The Curious Passage of Richard Blanshard

“In his biography of Richard Blanshard, the prolific historian Barry Gough builds on his definitive career-long work chronicling the agents—maritime navigators and terrestrial fur trade explorers—who effectuated Great Britain’s incorporation of the far northwestern quadrant of North America into its imperial realm. The 1849 appointment of the gentlemanly Londoner as the first governor of the colony of ‘Vancouver Island and its Dependencies’ heralded the often difficult transition from Hudson’s Bay Company governance of the Northwest Coast into a province within what became a northern transcontinental dominion. In this respect, Blanshard’s tenure featured not only the halting internal evolution from corporate to civil authority but also the necessity of managing cross-border complications with what Gough calls the ‘fourth corner of the United States.’ An increasingly militarized Oregon frontier (including Puget Sound, the heart of what became Washington Territory in 1853), was a concomitant aspect of a rising tide of American protectionism against British interests in the region. Blanshard, virtually a one-man administration, thus also had to cope with the seizure of British vessels in American waters because of customs disputes, American settlers, contrary to treaty provision, squatting on HBC land south of the border, and U. S. Army officials going to Victoria looking for deserters who had ventured there on HBC ships calling at Fort Nisqually with the gold fields of California fevering their minds. This is the first book emanating from either side of the 49th parallel that has looked at the emergent issues of the post-boundary settlement era (1846-1860) with any degree of thoroughness, and it is written with Gough’s characteristic verve and clarity.” —David L. Nicandri, former director, Washington State Historical Society and author of Captain Cook Rediscovered: Voyaging to the Icy Latitudes and Lewis & Clark Reframed: Examining Ties to Cook, Vancouver and Mackenzie