James Hanna (trader)

James Hanna (?-1787) was the first European to sail to the Pacific northwest to trade in furs. This Maritime fur trade was an important factor in the early history of the Pacific Northwest and the westward expansion of the United States and Canada.

In December 1780, the ships of James Cook’s third expedition, Resolution and Discovery, called at Canton on their return voyage from the North Pacific. While there, the crews of the ships enjoyed unexpected success in selling for high prices the sea otter pelts they had obtained for trinkets on the North West Coast of America. Most of these valuable furs had been collected in trade with the local Mowachaht-Muchalaht people during Cook’s stay during March–April 1778 at Nootka Sound, a large opening of bays, islands, channels, and inlets on the west central coast of Vancouver Island. At first Cook called it King George's Sound, but this was later changed to Nootka, based on Cook’s mis-pronunciation Yuquot, the native name of the place. The Mowachaht-Muchalaht had been the principal occupants of the Sound for thousands of years. Due to the prices received by Cook's men at Kamchatka and Macao for furs collected at Nootka Sound, the village of Yuquot in Friendly Cove became the initial focus of the maritime fur trade after 1785.

The description of the possibilities of the North Pacific fur trade in A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, the official account of James Cook’s expedition third expedition to the Pacific, published in May 1784, attracted wide attention. It was based on the journal of James King, who had assumed command of the Resolution after Cook’s death in Hawaii. In particular, King’s vivid account of the prices paid at Canton for the sea otter furs the crew had gathered on the American coast was repeatedly referred to in public discussion, being published in the London press in September 1785:

During our absence [in Canton], a brisk trade had been carrying on with the Chinese for the sea-otter furs, which had, every day, been rising in their value. One of our seamen sold his stock, alone, for eight hundred dollars; and a few prime skins, which were clean, and had been well preserved, were sold for one hundred and twenty each. The whole amount of the value, in specie and goods, that was got for the furs, in both ships, I am confident, did not fall short of two thousand pounds sterling. And it was generally supposed, that at least two-thirds of the quantity we had originally got from the Americans were spoilt and worn out, or had been given away, and otherwise disposed of, in Kamchatka. When it is remembered that the furs were at first collected without our having any idea of their real value, the first two Otter skins we had having been bought for six green glass beads, the greatest part of them having been worn by the Indians, from whom we purchased them; that they were afterwards preserved with little care, and frequently used for bed-clothes, and other purposes, during our cruise to the North; and that, probably we never received the full value for them in China; the advantages that might be derived from a voyage to that part of the American coast, undertaken with commercial views, appear to me of a degree of importance sufficient to call for the attention of the public.... The rage with which our seamen were possessed to return to Cook's River, and buy another cargo of skins, to make their fortunes, at one time, was not far off mutiny.

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