"Our People Scattered:" Violence, Captivity, and Colonialism on the Northwest Coast, 1774-1846

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Date

2020-02-27

Authors

Urrea, Ian

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Publisher

University of Oregon

Abstract

This thesis interrogates the practice, economy, and sociopolitics of slavery and captivity among Indigenous peoples and Euro-American colonizers on the Northwest Coast of North America from 1774-1846. Through the use of secondary and primary source materials, including the private journals of fur traders, oral histories, and anthropological analyses, this project has found that with the advent of the maritime fur trade and its subsequent evolution into a land-based fur trading economy, prolonged interactions between Euro-American agents and Indigenous peoples fundamentally altered the economy and practice of Native slavery on the Northwest Coast. Furthermore, Euro-American forms of captivity (including hostage-taking and unfree labor) intersected with the Native slave economy in distinctive and fascinating ways. Finally, this study observes that the Indigenous economic, sociopolitical, and demographic landscape of the Northwest Coast underwent various transformations in which captivity in its myriad forms assumed a central role.

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Keywords

Captivity, Northwest Coast, Pacific Northwest, Slavery

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