Discovery of Humboldt Bay, California, in 1806 from the Ship O'Cain, Jonathan Winship, Commander

Abstract

The small ship sailed out of the New Archangel (Sitka) harbor on May 21, 1806 heavily loaded. The Americans and the Russians had ushered on board nearly 100 native Aleuts and Kodiaks, 12 native women and three Russian supervisors. The American crew of the ship O'Cain (a dozen New Englanders and nine Hawaiians), engaged in the early American China trade, had been preparing for the southbound voyage for a month. The navigation and logistics efforts to sail this three-masted, 93-foot-Iong vessel challenged the crew, according to the journal. Down the coast, fog banks were frequent in the summer. Rocks and headlands were poorly charted. Continual summer northwesters aimed to drive ships toward the shore. Between the two decks of the 280-ton ship, the crew had stowed 70 baidarkas (skin kayaks) and larger leather boats. To aid in the hunt for the sea otters with their prized silky and dense pelts, each Aleut was given a musket, flint and gunpowder. The natives would be paid for the pelts on a piece basis. Provisions for them on the southbound cruise, mainly 15,300 dried fish and 1,000 pounds of raw whale meat, were taken on board. For trade with southern natives and the Spanish missions, manufactured goods had been stowed.2 The O'Cain s multi-national crew and passengers had set sail in order to hunt and collect sea otter skins for the Canton market. Captain Jonathan Winship Jr., a 26 year-old Bostonian, had agreed to a contract with New Archangel, a nearly new binational experiment, having been attempted only once before. The Americans, Russians and Aleuts on board offered a somewhat incongruous but disciplined tripartite relationship. The Russians also had strong leadings for exploration and maritime expansion along the Pacific Northwest coast and to the periphery of Spanish California. This narrative seeks to establish, with an approach to finality, (1) which nation should receive principal acknowledgement, in this contract voyage of 1806, for the discovery of Humboldt Bay, the 14-mile-Iong body of water between Trinidad Bay and Cape Mendocino; and did Winship relinquish authority to the Russians and how this was demonstrated in command and control of that cruise, and (2) whether the Russians ever succeeded in entering the bay in a sailing vessel or with a group of small craft to make (or imply) a territorial claim.