San Juan Islands National Historical Park

In the earliest historical times of the San Juan Islands, its ancestors were members of six Central Coast Salish tribes, a group of indigenous people who spoke a variety of northern straits languages. In addition to sharing languages, their culture and ways of life are what shaped the history of the San Juan Islands. The tribes also survived from a wide range of earthly resources available on the Islands.

The Lummi people were later generations of Coast Salish people whose ancestors originated in the San Juan Islands. They participated in harvesting, fishing, and gathering food from many different locations of the islands. More than ever, they celebrated life in many ways that they could.

Every season, the tribes would also follow travel patterns between large winter villages and small resource collection camps. Winter conditions caused many of the Coast Salish tribes to move to villages on the shore, where they felt protected from harsh winds and could store their food.

The Spanish Voyage of 1774 included voyage conductor and Spanish explorer, Juan Pérez, who was the first Spanish explorer to sail from Mexico to the Pacific Northwest. Upon his arrival to the islands, the Coast Salish tribes experienced devastating European diseases, which made them feel unsafe. The tribes chose to build forts in response to the voyages to avoid the disease and possible slave raids.

In 1791, the island was first named "Isla y Archipelago de San Juan" by Spanish Explorer, Francisco de Eliza.

In 1846, the United States and Great Britain chose to separate the Oregon Country into the province of British Columbia and the current states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and certain parts of Wyoming and Montana.

The Treaty of Oregon was then signed June 15, 1846, setting a water boundary along the 49th parallel by the Rocky Mountains, to the middle along the Haro Strait and Rosario Strait. Then, the water boundary reached out along the Strait of Juan De Fuca.

This treaty left the San Juan Islands in the middle of the division. The islands featured many attributes that attracted Great Britain and the United States, including its rich soil, temperate climate, and marine resources.

By the start of 1845, Hudson's Bay Company, a fur-trading enterprise, claimed the San Juan Islands and founded Belle Vue Sheep Farm in response to the islands being claimed by the U.S. in 1853. This image, to the right, shows a picture of Belle Vue Sheep Farm in the 1800s.

Eventually, 18 Americans settled on British Columbia's prime sheep grazing lands. Though the Americans felt that this transition was completely legal by the U.S. government, the British viewed it as illegal and considered each American settler a trespasser.

The dispute of the islands between Great Britain and the U.S. peaked when Lyman Cutlar, an American settler, killed a company pig using a shotgun, June 15, 1859. This incident enraged the British as they threatened to arrest Cutlar and remove all of his countrymen from the island. The U.S. response was through Brig. Gen. William S. Harney, anti-British commander from the Department of Oregon, who ordered Company D 9th Infantry Division with a total of 64 soldiers of the U.S. Army to the island, July 27, 1859. The military division was run under Capt. George E. Pickett.

Pickett's arrival to the San Juan Islands angered Vancouver Island Gov. James Douglas and lead him to send out a 31-gun HMS Tribune warship, lead by Capt. Geoffrey Phipps Hornby, to force Pickett out of his position.