Here's a yarn for ya: "Blanket Bill" - another "white slave of the Nootka"

[Mike Cleven]

This is from "Fur and Gold", a small press publication featuring an
eclectic bunch of stories from early BC by Swedish-Canadian immigrant
John Pearson [please gloss over the ethnic biases in the account; a lot
of folk history is unfortunately written this way]:

"Blanket Bill" got his nickname when Governor James Douglas ransomed him
from the Nootka Indians with 32 Hudsons' Bay blankets in 1848.

William Robert Jarman was born in Gravesend, England, April 3, 1820.

He came from a long line of seafaring ancestors and at an early date was
apprenticed to a relative, Captain Henry Jarman.

In 1844, his ship touched at the port of Oberton, Tasmania, and the
whole crew deserted.  They were all quickly picked up with the exception
of Bill who escaped and walked barefoot to Lanceton, a distance of 122
miles.  He next crossed to King Island, Australia, and signed with
Captain Richard Hardy, of the trading brig Platypus, engaged in trading
fur, seal and kangaroo skins.  They eventually reached nootka sound
where a number of beaver and sea-otter skins were obtained.

At the village of Nootka, Captain Hardy and Bill Jarman went ashore with
water casks and hired some Indians to fill them.  Because the ship had a
small crew and the reputation of the Nootkas for treachery, the captain
had taken the precuation of putting out a boarding net around the ship.
At noon the captain went aboard with a boatload of water casks leaving
Jarman ashore.

Almost at once, hundreds of canoes swarmed around the brig and the
Nootkas attacked with spears and bow and arrows and some hudson's Bay
flintlocks.  The crew fought desperately and with the aid of the netting
were able to check the attack long enough to slip the mooring and stand
out in the channel.  Bill Jarman was left behind and he never heard of
the Platypus again.

He was captured and immediately became a pawn between the Nootka chief
and his brother who wanted to kill the white m an to revenge for the
killing and wouding of his warriors during the fight.  The chief wanted
the distinction of having a white slave, so he bought off his brother
with gifts of blue beads and other trinkets.

This was 1846 and for the next two years the white slave fitted
perfectly into Indian life and was given two wives whom he disliked, but
he did not have a choice.

In 1848 Hudson's Bay Governor James Douglas heard of the white man's
plight and started to negotiate for his release.  Jarman was taken in a
canoe to Victoria and ransomed for a pile of blankets equal to his
height.  Ever since he was known as "Blanket Bill" to the whites and
"Passeesic" to the Indians.

Governor Douglas was not in the habit of squandering company goods, so
he promptly employed Jarman to work off the cost of the blankets.  But a
steady job and civilized regulations irked Blanket Bill after the free
and easy life with the Indians so he seized a canoe one night and
crossed the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Wilson Point, near the present
Port Townsend.  There he moved into the Clallam Village and easily
slipped back to the Indian way of life, even to marry a native girl.
With his wife, Alice, he crossed to the east shore of the Sound and
pre-empted 160 acres southeast of Lake Samish, which became known as
Jarman Prairie.

While on the claim in 1848 he hunted around what is now Bellingham and
aside from the early Spanish Conquistadores and some Hudson's Bay fur
traders, he was probably the first white man to set foot on the shores
of Bellingham Bay.

In 1849, Blanket Bill joined the California gold rush, but contracted
malaria and returned to Port Townsend.  At that time potatoes were
extensively grown by the Indians of Puget Sound and Blanket Bill started
trading beads and blankets for a cargo of potatoes.  He paid the Indians
the equivalent of ten cents a bushel for potatoes, six cents a bushel
for cranberries and five cents a pound for feathers.  In San Francisco
he got $7.50 a bushel for the potatoes, #1.50 a gallon for cranberries
and a dollar a pound for the feathers..

During the Indian attack on Seattle, Blanket Bill was interpreter on the
USS Decatur, under Captain Webster.  He spoke Clallam, a little
Snohomish as well as Kanaka, Bengali, Spanish and the Chinook Jargon
[wot - no English?].

While he was working at Fort Bellingham in 1857, Captain Picket asked
him to pilot the Fort's whaling boat to Victoria with Pickett, Lt. Davis
and Sgt. McDonald aboard.

When bidding Governor Douglas good-bye, Captain Pickett said to the
Sergeant: "Call Jarman and get the whaleboat ready."

The governor pricked up his ears when he heard the name "Jarman" and
asked to see the man.  He gave Blanket bill a thorough tongue-lashing
for deserting his job at Fort Victoria, and then told Captain Pickett
about the blanket episode and how Bill wore nothing but a blanket of
cedar bark when he was ransomed.  Blanket Bill expalined that the
Nootkas had taken all his clothes.  The women made earrings from his
brass buttons and the red lining of his coat went into a pair of
moccasins for Chief Skaas.

On one of his trips among the Gulf Islands, Blanket Bill had a brush
with the Haidas from the Queen Charlotte Islands.  He had camped for the
night on Whidbey Island, when two canoes carrying 30 warriors each found
his canoe and searched for his tracks.  Fortunately he had taken the
precaution of wading along the beach before moving up into the forest.
The Indians failed to find his tracks, but they smashed his canoe and
stole all his provisions.

In 1872 Blanket bill was charged with first degree murder following the
fatal shooting of James Farmer.  On the fatal night Blanket Bill was
tending bar in the coal company's saloon at Sehome when Farmer and some
partners came in and started carousing.

They knocked out all the lights and Farmer swept the cigar lighter off
the bar.  Dimly in the darkness Jarman saw Farmer seize and iron poker
and come for him.  He reached for the Colt on the bakc of the bar and
Farmer died instantly from a bullet in his left side.

At his trial the jury were out only fifteen minutes before returning a
verdict of "justifiable homicide".

Never one for more hard work than necessary, Blanket Bill lived up to
the ripe old age of 92 and up to the end he visited his old firends, the
Indians.  He was known to be honest, rough but kindly, and he had many
friends throughout the Northwest.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I bring this story to the list because of the term "passeesic", meaning
'blanket man' of course.  It's the '-ic' ending that interests me here;
as in kliminawhit and a couple of other Jargon terms ending in '-it' or
another stopped consonant (probably a glottal stop?).  I was wrong long
ago about Emily Carr's monicker of "Klee Whit" coming from the Jargon;
apparently the "Klee" here is not the Jargon's "klee" (from "glee") but
either from Nootka or Kwakwala (can't remember which at the moment).
"Paseese" is another one of those Algonkian borrowings, isn't it?  As
for the "-ic" ending I'm leaving it up to you linguists out there to
fill in the blanks.  It strikes me as a possibly useful Jargonism ready
for adaption onto other roots, should we ever need/want one.  e.g.
Solleksit - angry man, calapeenit - rifleman, etc.  ??????

Pearson misses a few things; in 1849 Gov. Douglas may still have had his
Hudson's Bay duties but he was of course by that time Governor of the
Crown Colony of Vancouver Island.  What got me about this story was that
despite the Gov's apparent generosity in ransoming Jarman, all he
actually did was engage his OWN white slave!  Bought and sold, and into
indentured labour!

The other thing of note is Pearson's assumption that "blue beads" were
"trinkets"; camosack/camosun beads were made of high-quality Moravian
glass, specially-ordered by the HBC to please the taste of Northwest
chiefs.  It's better to think of them as jewellery or currency rather
than "trinkets".

Any of you Statesiders have more info on Jarman's career south of the
line?

The guy spoke Kanaka and Bengali!  Can't imagine what use Bengali was in
the Northwest in those days, but you never know.....

MC