The Nootka Conventions were a series of three agreements between the Kingdom of Spain and the Kingdom of Great Britain, signed in the 1790s which averted a war between the two empires over overlapping claims to portions of the Pacific Northwest coast of North America. The claims of Spain dated back nearly three hundred years to the papal bull of 1493 which had divided the world, and had granted to Spain the exclusive rights to settle the Pacific Coast of North America. This papal bull was not recognized by Britain (which was governed by Protestants) or by Russia (which was governed by Orthodox Christians). Britain's claims to the region were dated back to the voyage of Sir Francis Drake in 1579, and also by right of prior discovery by Captain James Cook in 1778, although a Spanish voyage had sailed as far north as the Queen Charlotte Islands, but not landed, in 1774.1
The dispute began when Spain, in defense of its claim, seized property settled by British subjectJohn Meares on Nootka Island, leading to a confrontation between Spain and Britain known as the Nootka Crisis which threatened to trigger a major imperial war for control of the Pacific, and, in practice, for western North America. Russia was also a party of interest, as their prior trading presence and separate claim extended much farther south of Nootka to California, and was in fact the reason Spain was attempting to solidify its claims through exploration and settlement.
The Nootka Conventions of the 1790s, carried out in part by George Vancouver and his Spanish counterpart Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra prevented the dispute from escalating to war. The first Convention was signed on October 28, 1790.2 The second Nootka Convention was signed in February of 1793 and awarded compensation to John Meares for the Spanish seizure of his ships at Nootka in 17893. By the third of the three Conventions, signed on January 11, 1794, the Spanish did not give up claims, only agreed to other parties to trade at Nootka Sound, where the Spanish fortification or presidioFort San Miguel had been built in 1789. As of the Third Convention the Spanish fort at Nootka Sound was available for occupation by any power, be it Russia, Britain, or anyone else, including Spain should it desire to return4.
The fledgling United States had no claim in this area at the time. Spanish rights in the area were later acquired by the United States in the Adams-Onís Treaty signed in 1819. The United States argued that it acquired from Spanish rights to exclusive ownership; this position led to a dispute with Britain known as the Oregon boundary dispute. This dispute was not in fact resolved between the United States and the United Kingdom until the signing of the Oregon Treaty in 1846, dividing the disputed territory, and establishing what later became the current international boundary between Canada and the United States.
Although the Nootka Conventions theoretically opened the Pacific Northwest coast from Oregon to Alaska to British colonization, the advent of the Napoleonic Wars distracted any efforts towards this (as recommended by Vancouver at the time) and the proposed settlement colony in the region was to be abandoned. The Hudson's Bay Company, the remaining British presence in the region, was averse to settlement and any economic activity other than its own, such that settlement and resource development did not take place to any degree until the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858, which formalized British claims on the mainland still residual from the Nootka Conventions into the Colony of British Columbia.
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
