Revenge, gunboats and the kidnapping of ‘Maggie Sutlej’, told

A historian shares the 1864 war and abduction story that was handed down from his ancestors, an Ahousaht account that diff

By Denise Titian Ha-Shilth-Sa Reporter

Ahousaht, BC – She was in the Victoriabased newspapers back in the 1860s and she reappeared in modern news media in 2018 when a charitable organization heard about her story. The name Maggie Sutlej has appeared in newspapers and books since 1864, but that wasn’t her real name and it wasn’t the true story.

It all started in 1864, following the disappearance of the trading vessel Kingfisher and its crew. Stories made it back to Victoria that the crew was killed byAhousaht people, and the boat scuttled. The government of the day sent warships toAhousaht territory with orders to bring back the murderers to stand trial. Rather than looking for the truth about why it happened, their mission was to capture anAhousaht chief and his warriors.

Dave Jacobson, Quamiina, a knowledgekeeper fromAhousaht, said that the story he knows is different than what was told in the books and newspaper articles, because they tell only one side, from the colonized perspective, he said.

Quamiina says he was raised to be a historian. He listened carefully as his grandmother and other relatives told him stories handed down the generations.

“I was taught to carry these histories, these stories and the way that I was taught may not be the same as [how] someone else was taught,” he shared. “Other knowledge carriers may tell the same story differently but there’s always truth in their stories –they’re just telling it another way.”

Quamiina said he felt offended when he read the 2018 Ha-Shilth-Sa story about Maggie Sutlej.At the time KhalsaAid reached out toAhousaht with a $200,000 donation in honor of her memory and of the Sutlej name, which is sacred to the Sikh community.

“It wasn’t told from theAhousaht perspective,” said Quamiina.

He added that he appreciates what Khalsa Aid did for his people. He confirmed that there was a gunboat attack on anAhousaht village andAhousahts were killed.Asmall child was pulled alive from beneath her mother’s body by crewmen from the Sutlej. The little girl was given to the captain’s wife, who renamed her Maggie Sutlej.

Quamiina was willing to share what he knows about the story with Ha-Shilth-Sa after following cultural protocols. The story, he said, relates directly to the second Ha’wilth or chief ofAhousaht, and is told with his permission.

“Nobody was talking about the incident that precipitated the bombing ofAhousaht villages; they don’t know why Cap-cha

(theAhousaht chief) ordered his men to do what they did,” said Quamiina. Fighting started by ‘abduction of native women’

The story begins inAugust 1864, when the trading vessel Kingfisher anchored in Matilda Inlet at the present-day village of Maaqtusiis,Ahousaht’s main settlement on Flores Island. Captain James Stevenson and his two crew members were there to trade goods for animal pelts.

Quamiina’s grandmother, Nellie Bishop, born 1891, was the great granddaughter of Chief Cap-cha. It was the older sisters of Nellie’s grandmother, born 1851, who went to see the crew of the Kingfisher.At that timeAhousaht people usedAhousaht names with no surnames.

“They must have been about 12 – 16 years old, they were just kids,” said Jacobson. The story goes that the girls, lured by sugary treats and shiny trinkets, went to the boat where they were subsequently given alcohol.

“They took advantage of them, those girls, they were raped,” said Quamiina. According to the book Voices from the Sound, written by Margaret Horsfield, Captain Stevenson had been convicted of selling liquor toAboriginals the year before, in 1863, and was fined $500 in a New Westminster court.

Horsfield writes, “possibly due to alcoholrelated incidents and the abduction of Native women by the traders, theAhousahts’ anger ignited.”

According to Quamiina, girls are held in high esteem, especially the daughter of a chief. So, when Cap-cha’s daughter reported what had happened, the chief had to respond.

“He got his warriors and they went to punish them – they had to let them know there’s consequences for what they done,” said Quamiina of the attack on the Kingfisher’s crew. “They were killed and the Kingfisher was sunk.”

Word of the incident had gotten back to Victoria and in late September 1864, the gunboats HMS Devastation and the Sutlej were sent toAhousaht territory to demand the surrender of Cap-cha and his warriors. “They were looking for Cap-cha, but he didn’t feel like he did anything wrong, so he refused to surrender or give up his warriors,” said Jacobson.