Distant Dominion: Britain and the Northwest Coast of North America, 1579-1809 (University of British Columbia Press Pacific Maritime Studies ; 2)

Why was the Northwest Coast of North America the last portion of the world's temperate zones to be brought within the orbit of emerging European-based empires? I attempt to answer this question in this volume. Separated from eastern North America by the immense Rocky Mountain cordillera and from the Atlantic Ocean by long, tenuous sea lanes, the Northwest Coast stood apart from the civilized world until late in the eighteenth century. From time immemorial the Northwest Coast Indians, secure and unmolested, had inhabited these shores. By the 1770's, however, forces were at work that ended forever the comparative isolation of the Pacific littoral that now includes Alaska, British Columbia, Washington State, Oregon, and northern California. In the last thirty years of the eighteenth century and the first ten years of the next, several nations vied for control of this distant dominion. Britain, Russia, Spain, France, and the United States extended national interests in an attempt to secure trade, sovereignty, or both. Britain's involvement in this rivalry, which forms the substance of this book, was by sea and land and laid the foundations for territorial claims to the Northwest Coast between Russian-held Alaska and American-held Oregon—in other words, the present Canadian province of British Columbia. This book is a predecessor in terms of the period covered, 1579-1809 (though not in terms of the order of publication) to my Royal Navy and the Northwest Coast of North America, 1810-1914: A Study of British Maritime Ascendancy. Taken together, these volumes complete a task begun over fifteen years ago: to explain the role of the sea, oceanic commerce, and sea power in the history of the Northwest Coast in general and British Columbia in particular. As a native of Canada's most western province I confess a strong personal involvement in this undertaking. I was born near the sea in Victoria, British Columbia, sailed inshore waters of the coast in my youth and, in recent years, have examined as many harbours from Drakes Bay, California, north to Cook Inlet, Alaska, as time and money would permit. In many ways the preparation of this volume and its predecessor has been a labour of love and I am grateful for some rather intangible environmental and human considerations that have sustained me during the course of research and writing. I have incurred numerous debts in writing this book, and I cannot begin to name all the institutions and persons who have helped me. I must pay special thanks to the staffs of the Public Archives of Canada; the Provincial Archives of British Columbia; the Hudson's Bay Company Archives; the National Maritime Museum; the Maritime Museum of British Columbia; the Public Record Office; the British Library; the India Office Library; the Oregon Historical Society; the Wilfrid Laurier University Library; the Special Collections Library at the University of British Columbia; the Beineke Library, Yale University; and the Perkins Library, Duke University. The James Cook and His Times Conference at Simon Fraser University, April 1978, allowed me to compare notes with many scholars and afforded me the opportunity to speak on "James Cook and Canada: A Chapter in the Importance of the Sea in Canadian History," some material from which appears in this volume. I thank for their help W. Kaye Lamb, Glyndwr Williams, Margaret Waddington, Christon Archer, Raymond Aker, Edward Von der Porten, John Gordon, Derek Lukin Johnston, Kenneth Pearson, Arthur G. Rose, Joyce Lorimer, James R. Gibson, James Ogilvy, Jean Gourlay, Margaret Meston, Marcella Roth, and Norman Wagner. Grants in aid of research were generously provided by the Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation and Wilfrid Laurier University; and I owe a special debt of gratitude to the Canada Council for a leave fellowship that enabled me to complete an early draft of the manuscript. BMG "The voyages of Cook and Vancouver heralded a vast influx of irrepressible white men.... They brought with them their morals, ideologies, knowledge, technology, plants and animals. They also brought diseases, rum and guns....powers to build and powers to destroy." Until the 1700's, the Northwest Coast of North America stood largely apart from the civilized world. Formidable mountain barriers and remoteness from Atlantic sea lanes kept the territory outside the orbit of emerging European empires. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, however, Britain, Spain, France, Russsia, and the United States vied for control of this promising new frontier. Three of history's greatest mariners -- Sir Francis Drake, Captain James Cook, and Captain George Vancouver -- spearheaded British expeditions of discovery and trade to the Northwest coast. Despite competition from her European and American rivals, Britains ability to use and control the sea enabled her to establish by the late 1700's a "beachhead of empire" in the area now known as British Columbia.Gough shows how, by outmanoevring her Spanish rivals in a "skilful game of diplomatic chess," Britain concluded the Nootka Agreement. Thus she was able to exploit her trading partnership with the coast Indians and cement a lucrative sea-borne commerce with the Far East. The arrival overland of the Nor'westers and other fur-trading groups further strengthened Britain's financial and political interests in the area --ending forever the isolation of Northwest America, and 'changing beyond measure the culture of its Indian peoples.' Distant Dominion is the first comprehensive survey to examine Britain's motives for expeditions to this most distant frontier of British maritime development. It is also the first to draw the history of the coast into the general realm of Pacific history, relating its development to events in Europe, the American eastern seaboard, Australia, the Falkland Islands, and China. This entertaining book offers fresh insight into an exciting chapter of North American history. Barry M. Gough. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. [175]-182.