Macuina Jefe de Nutka

This engraving depicts the Mowachaht leader, Maquinna, wearing a woven hat decorated with whaling scenes and a cedar bark cape trimmed in fur, both of which indicate his elite status. The Mowachaht were one of the smaller bands of Native Americans who made up the Nuu-Chah-Nulth (Nootka).The original drawing was made by the artist Tomás de Suría, who was one of the official artists assigned to Spanish explorer Alejandro Malaspina’s expedition to Alaska in 1791. Suría’s images, drawn during the expedition’s 16-day stay at Nootka Sound, are among the best depictions of eighteenth-century Indian life on the Pacific Northwest Coast.

The strict hierarchical structure of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth culture was divided into three tiers—an elite ruling class, a class of commoners, and a slave class comprised primarily of captives taken in battle. In this society, hereditary leaders such as Maquinna controlled and distributed every available resource in their home region. In return for granting access to resource sites such as fishing grounds, the headman received tribute from both his villagers and outsiders. It was this tradition of reciprocity that placed Maquinna at the center of Indian and Euro-American relations in the Nootka Sound region. Maquinna was culturally positioned to assume the role of middleman between the newcomers and natives, and as such his power and prestige increased accordingly. Even more important, he was able to use this newfound power to assert himself over neighboring tribes that wanted access to European trade goods. As a result, the Mowachaht summer village of Yuquot became one of the major centers of trade on the Pacific Northwest coast. While there were other trading sites such as Clayoquot Sound and Berkeley Sound, and other influential Native leaders such as Maquinna’s brother-in-law, Wickaninnish, none reached the prominence in the Euro-American historical record that Maquinna did.

The benefits that came to Yuquot as a result of the fur trade proved to be very short-lived. The first true trading ship arrived in Nootka Sound in 1785; less than a decade later, the local sea otter population had been decimated and the fur trade moved on to other areas of the Pacific Northwest coast. Native American attacks on the Boston in 1803, and on the Tonquin in 1811, signaled the end of the maritime fur trade at Nootka Sound. Maquinna led the attack on the Boston, in which 24 of the 26 crew members were killed and two survivors, John Rogers Jewitt and John Thompson, were enslaved by the Mowachaht leader. Following his release after two years captivity, Jewitt published the journal he kept while a prisoner. Maquinna would be forever associated with the attack on the Boston and the enslavement of the two men.

Further Reading:
Mozino, Jose Mariano. Noticias de Nutka: An Account of Nootka Sound in 1792. Seattle: 1970.

Leland, Donald. Aboriginal Slavery on the Northwest Coast of North America. Berkeley, Calif.: 1997.

Written by Dane Bevan, © Oregon Historical Society, 2004.