Indigenous peoples
The Pacific Northwest has been occupied by a diverse array of
indigenous peoples for millennia. The Pacific Coast is seen by some scholars as a major
coastal migration route in the
settlement of the Americas by late Pleistocene peoples moving from northeast Asia into the Americas.
[12]
The coastal migration hypothesis has been bolstered by findings such
as the report that the sediments in the Port Eliza caves on
Vancouver Island
indicate the possibility of survivable climate as far back 16 ka
(16,000 years) in the area, while the continental ice sheets were
nearing their maximum extent.
[13] Other evidence for human occupation dating back as much as 14,500 years ago is emerging from
Paisley Caves in south-central Oregon.
[14][15] However, despite such research, the coastal migration hypothesis is still subject to considerable debate.
[16][17]
Due in part to the richness of Pacific Northwest Coast and river fisheries, some of the indigenous peoples developed complex
sedentary societies while remaining
hunter-gatherers.
[18]
The Pacific Northwest Coast is one of the few places where politically
complex hunter-gatherers evolved and survived to historic contacts, and
therefore has been vital for anthropologists and archaeologists seeking
to understand how complex hunter and gatherer societies function.
[19]
When Europeans first arrived on the Northwest Coast, they found one of
the world's most complex hunting and fishing societies, with large
sedentary villages, large houses, systems of social rank and prestige,
extensive trade networks, and many other factors more commonly
associated with societies based on domesticated agriculture.
[19][20]
In the interior of the Pacific Northwest, the indigenous peoples, at
the time of European contact, had a diversity of cultures and societies.
Some areas were home to mobile and egalitarian societies. Others,
especially along major rivers such as the Columbia and Fraser, had very
complex, affluent, sedentary societies rivaling those of the coast.
[21]
In British Columbia and Southeast Alaska, the
Tlingit and
Haida erected large and elaborately carved
totem poles
that have become iconic of Pacific Northwest artistic traditions.
Throughout the Pacific Northwest, thousands of indigenous people live,
and some continue to practice their rich cultural traditions,
"organizing their societies around cedar and salmon."
[22]
Initial European exploration
In 1579 the British captain and erstwhile
privateer Francis Drake
sailed up the west coast of North America perhaps as far as Oregon
before returning south to land and make ship repairs. At this landing
site, probably near present-day
San Francisco, Drake made a symbolic claim of the region for England, naming it
New Albion.
[9]:11–12[23] Juan de Fuca, a
Greek captain sailing for the
Crown of Spain, supposedly found the
Strait of Juan de Fuca around 1592. The strait was named for him, but whether he discovered it or not has long been questioned.
[24] During the early 1740s,
Imperial Russia sent the
Dane Vitus Bering to the region.
[25]
By the late 18th century and into the mid-19th century, Russian
settlers had established several posts and communities on the northeast
Pacific coast, eventually reaching as far south as
Fort Ross, California. The
Russian River was named after these settlements.
In 1774 the viceroy of
New Spain sent Spanish navigator
Juan Pérez in the ship
Santiago to the Pacific Northwest. Peréz made landfall on
Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) on July 18, 1774. The northernmost latitude he reached was
54°40′ N.
[26] This was followed, in 1775, by another Spanish expedition, under the command of
Bruno de Heceta and including Juan Peréz and
Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra as officers. On July 14, 1775, they landed on the
Olympic Peninsula near the mouth of the
Quinault River. On August 17, 1775, Heceta, returning south, sighted the mouth of the
Columbia River and named it
Bahia de la Asunción. While Heceta sailed south, Quadra continued north in the expedition's second ship, the
Sonora, reaching
Alaska, at
59° N.
[27] In 1778 English mariner
Captain James Cook visited
Nootka Sound on
Vancouver Island and also voyaged as far as
Prince William Sound.
In 1779 a third Spanish expedition, under the command of
Ignacio de Artega in the ship
Princesa, and with Quadra as captain of the ship
Favorite, sailed from Mexico to the coast of Alaska, reaching
61° N. Two further Spanish expeditions, in 1788 and 1789, both under
Esteban Jose Martínez and
Gonzalo López de Haro, sailed to the Pacific Northwest. During the second expedition, they met the American captain
Robert Gray near
Nootka Sound. Upon entering Nootka Sound, they found
William Douglas and his ship the
Iphigenia. Conflict led to the
Nootka Crisis, which was resolved by agreements known as the
Nootka Convention. In 1790 the Spanish sent three ships to Nootka Sound, under the command of
Francisco de Eliza. After establishing a base at Nootka, Eliza sent out several exploration parties.
Salvador Fidalgo was sent north to the Alaska coast.
Manuel Quimper, with Gonzalo López de Haro as pilot, explored the Strait of Juan de Fuca, discovering the
San Juan Islands and
Admiralty Inlet in the process. Francisco de Eliza himself took the ship
San Carlos into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. From a base at
Port Discovery, his
pilotos (
masters)
José María Narváez and
Juan Carrasco explored the
San Juan Islands,
Haro Strait,
Rosario Strait, and
Bellingham Bay. In the process, they discovered the
Strait of Georgia and explored it as far north as
Texada Island. The expedition returned to Nootka Sound by August 1791.
Alessandro Malaspina, sailing for Spain, explored and mapped the coast from
Yakutat Bay
to Prince William Sound in 1791, then sailed to Nootka Sound.
Performing a scientific expedition in the manner of James Cook,
Malaspina's scientists studied the
Tlingit and
Nuu-chah-nulth peoples before returning to Mexico. Another Spanish explorer,
Jacinto Caamaño, sailed the ship
Aranzazu to Nootka Sound in May 1792. There he met Quadra, who was in command of the Spanish settlement and
Fort San Miguel. Quadra sent Caamaño north, to carefully explore the coast between Vancouver Island and
Bucareli Bay,
Alaska. Various Spanish maps, including Caamaño's, were given to George
Vancouver in 1792, as the Spanish and British worked together to chart
the complex coastline.
[27]
From 1792 to 1794,
George Vancouver charted the Pacific Northwest on behalf of Great Britain, including the Strait of Georgia, the bays and inlets of
Puget Sound, and the
Johnstone Strait–
Queen Charlotte Strait and much of the rest of the
British Columbia Coast and southeast Alaska shorelines.
[26] For him the city of Vancouver and Vancouver Island are named, as well as
Vancouver, Washington. From Mexico, Malaspina dispatched the last Spanish exploration expedition in the Pacific Northwest, under
Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and
Cayentano Valdes aboard the schooners
Sutil and
Mexicana.
[28]
They met Vancouver in the Strait of Georgia on June 21, 1792. Vancouver
had explored Puget Sound just previously. The Spanish explorers knew of
Admiralty Inlet and the unexplored region to the south, but they
decided to sail north. They discovered and entered the
Fraser River shortly before meeting Vancouver. After sharing maps and agreeing to cooperate, Galiano, Valdés, and Vancouver sailed north to
Desolation Sound and the
Discovery Islands, charting the coastline together. They passed through Johnstone Strait and
Cordero Channel
and returned to Nootka Sound. As a result, the Spanish explorers, who
had set out from Nootka, became the first Europeans to circumnavigate
Vancouver Island. Vancouver himself had entered the Strait of Juan de
Fuca directly without going to Nootka first, so had not sailed
completely around the island.
[27]
In 1786
Jean-François de La Pérouse,
representing France, sailed to Haida Gwaii after visiting Nootka Sound
but any possible French claims to this region were lost when La Pérouse
and his men and journals were lost in a shipwreck near Australia. Upon
encountering the Salish coastal tribes, either Pérouse or someone in his
crew remarked, "What must astonish most is to see painting everywhere,
everywhere sculpture, among a nation of hunters".
[29] Maritime fur trader Charles William Barkley also visited the area in the
Imperial Eagle, a British ship falsely flying the flag of the
Austrian Empire. American merchant sea-captain
Robert Gray traded along the coast and discovered the mouth of the
Columbia River.
