Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/24



16 O. B. SPERLIN

pretending to recognize some of those engaged in the massacre, threw grappling hooks at the canoe, hoping to capture the Indians and hold them for ransom in case any of the four Spaniards might be captive. But the hooks only struck Indians in the back and did not hold the canoe.

In a last effort to locate the spot where the Spaniards made the first landing ever effected on the Northwest coast and planted the first of many crosses for the King of Spain, the late Mr. Gilstrap of Tacoma inquired of Quilliute Indians near the spot in 1908, to find out what tradition had to say. The oldest Indian, who claimed as usual to be over a hundred, said that he had been told that the Indians were celebrating in their potlatch house. The Spaniards were invited to partake of the feast. Then the Spaniards wanted to trade for dried salmon. Indians would not trade, for could potlatch treasures be traded? Spaniards began to take the dried salmon from the line anyway, and Indians fell upon them and killed them. This tradition has a great deal to contend with, for it very likely confuses the Spaniards' disaster with the loss of the seven men by Captain Barkley of the Imperial Eagle twelve years later, and it is also most likely that the disaster occurred among the Quinaults instead of among the Quilliutes. The river was named Martires and the Island to the northward was named Dolores by Heceta; the island was renamed Destruction by Captain Barkley, and the river six miles to the north was named Destruction River. Meares gave the river and bay what he understood to be the native name, Queenhithe ; it has since been known as Elihoh, and Ohahlat, and finally plain Hoh; and in all accounts since these early disasters, the natives of this re- gion have been known as among the most inoffensive along the coast.

The fourth known case of inimical treatment, alike serious and mysterious, was that of the Russian Chirikof 69 in 1741, in connection with the real discovery of the Northwest coast at least a day before Bering saw the high mountains of the St.

69 Davidson : Tracks and Landfalls of Bering and Chirikof.