In his 1836 account Washington Irving immortalized Astoria, but it
has been a footnote to the history of western expansion--a doleful
reminder of John Jacob Astor's failed attempt to establish a
fur-trading empire at the mouth of the Columbia from 1810 to 1813.
Now James P. Ronda makes clear the importance of the Astoria
venture in large and complex struggle for national sovereignty in
the Northwest. Astoria and Empire is the first modern account and
assessment of Astor's enterprise and the first ever to unravel the
tangled skein of Astoria's international connections. "On the
Columbia," Ronda writes, "lines of national rivalry, personal
ambition, and cultural diversity intersected to shape a larger
continental destiny."
In examining the ways in which Astor's Pacific Fur Company
attempted to create the first American empire west of the Rockies,
Ronda offers new interpretations of Astoria's origins, of Astor's
role as an imperial strategist who negotiated with the Russian
American Company and fought with the archrival North West Company,
and of his intricate schemes to save Astoria from ruin during the
War of 1812. Astoria and Empire draws on important archival sources
only recently discovered, including Duncan McDougall's journal,
which allows the reconstruction of daily life at Astoria. If the
book is a study of rival empires, it is also a social history of
exploration and the fur trade. Richly detailed, it teems with
Indians of many tribes and international cast of traders, naval
officers, diplomats, and rogues. They act on a historical stage
stretching from Russia and the Orient to North America and from New
York, Washington, and St. Louis to Astoria, the crossroads of an
empire.
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