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The Convention respecting fisheries, boundary, and the restoration of slaves between the United States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name and the state form of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927....
, also known as the London Convention, Anglo-American Convention of 1818, Convention of 1818, or simply the Treaty of 1818, was a treaty signed in 1818 between the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name and the state form of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927....
.






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The Convention respecting fisheries, boundary, and the restoration of slaves between the United States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name and the state form of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927....
, also known as the London Convention, Anglo-American Convention of 1818, Convention of 1818, or simply the Treaty of 1818, was a treaty signed in 1818 between the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name and the state form of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927....
. It resolved standing boundary issues between the two nations, and allowed for joint occupation and settlement of the Oregon Country
Oregon Country

Oregon Country or Oregon was a predominantly United States term referring to a region of the Pacific Northwest of North America. The region was occupied by British North America and French Canadian fur traders from before 1810, and American settlers from the mid-1830s....
, known to the British and in Canadian history as the Columbia District
Columbia District

The Columbia District was a Fur trade district in the Pacific Northwest region of British North America in the 19th century. It was explored by the North West Company between 1793 and 1811, and established as an operating fur district around 1810....
 of the Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company

The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and is one of the oldest in the world. The company was incorporated by British royal charter in 1670 as The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay; it is now domiciled in Canada and has adopted the mo...
, and including the southern portion of its sister fur district New Caledonia
New Caledonia (Canada)

Main article: History of British Columbia'New Caledonia' was the name given to a district of the Hudson's Bay Company that comprised the territory largely coterminous with the present-day Canada province of British Columbia, Canada....
.

The treaty marked the last territorial loss of Continental United States, the northern most tip of the territory of Louisiana above the 49th parallel, known as the Milk River
Milk River (Montana-Alberta)

The Milk River is a tributary of the Missouri River, 729 mi long in the U.S. state of Montana and the Canadian province of Alberta.It is formed in northwestern Montana, in Glacier County, Montana 21 mi N of Browning, Montana by the confluence of the South and Middle forks....
 in present day southern Alberta
Alberta

Alberta is one of Canada Canadian Prairies Provinces and territories of Canada. It became a province on September 1, 1905.Alberta is located in western Canada, bounded by the provinces of British Columbia to the west and Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Territories to the north, and the U.S....
. Britain ceded all of Rupert's Land
Rupert's Land

Rupert's Land, also sometimes called "Prince Rupert's Land", was a territory in British North America, consisting of the List of Hudson Bay rivers, that was owned by the Hudson's Bay Company for 200 years from 1670 to 1870....
 south of the 49th parallel and west to the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains, often called the Rockies, are a mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 4,800 kilometre from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in Canada, to New Mexico, in the United States....
, including the Red River Colony
Red River Colony

The Red River Colony was a colonization project set up by Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk in 1811 on 300,000 km? of land granted to him by the Hudson's Bay Company under what is referred to as the Selkirk Concession....
.

Treaty provisions

The treaty name is variously cited as Convention respecting fisheries, boundary, and the restoration of slaves, Convention of Commerce (Fisheries, Boundary and the Restoration of Slaves), and Convention of Commerce between His Majesty and the United States of America.

  • Article I secured fishing rights along Newfoundland and Labrador
    Labrador

    Labrador is a region of Atlantic Canada. Together with the island of Newfoundland from which it is separated by the Strait of Belle Isle, it constitutes the province of Newfoundland and Labrador....
     for the U.S.
  • Article II set the US-Canadian boundary along "a line drawn from the most northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods
    Lake of the Woods

    Lake of the Woods is a lake occupying parts of the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba and the U.S. state of Minnesota. It separates a small land area of Minnesota from the rest of the United States....
    , [due south, then] along the 49th parallel
    49th parallel

    49th parallel may refer to:* 49th parallel north, a line of latitude*49th parallel south, a line of latitude*49th Parallel, the 1941 British film...
     of north latitude..." to the "Stony Mountains" (now known as the Rocky Mountains
    Rocky Mountains

    The Rocky Mountains, often called the Rockies, are a mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 4,800 kilometre from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in Canada, to New Mexico, in the United States....
    ). Britain ceded all of Rupert's Land
    Rupert's Land

    Rupert's Land, also sometimes called "Prince Rupert's Land", was a territory in British North America, consisting of the List of Hudson Bay rivers, that was owned by the Hudson's Bay Company for 200 years from 1670 to 1870....
     south of of the 49th latitude including the Red River Colony
    Red River Colony

    The Red River Colony was a colonization project set up by Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk in 1811 on 300,000 km? of land granted to him by the Hudson's Bay Company under what is referred to as the Selkirk Concession....
    . This settled a boundary dispute caused by ignorance of actual geography in the boundary agreed to in the 1783 Treaty of Paris
    Treaty of Paris (1783)

    The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ratified by the Congress of the Confederation on January 14, 1784 and by the King of Great Britain on April 9, 1784 , formally ended the American Revolutionary War between the Kingdom of Great Britain and United States, which had rebelled against British rule starting in 1775....
     that ended the American Revolutionary War
    American Revolutionary War

    The American Revolutionary War , also known as the American War of Independence, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and Thirteen Colonies on the North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers....
    . That earlier treaty had placed the boundary between the United States and British possessions to the north, along a line going westward from the Lake of the Woods
    Lake of the Woods

    Lake of the Woods is a lake occupying parts of the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba and the U.S. state of Minnesota. It separates a small land area of Minnesota from the rest of the United States....
     to the Mississippi River
    Mississippi River

    The Mississippi River is the longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
    . The parties failed to realize that the river did not extend that far north, so such a line would never meet the river. The new treaty also created the anomalous Northwest Angle
    Northwest Angle

    File:NORTHWEST Angle.pngThe Northwest Angle, known simply as the Angle by locals, and coterminous with Angle Township, is a part of northern Lake of the Woods County, Minnesota that is the only part of the United States outside Alaska that is north of the 49th parallel north....
    , the small section of the present state of Minnesota
    Minnesota

    Minnesota is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States of the United States. The twelfth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with just over five million residents....
     that is the only part of the United States outside of Alaska
    Alaska

    Alaska is the largest U.S. state of the United States by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait....
     north of the 49th parallel.
  • Article III provided for joint control of land in the Oregon Country
    Oregon Country

    Oregon Country or Oregon was a predominantly United States term referring to a region of the Pacific Northwest of North America. The region was occupied by British North America and French Canadian fur traders from before 1810, and American settlers from the mid-1830s....
     for ten years. Both could claim land and both were guaranteed free navigation throughout.
  • Article IV confirmed the Anglo-American Convention of 1815, which regulated commerce between the two parties, for an additional ten years.
  • Article V agreed to refer differences over a U.S. claim arising from the Treaty of Ghent
    Treaty of Ghent

    The Treaty of Ghent , signed on December 24, 1814, in Ghent, currently in Belgium, was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland....
    , which ended the War of 1812
    War of 1812

    The War of 1812, between the United States of America and the British Empire , was fought from 1812 to 1815.There were several immediate stated causes for the U.S....
    , to "some Friendly Sovereign or State to be named for that purpose". The U.S. claim was for return of, or compensation for, slaves
    Slavery in Colonial America

    The origins of slavery in the Colonial history of the United States are complex and there are several theories that have been proposed to explain the trade....
     that were in British territory or on British naval vessels when the treaty was signed. The Treaty of Ghent article in question was about handing over property, and the U.S. claimed that these slaves were the property of U.S. citizens.
  • Article VI established that ratification would occur within at most six months of signing the treaty.


History

The treaty was negotiated for the U.S. by Albert Gallatin
Albert Gallatin

Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin was a Swiss-American ethnologist, linguistics, Politics of the United States, diplomat, United States Representative, and the longest-serving United States Secretary of the Treasury....
, ambassador to France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
, and Richard Rush
Richard Rush

Richard Rush was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the second son of Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and Julia Rush....
, ambassador to Britain; and for Britain by Frederick John Robinson
Frederick John Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich

Frederick John Robinson, 1st Earl of Ripon Privy Council of the United Kingdom , Frederick John Robinson until 1827, The Viscount Goderich 1827–1833, and The Earl of Ripon 1833 onwards, was a United Kingdom statesman and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom ....
, Treasurer of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy

The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British Armed Forces . From the mid-18th century until well into the 20th century, it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early 1940s....
 and member of the privy council
Privy council

A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a nation on how to exercise their Executive , typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchy....
, and Henry Goulburn
Henry Goulburn

Henry Goulburn Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council was an England Conservative Party statesman and a member of the Peelite faction after 1846....
, an undersecretary of state. The treaty was signed on October 20, 1818. Ratifications were exchanged on January 30, 1819. The Convention of 1818, along with the Rush-Bagot Treaty
Rush-Bagot Treaty

The Rush-Bagot Treaty was a treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom enacted in 1817 . The treaty provided for the demilitarization of the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain, where many British naval armaments and forts still remained....
 of 1817, marked the beginning of improved relations between the British Empire and its former colonies, and paved the way for more positive relations between the U.S. and Canada
Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
, notwithstanding that repelling U.S. invasion
Canada-United States relations

File:Barack Obama meets Stephen Harper.jpgRelations between Canada and the United States span more than two centuries, marked by a shared British colonization of the Americas, conflict during the early years of the United States, and the eventual development of one of the most successful international relationships in the modern world....
 was a defence priority in Canada until the Second World War.

Despite the relatively friendly nature of the agreement, it nevertheless resulted in a fierce struggle for control of the Oregon Country in the following two decades. The British-chartered Hudson's Bay Company, having previously established a trading network centered on Fort Vancouver on the lower Columbia River, with other forts in what is now eastern Washington and Idaho as well as on the Oregon Coast and in Puget Sound, undertook a harsh campaign to restrict encroachment by U.S. fur traders to the area. By the 1830s, with pressure in the U.S. mounting to annex the region outright, the company undertook a deliberate policy to exterminate all fur-bearing animals from the Oregon Country, in order to both maximize its remaining profit and to delay the arrival of U.S. mountain men and settlers. The policy of discouraging settlement was undercut to some degree by the actions of John McLoughlin
John McLoughlin

Childhood and early career McLoughlin was born in Rivi?re-du-Loup, Quebec, Quebec, of Irish and French Canadian descent. He lived with his great uncle, Colonel William Fraser, for a while as a child....
, Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver, who regularly provided relief and welcome to U.S. immigrants who had arrived at the post over the Oregon Trail
Oregon Trail

The Oregon Trail was one of the main overland migration routes on the North American continent, leading from locations on the Missouri River to the Oregon Territory....
.

By the middle 1840s, the tide of U.S. immigration, as well as a U.S. political movement to claim the entire territory, led to a renegotiation of the agreement. The Oregon Treaty
Oregon Treaty

The Oregon Treaty, is a bilateral treaty between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the United States that was signed on June 15, 1846 in Washington, D.C....
 in 1846 permanently established the 49th parallel
49th parallel north

The 49th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 49 degree true north of the Earth equator.The parallel forms part of the United States-Canadian Border from British Columbia to Manitoba on the Canada side and from Washington to Minnesota on the United States side, or from the Strait of Georgia to the Lake of the Woods....
 as the boundary between the United States and British North America to the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Mare Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portugal explorer Ferdinand Magellan....
.

See also

  • Adams-Onís Treaty
    Adams-Onís Treaty

    The Adams-On?s Treaty of 1819, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty of 1819, settled a border dispute in North America between the United States and Spain....
     of 1819, between U.S. and Spain, resolved borders from Florida to the Pacific Ocean.
  • Oregon boundary dispute
    Oregon boundary dispute

    The Oregon boundary dispute, or the Oregon question, arose as a result of competing United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and United States claims to the Pacific Northwest of North America in the first half of the 19th century....
    , concerning the joint occupation of the Oregon Country by U.S. and British settlers.