Northwestern North America (1684–1827 CE): Salmon Worlds, Cedar Civilizations, and Empires on the Horizon

Geography & Environmental Context

Northwestern North America includes all territory west of 110°W, except the lands belonging to Gulf and Western North America. This encompasses Alaska, the Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta west of 110°W, the Pacific Northwest of the United States including Washington, northern Idaho, the northwestern portions of Montana, Oregon north of the Gulf line, and northern California north of the Gulf line.

Anchors include the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian chain, the Gulf of Alaska, Puget Sound, the Fraser and Columbia River systems, the coastal cordilleras, and the Inside Passage. The region combined storm-lashed fjords and temperate rainforests on the Pacific coast with salmon-bearing rivers, interior plateaus, and Arctic tundra sweeping toward the Bering Strait.

Climate & Environmental Shifts

The Little Ice Age remained in force. Glaciers advanced in Alaska and the St. Elias Mountains, while heavy snowpacks lingered in the interior plateaus. Coastal storms battered bays, and ocean cycles created variability in salmon runs, though fisheries remained robust. Interior valleys endured shorter growing seasons, with drought occasionally stressing root crops such as camas and wapato. Abundant wildlife and preserved foods buffered communities against these fluctuations.

Subsistence & Settlement

• Coastal nations (Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Kwakwaka’wakw, Coast Salish, Nuu-chah-nulth) lived in permanent plankhouse villages, supported by salmon, halibut, herring, shellfish, sea mammals, and berries. Potlatch ceremonies reinforced rank, redistribution, and community identity.

• Aleut (Unangan) on the Aleutians specialized in sea otters, seals, and fish, inhabiting semi-subterranean barabaras that withstood gales.

• Interior groups (Carrier, Sekani, Nez Perce, Shoshone) followed seasonal rounds, hunting caribou, elk, and bison, while fishing and root gathering.

• Columbia River peoples organized large fisheries with weirs and platforms, hosting great trade fairs at Celilo Falls that drew thousands each year.

Technology & Material Culture

• Cedar culture: monumental plankhouses, dugout canoes, totem poles, bentwood boxes, and masks demonstrated both engineering and artistry.

• Tools: stone, bone, and antler remained common; copper and occasional iron entered via long-distance exchange (notably from Asia through the Aleutians).

• Sea-mammal hunting gear: Aleutian baidarkas (kayaks), umiaks, and sophisticated harpoons allowed mastery of dangerous waters.

• Artistry: masks, regalia, and poles embodied cosmology, lineage, and animal spirits, integrating material culture with social order.

Movement & Interaction Corridors

• The Inside Passage supported canoe travel and trade in oil, fish, copper, and shell ornaments.

• The Columbia River corridor linked plateau and coast, with annual trade fairs redistributing salmon, obsidian, and goods from the plains.

• The Aleutians and Bering Strait connected Alaska to Siberia through seasonal exchanges of iron, beads, and furs between Unangan, Siberian Yupik, and Chukchi communities.

• Overland portages across mountain passes carried obsidian, hides, and dried fish to interior groups.

Cultural & Symbolic Expressions

• Myths: Raven, Thunderbird, and other animal beings remained central to coastal cosmologies.

• Potlatch ceremonies dramatized hierarchy, redistribution, and cosmic cycles.

• Aleut rituals honored sea mammals as spiritual beings, blending with shamanic practice.

• Interior traditions venerated mountains, rivers, and animal masters, with shamans mediating between human and spirit worlds.

Environmental Adaptation & Resilience

• Preservation: dried salmon, berries, and rendered oils provided security during lean seasons.

• Mobility: seasonal migrations optimized access to salmon runs, hunting grounds, and root fields.

• Alliances: exchange partnerships ensured surpluses moved across ecological zones.

• Architecture: plankhouses, insulated barabaras, and semi-subterranean lodges resisted storms and cold.

Political & Military Shocks

Through much of this age, Indigenous nations dominated the subregion. But imperial rivals arrived on the horizon:

• Russian fur traders reached the Aleutians by the mid-18th century, founding posts at Unalaska and Kodiak, and exploiting sea otters intensively.

• Spanish voyages charted the Pacific Northwest in the late 18th century, establishing short-lived footholds such as Nootka Sound.

• British and American expeditions followed (Cook, Vancouver, Gray), mapping coasts and seeking trade.

• By the early 19th century, Russian America consolidated in Alaska, while the Hudson’s Bay Company expanded down the Columbia River. Indigenous nations remained powerful, but new dependencies, fur-trade diseases, and colonial rivalries foreshadowed upheaval.

Transition

Between 1684 and 1827, Northwestern North America remained overwhelmingly Indigenous, sustained by salmon runs, cedar technology, and ceremonial life. Yet external pressures mounted. Russian exploitation of sea otters, Spanish and British coastal expeditions, and the first Hudson’s Bay posts signaled that this subregion would soon be contested ground of empires. By 1827, Northwestern North America still pulsed with Indigenous strength, but its peoples stood at the threshold of profound transformations brought by fur trade expansion, foreign settlement, and imperial rivalry.

Captain John Kendrick had continued his journey on December 21 and reached Brett's Harbor on the western side of the Falkland Islands on February 16, 1788.

While at sea, an argument between Kendrick and Haswell, a friend of the dismissed Woodruff, had arisen over the disciplining of a seaman.

It was agreed that Haswell would take passage on a European- or American-bound ship at the Falklands, but, none being present, he had agreed to transfer to the Washington, a demotion that he attributed to Kendrick's desire to promote his own son to Haswell's place as second mate of the Columbia.

Kendrick had considered wintering in the Atlantic, but was convinced to leave the islands on February 28, heading around Cape Horn instead of through the Strait of Magellan, and into the Pacific Ocean.

The two Bostonian ships had been separated on April 1 by a storm, but the men aboard the Lady Washington reveled at having finally gotten free of Kendrick.

Kendrick had survived the storm and stopped at the Juan Fernández Islands with two men dead and some others sick with scurvy.

The Columbia had continued sailing north and eventually settled down at Marvinas Bay.

Kendrick decided to stay there for the winter on October 1, 1788, one year to the day since the two Boston vessels left on their maiden voyage.

The ships are eventually reunited, but not one man on either ship celebrates.

Robert Gray had set out to trade furs in May 1789, the Columbia Expedition having wintered in the San Juan Fernandez Islands en route from Boston.

John Kendrick makes an odd choice on June 24: he gives Gray command of the Columbia and he takes command of the Lady Washington.

It is as though Kendrick was giving Gray full command.

The reason for this exchange remains unknown, but one reason could be that Kendrick thought the Washington was easier to handle because she was smaller.

Whatever the reason, Gray returns to Boston via Canton; he will later take a second expedition in the Columbia that will enter the Columbia River on the modern Washington-Oregon border, and result in its naming for the ship.

Kendrick remains on the coast.

Kendrick sails up the coast of Vancouver Island at the end of June.

He trades with the Haida and their chief, Coyah, on the Queen Charlotte Islands.

One day, some clothes are stolen from the ship, and Kendrick has Coyah locked up until the clothes are returned.

Coyah is released at the stolen clothes’ return, but he is deeply bitter about the incident, which has been cited as the basis for the hatred of the natives of the "Boston Men" as all American traders will be called.

An account of the incident has it that Kendrick had clamped two chiefs to the base of a cannon and threatened to kill them both unless the natives let him have all of their skins for the price that Kendrick set on the pretext that laundry had been stolen.

New Spain claims the entire west coast of North America and therefore considers the Russian fur trading activity in Alaska, which had begun in the middle to late eighteenth century, an encroachment and threat.

Likewise, the exploration of the northwest coast by James Cook of the British Navy and the subsequent fur trading activities by British ships are considered an invasion of Spanish territory.

British merchants, encouraged by Sir Joseph Banks and supported by their government, begin making a sustained attempt to develop this trade despite Spain's claims and navigation rights.

To protect and strengthen its claim, New Spain sends a number of expeditions from San Blas, Mexico, to the Pacific Northwest between 1774 and 1793.

Detailed information about Russian activities in Alaska had been acquired in 1788, including ominous indications that Russian might seize control of Nootka Sound.

This, in addition to the rapidly increasing numbers of fur traders working the Pacific Northwest coast—mainly British but also American and others—coupled with Spain's firm claim of sovereignty north to 61°N latitude (the vicinity of Prince William Sound, Alaska), and the lack of any Spanish outpost north of California, makes it imperative that a firm stand be taken.

Spain had sent Sub-Lieutenant Esteban José Martinez, commanding the Princesa and the San Carlos, to enforce Spanish sovereignty and defend its claims in February 1789.

Arriving in May 1789, he has established a settlement and established a naval outpost called Santa Cruz de Nuca (or just Nuca) at Friendly Cove in Nootka Sound (now Yuquot), Vancouver Island.

Martinez had formally occupied the land and begun checking the papers of visiting vessels.

Two American fur trading ships are already anchored in the sound, one of which is the Columbia Rediviva, and more arrive later, including the Lady Washington, under Robert Gray.

The two American ships are allowed to sail, as the United States had been Spain's ally, Spain having aided the US in its War of Independence.

However, the American ship Fair American, under the command of Simon Metcalfe, is seized and taken to the naval base at San Blas, before being released.

A number of other vessels arrive soon after Martínez secures control of the Nootka Sound, including the Princess Royal, under Thomas Hudson, along with Iphigenia (William Douglas); the Argonaut, under James Colnett, and North West America, under Robert Funter—all British fur trading vessels.

Martínez is particularly troubled by the appearance of Colnett's Argonaut.

Not only is the Argonaut carrying material and supplies obviously intended for the construction of a permanent base, but a group of Chinese laborers are also on board, one of the first examples of "coolie" labor in the Pacific Northwest.

Martínez, whose warships give him de facto control, asserts Spanish sovereignty.

After a heated exchange between the two men, Martínez has Colnett arrested, along with the crew of the Argonaut.

Martínez writes in his journal about personal insults slung at him by Colnett.

He is also irritated by Colnett having sailed the Argonaut under a Portuguese rather than a British flag, which he feels is deceptive.

After a complicated series of events, Martínez ends up with three captured ships and their crews, including the Argonaut, Princess Royal, and North West American.

Hudson had taken the Princess Royal into Nootka Sound earlier and had been allowed to leave on the condition he proceed to China.

Instead, he had collected more furs from the region and returned to Nootka Sound, expecting Martínez would no longer be there.

Hudson did not intend to enter the sound but the Princess Royal was becalmed on an incoming tide.

A Spanish longboat had captured the ship and towed it in.

Martínez also impounds the holdings and ship, the Efigenia Nubiana, of John Meares, a British navigator and fur trader who has settled in the area.

The prisoners had eventually been released and the ships returned.

The Chinese workers have been forced to help build Fort San Miguel, a small battery of Spanish cannon overlooking the entrance to Friendly Cove, the main harbor of Nootka Sound at this time.

Santa Cruz de Nuca, the northernmost establishment of New Spain, is the first colony in British Columbia and the only Spanish settlement in what is now Canada.

Kendrick meets with Martínez, whom he and Gray had met with earlier that June, in the Spanish fort.

Martínez had asked both captains when they first met why they were here and the captains did not say anything about trading furs, but rather said that they were looking for barrel staves, telling of their loss of fifteen water casks previously.

Gray also tells Martínez that they are only guests here.

Their meeting ends in a friendship.

The capture of the British ships lead to the Nootka Crisis and near war between Britain and Spain.

The British challenge Spanish claims to allegedly "un-colonized" land on the Pacific coasts of North and South America.

Both Simon Metcalfe and his son Thomas Humphrey Metcalfe had been caught up in the Nootka Crisis at Nootka Sound in 1789.

The events at Nootka had been mainly directed toward British merchant vessels, but the Spanish naval officer Esteban José Martínez had seized Thomas Metcalfe's small schooner, the Fair American.

Simon Metcalfe had approached Nootka Sound and the Eleanora was almost captured as well, but he managed to escape.

The Fair American and its crew, taken to the Spanish naval base at San Blas, had been quickly released.

The Metcalfes had planned to spend the winter in the Hawaiian Islands.

Thomas Metcalfe, after being released, sails the Fair American to Hawaii, hoping to join his father.

The Eleanora, under Simon Metcalfe, arrives in the islands first.

Metcalfe is greeted by local chief Kameʻeiamoku in Kohala on the island of Hawaiʻi.

Metcalfe, by most accounts an irascible and harsh man, believes in strong and immediate punishment when his rules are broken, and has the chief flogged for some infraction.

Metcalfe then sails to the neighboring island of Maui to trade along the coast.

Kameʻeiamoku meanwhile vows revenge on whatever ship next comes his way.

Simon Metcalfe runs into more trouble on the coast of Maui when a boat and sailor go missing.

It is discovered that the boat had been stolen and the sailor killed.

Metcalfe fires his cannons into the village, and captures a few Hawaiians who tell him the boat was taken by people from the village of Olowalu.

His punishment in this case becomes known as the Olowalu Massacre.

He sails to the village of the suspected thieves but find that the boat has been broken up for its nails, which are treasured like gems, being that the Hawaiians lack metal-smelting technology.

Feigning peaceful intent, Metcalfe invites the villagers to the Eleanora for trade.

Many canoes gather at the ship.

Metcalfe directs them to come to one side, where he has loaded his cannon with ball and shot.

He orders a broadside fired at point-blank range, which blasts the vessels to pieces.

About one hundred Hawaiians are killed and several hundred wounded.

Because Hawaiians consider Olowalu a pu'u honua, or place of refuge, this attack has profound and long-lasting consequences, ultimately undermining the site's cultural stability.

After the massacre, Metcalfe weighs anchor and sails back to the island of Hawai'i.

Thomas Humphrey Metcalfe arrives in the Fair American near Kawaihae Bay about five or six weeks later.

By coincidence, the Fair American is the next ship to visit the territory of chief Kameʻeiamoku, who is eager for revenge.

The schooner, manned by only four sailors plus its relatively inexperienced nineteen-year-old captain, is easily captured by the Hawaiians.

Thomas Metcalfe and his crew are killed.

The only survivor is Isaac Davis, who is badly injured but for some reason spared; he is tied to a canoe and left nearly dead.

Kameʻeiamoku appropriates the ship, its guns, ammunition, and other valuable goods, as well as Isaac Davis himself.

No Hawaiian is aware at this time of the family relation between the captain of the Fair American and Simon Metcalfe, whose Eleanora is anchored at Kealakekua Bay, about thirty miles (forty-eight kilometers) away.

The Fair American and Davis are eventually given to Kamehameha.

The muskets of the Fair American had been salvaged and the schooner refloated.

Kamehameha had decided to spare the lives of Davis and Young.

Davis is nursed back to health by an American beachcomber named Isaac Ridler.

Like his friend Young, Davis will assist Kamehameha in his dealings with foreigners and in wars of conquest.