by Scott Ridley
The women were usually stout like the men, although many were described as tall and beautiful. They did not wear the same paint, but often groomed their hair with deer grease, giving it a bright sheen. While the men often went about fully naked, the women covered themselves in knee-length skirts woven from cedar bark cloth, and with a cape tied at the front. Some children who had never worn paint were noted to have skin as pale as southern Europeans.
They were a fishing people who focused their spiritual activity on whales and whaling. The chief they spoke of and feared was Maquinna, a master whaler and shaman, whose hunting skills helped to provide for the tribe. He was a regional leader, and he and his family ruled a band divided in European perception into “nobles” (taises) and “commoners” (meschimes) served by slaves captured from other tribes. Maquinna kept his rule by spreading the wealth he acquired—feeding the hungry in lean times, and during times of plenty giving away his most valuable possessions in a potlatch celebration. The more he gave, the greater his status and regard.
The name Maquinna was handed down to each chief. The man holding power now was about thirty years old and had taken the place of his aged and blind father about the time Cook had arrived. Legend says his father had been killed in a raid on their village, and Maquinna exacted revenge by decimating the attackers’ village and taking many captives. The rumors that Meares spread about Maquinna and his people being cannibals had been handed down by Cook’s men, who said they were offered skulls and a roasted and dried hand. There were further stories of Maquinna, blindfolded, grasping at a group of captured children for one he would eat. Haswell believed these stories to be true, noting that Maquinna’s people “eat the flesh of their vanquished enemies and frequently of their slaves who they kill in Cool blud.” He professed to have witnessed an instance of this. The prospect of being killed and eaten, and thus losing the chance of resurrection along with one’s soul, horrified and haunted sailors. Investigating these rumors, the Spanish would later find no truth in them, except for ritual acts, but the lurid belief remained, and relationships were charged with a dark undercurrent of fear and suspicion.
BY THE MIDDLE OF NOVEMBER, the days were turning cold, and at night frost settled over the ground and the decks of the ships. In addition to the shelter built onshore, Kendrick set up a house on the deck of the Columbia. They maintained their system of watches and took hunting excursions. The land proved nearly impenetrable. The cove lay in a clearing behind which the deep-shadowed forest stood like a wall. Heavy rainfall supported dense vegetation, and thick moss grew over a maze of fallen branches and rocks. Deep gorges and steep cliffs that crisscrossed the woods made them a shadowy, impassable haunt of owls and bear, lynx, raccoon, and deer.
In the light snow along the shore, Haswell found where deer came down at night and he waited in the cold with a musket, proudly returning with a big buck. Kendrick traveled up the sound, shooting geese and exploring the coast from the longboat. The tailor, Bartholomew Ballard, made him a deerskin coat, and Kendrick spent time with the Mowachaht learning their customs and language. His behavior was far outside the bounds of the usual dandified, stiff-necked ships’ officers of his day. It is uncertain whether or not he became intimate with their women, but he began to learn about these people and their ways. The Mowachaht cosmology was complex, with many gods that infused the earth and water. From what Kendrick could understand, a supreme being, Qua-utz, had come in a copper canoe and created the first woman. They believed in an afterlife from which dead relatives and friends acted as guardians sending them fish and animals. Those at peace with the gods provided well for their families and were held in high esteem. Those not at peace feared an enormous fiery-eyed devil, Matlox, who dwelled in the woods and hopped on one leg and would devour those he caught.
Despite the stories they had heard from Meares, Kendrick found the Mowachaht docile and friendly, and his regard for them grew paternal. Because he had spent his youth among the remnant tribes at Potonumecut, he was comfortable among native people, and like many early American explorers, he did not possess the racial hatred that would permeate the actions of later pioneers. Kendrick probably foresaw a difficult future for these people. They had no firearms with which to defend themselves, and exploitation by traders and trading posts could easily destroy their world. Within a few generations, diseases such as smallpox and the “French pox” of syphilis, along with liquor and abuse, could also decimate them. And more subtle and sweeping changes could reverberate among the interrelated bands of the Mowachaht in the region, altering the balance of relations and stirring trouble between them. There were twenty-two villages on the shores of the sound. To the west was the chief Hannape, Maquinna’s father-in-law. To the east were Tlupanantl’s bands, and people known as the Muchalaht. To the southeast were Wickaninish’s people. Intermarriage and raiding mixed the bands and kept their world locked in tensions between familial ties and mutual jealousies and feuds. Maquinna was the ceremonial chief of all the Mowachaht and attempted to maintain control of the region by having all trade carried on through him. But shutting out other chiefs increased competition and jealousies. With Maquinna in winter quarters far up the sound in these first few months, there was no one to control interactions with Kendrick and his men; the door at Yuquot was open for opportunity and mischief.
DESPITE THE PRESENCE OF A CONSTANT GUARD, on the night of December 11 fifteen water casks stored on shore in a shed roofed with an upturned longboat were stolen along with five small cannon from Captain Douglas. Losing the cannon was troubling, but water casks were essential for voyaging and marked a greater loss. The natives that traded with Kendrick told him that “the people of the opposite side of the sound with hoom they were at war were the agressers.” Not wanting to inflame the situation by punishing innocent people, Kendrick let the matter go for a time and ordered new casks made.
Haswell recorded nothing of a Christmas celebration. Kendrick was not a commander to require prayers, although a special dinner would have been served, perhaps flour pudding with whortleberries, which were apparently harvested well into the winter. They would have gathered in the house built on the deck of the Columbia and sung songs and told stories. It was familiar rituals and schedules, Kendrick knew, that would keep them sane in the overwhelmingly gray, unknown wilderness.
FOURTEEN MONTHS FROM PORT, little or nothing had been heard in Boston from men of the expedition. In their home villages, the year 1788 had been one of heated arguments over a new federal government. As a state delegate, Joseph Barrell had strongly advocated ratification of the Constitution and tried to sway his brother Nathaniel Barrell, Sam Adams, and a large contingent that feared the power of central government. “You were always on the side of a Federal Government,” Barrell said in a letter to Nathaniel. “Judge then my surprise when I am told that my brother is the most decided Antifederalist in the Eastern Country, that he declared in Town Meeting he would loose his right hand before he would acceed to the proposed Constitution.” Joseph Barrell harangued Nathaniel, and eventually he came around. Sam Adams, too, finally acquiesced after freedom of the press and the right to bear arms were added to the Bill of Rights. Massachusetts voted 187 to 168 for the Constitution in February. A few months later, in June, New Hampshire became the ninth state to approve it, achieving the threshold of nine out of thirteen states that were required for federal adoption. Public debates then broke out over the candidates for Congress and the presidency. Just days before Christmas, New Hampshire and Massachusetts voters had chosen electors who would cast ballots for the nation’s first president, whom everyone anticipated would be George Washington. The official vote would not come until January 7. Kendrick would have been ecstatic about a new government led by Washington, but being so far off the world’s map, he would not learn of these events for almost a year.
The letter Kendrick had sent in June from Cumberland Bay to Joseph Barrell was kept for review by Spanish officials and had not yet reached Boston at the close of 1788. Th
e only news families received in the last year was from a New York ship that found a letter tucked into a wall at the Falklands, summarizing the expedition’s Atlantic voyage to that point. Fathers, mothers, and wives undoubtedly wondered whether and how the men had survived. Meanwhile, snug in their winter quarters, joined in thoughts of home, the voyagers awaited the year ahead and what it might bring.
The first event to occur boded disaster. On January 13, an alarm went up over a fire below deck on the Columbia. Coals dropped down in the afterhold set ablaze sails that were stored against the bulkhead of the powder magazine. The men who came running found the fire so intense that heat was searing through the deck. It was worse below deck. No one could approach the smoky, burning area. If fire reached the powder magazine, the whole ship would go up, taking lives and all the trade goods and supplies of the expedition with it. The men worked frantically, chopping a hole in the foredeck. It was a desperate act that would feed more air to the flames, but the only way to get access to the area ablaze. On the smoking deck above the hole, men placed themselves in harm’s way, splashing down buckets of seawater and pulling out burning sails. The risk paid off and the men extinguished the fire, although the scorched deck and bulkhead went on steaming and smoldering for hours. It was a sobering reminder of how suddenly fate could turn.
Fifteen days later, on January 28, a large canoe appeared at the mouth of the cove. As the watch called out its approach, the canoe moved directly toward the Columbia and slipped alongside. In command was a tall, thickly muscled chief in his midforties who came onto the ship with a serious, intimidating presence. His name was Wickaninish, and with him were his brother and several persons of distinction. Nearly all of them were more than six feet tall, and much more handsome than the men of Nootka. They had traveled from Clayoquot Sound, about forty miles southeast on the coast. Bundled in the canoe were more than two dozen excellent sea otter skins. Few were traded, because Wickaninish wanted copper and muskets, which the Americans weren’t prepared to pay. As a subchief to Maquinna, Wickaninish did not linger, but invited Kendrick and Gray to visit him at his village. Word of the meeting most likely traveled up the inlet, and within the next few days some of Maquinna’s people began to appear early from their winter quarters. Across two or more canoes they carried broad hand-hewn cedar and pine planks, some four or six feet wide, on which they placed their possessions. When they unloaded, they laid the planks on the huge permanent frames standing on the high bank above the cove. The upright posts that held the roofs were carved into human and animal spirit figures called ”klummas.” Some of the doorways were carved as imaginary animals with open mouths. Kendrick’s men watched in awe as the village of Yuquot took shape and more than a thousand people gathered.
Chief Maquinna by Fernando Selma. Maquinna was the regional chief of the Mowachaht people, and a shaman and whale hunter with whom John Kendrick built an alliance.
Maquinna’s arrival was not recorded, but Kendrick was soon summoned to meet with him. He occupied the far end of the largest house, which stretched a hundred feet long and thirty feet wide. Several families lived there. Sleeping platforms covered with finely woven blankets and furs and mats lay along the walls in dim, smoky light. Fires burned in a wide corridor down the middle. Overhead, dried and smoked fish were strung through the gills on sticks hung in the low roof joists.
Maquinna sat on a raised platform in an ankle-length black otter skin robe. Quelequem (Callicum), whom he designated to deal with foreigners and was said by some sources to be his brother, sat beside him. Their hair was covered with oil and fine white down. Maquinna’s broad face was painted red except for the area around the eyes, and his cheeks were sprinkled with fine mica. Callicum was taller and leaner. Also present were Maquinna’s wife and two children, a girl and a boy. Kendrick learned that he’d had an infant daughter who had died several months earlier in the fall of 1787 and was still mourned by the family.
Gifts were presented, and a meal of fish steamed in a wooden box was set before them. They conversed with the few words each knew of the other’s language. Kendrick found Maquinna highly intelligent and thoughtful.
From his years of whaling, Kendrick had great admiration for anyone who pursued the earth’s largest creature miles at sea from a canoe. As he appraised and sought to befriend this dark-eyed young man, he might have tried to share stories of his own whale hunts. Kendrick learned at some point that there was a mystical dimension to the Mowachaht relationship with the whales, and a spiritual ceremony, replete with cleansing and sometimes human sacrifice. Men abstained from sex to prepare for a hunt. And if the hunt was successful, the lanced whale would be towed ashore, where the whole village would partake in shares of meat and blubber.
Maquinna had been told much in advance of the arrival of Kendrick and his “Boston men,” as all Americans after Kendrick would come to be called on the Northwest Coast. He listened to Kendrick’s offers of trade and friendship, and questions about the stolen cannon and water casks. As a gesture of friendship, Maquinna agreed to help find the thieves. Although both men were striving for prestige for themselves and security for their people, Maquinna may also have feared the new power of those who now held the cannons.
Whatever queries Maquinna sent out, he soon had information for Kendrick. On Sunday, February 22, Kendrick took Gray, Haswell, and several crew members in two armed boats across the sound. The village where they were told to look, however, proved much more distant than expected. Not wanting to engage an unknown enemy in the inlet so many miles from the ships, or perhaps realizing it was all merely a gesture of goodwill by Maquinna and no one would be caught, they returned empty-handed.
Defense of the ships became a heightened concern. As the Washington prepared for the first trading voyage, the crew built a new bulwark around the railing with more ports cut for gun emplacements. In early March, the hull was caulked and painted and men brought provisions and trading goods on board from the Columbia. On the morning of Monday, March 16, Kendrick and others towed the Washington out of the cove to the mouth of the sound for a trip to Clayoquot to meet with Wickaninish. They would also cruise farther south to begin a search for the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Six months earlier, as the Washington was coming northward from Tillamook, Haswell had noted being forced out by a strong current as they passed along a foggy shore. “I am of [the] opinion the Straits of Juan de Fuca exist,” he recorded, observing a “very Deep Bay” in the vicinity. Haswell’s observation had undoubtedly been related to Captain Kendrick, who wanted Gray to take a closer look. Kendrick had most likely received some information from Maquinna’s people, and watching the sloop depart, he hoped they might return with some lead on the Northwest Passage.
BY NOON THE WASHINGTON WAS WELL OUT, cruising offshore to avoid numerous rocks and reefs. At sunset they stood off of Wickaninish’s domain at Clayoquot Sound and spent the night offshore under light breezes. The next morning, the wind died as they approached the bay, and as they lay idled, Toteescosettle, Wickaninish’s brother, came out to the ship. After a long, still morning, the wind freshened and they entered Clayoquot and at four o’clock anchored in about fifty feet of water. Unlike Nootka Sound, Clayoquot did not have a broad bay, and lay instead in a maze of channels behind three large rocky islands and a series of islets facing the sea. From villages on the islands, several of the local chiefs and their men came to the ship to trade and stayed on board until sunset. Wary of deception, Gray asked everyone to depart as it grew dark and then stiffened his request by firing a gun.
The next day trading continued and the Washington gathered many fine sea otter skins. Relations with Wickaninish’s people relaxed, and Haswell found their manners and customs identical to those of the people of Nootka. As they had noticed when Wickaninish first visited, these people appeared taller and better proportioned than those at Nootka. They now found that their villages were also larger and more populous. The carved pillars of the longhouses were more numerous and ornately executed. Here too,
some were so large that a carved and painted mouth of a creature served as a doorway. Their images showed great regard for the sun, and on one wide board Gray’s men found the painting of a plump sun with eyes, a nose, and a mouth, and rays extending from it in a manner similar to what they might find from a country painter at home.
After ten days of trading among the maze of islands and villages, on March 28 the Washington left Clayoquot and headed farther southeast. Forty miles down the coast they entered another bay. In a single canoe, natives speaking a dialect like the Mowachaht cautiously approached and offered their friendship. The sailors learned that the summer before Meares’s longboat had fired on people in this harbor. This group seemed poorer than those at Clayoquot or Nootka, and they told Gray they had no otter skins because they sold them all to chief Tatooch, who lived to the south. Gray named the bay, known as Patchenat by the natives, Poverty Cove.
Gray kept seeking out inlets and villages as they sailed down the coast. Cautious about venturing onshore, they remained on board to trade, swivel guns ready in the new gun ports as canoes paddled out to them.
On March 31, the Washington cruised along a shore running eastward in a broad inlet. Scanning the full breadth of it, Haswell rapturously determined that this was the fabled Strait of Juan de Fuca. They labored through treacherous seas several miles to the southern shore. The next morning as the sun rose clear from the horizon, Haswell believed he saw the strait stretching into the east, and as he had noted the day before “no land to obstruct the view as far as the eye could reach.” This was consistent with the belief that the fabled passage was part of an inland sea. They were reluctant to proceed farther into unknown waters, and as they beat in place, a heavy squall struck from the southwest. Afraid of being driven ashore, Gray ran the Washington northward to Poverty Cove, where they rode out the rain and sleet that night.