page_title: Champoeg Meetings
section_title: Location
hierarchical_section_title: Champoeg Meetings / Meetings / Location
caption_attribution_description: English: From: Oregon: Her History, Her Great Men, Her Literature. By John B. Horner, first copyright 1919.
context_page_description: The Champoeg Meetings were the first attempts at formal governance by European-American and French Canadian pioneers in the Oregon Country on the Pacific Northwest coast of North America. Between 1841 and 1843, a series of public councils was held at Champoeg, a settlement on the French Prairie of the Willamette River valley in present-day Marion County, Oregon, and at surrounding settlements. The meetings were organized by newly arrived settlers as well as Protestant missionaries from the Methodist Mission and Catholic Jesuit priests from Canada.
  Since the first decade of the 19th century, a small but growing number of pioneers had settled in the Oregon Country, mostly to pursue business interests in the North American fur trade. Despite its economic value, the region was so vast and remote that it was left unorganized for several decades, with no European-American government in place to set laws and resolve disputes. Prior to the Champoeg Meetings, the closest thing to a government in the Oregon Country was the privately owned Hudson's Bay Company, which effected a loose authority mainly through the efforts of Dr.
context_section_description: The plans called for meetings to be held at the French-Canadian enclave of Champoeg on the banks of the Willamette River. This part of the Willamette Valley was and still is known as the French Prairie, since its early settlers spoke French as their first language. Some of the meetings were also held at the Oregon Institute (the predecessor to Willamette University) further south of Champoeg in present-day Salem and downriver in Oregon City.
  The name Champoeg has an unknown origin. Some theories are that it was a Native American name for its location along the Willamette River, originally Champooik. Other theories are that it is of French origin, or a French variation on the Native American term. The name was later used for one of the early districts of the Provisional Government of Oregon, part of which later became Marion County, Oregon.
caption: Oregon Institute building circa 1844 in present-day Salem
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