Queen Charlotte's Island is now called Haida Gwaii which is considered by archaeologists as an option for a Pacific coastal route taken by the 1st humans migrating to the Americas from the Bering Strait. Centuries ago Haida Gwaii was likely not an island, but connected to Vancouver Island & the mainland via the now submerged continental shelf. It is unclear how people arrived on Haida Gwaii, but archaeological sites have established human habitation on the islands as far back as 13,000 years ago. Populations that formerly inhabited Beringia expanded into northern North America after the Last Glacial Maximum, & gave rise to Eskimo-Aleuts & Na-Dené Indians.
Underwater archaeologists from the University of Victoria are seeking to confirm that stone structures discovered in 2014 on the seabed of Hecate Strait may date back 13,700 or more years ago & be the earliest known signs of human habitation in Canada. Coastal sites of this era are now deep underwater.
During the pre-colonial era, the Settlement of the Americas coastal migration hypothesis suggests that the 1st North Americans may have been here as the oldest human remains known from Alaska or Canada are from On Your Knees Cave. Anthropologists have found striking parallels between the myths, rituals, & dwelling types of the Koryaks—inhabitants of the Kamchatka Peninsula—and those of the Native peoples of America's Northwest Coast. At this time the island was twice as large as today. There is strong genetic evidence for these early people having an origin there. The Koryaks were a matrilinear seafaring people hunting whales & other marine mammals. Their god was Kujkynnjaku, the Raven. Most of the Raven myths are similar to those of the Koryak or Nayas.
The group of people inhabiting these Islands developed a culture made rich by the abundance of the land & sea. These people became the Haida. The Haida reportedly were a matriarchal society – the women made the decisions prior to European discovery. The Haida are a linguistically distinct group, & they have a complex class & rank system consisting of two main clans: Eagles & Ravens. Links & diversity within the Haida Nation was gained through a cross lineal marriage system between the clans. This system was also important for the transfer of wealth within the Nation, with each clan reliant on the other for the building of longhouses, the carving of totem poles & other items of cultural importance. Noted seafarers, the Haida occupied more than 100 villages throughout the Islands. The Haida were skilled traders, with established trade links with their neighbouring First Nations on the mainland to California.
During the European Colonial era, the archipelago was discovered by Europeans in 1774, by Juan Pérez, at Langara Island; & in 1778, by James Cook. In 1794, the Haida captured & sank a pair of European vessels, Ino & Resolution, that were seeking to trade for sea otter pelts. Most of the ships' crew were killed. In 1787, Captain George Dixon surveyed the islands. He named the islands the Queen Charlotte Islands after his ship, the Queen Charlotte, which was named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wife of King George III of the United Kingdom. Another name, "Washington's Isles," was commonly used by American traders, who frequented the islands in the days of the marine fur trade & considered the islands part of the US-claimed Oregon Country. Following the 1846 Oregon Treaty, which established the current international borders & made the islands definitively part of Canada, the "Queen Charlotte Islands" name became official. The Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands was a British colony constituting the archipelago of the same name from 1853 to July 1863, when it was amalgamated into the Colony of British Columbia.
The islands played an important role during the maritime fur trade era of the late 18th & early 19th centuries. During most of that era the trade in the islands was dominated by Americans. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 put an end to American claims to the islands. Following the discovery of gold in the 1850s the British made efforts to exclude whatever American territorial claims might remain. In 1851, the Haida captured the Georgiana, a ship carrying gold prospectors, & held its crew for ransom for nearly 2 months.
Snippets of what George Catlin wrote during his life:
"The early part of my life was whiled away, apparently, somewhat in vain, with books reluctantly held in one hand, & a rifle or fishing-pole firmly & affectionately grasped in the other."
"At the urgent request of my father, who was a practicing lawyer, I was prevailed upon to abandon these favorite themes, & also my occasional dabblings with the brush, which had secured already a corner in my affections; & I commenced reading the law for a profession, under the direction of Reeve & Gould, of Connecticut. I attended the lectures of these learned judges for two years – was admitted to the bar – & practiced the law...in my native land, for the term of two or three years; when I very deliberately sold my law library & all (save my rifle & fishing-tackle), & converting their proceeds into brushes & paint pots, I commenced the art of painting in Philadelphia, without teacher or adviser."
"A delegation of some ten or fifteen noble & dignified-looking Indians, from the wilds of the 'Far West,' arrayed & equipped in all their classic beauty, - with shield & helmet, - with tunic & manteau, - tinted & tasselled off, exactly for the painter's palette!"
"With these views firmly fixed – armed, equipped, & supplied, I started out in the year 1832, & penetrated the vast & pathless wilds which are familiarly denominated the great 'Far West' of the North American continent. Black & blue cloth & civilization are destined, not only to veil but to obliterate the grace & beauty of Nature, Man, in the simplicity & loftiness of his nature, unrestrained & unfettered by the disguises of art, is surely the most beautiful model for the painter, --and the country from which he hails is unquestionably the best study or school of the arts in the world: such I am sure, from the models I have seen, is the wilderness of North America. & the history & customs of such a people, preserved by pictorial illustrations, are themes worthy the life-time of one man, & nothing short of the loss of my life, shall prevent me from visiting their country, & of becoming their historian."
"[I am] lending a hand to a dying nation, who have no historians or biographers of their own to portray with fidelity their native looks & history; thus snatching from a hasty oblivion what could be saved for the benefit of posterity, & perpetuating it, as a fair & just monument, to the memory of a truly lofty & noble race..."
"It has been with these, mostly, that I have spent my time, & of these, chiefly, & their customs, that the following Letters treat. Their habits (and theirs alone) as we can see them transacted, are native, & such as I have wished to fix & preserve for future ages..."
"The tribes of the red men of North America, as a nation of human beings, are on their wane; that (to use their own very beautiful figure) they are fast traveling to the shades of their fathers, towards the setting sun; & that the traveler who would see these people in their native simplicity & beauty, must needs be hastily on his way to the prairies & Rocky Mountains, or he will see them only as they are now seen on the frontiers, as a basket of dead game, – harassed, chased, bleeding, & dead; with their plumage & colours despoiled; to be gazed amongst in vain for some system or moral, or for some scale by which to estimate their true native character, other than that which has too often recorded them but a dark & unintelligible mass of cruelty & barbarity."
"I have roamed about from time to time during seven or eight years, visiting & associating with some three or four hundred thousand of these people, under an almost infinite variety of circumstances; & from the very many & decided voluntary acts of their hospitality & kindness, I feel bound to pronounce them, by nature, a kind & hospitable people. I have been welcomed generally in their country, & treated to the best that they could give me, without any charges made for my board; they have often escorted me through their enemies' country at some hazard to their own lives, & aided me in passing mountains & rivers with my awkward baggage; & under all of these circumstances of exposure, no Indian ever betrayed me, struck me a blow, or stole from me a shilling's worth of my property that I am aware of."
"I am fully convinced, from a long familiarity with these people, that the Indian's misfortune has consisted chiefly in our ignorance of their true native character & disposition, which has always held us at a distrustful distance from them; inducing us to look upon them in no other light than that of a hostile foe, & worthy only of that system of continued warfare & abuse that has been forever waged against them."
