OREGON QUESTION

in U.S.-Canadian history, dispute over ownership of the Pacific Northwest involving Spain, Russia, the United States, and Great Britain, all of which had established claims based on exploration or settlement by their nationals. Spain first vacated its claims by the Nootka Sound Convention (1790) with Britain and the Transcontinental Treaty (1819) with the United States. The United States and Great Britain, in the Convention of 1818, established a joint claim over Oregon Country, eventually defined to lie below latitude 54 40 N, above latitude 42 N, and west of the Continental Divide. Russia later abandoned its claim to the area in separate treaties with the United States and Great Britain (182425). Using the slogan Fifty-four forty or fight, the Democrats succeeded in electing James K. Polk president in 1844 on a platform that demanded exclusive U.S. control of the area. U.S. preoccupation with the Mexican War (184647) and British troubles in Ireland, however, paved the way for the Oregon Treaty (1846), a compromise by which British navigation rights on the Columbia River were guaranteed and the land boundary was drawn along latitude 49 N. Final delineation of the marine portion south of Vancouver Island was arbitrated in 1872. See also Nootka Sound controversy.