Astoria, Oregon, situated at the mouth of the Columbia River within a few miles of the Pacific Ocean, began as a trading post known as Fort Astoria. It was named after John Jacob Astor (1763-1848), the New York financier who sent fur traders into the area. Astor envisioned a chain of trading posts on the upper Missouri River and a fleet of trading ships that would supply posts on the Columbia River. These ships would also be able to trade along the coast and supply the Russian trading posts in Alaska. The ships would then carry the furs to Canton, China where they would be traded for prized Chinese merchandise which would then be transported to the northeastern United States.
To establish Fort Astoria by sea, Astor purchased the Tonquin, which had been constructed in 1807 and had made two trips to China. The Tonquin was 94 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 12 feet deep.
Jonathon Thorn, a U.S. Navy Lieutenant, was hired to command the ship. Lt. Thorn was given temporary leave by the Navy so that he could make money in the private sector. Thorn is described as a capable captain and sailor. J.C. Fox was hired as First Officer. The ship was loaded with more than $54,000 in trade goods and set sail in September 1810.
According to the Heritage Museum in Astoria:
“Almost at once, tensions arose between Captain Thorn and the members of the Astor party. He did not see them as passengers on a pleasure cruise or as employers. They found their sleeping arrangements not to their liking and the Captain a tyrant.”
According to the Heritage Museum:
“Two clerks, Alexander Ross and Gabriel Franchere, kept lively journals of the voyage and the anger between the Captain and the Astorians.”
After two months at sea, the Tonquin stopped at the Falkland Islands to replenish water and supplies. Captain Thorn gave the order to weigh anchor and set sail before all of the men had returned to the ship. One of the Astorians had to threaten him with pistols to get the ship to slow down and wait for the men in the longboat to catch up.
On February 11, 1811, the Tonquin reached the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaii at this time was an independent sovereign kingdom ruled by King Kamekameha. The Tonquin put in at Tohehigh Bay for the purpose of acquiring Hawaiian pigs and Native Hawaiians. The Astorians soon found, however, that there was a Royal Hawaiian decree that banned local villagers from selling their pigs to passing ships.
The governor of the Big Island was a Scotsman named John Young who had been in Hawaii for about twenty years. Young informed the Astorians that the King held a monopoly on the sale of pigs and that they would need to sail to Waikiki and to negotiate directly with the King. At Waikiki, King Kamekameha came out to the Tonquin in a huge double canoe paddled by sixteen chiefs. He wore a mixture of Western and traditional dress which included a blue coat with a velvet collar, a beaver top hot, and a long sword which had been given to him by his “brother,” King George III of England. While Captain Thorn was unimpressed by this display, the Scottish partners, accustomed to dealing with different cultures, understood the need for showing power and refinement.
The Scottish partners, dressed formally in their kilts, visited King Kamekameha, calling themselves “the Great Eris of the Northwest.” The word “eris” is the Hawaiian word for king. They explained to him, that once their trading post was established there would be very profitable trade with his kingdom. As a result of their negotiations, dozens of canoes brought fruit, vegetables, and a hundred pigs to the Tonquin.
The Scottish partners also wanted to hire as many as 40 Hawaiians. Unlike Americans and Europeans of this time period, the Hawaiians knew how to swim and they could hold their breath for up to four minutes while diving underwater. In addition, they had extraordinary skill at handling canoes. King Kamekameha urged his subjects to travel to foreign lands, to learn new skills, and to bring these skills back to Hawaii. On the other hand, Captain Thorn did not want to let any Hawaiians on board. In the end, the partners reached a compromise in which 24 Hawaiians would come on board—12 were to serve as sailors and 12 were to work for the new Emporium at the Columbia River.
On March 1, 1811, the Tonquin left Hawaii and arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River on March 22. The Columbia Bar at the mouth of the Columbia River is some of the most treacherous waters in the world. According to the Heritage Museum:
“Captain Thorn ordered First Officer Fox and some men into a longboat to sound the waters and find safe passage. Fox was convinced he was being sent to his death and begged the Captain to reconsider.”
The boat failed to return, and Captain Thorn sent out a second boat-- pinnacle (a small boat used to ferry passengers and supplies back and forth to the shore) with a crew of five, including two of the Hawaiians, to measure the depth of the water. The crew soon found the channel and the Tonquin began to make its way across the bar. While the crew of the pinnacle expected the Tonquin to pause or throw them a rope as it passed by, this did not happen. The tide shifted and soon the outward flow of the Columbia River pushed against the incoming waves, making waves with steep, high peaks. The pinnacle was knocked over.
The Hawaiians, as expert swimmers and canoeists, quickly flipped the boat upright, then began the rocking motion which made the water inside the boat slosh over the gunwales. While they had undoubtedly done this procedure on canoes in Hawaii, there was a difference in water temperature: in Hawaii the water is 80 degrees Fahrenheit while at the mouth of the Columbia it is 45 degrees. At this temperature the body loses heat quickly. In spite of this, the Hawaiians managed to get enough water out of the boat so that they could climb in and bail. Drifting out to sea, they rescued one of the other crew members. They were now wet and cold and it was dark. By midnight, one of the Hawaiians died. The remaining two actually made it to shore and lived.
Now on the shore of North America, the 23 remaining Hawaiians conducted an elaborate burial ceremony for the Hawaiian who had died. They placed sea biscuit and pork under his arms and tobacco under his genitals for his journey into the next world.
Having crossed the Columbia Bar, the Tonquin anchored in Baker’s Bay near present-day Ilwaco, Washington. Eight men had died in making the crossing.
The Astorians decided that the best location for their trading post was on the south side of the river. The new trading post was located on the lands of the Clatsop Indians, a Chinookan-speaking people closely related to the Chinooks who live across the river. Historian Stephen Dow Beckham, in his introduction to Eminent Astorians: From John Jacob Astor to the Salmon Kings, reports:
“The Pacific Fur Company dealt primarily with Chief Comcomly’s band, the Chinooks, whose villages lined the north shore of the estuary west of Gray’s River and on nearby Willapa Bay.”
As the Astorians were setting up the fort, David Thompson and his Northwwasest Company party arrived in a large canoe flying a British flag at the stern. The arrival was described by Gabriel Ranchère, a French-Canadian clerk:
“A well-dressed man, who appeared to be the commander, was the first to leap ashore. Addressing us without ceremony, [he] said that his name was David Thompson, and that he was one of the partners of the Northwest Company.”
Thompson told them that he had already taken possession of the country upstream and had established a permanent post on the Spokane River. In his 1911 book Early Okanogan History, William Brown writes that:
“…here began the struggle between the powerful Northwest Company and the newly organized Pacific Fur Company backed by Astor, for the fur trade and for the occupancy of the Pacific Northwest; the one company for England and for British dominion on the Pacific, the other for the United States and for American supremacy here.”
The American traders soon find that Chinook women are as active in the trading process as are the men.
The Tonquin left Fort Astoria and sailed north along the coast. destined for Alaska. According to the Heritage Museum in Astoria:
“Astor had been negotiating with the Russians for supplies and furs, but mostly he wanted to ‘close the coast’ and prevent the British from establishing any outposts on the Pacific Coast.”
The Tonquin stopped at an Indian village near Grays Harbor where an Indian interpreter, Joseachal, was hired. Joseachal spoke the coastal dialects of Vancouver Island. At Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island, the ship stopped to trade with the Nootka. Joseachal, the interpreter hired at Grays Harbor, warned the captain that the Natives of the village of Newete held a grudge because the crew of an earlier American trading vessel had mistreated them.
An elderly chief, Nookamis, came aboard the ship to establish prices for their rolls of sea otter furs. Captain Thorn offered just two blankets and some trinkets for a single sea otter fur. Nookamis rejected the offer and asked for five blankets. While the Indian nations of the Northwest Coast had been accustomed to bargaining for many centuries, this was an alien concept to the captain. In his book Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire, A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival, Peter Stark writes:
“Jonathan Thorn was not a bargainer. He was a Yankee and a navy man with little experience outside those cultures.”
He also thought of the Natives as just “ignorant savages.” He refused to bargain. He lost his temper, rubbed Nookamis’s face in a sea otter pelt and kicked the elderly chief off the ship.
Josearchal urged the captain to weigh anchor immediately, knowing that such an insult could not go unrevenged. Captain Thorn refused, feeling that he had taught the “savages” a lesson which would make them accept his price.
The Clayquot Nootkas later re-opened trade negotiations and agreed to three blankets and a knife for each skin. As soon as they had the knives, they turned on the crew and killed them. While they were looting the ship, the surviving crew set fire to the vessel which soon exploded, killing about 200 natives, both those on the ship and those in nearby canoes. Peter Stark writes:
“Rather than confronting head-on and against impossible odds the massive power of Western warfare technology in the form of the Tonquin’s ten cannon and countless firearms, the Clayquot had executed a well-planned, disciplined attack on their own terms.”
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