alternatehistory.com

While it's not as much as what I usually post, I'll post what I've written up of this so far, and try to make a map for it tomorrow.

Part Eleven: The Beginning of the Oregon War

Tension in Oregon:
By the summer of 1846, tensions between the United States and the British officials in North America were high. The Provisional Government established by American settlers at Champoeg three years earlier had been growing, with incoming settlers using Champoeg as a main camp before going off to establish their own communities in the Oregon Country. A petition sent by William Gilpin and Fremont as a The dispute over the northern border of Maine remained unsettled, and the influx of American settlers into the Oregon Country was spreading north. While it was clear that the government in London had no desire for war, the United States and the settlers in Oregon were much more eager. Many forts were established by the United States and the Champoeg Provisional Government in the region to protect the settlers. Thus, when some British soldiers tried to force a community of American settlers off their land along the Fraser River near Fort Langley, shots were fired and the Oregon War had begun.[1]

While the information of the fighting traveled east to Washington and London, the Champoeg government led by Gilpin and Fremont and the forces of the Hudson Bay Company conducted the affairs of the war in Oregon. American settlers quickly took the lightly defended Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River and reconstructed the fortifications at Fort Nez Perce, which had been abandoned by the British after a fire two years earlier, but were unable to gain control of any British forts north of the Columbia River. The Champoegans did manage to hold on to most of the American forts on the north bank of the Columbia, including Fort Bonneville at a southern bend in the river and Fort Choteau at the confluence of the Wenatchee and Columbia Rivers.[2]

[1] The actual beginning of the Oregon War is disputed, but this is what is commonly stated in United States history textbooks.
[2] Fort Bonneville and Fort Choteau did not exist in OTL. Fort Bonneville is named after general Benjamin Bonneville and Choteau is named for trader and explorer Rene Auguste Choteau.