Commentary
By the early 19th century, the coastline of the Pacific Northwest had been reached by expeditions from Russia, Great Britain, Spain, and the United States, all of them eager to exploit the resources of the area and trade with the native tribes. One such venture ended in disaster on the waters off Vancouver Island on June 16, 1811.
In the late summer of 1810, John Jacob Astor, a New York entrepreneur and director of the Pacific Fur Company (PFC), had outfitted the Tonquin, a swift copper-bottomed three-masted ship, to sail to the west coast of North America and establish a trading post. There, men of the PFC would bargain for furs, which would then be sent to China where there was a high demand for such luxury goods. The captain of the vessel was an unemployed U.S. Navy lieutenant named Jonathan Thorn who, although brave, was known to be an iron disciplinarian and hot-tempered. His crew consisted largely of French-Canadian, English, and Scottish sailors and craftsmen….