EVENT DETAILS

NAIS: Josh Reid, "‘The Power of Wickaninnish Ends Here’: An Indigenous Marine Borderland in the Late-Eighteenth Century"

Josh Reid (University of Massachusetts, Boston, History)
“‘The Power of Wickaninnish Ends Here’: An Indigenous Marine Borderland in the Late-Eighteenth Century”
Monday, March 16, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
Humanities Gateway 1010

Borderlands scholarship bounds its concepts within a terrestrial framework and privileges European and Euro-American imperial actors. This approach overlooks marine borderlands and the indigenous peoples living in these spaces, such as the Strait of Juan de Fuca that separates British Columbia from Washington State. By examining the accounts of explorers and maritime fur traders, alongside Northwest Coast oral histories, this talk illuminates the roles of indigenous peoples in the marine borderlands of the Pacific Northwest. The talk centers around the relationship between two chiefs – Wickanannish (Clayoquot) and Tatoosh (Makah) – who both incorporated Europeans into their maritime trade networks on terms most favorable to themselves and their peoples.  The Strait of Juan de Fuca emerges as a complex indigenous borderland of social, economic, and political networks long before the coming of non-Native powers.

Born and raised in Washington State, Josh Reid (Snohomish) is an assistant professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, where he also directs the Native American and Indigenous Studies program. His book, The Sea Is My Country: The Maritime World of the Makahs, will be published in May 2015 in the Henry Roe Cloud Series on American Indians and Modernity from Yale University Press. He currently sits on the executive council of the American Historical Association, and he is a Distinguished Speaker for the Western Historical Association.