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Program One - Segment Two: Kanaka Village

Western fur pelts could sell for as much as a 3-thousand percent profit in China in the 1700s.  Many British and American companies, while fighting over the territory of North America, hired anyone they could find to trap and transport those furs, including many Hawaiians. Hawaiian coral can be found mixed together in the foundation bricks of an excavated building in Fort Vancouver, Washington.  This fort was the main supply depot and headquarters for Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur trading business.  Fort Vancouver was built in the early 1800s and is one of the only physical reminders of the importance of Hawaii and Hawaiians in the making of the Pacific Northwest. But there are other reminders: the town of Aloha, the Owyhee River.  There are also memories of people whose Hawaiian ancestors crossed east to settle in America long before other settlers crossed west.

Acknowledgments:

Professor Timothy Ball, Professor Jean Barman, Larry Bell, Suzan LaGrove of The Hudson's Bay Company Museum, Marie Kalama & The Kalama Family, Tom Koppel, Rick Lebus, Mayor Pete Poulson & the City of Kalama, Cathy Roland, Bruce Watson, Archaeologist Doug Wilson & the Fort Vancouver Historical Reserve

Produced by Sara Caswell Kolbet

Flash:

"Kanaka Village" Flash Presentation - See this version of Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest with photos and video

 

Audio:

"Kanaka Village" as aired on 'Day to Day' - Listen to the excerpt of the Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest segment as aired on NPR's 'Day to Day', October 18th, 2005.

This also aired on OPB's Morning Edition and Oregon Considered on Monday, October 24th, 2005.

Further Internet Resources:

Bibliography:

Barman, Jean and Bruce Watson. Leaving Paradise: Indigenous Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest, 1787-1898. University of Hawaii Press, 2006.

Beechert, Edward and Alice.  “Preliminary Research on Hawaiians at Fort Vancouver and in the Pacific Northwest.” Fort Vancouver National Historic Site Files, 2001.

Dana, Richard Henry, Jr. Two Years Before the Mast. Harvard Classics. (free online at Bartleby.com)

Duncan, Janice K. “Minority without a Champion: Kanakas on the Pacific Coast, 1788-1850.” Oregon Historical Society Magazine, 1973.

Franchere, Gabriel. A Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America. New York: The Citadel Press, 1968.

Koppel, Tom. Kanaka: The Untold Story of Hawaiian Pioneers in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 1995.

Moulton, Gary E., ed. An American Epic of Discovery: The Lewis and Clark Journals. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2003.

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