Maquinna

Maquinna (Maquilla, rarely Muquinna ) is the name of a number of Nuu-chah-nulth - chiefs , more precisely the Mowachaht , who have their residential area on the west coast of Vancouver Island . Two of them played decisive roles in the phase of the first contacts between the First Nations on the later Canadian Pacific coast and Europeans.

The name means about Pebble owners and is today M'okwina or muk ^w ina played.

The elder Maquinna

Mowachaht member as recorded by John Webber, Captain Cook's draftsman, James Cook: A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean , London 1784

The first recorded representative of this name appears in the sources from 1778 when James Cook landed on the west coast of Vancouver Island. His ceremonial name, which his people are likely to have mostly used, was Tsáhwasip, but he was also called Yáhlua. He was probably born around 1758–1762, because in 1788 the Englishman John Meares estimated his age to be about 30 years, Alejandro Malaspina estimated him to be no more than 30 in 1792. It seems as if Maquinna took over the rule from his father Anapù around 1778, what possibly the year of his birth would move closer to 1758, which would have made him 20 years old when he became chief. His father was killed in the war against the Tlaumase , whereupon Maquinna waged a campaign of revenge.

Although Spaniards appeared in the Nootka Sound from 1774 , it was only James Cook (for more than a month) who came into closer contact with the coastal inhabitants. It is unclear whether he has already negotiated with Maquinna, he himself does not pass on the name of the chief. However, in the oral tradition of the tribe, Cook was received by Maquinna. In any case, Cook received sea ​​otter skins , which his team later sold at a high profit in China. The Mowachaht's summer residence, Yuquot , later became the first fur trade center on the west coast of North America. In winter the Mowachaht lived in Tahsis .

John Meares' ship is received by Mowachaht in Nootka Sound

The next expedition, led by British captain James Hanna , did not reach the region until seven years after Cook. Apparently Hanna insulted the chief badly, so that the Mowachaht attacked his ship in August 1785, albeit without success. Despite these bad experiences, the trade in otter skins increasingly attracted merchant ships to Nootka Sound over the next few years. Maquinna traded with British captain John Meares in 1788 and even allowed him to build a small settlement. Meares describes the chief as of medium height and charming demeanor.

On May 16, 1788, he wrote that “a number of canoes went into the little bay, with Maquilla (that is what Meares calls the chief) and Callicum; They moved in great parade around the ship while they sang a pleasant song with a melodious melody: - There were twelve of these canoes, each with about eighteen men, the majority in clothes made of the most beautiful sea otter skins, which they ran from neck to Wrapped around ankles. Their hair was as it were powdered with white down, and their faces were covered with red and black ocher, in the shape of a shark's jaw and a kind of spiral line, which made them look extremely wild. Most of the boats had eight rowers on each side and a single man in the stern. The chief occupied a place in the middle, and was also distinguished by a high hood ... with a small tuft of feathers ... The choir was ... extremely correct in time and pitch, no dissonance could be heard. Sometimes they made a sudden transition from a high to a low note ... ”Apparently to the rhythm of their chant,“ they struck their oars against the gunwale of the boat. At the end of each verse they pointed north and south with outstretched arms, solemnly lowering their voices. "

Maquinna quickly understood the rules of the trade. So he played the offers of the Spanish, British and US Americans against each other in order to get better prices. In addition, he kept competing tribes away from trading, even enforced that all furs had to go through his hand or that of his people. Around 1792 he ran a small trading empire together with the Kwakwaka'wakw at the mouth of the Nimpkish River . The fur trader John Hoskins reports considerable profits. Only the neighboring tribal confederation under Wickaninnish operated independently fur trade in this region.

Maquinna and his "brother" Callicut, John Meares 1796

Maquinna constantly had to navigate the Spanish-British conflict. When a Spanish fleet under Esteban José Martínez claimed the Nootka Sound for the Spanish king in May 1789 and arrested English traders, Maquinna's competitor and relative Callicum decided on July 13th to row to the Spaniard's ship to negotiate. But he was shot by a Spaniard. Apparently Maquinna had difficulties with Indian rivals and therefore had to start negotiations again in August and September. He promised to protect the Spanish trading post.

Francisco de Eliza was the next to reach Yuquot in April 1790. The Indians avoided contact, Eliza had a village plundered to get wood for his ships.

The merchant James Colnett - he co-founded the Associated Merchants Trading to the Northwest Coast of America in 1788/89 , which was in the fur trade and had five or six ships - who called at Yuquot in January 1791, tried Maquinna for the March 2nd British cause to win. Two years earlier he had lost two ships and their crew to the Spaniards. Meanwhile, Eliza threatened the immediate destruction of the place if the alleged acts of cannibalism were repeated. Maquinna bowed to the pressure and in August agreed to cede the land at Yuquot to the Spanish. Nevertheless, the British (and the 29 Chinese brought with them from Macau ) managed to get around a thousand sea ​​otter skins , which he sold in England for almost £ 10,000.

Village on Nootka Sound, George Vancouver: A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World , Volume I, Fig. VII

The Spanish Fort San Miguel

The attitude of the government towards the Indians changed fundamentally through the Spanish viceroy Revilla Gigedo. He demanded that his officers be friendly to them and that the crews be properly monitored. Weapons should only be used in self-defense, thefts should be strictly punished. Any bad treatment offends against humanity. At the same time, this procedure was intended to stabilize Spanish rule.

When Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra arrived in Yuquot in 1792 , and a little later George Vancouver , Maquinna threatened to get caught between the two maritime powers. Quadra accepted his invitation to a potlatch and responded to this kind gesture with an invitation to a meal at his house. To this end he invited him again and again, offered him the most honorable seat and insisted on serving him himself, which he consciously increased Maquinna's reputation. Maquinna realized that such honorable gestures were his only. So he invited Quadra to Coopti, where he wanted to celebrate the onset of puberty of his daughter Apenas. During the four months in which Quadra stayed in his area of ​​activity, he prevented a rebellion under the leadership of Wickaninnish and Tatoosh, the chief of the Ahousaht, by diplomatic means . He also visited chiefs and sub-chiefs and did not skimp on gifts such as shells and especially copper, which was very popular. He also maintained friendly relations with Maquinna's opponent Tlupananutl, the chief on Bligh Island and in Tlupana Inlet, as well as with Quiocomasia, the leader of the Ehatteshaht , even if the oral tradition knows of assaults and killings carried out by the teams. They were the trigger for Wickaninnish and Tatoosh's plans to attack the Spaniards, but Quadra was able to convince Hanna and Tatoosh, whom Maquinna had persuaded to visit, of his pure intentions. Quadra and Maquinna supported each other, or, as Maquinna put it, "Maquinna is the same as Quadra and Quadra is the same as Maquinna."

When a Spanish galley boy of 14 was found murdered, most suspected maquinna, but Quadra refused to have him arrested and instead asked the chief to find the culprit. He made sure with the viceroy whether this procedure was appropriate, who in turn received approval from Minister Aranda from Madrid later.

Even George Vancouver recognized Quadra's success and was amazed at the impact of his person. Captain Hanna, who tried to push the Spaniards away, had to give up his plan to initiate an uprising with them, because they trusted Quadra, who followed the policy of his viceroy. "These people can never expect to find a better friend among themselves than Don Quadra," remarked the American fur trader Joseph Ingraham. “Nothing can beat his attention and kindness to you, and they all seem to sense it, and they all like him.” When Bodega Nootka Sound left in September, Yuquot was still Spanish. Quadra personally announced his departure to Maquinna and had to comfort him. Maquinna was apparently appalled when Quadra informed him that his successor was Salvador Fidalgo, with whom the chief had had bad experiences. He had to wait for the Spaniards to leave. It was not until March 1795 that both countries gave up Nootka Sound after London had put Madrid under massive diplomatic pressure. In September, Charles Bishop reports, there was only one Indian settlement in Yuquot. The trading post had been demolished.

A little later Maquinna fell ill with a fever and died. When exactly is not known.

The younger maquinna

The fur trade had quickly become part of a large triangular trade between Europe, China, and Northwest America. The Europeans drove to the Nootka Sound with metals and everything that according to the journals of the previous voyages (published for this purpose) was known as being coveted among the “savages”. There they took otter pelts and beaver pelts on board in exchange and sold them in turn in East Asia, especially in Macao, Portugal, off the coast of southern China. With the enormous profits they bought porcelain , silk and other Chinese goods that were extremely popular in Europe.

Interpreters were soon needed to be able to do business. In this triangular trade, a trader's language with a few hundred words, the Chinook, developed . Meares already reports that the language mix of her interpreter was difficult to understand because it consisted of numerous Chinese, English, and Spanish words, but also words from the Chinook and Nuu-chah-nulth .

Nevertheless, the influence of the European visitors was primarily noticeable in the few tribes that tried to monopolize the fur trade. Other Indians had never seen a European before. In 1804, for example, the members of a tribe allied to the younger Maquinna (the Ehatteshaht ) touched what was probably the first fair-skinned visitor, dressed in strange clothes, with undisguised astonishment. His name was John R. Jewitt . To his two years imprisonment we owe many details from the life and mentality, customs and language of one of the Nuu-chah-nult tribes, the Mowachaht , and their neighbors. John R. Jewitt, who the Indians called Chúwín (John), fell into the hands of the Mowachaht when in 1803 a ship under the command of Captain John Salter lay off the coast of the island later known as Vancouver Island.

When the fur merchant ship Boston lay in Nootka Sound for several days in March of this year , an argument broke out between Captain Salter and Maquinna over a defective rifle. Salter, apparently unaware that Maquinna understood English well enough, insulted the chief seriously. The Indians surprisingly attacked the ship on March 12th. The only ones who survived the attack were John R. Jewitt, who was a blacksmith who knew his way around weapons and was therefore very important to the chief, as well as the sailmaker John Thompson - the latter only staying alive because the 20- year old Jewitt claimed he was his father.

Jewitt and Thompson spent the next two years as maquinnas' slaves. However, while Thompson refused any communication with "the savages", Jewitt came to terms and even learned their language with great success. Above all, he made daggers for maquinna, or repaired rifles.

His journal was to be published in Boston in 1807. This shows, for example, that the annual move from Tahsis to Yuquot , which is further inland, to overwinter and to obtain meat and berries, continued. In 1815 he published a new version that was more oriented towards the literature of the time and clearly showed his need for distance from the “savages”. At the same time, the Nuu-chah-nulth are portrayed as a kind of aristocratic society in which the chiefs and their houses are portrayed as particularly clean, less “wild” in their manners, more noble and more beautiful in their appearance, and more stable in their morals. This is unlikely to be due in the least to Jewitt's ghostwriter, who tended to have monarchist ideas. Logically, the simple tribesmen and slaves - analogous to the European societies - remain basically nameless and they are presented as unpredictable, brutal or childish.

During this time the fur trade continued to flourish and Maquinna was able to obtain numerous rifles. He was so rich in 1803 that he gave away 200 muskets at a potlatch, for example . His white slave also made a great impression on the tribes that had no direct contact with Europeans. Jewitt made a steel harpoon for him, which Maquinna instantly elevated to an exclusive chief privilege that no one else could acquire.

But the fact that the fur traders avoided the Nootka Sound for a long time after the attack out of suspicion soon earned the chief much hostility from the other tribes, whose chiefs saw their prestige and possibly their power as endangered. According to Jewitt, this was especially true for the neighboring "Kla-oo-quates", the Tla-o-qui-aht . They even tried to kill him and his family (including the two white slaves) between May 13 and 16, 1804. Thompson and Jewitt prevented this attack, however, according to Jewitt. Even Maquinna's brother tried a rebellion and planned to get rid of him and his white slaves. So the two men had become a bone of contention themselves, and various aspirants wanted to secure their technical skills. Maquinna had to fear not only violence from the Indians, but also revenge for the attack on Boston . Its position was further weakened when only four whales were caught during the whaling season between late February and May, which was nowhere near enough for the 1,500 people in its tribe.

Maquinna allowed his white slaves to arm themselves and, if necessary, to defend themselves against insults with force. He also tried to explain to his prisoner how the attack on their ship and the massacre of the crew had come about. The "king", as Jewitt called him, had been treated very badly before. A captain Tawnington had already used his absence (he had been looking for a bride with Chief Wickaninnish at the time) to break into his house, steal the 40 best otter skins, and overpower the few who remained - mostly women. At the same time, four chiefs were brutally murdered by the Spanish captain Martinez. A little later (1785) Hanna, at that time the captain of the Sea Otter , shot at the fully occupied canoe for theft, killing 20 men. Maquinna herself only managed to escape by jumping off the quarter deck and diving for a long time. Had it not been for these events, he would not have had to take revenge, and if the captain had not offended him, relations would have continued to be friendly.

At the end of July a war began with 40 canoes (each with a crew of 10 to 20 men) against the "Ay-charts" 80 km further south. Their village, which consisted of 15 or 16 houses, was surprised in their sleep and the survivors were enslaved. Jewitt was awarded four slaves who had to provide for his living.

Both the tribe, led by Chief Wickaninnish, and that of the "Kla-iz-zarts" tried to buy Maquinna from the arms maker Jewitt. But Maquinna wanted to keep him. After all, with the help of the latter - a chief named Ulatilla - a letter from Jewitt reached one of the ships that ventured into the area. It was the ship Lydia that was supposed to bring him home. But Jewitt initially knew nothing of the successful delivery of the letter.

Maquinna married Jewitt to the only daughter of the chief of "Ai-tiz-zart" ( Ehatteshaht ), who lived far to the north (because Jewitt did not want any from his tribe), and the new family moved into a separate niche in Maquinna's house - with Maquinna's son , Sat-sat-sok-sis, moved to them at his request. Thompson also lived as Jewitt's "father" with him and his 17-year-old wife Eu-stoch-ee-exqua. She was soon to have a child for Jewitt. It remains unclear whether Maquinna saw this as an opportunity to bind the marriage seams more closely to himself, or whether he really harbored friendly feelings for Jewitt.

That ship, the Lydia , which appeared off the coast on July 19, 1805, had already received the letter from Jewitt - the only one of 16 letters he had written that had arrived at one of the skippers, of which he was during his had heard of two years in captivity -. The Lydia's captain knew the situation. Maquinna, who had no idea of ​​this, wanted to take the longed-for opportunity to get in touch with the captain in order to be able to sell furs (finally again?). So he asked Jewitt to write a kind of letter of recommendation for him. But he wrote something completely different from what the chief had asked for. Hill, the captain of the Lydia , took Maquinna hostage - requested in Jewitt's letter - in order to exchange him for Jewitt and Thompson. Maquinna, who had previously urgently asked Jewitt if he would lie to him, was disappointed again.

His son and wife had to ask Jewitt to arrange for his release. After all that the tribe owned from the Boston robbery was surrendered, Captain Hill actually released the chief.

The friendship between Maquinna and Jewitt does not seem to have been affected by this process. The tjeeh, or king, held back all tangible skins and only traded through Jewitt with Captain Hill. He also promised to take care of Jewitt's now five-month-old son.

This act of hostage-taking seems to have ultimately destroyed the chief's reputation. When Camille de Roquefeuil arrived in Nootka Sound in 1817, the supremacy of the Mowachaht was apparently broken. The fur trade had shifted its focus, the number of otters had fallen dramatically, the tribe was impoverished. At some point around this time Maquinna must have died.

Name bearer

The Maquinna Marine Provincial Park and the submarine mud volcano Maquinna in the Nootka fault zone , which protrudes about 30 meters from the sea, were named after Maquinna , as well as a Chief Maquinna Elementary School in Vancouver and other facilities.

swell

• John R. Jewitt : A journal, kept at Nootka Sound , Boston 1807, reprinted New York 1976
• John Meares : Voyages Made in the Years 1788 and 1789 from China to the Northwest Coast of America (Italian: Viaggi Dalla Chine Alla Costa Nord Ouest D'America Fatti Negli Anni 1788 e 1789, Naples 1796)
• Jose Mariano Mozino: Noticias de Nutka. translated and edited by Iris Higbie Wilson. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited 1970
• Michael Roe (Ed.): The journal and letters of Captain Charles Bishop on the north-west coast of America, in the Pacific and in New South Wales. 1794-1799, Cambridge 1967
• Camille de Roquefeuil , A voyage round the world, between the years 1816–1819 , London 1823
• IH Wilson (ed. And translator), JM Moziño Suárez de Figueroa, Noticias de Nutka; an account of Nootka Sound in 1792 , Seattle 1970
• White Slaves of Maquinna. John R. Jewitt's Narrativ of Capture and Confinement at Nootka , Surrey / British Columbia, 2nd ed. 2005, ISBN 1-894384-02-4 .

literature

• Eugene Arima: The West Coast People, the Nootka of Vancouver Island and Cape Flattery. British Columbia Provincial Museum, Special Publication 6, Victoria: Ministry of Provincial Secretary and Government Services 1993
• Jean Braithwaite, WJ Folan: The taking of the ship Boston: an ethnohistoric study of Nootkan-European conflict. In: Syesis 5 (1972) 259-66
• Philip Drucker , The northern and central Nootkan tribes , Washington 1951
• 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
• Robin Fisher: Contact and conflict: Indian-European relations in British Columbia. 1774-1890, Vancouver 1977
• RM Galois, Nuu-chah-nulth encounters: James Colnett's Expedition of 1787–1788, in: Nuu-Chah-Nulth Vices. Histories, Objects & Journeys (ed.): Alan L. Hoover , Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria 2000, 2nd ed. 2002, 69–91
• Yvonne Marshall: Dangerous Liaisons: Maquima Quadra and Vancouver in Nootka Sound. 1790-5, in: From Maps to Metaphors: The Pacific World of George Vancouver (Eds.): R. Fisher and H. Johnson , Vancouver: UBC Press 1993
• Edmond S. Meany Jr .: The Later Life of John R. Jewitt. British Columbia Historical Quarterly 4 (1940) 143-161
• June Namias: White Captives: Gender and Ethnicity on the American Frontier . Chape1 Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1993
• Wayne Suttles (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians , Volume 7: Northwest Coast , Washington: Smithsonian Institution 1990
• Freeman M. Tovell: Chief Maquinna and Bodega y Quadra. In: British Columbia Historical News, Vol. 34/4 (2001) 8-14.

Web links

• Edward S. Curtis's The northamerican Indian , written 1907-30
• Curtis to the Nootka
• John Meares describes the trade in Northwest America, engl. ( Memento from August 29, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
• to the elder Maquinna (Muquinna) . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
• to the younger Maquinna (Muquinna) . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
• Maquinna Marine Provincial Park

Remarks

1. ^ Curtis, Volume 11, p. 8.
2. ↑ For the period up to around 1792/95 I follow Freeman M. Tovell: Chief Maquinna and Bodega y Quadra. In: British Columbia Historical News, Vol. 34/4 (2001) 8-14.
3. ^ Tovell, p. 9.
4. ↑ See Juan José Pérez Hernández .
5. ^ Meares, Voyages Made in the Years 1788 and 1789, from China to the North West Coast of America, etc., London 1790, 112f., Translated from Curtis, The North American Indian, Volume 11, p. 3.
6. ↑ Galois 82.
7. ↑ Moziño, Noticias, 56f.
8. ↑ We follow Jewitt's remarks (based on White Slaves of Maquinna).
9. ↑ Excerpts from Jewitt's Journal can be found under Archived Copy ( Memento of the original from July 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
10. ↑ Slaves, 106-109
11. ↑ This equipping Jewitts with their own slaves, which otherwise only the chiefs were entitled to, could, however, be a "supplement" of the ghostwriter Alsop, who in many ways portrays the social position of the protagonist with the Mowachaht as higher than it appears in Jewitts journals.