Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival

by Peter Stark

We’ll never know exactly what vision Jefferson and Astor shared—or what they didn’t share. In their enthusiastic discussions in the president’s house in 1808 they may have left the exact details of a West Coast colony a blank. How large an empire? What kind? Would it become, as Jefferson hoped, “a great, free and independent empire.” In other words, a democracy? Or a sprawling and powerful trade empire controlled by a dictatorial fur and real estate baron based in Manhattan? Or, somehow, would it be a melding of both? This schism still lives with Americans today. It is especially pronounced in the nation’s role in lands that lay, as Astoria did, beyond the borders of the United States. In these places is America a beacon of democracy that will unflaggingly support individual rights? Or is it a trade empire looking out for its best economic interests? Which comes first? Where is the priority? If Astoria had become a reality, this was an issue that almost certainly would have arisen—and perhaps been bitterly fought, or even resolved—in the empire on the Pacific.