222 years ago, on March 22, 1803, a teenaged sailor named John R Jewitt from Boston, Lincolnshire was onboard the ship Boston from Boston, Massachusetts when it was captured in Nootka Sound on the west coast of today’s Vancouver Island in Canada by a powerful king of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth people. For almost three years, Jewitt and one other survivor from the Boston were enslaved by the king Maquinna, during which time Jewitt kept a journal that has become an important ethnographic study of indigenous life on the northwest coast of North America. Besides life among the Nuu-Chah-Nulth, this incident helps reveal the importance of Boston’s maritime economy in the years between independence and the war of 1812. It also joins our episodes on the ship Columbia and the Park Street missionaries to Hawaii in illustrating how Boston merchants and whalers had an outsized influence on the culture of the west coast, even before America laid claim to the region. How did John Jewitt ingratiate himself to his captors well enough to survive his ordeal, and how did he manage to concoct an escape long after it seemed that all hope was lost? Listen now!

Full show notes: http://HUBhistory.com/323/

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The Ship Boston from Boston and the Sailor from the Other Boston

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The capture of the Boston
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Nuu-Chah-Nulth longhouses at Friendly Cove
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King Maquinna
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Heavily defended longhouses at Nootka Cove
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Inside a Nuu-Chah-Nulth longhouse
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John R. Jewitt of Boston, Lincolnshire
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• A Journal Kept at Nootka Sound (Jewitt’s original journal, with no co-author)


• The adventures and sufferings of John R. Jewitt, only survior of the ship Boston, during a captivity of nearly three years among the savages of Nootka Sound. With an account of the manners, mode of living, and religious opinions of the natives (The expanded narrative written with Alsop)


• 1896 reprint of the Narrative with an introduction and additional research by Robert Brown


• Howay, F. W. “An Early Account of the Loss of the Boston in 1803.” The Washington Historical Quarterly, vol. 17, no. 4, 1926


• Oakley, Eric Odell, Ph.D. “Columbia at Sea: America Enters the Pacific, 1787-
  
  1793″ (2017)


• Review of Jewitt’s narrative, WILLIS, ELIZABETH. Western American Literature, vol. 23, no. 3, 1988


• Monks, Gregory G., et al. “Nuu-Chah-Nulth Whaling: Archaeological Insights into Antiquity, Species Preferences, and Cultural Importance.” Arctic Anthropology, vol. 38, no. 1, 2001


• Harkin, Michael. “Whales, Chiefs, and Giants: An Exploration into Nuu-Chah-Nulth Political Thought.” Ethnology, vol. 37, no. 4, 1998


• John R Jewitt in the Canadian Dictionary of Biography


• Newspapers (paywalled)
  
  
  
  • The Charleston (SC) Daily Courier, Thu, May 10, 1804: Jewitt’s capture (reprinted from the Boston Gazette)
  
  
  • The (Wilkes-Barre PA) Gleaner, Fri, Jun 19, 1807: Samuel Hill’s letter
  
  
  • (Annapolis) Maryland Gazette, Thu, Apr 17, 1806: Two survivors from the Boston
  
  
  • The (Greenfield MA) Recorder, Tue, Aug 22, 1815: Ad for John Jewitt’s narrative
  
  
  • The (NY) Evening Post, Fri, Jan 12, 1821: Obituary of John Jewitt
  
  
  
  


• Map and Street View of “Friendly Cove” at Nootka Sound


• 1888 map of Vancouver Island with Friendly Cove and Maquinna Point marked at Nootka