The United Kingdom (UK), officially the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and sometimes referred to as Britain, is a sovereign country located off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres (93,600 sq mi), the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world. It is also the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017.
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued. Historically the trade stimulated the exploration and colonization of Siberia, northern North America, and the South Shetland and South Sandwich Islands.
Nootka Sound is a sound of the Pacific Ocean on the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island, in the Canadian province of British Columbia, historically known as King George's Sound. It separates Vancouver Island and Nootka Island. It played a historically important role in the maritime fur trade.
Lloyd's Register listed Princess Royal in 1789 as being a sloop of 60 tons (bm), surveyed in Leith, Scotland in 1778 and resurveyed in 1786; Class A1, Copper sheathed, single deck with beams; draft of 8 feet (2.4m) when laden; owned by Etches & Co.[2]
Lloyd's Register Group Limited (LR) is a technical and business services organisation and a maritime classification society, wholly owned by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a UK charity dedicated to research and education in science and engineering. The organisation dates to 1760. Its stated aims are to enhance the safety of life, property, and the environment, by helping its clients to ensure the quality construction and operation of critical infrastructure.
Builder's Old Measurement is the method used in England from approximately 1650 to 1849 for calculating the cargo capacity of a ship. It is a volumetric measurement of cubic capacity. It estimated the tonnage of a ship based on length and maximum beam. It is expressed in "tons burden", and abbreviated "tons bm".
Leith is an area to the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, at the mouth of the Water of Leith.
From 1786 to 1788 Princess Royal, under Charles Duncan, accompanied the much larger Prince of Wales, under James Colnett, on an expedition to acquire sea otter furs in the Pacific Northwest and sell them in China. The ships were owned by Richard Cadman Etches and Company, also known as King George's Sound Company. The company was exploring the possibilities of taking furs collected in the Pacific Northwest to China, a venture shown to be potentially profitable by James Cook.
James Colnett was an officer of the British Royal Navy, an explorer, and a maritime fur trader. He served under James Cook during Cook's second voyage of exploration. Later he led two private trading expeditions that involved collecting sea otter pelts in the Pacific Northwest of North America and selling them in Canton, China, where the British East India Company maintained a trading post. Wintering in the recently discovered Hawaiian Islands was a key component of the new trade system. Colnett is remembered largely for his involvement in the Nootka Crisis of 1789—initially a dispute between British traders and the Spanish Navy over the use of Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island that became an international crisis that led Britain and Spain to the brink of war before being peacefully resolved through diplomacy and the signing of the Nootka Conventions.
The sea otter is a marine mammal native to the coasts of the northern and eastern North Pacific Ocean. Adult sea otters typically weigh between 14 and 45 kg, making them the heaviest members of the weasel family, but among the smallest marine mammals. Unlike most marine mammals, the sea otter's primary form of insulation is an exceptionally thick coat of fur, the densest in the animal kingdom. Although it can walk on land, the sea otter is capable of living exclusively in the ocean.
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia and the world's most populous country, with a population of around 1.404 billion. Covering approximately 9,600,000 square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), it is the third- or fourth-largest country by total area. Governed by the Communist Party of China, the state exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities, and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
The two ships left England on 23 September 1786, rounded Cape Horn, and reached the Pacific Northwest late in the summer of 1787. After trading for furs with the indigenous peoples in the vicinity of the Queen Charlotte Islands, Aristazabal Island, and Banks Island, both ships sailed to the Hawaiian Islands where they spent the winter. While on the coast of present-day British Columbia they had a series of first contact encounters with some of the KitkatlaTsimshian. In Hawaii Princess Royal and Prince of Wales were involved in several violent conflicts with the islanders; one conflict at Waimea Bay, resulted in the death of between five and fourteen Hawaiians.[1]
Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America, Cape Horn marks the northern boundary of the Drake Passage and marks where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet.
The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast are composed of many nations and tribal affiliations, each with distinctive cultural and political identities, but they share certain beliefs, traditions and practices, such as the centrality of salmon as a resource and spiritual symbol, and many cultivation and subsistence practices. The term Northwest Coast or North West Coast is used in anthropology to refer to the groups of Indigenous people residing along the coast of British Columbia, Washington state, parts of Alaska, Oregon, and northern California. The term Pacific Northwest is largely used in the American context.
Aristazabal Island is an island situated south west of Princess Royal Island in British Columbia, Canada. It has an area of 420 square kilometres (160 sq mi). The island was named on August 30, 1792, by Lieutenant Commander Jacinto Caamaño of the Spanish corvette Aranzazu for the Spanish captain Gabriel de Aristazábal, one of the most noted Spanish commanders of the time. Incidentally, the misspelling "Aristizable" appears on a chart owned by the English explorer, George Vancouver.
During the summer of 1788 the two returned to the Pacific Northwest to acquire more furs, this time operating separately. Charles Duncan sailed Princess Royal first to Nootka Sound, then to the Queen Charlotte Islands. He then took the ship across Hecate Strait to conduct fur trading among the islands and inlets north of Princess Royal Island, passing through Principe Channel and into Douglas Channel. Although today the name "Princess Royal" applies to a single island, Duncan called the entire archipelago the Princess Royal's Islands. It included what is today called Banks Island, Pitt Island, Gil Island, Campania Island, Gribbell Island, Hawkesbury Island, and the Estevan Group, among others. In late June, 1788, Duncan returned to the Queen Charlotte Islands, then proceeded south. He took Princess Royal into the uncharted waters of Milbanke Sound and spent a few days trading with the Heiltsuk. Near Nootka Sound he encountered John Meares, from whom he learned that Colnett and Prince of Wales had not arrived at Nootka. Therefore, Duncan did not stop at Nootka Sound but instead took Princess Royal south, trading in the vicinity of Clayoquot Sound and near the entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. On 17 August 1788, Duncan left the Northwest, sailing Princess Royal back to the Hawaiian Islands, where Prince of Wales and Princess Royal were reunited. The two then sailed to China, arriving in late November, 1788. There they sold the fur skins acquired in the Pacific Northwest. Prince of Wales returned to England via the Cape of Good Hope while Princess Royal remained in the Pacific for another fur trading season.[1] James Colnett also remained, and was given command of Argonaut for another year of fur trading in the Pacific. Thomas Hudson was given command of Princess Royal.
Hecate Strait is a wide but shallow strait between Haida Gwaii and the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It merges with Queen Charlotte Sound to the south and Dixon Entrance to the north. About 87 miles (140 km) wide at its southern end, Hecate Strait narrows in the north to about 30 miles (48 km). It is about 160 miles (260 km) in length.
Princess Royal Island is the largest island on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada. It is located amongst the isolated inlets and islands east of Hecate Strait on the British Columbia Coast. At 2,251 square kilometres (869 sq mi), it is the fourth largest island in British Columbia. Princess Royal Island was named in 1788 by Captain Charles Duncan, after his sloop, the Princess Royal.
Douglas Channel is one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast. Its official length from the head of Kitimat Arm, where the aluminum smelter town of Kitimat to Wright Sound, on the Inside Passage ferry route, is 90 km (56 mi). The actual length of the fjord's waterway includes waters between there and the open waters of the Hecate Strait outside the coastal archipelago, comprising another 60 km (37 mi) for 140 km (87 mi) in total.
While Duncan and Colnett were not the first Europeans to meet the Haida, their 1787 and 1788 accounts provide the first significant written description of them. There were three main encounters, including two at Rose Harbour in Houston Stewart Channel and one at Juan Perez Sound. The British described "Coyah" (Xō'ya, head of the Qai'dju qē'gawa-i Raven lineage) as the principal chief of Houston Stewart Channel and the adjacent waters. In July 1788 both British ships witnessed and became involved in a conflict between two groups of Haida at Juan Perez Sound — a group from the south led by Xō'ya and "Yuka", and a group from the north called "Sangaskilah" by the British.[3]
Haida are a nation and ethnic group native to, or otherwise associated with, Haida Gwaii and the Haida language. Haida language, which is an isolate language, has historically been spoken across Haida Gwaii and certain islands on the Alaska Panhandle, where it has been spoken for at least 14,000 years. Prior to the 19th century, Haida would speak a number of coastal First Nations languages such as Tlingit, Nisg̱a'a and Coast Tsimshian. After settlers' arrival and colonisation of the Haida through residential schools, few Haida speak the Haida language, though there are many efforts to revive the language.
Houston Stewart Channel is a strait in Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, Canada. It separates Moresby Island and Kunghit Island.
Nootka incident
In the spring of 1789 Princess Royal, under Thomas Hudson, along with Iphigenia (William Douglas), Argonaut (James Colnett), and North West America (Robert Funter), all British fur trading vessels, arrived at Nootka Sound. Two American fur trading ships were already anchored in the sound, one of which was Columbia Rediviva, and more arrived later, including Lady Washington, under Robert Gray. Esteban José Martínez, in command of the new Spanish post at Nootka, asserted Spanish sovereignty. After a complicated series of events, Martínez ended up with three captured ships and their crews, Princess Royal among them. Hudson had taken Princess Royal into Nootka Sound earlier and had been allowed to leave on the condition he proceed to China. Instead, he 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 Princess Royal was becalmed on an incoming tide. A Spanish longboat captured the ship and towed it in.[4] During the capture of Princess Royal the Nuu-chah-nulth ("Nootka") Chief Callicum, the son of Chief Maquinna, was shot and killed.[5]
On 21 June 1789, Martínez dispatched José María Narváez in the captured North West America, renamed Santa Gertrudis la Magna, to explore inlets to the south of Nootka Sound. By early July Narváez returned to Nootka, having sailed about 65 miles (105km) into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, demonstrating that it was a very large inlet. After hearing Narváez's report, Martínez felt that the Strait of Juan de Fuca was the entrance of the legendary Northwest Passage and of extreme strategic importance. Therefore, he placed Gonzalo López de Haro and Narváez in command of San Carlos and the captured Princess Royal, renamed Princesa Real, and sent them to the Spanish naval base at San Blas with news about the strait. In October, Martínez completely evacuated Nootka Sound and returned to San Blas himself, with his prisoners and captured ships.[5]
The events at Nootka Sound during the summer of 1789 escalated into a major international crisis, called the Nootka Crisis, which brought Britain and Spain to the brink of war. Peace was maintained through a series of agreements called the Nootka Conventions. It took several years for the terms to be fully agreed upon and carried out. Among other things, Spain agreed to restore the captured ships to their owners and pay them an indemnity.[6]
Spanish naval vessel, Princesa Real
In late 1789, a Spanish force under Francisco de Eliza was sent to reoccupy Nootka Sound. The fleet included the captured Princesa Real, under the command of Manuel Quimper. Eliza arrived at Nootka on 4 April 1790, and found no ships present. Under the terms of the first Nootka Convention, Princess Royal was to be returned to the British at Nootka Sound, but as the port was deserted Eliza decided to make use of the vessel while waiting. He dispatched Princesa Real under Quimper, with López de Haro and Juan Carrasco as pilots, to explore the Strait of Juan de Fuca more fully.[5]
On the way Quimper stopped at Clayoquot Sound and met Wickaninnish and, a day later, Maquinna, whose son had been killed on board Princess Royal the previous year. Quimper and Maquinna were able to begin the process of reconcillation between the Spanish and the Nuu-chah-nulth.[7]
In the summer of 1790, Quimper, Haro, and Carrasco explored the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Princesa Real, carefully charting harbors and performing acts of possession. Quimper made maps of Neah Bay (called Bahía de Núñez Gaona) and Esquimalt Harbour (Puerto de Córdova). On 5 July 1790, Carrasco sighted Admiralty Inlet, the entrance to Puget Sound. Thinking it likely to be a bay he named it Ensenada de Caamaño, after Jacinto Caamaño.[8]
Quimper realized that Haro Strait was a major channel worth exploring, but did not have the time. His orders were to return to Nootka by 15 August so that Princesa Real could be returned to the British. Quimper got the ship within sight of Nootka Sound by 10 August, but due to contrary winds and fog he could not enter, despite repeated attempts. Instead, he sailed Princesa Real south to Monterey, California, arriving on 1 September 1790. By November the vessel was back at San Blas.[7]
Last voyage
In 1791 Quimper took Princesa Real on another attempt to return it to the British. He sailed the vessel from San Blas to the Philippines, stopping at Hawaii on the way. Another Spanish captain would take the ship from the Philippines to China, as the Spanish and British governments had agreed that the ship would be returned to its owners in Macau. It turned out that James Colnett arrived in Hawaii in March 1791, just as Quimper was arriving. The two met. Colnett demanded that Princess Royal be turned over at once, while Quimper explained his orders were to take it to the Philippines. Colnett prepared to seize the ship by force. The quarrel was calmed by John Kendrick, Jr., a former fur trader who had entered Spanish service and was on board Princess Royal. Quimper slipped away at a convenient time and sailed to Manila, arriving in June. By the end of the year Princess Royal had been taken to Macau, but the ship was in such poor condition upon arrival that the British agents refused to accept it. Eventually they agreed to accept a small payment in cash instead.[9]
Fate
Soon afterwards a hurricane hit Macao and badly damaged Princess Royal. She was later sold for salvage.
The Strait of Juan de Fuca is a large body of water about 154 kilometres (96 mi) long that is the Salish Sea's outlet to the Pacific Ocean. The international boundary between Canada and the United States runs down the center of the Strait.
John Meares was a navigator, explorer, and maritime fur trader, best known for his role in the Nootka Crisis, which brought Britain and Spain to the brink of war.
The Nootka Sound Conventions were a series of three agreements between the Kingdom of Spain and the Kingdom of Great Britain, signed in the 1790s, which averted a war between the two empires over overlapping claims to portions of the Pacific Northwest coast of North America. The inhabitants of the region were not consulted by either European kingdom.
Robert Gray was an American merchant sea captain who is known for his achievements in connection with two trading voyages to the northern Pacific coast of North America, between 1790 and 1793, which pioneered the American maritime fur trade in that region. In the course of those voyages, Gray explored portions of that coast and, in 1790, completed the first American circumnavigation of the world. Perhaps his most remembered accomplishment from his explorations was his coming upon and then naming of the Columbia River in 1792, while on his second voyage.
Manuel Quimper Benítez del Pino was a Spanish Peruvian explorer, cartographer, naval officer, and colonial official. He participated in charting the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Sandwich Islands in the late 18th century. He was later appointed a colonial governor in his native Peru at the beginning of the fight for independence there. He retired to Spain, but was able to return to Peru where he served as a naval officer in the new republic and pursued a literary career, publishing over 20 books about his experiences before his death there in Lima.
Rosario Strait is a strait in northern Washington state, separating San Juan County and Skagit and Whatcom Counties. It extends from the Strait of Juan de Fuca about 23 kilometres (14 mi) north to the Strait of Georgia. The USGS defines its southern boundary as a line extending from Point Colville on Lopez Island to Rosario Head on Fidalgo Island, and its northern boundary as a line from Point Migley on Lummi Island to the east tip of Puffin Island and then to Point Thompson on Orcas Island. Rosario Strait runs north-south between Lopez, Decatur, Blakely, and Orcas Islands on the west, and Fidalgo, Cypress, Sinclair, and Lummi Islands on the east.
Haro Strait, often referred to as the Haro Straits because it is really a series of straits, is one of the main channels connecting the Strait of Georgia to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, separating Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands in British Columbia, Canada from the San Juan Islands of Washington state in the United States.
Spanish claims to the West Coast of North America date to the papal bull of 1493, and the Treaty of Tordesillas. In 1513, this claim was reinforced by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to sight the Pacific Ocean, when he claimed all lands adjoining this ocean for the Spanish Crown. Spain only started to colonize the claimed territory north of present-day Mexico in the 18th century, when it settled the northern coast of Las Californias (California).
Esteban José Martínez Fernández y Martínez de la Sierra, or simply Esteban José Martínez (1742–1798) was a Spanish navigator and explorer, native of Seville. He was a key figure in the Spanish exploration of the Pacific Northwest.
Francisco de Eliza y Reventa was a Spanish naval officer, navigator, and explorer. He is remembered mainly for his work in the Pacific Northwest. He was the commandant of the Spanish post in Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island, and led or dispatched several exploration voyages in the region, including the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia.
José María Narváez was a Spanish naval officer, explorer, and navigator notable for his work in the Gulf Islands and Lower Mainland of present-day British Columbia. In 1791, as commander of the schooner Santa Saturnina, he led the first European exploration of the Strait of Georgia, including a landing on present-day British Columbia's Sunshine Coast. He also entered Burrard Inlet, the site of present-day Vancouver, British Columbia.
Gonzalo López de Haro was a Spanish explorer, notable for his expeditions in the Pacific Northwest in the late 18th century.
Charles William Barkley was a ship captain and maritime fur trader. He was born in Hertford, England, son of Charles Barkley.
The Nootka Crisis, also known as the Spanish Armament, was an international incident and political dispute between the Spanish Empire, the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the fledgling United States of America triggered by a series of events that took place during the summer of 1789 at Nootka Sound in present-day British Columbia, Canada. Spanish coastguards seized some British commercial ships engaged in the fur trade at an uncolonized coastline area to which Spain claimed ownership. Britain rejected the Spanish claims and used its greatly superior naval power to threaten a war and win the dispute. Spain, a rapidly fading military power, was unable to depend upon its longtime ally, France, which was in the throes of the French Revolution.
Juan Carrasco was a Spanish naval officer, explorer, and navigator. He is remembered mainly for his work in the Pacific Northwest during the late 18th century. He was second in command of the 1791 voyage of José María Narváez, the first European exploration of the Strait of Georgia.
La Princesa was a Spanish frigate or corvette built at the Spanish Navy base at San Blas and launched in 1778. She is sometimes called a frigate and sometimes a corvette. At the time a corvette was similar to a frigate in that both were three-masted, ship-rigged warships, but corvettes were slightly smaller and had a single deck instead of two. The exact specifications of La Princesa are not known. La Princesa was designed with storage enough to sail for a year without having to restock. She was built for durability rather than speed. Like La Favorita, a similar corvette stationed at San Blas, La Princesa was heavily used, serving for over three decades, playing an important role in the exploration of the Pacific Northwest as well as the routine work of provisioning the missions of Alta California. During her 1779 voyage the Princesa carried six four-pounder cannons and four three-pounders, and had a crew complement of 98. The Princesa carried 26 cannons in 1789 when Esteban José Martínez took control of Nootka Sound.
Imperial Eagle, originally named Loudoun, was a 400-ton burthen (bm) British merchant ship, launched in 1774 at Liverpool. By 1780 her master was S. Rains, her owner Robertson, and her trade a transport out of London. In 1786 she underwent refitting at Shadwell Dock, Thames, London. She then sailed on maritime fur trading ventures in the late 1780s. She was under the command of Captain Charles William Barkley until confiscated in India.
William Douglas was a Scottish ship captain and a oceanographer maritime fur trader during the late 18th century. He worked with the British trader and Captain John Meares, commanding the ship Iphigenia Nubiana. He was involved in the Nootka Crisis of 1789, which brought Britain and Spain to the brink of war. A few years later he was captain of the American ship Grace. In 1791 he partnered with Captain John Kendrick in an attempt to open trade with Japan.
Santa Cruz de Nuca, was a Spanish settlement and the first European colony in British Columbia. The settlement was founded in 1789 and abandoned in 1795, with its far northerly position making it the "high-water mark" of verified Northerly Spanish settlement along the North American West coast. The colony was first established with the Spanish aim of securing the entire West coast of the continent from Vancouver island southwards, for the Spanish crown.
↑ The encounters between the British and the Haida, Tsimshian, Heiltsuk, and Nuu-chah-nulth are described in detail in Galois, Robert (2004). Voyage to the Northwest Side of America: The Journals of James Colnett, 1786-89. University of British Columbia (UBC) Press. ISBN978-0-7748-0855-2. online at Google Books
↑ Haycox, Stephen (2006). Alaska: An American Colony. University of Washington Press. p.178. ISBN0-295-98629-8. online at Google Books
1 2 3 McDowell, Jim (1998). José Narváez: The Forgotten Explorer. Spokane, Washington: The Arthur H. Clark Company. pp.32–45, 51. ISBN0-87062-265-X.
↑ Pethick, Derek (1980). The Nootka Connection: Europe and the Northwest Coast 1790-1795. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre. pp.22–23. ISBN0-88894-279-6.
1 2 3 Pethick, Derek (1980). The Nootka Connection: Europe and the Northwest Coast 1790-1795. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre. pp.26–31. ISBN0-88894-279-6.
↑ Hayes, Derek (1999). Historical Atlas of the Pacific Northwest: Maps of exploration and Discovery. Sasquatch Books. p.70. ISBN1-57061-215-3.
↑ Pethick, Derek (1980). The Nootka Connection: Europe and the Northwest Coast 1790-1795. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre. pp.50–52. ISBN0-88894-279-6.
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