by Scott Ridley
Solomon was carrying letters, and brought news of Huldah at the store on the wharf. Benjamin, at seventeen, was now a seaman; Alfred was fifteen, Joseph, fourteen, and little Huldah, nearly a young lady at twelve. And next door, along the muddy street facing the tidal Narrows, Huldah’s brother, Cornelius Pease, had his gaggle of girls growing toward marrying age.
The well-protected letters were nearly a year and a half old. Solomon had left Boston on November 28, 1791, aboard the 152-ton brig Jefferson, and rounded Cape Horn in April. At Ambrose Island, north of Juan Fernándes Island, where Gray and the Washington had sought drinking water in 1788, they had harvested fur seals with a cruel efficiency, securing thirteen thousand pelts. While wintering in the Marquesas, they built the Resolution from a frame they were carrying and, after separating from the Jefferson in mid-Pacific, made their way here for a rendezvous.
The Lady Washington settled in at Mawina, where Kendrick received a warm greeting from the chiefs who had been saving furs for him. Deer were plentiful this season, and they soon held a feast of fresh venison and salmon. Seeing his father before a fire surrounded by native people might have impressed Solomon with how much he had become a part of this place. The elder Kendrick was honored by Maquinna and other chiefs, and feared by the Spanish. And a song wasbeing sung in the forecastles of the trading ships at night about how he and the Washington‘s crew fought off Coyah. “The Ballad of the Bold Northwestman” served as both a celebration and a warning.
Come all ye bold Northwestmen who plough the raging main,
Come listen to my story, while I relate the same,
‘Twas of the Lady Washington decoyed as she lay,
At Queen Charlotte‘s Island, in North America.
The song described the taking of the ship and how the desperate men below deck found only “six pistols, a gun and two small swords” while the captain stalled the attack. Rather than passively yield the arms packed in the hold and their lives, they prepared to blow up the ship:
Our powder we got ready and gun room open lay,
Our soul‘s we did commit to God, prepar’d for a wat‘ry grave! We then informed our captain, saying ready now are we,
He says a signal I will give, it shall be “follow me.”
The song embodied the bloody spread of skirmishing and fed a spirit of racial hatred and more strife to come:
I‘d have you all take warning and always ready be,
For to suppress those savages of Northwest America,
For they are so desirous some vessel for to gain,
That they will never leave it off, till most of them are slain.
There was irony in the song for Kendrick, who most likely regretted the slaughter that had occurred. At least one later captain, William Sturgis, believed that nearly all the native attacks were in retaliation for some injury and in keeping with the native code of honor that demanded retribution. It was an observation Kendrick might have shared.
Traces of his near-fatal disease months before showed in his face, along with the hard living that had begun to age him. He was part of this place now, and there was a long string of tales to share: of entering the rocky coast of Japan and the enforced isolation of a great nation; of the treachery and incredible generosity of the people of the Sandwich Islands; of Macao and the typhoon and loss of the Avenger and his men.
Kendrick was probably enthralled to describe the prospect of establishing an American beachhead on the Northwest Coast, and his letter to Thomas Jefferson. Solomon would see that despite all the sacrifice, his father still pursued the “glorious cause,” arming native people and trying to hold off the British and the Spanish in order to establish an outpost in this corner of the continent. He would have learned that the aging captain envisioned many American ships here and a settlement that merchants would fund. The deeds gave them a choice of harbors between Clayoquot, Nootka, and Ahasett. Not only could they conduct trade for furs, they could also engage in whaling, fishing, and perhaps mining metal from these rocky shores. (Gold would later be found on the borders of Nootka Sound.) Given the mixed community in which he grew up among native people, Kendrick’s vision likely included the Mowachaht.
Solomon read the deeds signed by the natives. He saw himself implied in the “heirs” who would become owners of the land, and learned that these purchases were only part of his father’s strategy. In the Sandwich Islands, the American presence he sought through a similar outpost and his friendships with the chiefs would ensure America’s trade route to the East. It was a hugely ambitious plan, far beyond the reach of other captains looking for riches in one or two seasons with a good cargo of furs.
Kendrick might have related that Gray had gone home with a modest profit, and Ingraham had reportedly fallen forty thousand dollars in debt with the Hope. James Magee had left the Margaret and returned homeward with Ingraham. The fact that Kendrick remainedwas only the beginning of what set him apart from other American shipmasters. He was the only American captain looking to the future and viewing the fur trade and this region in larger geopolitical terms. Underfunded and undermanned, he had taken immense risks. Yet he had miraculously survived and slowly built what he had now on the coast and in the islands. What he was reaching for was on the same scale as when he had received prize money from the king of France, or when he helped trigger events that pushed the world toward war in the Nootka Crisis. The odds of success in Kendrick’s eyes were probably not any worse than those of a ragtag army of farmers and shopkeepers defeating one of the world’s superpowers. It was all one adventurous long shot, and would demand even greater sacrifice before it was done. Given the magnitude of this dream, and the chance that it might save his father’s reputation, Solomon undoubtedly saw little reason to repeat Huldah’s pleas for Kendrick to come home.
He did have another urgent request to deliver, however, one that touched his father’s sense of justice and allowed him to enjoy being an American ambassador for the region. After rounding Cape Horn, the Jefferson had stopped at Juan Fernándes Island in need of repairs. Sent ashore in the ship’s boat to ask permission to anchor, Solomon found that the Spanish commandant, Don Blas Gonzales, had been stripped of his post for giving assistance to the Columbia in 1788. The new commandant feared he would suffer the same fate if he allowed the Jefferson to enter Cumberland Bay. The Jefferson then sailed to Valparaiso on the mainland, where Gonzales came to Solomon and lamented that he had failed in all his appeals to the viceroy for the past four years to have his reputation and position restored. Solomon carried Gonzales’s written plea, begging John Kendrick and the Americans to intercede on his behalf.
For the second time in three months, Kendrick took up his pen and wrote to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson: “On Board the Ship Lady Washington, Harbor of Maw-win-na, St. Clair’s Island, North-west coast of America.” Through some abuse of power by Spanish officials, Kendrick said, or “malicious statements of the facts by some secret enemies,” Gonzales was charged with a crime for his “humane conduct towards me and my crew in 1788.” Kendrick praised Gonzales’s decision to allow him a safe harbor to repair the Columbia as “perfectly consistent with the amity and good understanding subsisting between the Court of Madrid and the United States.” He urged that justice be done, and under “the principles of our excellent constitution as well as their native humanity,” he requested Jefferson’s help for Gonzales’s relief. Kendrick’s outrage may have been piqued by the odd similarity with his own situation of having been undercut by Robert Gray. Gonzales’s plight was ultimately made known to the American chargé d’affairs in Madrid, William Carmichael. However, there is no indication that any restoration for Gonzales was ever granted.
KENDRICK UNDOUBTEDLY TOLD SOLOMON of the warring in the Sandwich Islands and the tension among tribes along the coast. They may also have spoken of the British warships and Vancouver’s attempts to claim the sound and find the Northwest Passage. As long as the Mowachaht were armed, and the tribes were united, Kendrick was not
worried about British or Spanish claims. But right now, Kendrick found, the tribes were enmeshed in a heated dispute.
A rift had arisen between Maquinna and Wickaninish over a promised marriage between Maquinna’s daughter Apenas (who was about twelve years old) and Wickaninish’s son. The marriage had been bartered in a major ceremony with thousands of the people from Clayoquot and Nootka taking part. Wickaninish came into the sound with forty canoes, carrying hundreds of people, singing and beating their paddles in time. In a steady file they entered the estuary at Coaglee, a few miles from Yuquot where Maquinna’s people were camped. As they swept around Coaglee’s shallow cove, every paddle of the fleet moved in unison and the sound of their drumming reverberated from the hills and forest. First Wickaninish and then Maquinna delivered speeches and the canoes came to shore. People were dressed in their best skinsand blankets with saffron-colored wreaths on their heads and white down covering their hair. They sat in long rows in Maquinna’s house and after dancing and feasting, a deal that was very costly for Wickaninish was finalized.
The union would help to bond the tribes and determine future leadership. But now Maquinna was balking. He wanted to wait until Apenas was older. Beneath the dispute, Maquinna may have been worried about power and prestige shifting away from him and toward the richer and stronger Wickaninish. All the chiefs were embroiled in the dispute. For Kendrick, it undermined whatever united defiance they might show to Fidalgo or Vancouver.
The weather turned to long days of heavy rain. Solomon remained at Mawina and dined regularly with his father and the Washington‘s officers and men. Watching him among the other seamen and officers, Kendrick would have taken pride in the fact that his son was now a full-grown, sandy-haired young man, and one of the rare sailors in the world who was making his second circumnavigation. The time probably passed all too quickly. After the Jefferson arrived on June 22, Solomon was dispatched with the Resolution north to the Queen Charlotte Islands to trade and then sent south to “Gray’s River.”
Kendrick traded locally with the Washington and then left briefly for Clayoquot, perhaps in an effort to help mediate between Wickaninish and Maquinna. The dispute was threatening to turn violent. He returned to Mawina on July 13, possibly carrying some offer from Wickaninish to Maquinna, but whatever small success he might have had in these negotiations, he had no ability to control the broader sweep of events.
AT THE TIME KENDRICK was returning to Mawina, Vancouver was about two hundred fifty miles to the northeast. The Discovery and Chatham were exploring an area where Vancouver hoped they were on the track of the Northwest Passage at last.
In September 1792, Jacinto Caamano, captain of the Aranzazu, had returned from an exploration northward and excitedly reported to Quadra that he had “entered a large Inlet going to the North East Ward which they conceived to be the Straits of Admiral de Fonte.” He had traced the inlet as far as 55°30’ north latitude, “where its capriciousness had so little diminished, that there were reasons to conclude from its appearance that it must penetrate a considerable way inland.”
The possibility of finding the ancient passage that was said to course toward Hudson’s Bay was alluring for Caamano, but ice was forming along the shores, and heavy snow already lay on the mountaintops. He reluctantly broke off and returned to Nootka. Vancouver had mulled over Caamano’s news all winter. This seemed to be the same entrance that Robert Gray claimed to have sailed into for a distance of more than a hundred miles, and where Kendrick had searched. Vancouver hoped to make a vital discovery that he could announce on his return to Nootka in the fall. He also hoped that his new instructions to negotiate with Quadra would be waiting. It would soon be a year since he had dispatched Lieutenant Zachary Mudge to London.
On Saturday, July 20, the Discovery and Chatham were searching in the vicinity where Caamano had reported the opening of the strait. The weather turned gloomy. The fog was rising and falling over the rugged shoreline and a gale threatened the ships from seaward. Vancouver sought a protected harbor. As he anxiously started in among rocky islets, glimpses through the fog showed the situation to be “more intricate and dangerous” among rocks and breakers. Most captains would have headed offshore, but Vancouver continued threading his precarious course, and was suddenly told of a whaleboat appearing off the bow, rowing toward them. It turned out that she was from the Butterworth, sent out to help guide him into a sheltered anchorage. If this was a coincidence, as Vancouver indicated, it was one of remote chance.
At six in the evening the Discovery and Chatham anchored at 54°18’ north latitude in company with the Butterworth and its two consorts,the sloop Prince Lee Boo and the schooner Jackall. Brown came on board following an exchange of salutes. After finding few furs to the south, where his depredations at Clayoquot had foreclosed trading, his ships had been probing this area. Not far to the north, Brown had found the reported opening in the coastline extending far inland. He said he understood from the natives there was “a very extensive inland navigation, communicating with the sea to the northward, that employed the inhabitants nearly three months in reaching its extent …” The opening to this channel was about nine leagues to the north-northeast.
Vancouver excitedly noted that this was probably the same channel Caamano had laid down in his chart as the Straits of Admiral de Fonte. He was eager to begin exploration, but concerned about the deep draft of his ships and hidden rocks. Brown offered the use of his small sloop, Prince Lee Boo, and begged Vancouver to retain her “as long as [he] should find it expedient.”
As soon as the fog burned off enough the next day, they started along a range of rocky islets, with a cutter in the lead, followed by the Prince Lee Boo, Chatham, and Discovery. As the visibility continued to clear, they found themselves off a shore with “a lofty range of mountains covered in perpetual snow” and thickets of spruce running down to the water. Just south of the future border with Alaska, Vancouver named the island they were approaching “Dundas,” after British home secretary Henry Dundas. This was the latest in a long string of landmarks Vancouver named in honor of royalty, high officials, and his own officers, regardless of whether they had previously been discovered and mapped with a Spanish or American name.
Westward from Dundas Island was clear ocean. To the east was a broad channel “that appeared free from interruption.” Vancouver left the Discovery in a safe anchorage, and for the next few days the cutter and the Prince Lee Boo proceeded up an inlet Brown had identified. They reached a village where Brown had gotten into a dispute with the natives, and Brown told Vancouver that it had been “necessary to fire upon them from the vessels, which was attended with some slaughter.”
At that point, perhaps fearing that the natives would recognize Brown’s sloop and retaliate, Vancouver had the Prince Lee Boo return to the Butterworth, while he proceeded with the Discovery’s yawl and launch. He continued up blind channels for the next few weeks, asking small groups of natives they encountered if this was the direction of “Ewen Nass"—a great inland waterway. He received unintelligible responses, but believed that if the Strait of Admiral de Fonte existed, this was where it lay.
On August 12, far inland from the ships, Vancouver engaged in trade with one group and found his yawl blocked by a large canoe when they sought to push off. An old woman who seemed to be in charge of the canoe snatched up the lead line and lashed her canoe to the boat “whilst a young man, appearing to be the chief of the party, seated himself in the bow of the yawl and put on a mask resembling a wolf’s face, compounded with the human countenance.” About fifty natives waded into the shallows, surrounding the yawl. Crowding in, one of them suddenly grabbed a musket, and others took books, guns, whatever was at hand. Sensing they were in mortal danger, Vancouver leveled his musket and went forward to speak with the chief in the mask. Those surrounding the yawl immediately drew their daggers and raised their spears. The launch traveling with Vancouver had already passed into the channel. Vancouver was hoping to stall an attack, but befo
re the launch could return with aid a skirmish broke out. Two of Vancouver’s men were wounded by spears, one in the chest and thigh and the other through the thigh. A few of the natives were also wounded or killed. The British boats fled downriver and searched out a safe place to camp. The next morning, believing that they would not find the passage in this maze of channels, Vancouver turned back. With great relief they reached the ships on August 16, having traversed about seven hundred miles in twenty-three days.
ABOUT TWO HUNDRED MILES to the south, hostile natives had also halted another expedition. As Vancouver was just starting out to explore the inlet in his boats, the British fur trader Alexander Mackenzie was arriving overland on the banks of the Bella Coola River with six French Canadians and two native guides. The North West Company had sent the expedition from the east. They wintered over at the junction of the Peace and Smoky Rivers and started out again on May 9 when the ice in the rivers finally broke up. Arriving at the Bella Coola, Mackenzie had missed Vancouver’s men in their survey boats by only six weeks. Open ocean was about forty miles to the west. Trying to reach it, Mackenzie was stopped by hostile natives. At the edge of what became known as Dean Channel, he used a mixture of bear grease and red pigment to paint a large rock with big, crude block letters: “Alex Mackenzie from Canada by land, 22d July 1793.” Having accomplished his mission and fearing that he was vastly outnumbered, his small party immediately started back overland.
Upon his return, Mackenzie recommended that Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company combine and work with the British government to form a network of outposts and forts across North America to the Pacific shore. To transport the furs to China, he urged the East India Company to join the combined fur-trading companies. Without these measures, he warned the region would be “left to the adventurers of the United States, acting without regularity or capital, or the desire of conciliating future confidence, and looking only to the interest of the moment.” When the network of forts Mackenzie recommended was finally being put in place during the next decade, they would spur Thomas Jefferson to organize the initially secret mission of Lewis and Clark.
