1858, BC: Lucius Edelblute is barely literate, but he can use a Jargon dictionary to save his life
A Settler / colonizer / invader from Virginia, USA took part in BC’s 1858 gold rush, of course using Chinuk Wawa.
I’m grateful to find his reminiscences in a UBC history PhD dissertation from 2000, “Claiming the land: Indians, goldseekers, and the rush to British Columbia” by Marshall, Daniel Patrick.
Page 210 has this neat bit, credited to the Lucius Samuel Edelblute Reminiscences, Add. Mss. 484, and to “The History of Lucius S. Edelblute, 1858”, both in the BC Archives:
Lucius Edelblute, an experienced gold miner
and one who had been involved in conflict with Native peoples in California and near Pyramid Lake,
Nevada, took a cautionary approach in his travels along Thompson River. Travelling with a small
group of miners from Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia and Illinois, Edelblute and friends
masqueraded as British subjects to escape death.58 Just as they were about to help themselves to
some local salmon, a large contingent of Natives surrounded them and demanded that the fish be put
back in the river. With the use of a Chinook jargon dictionary, these men interpreted Native demands
such that: “the cheaf sed them fish was thar liven and we had no rite to take them and for us to pout
them back. we dun so at once. the indien ast us if we was boston men or not. we told him that we
was king gorge men and we was sent out to see thare cuntry and we wodent du any harm … the brit
amarican indins dident like the amaricans a toll … “.
So this is another document of gold rushers’ extreme dependence on BC Indigenous people for survival, and the role of Chinook Jargon in negotiating these relationships.
Bonus facts:
Page 85 tells of a Jargon-speaking Stó:lō Salish river guide who profited greatly off the 1858 cheechako gold rushers:
Never mind that it was Native Indian peoples who were largely responsible for piloting
miners’ boats and canoes through the treacherous waters of Fraser River, who actively bartered their
lucrative salmon resource to the newcomers, or allowed non-Native miners to travel on an established
network of Indian trails that clung ingeniously to precipitous canyon walls.79 There was a Sto:lo
Native known to goldseekers in 1858 as ‘Captain John’ who piloted boats between Hope to Yale,
and according to his own reminiscences, given in Chinook and translated in 1898, he amassed some
$2000 from his labours — certainly much more than many of the White miners who came to Fraser
River. Jason Allard, son of HBC Chief Trader Ovid Allard, recalled when the Native pilot was first
taken aboard the American Steamer Surprise, anchored off Fort Langley in June 1858. “The pilot
was an Indian named Speel-Set,” recalled Allard. “He went aboard the Surprise barefooted and
wearing only a blanket. When he returned he came as ‘Captain’ John dressed in a pilot cloth suit,
white hat and calf skin boots, the proudest Indian in the country. Moreover the sum of $160 was paid
through Mr. Yale for the pilot’s services — eight twenty dollar gold pieces. The boats thereafter ran
to Hope more or less regularly.”80
Page 93 has the citation for the preceding:
(Later:) Washington Territorial Librarian Urban East Hicks
(image credit: Between the Lines blog)
And on page 145 — Olympia, Washington Territory resident Urban East Hicks 1858 with his brother Thomas Benton Hicks are fortunate enough to hire a chief’s relative to guide them, and it’s Chinuk Wawa that allows them to do so:
We were lucky in getting this son of a chief for a helmsman, as he was well known by all the Indians on the river, and his presence saved us from molestation and annoyance…My brother Tom and I had fought Indians before, and we could all talk the jargon or chinook language pretty well; hence we knew how to deal with them and they generally let us alone as soon as they made our acquaintance.
There’s also this Jargon-connected incident on page 201, slightly to the south & slightly earlier:
Jonathan Kerns recorded the disregard with which his company of miners treated a Native elder encountered on the trail to the new diggings. Kerns wrote that the “old Chief told us his men would mim-loose us if we went on, but we told him to come on if he wanted all of his tillicums killed and we passed on.” Kerns then recorded two weeks later their surprise that war had been declared on them despite the Chief’s forewarning.
Again, the evidence is overwhelming that without the Jargon-negotiated consent and help of Native people, Pacific NW gold rushers would have had an extra-difficult time achieving any of the results they hoped for.
Now, purely for fun:
I can’t help hearing the following Pacific NW folk lyrics (page 118) to the tune of the sea shanty, “What shall we do with a drunken sailor?” 😁
Their first night out from Whatcom they encamped on a sand spit near
the mouth of the Noo[k]sack River, unaware of the tides that nearly swamped them. “While we were
wading and floundering through the treacherous sands, in pitchy darkness, with a roaring surf in our
rear and a howling wind in our faces,” claimed Hicks, “a party of belated stragglers, like ourselves,
on a kind of raft made of drift logs and old sawmill slabs, stuck fast in the sinking sands and,
surrounded by the howling phosphorescent waves, struck up the old familiar song, ‘Aint you mighty
glad you got out of Whatcom, Got out of Whatcom, got out of Whatcom, Aint you mighty glad you
got out of Whatcom, Down in Bellingham Bay?” The small party were indeed glad to be out of
Whatcom, but probably quite as glad to have escaped capsizing in their sturdy canoe, unlike the
make-shift rafts hastily constructed by so many others.
