Background
The fort was built by Wyeth and his company as part of the Pacific Trading Company, a joint-stock company formed by Wyeth to exploit the fur trade in the Oregon Country. Henry Hall of Boston's xx He also held Fort Hall in southeastern Idaho, to take advantage of trade in the Rocky Mountain region. His intention was to establish a fishery at Fort William, and export salmon to the East and Hawaii. The island chosen was previously visited by the Lewis & Clark Expedition, and was previously inhabited by Native Americans. By the time Wyeth established his outpost, the island was void of any human habitation due to epidemics of infectious diseases that had swept through the lower Columbia region. As the Natives did not have any immunity to the new Eurasian diseases, nearly 90% of them died from smallpox, measles and other illnesses following European contact.
Read more about this topic: Fort William (Oregon)
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)