The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015

INTRODUCTION: JUST WHERE DOES ONE GET A LICENSE TO KILL INDIANS?

On the morning of May 17, 1999, eight Makah men paddled the Kʷiti˙kʷitš (“kwih- tee- kwihtsh,” Hummingbird) up to the three-year- old gray whale. Ignor- ing the drizzling rain, buzz of news copters above, and watchful eyes of a Na- tional Marine Fisheries biologist, Theron Parker thrust the harpoon. Unlike his misses on the prior two days of hunting, this throw sank into the thirty-ton le- viathan and stuck. From a nearby support craft, a modifi ed .577 caliber rifl e roared three times. Fired by an experienced game hunter and decorated Vietnam War combat veteran, the third shot lanced through the water and into the whale’s brain, killing it within seconds. As the female whale died off Washington State’s Pacifi c coast, harpooner Theron led the crew in prayer, thanking her for offer- ing herself to the Makahs. Surrounded by a small fl eet of canoes from neighboring American Indian nations, the Hummingbird brought the whale ashore at Neah Bay about twelve hours later. Hundreds of men pulled on two heavy chains, hauling her onto the beach where generations of whalers had beached them before. Theron sprinkled ea gle feathers on the whale’s head while the community welcomed her— the fi rst in seventy years—to the Makah nation.1 A co ali tion of indigenous peoples and non- Natives throughout the world supported the hunt at several critical stages. When the United States removed the gray whale from the list of endangered wildlife in 1994, the tribal nation expressed interest in resuming customary whale hunts. With the support of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in 1997, the Makah petitioned the International Whaling Commission (IWC) for approval of annual subsistence hunts. After negotiating with other North Pacifi c indigenous groups, the IWC Copyright © 2015. Yale University Press. All rights reserved. rights All Press. University Yale 2015. © Copyright granted the tribal nation a yearly quota of fi ve whales, one for each ancestral Makah village near Cape Flattery, the northwesternmost tip of the contiguous

1 Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. 2 Introduction

United States. As part of this deal, Alaska Inuits traded twenty bowhead whales to the Chuktchis, a Siberian people, for fi ve gray whales. Chuktchis have an annual quota of two hundred grays, and this reallocation undercut the potential criticism that Makah hunts would add stress on the species.2 Indigenous peoples continued to provide encouragement during the 1999 hunt and afterward. A few years earlier, several Vancouver Island Nuu- chah- nulth carv- ers, relatives of Makahs, helped to make the Hummingbird, and American Indian communities and Canadian First Nations from across North America of- fered prayers for the hunters’ success. After landing the whale at Neah Bay, members of the community stripped blubber and meat from the carcass and hosted a large feast, reminiscent of potlatches from earlier centuries. Makah elder Dale Johnson remembers that getting the whale “brought a gathering of people; tribes from all over came in” as the whalers shared the catch. In addition to American Indians from Alaska, the Great Plains, and the West Coast, indigenous peoples from across North America, the Pacifi c, and Africa were honored guests at the celebratory feast. Billy Frank Jr., a Nisqually elder, presi- dent of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, and veteran of the Indian

Hauling the whale ashore, May 17, 1999. After the power winch failed, the community worked together to pull the whale ashore. Photograph by Theresa Parker, courtesy the Makah Cultural and Research Center, Neah Bay, WA. Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. Introduction 3

exercising treaty rights. A Maasai warrior from Kenya expressed the need to preserve unique cultural characteristics in the world today. Many non-Natives also supported the hunt because whaling is a treaty right that Makahs reserved for themselves in the 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay, which the tribal nation signed with the United States. The 1999 hunt has inspired self-determination struggles by others. Currently negotiating treaties with the Canadian government, Nuu- chah- nulths point to the Makah whale hunt to support their efforts to re- sume a customary lifestyle based on whaling.3 Coming at the close of the twentieth century, however, the whalers’ actions drew passionate opposition. Longtime foes of American Indian treaty rights, such as Congressman Jack Metcalf (R- Washington), railed against the federal government’s bias of “giving Indians special rights,” a statement exhibiting his igno- rance that Native negotiators, not the government, reserved rights for their tribal nations in the treaties.4 A vocal minority argued that whaling is barbaric and out of step with today’s more “enlightened” views. Racism peppered much of their rhetoric, echoing criticisms levied against Washington’s American Indians during the fi shing rights confl ict of earlier decades. Makah commercial fi sher Dan Greene observed that “the same people who are racist against the Indian tribes are still there” since the treaty fi shing wars of the 1960s and 1970s, “and that this [the 1999 whale hunt] just brought it to the surface again.” After the May 17 hunt, “the fl oodgates of hate were opened.”5 Calling Makahs “ ‘Red’ necks with rifl es” and accusing them of “playing Indian,” non-Natives revealed strong anti-Indian sentiments still present in mainstream society. Phillips Wylly, an ac- complished fi lm and televi sion producer, wrote to the editor of the Seattle Times, asking, “I am anxious to know where I may apply for a license to kill Indians. My forefathers helped settle the west and it was their tradition to kill every Red- skin they saw. ‘The only good Indian was a dead Indian,’ they believed. I also want to keep with the faith of my ancestors.” Protestors blocked the road to Neah Bay, issued bomb threats, and harassed gray whales in local waters in order to chase them away from Makah hunters. Anti-Indian sentiment became so vocif- erous that the governor deployed the National Guard to the reservation to protect Makah lives. The US Coast Guard defended the whalers at sea from activist organizations such as the Sea Shepherd Society.6 These critics were racist, and they were also wrong. This kind of criticism of the Makahs’ continuing whaling

efforts reveals a deep lack of understanding about the issue. They have Copyright © 2015. Yale University Press. All rights reserved. rights All Press. University Yale 2015. © Copyright overlooked— and continue to ignore— the historical and cultural connections Makahs have to the ocean. Calling themselves the Qwidiččaʔa˙tx (“kwi-dihch- chuh- aht”), meaning “the People of the Cape,” Makahs shaped marine space in and around the Strait of Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. 4 Introduction

Juan de Fuca, rather than terrestrial spaces, as the primary locus of their identity. They placed marine space at the center of their culture. Strategic exploita- tion of customary waters enabled the People of the Cape to participate in global networks of exchange, to resist assimilation, and to retain greater autonomy until the early twentieth century, later than many other land-based reservation communities in North America. When explorers and maritime fur traders entered the Pacifi c Northwest at the end of the eigh teenth century, Makah chiefs protected their control over customary waters and resources. During talks for the 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay, Makah negotiators forced Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens to alter the treaty language to fi t the tribal nation’s maritime needs. Net- works of exchange, kinship, and confl ict made the waters around the Strait of Juan de Fuca, today an international border that separates the state of Washing- ton from the Canadian province of British Columbia, into a space of connections. Indigenous whalers, sealers, and fi shers combined customary practices with modern opportunities and technology to maintain Makah identity amid the cultural and environmental changes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Challenges included overfi shed marine species, environmental degradation, rising state power, and assimilation and conservation efforts. By understanding the contours of the Makahs’ connection to the ocean, we can see more easily why reviving the active practice of whaling is critical to the People of the Cape today.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT OF THE NORTHWEST COAST

As a marine people, Makahs developed a deep understanding of and relationship with the waters around them. Oceanographic features created what some scholars call a bioregion, acknowledging that powerful forces of the natural environment are more important than divisions created by borders. As in other places such as the Medicine Line country of the Alberta- Montana borderlands, environment and geography—rather than gender, age, ethnicity, or nationality—dictated community bonds in this region. Unpredictable and diffi - cult forces of nature exerted a “constant push and pull” on the lives of those living in the Medicine Line country. Similarly, natural forces such as the ebb and fl ow of tides, winds and currents, powerful storms, spawning salmon, breaching

whales, and gamboling seals and sea otters exerted a constant push and pull on Copyright © 2015. Yale University Press. All rights reserved. rights All Press. University Yale 2015. © Copyright the lives of the People of the Cape and other indigenous inhabitants of the North- west Coast. Environmental features made these marine waters a complex, rich space that drew many peoples to this region and encouraged a spectrum of ex- changes from violence to trade.7 Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. Introduction 5

Surface and submarine geological features bound this marine space in three dimensions. At the seascape’s edges, the watersheds of mountainous Vancouver Island and the glaciated ramparts of the Olympic and Cascade Ranges sent mineral- laden freshwater into inshore coastal waters. Separating Vancouver Is- land from the Olympic Peninsula, the Strait of Juan de Fuca funneled cold seawater into the warmer waters of Puget Sound.8 Underwater west of the Olympic Peninsula and Vancouver Island, the continental shelf kept the seafl oor shallow farther offshore and worked with seasonal currents to prevent winter waters from becoming too frigid, thereby improving conditions for marine organisms during the cold months. Numerous reefs, rocky outcrops, and other localized submarine features attracted many types of fi sh. Possessing a detailed indigenous knowledge of the local seascape, Makahs un- derstood that distinct water masses in the region circulated in a complex yet regular manner as currents interacted with seasonally changing winds and geological features.9 Within a larger geographic context, permanent ocean currents moved water masses into and out of this region. Flowing east across the Pacifi c Ocean, the North Pacifi c Current split when it drove into the coast of North America. One branch, the Alaska Current System, headed north along the west coast of Vancouver Island. Pushing warmer water northward, it moderated conditions in the southeast Bering Sea. A second branch, the California Current System, headed south along the Washington coast to the Baja Peninsula. These currents deposited fl otsam on beaches in front of Makah villages, bringing giant redwood logs from northern California in the winter and carrying bamboo and other trop- ical fl ora from Asia in the summer. More important, these water masses affected the marine biology of local waters, making species available at regular times. When the California Current System swung closer to the coast each spring, it brought fur seals, migrating to their breeding grounds on the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea, within safe reach of Makah men hunting from canoes. Observ- ing these natural cycles helped coastal indigenous peoples understand that these larger currents affected local marine space and the resources within it.10 The effects of regional movements of water also benefi ted the People of the Cape. Rivers discharged nutrient-rich water into local marine space. Freshwa- ter from the numerous smaller watersheds of Vancouver Island and the Olym- pic Peninsula carried minerals into this environment. Large outlets such as the

Strait of Juan de Fuca and the mouth of the Columbia River funneled plumes Copyright © 2015. Yale University Press. All rights reserved. rights All Press. University Yale 2015. © Copyright seaward. Draining an approximate area of 258,200 square miles, the Columbia River discharged nutrients that moved north along the coast as the Davidson Current picked them up. In the Strait of Juan de Fuca, estuarine runoff from the Fraser River mixed with deep, nutrient- rich seawater before being discharged Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. Currents of the northeastern Pacifi c. Map by Bill Nelson. The California Current System was a complex, three-dimensional mass of water. The surface component of this current system meandered southward, pushing cold water from the Subarctic Current down the coast. Possessing greater concentrations of oxygen and phosphates, this mass of water from the higher latitudes helped marine life and the human societies dependent upon it thrive. Another component of the California Current System, the deeper and northerly fl owing Davidson Current, transported warmer, equatorial water along the slope and outer continental shelf. It appeared off the Washington coast in September and was well established by January. From the middle of November to mid- February, this was the dominant inshore transporter of water and suspended material along the coast. Most important for marine life, the Davidson Current helped to keep inshore water temperatures warmer than water farther offshore during

the winter months. It diminished in the spring when the offshore surface current of the Copyright © 2015. Yale University Press. All rights reserved. rights All Press. University Yale 2015. © Copyright California Current System swung closer to the coast. This change resulted in the seasonal upwelling of colder, nutrient- rich water, fueling a rich marine environment. A third component of the California Current System, the California Undercurrent, fl owed northward along the upper continental shelf at 660 feet and deeper.

Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. Introduction 7

into the ocean. This mixture contributed substantially to the nutrient supply and the resultant production of phytoplankton—microscopic, single-cell plants— around Cape Flattery. The wide continental shelf off the west coast of Vancou- ver Island created an extensive foundation for spreading this nutrient- rich water mass into ocean waters farther offshore. Experienced Makah mariners used the strong tidal current around Cape Flattery to get to and from fi shing grounds off the cape and to travel among villages. Oral histories highlight Makah knowledge of local currents and tides and relate how indigenous mariners used them to their advantage.11 Because they could literally see it through the resultant high concentration of sea life, the People of the Cape also knew about one of the most important regional oceanographic pro cesses, upwelling.12 This raised cold, nutrient- rich water into the photic zone where sunlight fueled photosynthesis, which created a highly productive biomass. Promontories and capes such as Cape Flattery and the related Juan de Fuca Eddy created “upwelling centers” in the sur- rounding waters. The deep California Undercurrent and the outfl ow from the strait interacted with the submarine canyon system off the cape to facilitate upwelling from an extreme depth. The Juan de Fuca Eddy made this marine space into a dense biomass of phytoplankton (microscopic single-celled plants), which, in turn, enhanced the quantity of larger marine species. During its peak, the eddy propelled dissolved inorganic nutrients about sixty miles from the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and marked the water with a dark stain as it literally “boil[ed] with bait.” It also facilitated the mixing of fresh- and salt water in the strait and fl ushed the inlets of the west coast of Vancouver Island.13 The physical features of this complex marine environment supported a rich food web, which radiated out from the phytoplankton. These microorganisms got energy from sunlight and dissolved inorganic nutrients. In the spring, the Juan de Fuca Eddy facilitated an explosive bloom of these phytoplankton, which fed the large amount of krill at the coastal- oceanic interface along the Washing- ton coast. A type of zooplankton, krill was a keystone species, the primary food source for most other marine life. This included fi sh, seabirds, and marine mammals, especially whales, all signifi cant to Makahs and Nuu-chah- nulth peoples of Vancouver Island. Found throughout the Strait of Juan de Fuca and along the coast, kelp beds formed dense marine forests that supported fi sh, in-

vertebrates, marine mammals, and seabirds.14 Copyright © 2015. Yale University Press. All rights reserved. rights All Press. University Yale 2015. © Copyright Keeping temperatures warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer, the ocean also shaped the weather patterns experienced by the Makahs. Driven by the Aleutian Low, an atmospheric pressure cell that dropped south from the Ber- ing Sea during the winter, wet storms often swept in from the ocean, annually Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. 8 Introduction

depositing from 90 to 110 inches of precipitation, most in the form of rain due to the temperate climate. Calmer and warmer, summer was rarely hot. Cloudy weather, foggy conditions, and variable winds bedev iled many a non- Native mariner and at times presented challenges for Makahs when on the water. The latitude, various ocean currents, and climate kept the waters off Cape Flattery cold, yet warm enough to support the rich marine life of the region.15 Together, winds, geological features, the circulation of water masses, and marine biology composed the oceanography of marine space in which the People of the Cape and neighboring indigenous peoples lived. Located on the shores of the Pacifi c Northwest, the People of the Cape are part of the Northwest Coast culture. This cultural area extends along the Pa- cifi c coast from the Copper River delta on the Gulf of Alaska to the Oregon- California border and inland to the Coast Mountains of British Columbia and the Cascade Mountains of Washington and Oregon. Speaking forty- fi ve separate languages that scholars have orga nized into thirteen language families, the many distinct peoples of the Northwest Coast composed the second most di- verse (after California) linguistic area of indigenous North America in the fi f- teenth century. Despite this diversity, these peoples shared several commonalities differentiating them from the interior peoples east of the Cascades, far northern peoples of the Pacifi c, and those in California.16 Northwest Coast peoples exploited a range of natural resources, but most relied on cedar and salmon. Natives used cedar, an evergreen tree found throughout the region and valued for its durability and decay resis tance, for so many necessities that some referred to the spirit of the tree as “Long Life Maker” or “Rich Woman Maker.” They spun, wove, and plaited its fi brous bark into clothing, baskets, and rope. Northwest Coast peoples split cedar into planks for longhouses, steamed boards into bentwood boxes, carved totem poles and masks, and fashioned canoes from logs. They fi shed for fi ve species of salmon, an anadromous fi sh that hatches in freshwater streams, swims to the ocean to spend most of its life fattening up, and returns to natal streams to spawn and die. Using reef nets, seines, weirs, lines, and spears, families took from three hundred to a thousand pounds of salmon per person each year. Because the separate species return to spawn at different seasons and only for limited durations, Native women developed a range of methods for preserving and storing salmon. The differential availability of cedar and partic-

u lar species of salmon— and other food and natural resources— fueled a vast trade Copyright © 2015. Yale University Press. All rights reserved. rights All Press. University Yale 2015. © Copyright network encompassing this culture area and beyond. Makahs had unique access to enormous amounts of halibut, whales, and seals, which they traded to other Northwest Coast peoples for salmon and cedar, two resources that they did not have in abundance in comparison to peoples living on major river systems.17 Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. Introduction 9

Indigenous communities formed around villages situated to exploit marine resources. Makahs resided at fi ve primary villages—Bi ʔidʔa (“bih-ih- duh”), Di˙ya (“dee- yuh,” Neah Bay), Waʔa2 (“wuh-uhch”), 3u˙yas (“tsoo- yuhs”), and ʔuse˙ʔił (“oo-sa- ihlth,” Ozette)—located near Cape Flattery. During the spring and summer, families dispersed to residences located to access seasonal resources more easily. During the late eighteenth century, many Makahs annually relocated to the summer village on Tatoosh Island, about half a mile northwest of Cape Flat- tery, to fi sh for halibut and hunt whales. Others lived in smaller communities such as 4idi˙5abit (“kih- dee- kuh- biht”)— called “Warm Houses” in En glish because of the many smoke houses for drying fi sh—and fi shing camps along the Hoko River, where they caught and preserved various fi sh. During the stormy

Cape Flattery, homeland of the Qʷidič ča ʔa˙tx (“kwi- dihch- chuh- aht”), the People of the Cape. Map by Bill Nelson. Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. 10 Introduction

Families moved from one area to another because they had own ership and usufruct rights (the right to use something owned by someone else) based on kinship to specifi c resources. These rights shifted as social connections changed due to marriages and divorces, births and deaths, and the waxing and waning power of par tic u lar individuals and communities. Because of these changes, and periodic fl uctuations in the availability of par tic u lar species, families did not always follow the same par tic u lar pattern of seasonal movements.18 Before the appearance of non- Natives in the eigh teenth century, Northwest Coast peoples recognized the status of individuals within a three-tiered system of social stratifi cation, which included chiefs, commoners, and slaves. A range of ranked leaders occupied the highest social stratum in each village. Claiming ancestral ties to supernatural ancestors, chiefs owned the rights and titles to leadership positions within communities. Titleholders owned lucrative fi shing and hunting grounds and other resource areas. “Outside resources”— called such because they were in marine spaces outside bays, inlets, and rivers—were the most important property rights, and only the highest- ranking chiefs owned them. Among the People of the Cape, the most powerful chiefs were whalers. In addition to tangible property such as cranberry bogs, freshwater streams, driftwood, game, timber, and wild plants, chiefs owned intangible items, like names, dances, songs, and stories. Sometimes sold but usually given as gifts, these propertied items passed within kinship networks and crossed gender lines, which meant that women occasionally held positions of authority. Except for personal items such as canoes, clothing, and fi shing gear, commoners did not own any culturally signifi cant property like resource areas and titles. However, they did have access to hunting and fi shing grounds because chiefs extended these rights to people who respected their authority. In return, commoners often gave a portion of what they hunted, harvested, and caught to the high- status owner. Slaves, seized during confl icts between communities and traded throughout the Northwest Coast, occupied the lowest social stratum and made up 20 to 40 percent of a village’s population. Slave status was hereditary— the children of slaves inherited this condition. Because they did a range of labor and augmented an owner’s wealth, slaves were both valuable property and status items. High- status Makahs kept many slaves, and the People of the Cape were key traders in the regional slave trade.19

Own ership of important titles and rights provided Northwest Coast chiefs with Copyright © 2015. Yale University Press. All rights reserved. rights All Press. University Yale 2015. © Copyright their foundation for leadership within villages and sometimes across larger sociopo liti cal spaces. Chiefs exercised authority through infl uence rather than coercion. Although titles, rights, and privileges passed from one generation to the next through kinship networks, an individual had to maintain his—and some- Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. Introduction 11

times her— noble status by providing for the people. Within a Makah village, whaling chiefs who harvested several thirty-to- forty- ton whales each year provided a wealth of subsistence and trade goods. This system of leadership made authority competitive both within villages and across larger areas. The wealthi- est chiefs— those who could provide the most for their people— had more infl u- ence than others with less. These leaders could muster hundreds of warriors from several villages. They protected their people from raiders or led war expeditions against neighboring villages to seize slaves and lucrative resources such as salmon streams or marine fi shing and hunting grounds. Chiefs strengthened their social status by marrying members of other noble families throughout the region; for similar reasons, they married their sons and daughters into other high-status families. Marriages often brought more property items, including fi shing rights, slaves, titles, and other tangible goods, although these privileges ended on divorce.20 Chiefs displayed and distributed wealth through rituals and feasts, which scholars often lump together under the name “potlatch.” These events ranged from simple affairs, during which a chief shared a substantial catch of salmon, to more elaborate celebrations such as a marriage between two noble families. The larg- est events involved hundreds of guests, whom the host would feast for several consecutive weeks. Potlatches incorporated speeches, dances, songs, and other ritual activities. These feasts featured the giving of gifts ranging from food to valuable commodity trade items. Within the framework of leadership rivalries in the Northwest Coast, potlatching became competitive when chiefs expanded their infl uence over people by demonstrating the ability to provide increasing amounts of wealth for supporters. The People of the Cape were renowned throughout the Northwest Coast for their feasts. S’Klallams, a separate people living to the east of Cape Flattery, called them Makahs, a name that means “gen- erous with food,” probably because of the abundance they harvested from rich marine resources, which allowed them to host lavish events.21 Northwest Coast characteristics of marine resources, hierarchy, competitive power, and potlatches worked together to allow infl uential Makah chiefs to pro- duce tribal space. As human geographers have demonstrated, spaces are products of societies. Makah society produced marine and terrestrial spaces— made them Makah spaces—through the ways they thought about, orga nized, and lived in these spaces. Many factors shaped the historical pro cess of producing space

in the Northwest Coast, including the environment, competing Native and non- Copyright © 2015. Yale University Press. All rights reserved. rights All Press. University Yale 2015. © Copyright Native societies and polities, the actions of individuals and groups, differing at- titudes on how to best make a living, and connections to other spaces. Makah marine space became a social reality through the actions of distinct borderlands peoples and through the networks of kinship, trade, and violence drawing them Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. 12 Introduction

together.22 The availability of whales, seals, and halibut made the People of the Cape different from others, and Makahs funneled these unique resources into Native and non-Native trade networks. Infl uential chiefs exploited these resources to expand and maintain their power, which allowed them to interrupt imperial processes such as trade and colonization. Much like an interruption in a con- versation pauses the fl ow of words, registers a counterpoint, or inserts a missed perspective, these interruptions of imperial pro cesses questioned, suspended, or redirected non- Native plans for a time, served as bold reminders that newcomers were in Native spaces layered with specifi c protocols, and on occasion shaped the unfolding trajectory of empire by interjecting indigenous priorities in ways that could not be ignored. Makah leaders recognized the foundation of their power and identity, an understanding captured in the words of 3aqa˙wiƛ (“tsuh- kah-wihtl”), a Makah chief, during the negotiations for the 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay. He told the Euro-American treaty negotiators, “I want the sea. That is my country.”23

The Sea Is My Country explains the historical meaning of 3aqa˙wiƛ’s statement, before, during, and after the treaty negotiations. The chief’s words require us to take a marine- oriented approach, a different historical perspective on American Indians and the North American West. Nearly all of these histories problemati- cally end at the coastline, keeping oceans “relegated to the saltwater margins of human history.”24 Terrestrial extractive industries, such as mining and timber, are a common focus of Western history. One historian has characterized these industries as “get in, get rich, get out.”25 But similar patterns fi rst appeared in the Pacifi c Northwest during the late eighteenth- century maritime fur trade and were repeated in later marine- oriented extractive industries such as whaling, sealing, and fi shing. Indigenous peoples had a large role in these maritime activities. Other themes characteristic of narratives of the US West— such as the role of the federal government, industry, and capital in shaping the region— also dis- play new dimensions when applied to marine spaces and industries west of the continent’s coastline.26 The nineteenth- century whaling, sealing, and fi shing industries helped to bring new places such as the Pacifi c Northwest, Hawai‘i, and Alaska into the United States. A few scholars have begun to look at the exten- sion of the US West into and across the Pacifi c Ocean and the reciprocal role of

Pacifi c peoples, places, and industries on the development of the nation. But Copyright © 2015. Yale University Press. All rights reserved. rights All Press. University Yale 2015. © Copyright these narratives present a traditional story of non-Native commercial interests overwhelming and replacing indigenous economies. Native peoples, if they ap- pear at all, only seem to react to more dynamic Euro pe ans and Euro-Americans. 27 This narrative interrogates the standard assumptions, exploring the critical role Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. Introduction 13

of marine- oriented indigenous peoples— specifi cally Makahs—in the settler- colonial processes shaping the North American West from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries. Some might wonder why settler-colonialism is an appropriate concept rela- tive to investigating historical Makah marine space because the sea did not at- tract settlers in the ways that land did. However, historical processes that happened on land affected the People of the Cape even though they were primarily a marine people. Often overlooked by historians, marine spaces were integral to settler- colonialism in the Pacifi c Northwest from the very beginning. Many traders, settlers, and government offi cials engaged in or benefi ted from such maritime pursuits as shipping, fi shing, whaling, and sealing, all activities that took place in indigenous spaces on the water or along the shoreline. Additionally, settler- colonial offi cials applied to marine spaces laws, treaties, and boundaries that attempted to circumscribe the autonomy and mobility of Northwest Coast Natives. Yet what unfolded on these waters was no simple set of processes that spelled unequivocal doom for Native peoples. Like other historical pro cesses, settler- colonialism in this region unfolded in contingent ways that indigenous historical actors attempted to shape for their own purposes and to benefi t their own communities. For Makahs such as 3aqa˙wiƛ, this meant keeping the sea as their country.28 Understanding how the People of the Cape transformed and maintained the sea as their country also requires us to think outside some of the traditional boundaries of histories of American Indians and the West. Histories about interactions between Native and non- Native peoples in the North American West often limit narratives to their respective national framework. For example, histories of interactions among First Nations and British (and then Canadian) peoples in the Canadian West rarely stray south of the current boundary separating the United States and Canada. Similarly, narratives about American Indians and Euro- Americans in the US West often confi ne themselves to the geopo liti cal space of the present nation.29 From the perspective of Northwest Coast peoples, however, confi ning scholarship to one side of the border appears odd because non-Native empires (American and British) and nation-states (the United States and Can- ada) did not come into existence until late in indigenous histories, which span thousands of years. Living around Cape Flattery, just south of Vancouver Island, Makahs have long been a part of both the US and Canadian Wests. This book

examines the way Makahs and other indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast Copyright © 2015. Yale University Press. All rights reserved. rights All Press. University Yale 2015. © Copyright engaged settler- colonialism through non- Native trade, settlement, treaty- making, law, bureaucracy, and property. In order to take a Makah- centered, regional perspective, The Sea Is My Coun- try draws on borderlands concepts to examine the complex interactions of local Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. 14 Introduction

peoples— both Native and non- Native— with one another, with regional spaces broader than nations, and with sociocultural networks engaging capital, trade, kinship, and identity. These interactions defi ned the specifi c characteristics of what I call the ča˙di˙ (“cha-dee”) borderland, after the Makah name for Tatoosh Island, a key location in the region.30 Although it changed over time, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the ča˙di˙ borderland stretched nearly fi ve hundred miles, as a canoe might travel, from the mouth of the Columbia River to the northern tip of Vancouver Island and east into Puget Sound. Character- izing Makah marine space as part of an indigenous borderlands is more than an academic exercise or historical conceit. Indeed, many of the places within this borderland remain relevant to Makahs today. This analysis of the ča˙di˙ borderland differs from the standard borderlands approach, highlighting that borderlands are spaces shared and contested by distinct peoples. Specifi c social, economic, politi cal, cultural, and environmental networks crossed these spaces, binding together borderlands inhabitants and specifi c places. Because two or more societies constructed these networks, they changed over time and across space, making borderlands products of history. Like frontiers, borderlands are messy social creations of amalgamation, accommodation, and contention. But unlike frontiers, borderlands have defi ned— yet contested— geographic and cultural borders.31 The story of the maritime world of the Makahs complicates the current approach to borderlands, frontiers, and boundaries. Many scholars agree with the formulations of these three concepts as expressed by historians Jeremy Adelman and Stephen Aron, who argue that borderlands, unlike frontiers, are defi ned by the competitive nature of Euro pean imperialism. They defi ne frontier as a “meet- ing place of peoples in which geographic and cultural borders were not clearly defi ned.” Frontiers are “borderless lands” marked by cultural and ethnic mixing and accommodation. They reserve borderlands for “contested boundaries between colonial [Euro pean] domains.” Natives exploited both frontiers and borderlands when resisting submission to a single Eu ro pean power and to nego- tiate more favorable intercultural relations. Adelman and Aron argue that when borderlands turned into borders, indigenous peoples lost their ability to play off imperial rivalries. Once borders separating nation-states emerged, these politi- cal entities could then better dictate and control property rights, citizenship, and

population movements.32 Copyright © 2015. Yale University Press. All rights reserved. rights All Press. University Yale 2015. © Copyright The Sea Is My Country presents an alternative borderlands history. The actions of Makahs and other indigenous peoples challenge the problematic for- mulation that only E u r o p e a n imperialism produces borderlands.33 They also complicate the borderlands-to- border process Adelman and Aron describe. Al- Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. Introduction 15

though Britain and the United States settled on the northern border of Oregon Territory in 1846, dividing what became Washington State and British Colum- bia along the forty- ninth parallel and Strait of Juan de Fuca, well into the twentieth century the People of the Cape and neighboring communities continued to cross this boundary line marked by the strait. The precise nature of this po- rous marine border meant that frontierlike conditions continued long after the borderlands- to- border transition that Adelman and Aron detail. Borderlands qual- ities of contestation and sharing among distinct peoples interfered with settler- colonial efforts to create fi rst imperial and then national spaces in the Pacifi c Northwest. To demonstrate how this happened, the fi rst two chapters discuss the ča˙di˙ borderland and its indigenous, marine characteristics in the late eigh teenth century both before and during encounters with non- Natives. Chapter 1 opens with the 1788 encounter between Chief Tatoosh, the highest- ranked Makah titleholder at the time, and John Meares, a British maritime fur trader. Focusing on the web of regional trade and kinship ties, this chapter explains that borderlands networks and related diplomatic protocols already existed when Euro pe ans and Euro- Americans arrived in this corner of the Pacifi c. Indigenous networks and protocols shaped the initial period of Native and non- Native interactions on the North- west Coast from the late eigh teenth century into the 1800s. Makahs used customary marine practices, such as hunting sea otters and fi shing, to engage expanding networks of exchange. Providing sea otter pelts and provisioning ships were the fi rst examples of this pattern that recurs throughout Makah history. By exploiting networks of trade and kinship, Native chiefs controlled spaces on their own terms and frustrated imperial pro cesses. Their ability to do so reveals that the broader processes of encounter, resis tance, and conquest reshaped the indigenous world. Chapter 2 explores the role of violence and theft within the ča˙di˙ borderland during the maritime fur trade. Although these activities marked encounters among Natives and non-Natives, they were much more than the simple confl icts and acts of plundering that ship captains and crews perceived. Violence marked encounters because rival chiefs competed with each other to control space, resources, and people in the borderlands. When imperial actors entered the borderlands, they exacerbated older lines of tension, created new opportunities for

confl ict, and applied their own tools of violence. In the indigenous borderlands Copyright © 2015. Yale University Press. All rights reserved. rights All Press. University Yale 2015. © Copyright where distinct peoples contested over and shared spaces and resources, violence and theft were neither anomalous nor a result of miscommunication: threats and violence were mechanisms central to both Native and imperial processes of this period. Indigenous leaders such as Tatoosh used these to expand their infl uence Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. 16 Introduction

and to frustrate imperial designs for domination of tribal space. The fi rst two chapters explore how these networks and protocols changed to accommodate and incorporate non- Natives into Northwest Coast societies. As the maritime fur trade shifted its focus farther north along the Northwest Coast during the early nineteenth century, Makah men used another customary marine practice—whaling—to engage the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), a new commercial and colonial force in the region. Chapter 3 opens with Makahs “pillaging” a shipwrecked HBC vessel and concludes with the smallpox epidemic, two critical events in the early 1850s. These incidents resulted from the changing nature of the mid-nineteenth- century ča˙di˙ borderland, specifi cally the transition from maritime to land-based fur trade, the rising power of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the arrival of British and US settlers. The region also under- went a geopo liti cal change as the United States and Britain maneuvered to defi ne their colonial claims to the Oregon Country, an area of joint occupation in the Far North American West until 1846, when the two nations divided the region along the forty-ninth parallel. In the process, a more traditional borderlands between two colonial empires emerged, yet conditions of the preexisting indigenous borderlands continued long after the two nation states settled the boundary question. Amid these changes, the supposed pillaging of the ship and the smallpox deaths highlight the ways indigenous peoples such as Makahs experienced, interacted with, and responded to settler-colonialism. The actions of Makah chiefs maintained their control and ability to infl uence others. By engaging new opportunities, the same chiefs also made colonialism possible in this region. The rise of Euro-American power in the region brought new challenges and opportunities to the People of the Cape, and they responded by continuing to exploit and protect tribal marine space. Focusing on Makah engagement with Euro- American offi cials, settlers, and traders, chapter 4 begins by examining the 1855 Treaty of Neah Bay. Despite the emerging imbalance of power between Na- tives and newcomers, Makahs used the treaty to protect their rights to customary marine space. By calling the sea his country during the treaty negotiations, Chief 3aqa˙wiƛ articulated a Makah perspective on marine space, namely that local waters were sovereign tribal space. Post-treaty data drawn from a portion of the diaries of James Swan, the fi rst Euro-American teacher at Neah Bay, il-

lustrate that this seascape remained a space of Native connections, despite the Copyright © 2015. Yale University Press. All rights reserved. rights All Press. University Yale 2015. © Copyright 1846 creation of a US-British borderline along the Strait of Juan de Fuca.34 State- ments made by Makah chiefs during the treaty negotiations and actions of Na- tive borderlanders demonstrate that the People of the Cape were trying to fi nd a place for themselves in the settler-colonial world. Chapter 4 also reveals that Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. Introduction 17

the Makah perspective on marine space challenged the emerging Euro-American view on coastal waters as both a resource commons and an appropriate boundary line dividing colonial spaces. With their access and rights protected in the Treaty of Neah Bay, Makah whalers and sealers continued to bring wealth to their people during the second half of the nineteenth century. Chapter 5 focuses on these industries, demonstrating that Makahs pursued a “moditional economy” (a combination of modern and traditional) by combining customary marine practices and indigenous borderlands networks with modern technology and opportunities to suc- ceed at a time when many American Indian communities fell into poverty.35 Their successes and capital investments in North Pacifi c extractive industries allowed Makahs to mitigate some of the worst assimilation efforts while expanding access to marine space. Wealthy Makah sealers bought schooners, began hunting seals as far abroad as northern California and the Bering Sea, and made large profi ts, which, in turn, they invested in regional industries and used to fi nance cultural practices that federal offi cials were trying to prohibit. Swan’s diary en- tries later in the century illustrate that the People of the Cape and others continued to experience the reservation’s coastal boundary line as a permeable zone and space of connections rather than one of confi nement. But the end of the nineteenth century proved to be a turning point for Makahs. At this time, national conservation laws, international agreements, and the grow- ing ability of nation-states to enforce boundaries began to constrict Makah marine space and to cut them out of the commercial industries of the North Pacifi c while privileging Euro- American users. Early conservation efforts codi- fi ed into law the non-Native assumption that indigenous peoples only hunted for subsistence purposes, thereby strengthening the stereo type of the Ecologi- cal Indian and cutting Makahs out of commercial opportunities. Although Makahs suspended an active whaling practice in 1928—a decision they made for their own reasons— they maintained the whaling tradition through other means and kept a strong connection to the sea. Within this context, the People of the Cape found their halibut and salmon fi sheries under increasing pressure from non-Natives. Chapter 6 examines the Makah fi sheries of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, explaining that overfi shing by better capitalized non-Native fi shers and local, state, and inter-

national conservation regulations and agreements undercut the initial success Copyright © 2015. Yale University Press. All rights reserved. rights All Press. University Yale 2015. © Copyright experienced by Native fi shers. These factors also separated Makahs from marine foods, as tribal fi shers needed to sell their dwindling catches to buyers for cash and to satisfy bureaucratic regulations. When the tribal nation’s economic and po liti cal economy eroded in the early twentieth century, it became more Reid, Joshua L. The Sea Is My Country : The Maritime World of the Makahs, Yale University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/washington/detail.action?docID=3421613. Created from washington on 2017-11-07 11:50:39. 18 Introduction

susceptible to the increased assimilation efforts of government offi cials then bent on controlling Native peoples. However, we should not see this narrative as one of decline, a simplistic framing that often characterizes histories of American Indians.36 The story of the Makahs and the relationship to their marine space does not end there. Beginning in the 1930s, Makahs—through a newly formed tribal council— fought back with various legal and po liti cal strategies to reclaim access to marine space. Returning to the current controversy over Makah whaling, the Conclusion revisits the themes of indigenous borderlands and ways that the People of the Cape have combined customary marine practices with new opportunities and technology. Opponents of Makah whaling denigrate the tribal nation for being motivated by a naive and antimodern desire to live in the past. Makah history, however, reveals that this tribal nation has continuously exploited marine space and borderlands networks to chart a traditional future. Modern Makah whaling illustrates that this tribal nation is living in the present and moving into the future while retaining what is best about its traditions. The current whaling efforts exemplify how Makahs are using customary practices to reclaim their marine space while protecting their sovereignty and charting a course for a partic u lar