3. Sea Otter Hunters

The previous chapter provided an introduction to the maritime fur trade. In this chapter we dig deeper to examine in more detail the contact and conflict that flowed from the early encounters, when Europeans and Americans sailed into the waters of the Northwest Coast and, more particularly for our point of reference, Clayoquot Sound. Our stories are not unrelated to those of Nootka Sound to the north or Barkley Sound to the south (the southernmost of the big embayments on the west coast of Vancouver Island); nor, indeed, are they unrelated to activities farther north at the Queen Charlotte Islands or on the coast of Russian America, or farther south in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Columbia River. All the same, they have unique features, and Wickaninnish features powerfully in them, as do certain British and, after them, American ship captains.

The sea otter, and the trade that developed to exploit that mammal almost to extinction, played a significant role in the international rivalry for this coast and is this chapter’s focus. It was an international trade and forms part of a global epic of expanding trade links bringing continents and peoples together. This was made possible by the sailing ship. The Russians dominated northern waters, the Spanish those of California, and the British and Americans vied for control of the central Northwest Coast.⁵² These are attractive subjects for the student of history. Still, of necessity, our focus remains Meares Island and its surrounding waters, the inlets and passages of Clayoquot Sound. There are many published histories of the coast and several on the maritime fur trade, but, truth to tell, no history of Meares Island and surrounding waters for our early period. In regards to Meares Island, we focus on Port Cox, Opitsat and Adventure Cove, for they are flashpoints in Clayoquot history and significant in larger measure in coastal history.

Looked at differently, and on the beneficial side, the story of Meares Island and its local waters has a universality all its own. And so we see its history as a microcosm of other such experiences on the coast, from northern California to the Gulf of Alaska. Yet we are bound to remember that such generalities are over-layered by particularities of time and place, and the sea otter epoch, comprising the late 1770s to 1820s, was an unusual and animated time in the history of the area—and indeed of the Pacific Ocean and littoral.

The maritime fur trade, and here specifically the sea otter trade, was ancillary to the trade with China, and it led to competition among traders, whether they were British, American (mainly from Boston) or other. To repeat, this was an international trade, much like the cod fisheries of the Newfoundland Grand Banks. It prompted a nervous Spanish response, described below. Even before the first trading ships arrived, the East India Company claimed exclusive British trading rights in the Pacific Ocean by virtue of its monopoly dating back to 1600, and the South Sea Company claimed the right to control British shipping in these seas. Independent traders of British nationality and British ship owners therefore engaged in subterfuges and used flags of convenience to get around these monopolies.

On his first voyage to the Northwest Coast, John Meares set course from Bengal with the products of India in the ship’s hold—guns and ammunition, cottons and brassware, pots and pans, and much more. When the Asian base of operations shifted, as it soon did, to Macau and Canton, the same sorts of items were brought to Nootka, Clayoquot and Barkley Sounds, the Queen Charlotte Islands and elsewhere. The British had to export British manufactures under British trade rules. Meares had to work round the controls of the two great trading monopolies, the South Sea Company and the East India Company: that is why he flew the Portuguese flag. The Americans, however, were not so hampered, and Congress gave them free rein. In the circumstances, the natural trading aptitude of the Americans had full scope on the Northwest Coast. The tendrils of the Atlantic world reached out, by way of Cape Horn, to the temperate and forested Northwest Coast. As to trading items, members of Captain Cook’s ships’ companies had exchanged mirrors, beads, buttons and trinkets—including iron nails—for skins of bear, fox, deer, weasel, mink, wolverine, wolf and, in particular, sea otter.⁵³ In Alaska they exchanged beads for more skins. It was an incidental or petty trade, not organized on any commercial basis. At Canton, in Cook’s day, a sea otter pelt could fetch $120, a huge markup in the value of investment, and it is said that at Canton the crew were on the brink of mutiny for a return to the Northwest Coast to make their fortunes in the peltry business.

In the event, at Nootka, Indigenous people showed keenness to trade, approaching Cook’s ships in their canoes, eagerly crying “Makúk” (“Will you trade?”).⁵⁴ Native demand drove the economy, and the outsiders had much to barter in return. The Indigenous peoples of the coast exhibited sharpness as to buying and selling, conscious as they were about matters of supply and demand. The plan for exploiting this branch of the fur trade was drawn up by Captain James King and published in the official account of Cook’s voyage.⁵⁵ Meares was one of the first to take it up, as mentioned. Another early trader was John Henry Cox. He and his associate Daniel Beale arranged every British vessel on the Northwest Coast sailing from Canton or Macau, beginning with James Hanna’s Harmon or Sea Otter. Port Cox, adjacent to Tofino, is named for him, and it features on Meares’ drawing of “The District of Wicannanish.”⁵⁶

In the trade’s early years, it flourished in British hands but was soon not without rivals of other nationalities and flags, so many traders wanted to obtain sea otter pelts. In mid-June 1787 (the date is uncertain), Charles William Barkley, in the big East Indiaman Imperial Eagle, otherwise called Loudoun, a British ship flying Austrian colours so as to circumvent British licensing monopolies, arrived at Nootka. He was fresh from the Hawaiian Islands, where he had taken on foodstuffs. The captain’s young bride, Frances Trevor Barkley, had engaged a young girl named Winee, probably from Oahu, as lady’s maid.⁵⁷ From Nootka the vessel cruised south and east, making remarkable findings along the way. Frances noted in her reminiscences of Clayoquot Sound that she thought it a large sound, and gives as the latitude 49’ 20’ N, indicative of the fact that the vessel used the sound’s northern entrance. Captain Barkley called Clayoquot Sound “Wicananish’s Sound.” “Wickananish has great authority and this part of the coast proved a rich harvest of furs for us,” Frances noted.⁵⁸ The vessel continued its voyage of trade and discovery, first to Barkley Sound and then into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which the captain recognized as that described in the 1625 narrative recounting Spanish discoveries of the pilot Juan de Fuca in 1592.

Meanwhile, yet another scheme was launched from London, by the King George’s Sound Company, that in due time brought Captains Nathaniel Portlock and George Dixon to Nootka, but not specifically to Clayoquot. Then, at the same time as Barkley, came James Colnett and Charles Duncan. The redoubtable Colnett is significant in our account. Looked at all together, never was there gathered such a cast of characters with such global seafaring experience, all sailing to Nootka within the space of three years.

The customary plan for trading ships called for them to arrive at Nootka at winter’s close in March or April. From there they would sail north or south as required to collect furs. Then in late August, when ships’ stores were running low and wintry weather could be expected in a month or two, they would clear Nootka for Hawaii and then China. The next year a return visit to the Northwest Coast might be called for, or, if not, a new ship would be acquired for the purpose. New places for trading in sea otter were found, among them villages in the Queen Charlotte Islands, Nasparti and Nahwitti at the north end Vancouver Island, and Cape Classet at the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. As long as trade proved profitable, the outsiders continued to come. In short, the Native residents could always expect summer visitors. Only the Spanish stood by to upset proceedings, either by interference at Nootka or in general warfare that broke out between Britain and Spain in 1793, also involving revolutionary France. The turmoil in Europe and on the high seas affected British commercial operations in India, China and the Northwest Coast.

From the east coast of the United States came the avaricious traders—“the solid men of Boston”—who eventually came to dominate the maritime trade. Generally speaking, the Aboriginal inhabitants called all American traders “Boston men” and the British traders “King George Men” or, in Chinook jargon, the trade language in wide use on the Northwest Coast, Kintshautshmen. Bostonians in their fast and nimble schooners and sloops shifted from village to village as required; they stayed near one village until they had “drained” (their term) it of sea otter pelts, then sailed to the next to do likewise. When possible, they made up a full cargo of pelts, then sailed for Hawaii and Macau, where furs were an acceptable substitute for the usual medium of exchange, silver. The pioneering expedition of trade and discoveries dates from 1787. A Boston syndicate, American pioneers in this branch of commerce, sent the ship Columbia Rediviva, 212 tons, and the sloop Lady Washington, ninety tons, to trade to the Northwest Coast and China. The former was commanded by John Kendrick, the latter by Robert Gray. Medals of friendship, bearing on one side a representation of the two ships, and on the other the owners’ names, were furnished to the commanders. These shiny objects, now numismatic treasures, were “to be distributed amongst the Natives on the North West Coast of America, and to commemorate the first American adventure on the Pacific Ocean.”⁵⁹ The US Congress and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts patronized the expedition.

The Columbia sailed directly for Nootka and reached there safely, but the Lady Washington, under Gray, took a different course. On August 2, in a state of inexpressible joy, Gray sighted the long-looked-for coast of Nova Albion. Passing by a broad sheet of water indicating a great river in this vicinity (the Columbia), one worth examining at a later time (which Gray did), they met up with some Natives who supplied them with berries and other foods, thereby easing the encroachments of scurvy. But a very nasty incident occurred. The shore party, in search of water, was attacked, and the Americans used a swivel gun to fight off the assailants at a place they subsequently called Murderers’ Harbor. The schooner sailed north, then entered Clayoquot Sound. It was on this occasion that Gray first met Wickaninnish, and after a brief stay steered for Nootka, joining the Columbia.

After long and arduous voyages, these vessels had arrived at Nootka Sound late in the trading season, in September 1788. By this time British trading vessels had already been in the business for three years. The Americans passed a quiet winter in Nootka Sound, for the British had wisely headed to Hawaii for warmth and refreshment. The Lady Washington sailed south for Clayoquot on March 16 and was first in the field for the promising new trading year. She arrived next day and spent ten days in the Sound, her men trading, hunting and making a survey of what they called Hancock’s Harbour. The thoughtful Robert Haswell, one of the officers, spying out the contorted landscape of mountains, passages and islands, believed a promising inland communication must surely exist, perhaps by rivers. He imagined that what he was looking at was an endless cluster of islands. Did the Northwest Passage lie beyond, to the east? They ventured south toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and for a time they even joined in a whale hunt.

The peoples of Clayoquot Sound, like those of Nootka or of Cape Flattery, were whaling people, paddling their canoes far out to sea. Grey whales, then as now, winter in the Gulf of California, then coast north to summer grounds in the Bering Sea, where they feed on Arctic krill. They pass by Clayoquot Sound in April. The “summer village” of Wickaninnish was the base from which they went out in search of a suitable catch. On April 10, 1789, Wickaninnish harpooned a whale, the first kill of the season. A large canoe towed it to the nearby beach, with sixteen bladders attached so as to keep it afloat. When the whale was beached, he gave the order to his brother, Tootiscosettle, to strike home the deadly pierce. This was observed by Haswell, on the Lady Washington. He was told a custom existed that a slave must be killed and laid alongside the whale’s head, which was adorned with eagle feathers. This pleased the gods. Haswell turned away from the scene, choosing not to watch the ceremonial killing of the slave. The American was also told that the whale hunters lacerated their tongues and painted themselves with blood in order that the very large whales would not be afraid to come near the canoes.⁶⁰

Eventually giving up on geographical discoveries, the Americans on the Lady Washington returned to Nootka, rendezvousing with the Columbia. Repairs were effected and the skippers exchanged vessels. The Columbia, now under Gray’s command, made for China with furs, then completed a round-the-world voyage, the first vessel to carry the Stars and Stripes in the great circumnavigation. The Lady Washington, by contrast, remained in the Pacific, never returning to Boston.

For reasons that need not concern us here, the Columbia voyage was not a great financial success. All the same, the Boston merchant syndicate planned a second expedition. It was this one, begun in late 1790 from Boston, that brought the Columbia to the Northwest Coast to join the Lady Washington, and, central to our interest, to Clayoquot and Meares Island. New motives were afoot to possess Meares Island.

In later years the Americans would come to make the trade almost their own, and after 1803 the British flag was scarcely ever seen on the Coast. One authority says, “When the trade passed beyond the beads-and-buttons stage, these American vessels became, in a way, pioneer general stores, carrying a varied assortment of hardware, copper, paint, clothing, cloth, domestic and culinary articles, arms and ammunition.”⁶¹ The traders had to meet Native demands, and the New Englander’s natural bent for “swapping,” says the same historian, though I think in exaggerated fashion, was a factor in the success achieved. Certainly the Bostonians met the needs and desires of the local markets whenever they could. In 1791 iron collars, produced by the ship’s armourer, became fashionable articles of dress. Elsewhere, at the Queen Charlotte Islands, the trader Jefferson, of Boston, offered worn-out sails for making women’s garments, and bartered for skins with boxes and trunks, seal oil, ship’s crockery, carpets, deep-sea lines, ropes and rigging, and anchors.⁶² By the time of the second Columbia voyage, spirituous liquors had been introduced—West Indian rum brought by the Yankees and brandy brought by the few French vessels that transited the Coast. The first recorded bartering of liquor is that of La Flavie, at Nootka in 1792, but the Yankees were not to be outmatched, selling spirits to the Spaniards and seamen there, at a great markup. Explorer-mariner La Pérouse feared that the introduction of spirituous liquor would have fatal effects. Judge Howay, expert on this as on other aspects of the sea otter trade, describes how at Clayoquot Sound preliminaries to barter were warmed by intoxicating liquor: “In 1791, when John Hoskins, the clerk of the ship Columbia, of Boston, visited Wickananish, the chief at Clayoquot, the latter expressed regret that he could not welcome Hoskins with liquor, and said that if he had been forewarned of the visit the deficiency could have been met.”⁶³

This trade formed a powerful influence on the traditional economies of the Indigenous peoples. The Ahousaht, Clayoquot and Kelsemaht, partners in this transformation, put up strong demand for what the ships could bring. Iron tools aided the carving of cedar house posts and other poles. Artistic styles were already established, and the extensive use of metal tools increased production and made larger pieces possible. Copper was always in demand, used for personal adornment such as earrings and also for exquisitely hammered ceremonial shields—true bright displays of wealth. Indeed, the Nuu-chah-nulth delighted in the display of wealth. Conspicuous consumption was exhibited here as in many other places in the world. The sailing ship had changed all. Almost, it seems, in the twinkling of an eye, the insularity of Vancouver Island had vanished, and the Nuu-chah-nulth had been brought into a worldwide web, their fortunes subject to its whims and its shifts.

We have already said that Meares gave weapons to Maquinna as presents or to seal a commercial deal. But the arms trade expanded quickly. Captain Vancouver was surprised, in July 1792, to find that every canoe that approached his ships near the Kwakwaka’wakw village at Nimpkish River was armed with a musket and provided with ammunition. In one canoe were three muskets considered to belong to a chief who was under the authority of Maquinna. Maquinna’s people kept up a close commercial intercourse with these people. It can be imagined that Maquinna was the arms merchant, or middleman, among the Indigenous people of this part of the coast.

We can imagine, too, that at Clayoquot Sound, Wickaninnish, with close blood ties to Maquinna, and in near proximity to Nootka Sound, also was a middleman in the arms trade. In Clayoquot there were many armed persons, and one informant of the period says that 400 men could be turned out with muskets and well supplied with ammunition. The observant clerk Edward Bell, in Captain George Vancouver’s expedition, remarks on the change: “Their former Weapons, Bows and Arrows, Spears and Clubs are now thrown aside & forgotten.” Here, as at Nootka, everyone had a musket, he observed, and continued, “Thus they are supplied with weapons which they no sooner possess than they turn them against the donors.—Every Season produces instances of their daring treacherous conduct, few Ships have been on the Coast that have not been attacked or attempted to be attacked, and in general many lives have been lost on both sides.”⁶⁴ This forms a recurring as well as a sad and depressing theme, and we will return to it more frequently than expected in the following pages.

Although the Boston traders, like the British, were sojourners on the coast and usually wintered in the warm, salubrious Hawaiian Islands (where vegetables and meat were readily available), the Columbia and Lady Washington, first in the trade from Boston, broke the customary pattern. As mentioned, they spent the winter of 1788–1789 in Nootka Sound. The Columbia, on her second voyage, remained during the winter of 1791–1792 at Lemmens Inlet, Meares Island (see Chapter 5). It was this wintering on the coast that brought the outsiders and the locals into close proximity and dangerous contact, to say nothing of the making of trade deals and real estate contracts as hereafter described.

Vessels putting into Clayoquot Sound in the days of sea otter trading arrived searching for Indigenous traders who had time to collect the pelts of the sea otter. The blue-water mariners sailed with care on this treacherous, unsurveyed and unmarked lee shore. From other sailors they had learned coastal navigational secrets and heard about the great dangers. It must always be remembered, in our distant time, that they lacked charts and navigational aids; as such, they were often dependent on whatever Native advice they could obtain for entering port and finding anchorage. The locals were familiar with navigating canoes through shoals and shallow channels, and they could pass undamaged over ledges and deeply sunken reefs. All the same, their knowledge of deep-water passages was limited, and therein lay a problem in the competence of their guidance of deep-sea ships.

No systematic accounting or chronology exists of all the many vessels that called at Clayoquot Sound. But I select two narratives—one Spanish and another British—that throw light on the Native society they encountered.

The Spanish arrived at Nootka on May 5, 1789, under Esteban Martínez, expecting that the dreaded Russians had come south from more northern waters. Martínez was in for a surprise. A week after he arrived, the North West America, built by Meares the year previous, and now under command of Robert Funter, came into port. Martínez took possession of her, gave José María Narváez command of the vessel, then issued orders to send the vessel to search for a strait in more southern waters. Already Martínez had tangled with Englishman James Colnett, seizing ships, crews and cargoes (mentioned in Chapter 2, with details later in this chapter). The further seizure of the North West America increased what the British regarded as outrages against commerce. The British wanted free navigation, fair and square. The imbroglio that developed, now known as the Nootka Sound crisis, is a celebrated event in world history. All of a sudden the international rivalry for rights of trade in the Pacific attracted the chancelleries of Europe and also business circles in Boston and New York. Martínez, on his own initiative, had seized Colnett’s Argonaut, its companion vessel Princess Royal and the North West America. Spanish authorities backed his decisions. Serious consequences would result from these actions, and discoveries of these islands and straits would become of major importance. Here was the beginning of a collision of empires.

Next year, 1790, the observant young ensign Manuel Quimper undertook a somewhat similar mission to Narváez’s—that is, extending Spanish knowledge of Vancouver Island even farther south and into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. For us, he provides authoritative data on Wickaninnish and the flourishing Indigenous life in this unique collection of islands and passages. In fact, we are astounded, delightfully so, at the rich details he provides, first, in his letter to the Viceroy and, second, in his day-to-day report of proceedings, noted below.

Quimper, on short notice, sailed from the Spanish base at Nootka on May 31, 1790, in command of the captured and renamed sloop Princesa Real. That vessel, designated a bilandra by the Spanish, had a complement of forty-one men and nine soldiers, with Gonzalo López de Haro as first pilot and Juan Carrasco as second pilot. Quimper had instructions to explore the Strait of Juan de Fuca, making inquiries as he sailed south and east.

Quimper sailed into Clayoquot Sound on June 1. The most recent trader had just left. The labyrinthine waters of the sound, leading from one island to another, one village to another—with a cul-de-sac or two thrown in for good measure—could not easily be examined in one or two days. Quimper’s recounting of his days in Clayoquot Sound shows that these were waters and islands accessible to international shipping of that age.

He visited Opitsat where, to his surprise, he found Maquinna living, a refugee from Martínez. A year earlier, in the midst of the uproar with Colnett, Martínez had shot and killed Callicum, one of Maquinna’s kinsmen.⁶⁵ Quimper was taken aback, but realizing the implications of Maquinna’s self-imposed exile, he gave the famed sea otter chief every assurance of Spain’s friendly intention.

Quimper’s diary is full of treasures. Take, for instance, what he recounted on June 2: “The day dawned clear and calm. At sunrise canoes full of Indians, men and women of all ages, began to come, asking for something with the word ‘pachito,’ and on not receiving anything called us ‘pizac,’ meaning ‘bad people,’ giving us to understand that other vessels which had come to the port had given presents to everybody.”⁶⁶ This posed no problem: the captain promptly had the caulker cut up sheets of copper into small pieces as presents, tokens of friendship that might initiate trade and a reciprocated warm welcome. Good results were obtained. At eight that same morning Wickaninnish—Quimper spelled it Huiquinanichichi—sent out canoes requesting him to come ashore. Quimper, fearing ambush, refused. Wickaninnish insisted. Now it was Quimper’s turn to budge. So, taking the armed longboat, with the pilot and a squad of six soldiers, he landed at the beach where the brother of the chief guided the Spaniards to the house. It was then that Quimper found Maquinna.

When Quimper met Wickaninnish, he presented him with three yards of scarlet cloth, the same as the King of Spain’s royal crimson. Quimper admired the great house, with its huge supporting posts and beams, columns of huge carved figures, and the entrance a great figure whose mouth was the door. One hundred people could live in this house, and in regards to the population of the village, Quimper thought it might reach a thousand or more of both sexes and all ages. Quimper’s invitation to the chiefs to come to the sloop where he could entertain them thoroughly was accepted, and at 3:30 in the afternoon they came in canoes. They were presented with copper sheets, and there was a further gift of Spanish presents. Still Maquinna was doubtful, even asking the seamen if the heavy-handed Martínez was in command of the frigate at Nootka or whether it was Francisco de Eliza. Maquinna’s fear ran deep. He had been offended fully. When Quimper reassured him once again, Maquinna embraced the Spaniards with much joy saying, “Amigo amar a dos” (Friend, love is here between us.) words he had learned in Nootka. “At sunset they returned to their settlement and I ordered a small gun fired for them all to go away. On shore they fired two muskets. Night fell with the weather fine and calm and nothing more to relate.”⁶⁷

What extraordinary material Quimper’s diary provides. We learn that the Natives, one and all, wanted their share of presents as preliminaries to exchange. They were fearsome, keeping visitors on their guard. For this there was at least a partial explanation. Quimper learned of Maquinna’s deep-seated fear of the Spaniard Martínez, which had obviously made him suspicious of Spanish friendship. In his wisdom, for he had met many Europeans by this time, going back to Juan Pérez (who passed through in 1774) and Cook, Maquinna feared the violence and cruelty that the visitors might inflict on him and his people, upsetting his power, subverting his influence. He obviously hoped that Martínez had gone away, and Quimper reassured him of this, restoring friendship and mitigating fears. We see the ceremonial use of guns on both sides. We see in various pages of the diary the trading that went on, with the officers, sailors and soldiers of the Spanish king. Here was an invitation to better friendship, for exchange on this coast was important. Makúk—will you buy, will you sell—this was the essential aspect of equitable friendship. I recall what Captain Cook had said about the Nuu-chah-nulth: they put a value on all property. They only stole trifles.⁶⁸ Quimper completed the trade in sea otter skins that he had been ordered to undertake, exchanging the King’s copper for the pelts.

Passing out of the Sound on June 10, he steered south and east, toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca.⁶⁹ Quimper preferred to conduct his inshore explorations in small boats, a prudent measure. He had, for himself, his longboat. But realizing he would need other craft for the complicated assignment at Clayoquot Sound, he acquired two large cedar canoes in exchange for four large sheets of copper, and twenty-eight paddles for two sheets of copper.⁷⁰ In other words, Native watercraft were used to aid European discoveries. In his words, “I made sail continuing my course for the inside of the strait [of Juan de Fuca], towing the longboat and two large canoes which I purchased with the King’s copper, having in view their usefulness in the exploration, as they would serve as efficacious adjuncts in his examination, and at Royal Roads took possession in the name of the King of Spain.” He then crossed the strait, undertook an act of Spanish ownership, visited Discovery Bay, shifted back across the strait, made examinations of southern Vancouver Island as far as Gonzalez Point (today, the southern reach of Victoria Golf Club), could not reach Nootka on account of storms, so shaped a course for San Blas, where he arrived on November 13, 1790. In all, his had been a marvellous reconnaissance, and in coastal and inshore waters those two prized canoes proved highly useful, repaying the investment.⁷¹

Our second narrative is by the American sailor John Bartlett, a highly literate fellow. In late November 1790, the snow Gustavus III, 152 tons, owned by John Henry Cox—or “Squire Cox,” as Bartlett fondly called him—set sail from Lark’s Bay near Macau, bound for the Northwest Coast. Previously named Mercury, this vessel from London now flew the flag of the King of Sweden as a flag of convenience. The reason was to get around the monopoly requirements of the two British chartered companies already mentioned, and perhaps to mollify Spanish authorities known to be clamping down on British trading vessels at Nootka and on the Northwest Coast. Bartlett had received two month’s advance pay, and the vessel was well stocked with fresh Chinese pork (disagreeable when compared to American, he said) and salt beef. The ship’s company was multinational and multi-ethnic. There were thirty-one on board, all in good health, though the sole Hawaiian in the crew would later die of scurvy. The skipper, Thomas Barnet, was English, as was the sailmaker; four Irishmen were mates or seamen; four Welshmen served as gunner, carpenter, seaman and chief mate; seven Americans, one Swede (captain of the colours), seven Portuguese, a Manila boy as cabin steward, a Goan cook, three Chinese and the Hawaiian. We learn from these particulars that this was essentially an Anglo-American crew, with Asians, Portuguese and others brought in to fill up the complement, many to do the heavy lifting or the menial tasks. This sort of mix was typical of the “English” ships that came to Clayoquot in those years.

Gustavus III was a fine vessel and well equipped; even so, the voyage across the Pacific had consumed a tedious seventy days, with gales and dirty weather most of the time. The intention had been to arrive at Barkley Sound in early March 1791 and begin trading at the prosperous outset of the season, then work northward as required. In the event, a good anchorage could not be found near the entrance of Barkley Sound, for the sea bottom fell off steeply there; accordingly, the captain ordered a coastwise route north in search of something better. We now take up the spritely narrative supplied by the observant American sailor John Bartlett, who was not, we find, at all keen on Indigenous capabilities to pilot a vessel the size of the Gustavus III to a safe haven:

"

After sailing along shore for several days we at last found the harbour of Wickanninish which was pointed out to us by an Indian named Captain Hannah [Cleaskinah, who exchanged names in token of friendship and trade links with Captain James Hanna, of the Sea Otter in 1786] who came on board not long before. Near the entrance was an island that had three trees on it that appear like a ship in stays and is called Ship Island. At four p.m. we saw the smoke at Wickanninsh [Opitsat, Meares Island]. Captain Hannah [had been] in this harbour but once before but we sailed according to his best judgment. Before long the natives on shore began to make signs to us to steer more to the northward which were not regarded by our captain and soon we landed on a ledge of rocks and came near losing our vessel. We hove all sails back and fortunately she fell off the ledge into twelve fathoms. A boat sent to sound for the channel soon discovered the entrance between two islands and at five p.m. we came abreast of Wickanninish town or village, which contained about two hundred houses or long huts of square form, built about twenty yards from the water.

We were soon honoured by a visit from their chief whose name was Wickanninish. He was a tall, rawboned fellow who came attended by thirty or forty canoes with fish and furs to sell. Several of them were bound out for whaling with gear in the canoes. Their lances and harpoons were very curious being made of bone neatly polished. Their lines were made of animals’ hides and their drags were made of skins blown full of wind in the form of a winter squash.

Early the next morning we weighed anchor and ran up to Cox’s Harbour with the boat sounding ahead of us. The tide was running very strong at the entrance of the harbour and we were swept in amongst some rocks and so near the shore as to rack the limbs of the trees with our yards and very near being cast away a second time. In this harbour we lay moored for several days as it was landlocked and a safe place in which to overhaul our rigging. One day the boat went ashore to kill geese which were very plentiful.

On Saturday, March 15th, the boat was sent with the carpenter [William Howard] and Charles Treadwell [American seaman] to cut wood at a point about a mile from the vessel and out of sight of her. Late in the afternoon the boat went to get the men, and just as she went ashore three canoes put out from where our men had been cutting wood. They had stolen a large iron maul and threatened to pick out the carpenter’s eyes with their arrows when our boat just at that time saved their lives. The next day, at 10 o’clock, our second mate died of the scurvy having been sick for some time. He was born in Cork and was twenty-eight years old. We did not bury him until the sun was down and it was so dark when our captain was reading prayers that he began to damn his eyes because he could not see the print plainly.

We remained at this village until the 26th when we got under way at four p.m. bound to the north on our trading voyage. In all we bought forty skins at this place. [They then sailed for the Scott Islands, lying off the northwestern extremity of Vancouver Island, then for the Queen Charlotte Islands.]⁷²

"

And so closed Bartlett’s insightful narrative of late winter 1791—detailing the perils presented to a vessel of this draft sailing these waters, the lack of charts and sailing instructions, Wickaninnish and the village of Opitsat, and the adventure of the Natives seizing the shore party that was cutting ship’s timbers. This last was an episode that fortunately did not end in tragedy; it throws a sidelight on Native behaviour, but is an incident into which we might not read too deeply, perhaps.

Twenty-two days after the Gustavus III hauled for northern waters, two warships made the entrance and came to anchor in Clayoquot Sound. They flew Spanish colours and were, respectively, the two-decker San Carlos and the schooner Santa Saturnina. Meares Island does not feature here specifically (and the Spanish never proved its insularity), but the exploration of the Sound throws light on Spanish inquiries and motives.⁷³ This was the first scientific examination by any nation of the complicated and mysterious passages of Clayoquot Sound.

The Spanish claimed all this territory as part of the Spanish Empire by virtue of the doctrine of discovery (something the British would not admit to) and by the Treaty of Tordesillas and papal sanction of same. Meares Island fell within this claim, so was now possessed by the King of Spain. The Spanish, thinking in broadest terms, were also in search of a northwest passage, which the pilot Juan de Fuca claimed to have found in 1592, and which Meares had also alleged to exist.⁷⁴ As of 1791, the thinking of the Spanish was that it might lie to the east of Vancouver Island. By this date they knew of Clayoquot Sound, for Manuel Quimper had been there the year before. Now a new plan was brought forward on Eliza’s advice: as part of the Spanish search for the alluring channel to the Atlantic (if, indeed, one existed), a further examination of harbours and waterways was called for, and one of them was Clayoquot Sound. Thus it was that Eliza in the San Carlos and Narváez in the Santa Saturnina sailed in company from Nootka, which had recently been refortified and garrisoned against any untoward development—in other words, a British takeover.⁷⁵ The date of departure was May 3, 1791.

Reading between the lines, the Spanish were approaching Clayoquot not just for exploration but for trade—and perhaps to save a few souls for Christ. For all their flowery arguments, repeated by historians, that they were mapping the unusual reaches and recondite places of the coast, they also wanted to be part of the lucrative sea otter trade. Then again, they were in the employ of the King of Spain. A conflict of interest, or profiting at the Spanish navy’s expense, must surely have crossed their minds. Eliza placed the discovery of a passage to the Atlantic Ocean to be of the highest priority.⁷⁶

Four days out of Nootka, in the afternoon of May 7, 1791, the two vessels dropped anchor in the outer harbour, or southeast entrance, to Clayoquot Sound. “The Puerto de Clayocuat,” writes Eliza, “is formed by various islands and although open to the SE, S and SW winds the sea is not troublesome, as the numerous flat islands at the entrances form a barrier. The anchoring ground or bottom is all very clean and of fine sand.”⁷⁷ He had come on a particularly fair day for weather, we note with amusement. Wickaninnish with his sons came out in a canoe to visit the ships. By sunset, fifty-eight canoes of all sizes were crowding alongside the packetboat. The next morning eighty large and small canoes could be counted alongside, bringing sea otter skins and a great abundance of crabs, larger than usual.

Later that afternoon, on Eliza’s orders, the San Carlos shifted to the secluded anchorage inside—that is, to Meares’ Port Cox, adjacent to today’s Tofino. The low peninsula afforded shelter from strong winds outside; in addition, a small creek had reliable drinking water, and casks were filled here. Eliza in the San Carlos rode at anchor until the 22nd; during these days he deployed Narváez in the Santa Saturnina and an armed longboat to examine the labyrinth of inlets to the north of the anchorage and later to the northwest as well as to the east—in other words, the various navigable channels in and near Meares Island. The work was best accomplished in small boats. Observations were made at Puerto de San Rafael and again at Puerto de Clayocuat, the latitudes established and the longitudes similarly west of San Blas. Like other mariners before them, the Spanish were bringing empirical science combined with surveying technique not only to mark their base points for future triangulations, chart making and explorations, but also to give exact places on the globe that other mariners could find if so inclined, all matters of navigation and sailing being properly attended to, of course. We often forget that mariners faced a plethora of difficulties and a host of challenges just to reach a location safely. Clayoquot Sound was no different, and on the outside it was a storm-tossed coast.

In any event, at the end of the reconnaissance taken under Eliza’s direction, Lieutenant Narváez and the pilot Carrasco drew a plan of the Archipelago de Clayocuat entrance and port proper. Jim McDowell reprints this plan, on which had been traced the respective routes taken on survey duties by Narváez and pilot Juan Pantoja.⁷⁸ The Spanish called Clayoquot Sound “Puerto Narváez,” and from it, according to the authority Henry R. Wagner, who pored over all the documents, “it appears that the port was between Wakennenish Island and Meares Island to the east.” A favourite port of call of fur traders, the Americans knew it generally as Company Bay, or Hancock’s Harbor.

The Natives were numerous, friendly and keen to trade. Eliza says there were five large villages in this archipelago embraced by the Sound. Of these, he says, four might contain 1,500 persons while that of Wickaninnish might have 2,500. These are large numbers, putting the total number of men and women at 8,500 as a guess, but who is to say? On arrival, 600 entertained the Spanish with a great dance in Wickaninnish’s big house. Eliza, engaged in private commerce, tried to barter copper for sea otter skins but with poor success, other traders having pre-empted him. The Natives wanted Monterey shells, the fabulous abalone shells, which were used for personal ornament.

The survey completed to the commander’s satisfaction, the Spanish visit to Clayoquot Sound ended, and the Spanish vessels sailed away to continue their examination south and west to Cordova (now Esquimalt). From there they engaged, though separately, in subsidiary quests to Haro Strait, Saturna Island, the northern San Juan Islands, New Dungeness and elsewhere.

Amused by the complicated geography of islands, passages and inlets, the Spanish speculated about the possibility of a passage to the Atlantic, in part because of the large number of whales they had seen. Port Angeles and Neah Bay were visited, then the Santa Saturnina headed for Monterey, California, and the San Carlos back to Nootka, having concluded the year’s explorations. The comprehensive chart produced in consequence of these extensive examinations contains several inserts, including one of especial interest to us: Puerto Claycuat. The Spanish preferred to keep their information to themselves. Thus it was that this chart did not appear in published form, for universal appreciation, until 1872, when it was filed by the United States government as part of the San Juan Boundary arbitration disclosures.⁷⁹

To this point, European relations with Indigenous peoples at Clayoquot Sound had been mostly peaceful. This did not last. The Clayoquot, Ahousaht and Kelsemaht peoples, like all Nuu-chah-nulth nations, were militant societal groups, which should come as no surprise. Inter-village and inter-tribal rivalry was a feature of existence on the coast long before the Americans, British and Spanish arrived. Trade in arms and ammunition (black powder pistols and muskets, and possibly small cannon) was a feature of early contact history. However, as Robin Fisher has shown, Indigenous peoples of the coast preferred hand-held weapons; firearms may have been superior weapons, and much admired by the chiefs, but when it came to combat, traditional weapons were used.⁸⁰ For one thing, gunpowder, once expended, was not easily replaced.

It must always be remembered, too, that the Europeans and the Americans also came well-armed and experienced in, and possibly anticipating, “frontier warfare.” Particularly experienced were the Bostonians, who had fought the British during the Revolutionary War and, like most men in eastern North America, were familiar with “forest actions.” The trading vessels all had mounted cannon of one sort or another, which were sometimes used in a display of power (as we will see in the Colnett case, below). In addition, such vessels were well equipped with swivel guns, blunderbusses and various firearms and, doubtless, cutlasses and perhaps pikes. They also had boarding nettings to prevent surprise attacks from canoes at night.

In short, trade readily occurred. It always began with gift-giving by the visitors, and sometimes an exchange of presents—with the promise of a larger exchange the next day. When the trade was brisk, there was less noise and uproar than usually occurred.⁸¹ But the visitors—and probably the locals as well—were always on the alert for anything that might lead to violence.

It will always be a matter of argument as to the extent of the violence between Natives and newcomers. Violent incidents are a matter of record, but I prefer to see them as isolated or standalone episodes, a reaction to specific events; they were not demonstrations of organized warfare. Still, they exist and cannot be set aside. However, the documentation on these incidents is sparse, and in many cases we have only one testimonial or written piece of evidence. Unsupported accounts are always limited in value. The Native side of the evidence is conspicuous by its absence, as the anthropologist Drucker attests. We have to remember that the First Nations of the Northwest Coast had an oral rather than a written culture. Historians can explain their motives and actions only through the descriptions given by European and American outsiders, and then, must weigh the evidence and make the best judgment they can.

In his own time, James Colnett was famous among British mariners. He was a great seaman and navigator, but his fame, or notoriety, arose because of what transpired at Nootka in 1789, when he was imprisoned by the intemperate Spanish naval officer Martínez. Colnett became known as a central actor (second only to Meares and Martínez) in the drama unfolding on the far side of the world. He was by no means blameless, but he did have the doctrine of freedom of the seas and freedom of navigation on his side. He also had an excellent propagandist in the form of John Meares, who broadcast the iniquitous actions of the Spaniard throughout the British Empire. Colnett survived all this to become a formidable part of the European story of Clayoquot. Accordingly, a mountain on Meares Island bears his name.

Colnett, a midshipman during Cook’s second Pacific voyage, earned his commander’s approval as “clever and sober.” He gained expertise in gunnery. Promoted to lieutenant, he eventually found himself on half pay when the Royal Navy no longer required his services. He obtained Admiralty permission to command the Prince of Wales, with the Princess Royal as escort, for Richard Cadman Etches & Co.’s trading expedition to the Northwest Coast under licences from the South Sea and East India Companies. He was on the coast in 1787, wintered in Hawaii, sailed for Canton, and there formed a new company with Meares, the Associated Merchants Trading to the Northwest Coast of America. The Prince of Wales freighted tea home to England. At this stage, Colnett took command of the Argonaut. He sailed for the coast in April 1789, taking with him twenty-nine Chinese artisans, along with materials for building coastal vessels and establishing a permanent settlement in Nootka Sound. Such a base would be a trading post, a point of collection for furs, a repair depot and a headquarters of ancillary posts.⁸²

However, the scheme to establish this foothold of empire fell afoul of a Spanish naval officer hell-bent on exercising his authority to gain personal renown. Colnett found he had been forestalled by the Spanish at Nootka. Merchant sailors are an independent lot: they do not like to be interfered with, and after a violent drunken argument with Martínez, Colnett found himself in irons and his vessel seized. The Argonaut and the Princess Royal, plus their cargoes and stores, their commanders, officers and crews, and the Chinese artisans, were sent to the Mexican port of San Blas as prize vessels and prisoners.

This event nearly ended in war between Britain and Spain, and the bullish British used the threat of naval action to convince the Spanish to back down and accept the Nootka Conventions, permitting British trade and navigation. The international legal tangles of the conventions, and the diplomatic pressure on Madrid, as fascinating as they are, cannot detain us here.⁸³ The main point is that the Nootka Convention of October 28, 1790, changed this state of affairs.

Meanwhile, in fever-ridden San Blas, local Spanish authorities released the Argonaut and Colnett from captivity in the summer of 1790. A long voyage lay ahead to get back to Nootka, and the vessel was only half-provisioned. November’s gales posed high risks for any sailing vessel making for Nootka, but Colnett had no choice. The weather-battered Argonaut, lashed by winter’s furies and suffering much damage to spars and rigging, could not make Nootka but found welcome refuge in Clayoquot Sound. She came to safe anchor and was suddenly enveloped in a pea-soup fog. Her successful entrance can be credited to Mate Thomas Hudson, who had been there before. Local knowledge was of greatest importance. Later the vessel shifted to much-favoured Port Cox.

From Colnett’s manuscript we pick up the story of what transpired at Port Cox. Nootka Sound was his ultimate destination, but, he recounts, gales were either coming straight out of Nootka bound for Clayoquot or the other way round, preventing the Argonaut’s passage to Nootka. In the circumstances, Colnett sent Mate Hudson and crew in the jolly boat to Nootka with messages that he was at Clayoquot and in need of assistance for repairs to his ship. The unfortunate jolly boat came to grief on the rocks just south of Nootka with loss of all hands.

Meanwhile, at Port Cox, the ship’s carpenters made repairs to the rudder of the Argonaut and replaced the rotten bowsprit. Colnett wanted to lay the ship on shore for the repairs, but there was nowhere he could protect his stores from the Natives, “who were moving their habitations near us, and were very numerous also, having as many fire arms as myself and perfectly acquainted with the use of them.”⁸⁴ All the same, the necessary general refit was completed. Shore parties gathered wood and water. Whale and dogfish oils were purchased for the ship’s lamps—another local source aiding the ocean-going mariners.⁸⁵ All was nearly ready for departure. But outside, on the outer coast, the gales struck with unrelenting fury.

Colnett helped Wickaninnish rig and sail two canoes after the manner of the British longboats. Much trading took place, too, but other storm clouds were gathering. The Natives were numerous, and Colnett thought them increasingly warlike in their preparations:

"

This reciprocal Friendship continued until the 31st, when at Supper and only one Man left on deck, was alarm’d by his calling for Assistance on deck, that the Indians was going to Board us in large Canoes. Arms being at hand, everyone seiz’d them, and were soon on deck, when I observed 3 or 4 Canoes lash’d together. They were dropping on board with the Ebb tide, but we soon made them Shift their route by keeping a constant fire of Musquetry, as long as a shot would reach them. Being within Gun shot of the Village [of Opitsat] I pointed one of the Cannon myself, and fired into it, that they might know if they made such another attempt, it was in my power to annoy them considerably. On discharge of the Gun They set up a Hue and Cry, and return’d it with several Muskets but, if with Ball in, they did not reach us.⁸⁶

"

Colnett concludes his extended discussion of this incident thus: “Indeed our Confidence in each other was entirely lost and in the morning January 1st [1791], the wind proving favourable sail’d and by Noon was clear of this Port which gave me no little Satisfaction.”⁸⁷

The Argonaut reached Nootka Sound in early February and soon sailed for Hawaii and China, arriving in July 1791. Colnett became famous: “Everyone has heard about Colnett,” wrote Patrick O’Brian in Far Side of the World, and so it was at the time among persons concerned in the merchant trades and naval matters. The Clayoquot had reasons to remember him too, though not kindly. Looked at differently, the Nootka seizure did him no harm in high places; rather the opposite. He found himself high in Admiralty favour. London whaling companies thought him just the right sort of fellow to undertake a voyage to the Galapagos and other islands to find places of rendezvous and refit for the extensive British whaling fleet working the waters beyond Cape Horn. In consequence, he sailed in the small ship Rattler to the Galapagos and other notable islands of the eastern Pacific.

There was also a scheme promoted by some British persons to establish a convict settlement at or near Nootka, along the lines of the one in New South Wales. That came to naught as there were enough places in Australia for this sort of thing. Another scheme imagined Hawaii as a mid-Pacific base of operations under the Union Jack, with communications to Nootka Sound and Macau. Many of these schemes seem wild, but the one that made eminent good sense was the one brought forward by John Meares, which Colnett attempted to carry out: to set up a base of operations at Nootka Sound. To this end, Colnett had a detail of Chinese labourers on board the Argonaut to assist in the project. The Spanish put a stop to these intentions. Who knows what would have happened if Colnett had not been arrested, and his vessels and cargoes seized, by Esteban Martínez.

The trade continued despite the absence of the factory. At the end of the process, when the sea otter had almost disappeared and the trade become of no value to the British, Americans and others, the Natives were left alone. They entered a quiet period, and it was not until the 1860s that the outsiders came again, this time looking for timber and forest products. During this quiet period, the riches of the outside world were essentially cut off, and the local nations developed internal, inter-tribal trades; this was a time, too, of rivalries, slave trading and internecine warfare.

As an aside, timber was not only of interest in the later period. Captain Cook, we are reminded, replaced various damaged masts and yards when he was at Nootka, and when Meares was there in 1788, he freighted spars (for masts) and deal (sawn boards) to China, for there, he declared, “spars of every denomination” were in constant demand. He left Vancouver Island with this lasting impression: “the woods of this part of America are capable of supplying, with these valuable materials, all the navies of Europe.”⁸⁸ How many vessels in the sea otter trade freighted spars and deal from these waters is not known, though there are incidental cases: Mentor, in 1816, with spars for China, and Arab, in 1819, with spars for Chile.⁸⁹

In short, the Natives of Clayoquot Sound had met with outsiders on numerous occasions in the course of the trade in sea otter pelts. Vessels on discovery missions had also called there, but the real attraction was trade. Clayoquot Sound, and Port Cox, became an important nexus of the sea otter, or maritime, fur trade of the Pacific. The Natives now participated in global markets. They wanted iron, copper and abalone shells, and for these they traded sea otter pelts. This was makúk, pure and simple. Connections with the wider world developed from local demands.⁹⁰

Although it may appear that the Europeans and Americans came with aggressive intent, we need to be careful in our judgments and more discerning when it comes to the wild generalizations that seem to be made these days in regards to race relations. Perhaps we can put some of the British traders in the camp of the evil-minded and evil-intended. However, we know from the documents that John Meares pursued a clearly defined policy, in keeping with investors’ demands, to win the confidence of the Natives of the Northwest Coast. In consequence of his own experiences in trade, and on the basis of other information he had received, moreover, necessity dictated good relations with the locals, and no harm was to be done to them. Rather, friendships were to be cultivated. He himself had been circumspect in his dealings with the First Nations. Thus he instructed Captain Colnett in April 1789 to observe the following in future dealings with the Natives: in view of “reports having been spread of great Acts of Cruelty and Inhumanity being committed by the Crews of various Vessels on the Coast of America, in their Commerce with the Natives,” Colnett was warned to intervene to stop any such acts, and to “seize the Offenders, and put them in irons, and send them to the [Company’s] Agents in China” for punishment. Furthermore, Meares recommended a policy of forbearance: “We are here necessitated to dwell on this Subject, from the strong Reports of such atrocious Acts being committed, which are at once not only destructive of the Commerce, but of every sentiment of Humanity; we recommend a steady Pursuance of a mild Conduct, as the only Means to cultivate the good Will of the Natives, and draw them within the Verges of civilized Life.”⁹¹

These words sound high-minded and altruistic, and in this age we may find them hard to accept at face value. But they speak to a growing British awareness (not shared by all European peoples and certainly not by the Americans) of the imperial mission, which grew into a Britannic peace. In a sense, Meares and Colnett were following what we might call the official line with regards to conduct to be observed. After all, this represented fully James Cook’s instructions for all his voyages to the Pacific, and notably, in our case, his third voyage, the one that brought him to Nootka. The British regarded trade as their vehicle of friendship, and the British were traders extraordinare. Thus Meares’ instructions to Colnett recommended forming treaties with various chiefs, “particularly near Nootka.” Meares ordered Colnett to gain “the Confidence of the Chiefs, who are known to manage the Commerce of their Subjects.” This is a telling observation on the power of the likes of Maquinna and Wickaninnish. In order to secure their confidence, Meares regarded it as necessary to negotiate an explicit understanding involving protection. In Meares’ words, “so anxious are we to have a good Understanding, and the perfecting a Treaty, that we authorize you to take under your Protection all our Allies, and protect them from Insult from all Persons whatever. Our Sentiments on this Head you will make known to all Persons whom it may concern, in order that they may govern themselves accordingly.”⁹²

Colnett’s actions at Clayoquot Sound and elsewhere, though interrupted by his incarceration at the hands of Martínez, stand in sharp contrast to those of John Kendrick and Robert Gray, to which we now turn. The visits by these captains and the ships they commanded are important in Meares Island history for two reasons: the first is the use of a cove at Meares Island as a winter sanctuary for the traders in 1791–1792; the second is the relationship of Wickaninnish to Kendrick, and the fur trade transactions entered into at that time.