Sir James Douglas

Chapter I The North-west Coast

T)RITISH Columbia, as we know it to-day, has had an organic existence only since the year 1859, or, at the earliest, if we include the colony of Vancouver Island, since 1849. Its history, therefore, as Crown colony and province of the Dominion of Canada, is contemporary with the lives of many still living. In a previous era, how¬ ever, the region had bulked large in the annals of the fur trade; and in a period still more remote it was a part of the romatic story of the conquest of the Pacific. If, therefore, we would penetrate be¬ yond results to ultimate causes, to see the com¬ munity in its making and the material which the most active of its makers found to his hand, as well as the development which sprang from that begin¬ ning, we should find that the inquiry, notwith¬ standing the remoteness of the region from the political life of the continent with which we are most familiar, and the recent date at which its organization was effected, leads far into the past. We must begin, indeed, if we would trace the stream of western history to its source, with a time almost coeval with the earliest European knowledge of America and but little subsequent to the landing of Columbus on its eastern shores.

The fact that the progress of colonization on this continent received a very remarkable impetus from the western side, has not always been given emphasis. Three causes have been commonly assigned for the early spread of civilization in America. The original discovery of the continent came as a result of that spirit of adventure, born of the Renaissance, which, coupling itself with the demand of the trader for a short route to the Orient, sent navigators into every sea. Two cen¬ turies before Columbus, Marco Polo and his follow¬ ing of mediaeval travellers had fired the imagina¬ tion of the age with the glories of Cathay. The dream that a path to these might lie by the west¬ ern ocean, or, when the barrier of two continents stretched itself in the way, by the rivers and mountain passes of the new land (or, it might be, by some “Strait of Anian” in the sea itself), was ever before the eyes of that daring race of sailors and discoverers who traced the coasts and pene¬ trated the pathless wildernesses of the New World. The second compelling force manifested itself later, when to the religious zeal of Europe, still seething from the Reformation, came the knowledge that America had a native population sunken in sav¬ agery and spiritual darkness. This operated in two directions: the heathen brought the missionary, most dauntless of martyrs; on the other hand, those who in an age of relentless persecutions looked with longing eyes for a land of freedom, 2

COLONIZATION FROM THE WEST

found suddenly a whole continent open to them where opposing bigotries were unknown. Of such were the Jesuit Fathers and the Puritans of New England. “If Columbus discovered the new con¬ tinent,” says Mr. Goldwin Smith, “the Puritans discovered the New World.” But a third factor, strong as these, was the lust of gain. To the covetous eyes of the Spaniard, mighty on sea and land, who had already forced his way by Cape Horn to the Pacific, stood revealed the wonderful riches of Mexico and Peru. These hapless countries he overran with fire and sword, plundered them of their gold, and trampled their ancient and remarkable civilizations into the dust. The return of the Spanish galleons laden with treasure set Europe on fire. Of all the influences that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries turned the eyes of the adventurer towards America, greed was undoubtedly the most powerful. It is of special import to the present purpose because of the far-reaching part it played in the development of enterprise on the Pacific Ocean.

It is not the intention here to outline the his¬ tory of the entire Pacific coast of America, but to trace briefly the more important events which led to the discovery of the north-west portion of it and to the ultimate domination of British interests therein. And here, across the path of the story at its outset, falls, and for two centuries abides, the mighty shadow of Spain. It was fortunate for the establishment of British influence in North Amer¬ ica and especially on the western shores of the con¬ tinent, that a people so powerful as the Spaniards in the sixteenth century did not possess the genius for colonization. Impetuous and daring the Span¬ ish spirit was ; but the greed and cruelty ingrained in its very fibre east a blight on whatever it touched and left no other monument than endur¬ ing hate. Such power could not finally prevail. War and spoliation led the Spaniards, at various times, far northward from their base in Mexico; but the vast Pacific slope, so full of latent pos¬ sibilities, remained, for as long as their influence overshadowed it, unvisited and unknown.

The early operations of Spain in the Pacific, however, are of importance as the first of a series of events which have had an immediate influence upon present conditions in the northern and west¬ ern portions of America. Other contributing agen¬ cies from the side of the Pacific were the Russian occupation of Alaska and the establishment of Brit¬ ish trade interests by sea on the north-west coast. Intermingled with these were the later activities of the overland traders and discoverers of the North-West Company, the Hudson’s Bay Com¬ pany and the Astorians, who fought their way through the mountains to the Pacific under the flags of their nations. It will be of interest to note from the earliest point how these several influences arose and entered into combination.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC

Balboa was the first white man to see the Paci¬ fic-marching his men mid-deep into its surf and proclaiming the sovereignty of Spain over its mighty waters, “for all time, past, present, or to

come, without contradiction . north and

south, . from the Pole Arctic to the Pole

Antarctic.” Mexico, the ancient seat of the Toltecs and Aztecs, was discovered five years later, in 1518. In 1519, it was conquered by Cortez, and the civilization of Montezuma was overthrown. Magellan, a Portuguese, who had joined the ser¬ vice of Spain under Charles V, had previously completed his memorable voyage around the world, sailing through the straits of his name to the Philippine Islands, where he lost his life. This opened the way to the Orient by the Southern Ocean. Vanschouten and Lemaire, two Dutch navigators, subsequently doubled Cape Horn, pas¬ sing in 1516 outside of the course held by Magel¬ lan. These and other voyages, while they threw light on one of the vexed problems of the day? disappointed anticipations both as to the nearness of Asia and the nature of the passage. They led, however, to greater zeal in the prosecution of dis¬ covery on the continent of America itself, in which, especially in southern latitudes, Spain was the leader and, at first, almost alone. There fol¬ lowed the conquest of Peru by Pizarro in 1532 and 1533, when the rule of the Incas, more enlightened in many respects than that of Spain herself, was overwhelmed. This epoch of blood has . been made a household tale by Prescott: it is referred to here only in connection with the immediate result it had of further whetting the appetite of the Span¬ iards for plunder, in pursuance of which they be¬ gan, soon after, a series of excursions northward.

One of the earliest of these expeditions was made, under the direction of Cortez, in 1528, by Pedro Nunez Maldonado, who surveyed the coast for one hundred leagues, as far as the river San¬ tiago. Another was despatched in 1532, under the command of Mendoza, who penetrated to the 27th parallel of north latitude. A third set out a year later, consisting of two ships commanded by Gri¬ jalva and Becerra, the former of whom discovered the Revillagigedo Islands, while the latter reached the 23rd parallel. Nuno de Guzman, governor of the Spanish possessions on the Gulf of Mexico and the rival of Cortez, next traced the western shore of the continent as far as the mouth of the Colorado River. It is unnecessary to mention all the voy¬ ages made by Cortez himself, by Ulloa, Alla^on and Cabrillo, prior to 1543, by which time the country between the 41st and 43rd parallels — or what is now the northernmost limits of the state of California — had been reached both by sea and overland. Meanwhile the Spaniards had established themselves firmly on both seaboards of Central America and Mexico. The expeditions by land were equally as notable as those by sea, and 6

FRANCIS DRAKE

the hardships which they involved even more ter¬ rible. The two friars, Marcos and Honorata, with Francisco Vasquez de Coronada and Fernando de Soto were the most celebrated leaders, and the wished-for goal was the discovery of new Mexicos and Perus. But Spain was not to repeat adventures like these. The actual and more important result was one that in itself she valued little — the deter¬ mination of the coast of California and the ex¬ ploration of a vast extent of the interior.

Coincidently with the earlier enterprises of Spain, we are introduced, amid clash of swords, decks slippery with blood and desperate battle indescribable, to the British type of adventurer in the Pacific — Francis Drake, the first Englishman to sail a ship on its waters. Sea-dog and pirate as he was, he lives forever in the memory of his countrymen as the scourge of their ancient enem¬ ies. With the immortals, Hawkins, Frobisher, and Cavendish, he was one of the founders of the navy of England. Rounding Cape Horn in 1578, he burst upon the Spanish coast, eager for revenge and treasure. The towns were unprepared for his coming, and could offer but little resistance. So inconceivable to the Spaniard was an Englishman in the Pacific, that their ships, low in the water with the gold and jewels of Peru, dipped colours and waited for him as a friend. Drake’s story is so wild, so terrible, as to be almost alone of its kind.

Deep was the memory of his voyage to the Span¬ ish coast; for a century after, his name was never spoken but with horror. The age was one of re¬ lentless cruelty and reprisals, and Drake gave less perhaps than he would have received. His visit to the Pacific is important as establishing the earliest claim of England to an interest in that ocean. In the spring of 1579 he sought to return by a north¬ ern route, in order to avoid the Spaniards ; but after reaching a point between the 42nd and 48th paral¬ lels — or, according to some, as far north as the southernmost islands of Alaska — and finding no avenue of escape, he retraced his steps and put in at a safe harbour for repairs. The bay a little north of San Francisco, commonly known as Drake’s Bay, was the point selected for this purpose. There he remained for some time, having assumed, on be¬ half of Queen Elizabeth, the sovereignty of the North American coast, to which he gave the title of New Albion. His ship, laden with booty, carried him, in the end, safely home by way of the Philip¬ pines, the Indian Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope, arriving at Portsmouth on September 26th, 1580. Cavendish, with hardly less of battle and plunder, followed much the same course as Drake, in the year 1587.

One who belongs to the century of Drake and whose name is inseparably associated with the waters of British Columbia, though the honour was 8

JUAN DE FUCA

long withheld, was Juan de Fuca, a native of Cephalonia. His real name was Apostolos Velerianos. While in the service of the viceroy of Mexico, he commanded, in 1592, an expedition northward, in the course of which he entered the strait now known by his name, between Vancouver Island and the state of Washington. He sailed some distance eastward, his course, as described by himself, cor¬ responding in the main with the general direction of the waters as we now know them. He returned, however, before emerging northwards into the sea, somewhat rashly concluding that he had discovered the traditional Strait of Anian. For many years the voyage was regarded as apocryphal, and it was not until the strait was rediscovered by subsequent navigators in the latitude assigned to it by Juan de Fuca that the earlier sailor received his due meed of renown.

During the period covered by these and other early voyages in the Pacific, the struggle for the sovereignty of the New World and the trade of the distant West — a struggle destined to continue for nearly three hundred years — had already begun amongst the maritime nations of Europe. The powers were Spain, Great Britain, France, Portugal and Holland. The first, having established herself in Central and South America, conquered the Philippines and secured a foothold in the East Indies. Portugal extended her trade to India and the South Seas. A new France arose in the valley of the St. Lawrence. Great Britain planted vigor¬ ous colonies on the North Atlantic coast. Dutch navigators, throughout, laboured persistently in the wake of their competitors. Here was ample field for opposing interests. It was, however, the pre¬ tentions of the Spaniards to exclusive domain in the south and west that were most bitterly resented by the rival nations. By virtue of prior discovery and of the papal grant of 1493, no nation of Europe, with the one exception of Portugal, was recognized by the court of Madrid as having any claim to occupy territory in America, or to navigate the western Atlantic or any part of the Pacific. The exception¬ al position of Spain had been in a measure re¬ cognized by Great Britain in 1670, and confirmed by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, though the terms of these and other agreements were so vague, as applied to a new and unknown continent, that they served rather to increase than to prevent confusion. It was, however, the efforts of England to establish trade relations with the Spanish dominions which constituted the cause of nearly all the disputes between the two countries subsequent to the middle of the sixteenth century.

In connection with this keen trade rivalry, which has to do with much that follows, the difference often remarked between the policy of Great Britain and the continental powers should be borne in mind from the outset. In the development of British 10

RIVAL TRADE POLICIES

commercial and colonial empire, incomparably more has been effected by the enterprise of private in¬ dividuals than by government initiative. Certain of the Tudor and Stuart sovereigns encouraged, and even undertook, commercial ventures, and the fact lent them a support among the trading classes which stood them in good stead during periods of political unrest and financial embarrassment. But the practice was never extended into a principle. The continental colonial policy, however, and not¬ ably that of France and Spain, was almost wholly paternal, designed to reflect the greatest possible glory on the reigning monarch. The new possessions were accordingly surrounded by a rigour of control that ultimately crippled all expansion. On the other hand, under the British policy, as exemplified on the Atlantic seaboard of America, in the voyages of British traders to the Pacific, or in the operation of the Hudson’s Bay Company in the interior of the continent, enterprise was ever untrammelled and individual. To-day, as a consequence, North America is the home of a free and progressive people, while over the southern continent still hovers the spirit of its Spanish origin, — restlessness, revolt, and a lack of the genius of organization and initiative.

From the date of de Fuca’s voyage, the Pacific coast between the 43rd and the 55th parallels of latitude remained for upwards of one hundred and eighty years unvisited by any European navigator. Roughly, the period embraces the whole of the seventeenth, and three-quarters of the eighteenth, century. Meanwhile, under the Spanish king’s instructions, the coast of California had been surveyed again by Sebastian Vizcaino, one of whose ships reached the 43rd parallel in January, 1603. The interval also included the establishment of the Jesuit missions, and their subsequent expul¬ sion from the Spanish dominions; sundry voyages and discoveries in the Southern Pacific; the for¬ mation and disappearance of a British colony in the Falkland Islands; the establishment of Span¬ ish settlements and Dominican missions on the west coast of California, from which the Mexi¬ can Creole of the present day is sprung; and, most important of all, the gradual waning of the power of Spain. On the whole, the record on the Pacific was one of almost sheer stagnation. On the Atlantic coast, during the same period, nations had been born and cradled. France had founded a great colony, and had lost it to England. England had planted the seeds of the United States of America. The whole eastern continent was sub¬ dued to the Anglo-Saxon. In the great plains of the interior, an empire within an empire, the Hud¬ son s Bay Company already bore sway. Still fur¬ ther north and west, Russia had made good a foothold that was eventually to include domin¬ ions twice as large as the British Columbia of to-day.

THE VOYAGE OF THE SANTIAGO

Before entering upon the period which was to decide forever to whom the ascendency in these waters should belong, namely, the closing quarter of the eighteenth century, certain final efforts of Spain to perpetuate her exclusive grasp upon the Pacific must be briefly dealt with. They followed somewhat tardily upon the conclusion of an agree¬ ment in 1763 with Great Britain and France, whereby New Orleans and Louisiana west of the Mississippi passed to Spain, while Canada, Florida and the other French possessions in North America were awarded to Great Britain.

Spain had at last awakened to the fact that the maintenance of her sovereignty in the New World called for decisive action. But official corruption, the forerunner of national decay, had long ago set in, and its effects were in no place more con¬ spicuous than in America. Galvez, an officer of the court of Castile, was sent as visitador. On his ar¬ rival, he at once determined upon the establish¬ ment of colonies and garrisons on the west coast of California. Pursuant to this policy, an effort was made to explore the coast north of Cape Blanco, on or about the 43rd parallel, beyond the present boundary of California, to which point Vizcaino had penetrated in 1602-3. In the year 1774, Juan Perez, accompanied by Estevan Jose Martinez, made a notable voyage from San Bias in the corvette Santiago. He was commissioned to proceed to the 60th parallel, where it was assumed the north-west passage from the Atlantic would be found, and to explore the coast line southward. After reaching the northern islands of the Queen Charlotte group, however, Perez steered home¬ ward, passing some time in a bay which he called Port San Lorenzo, — identified by some as Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island, the anchorage of Cook some fourteen years later, but more prob¬ ably, according to recent investigations, a small bay situated between Point Estevan and the Escalante Reef. Upon his return to Monterey, the Santiago was re- commissioned under command of Heceta, with Perez as one of his officers. The corvette was accompanied on her second voyage by the schooner Sonora, commanded by the cele¬ brated Don Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, with Maurelle as pilot. This expedition was by far the most notable of all the Spanish voyages to the north-west coast and ranks high in the annals of discovery in the Pacific.

With varying fortunes, the vessels steered north¬ ward. Off the strait of Juan de Fuca, as they sup¬ posed, they were blown southward by a heavy gale. At the Isla de Dolores, subsequently named Destruction Island, a boat’s crew was murdered by the Indians. The vessels became separated, and Heceta, losing heart, set sail for Monterey. On the way he in part redeemed the venture from failure by sighting, from twenty miles off shore, the entrance to the great Columbia River ; but, with a 14

BODEGA Y QUADRA

crew so stricken with scurvy that they could neither reef sail nor drop anchor, he could venture no nearer to confirm the discovery. If what he said was true, he was the first white man to see that famous stream. The promontory of San Rouge, near by, he probably identified. Meanwhile, Quadra and Maurelle kept bravely on, despite incredible hard¬ ships and a greatly diminished crew, passing and naming a number of coast features now well-known. Anchoring finally in the Bay of Islands, on the north side of Edgecomb Mountain, Quadra took formal possession of the country in the name of Spain. Returning southward, he surveyed the coast line with the utmost care, to discover, if possible, the Strait of Anian, or, failing that, the mouth of the Columbia; but as his examination began about thirty miles south of the proper latitude, the quest at Cape Mendocino was abandoned. In steering for San Francisco Bay, then well-known, the Sonora entered a smaller bay to the north, to which Bodega gave his own name. This is the bay in which Sir Francis Drake is supposed to have refitted, known to-day as Drake’s Bay. Four years later, Artfaga and Quadra, accompanied by the faithful Maurelle, made still another voyage of discovery, sighting Mount St. Elias, previously known to the Russians, and entering Prince Wil¬ liam’s Sound.

This was the third and final voyage of the Spaniards in carrying out the policy inaugurated under Galvez. Until nine years later, or the year 1788, no further attempt was made to extend the power of Spain to the northward. In the interval, events of the utmost importance had taken place, events which were ultimately to loosen forever her hold upon North America. Another and a more aggressive nation had learned of the wealth of this coast. When, in the year named, the Spaniards sought once more to assert their claim, the seeds had been planted for a controversy that brought them to the verge of war and all but set aflame a general European conflict.

That other and more aggressive nation was, of course, Great Britain. Since the days when Sir F rancis Drake had swept like a hurricane along the coast of South America, laying, perhaps unwitting¬ ly, in these and other exploits, the foundation of the naval supremacy of his country, England had risen from a fourth or fifth rate power, with little territory, limited population and resources, and a small and irregular army, to the first rank among the powers of Europe. The triumph was almost wholly one of commerce. After the defeat of the Armada, trade had based itself upon the naval prowess of England and had thrust her steadily for¬ ward. By the end of the seventeenth century she had eclipsed her greatest rival of commerce on the high seas — the Dutch. So, too, in the eighteenth century, the trading class of Great Britain was the 16

GREAT BRITAIN IN THE PACIFIC

first to recognize the importance of the Pacific. The time was opportune. England was herself firmly established on the Atlantic coast. France was no longer a power in America; the Revo¬ lution and Napoleon were as yet hidden in the political future. Spain’s recent endeavour to retain her grasp on the Pacific and to justify her claims to exclusive rights in its waters was but the final effort of an expiring influence. Russia, a more to be dreaded antagonist, had already for¬ tified herself in the extreme north-west and was known to have extended to the New World her traditional policy of encroachment. Having con¬ quered Siberia and established a trade with the natives of the Alaskan archipelago, there had been created a series of vested rights, more embarrassing to Great Britain at this juncture than all the plans of France and Spain combined. England, therefore, was alive to her interests when she decided to send expeditions at this time to delimit the shore line of the continent. But the impelling motive was commercial— to discover the passage, supposed, somewhere between the 40th and 60th parallels, to lead to the Atlantic. The key to the oriental trade, more important even than the New World itself, was thus the objective of the intrepid Cook and Vancouver, and the fact is eminently characteristic of British policy. It was left, too, in the end, to the enterprise of commerce — to the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North-West Company — to conserve for England her splendid domain in W estern America. The French Revolution and the ambition of Napoleon withdrew her energies, at a critical moment, for the defence of her own shores and the preservation of Europe ; and these far off lands, at that time as little known in the United States as in the Old World itself, were left largely to work out their own destinies.

The era of exploration that dawned with the appearance of the British trader in these waters, was included within the closing quarter of the eighteenth century. It was the final and, in many respects, the most brilliant in the history of dis¬ covery in the Pacific. Great Britain played the leading role, but Russia, France and Spain were only less active. The United States also plunged with all the ardour of young nationhood into the quest of glory over seas. With the eager spirit which had animated the earlier centuries of dis¬ covery, the unexplored remainder of America was now made known to geographers, and the outlines of the continent charted with approximate ac¬ curacy. The advantages of Great Britain lay in the superiority of her methods of navigation, the ability of her seamen, the strength of her com¬ mercial fleet and her worldwide trade, whereby she was able to utilize immediately and to the fullest extent the wealth of her discoveries. Thus it happened that of all the nations her efforts were the most persistent and her work the most pains- 18

THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE

taking and exact, and it was mainly through her navigators that the world was finally enlightened as to the character of the north-west coast. Spain and Russia, though they sent out many expedi¬ tions, added, in comparison, but little of value. The Spaniards, in particular, pursued a policy of secrecy which robbed them of much credit. But the. inferiority of their mathematical instruments would still have left them handicapped in the race with Great Britain. The work of Cook and Vancouver demanded qualities of skill, as well as of courage and endurance, that are not often dup¬ licated in a single generation.

It is well to repeat, in connection with the voy¬ ages of these two great commanders, that their primary object was to survey the north-west coast line, within specified parallels of latitude, and to dis¬ cover whether any opening existed such as might lead to the Atlantic Ocean by the supposititious North-west Passage, for the discovery of which a reward of twenty thousand pounds was offered by the British admiralty. The narrative of Juan de Fuca, though long discredited, had not been for¬ gotten. The latitude of de Fuca’s opening was between the 47th and 48th parallel. There was also the reputed strait of Admiral de Fonte, an¬ other and wholly mythical explorer of the seven¬ teenth century, near the 53rd parallel. The fam¬ ous river of Oregon, reported by Jonathan Car¬ ver, might even connect by some mysterious channel with the waters of the long sought Strait of Anian. It is not the first instance in history in which a chimera, having laid hold of the popu¬ lar imagination, paved the way for results more important than were claimed for the original fancy.

In 1778, the famous navigator, Captain James Cook, arrived on the north-west coast of America. He had two ships, the Resolution and the Dis¬ covery, and his instructions from the British gov¬ ernment were to examine the coast line from about 45° north latitude to the Arctic Ocean, and to ascertain whether any large rivers, inlets or arms of the sea extended to the eastward. Cook first sighted the coast in latitude 44° north; but, having been blown off shore by bad weather, the strait of Juan de Fuca escaped his observation. Land was next seen in the vicinity of a large sound, latitude 49° 30' north, in which Cook anchored, March 29th, 1778. After a few weeks spent in refitting his vessels and refreshing their crews, he continued on his northward voyage, his men having obtained a valuable quantity of furs during their stay. Cook named the bay in which he had passed this interval King George’s Sound; but understanding afterwards that it was called Nootka by the natives, it was re-named, and has ever since been known as Nootka Sound. It was Cook’s intention, on leaving Nootka, to proceed as speedily as possible to the part of 20

CAPTAIN COOK

the coast lying under the 65th parallel of lati¬ tude, the violence of the weather, however, again prevented him from approaching the land for some days, and he was forced to leave unvisited the region near the 53rd parallel where geogra¬ phers had placed the strait of Fonte. Cook accord¬ ingly denied the existence both of Fonte’s and de Fuca s channels. After discovering and naming the two large bays known as Prince William’s Sound and Cook’s Inlet, and having stayed a short time at Unalaska, Cook proceeded to the Arctic Ocean, passing through the strait which he named Behring in honour of the Danish navigator who had first discovered it. Turning about, he set sail for the Sandwich Islands, where he was killed, Febru¬ ary 14th, 1779. The ships then returned to Eng¬ land. It was the report of these crews respecting the boundless wealth in furs — to be had almost for the asking on this coast — that aroused the Euro¬ pean nations to action, and incited them, on Cook’s narrative being given to the world in 1784, to plan still further expeditions and discoveries.