#Nootka tribe history series#

It was a sovereignty dispute between Britain and Spain about who owned the coastal trading gateway to China. And it wasn’t between the big bad tag team of the British monarchy and the East India Company versus a dour looking Tom Hardy in a perpetually grimy top hat and overcoat. The hubbub over Nootka Sound on Taboo takes place in 1814, but the original conflict took place 24 years before that. But if James Delaney has anything to do with it, that won’t happen. The East India Company and the British Empire like making money and subjugating people, and they want to continue making money and subjugating people. Solomon Coop, Private Secretary to the Sovereign, tells the eventual King George IV, “This piece of land naturally affords the possibility of a direct trade route with China … you will see that the piece of land in question lies along the line of our disputed border with the Americans.” We see Thoyt’s blatant racism and raise him some kingly greed. But why is this insignificant setting so sought after? As Thoyt, the Delaney family’s lawyer, tells James: “There are only savages at Nootka.” The land is the fulcrum between the warring factions of the Delaney Nootka Trading Company and the seemingly omnipresent, imperialist East India Company. Similarly, the Delaney family and the East India Company wrestle for control of Nootka Sound. The broader war, as it appears on Taboo, is all about trade and land disputes. It’s located between the newly created United States of America and the British empire, which lost control of American colonies a few decades before the show begins. Nootka is a key location in the show’s depiction of the War of 1812. Nootka Sound, at this point, is just a place on a map for characters to point to and yell about when talking to other characters about it. Nootka Sound on TabooĮverything revolves around Nootka Sound in Taboo, although the show hasn’t actually been there yet. Here’s the difference between the fictionalized Nootka Sound and the real crisis that took place there over 200 years ago. But what’s in a Nootka, or more importantly, who was in Nootka and why do people want Nootka so much? The key location in the show, Nootka Sound, is an actual place you can visit near Vancouver, but don’t expect to go there and see Hardy having weird hallucinations in a loin cloth.

#Nootka tribe history series#

You can retrace the footsteps of B.C's early explorers, such as Captain Cook and Captain Bligh, on the beautiful pebble beach at Friendly Cove, visit the Governor General Totem and a quaint church, all only minutes from Nootka Island Lodge.The word on everybody’s mind in FX’s new series Taboo is Nootka. Nootka Island is unsurpassed in mountain scenery, beauty, and wildlife. Attempts to reunite Luna (L98) with his family were suspended, as the Mowachaht and Muchalaht First Nations believed Luna, or Tsuxit, embodied the spirit of Chief Ambrose Maquinna, who had died just days before the whale was first seen in the area. Nootka Sound and the community of Gold River received tremendous media coverage worldwide in July 2001 when Luna the Killer Whale became a media sensation when he turned up in Nootka Sound after being separated from his pod in Puget Sound in Washington. The settlement of the dispute ended Spain's monopoly of trade in the area and allowed for future growth. The Canadian government declared Friendly Cove a National Historic Site in 1923, with recognition of the significance of the First Nations history following in 1997. In 1790, a dispute over the seizure of vessels almost resulted in a war between Great Britain and Spain.

Yuquot, also known as Friendly Cove, was the summer home of Chief Maquinna and the Mowachaht/Muchalaht people for millennia, and retains historic significance today as the site of the first contact between Europeans and First Nations people in British Columbia.Ī Spanish trading post, Santa Cruz de Nutka, was maintained here between 17, with Nootka becoming an important focal point for English, Spanish and American traders and explorers. While anchoring, the natives shouted 'itchme nutka, itchme nutka', meaning 'go around' (to Yuquot), but Cook misinterpreted their calls, believing the name of the area to be Nootka. In March 1778, Captain James Cook became the first European to set foot on British Columbian soil when he visited Friendly Cove on Nootka Island. Nootka, often referred to as the 'Birthplace' of British Columbia, is located at the mouth of Nootka Sound just 74 air miles west of Campbell River.