Wickaninnish

Wickaninnish ( wikinaniš , also Wikaninnish , Wikinanish , Huiquinanichi , Quiquinanis , Wickananish , Hiyoua ) was a chief of the Tla-o-qui-aht in Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of the Canadian Vancouver Island . The name means "He has no one in front of him in the canoe". This name appears between 1788 and 1818 in the journals of European ship masters.

One cannot assume that the chief, famous in his time, bore this name for his entire life. In 1792 he gave this name to his eldest son and called himself Hiyoua (hayuÃa, which means "ten (whales) on the rocks").

He worked as a middleman in the fur trade and ensured that the neighboring tribes were not allowed to trade with the Europeans. After all, according to diverging estimates, up to 5,000 men were available to him. As John Meares reports, his sphere of influence only ended on the other side of Juan de Fuca Street with the Makah .

John Meares

John Meares recognized that his power and dominion were so great that it was in Britain's best interest to win his respect and friendship. On June 12, 1788, from his ship, he saw the mountain that so prominently towers over the island of Meares (later named after him) . The next morning several canoes visited the ship. The two chiefs, Hanna and Detootche, like their men, were evidently fearless. They were extremely friendly, shook hands with everyone on board and invited them to visit. But Meares wanted to meet the great chief Wickaninnish.

Meares was invited to a celebration and admired the rich table and the otter skins . The piles of the house were so large that they would have towered over the main masts of a great sailor. The two men agreed that the chief would provide furs and that the captain would return next year. Meares presented gifts to the chief, including pistols and muskets . For this he received 150 otter skins.

But in 1789 the four ships Meares had sent got caught up in the conflict between Great Britain and Spain for dominance in the North Pacific. His ships were boarded by the fleet of the Spanish captain Don Estevan José Martinez and his crews were taken to South America. Meares filed a petition in the British House of Commons in May 1790 . But the conflict was only ended by the Nootka Convention in 1790 and 1794.

Peter John Puget , who visited the coast with George Vancouver in 1792 and 1793, certainly exaggerated when he referred to him as the "Emperor" of the entire coast between the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Queen Charlotte Islands . Even Maquinna sought his friendship and tried to make a marriage alliance. So his daughter married the eldest son of the Tla-o-qui-aht chief. In 1789 Maquinna even had to flee to him for two years and seek his protection against the Spaniards and against apostate allies.

Colnett and Bodega y Quadra

One of John Meares' men was James Colnett (1753-1806). The Spanish captain Martinez had captured his ship and sent him as a prisoner to San Blas . He soon returned and took Wickaninnish's brother hostage in 1790, whereupon the Tla-o-qui-aht attacked his ship.

When Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra arrived in Yuquot in 1792 , and a little later George Vancouver , Maquinna , Wickaninnish's only serious competitor , threatened to get caught between all fronts. During the four months that Quadra was in Yuquot, he diplomatically prevented an attack against Maquinna's supremacy by Wickaninnish and Tatoosh, the chief of the Ahousaht . Captain Hanna had to give up his plan to get rid of Maquinna in order to drive out the Spaniards. But they trusted Quadra more. "These people can never expect to have among them a better friend than Don Quadra," remarked the American fur trader Joseph Ingraham. "Nothing can exceed his attention and kindness to them, and they all seem sensible of it and are extravagantly fond of him." When Bodega Nootka Sound left in September, Yuquot was still Spanish.

Fort Defiance

On 18 February 1791, the published Columbia Rediviva from Boston , a ship under the command of Robert Gray , the first time in Clayoquot Sound . But the good neighborhood did not last long. When Attoo, a Hawaiian , deserted to the Tla-o-qui-aht, Gray unceremoniously captured Tootiscosettle, the older brother of Chief Wickaninnish, and exchanged him for the deserter. Gray then sailed north to purchase furs, then south again to Cape Flattery . Eventually he returned to Meares Island to spend the winter here, for which purpose he kept bricks on board. So from the beginning of October 1791 his men set up a post called Fort Defiance, around 5 km northeast of Opitsat, the main town of Tla-o-qui-aht (in Adventure Cove in Lemmens Inlet on Meares Island). Gray, who had the winter camp torn down in March of the following year, sent John Boit on March 27, 1792 to burn down Opitsat. Wickaninnish's people had escaped in time, however, and on April 2, Gray's ship left Clayoquot Sound.

Opitsat was rebuilt quickly, but the process was never forgotten (see below).

Tonquin

Wickaninnish may still be alive when one of the greatest disasters befell his tribe in June 1811. Chief Nuukmis - maybe his successor? - felt betrayed by the traders who had come to him on the Tonquin ship and tried to conquer the ship. This succeeded, and his men took down the entire crew except for one translator, but one of the last survivors detonated the gunpowder. Around 150 Tla-o-qui-aht warriors were killed in this explosion. This loss was so devastating that the women disguised themselves as warriors as soon as another tribe approached their territory. Also, no fur trader dared to visit them for decades.

Literature and Sources

Eli Enns, whose great-grandfather Now-awe-suum (with), who in turn was the public speaker and historian of Wickaninnish, now takes care of the national park's affairs. Oral tradition is still very strong there. Archaeological excavations, e.g. B. on Meares Island, and the reports of European explorers and traders give a sketchy overall picture.

• Robin Fisher: Contact and conflict. Indian-European relations in British Columbia. 1774-1890. Vancouver 1977
• Frederic W. Howay (Ed.): Colnett – s Journal aboard the Argonaut. The Champlain Society, Toronto 1940 (Review by John Haskell Kemble, in: The Pacific Historical Review. Volume 10, No. 3, 1941, pp. 351–353)
• Frederic W. Howay: Some Additional Notes Upon Captain Colnett and the Princess Royal. In: The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society. Volume 27, 1925, pp. 12-22.
• John R. Jewitt: A journal, kept at Nootka Sound. Boston 1807, reprinted New York 1976
• WK Lamb (ed.), Peter John Puget: Vancouver discovers Vancouver. An excerpt from the rough logs of Second Lieutenant Peter John Puget. Vancouver Conference on Exploration and Discovery, Burnaby, BC 1990
• 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)
• Valerie Sherer Mathes: Wickaninnish, a Clayoquot Chief, as Recorded by Early Travelers. In: Pacific Northwest Quarterly. Volume 70, 1979, pp. 110-120.
• 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, England 1967
• Wayne Suttles (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Volume 7: Northwest Coast. Smithsonian Institution, Washington 1990
• White Slaves of Maquinna. John R. Jewitt's Narrative of Capture and Confinement at Nootka. Surrey / British Columbia, 2nd edition, 2005, ISBN 1-894384-02-4 .

Web links

• John Meares describes the trade in Northwest America, engl. ( Memento from August 29, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
• Wickaninnish . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).

Remarks

1. ↑ The chief's name appears in many locations on the west coast of Vancouver Island. There is a Wickaninnish Lodge , a Wickaninnish Inn in Tofino , a Wickaninish Beach and a corresponding bay in the Pacific Rim National Park , a Wickaninnish Trail and a Wickaninnish Information Center .
2. ^ Curtis, Volume 11, p. 6.
3. ^ Richard J. Nokes: Columbia's River. The Voyages of Robert Gray, 1787-1793. Tacoma, Washington 1991.