"The Whitman Massacre of 1847"

[Lisa M Peppan]

On Mon, 22 Nov 1999 "Mike Cleven" <mike_cleven at hotmail.com> writes:

>>In "The Fort Langley Journals: 1827-30" by Morag MacLachlan, there is
>>a section entitled "The Ethnographic Significance of the Fort Langley
>>Journals" written by Wayne Suttles.  The 4th paragraph in it says, and
>>I quote:
[snip]

>Geez, Lisa, you must get around the library stacks more than I ever
will;
>never read that bit before although I'll bet Terry G.'s familiar with
it.

Nah.  I own a copy of the Fort Langley Journals.  It was one of those
"gotta add it to my personal library" kinda things: my great great
grandfather is mentioned many times in it; he was a blacksmith at the
fort from 1828 thru at least 1859 (though he spent a little time at "the
Cowlitz", the lion's share was spent at Fort Langley).   Since receiving
the book as a gift, I have been immersed in all things Fort Langley.

>I wondered about the provenance of the Jargon in the Lower Fraser, too;
most
>HBC/NWC trade activity was in New Caledonia (north of Prince George)
>and the Cariboo and Okanagan; not in the Fraser Canyon or Fraser Valley;
don't
>think the Brigade Trail (from Yale to the Merritt area) was even
inaugurated
>until Fort Langley was founded; A.C. Anderson didn't traverse Lillooet
and the
>Lakes Route until 1842, and there was no missionary or prospector
activity
>in the region whatsoever much in advance of the Gold Rush of 1858.

Let's see...

The Russians were poking about as far north as the Queen Charlottes in
1774 and 1775.

In 1778, Cap'n Cook challenged Spain's claim to sovereignty there; this
suggests that the Spanish were in the area.  I've heard that some First
Nations folk gave the Spanish a pretty good butt kicking.

Charles Barkley discovered the Straits ofJuan de Fuca in 1778.

The "inland sea" was explored by Manuel Quimper in 1790, and by Francisco
Eliza in 1791.

Then the Spanish seized British war ships at Nootksa Sound, which serious
freaked some folks, and that led to forcing the Spanish to sign the
Nootka Convention of 1790, which completely removed Spanish fingers from
the "inland sea" pie.

<chuckle. Daddy had always said that there had been a Spaniard in the
wood pile; bet it was during this time period.

Then Cap'n George Vancouver was sent out to see just exactly what the
Nootka Convention had netted them.  In 1792, he named the inland sea
"Gulf of Georgia in honour of his king".

So.  Georgie's checking things out and bumps up into a couple Spanish
surveyors -- Cayetano Valdés and Dionisio Alcala-Galiano, they talk ,
they schmooz, they join forces, and then THEY run into Juan Francisco de
la Bodega y Quandra.  But the last sentence of the long paragraph I
paraphrased above says:

"In spite of this knowledge of the inland waters, most ships traded along
the outer coast, and there are no records of ships entering Juan de Fuca
Strait for more than thirty years."

Which was Simon Fraser -- briefly -- 1808, and then "no further record of
contact" until Hudson Bay in the 1820s.  Wouldn't it be fun to find
Spanish trade records from there time in the region?

And it kinda makes me wonder  if some of the "unknown origin" words in CJ
might not have been Spanish or even Russian loan words?

>Fort Langley was an isolated outpost in what had been a powerfully
native
>area until the 1820s,

Between 1827 and 1830, Fort Langley had some sort of contact with 26
different bands/tribes  (pages 236 - 238 in the paperback Fort Langley
Journals), who were either of the Salishan language family or the
Wakashan.  Listed are the modern spellings, the spelling of them used in
the Fort Langley Journals, and the Native source.  And from reading the
FLJ, they had regular contact with a bunch of locals.  The party my
gr'gr'grandfather came in with was attacked by, or should I say
"diagreeably situated with only four men amongst a formidable Band of
Indians and was doubtful whether he would be able to  extricate himself
without our assistance." (He did, BTW.)

>when the population of the Lower Fraser was near completely destroyed by
"the >mortality", the mysterious hemorrhagic fever I've written of
before.

There is mention of that in the FLJ.

>So there is no need for the Coquitlams, Katzie, (northern) Chehalis or
the various >Sto:lo peoples to need anything like the Jargon, as they all
spoke >Halqemeylem or a dialect thereof; the neighbouring Tsawwassen and
>Semiahmoo spoke Straits Salish, which is also similar enough to be
intelligible, >as is also (I think) the case with Squamish and Musqueam.

Great great grandmother Pepin was either Squamish or Musqueam.
Great great grandmother Houston was from a neighbouring band, and *may*
have spoken North Straits Salish; I have a "classified word list" of
North Starits Salish.

>So the HBC people at Fort Langley would have been out of their range,
>linguistically, and it is QUITE PROBABLE that we can date the
introduction
>of the Jargon to the Fraser Valley to the founding of Fort Langley.

Based on what was said by Suttles, I think it's at least possible --
though we really don't know what went on with the Russians and Spanish
prior to Cook.

>Any of  the natives brought up from the Columbia would have known no
>Halqemeylem whatsoever, and I don't think that Chehalis or Lushootseed
or >other Salishan languages from the old HBC turf in Puget Sound would
have >been of any use.

>From what it says in FLJ, no, BUT the women brought up from the Columbia
apparently had no trouble communicating with the women from the Fraser
Valley.
Oh, and as a sort of footnote: when reports were sent from FL back to
company headquarters, they were sent by canoe south through Puget Sound
and then overland to Fort Vancouver.

>So the Jargon would have been introduced by them; no doubt Halqemeylem
>sounded to company staff like so many whispers and sibilants; too
complex a
>grammar to deal with.

>From the many different ways the FLJ keepers spelled the local names
<chuckle> they would have had to have done SOMEthing.

>When I get home (I'm in Europe)

Kewl.  Where?

>I'll try and find some time to go by the museum office in Fort Langley

Say "Hey" to Gerry Borden for me, could you please?

>and see if there's any other documentary evidence/ many of the employees
>there are Kwantlens from the MacMillan Island Reserve just across the
Slough >from the Fort.........

'Tis said that was the origins of gr'gr'grandmother Pepin.  On some
document somewhere she is referred to as Isabelle Kwantlen.
Gr'gr'granddaddy Etienne Pepin, being "Engaged [to work for HBC] for two
years is allowed to take a woman" on 14 Jan 1830.  (Gr'gr'aunt Marie born
1835, gr'gr'uncle François born 1838, and gr'grampa Simon born 1855;
Etienne & Isabelle married 1856.)

>So maybe I was hasty when I said that the Jargon was in use in BC before

>1840; I really meant only the Interior and the Nootka country, not the
Lower
>Fraser and the Gulf of Georgia; I don't think it would have been used
much
>in Kwakwa'kawakw territory then, either (Queen Charlotte Sound) or Haida

>Gwaii or the Skeena, as that was still "gunboat" country in those
days.....

I dunno.  IIRC, throughout the three years covered by the FLJ, there was
mention of groups coming up from Puget Sound to seasonal homes/fishing
grounds and of groups from Fraser Valley going south to seasonal
homes/fishing grounds.

And comment was made that the local folks were savvy traders, kinda odd
to read that when the general attitude towards the local folk was less
than flattering.  And word reached FL pretty quick when American traders
appeared in as far as the Straits of Juan de Fuca in about 1828/9 -- in
the form of the local folks sporting American trade goods.

I personally believe that CJ has been around a very long time -- in one
form or another.

>Later

Yeah.  let me know what you find out.

Lisa Peppan
IBSSG
Edmonds, WA
lisapeppan at juno.com                                         ICQ # 4894690
Genealogy Research at http://members.tripod.com/~LisaPeppan/index.html
Please send large messages & attached files to lisapeppan at wa.freei.net