Cultural continuity and change

The impact of European and Euro-American colonialism on the peoples of the Northwest Coast varied at different periods and in different regions. The Tlingit were the first group to encounter such outsiders, when Russian traders made landfall in Tlingit territory in 1741; these colonizers did not establish a garrison in the region until 1799 and then only after heated resistance. Spain sent parties to the Haida in 1774, Britain to the Nuu-chah-nulth in 1778, and the United States to various groups about 1800.

The colonial expeditions sought sea otter pelts, which were particularly dense and highly prized in the lucrative Chinese market. Although the Russians pressed Aleut men into corvée labour as sea otter hunters, they traded with Northwest Coast peoples for furs and food. In exchange they brought foreign manufactured goods to the tribes. These materials affected indigenous cultures only slightly, as the tribes selected the articles that complemented existing culture patterns. They acquired steel blades, for example, that could be fitted to traditional adzes to cut more efficiently than stone or shell blades, yet initially spurned axe and hatchet blades because these required a drastic change in motor habits and coordination patterns.

By the middle of the 19th century, a number of trading posts had been established in the region. The peoples of the region recognized that fur traders were more interested in commerce than in self-sufficiency; having long been involved in commerce among themselves, indigenous groups found novel ways to profit from this. Tlingit house groups provisioned the trading posts with fish, game, and potatoes; the latter were a South American crop that had by this time circled the globe, having arrived in the Northwest Coast via Russian trade. They sold literally tons of food; records indicate that in 1847, for instance, the Russians purchased more than 83,000 pounds (37,650 kg) of game and fish plus more than 35,000 pounds (nearly 16,000 kg) of potatoes from the Tlingit. Other avenues of entrepreneurship were open as well. The Tsimshian and others gained control of major portage routes and shipping lanes, demanding fees for passage and vessel rental; some of their monopolies were in place for decades. Still other groups hired out their slaves as prostitutes or labourers.

Although the Northwest Coast tribes had quickly found ways to benefit from maritime trade, they found it more difficult to cope with the flood of settlers from the eastern United States and Canada that began in the 1840s. These emigrant farmers were encouraged by their governments to move to what are now western Washington, Oregon, Vancouver Island, and the lower Fraser River valley (see also Homestead Movement). In the United States this occupation was accompanied by the removal of the tribes to small reservations in present-day Washington and Oregon, under the provisions of formal treaties. In the area that is now British Columbia, there were no treaties extinguishing native title to the land; undeveloped land was presumed to belong to the crown, and transfers of developed land were private affairs.

Effective missionary activity began in various parts of the coast in conjunction with the settlement movement. Missionaries on the Northwest Coast were very successful at directing culture change, teaching not only Christian precepts but also the precepts of etiquette, sobriety, household hygiene, and punctuality and a host of other requirements for competency in the dominant culture. In addition, the formal schooling of indigenous children was in the hands of missionaries on much of the coast for many decades.

From the late 18th through the entire 19th century, the most disruptive events for Northwest Coast peoples were epidemics of contagious diseases such as smallpox, venereal infections, and measles. These had a profound effect on native society because—never having been exposed to these illnesses before—the people suffered extremely high death rates; it is estimated that between 1780 and 1900 the indigenous population in the region declined by as much as 80 percent. Depopulation forced societies into unusual distributions of roles and status positions. These frequently involved adoptions, the allocation of multiple titles to a single individual, and other compromises that helped to maintain the social system despite rapid population decline. A great deal of ritual and practical knowledge was lost when those who would have passed the information on grew ill and died.

By the second half of the 19th century, trading profits had combined with high mortality and social uncertainty to create increasingly extravagant potlatches. As houses consolidated in response to losses from epidemics, some used this traditional means of display to climb the status hierarchy, while other houses engaged in lavish potlatches to reaffirm or defend their high status. In addition, spirit dancing seems to have become more extravagant and evocative. Unfortunately, both activities were misunderstood by missionaries and government officials—potlatches were seen as foolish “giveaways” that impoverished their host families, while the reenactment of a legend of cannibalism within the spirit dance was misunderstood as the actual consumption of human flesh. As a result, both practices were outlawed in Canada from 1884 to 1951, though they persisted in discreet settings.

In the closing decades of the 19th century, the fur trade collapsed, and the peoples of the Northwest Coast found themselves in dire economic straits. Divested of most of their lands and increasingly dependent upon manufactured goods, they needed to develop new economic resources. Indigenous reasons for the accumulation of wealth differed from those of Euro-Americans, but, as before, the tribes found ways to enter the dominant economic system. Some individuals began by working for wages in a dull day-after-day routine, something that most other Native American peoples refused to do. At first there was less hired work available than potential employees; jobs were mostly limited to guiding prospectors, backpacking cargo over mountain passes, cutting cordwood for coastal steamers, and working as farm and domestic labour. Yet when the canned salmon industry developed, principally from the Fraser River northward, wage labour boomed.

Native peoples knew more about the habits of the region’s salmon population than anyone else; this presented them with a clear advantage, especially given that the commercial salmon fishery began with a very simple technology. The Northwest Coast Indians had long used canoes, spears, nets, and weirs, and over the decades most changes in the fishing industry involved increased mechanization rather than changes in its fundamental premises: motive power changed from paddles and oars to two-cycle gasoline engines, high-speed gasoline engines, and eventually diesel engines; harvesting tools changed from gill nets and crude beach seines to huge purse seines handled with power gear; and navigation changed from dead reckoning to a reliance on tide tables, compasses, and charts. Native American fishers (both men and women) learned the new skills alongside their coworkers, and a number eventually became independent operators; often these individuals were of hereditary high status and fulfilled traditional expectations for behaviour by employing, feeding, or otherwise aiding the lower-status members of their house group. At the same time, many native people, especially women, were employed in processing the catch—again activities to which they had long been accustomed. Fishing continues to be a mainstay of the economy in this region, and in the long run the indigenous peoples who are dependent upon the industry face problems common to all commercial fishers: commitment to a short-season industry that ties up capital in expensive boats and nets, seasonal income fluctuation, the potential for accidents, the prospect of overfishing, and the fickle nature of the market.

Having retained a high level of economic independence relative to other North American groups, the peoples of this region were able to organize relatively effectively against government interference. Beginning in 1912, the Tlingit, Haida, and other tribes in southeastern Alaska created political groups called Native Brotherhoods, and in 1923 Native Sisterhoods, to act on behalf of the people in legal and other proceedings; similar groups were subsequently formed in coastal British Columbia. These organizations provided valuable training in modern political processes and negotiations. Their successes are remarkable, given the rampant discrimination faced by indigenous peoples of the region, where some businesses posted signs with statements such as “No natives or dogs allowed” as recently as the 1940s.

The Native Brotherhoods (and the nascent, but not yet chartered, Sisterhoods) pursued a variety of legal strategies to ensure equal treatment under the law, beginning with the 1915 passage of an act granting territorial citizenship to Native Alaskans who met certain criteria. In 1922 they won the acquittal of a traditional leader who had been arrested for voting in the Alaska primary elections, an important precursor to legislation granting U.S. citizenship to all native peoples in 1924 (Canadian federal elections were opened to native peoples in 1960). Also in 1924 a prominent Native Brotherhood leader and lawyer, William L. Paul, Sr. (Tlingit), became the first indigenous person elected to Alaska’s territorial legislature.

These victories were followed by a variety of successful antidiscrimination suits and land claims. In the United States the latter were ultimately resolved through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. This act resolved indigenous claims of illegal takings in Alaska and created a series of for-profit corporations charged with managing a final settlement of some 44 million acres (17.8 million hectares) of land and $962 million; native peoples participate in these corporations as shareholders, directors, and employees. The Canadian organizations effected the repeal, in 1951, of laws prohibiting potlatches and the filing of land claims. After many years of discussion, the provincial government of British Columbia agreed in 1990 to negotiate tribal land claims through a body known as the British Columbia Treaty Commission; the prescribed negotiation process was necessarily painstaking, and the first Agreement-in-Principal between a tribe and the government was signed in 1999. At the turn of the 21st century, progress remained slow and many tribal claims remained in negotiation with the Treaty Commission. See also Native American: History; Native American: Developments in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.