John R. Jewitt

John Rodgers Jewitt (born May 21, 1783 in Boston , England , † January 7, 1821 in Hartford , Connecticut ) was an armourer and writer, navigator, actor and singer. The description of his two-year captivity with Indians on the Canadian Pacific coast is one of the most important sources for the history of the Nuu-chah-nulth living there , whom Jewitt referred to as "Nootkas". At the same time they formed the image of the " savages ".

Life

John Rodgers Jewitt was the son of Edward Jewitt, a blacksmith from Boston in Lincolnshire . At the request of his father, he was to become an assistant to a doctor. To do this, he sent him to a school where he learned Latin and mathematics. But John decided to become a blacksmith. In 1797 he apprenticed to his father. In 1798 the family moved to Kingston upon Hull , where the father worked in a shipyard.

The trip to the Pacific

In 1802, Captain John Salter came to Kingston. He was in command of the Boston , an Amory Brothers ship from Boston, Massachusetts . Both Jewitts worked on his ship while Salter acquired goods for his fur trade trip to the North Pacific. Salter hired the younger Jewitt as an armorer. He was responsible for the rifles, but also for iron goods, which played an important role in the trade with the Indians. On September 3, 1802, the Boston broke up and after a month reached the island of Santa Catarina off the Brazilian south coast. From there it went on to Cape Horn and on March 12, 1803 the ship reached Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island .

When Salter sold a rifle to the chief of the Mowachaht , Maquinna , whose territory stretched between Brooks Peninsula in the north and Nootka Sound in the south, and Maquinna complained about its poor condition, a dispute broke out in Yuquot , in the course of which Salter apparently forgot that Maquinna understood English quite well through numerous contacts with fur traders. Maquinna had already been badly treated by James Hanna (1785) and Esteban José Martínez (1789), the commanders of British and Spanish ships, respectively. He almost got shot in the process. The chief prepared his vengeance.

On March 22, 1803, the day before the planned departure, the warriors of the Mowachaht attacked the Boston and murdered the entire crew. Only John R. Jewitt and the sailmaker John Thompson survived. Jewitt was used by Maquinna as an armourer, passed Thompson off as his father and asked the chief for his life. In the scuffle, however, Jewitt sustained a severe head injury.

Captivity and Ascension

Jewitt and Thompson stayed until the summer of 1805. Initially, they were treated as prisoners of war and ridiculed as white slaves. During an argument, the two killed one of the scoffers. But Jewitt was able to win the chief's respect and trust. Unlike Thompson, he even learned their language. Maquinna also allowed him to make jewelry and tools that he could exchange for food and other things. The two men were allowed to keep the Sunday rest and celebrate Christmas. Other chiefs, like Wickaninnish of the Tla-o-qui-aht, wanted to buy Jewitt because of his excellent skills, but Maquinna refused. Chief Machee Ulatilla even promised Jewitt to hand him over to a passing ship if he so wished.

During a rebellion in May 1804, the two maquinna probably saved their lives. Apparently the collapse of the fur trade with the Europeans and Americans, which had raised Maquinna's reputation for a long time, now resulted in repeated hunger and the slaves had to go begging. The whale hunt, for which the chief was primarily responsible, was also often unsuccessful. The approximately 500 warriors of the tribe wanted the prisoners dead, but Maquinna refused again. Jewitt was supported by the chief's nine wives.

They were accepted into a shaman society as part of a winter ceremony, the wolf dancers. Maquinna went so far as to marry off his protégé. Jewitt was allowed to choose a woman who came from the tribe of the Ehatteshaht living in the north . The 17-year-old Eu-stoch-ee-exqua soon gave him a son, whose name he does not mention. For his part, Jewitt repaired muskets and made harpoons out of iron, thereby enhancing Maquinna immensely. Thompson, who succeeded in killing seven men in a raid on an Indian village, also helped to improve their reputation. The two were even allowed to keep four prisoners as slaves.

The two men lived in Maquinna's house, which was around 50 m long, and the chief's son joined them. They took part in hunting and fishing, even in warlike enterprises. They were also invited to potlatches and other celebrations. They were not allowed to take part in the whale hunt, but Jewitt was at least a witness of the ceremonial preparations and the triumphant return of Maquinnas.

Liberation and return journey

On July 19, 1805, the brig Lydia appeared under the command of Captain Samuel Hill. He had learned from another chief, Ulatilla of the Kla-iz-zarts , that Jewitt and Thompson were being held in Nootka Sound. Jewitt had tried in various ways to contact ships that were hunting otters in the region, but so far in vain. Maquinna, who tried to contact Captain Hill in order to participate again in the fur trade that had been torn down by the attack on the Boston , was captured by Hill. Hill traded the chief for the two prisoners.

They drove with Hill along the northwest coast and as far as China, where in August 1806 they sold numerous furs. In June 1807 the ship reached Boston , Massachusetts. There Jewitt married Hester Jones on December 25, 1809, with whom he had several children.

The other survivor, John Thompson, died relatively early after these events, either in Cuba in 1816 or in Philadelphia as early as 1815.

Publications

Jewitt published the journal, which he had secretly written during his imprisonment, in 1807 under the title A journal, kept at Nootka Sound , a rather dryly written booklet of 48 pages.

Upon hearing the report in 1814, Richard Alsop, a Hartford trader and writer , contacted Jewitt, who was now living in Middletown , Connecticut . In accordance with Jewitt's oral reports, he formulated the A narrative of the adventures and sufferings of John R. Jewitt , published in 1815 . This description is shaped by the ideas of Jewitt and his ghostwriter, but it is one of the most important sources on the history of the Nuu-chah-nulth .

Jewitt's fame was short-lived and very regionally limited. His efforts as part of a kind of road show that he carried out with a handcart changed nothing. Alsop had apparently composed a song called “The poor armor boy” for this purpose. The two gave three performances in Philadelphia alone in 1817 , with Jewitt even performing songs and dances of the Nuu-chah-nulth in a circus. Although several editions followed later, the original was translated into German in 1928, Jewitt impoverished and died at the age of 37 in Hartford.

reception

In addition to John Mackay , who voluntarily stayed in Nootka Sound for about a year from 1786–1787, the two prisoners were probably the first Europeans to have lived among the Nuu-chah-nulth for a long time. Jewitt was the only one to write a report. However, this report itself had no major impact and was known to few.

It was only with Alsop's quite free retelling in many places that Jewitt's journey became better known, which was also due to the fact that Alsop belonged to the Connecticut Wits, a circle of nationally known writers. He was also one of the few millionaires, and so he had the means to promote his writings. In the artistic processing of Jewitt's stories, he was based on Defoe's Robinson Crusoe . He had the work printed by Louis & Richards in Middletown in the spring of 1815 . On March 8, 1815, Jewitt applied for copyright, on the same day he also claimed this right for the song "The Poor Armourer Boy". Jewitt himself spread his book at least between Maine and Nantucket.

The text was translated 21 years later by Ignatz Hülswitt , a Westphalian from Lüdinghausen , and published without hesitation as his own travel experience. He had to leave out passages that referred to the English origin, but also the scene in which Jewitt was almost killed during the attack on the Boston , whose name is also kept secret. In contrast to Hewitt, Hülswitt had no scar to show. As the owner of "his" ship, he calls a "Mr. Armory ”, which corresponds to the name of the owner, but the port of departure was New York. While Hülswitt quickly promoted himself to supercargo , he turned Thompson into a gunsmith and called him Karl. Nevertheless, he kept the name Maquinna, which may actually still be alive in 1822. Although Hülswitt claims to have been "established" as a planter in Tennessee and Louisiana , it is not even clear whether he was ever in America. The history of the impact of this little book in the German-speaking area has not yet been investigated, regardless of the plagiarism question.

A total of 18 editions took place, 2 of them in Great Britain, in Germany it appeared in 1928. The journal was only reprinted once. But not only these editions made the work so popular, but also the stage performance by the playwright and later mayor of Philadelphia, James Nelson Barker . As early as March 10, 1815, the play was staged in Philadelphia, several performances followed and the Armourer Boy was announced for the 21st, sung by Jewitt himself. Efforts were made to preserve the customs, ceremonies and "superstitions" of the "savages" to bring on stage. Jewitt apparently played himself and also performed songs of the "Nootkans" in their language, for example as part of the bear ceremony or a war dance. Elsewhere, too, like Vauxhall Gardens, Jewitt performed music in Nuu-chah-nulth attire in Wakashan.

swell

• John Rodgers Jewitt: A journal, kept at Nootka Sound. Boston 1807, reprinted New York 1976. ( Digitized at Early Canadiana Online )
• John Rodgers Jewitt: A narrative of the adventures and sufferings, of John R. Jewitt, only survivor of the crew of the ship Boston, during a captivity of nearly three years among the savages of Nootka Sound. Middletown, Connecticut 1815. ( Digitized from Early Canadiana Online)
• White Slaves of Maquinna. John R. Jewitt's Narrative of Capture and Confinement at Nootka. 2nd Edition. Surrey / British Columbia 2005, ISBN 1-894384-02-4 .

literature

• Jean Braithwaite, WJ Folan: The taking of the ship Boston: an ethnohistoric study of Nootkan-European conflict. In: Syesis. Volume 5, 1972, pp. 259-266.
• Sarah Jane Eustace: An account of our capture and the most important occurences. The textual and cultural construction of John Jewitt in his Journal and Narrative . University of Saskatchewan, 1994.
• Peter Littke: Ignatz Hülswitt: The German "John R. Jewitt" at Nootka Sound? (PDF file; 127 kB), 2007.
• ES Meany: The later life of John R. Jewitt. In: British Columbia Historical Quarterly. Volume 4, 1940, pp. 143-161.
• Hilary Stewart: The Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt, Captive of Maquinna. Vancouver / Toronto 1987.

Web links

• John R. Jewitt . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
• Journal Kept at Nootka Sound , digital republication of the journal from 1807 by Early Canadiana Online
• A Narrative of the Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt, only Survivor of the Ship Boston, During a Captivity of Nearly Three Years among the Savages of Nootka Sound: with an Account of the Manners, Mode of Living, and Religious Opinions of the Natives , digital republication of the retelling from 1816 by Early Canadiana Online

Remarks

1. ↑ Members of the extensive Amory family were wealthy traders and property speculators in New England, but on the father's side originally from the western English county of Somerset. John (1759-1832) and his brother Thomas (1762-1823) Amory had a joint company in Boston. The 8 other siblings (4 brothers and 4 sisters) were, also through marriage, e.g. Some of them are very wealthy and have established themselves in the higher society of New England and are well connected. Brother Francis, for example, married the sister of the President of Harvard University, John T. Kirkland, see Samuel G. Drake (Ed.): The New England Historical & Genealogical Register and Antiquarian Journal. Vol. X, Boston 1856, pp. 59-65.
2. ↑ Martinez was the Spanish naval officer who triggered the Nootka Sound controversy between Spain and Great Britain through his actions, see William Ray Manning: The Nootka Sound Controversy. In: The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1904. Part XVI. United States Government Printing Office , Washington 1905, pp. 279-478. (Reprint: Ann Arbor: University Microfilms Inc., 1966).
3. ↑ Hill was an extremely contradicting personality. Civilized and sensitive at home, he completely changed his behavior at sea and here he showed his violent character. Hill was the first American to temporarily live in Japan, one of the pirates of the War of 1812 and witness of the Chilean struggle for independence. But he was also a rapist and a murderer. For details, see Mary Malloy: Devil on the Deep Blue Sea: The Notorious Career of Captain Samuel Hill of Boston. Bullbrier Press, Jersey Shore 2006.
4. ^ Hilary Stewart: The Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt, Captive of Maquinna. Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver / Toronto 1987, p. 181.
5. ↑ For a biography see Karl Pomeroy Harrington: Richard Alsop, "a Hartford wit". Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT 1969 (Facsimile reprint of 1939 first edition by Mattabesett Press of Middletown )
6. ↑ Mackay was as assistant to the ship's doctor on board one of the two ships coming from Bombay of the Strange Expedition (1785–1787), which, with James Hanna's two voyages, was one of the earliest fur trade expeditions to the northwest coast. For details, see James Strange: James Strange's Journal and Narrative of the Commercial Expedition from Bombay to the Northwest Coast of America. Ye Galleon Press, Fairfield, WA 1982 (reprinted with annotations).
   JM Bumsted has an interesting discussion of Mackay in this post for the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.
7. ↑ The five-verse song, whose author was possibly Alsop, can be found in White Slave of Maquinna, p. 182.
8. ↑ See the article by Peter Littke. Hülswitt's plagiarism was published under the title Diary of a Trip to the United States and the Northwest Coast of America. Munster 1828; again at Verlag der Coppenrathschen Buch- und Kunsthandlung, Münster 1982, Microfiche, ISBN 0-665-18332-1 , Diazofiche-Edition, Hildesheim 1995–1998.