Nootka Sound incident

March 22, 2017

The launch of the North West America at Nootka Sound. This ship would later be seized by the Spanish. From John Meares, Voyages Made in the Years 1788 and 1789. Toronto Public Library, JRR 13 Cab II

1789

British explorer and fur trader Captain John Meares established a trading post at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island in 1788. Its seizure by the Spanish in 1789 became the subject of a controversy between Spain and Britain over claims in the region, which brought both countries to the brink of war. The Nootka Convention (1790) resolved the dispute and opened the north Pacific Coast to British settlement. Both Britain and Spain entirely ignored Indigenous Nuu-chah-nulth claims to a territory they had occupied for thousands of years.

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