TRIBAL MEMBER NEWS
Clueless and Lark*, the Elakha Connection
by David R. Hatch
He was the first European to walk
and canoe across the North American
continent. He was determined to find
an overland alternative to the long sea
voyage around South America for the
British sea otter trade. His efforts to
explore the Pacific Coast were thwarted
by his own countryman.
Alexander Mackenzie crossed
1,200 miles of unexplored Canadian
territory in 75 days. When Mackenzie
finally arrived on the Pacific Coast on
July 21,1793, he paddled into a hornets’
nest. While Mackenzie was approach
ing today’s town of Bella Bella, George
Vancouver’s mapping expedition was
sailing away after forcing its way into
the native homes, fighting and firing
“warning shots” at the people.
Mackenzie‘s native guide scouted
the town just after Vancouver left. He
returned with a few residents and
reported that a larger group was on its
way “to shoot their arrows and hurl their
spears at us.”
Mackenzie fled back across Canada.
As they were loading their boat to flee,
one of his crew “lighted a bit of touch
wood with a burning-glass ... which so
surprised the natives, that they exchanged
the best of their otter skins for it.”
This skin and another three-sea-
otter robe returned across Canada with
Mackenzie. In 1797, one of the skins
came into the hands of the American
Philosophical Society and one of its
members, Thomas Jefferson. As
president, Jefferson was quick to obtain
a copy of Mackenzie’s book and maps
when they were finally published in 1801.
Jefferson appreciated the value of
fine furs and was well aware of the
ongoing sea otter trade. Ten years prior
to Mackenzie’s trip, he proposed an
American trip across the continent led
by William Clark’s father.
He tried three times to propel a land
expedition across the continent. He
went so far as to personally support
John Ledyard's 1786 solo trek across
Russia from Europe to reach the
northwest coast of America and cross
from west to east. The Russian people
possessed the capacity and good sense
to arrest and detain Ledyard.
By 1802, Jefferson had George
Vancouver’s published maps, which
included a description of the lower 100
miles of the Columbia River as well as
the location and name of Mount Hood
and today’s city of Vancouver.
In January 1803, Jefferson sent his
secret letter to Congress calling for an
expedition to “explore ... to the Western
ocean, have conferences with the
natives on the subject of commercial
intercourse, get admission among them
for our traders as others are admitted,
agree on convenient deposits for and
interchange of articles, and return with
the information ...”
In the letter, Jefferson presents his
true motive for developing the fur trade:
“The Indians ... have for a
considerable time been growing more
& more uneasy at the constant
diminution of the territory they occupy
... and the policy has long been gaining
strength with them of refusing
absolutely all further sale on any
conditions ... In order to peaceably
counteract this policy of theirs, and to
provide an extension of territory ... two
measures are deemed expedient. First,
to encourage them to abandon hunting,
to apply ... to agriculture and domestic
manufacture, and thereby prove to
themselves that less land & labour will
maintain them ... better than in their
former mode of living. The extensive
forests necessary in the hunting life will
then become useless ... Secondly to
multiply trading houses among them,
& place within their reach those things
which will contribute more to their
domestic comfort than the possession
of extensive, but uncultivated wilds.
Experience and reflection will develope
to them the wisdom of exchanging what
they can spare & we want, for what we
can spare and they want.”
Jefferson's message to Congress,
Jan. 18, 1803
Jefferson was very specific in his
instructions to Captain Meriwether
Lewis in June 1803:
“Should you reach the Pacific
Ocean inform yourself of the
circumstances which may decide
whether the furs of those parts may not
be collected as advantageously ... as at
Nootka Sound, or any other point of that
coast; and that trade be consequentially
conducted ... more beneficially than by
the circumnavigation now practised.”
Nootka Sound was the center of the
ongoing sea otter trade.
What we now call the Lewis and
Clark Expedition started out in
September 1803 armed with excellent
maps of their destination. They also
carried nearly 500 pounds of “Indian
Presents,” including “small cheap
looking glasses, small cheap seizors, tin
rings cheap kind ornamented with
colour’d glass or mock stone, brass
curtain rings sufficiently large for the
finger,” etc.
About 750 days later (a little slower
than Mackenzie), this government-
sponsored trip found the Pacific Ocean.
On Nov. 20,1805, across the Columbia
River from today’s town of Astoria, the
“Corps of Discovery” acquired its first
two-sea-otter robe. The Chinook
natives who traded with the corps didn’t
have a lot of use for curtain rings. The
only item they would trade for was
Sacajawea’s own precious beaded belt.
The corps never could trade for sea
otter robes during its winter in Oregon:
“One of the party was draped in
three elegant sea otter skins which we
much wanted; for these we offered him
many articles but he would not dispose
of them for any other consideration but
blue beads, of these we had only six
fathoms left, which being four less than
his price for each skin he would not
exchange nor would a knife or an
equivalent in beads in any other colour
answer his purposes.”
Lewis'journal, Jan. 17, 1806
The corps did trade for one more
two-sea-otter robe in a large village just
below today’s town of Ridgefield,
Wash., while they were returning east.
Upon his return, Lewis’ first letter
to Jefferson reports, “I have brought
back with me several skins of the Sea
Otter...” Curiously, the large collection
of materials delivered to Jefferson did
not list sea otter pelts.
One “handsome dressed sea otter
skin” is included in the 1809 list of the
personal effects of Meriwether Lewis
after he chose to end his life. There are
Thomas Jefferson, photomechanical
print, crealed/puhlished [between ¡890
and 1940(?)J. Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division,
Presidential File. Reproduction Number:
LC-USZC4-2474. This print is a
reproduction of the 1805 Rembrandt
Peale painting of Thomas Jefferson held
by the New- York Historical Society.
many later listings of his estate for his
creditors, but the sea otter skins
mysteriously disappeared in history.
Let’s remember the actual purpose
of the Lewis and Clark Expedition as
we approach the bicentennial. Elakha
and the nations of Oregon’s coastal
people suffered the full impact of
Jefferson’s policies. The fur trade elim
inated Elakha from Oregon shores and
federal policies took all the land and
“terminated” all the native coastal people
of Oregon. Very recently, the native
coastal nations have restored themselves.
The last sea otter in Oregon was
killed one century after Lewis and Clark
left Oregon. Perhaps two centuries after
their departure, the native coastal
nations will be allowed help Elakha
restore themselves.
*Robert Frazer began questioning the
relative accomplishments of Lewis and Clark
in 1807. Families maintaining the tradition use
this term as a humorous reference to the pair.
Dave Hatch is not a biologist, but his
brother Keith is, so folks often mistake Dave
for a biologist. Actually, he’s an engineer for
the city of Portland. He also serves on the Siletz
Tribal Council and is one of the founding
members of the Elakha Alliance, which is
dedicated to restoring the sea otter in order to
restore near-shore ecosystems.
May 2003 □
Siletz News
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