Santa Cruz de Nuca

Santa Cruz de Nuca
Yuquot, Vancouver Island, Canada
Reconstruction of Fort San Miguel and Santa Cruz de Nuca.
Santa Cruz de Nuca
Coordinates	49°35′38″N 126°37′12″W / 49.594°N 126.62°W / 49.594; -126.62
Type	colony
Site information
Controlled by	Spanish
Site history
Built	1789
In use	1789-1795
Garrison information
Past commanders	Pedro de Alberni

Santa Cruz de Nuca (or Nuca), was a Spanish settlement and the first European colony in British Columbia. The colony was established in 1789 and existed until 1795 when it was abandoned following the Nootka Crisis that almost led to war between Britain and Spain. The colony was protected by the adjacent Fort San Miguel. Santa Cruz de Nuca was the only Spanish settlement in what is now Canada.

Yuquot (meaning "Wind comes from all directions") was the summer home of Chief Maquinna and the Mowachaht/Muchalaht (Nuu-chah-nulth) people for generations, housing approximately 1,500 natives in 20 traditional wooden longhouses. Captain James Cook's visit to Nootka Sound in 1778 was the second known European sighting of Yuquot after Juan José Pérez Hernández in 1774.

New Spain claimed the entire west coast of North America and therefore considered the Russian fur trading activity in Alaska, which began in the middle to late 18th century, an encroachment and threat. Likewise, the exploration of the northwest coast by James Cook of the British Navy and the subsequent fur trading activities by British ships was considered an invasion of Spanish territory. To protect and strengthen its claim, New Spain sent a number of expeditions to the Pacific Northwest between 1774 and 1793.

In 1789 the Viceroy of New Spain, Manuel Antonio Flores, instructed Esteban José Martínez to occupy Nootka Sound, on Vancouver Island in present-day British Columbia, build a settlement and fort, and to make it clear that Spain was setting up a formal establishment. The Russians were threatening to take the sound, and in May 1788 the British fur trader John Meares had used Nootka Sound as a base of operations and claimed purchase of land there from the indigenous Nuu-chah-nulth people. In 1788, John Meares, an English navigator and explorer sailing under falsified papers, sailed from China and explored Nootka Sound and the neighbouring coasts. He, among other claims subsequently discredited by George Vancouver in 1792, claimed to have bought some land from a local chief named Maquinna and built a trading post there.