by Scott Ridley
An Adventurer by the name of Douglass who was concerned in the business of Nootka Sound has… made some discoveries on the NW Coast of America… He means to prosecute his discoveries & to collect furs as he goes on, & failing of success in finding a passage, he will go to some Islands in the vicinity of Japan to which the Japanese are said to trade, & by their means introduce himself, or his Furs to the notice of the Japanese. There can be little doubt that much can be done by way of Commerce in those Seas, & I cannot but lament that the introduction is left to such persons as may give rise to many prejudices against us, which it may not be easy to get the better of in the future.
As a result of Blankett’s urging, and prodding by the East India Company, the British court launched renewed efforts toward Japan. Coupled with Vancouver’s mission, official policy on the Pacific now had a focus to ensure a dominant British role in trade.
Blankett and the British merchant fleet sailed from Macao for London in two divisions on March 20, armed for war and unaware that the crisis with Spain was over. Eleven days later, the Washington raised anchor and headed into the South China Sea with the Grace. Kendrick had been in port for fourteen months, and was exhilarated as the Washington slipped beyond the fishing junks on the Pearl River Delta and into the South China Sea. The men’s spirits must have soared as well. The Washington now carried a crew of thirty-six. In addition to his original Boston men, there were also two Chinese, two Hawaiians, and British, Welsh, and Irish sailors, who later claimed to be Americans. First mate Davis Coolidge remained with Douglas on the Grace. The Washington‘s new chief officer was a Welshman, John Williams. Second mate was John Redman, third mate William Bowell, and John Stoddard of Boston served as the captain’s clerk.
Just before the Washington and Grace departed, the mandarins declared a complete embargo on the trade in sea otter skins. China was at war with Russia, and the mandarins feared that neutral ships would carry Russian furs to Canton. The embargo (which would last until June 1792) gave Kendrick compelling justification for the risk they were taking to open trade with Japan.
After side trips to offshore islands, on May 6 Kendrick and Douglas approached the sparsely settled Kii peninsula on Japan’s south coast. They might have chosen a rural area rather than entering a port city manned by samurai troops, but they were also being driven in by mounting seas and increasingly stormy weather. The ragged black cliffs and forests of the coast were foreboding.
Japan had been a closed nation, under “Sakoku"—or self-imposed isolation—for one hundred fifty years. Portuguese vessels had first arrived in 1542, and the Dutch, English, and Spanish came in the early 1600s. Spain especially cultivated a close relationship, sending emissaries and priests from the Philippines and Mexico. In 1610, a group of twenty-three Japanese merchants and two noblemen traveled to Mexico City. But during the next two decades, conflicts mountedover the teachings of Catholic missionaries and popular conversions of Japanese villagers.
In a series of increasingly restrictive edicts, the shogun (the hereditary military leader) attempted to stop the Catholic religion from undermining Japan’s culture and political system. In response, a Christian peasant revolt broke out in 1637, and more than thirty-seven thousand Japanese were eventually slaughtered. The shogun closed the nation. All Spanish, English, and Portuguese were expelled, and every ship built with European design for distant voyages was burned. The Dutch alone, who had helped attack Japanese Catholics, were allowed to remain on a three-acre compound on tiny Dashima Island in Nagasaki Bay. They were permitted two ships per year at first and then later only one. A limited trade was carried on with Chinese and Koreans through Nagasaki and offshore islands, but no one from Japan was allowed to travel abroad.
Japan’s society of twenty million people—much larger than England, Spain, or the United States—was ruled by tradition-bound samurai warlords, led by the figurehead of a divine emperor at Kyoto and the Tokugawa shogun at Edo (Tokyo). The land was divided in strictly defined fiefdoms or “prefectures.” The Kii peninsula was under the control of the daimyo at Wakayama Castle, seventy-five miles away by sea, or fifty miles over rugged mountain trails from the peninsula.
Kendrick and his men approached Japan with a free-wheeling notion of liberty and open trade, but were prepared for the possibility of a hostile encounter with the samurai. During his time ashore at Macao, Kendrick had collected a considerable arsenal. The Washington carried eight four-pound cannons, twelve swivel guns, and four small guns, plus muskets, pistols, and sabers. In the hold were cases of muskets and powder intended for the Northwest Coast and Hawaii.
Swept northward by the storm and the Kuroshio, or Black Current, the ships came in along the Kii’s sheer cliffs and tall, sharp, toothlike rocks jutting from the surf. Dense forest rose above the tide-stainedrock of Cape Shiomonoseki and Oshima Island, backed by green mountain chains shrouded in clouds.
Seeking shelter from what gathered into a darkening typhoon, the ships entered the channel between the village of Koza on the mainland and Oshima Island, and then moved farther into the protected bay behind the island. A copper-bottomed longboat felt the way in with a sounding lead. Onshore, the fishing village of Kushimoto stood on high ground above a narrow beach. Inside the town, frightened villagers brought frantic news of the ships to the headman, Kichigo. Any contact between Japanese people and foreign barbarians was considered a punishable offense. Those who breached the law could face exile or death. The first response of Japanese fishermen and villagers was to avoid foreign ships.
Kichigo sent a message to the daimyo at Wakayama. Nakanishi Riezaemon, the headman of the nearby Koza village, did the same. No one could recall foreign ships like this. Although a long red-and-white-striped American flag billowed from the stern of the Washington, they had no idea what nation it symbolized, or why the ships had come. When the storm abated, a few fishermen overcome by curiosity went out and stood alongside the ships. They found men they described as six feet tall with sharp, high noses, long hands and legs, and red eyes, which may have been the result of an outbreak of conjunctivitis (pink eye), not uncommon among crews.
Kendrick offered the fishermen food and drink, and despite the threat of punishment, they went on board. They noted with amusement a fishing pole someone had stuck in the arms of the ship’s beautiful figurehead. The Chinese crewmen did not speak Japanese, but their writing was similar and they exchanged notes. Answering a series of questions, the Chinese crewmen explained, “This ship belongs to the Red Hairs from a land called America.” The cargo included “copper, iron, and fifty guns,” which was most likely an understatement to avoid alarm. They had been driven to port “under the stress of wind and wave” and would not stay more than three to five days. Attempting to reassure nervous headmen in the village, they said the ships would leave as soon as the wind became favorable. “The captain’s name is Kendrick,” they said in closing.
The Lady Washington at Kushimoto, Japan, sketched by Hewitt Jackson.
Through the night, the ships fired their cannons out in the bay behind Oshima Island as a precaution against attack. The sound echoed off the hills in the dark, which unsettled the villagers even more. A silk-robed doctor was brought out to the ship and tried to communicate. The Americans perhaps thought he was an official, and waved him off. The fishermen who were allowed on board most likely traded information as well as their catch. Kendrick and Douglas soon learned that the Japanese cared nothing for wearing sea otter furs—in fact, they regarded the practice as barbaric. Contrary to rumors at Macao, a rich market in furs here was an illusion. The fishermen may have also dissuaded Kendrick from going to Osaka, a teeming city ofnearly four hundred thousand people in the north. There, the two captains and their men would have faced certain arrest and confiscation of their ships.
While the wind held them in the bay, the men shot gulls or ducks to be retrieved by the ship’s dog. Five men were sent ashore on Oshima to collect water from a stream in cotton (or canvas) sacks and cut trees for
firewood. One local farmer who tried to stop them from taking the trees ended up running from a musket fired at his feet.
Days after Kendrick’ arrival, the daimyo at Wakayama castle received the panicked messages from the Kii headmen and mobilized his troops. Perhaps after being alerted that samurai were on their way, on May 17 (about ten days after the ships arrived) the wind freshened from the west and the Grace and Washington made sail. The samurai appeared two days later. If poor weather had delayed the ships, the visit might have become America’s first clash with Japan. It resulted instead in a new system of alarms and patrols for coastal villages, which increased Japan’s isolation under the vigilant samurai. For the Western world it was a symbolic visit, the first by America, one that would further goad the British and build their antagonism toward Kendrick.
STRANGELY ENOUGH, JAMES COLNETT, with his penchant for misfortune, was the first one to suffer under the heightened security. Colnett had been released with the Argonaut and the remainder of his crew at San Blas on July 9, 1790. He wintered on the Northwest Coast and had arrived at Macao in May 1791, where he found the embargo on furs in place. Learning of Kendrick’s plans to trade in Japan, he ventured there in July 1791, two months after Kendrick’s visit. Colnett was immediately seized and threatened with execution if he did not depart. Then, back at Macao in November, he was arrested for disobeying the mandarins’ rules about anchoring and managing his ship. Colnett was at his wits’ end. He imagined once again that he would be executed orimprisoned for life in a small brick cell with only a small opening for food and water. After a disastrous two years with the Argonaut, the ill-fated British captain finally took ship as a passenger for London in December 1791.
AFEW DAYS AFTER LEAVING THE KII PENINSULA, Kendrick and Douglas came upon a group of islands off the Japanese coast that they named the Water Islands. They decided to separate. Douglas later ended up trading for the summer among the Russians in Alaska. He may have gone to Hawaii first, carrying homeward-bound islanders or a promised shipment of guns for Kamehameha.
Kendrick headed for the Northwest Coast. Douglas had told him that during the previous summer, the breach between Spain and England left only one other trading vessel plying the waters—the Eleanora under Simon Metcalfe. He also said that Martinez was gone from Nootka, replaced by Commandant Francisco de Eliza. The fort and gun batteries had been dismantled, only to be rebuilt by Eliza’s force. The Russians had not yet shown up. And apparently, the new commandant had sent ships to search the Strait of Juan de Fuca for the Northwest Passage and make claims for Spain.
Carried by her expanded spread of sail and the Black Current, the Washington ripped across the northern Pacific in less than a month if the recorded date of her Japan visit is accurate. Kendrick must have been justly proud of his refitted little brigantine. Arcing into the lower Gulf of Alaska he came to the familiar maze of foggy islands along the coast. According to a Spanish account, in early June Kendrick arrived on the mainland coast at Bucareli Sound, the area where he had given up searching for the Northwest Passage in the fall of 1789.
Snow was still on the mountains, but the native Tsimshian people were down at their summer camps along the coast fishing for salmon. Kendrick would have tried to learn of any passage to the east, tradingcopper and other goods for furs as he worked his way south. After a week or so, he broke off and crossed the forty-mile channel to the Queen Charlotte Islands. He was in familiar territory now, and he and the Washington were known to people in several villages. As they approached Barrell’s Sound and the village of Ninstints at the southern end of Anthony Island, Kendrick hoped that Coyah and Schulkinanse, the two chiefs he had locked in the gun carriage and disgraced in October 1789, had been long banished from the tribe.
They set up boarding nets and broke out pistols and muskets as they came up the sound. Anchoring a safe distance offshore from the small islet that hid the village, Kendrick fired a cannon, announcing that they had come to trade. The sound reverberated in the hills and forest, and without hesitation, men and women came off in canoes with a variety of skins. Trading was friendly, and Kendrick was told that Coyah was no longer a chief. The crew relaxed. For a couple of days a festive atmosphere prevailed and groups traveled down the coast from other villages and summer camps to take part. When Coyah appeared, he seemed to make no issue of what had happened nearly two years before. Bringing his own furs, the harsh-looking former chief mingled among the fifty warriors and women on board. Kendrick reportedly traded a blue nankin coat to him.
In the midst of the festive mood, one of the chiefs came up on the quarterdeck. Some versions of the story allege that it was Coyah. Before anyone noticed, he had climbed onto one of the two arms chests. The gunner had been cleaning weapons and inadvertently left the keys in the lock. Now the chief was holding the keys in his hand. In what appears to have been an unplanned attack, warriors surged forward, menacing Kendrick’s men with double-ended knives they pulled from sheaths around their necks. As the lightly armed crew retreated, warriors in canoes crowded alongside the Washington and climbed on board. Crewmen brandishing pistols were told that if they fired, everyone would die. A native woman climbed onto the chains securingthe mainmast and urged on the attack. The crew and officers escaped down the companionway, retreating from long bone-tipped spears that had been handed on board.
Kendrick was left on the quarterdeck alone, wielding an iron bar. Whether or not he had been the one to take the keys of the arms chest, Coyah seized the moment. He pointed to his legs and taunted Kendrick, saying, “now put me into your gun carriage.” Kendrick tried to appeal to the other chiefs, but Coyah kept taunting him, confident that the warriors had control of the ship and perhaps seeking to regain prestige. Kendrick realized he could do nothing to regain the arms chest and stepped down from the quarterdeck, offering to pay the warriors to leave the ship. But there was nothing to bargain for. They had possession of the vessel and everything in it, which consisted of more than they knew, given the arsenal of muskets and powder packed in the hold.
Kendrick continued trying to reason with them. A large warrior followed him, waving a marlin spike lashed to a handle like an ax, threatening to dash out his brains. Below, the men were apparently preparing to blow up the ship rather than be captured and tortured. Kendrick was calling instructions to them. Coyah saw Kendrick edging toward the companionway, and jumped down the steps. Kendrick jumped on top of him. Coyah slashed with his knife, piercing Kendrick’s shirt, and slicing his belly in two places.
The officers and men below had gathered the few arms stored in the cabins while Kendrick stalled and they fired at Coyah and other warriors coming down the companionway. Kendrick retrieved his pistols from his cabin, fired up the steps, and then led his men back on deck. They fought hand-to-hand, and about fifteen of the Haida, both men and women, were killed in the ensuing struggle on board the ship. Survivors dove from the opening in the netting and quickly began to paddle off.
A gruesome scene followed. According to the story told later, thewoman who had climbed on the chains refused to yield, “urging them to action with the greatest ardour until the last moment though her arm had been previously cut off by one of the people with a hanger and she was otherway much wounded when she quitted all the natives had left the vessel and she jumpt over board and attempted to swim of but was afterwards shot though the natives had taken the keys off the arms chests yet they did not happen to be lockt. they were therefore immediately opened and a constant fire was kept up as long as they could reach the natives with their cannon or small arms after which they chased them in their armed boats making the most dreadfull havock by killing all they came across …”
It was a brutal retribution. Coyah’s wife and child were said to be dead. The diminutive Raven clan chief had been shot in the back but escaped, and the chief Schulkinanse had a bullet lodged behind his ear. It would become an often-told story. Those who knew Kendrick found the slaughter hard to believe. One sailor’s second-hand narrative alle
ged that Kendrick was “in liquor” at the time.
Leaving the mayhem at Ninstints, Kendrick took the Washington back toward Bucareli Sound. A month later, after the crew’s wounds had healed, he headed home for Mawina and Fort Washington. He had no license to trade in these waters, as Martinez had advised, but he was willing to risk a confrontation with the Spaniards. He had heard nothing of the settlement between Spain and Britain and the Nootka Convention. For all he knew, a global war was in progress. They armed the cannons as they approached the entrance to Nootka Sound.
The tide and wind were with him, and Kendrick made a dramatic entrance. Only he and the steersman were on the quarterdeck as they came through the mouth of the sound and approached the inlet to Yuquot. The gun emplacement of San Rafael had its cannons perched menacingly over the sound. As the Washington approached, the Spanish called out through a speaking trumpet for the ship to halt. Kendrick ordered his crew to stand ready to return fire from their cannonsand swivel guns. He also had each man armed with a musket, two pistols, and a saber.
A Spanish officer noted: “July 12 Captain Juan Kendrique of Boston entered this port and passed the fort with his matches lit, his men armed and the flag of his nation flying in the sloop Washington rigged as a brig.”
The Spanish gunners held their fire, and the acting commandant, Don Ramon Saavedra, immediately sent an armed boat after the Washington. The wind had fallen off, and Kendrick let them approach. He was warned that the sound belonged to Spain and no one could enter or trade there without permission. In seeming defiance, he answered that they came from Macao to trade all along the coast for sea otter furs and that as soon as they finished with this task they would depart. The Spanish messengers took note of how well the ship was armed and the number of crew. Kendrick may have asked about Estevan Martinez and found he had been removed from command and would be sent back to Spain for an inquiry on the taking of Meares’s ships. The Washington went up the sound to the anchorage at Mawina. Chastened by what had happened to Martinez, and under orders to maintain peace, Saavedra took no action. Instead, he waited for Commandant Francisco de Eliza to return from an exploration of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the inland sea.
