencing brief trade — the first documented European–Indigenous contact on the Northwest Coast. A pair of silver spoons exchanged during this visit later served as proof of Spain’s prior presence in the region.
Spanish Claims of Possession
Spanish expeditions under Bruno de Heceta and Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra sail northward, landing and performing ritual acts of possession at points in present-day Washington and British Columbia, asserting Spanish territorial claims.
Captain Cook at Nootka Sound
British Captain James Cook’s third Pacific expedition makes landfall at Nootka Sound, acquires sea otter pelts, and explores the coastline northward to Alaska. Cook’s crew discovers the extraordinary value of sea otter furs in Asian markets, triggering a rush of British and American traders to the Northwest Coast.
The First Major Smallpox Epidemic
Smallpox strikes the Pacific Northwest, likely spreading from a 1779 outbreak in Mexico City, traveling north via trade networks through the Shoshone, Nez Perce, Walla Walla, and Flathead peoples before reaching the coast. Virgin-soil epidemics typically killed 30% or more of affected populations. Explorers later observed pockmarked survivors among the Clatsop, Chinook, Tlingit, Haida, and numerous other nations. William Clark later wrote of one Chinookan village that the disorder had destroyed their nation.
The Maritime Fur Trade Explodes
Twenty-five British ships sail to the Northwest Coast to trade furs. Between 1788 and 1794, fifteen American vessels arrive; from 1795 to 1804, fifty American vessels come to trade, compared to only nine British ships. This trade revolutionizes Indigenous economies and social structures.
The Nootka Sound Affair
Spain sends an expedition to fortify its claim to Nootka Sound and seizes British vessels and crews. The 1790 Nootka Sound Convention resolves the dispute in favor of Britain, and by 1794 Spain decides to withdraw from the Northwest Coast, effectively ceding the field to British and American interests.
Vancouver, Bodega y Quadra, and Gray
British explorer George Vancouver and Spanish explorer Bodega y Quadra meet at Nootka Sound to implement the 1790 Convention, while both explore the coastline extensively. American captain Robert Gray discovers and enters the Columbia River, establishing American commercial interest in the region.
The balance shifts from trade to territorial competition, treaty-making, and war.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition
The first thorough overland exploration by Americans crosses into the Pacific Northwest. The expedition establishes positive relations with the Nez Perce, who provide crucial aid, but finds relations strained with Columbia River tribes. It also confirms that coastal tribes already possess European goods obtained through extensive intertribal trade networks.
David Thompson and the North West Company
David Thompson, surveyor and fur trader for the rival British North West Company, crosses the Rockies and spends these years mapping and establishing trading posts throughout the Columbia Plateau — including Kootanae House (1807) and Spokane House (1810) — making him the first European to travel and chart the length of the Columbia River. He reaches the mouth of the Columbia in July 1811, only weeks after Astor’s Pacific Fur Company has already founded Astoria there, narrowly losing the race to claim the river’s mouth for Britain. His detailed maps and journals remain one of the most important records of the Plateau tribes and the geography of the region at first sustained contact.
The Founding of Astoria
John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company establishes Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River — the first permanent American settlement on the Pacific coast, and Astor’s bid to build an American fur-trading empire stretching from the Columbia to New York and on to markets in China.
The War of 1812 and the Loss of Astoria
With war underway between the United States and Britain and a British warship reportedly approaching the Columbia, Astor’s partners sell Fort Astoria to the rival British North West Company in 1813 rather than risk its seizure. Renamed Fort George, the post — and with it, control of the Columbia Basin fur trade — passes into British hands. The 1818 Treaty of Ghent and the subsequent Convention of 1818 restore the fort to nominal American sovereignty under a joint-occupation agreement, but the Hudson’s Bay Company, formed from the merger of the North West Company in 1821, remains the dominant commercial power in the region for decades afterward.
Successive Smallpox Epidemics
Outbreaks in 1800–1801, 1824, 1836, 1853, and 1863 sweep through the Pacific Northwest, each killing those born since the previous epidemic who lacked immunity. The 1853 epidemic strikes the lower Columbia River, killing half the Native communities at Chinook and The Dalles. By this time a smallpox vaccine existed but did not reach Indigenous populations.
The Land-Based Fur Trade
The land-based fur trade replaces the maritime trade as the dominant European economic presence. The Hudson’s Bay Company and North West Company establish fixed forts and interior trade routes, spreading European goods, epidemic diseases, and new forms of resource exploitation — timber, fish, farmland — deeper into the interior than ships ever could.
Russia Establishes Fort Ross
Russia establishes Fort Ross in northern California to expand the Russian-American Company’s fur operations southward from Alaska, demonstrating Russian imperial interest in the broader Pacific Coast.
Christian Missionaries Arrive in Force
Marcus and Narcissa Whitman establish their mission near present-day Walla Walla in 1836. Missionaries exert pressure on Indigenous peoples to convert, undermining traditional spiritual beliefs. Some Native groups merge Christian and Indigenous practices; others resist. Marcus Whitman eventually shifts his focus to aiding white settlement.
The Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail brings the first large waves of American settlers. The “Great Migration” of 1843 establishes permanent American agricultural settlement in the Willamette Valley, fundamentally shifting the balance from trade relationships to land competition.
The Oregon Treaty
The Oregon Treaty between the United States and Britain establishes the international boundary at the 49th parallel, dividing the Pacific Northwest between American and British/Canadian control and setting the stage for divergent colonial policies on either side of the border.
The Whitman Massacre
Cayuse warriors attack the Whitman Mission, killing Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and others. The attack stems from tensions over land encroachment, cultural imposition, and the Whitmans’ perceived failure to stop a measles epidemic that devastated the Cayuse while sparing white settlers.
The Stevens Treaties
Governor Isaac Stevens negotiates a series of treaties with tribes across Washington Territory. Treaties signed at Medicine Creek (1854), Point Elliott, Point No Point, Neah Bay, Walla Walla, and with the Yakama (all 1855) force tribes to cede over 100,000 square miles of territory in exchange for small reservations, while reserving fishing rights “at all usual and accustomed places.” Stevens reportedly instructed interpreters to warn the assembled chiefs that if they did not sign, they would walk in blood knee deep.
The Yakama War
War erupts after miners trespass on Yakama lands, steal horses, and assault women before the Walla Walla Treaty is even ratified. Yakama warriors under Chief Kamiakin fight several engagements against U.S. troops, marking the beginning of organized armed resistance to American settlement in the interior Northwest.
The Coeur d’Alene War
Also called the Spokane–Coeur d’Alene–Palouse War: tribes including the Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, and Palouse defeat U.S. troops at the Battle of Steptoe Butte, but are eventually overwhelmed by superior American forces. This effectively ends large-scale organized military resistance in Washington Territory.
A Devastating Epidemic
A Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic kills thousands across the region — one of the worst outbreaks, striking at a time when Native populations are already severely depleted and under pressure from settlement.
The Nez Perce War
After the U.S. government shrinks the Nez Perce reservation by nine-tenths in an 1863 treaty — signed by only a minority of the tribe — and settlers flood into the Wallowa Valley, several “non-treaty” bands led by Chief Joseph refuse to move to the reduced reservation. What follows is a 1,500-mile fighting retreat across four months and 18 battles, ending just 40 miles from the Canadian border with Chief Joseph’s surrender on October 5, 1877. The surviving Nez Perce are exiled to Kansas and Oklahoma.
The Allotment Era Begins
Policies break up communal reservation lands into individual parcels and open “surplus” lands to white settlers. This further erodes tribal land bases, traditional governance, and communal ways of life that had already been severely disrupted by nearly a century of European and American contact.
Summary of Impact
By the end of the 19th century, the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest had experienced:
- Catastrophic population loss — perhaps up to 90% in some areas due to successive smallpox and other epidemics
- Economic transformation — from subsistence and local trade to dependence on European goods and participation in global fur markets
- Political and military subjugation — treaties, wars, and reservation confinement
- Cultural disruption — missionary pressure, language loss, and the suppression of ceremonies like the potlatch
- Land dispossession — from sovereign territory to reservations, with the “usual and accustomed” fishing rights reserved in treaties becoming a cornerstone of ongoing legal and cultural struggle
The period from 1774 to 1900 transformed the Pacific Northwest from a region where Indigenous nations had thrived for millennia into one where their survival depended on resistance, adaptation, and the defense of treaty rights that continue to be contested today.