by Scott Ridley
The summer before (1790), Eliza had sent Lieutenant Manuel Quimper Benitez del Pino into the strait in the confiscated Princess Royal. For two months, Lieutenant Quimper had explored both shores of the strait nearly a hundred miles inland, where he noted that the waterway branched into smaller passages between islands north, east, and south. The channels appeared to extend far into the interior. He charted the shore and islands and gave names to channels, such as “Canal Lopez de Haro.” Following Eliza’s orders, Quimper also went ashore to take possession of well-situated harbors. After two months he departed for Monterey.
The new commandant at San Blas, Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, was intrigued by the charts of bays and channels that Quimper brought back. Quadra perhaps had also heard about Meares’s claim that the Washington had sailed through the inland sea. Secret instructions he sent to Eliza ordered him to expand exploration for the passage from Juan de Fuca and along the coast north to the entrance of Bucareli, where Kendrick had just been.
Eliza left Nootka for Juan de Fuca in May, two months before Kendrick arrived. He was exploring with two ships: the sixteen-gun San Carlos, which was slightly larger than the Washington, and the thirty-five-foot schooner Santa Saturina, which the Spanish had assembled at Nootka.
Eliza penetrated channels beyond where Quimper had turned back, and came upon natives who warned that the people to the east would spear his men and beat them with clubs. Soon after, Eliza’s longboat was attacked in the channel of Lopez de Haro, and he and his men had to fire on their attackers to escape. Ignoring the danger, Eliza pressed on. By July 22, the San Carlos was believed to be as far north in the inland sea as Nootka. Eliza later confirmed to Quadra that if the “oceanic passage so zealously sought by foreigners” existed, it was somewhere here, branching off from the inland sea.
AT MAWINA, KENDRICK BEGAN to enact his plans to counter the Spanish drive for domination of the region, and to secure his trade for sea otter skins and a permanent American presence. He was welcomed by the Mawina village chief Claquakinnah and his son who had learned enough English to translate well. Kendrick requested that he send for Maquinna and other chiefs.
Commandant Don Ramon Saavedra reportedly dispatched a boat to Kendrick with a gift of greens and vegetables from his garden each day. The boat allowed Saavedra’s men to keep a close watch on the Americans. Kendrick was not taken in by the gesture, but nonetheless he allowed his young officers to visit Saavedra. He wrote that hehimself did not come, as he was satisfied with their friendship. For some of the young officers, the adventure with Kendrick was proving a bit much. After being forced from Japan, attacked by Coyah’s people, and entering the sound ready to do battle, they found themselves now engaged in trade despite the Spanish warning. They apparently feared being caught and made prisoners or dying at the hands of the Mowachaht. According to Saavedra, they feared for their lives enough to ask if they could remain at the Spanish fort. This was denied, but not before Saavedra milked them for information. They volunteered details on the armament of the Washington and crew, spoke of the British fleet sailing from Macao in March with armed escorts, and of the British royal company that had been formed to raid the California coast. They also told of the attack and ensuing slaughter at Ninstints.
From Saavedra they learned that the threat of war between Spain and England was over. The new San Blas commandant had sent a message to Nootka on March 12, 1791, announcing that the matter had been amicably settled and that “it has pleased His Majesty to permit the English to take part in the commerce of furs from the Puerto de Nuca to the north and to locate themselves in the port itself without prejudice to the establishment which we today possess.” News of the truce between Spain and England may have alleviated some of their fears, but it did not alter Kendrick’s plans. With the British also closing in on the region, he undertook a brilliant move that no other trader or nation was capable of.
The trust he had built with Maquinna, Claquakinnah, Wickaninish, and other chiefs had forged a lasting bond that did not diminish during his long stay at Macao. In fact, the ties were strengthened by the Mowachaht’s frustration with continued Spanish encroachment on their land and the vital new goods Kendrick offered—muskets and powder.
AFTER THE KILLING OF CALLICUM, Maquinna communicated little with the Spanish. Some of his warriors mounted sporadic attacks. Those who traded with the soldiers asked repeatedly when they were going to leave. Kendrick’s arrival created a shift. In response to his request for the chiefs to come together, Maquinna arrived at Claquakinnah’s longhouse, along with Hannape, the father of one of Maquinnah’s wives and the chief at Esperanza Inlet to the north. Tartoochtheatticus, Wickaninish’s brother from Clayoquot, also arrived with a host of lesser chiefs.
In a nighttime celebration, Kendrick dazzled the gathering at Mawina with Chinese fireworks that lit the sky and illuminated the black water of Nootka Sound. They feasted and Kendrick spoke. In the situation they faced with foreign nations, more ships were coming, not only for trade, but with soldiers and armed men who would make claims on this place. With his usual flair for diplomacy, Kendrick apparently explained that if he held a private deed to their land, in which they maintained all their rights, neither the Spanish nor the British could claim it or encroach further. Based on what Joseph Barrell had told him, Kendrick believed that Congress would approve the purchase.
The land and everything in it was holy, and Kendrick was asking for rights to use the region as one of the Mowachaht. While words on a paper deed meant little, his offer of guns was a convincing sign of his trust. Muskets gave them the ability to enforce what they wanted, or to change or cancel the agreement. By purchasing the land, Kendrick was also bound to defend the area against Europeans or tribes outside of Maquinna’s confederacy. And no one would dare trifle with Maquinna or chiefs who bought in and armed themselves. The traders would no longer feel free to raid villages and shoot at canoes.
The chiefs embraced Kendrick and his offer. In a ceremony on the deck of the Washington on July 20, Maquinna reportedly climbed the rigging to the masthead and pointed to the four cardinal directions, proclaiming his grant to Kendrick. The deed that was signed and witnessed read:
To all persons to whom these present shall come, I, Maquinna, the Chief, and with my other Chiefs do send greeting: Know ye that I, Maquinnah, of Nootka-sound, on the Northwest coast of America, for and in consideration often muskets, do grant and sell unto John Kendrick, of Boston, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in North America, a certain harbor in Nootka-sound, called Chastacktoos, in which the brigantine Lady Washington lay at anchor, on the twentieth day of July 1791, with all the land, rivers, creeks, harbors, islands, etc. within nine miles North, East, West and South of said harbor, with all the produce of both seas and land appertaining there to — only the said John Kendrick does grant and allow the said Maquinnah to live and fish on the said territory, as usual—and by these presents, does grant and sell to the said John Kendrick, his heirs, executors, and administrators, all the above mentioned territory, known by the Indian name Chastacktoos, but now by the name of Safe Retreat-harbor; and also does grant and sell to the said John Kendrick, his heirs, executors, and administrators, a free passage through all rivers and passages, with all the outlets which lead to and from the said Nootka-sound of which, by signing these presents, I have delivered unto the said John Kendrick. Signed with my own hand and the other Chiefs, and bearing even date, to have and to hold the said premises, etc. to him, the said John Kendrick, his heirs, executors, and administrators, from henceforth and forever, as his property, absolutely, without any other considerations whatever.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and the hands of my other Chiefs, this twentieth day of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-one.
Maquinnah, his X mark
Warclasman, his X mark
Hannopy, his X mark
Clophananish, his X mark
Tartoochtheeatticus, his X mark
Clack
okeener, his X mark
Signed, sealed, and delivered in presence of—
John Stoddard, John Redman, Thomas Foster, William
Bowles, John Maud, Jr., Florence McCarthy, John Porter,
James Crawford, Robert Green, John Barber
The aptly named “Safe Retreat-harbor” agreement was at once a defensive maneuver for native people and a huge victory for Kendrick and the Americans. The deed covered Nootka Sound and surrounding land, and it reached southwest to the sea and north and east up the Tahsis and Tlupana and Muchalaht inlets where many villages lay. The boundaries formed an 18-mile square centered on Chastacktoos, and the area encompassed 324 square miles.
This was only the beginning.
KENDRICK TOOK HANNAPE up the Tahsis inlet twenty miles and met with chiefs at the traditional winter village known as Tashees. There he made an agreement for nine miles round Tashees for “two muskets and a quantity of powder.” Wanting to avoid the Spanish fort at Yuquot, he took the Washington out the “backdoor” of Nootka Sound, entering the very narrow channel of Esperanza Inlet. He towed the ship between the forested cliffs with the longboat, waiting on the tide and watching for hidden rocks and ledges for twenty miles.
When he reached the ocean, he immediately entered Nuchatlitz Inlet to the north of Nootka Sound, where he made an agreement with Tarassom and his chiefs of New Chatleck for “two muskets, a boat’s sail, and a quantity of powder.” They granted a territory of eighteen miles square with the harbor of Hoot-see-ess at the center. For more muskets, powder, a boat sail, and an American flag, Kendrick purchased from Norry Youk and his chiefs on the north side of the harbor of Ahasset another “territorial distance of eighteen miles square … all the lands, mines, minerals, rivers, bays, harbors, sounds, creeks, and all islands with the produce of both land and sea.” The formerly named Chenerkintau Harbor would now be known as Kendrick Harbor.
The five land purchases Kendrick made at Chenerkintau, Hoot-see-ess, Mawina,Tahsis, and Clayoquot Sound to the south gave him title to more than one thousand square miles of Vancouver Island. It was a brilliant defensive move to block the claims of the Spanish and British. The purchases took in valuable fishing grounds as well as protected harbors and land where gold would later be found.
Only in Maquinna’s deed were the Mowachaht explicitly granted rights to continue to fish and use the land, but as a practical matter, the same condition applied to all the deeds. Kendrick did not want to displace people he saw as allies and partners who would harvest sea otters. Under these four agreements, he now owned virtually all of Nootka Island and an area around Tashees about thirty miles inland, totaling more than seven hundred square miles.
Kendrick sailed past the entrance to Nootka Sound and south to Clayoquot. When James Colnett had been there during the winter with the Argonaut, he told Wickaninish and his chiefs that the Spanish had “committed many Barbarities” on tribes to the south “and almost totally extirpated the whole of them off the face of the Earth.” He said “they had every reason to expect the same if they suffered them to exist among them.” Wickaninish responded that if the Spanish came to Clayoquot again he would trade for nothing but guns and powder. Hearing from his brother about the ceremony at Mawina, the solemn chief was awaiting Kendrick.
On August 11, Wickaninish, his brothers Tartoochtheatticus and Tooteescosettle, and two other chiefs granted Kendrick a territory “eighteen miles north, eighteen miles south, eighteen miles east and eighteen miles west” of the village of Opitsat for “four muskets, a sail, and a quantity of powder.” This was all of Clayoquot Sound. While only four muskets are mentioned in the deed, in 1792 Wickaninish was said to have two hundred muskets and several barrels of powder from Kendrick. Saavedra would also observe that guns traded by Kendrick to Maquinna had made him the best-armed chief in the region.
The deals not only empowered the Mowachaht, Kendrick emerged as the most powerful trader on the coast and believed he had the ability to raise the native people against the Spanish or the English. Thistype of alliance was not unusual along volatile frontiers. Kendrick may have drawn inspiration from the famous mixed-blood trader Alexander McGillivray, who led the Creek nation in defense of its lands in the southwest region of Georgia, West Florida, and Alabama. McGillivray developed land titles for the tribe and played British, Spanish, and American interests off against each other for decades. Kendrick would have been well aware of McGillivray from the news published about him in Charleston, South Carolina, while he was running the Boston packet there after the Revolution.
A dozen years before the Lousiana Purchase, Kendrick held more than a thousand square miles of land on the Pacific. In a year that had begun in debt in a foul harbor near Macao, his perseverance had paid off. Settling in at Clayoquot, he constructed a new Fort Washington on an island out of reach of the Spanish and prepared for the British or whoever else might arrive.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Long-Awaited Return
Clayoquot Sound,
AUGUST–SEPTEMBER 1791
AT NOON ON AUGUST 29, a ship appeared off the entrance to Clayoquot, luffing in a light breeze from the south. Natives brought word to Kendrick who came down in his longboat. Through his glass from inside the sound he could see the ship clearly. Her snubnosed hull and three masts posed a familiar and much longed-for sight—the Columbia! As Kendrick set out in the late afternoon, the men of the Columbia noticed his launch, fired a greeting, and raised the American colors. On board with Gray was Robert Haswell, serving as first officer, and John Hoskins, the young clerk Joseph Barrell had sent along in the post of supercargo to oversee the business of the voyage.
Kendrick had no idea that Gray had thoroughly devastated his reputation in Boston. While a ship out of New England could have carried the news to Macao by the end of March, when the Washington sailed for Japan, the seasonal voyage for an American ship was dictated by the Canton market season and the prevailing winds. China-boundships started well before Gray arrived home in August. Kendrick had received no news and no change in his instructions. He considered himself still under Barrell’s original grant of authority to make decisions for the expedition as he saw necessary.
Kendrick’s appearance was not a surprise for Gray. An hour before his boat was seen coming out of the sound, chief Hanna (Cleaskinah), who occupied the village of Ahouset near Clayoquot’s entrance, paddled out and told the Columbia‘s officers that Kendrick was in the sound in the Washington. While Gray and Haswell were undoubtedly uneasy about how Kendrick might receive them, Hoskins was elated.
It had been a miserable voyage for the young clerk. Soon after embarking from Boston, he discovered that Robert Gray was a bullying and vengeful captain. Gray introduced Hoskins to the men of the ship “as a spy upon his and their conduct” and told other ships the same, demeaning him at every opportunity and apparently trying to force him to leave the Columbia. The young clerk believed he would long have been placed “before the mast, if not turn’d ashore” if Barrell had not specifically ordered Gray to consult with him on “all matters of traffic” and to maintain “the most perfect harmony” between himself, his officers, and Hoskins. He eventually wrote that Gray interfered with the keeping of the ship’s books and that he and others of the ship’s officers regarded their captain “as a man of no principle” and a “Knave and a Fool.”
They arrived on the coast on June 5, eight months out of Boston. Intent on a speedy voyage, Gray did not stop at Cape Verde. At the Falklands in late January, they spent eleven days preparing the ships for the passage around Cape Horn. Though it was already storm season, they luckily found winds and weather almost “what we could have wished” and made the run in three weeks. Gray kept driving hard and by late March the men began to complain of scurvy: bleeding and numb gums and swollen legs. The malady continued to spread. Ultimately, when they sighted shore in June, there were ten men in “the last stage of Scurvy.” Once on shore, they buried several of them “up tothe Hips in the earth, and let them r
emain for hours in that situation.” Despite this dangerous mistreatment, abundant amounts of parsley and wild onions brought by the native people, together with doses of foul-tasting “spruce beer” and “spruce tea” laced with molasses, helped the men recover.
Later, in July, Hoskins asked people at Ninstints in the Queen Charlotte Islands if they had seen Kendrick. Only two or three weeks had passed since the Washington‘s crew had been overwhelmed and made their brutal retaliation. Perhaps the villagers wanted to avoid talking of their attempt to take the ship, but no one mentioned the fight. They said only that Kendrick had been there. Going ashore, Hoskins found few people in the village. Many of them had cut their hair and painted their faces black in displays of mourning. Asking for Coyah, they learned that the Raven Clan leader was no longer a chief. Hoskins was told by a woman about the episode two years before when Kendrick “took Coyah, tied a rope around his neck, whipt him, painted his face, cut off his hair, and took away from him a great many skins, and then turned him ashore.” She said, “Coyah was now no longer Chief, but an ‘Ahliko,’ or one of the lower class, they have now no head Chief, but many inferior Chiefs.”
Hoskins didn’t know how much credit to give the story “when it is considered our knowledge of their language is so very superficial … and from Captain Kendrick’s well known disposition, who has hitherto treated these people more like children than an ignorant race of savages; it must therefore be supposed Captain Kendrick has been provoked by these peoples conduct to punish their Chief.” The young clerk would soon find out.
