 The British Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) leased the fort in 1839 and named the stockade Fort Stikine.The Tlingit had used the Stikine River as a trade route to the interior since ancient times, and they protested when the Hudson's Bay Company began to use their trade routes.Two epidemics of smallpox in 1836 and 1840 sharply reduced the Tlingit population in the area by half, as they had no acquired immunity, and silenced most of the protest.