 Although claims to the region were by agreement in abeyance, commercial operating rights were nominally shared by the United States and Britain through the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, but company policy, enforced via Chief Factor John McLoughlin of the company's Columbia District, was to discourage U.S. settlement of the territory.The company's effective monopoly on trade virtually forbade any settlement in the region.It established Fort Boise in 1834 (in present-day southwestern Idaho) to compete with the American Fort Hall, to the east.