| From the late 1700s to the mid-nineteenth century, three magnificent regional
Indian chiefs controlled most of the sea otter trade on the northwest coast of North America. Cuneah,
Maquinna and Legaik of the Haida, Nuu-cha-nulth and TSimshian First Nations respectively, were the first
aboriginal entrepreneurs to deal directly in large trading ventures with the British, Spanish, Portuguese,
Chinese, and American interests who came to what is now the coast of British Columbia, Canada. Sea Otter
Chiefs tells their individual stories in an engaging style that sketches complete personalities from
ships' journals, traders' notes, and narratives of community members. We discover in this process the
rise of their chiefs' strategies for monopolizing trade, and their collective fluency in European
languages and customs. Sea Otter Chiefs is beautifully illustrated with contemporary photographs of the chiefs' village sites, and surrounding environments, historic engravings, drawings, and maps. |
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