Chinook after 1500 AD
A Chinook woman
Because the Chinook lived so far north and west, they
didn't have any contact with European invaders in the 1500s or 1600s AD.
So we don't know much about what the Chinook were doing during these two centuries.
In 1792, however, the Chinook who lived along the Pacific coast met the
American sea captain Robert Gray, who landed at Astoria and traded blankets,
sheets of copper, nails, axes and knives to the Chinook chief Polack and
his people for furs. From then on, more and more ships came to buy furs
from the Chinook. Sometimes they also bought slaves, who were usually prisoners
of war taken by the Chinook from their neighbors. Sometimes they sold slaves
to Chinook people. Many times they traded blue glass beads, which Chinook people liked a lot. They also sold potatoes to Chinook people, who liked them
better than their own wapatos.
In 1805, the United States explorers Lewis and Clark came down the Columbia river in canoes and set up a fort on the Pacific coast called Fort Clatsop, named after the Clatsop people who were part of the Chinook people. Lewis and Clark left some men at Fort Clatsop, and the Chinook began to trade with them. Soon after that, in 1811, John Jacob Astor founded the town of Astoria as a trading post with the Chinook for furs.
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Once the Chinook began to trade with Europeans, however, they also began to catch European diseases. Between 1800 and 1830, many Chinook people died of smallpox, malaria, and other European diseases. In 1830, nearly all of the surviving Multnomah group died of malaria. By the time European settlers arrived on the Oregon Trail about 1850, there were not very many Chinook people left to oppose them, and the settlers soon took over. In 1851, the Clatsop people surrendered almost all of their land to the United States government.
To find out more about Chinook history, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:
Sioux people
Inuit people
Blackfoot people
Ute people
Pueblo people
Iroquois people
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