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Autobiographical reminiscences of the sea otter trade from 1799-1804, with 2 pages of commentary written in another hand after 1846

Autobiographical reminiscences of the sea otter trade from 1799-1804, with 2 pages of commentary written in another hand after 1846

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    Digital images of a manuscript by William Sturgis containing reminiscences of the sea otter trade between the Pacific Northwest and Guangzhou (Canton), China, 1799-1804. Sturgis describes incidents related to various ships; details of skins, muskets, and other goods traded; and relations with Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest, including violence. Included is a long description of deadly fighting between the Russian-American Company settlement and the Indigenous people at Sitka, Alaska, and Sturgis’s horror at the execution of an Indigenous prisoner by the Americans. The last two pages of the manuscript contain commentary on the sea otter trade, written in an unknown hand in 1846.