3/15/2023 0 Comments Nootka tribeOn 13 July Muquinna’s brother, Callicum, paddled out to berate the Spanish, only to be shot dead by a seaman. When Martínez arrested the trader James Colnett* for infringing on Spanish sovereignty, the threat to a profitable trade was felt by the Indians. Muquinna had seen it arrive in May at Nootka under the command of Esteban José Martínez, who claimed the sound for Charles III. Spain, dismayed by the number of British vessels now off the Pacific coast to which she had long laid claim, had sent a frigate north in 1789. Meanwhile, however, international rivalries had begun to create problems for Muquinna and his people. Like the European captains, Muquinna knew a good deal about price differentials, and the trader John Hoskins reports that his profits as a broker were considerable. By 1792 he controlled a trading network with the Kwakiutl group at the mouth of the Nimpkish River (on the east coast of Vancouver Island) his agents used the well-established trade routes to cross the island and purchase furs which were then sold to crews visiting Nootka. From the time of Cook’s visit it was apparent the people of Yuquot were attempting to control contacts between Europeans and other Indian groups, a pattern consolidated under Muquinna’s leadership as he endeavoured to ensure that all furs traded at Nootka passed through his hands, or, at least, through those of his people. On the other side, he was able to regulate the activities of other Indians in the area. On the one side, Muquinna was able to take advantage of the popularity of Nootka Sound to manipulate competition between traders which forced prices upwards. Those who had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time, and were sagacious enough to use their situation, became extremely wealthy as a result. Astute Indian leaders like him could exercise a great deal of control over the trade and mould it to serve their own ends. The developing intensity of the maritime fur trade placed Muquinna in a strategic position. Meares describes Muquinna as “of a middle size, but extremely well made, and possessing a countenance that was formed to interest all who saw him.” Muquinna traded with the British captain John Meares* in 1788 and allowed him to erect a small building on some land at Yuquot, an action that was later to embroil his people in international politics. Initially most of the trading ships that called at Nootka Sound were British, but in the following years American vessels, mainly out of Boston, increasingly dominated. In August Muquinna led an unsuccessful attack on his ship a later Spanish account records him as saying it was provoked by a practical joke Hanna played on him. The first expedition to the northwest coast after Cook’s was that of James Hanna in 1785. ![]() Muquinna emerges as the dominant Indian leader at the sound. From its beginning Nootka Sound was a popular port of call for traders, and it soon became an important centre of the trade. The publication of the journals of Cook’s third voyage revealed the profits to be made in a maritime fur trade with China. Friendly trading relations were established with the people of Yuquot, and a variety of items changed hands, including sea otter pelts, which Cook’s crews later traded at great profit in Canton (People’s Republic of China). It is quite possible that the Indian leader, not named by Cook, who held many discussions and arranged transactions with him was Muquinna. In fact, most of what we know about Muquinna is related in or must be inferred from the journals of European explorers and fur-traders.Īlthough the Spanish navigator Juan Josef Pérez Hernández was in the Nootka Sound area in 1774, the first extended contact between Nootka Indians and Europeans came in 1778 when Captain James Cook spent nearly a month at Ship Cove (Resolution Cove) refitting his ships. This same period was one of rivalry between Britain and Spain on the coast in which the Indians became involved. Muquinna’s leadership among the Nootka Indians coincided with the early years of contact with Europeans on the northwest coast and with the development of a maritime fur trade. Although it is not absolutely certain, there is evidence that the subject of this biography assumed leadership on the death of his father, Anapā, in 1778 and that he died in 1795, to be succeeded by another chief with the same name. This group had its most important summer village at Yuquot, at the mouth of Nootka Sound, and its winter village at Tahsis. Muquinna was the name of a series of ranking chiefs of the Moachat group of Nootka Indians. ![]() the name, written muk wina in proper native orthography, means possessor of pebbles he apparently was active as early as 1778 and probably died in 1795. Look up Nootka in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.MUQUINNA (Macuina, Maquilla, Maquinna), Nootka chief on the west coast of what is now Vancouver Island, B.C.
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