![]() 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. It proved so popular that it is still being reprinted today.MUQUINNA (Macuina, Maquilla, Maquinna), Nootka chief on the west coast of what is now Vancouver Island, B.C. It appeared in 1815 and became known as Jewitt's Narrative. After Jewitt was rescued, following 28 months in captivity, he wrote a book of his experiences. Since most of the Mowachaht wanted the two whites dead, they never knew what would come first-freedom or death. But their worst fear came from knowing that slaves could be killed whenever their master chose. Among other duties, they were forced to carry wood for three miles and fight for Maquinna when he slaughtered a neighbouring tribe. Jewitt and another survivor, John Thompson, became 2 of some 50 slaves owned by the chief known as Maquinna. ![]() Twenty-five of her 27 crewmen were massacred, their heads "arranged in a line" for survivor John R. On March 22, 1803, while anchored in Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island, the Boston was attacked by a group of Mowachaht warriors. Jewitt's story of being captured and enslaved by Maquinna, the great chief of the Mowachaht people, is both an adventure tale of survival and an unusual perspective on the First Nations of the northwest coast of Vancouver Island.
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