In 1810, the Lydia commanded by Captain Thomas Brown, an American working for the Russian American Company, sailed into Neah Bay. The captives were exchanged and traded among the coastal tribes, most ending up with the Makah in the Neah Bay area. Tensions between the crew and the local Hoh tribe led to a battle causing the Russians to flee south along the coast to the mouth of the Hoh River where many were taken captive. In 1808, the Russian American Company schooner Nikolai ran aground at Rialto Beach north of the Quillayute River. Twelve years later, Captain Charles William Barkley, an independent English fur trader, arrived on the ship Imperial Eagle and sent a party ashore but the boat’s crew of six never returned. In 1787, Captain Robert Gray on the Lady Washington ran aground attempting to enter a river and was attacked by natives, with one crew member captured. In 1775, Spanish Navy Lieutenant Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra dispatched a crew of seven men to the mainland near Point Grenville in order to gather wood and fresh water on the beach, but they were attacked by an estimated three hundred Quinault and captives were either killed or enslaved. European and Euro-American explorers such as Robert Gray, John Meares, George Dixon, and George Vancouver all describe the practice of slavery among Pacific Northwest tribes, and many experienced slavery firsthand. However, intertribal warfare was central to their way of life and consisted of intermittent predatory raiding for prestige, food stores, loot, and especially slaves. The fact that slavery existed points to the competition between coastal rivals that regularly raided one another, engaging in predatory warfare for the sole purpose of accumulating wealth.Īside from oral histories, there is little documentation of cultural traditions practiced by First Nations people prior to European contact. Most coastal groups lived in large permanent villages in the winter, and these villages reflected local political and societal structures that were highly stratified and included, in many instances, the wealthy elite, the relatively poor commoners, and a slave class.
By the 1400s there were at least five language groups including Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Wakashan, and Salishan, all of which divide into tribal dialects forming over 30 distinct First Nations. An abundance of food from the sea meant that coastal populations enjoyed comparatively high fertility rates and life expectancy. The Pacific Northwest at one time was densely populated with indigenous people each with their own history, cultural traditions, and societal structure. Massacre Bay was named for evidence of intertribal warfare found by early Euro-American explorers who also named other nearby features such as Victim Island, Skull Island, and Haida Point. Orcas Island is named after Horcasitas, a shortened form for Juan Vicente de Güemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo, the Viceroy of Mexico who sent an exploration expedition under Francisco de Eliza to the Pacific Northwest in 1791. Communal longhouses were built at several places around the island and were mainly used in the winter months. The Lummi built large fish traps to catch salmon which supplied the bulk of their diet. The island has deer and elk on land and clams and shellfish around the shore.
Coast Salish people, particularly the Lummi tribe, have historically inhabited Orcas Island. Orcas Island is in the San Juan Archipelago of the Salish Sea. Skull Island is about 0.13 miles (0.2 km) long with an area of 2.5 acres (1.0 ha) situated at the head of Massacre Bay in West Sound, a large embayment on the southern shore of Orcas Island, about 25 miles (40 km) west-southwest of Bellingham and 8.5 miles (14 km) north-northeast of Friday Harbor, Washington.