The Adventures of John Jewitt: Only Survivor of the Crew of the Ship Boston During a Captivity of Nearly Three Years Among the Indians of Nootka Sound in Vancouver IslandJewitt, John Rodgers
History
The Adventures of John Jewitt: Only Survivor of the Crew of the Ship Boston During a Captivity of Nearly Three Years Among the Indians of Nootka Sound in Vancouver Island
Jewitt, John Rodgers
Indian captivities; Nootka Indians; Nootka Sound (B.C.)
I now discovered that all our unfortunate crew had been massacred, and
learned that, after getting possession of the ship, the savages had
broke open the arm-chest and magazine, and, supplying themselves with
ammunition and arms, sent a party on shore to attack our men, who had
gone thither to fish, and, being joined by numbers from the village,
without difficulty overpowered and murdered them, and, cutting off their
heads, brought them on board, after throwing their bodies into the sea.
On looking upon the deck, I saw it entirely covered with the blood of my
poor comrades, whose throats had been cut with their own jack-knives,
the savages having seized the opportunity, while they were busy in
hoisting in the boat, to grapple with them, and overpower them by their
numbers; in the scuffle the captain was thrown overboard, and despatched
by those in the canoes, who immediately cut off his head. What I felt on
this occasion, may be more readily conceived than expressed.
After I had answered his questions, Maquina took my silk handkerchief
from my neck and bound it around my head, placing over the wound a leaf
of tobacco, of which we had a quantity on board. This was done at my
desire, as I had often found, from personal experience, the benefit of
this application to cuts.
Maquina then ordered me to get the ship under weigh for Friendly Cove.
This I did by cutting the cables, and sending some of the natives aloft
to loose the sails, which they performed in a very bungling manner. But
they succeeded so far in loosing the jib and top-sails, that, with the
advantage of fair wind, I succeeded in getting the ship into the Cove,
where, by order of the king, I ran her ashore on a sandy beach, at eight
o'clock at night.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] By "Nootka," Friendly Cove, or "Yucuaht," is meant; there is no
special place of that name; the word, indeed, is unknown to the natives.
Woody Point, or Cape Cook, is in lat. 50° 6' 31" N.
[37] The white pine (_Pinus monticola_). This is employed for making
blankets trimmed with sea-otter fur, but the mats used in their canoes
are made of cedar bark (_Thuja gigantea_).
[38] This is still true. Many years ago, when there was a threat of
Indian trouble at Victoria, Sir James Douglas, famous as the first
governor of British Columbia, and still more celebrated as a factor of
the Hudson Bay Company, immediately allayed the rising storm by ordering
a keg of treacle and a box of biscuit to be opened. Instantly the knives
and muskets were tossed aside, and the irate savages fell to these
homely dainties with the best of goodwill to all concerned. "Dear me!
dear me! there is nothing like a little molasses," was the sage
governor's remark. At the Alberni saw-mills, on the West coast, the
invariable midday meal of the Indians loading lumber was coarse ship's
biscuit dipped in a tin basin of the cheapest treacle, around which the
mollified tribesmen squatted.
[39] Tomahawks (little hatchets) in more familiar language.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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