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ABSTRACT
On 12 July 1776, Captain James Cook and his crew left England in search of the famed Northwest Passage. Spanish, French, and Russian explorers before him had set out to find this Arctic waterway, which was thought to link the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans and promised to open up a new, more direct trading route with Asia. After seven months of sailing up and down the North American Pacific Coast, however, Cook was forced to conclude that such a passage did not exist. His voyage nonetheless transformed the trade relations between Europe, the USA, and Asia. By detailing the rich natural resources the crew encountered in the North Pacific, the published records of Cook’s last voyage alerted a vast reading public, both in Europe and the young USA, to the commercial opportunities emerging from the exploitation of these resources. Using the example of the sea otter, this article explores how new knowledge about the natural world in the Pacific and its dissemination through print culture not only sparked intense rivalries between European colonial powers, but also helped the newly independent USA establish itself as a transoceanic empire.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Juliane Braun is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Bonn. She is currently working on her second book, tentatively titled Translating the Pacific: Imperial Imaginations, Nature Writing, and Early Modern Print Cultures. She completed this essay with the generous support of the Gielen-Leyendecker Foundation.
Notes
1 See, for example, Goetzmann, New Lands, 1.
2 For a critique of the “ages of discovery” thesis, see Robinson “Science and Exploration,” 31–32.
3 Bleichmar, Visible Empire, 7.
4 Igler, The Great Ocean, 134. For more on the relationship between science and exploration, see Robinson, “Science and Exploration,” and Stern, “Exploration and Enlightenment.”
5 For comprehensive overviews of the activities of European powers in the Pacific, see, for example, Chaplin, “The Pacific”; Thomas, “The Age of Empire”; Kennedy, Reinterpreting Exploration; and Haycox, Barnett, and Liburd, Enlightenment and Exploration. For the activities of specific European empires, see Gascoigne, Encountering; Dunmore, Visions and Realities; Buschmann, Iberian Visions; Jones, Empire of Extinction; and Boomgaard, Science. For early American activities in the North Pacific, see Igler, The Great Ocean, 3–42. For a study of the impact of European Pacific exploration on indigenous cultures see, for example, Thomas, Islanders; and Miller, Kodiak Kreol.
6 This essay has been inspired by the scholarship of historians Matt Matsuda, David Igler, and John Gascoigne, who emphasize that we cannot speak of one Pacific Ocean, but rather of a Pacific World that consists of multiple seas, cultures, and peoples, and the exchanges, flows, connections, and overlapping transits between them. My focus on the sea otter was informed by ecocritical interventions and “beneath the waves” approaches exemplified in the works of Ryan Tucker Jones, Kären Wigen, and Hester Blum. See Matsuda, Pacific Worlds, 2–3; Igler, The Great Ocean, 10–11; Gascoigne, Encountering, xiv; Jones, “Running,” 350; Wigen, “Oceans of History,” 721; and Blum, “Introduction,” 151. An important alternative to the rim discourse that focuses on oceanic epistemologies has also been proposed by the Fijian scholar Epeli Hau‘ofa. See Hau‘ofa, “Our Sea,” 32–33.
7 I am thinking here of Giles, Antipodean America; Shu and Pease, American Studies; and Taketani, The Black Pacific.
8 Shu and Pease, “Introduction,” 8; Rowe, “Transpacific Studies,” 261.
9 For an assessment of the utility of a continental approach to American history, see Wood, “From Atlantic History” and Barr, “Beyond.” For examples of scholarly work written in that vein, see Taylor, American Colonies; Fenn, Pox Americana; and Mapp, The Elusive West.
10 Mapp, The Elusive West and the Contest of Empire, 1713–1763 is a notable exception.
11 Burnham, “Early America,” 954.
12 In her article “Trade, Time, and the Calculus of Risk” Michelle Burnham has pointed to the very fruitful connections between Pacific exploration and Atlantic publishing networks. For more on how print culture scholarship opened up new lines of inquiry for the study of exploration, see, for example, Craciun, “Oceanic Voyages”; Withers and Keighren, “Travels into Print” and Sher, The Enlightenment.
13 In the wake of Amy Kaplan and Donald E. Pease's 1993 volume Cultures of United States Imperialism much has been done to reconceptualize the USA as an empire, especially from the nineteenth century to the present. Important works include Stoler, Haunted; “Tense and Tender”; “On Degrees”; Rowe, Literary Culture; and Kaplan, The Anarchy. Scholarship that considers the imperial dimensions of early America is still comparatively rare, but growing. See, for example, Burnham, “Early America”; Doolen, Fugitive Empire; White, “Early American Nations”; Onuf, Jefferson's Empire; Zagarri, “The Significance”; Immerman, Empire for Liberty; and Larkin, “Nation and Empire.” With the exception of Burnham, the texts listed above do not include the USA's maritime ambitions in their study of early American empire.
14 For more on the Second Kamchatka Expedition, see Jones, Empire of Extinction, 21–39.
15 Müller quoted in Jones, Empire of Extinction, 44.
16 Steller, Ausführliche Beschreibung, 164 (my translation). Translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own.
17 Ibid., 161–185.
18 Ibid., 175.
19 Ibid., 174.
20 Ibid., 185–208.
21 Ibid., 198.
22 Coxe, An Account, viii.
23 Jones, Empire of Extinction, 142–147.
24 Coxe, An Account, viii.
25 Ibid., viii.
26 Ibid., viii–ix.
27 Ibid., 13–14.
28 Salmond, The Trial, 408–416.
29 The work's complete title is A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean. Undertaken by the Command of His Majesty, for making Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere. To determine the Position and Extent of the West Side of North America: Its Distance from Asia and the Practicability of a Northern Passage to Europe. Performed under the directions of Captains Cook, Clerke, and Gore, in His Majesty's Ships the Resolution and Discovery. In the Years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779 and 1780.
30 For a brief assessment of Douglas’ work as an editor and the differences between manuscript version and published account, see MacLaren, “Exploration/Travel Literature,” 39–56 and Williams, The Death, 44–60. For an in-depth study of the expedition's stay in the North Pacific and the discrepancies between its representation in Cook's journal and the authorized version, see Currie, Constructing Colonial Discourse and Clayton, Islands of Truth. For a critical edition of Cook's journal, see J. C. Beaglehole, The Journals.
31 In 2005, this sum would have amounted to £ 296.97 (see Currency Converter of the National Archives, London).
32 Quoted in Williams, The Death, 23.
33 Williams, The Death, 23.
34 For more on the reception of the official account of Cook's third voyage, see Williams, The Death, 22–24.
35 Cook, A Voyage, Vol. II, 295.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid.
40 Cook, A Voyage, Vol. II, 296. To further corroborate the commercial value of the sea otter furs, Douglas also added a footnote that quoted directly from Coxe's Account of Russian Discoveries: “Old and middle-aged sea otter skins,” it read, “[were] sold, at Kiachta, by the Russians to the Chinese, from 80 to 100 rubles a skin” (ibid.) As Coxe's volume was only published after Cook's death, the footnote citing Coxe's numbers provides another fine example of Douglas’ editorial interventions.
41 Cook, A Voyage, Vol. III, 437.
42 Igler, The Great Ocean, 106.
43 Cook, A Voyage, Vol. III, 437.
44 Cook, A Voyage, Vol. III, 441; 437–441.
45 I am referring here to the following editions of A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean: Dublin (Chamberlaine, 1784), Paris (Hôtel de Thou, 1785), Rotterdam (Bothal en D. Vis, 1788), Anspach (Messerer, 1789), and Turin (Stampatore and Librajo, 1791).
46 See, for example, the following abbreviated versions: London (Kearsley, 1784), Paris (Moutard, 1785), Berlin (Haude und Spener, 1789), and Dublin (M’Donnel, 1801).
47 The seven American editions of A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean that contain the sea otter episode are: Philadelphia (Johnson, 1793), Worcester (Thomas, 1795), Philadelphia (Woodward for Johnson, 1796), New York (Tiebout and O’Brien for Gomez, 1796), Boston (Manning and Loring for Thomas, Andrews, and D. West, 1797), New York (Long for Duyckinck, 1814), and Philadelphia (Maxwell for Desilver, 1818). Of the four remaining editions, two essentially end with the death of Captain Cook and therefore do not cover the expedition's stay in Canton. These editions are New York (Mott and Hurtin for Gomez, 1795) and New York (Durell, 1796). The Hudson edition did not more than mention the sea otter (Stoddard, 1809). I have been unable to consult the 1793 New York edition (Gomez, 1793).
48 For more on the Spanish and French forays into the sea otter skin trade, see Igler, The Great Ocean, 107; Gibson, Otter Skins, 18–21; La Pérouse, Voyage, Vol. 4, 162–172.
49 Cook, A Voyage, Vol. III, 417.
50 Quoted in Gray, The Making, 97.
51 Quoted in Lehmann-Haupt, Wroth, and Silver, The Book, 102.
52 Lehmann-Haupt, Wroth, and Silver, The Book, 101–102.
53 Ledyard, A Journal, 70.
54 Quoted in Dolin, When America, 64–65.
55 Zug, American Traveler, 128.
56 Gray, The Making, 101.
57 Quoted in Dolin, When America, 12.
58 Gray, The Making, 105–107; Dolin, When America, 11–13.
59 Gray, The Making, 110.
60 Sowerby, Catalogue, 147–149.
61 Quoted in Gray, The Making, 121.
62 Gray, The Making, 109–123; Zug, American Traveler, 149–159.
63 Jefferson to Paul Allen, 18 August 1813.
64 Gray, The Making, 124–127, 130–132, 136–139, 146–152.
65 Jefferson to Meriwether Lewis, 20 June 1803.
66 Jefferson to John Jacob Astor, 13 April 1808.
67 For more on the founding of Astoria, see Ronda, Astoria, esp. 40–64.
68 Jefferson to John Jacob Astor, 24 May 1812.
69 Jefferson to James Madison, 27 April 1809.
70 For more on the maritime ambitions of the early USA, see Rouleau, With Sails, esp. 1–41; Mackenthun, Fictions, 69–72; Chaplin, “Knowing,” 89–96; Rowe, “Transpacific,” 264; and Shu and Pease, “Introduction,” 10.
71 Igler, The Great Ocean, 3–4.
72 Andrew Kippis’ work was published in the USA as A Narrative of the Voyages round the world, performed by Captain James Cook: With an account of his life during the previous and intervening periods. It appeared, for example, in New York (Fanshaw, 1824), Boston (Whitaker, 1828), Boston (Whitaker, 1830), Philadelphia (Johnson, 1832), Cincinnati (Morgan, Sanxay, and James, 1833), Philadelphia (Anners, 1844), New York (Harper, 1844), New York (Leavitt and Allen, 1853), Philadelphia (Leary and Getz, 1853), and New York (Leavitt and Allen, c.1854).
73 Kippis, The Life, 430.
74 Kippis, A Narrative, 119.
75 Ibid., viii.
76 Ibid., 196.
77 Gibson, Otter Skins, 299–310.
78 Burnham, “Trade,” 443.
79 Meares, Voyages, Vol. II, 280–281.
80 Quoted in Igler, The Great Ocean, 107.
81 Ibid., 103.
82 Steller, Ausführliche Beschreibung, 190.
83 Jones, Empire of Extinction, 159–160, 241.