Maquinna - Notable First Nations People
Maquinna was the chief of the Nuu-chah-nulth people of Nootka Sound, during the heyday of the maritime fur trade in the 1780s and 1790s on the Pacific Northwest Coast. Maquinna interacted with several of the first European explorers attempting to establish trade and anchorage off the coast of his people's lands. He was chief during the precarious Nootka Crisis, which involved sovereignty claims between the Nuu-chah-nulth, Spanish Empire, Kingdom of Great Britain and United States. Maquinna Marine Provincial Park and several schools are named after him.
"Once I was in Victoria, and saw a very large house. They told me it was a bank, and that the white men place their money there to be taken care of, and that by and by they got it back, with interest. We are Indians, and we have no such bank; but when we have plenty of money or blankets, we give them away to other chiefs and people, and by and by they return them, with interest, and our hearts feel good. Our way of giving is our bank."
