Fort Defiance was a small outpost built by the crew of the Columbia Rediviva during the winter of 1791-1792. The crew under the command of American merchant and maritime fur trader Captain Robert Gray built the establishment on Meares Island in present day British Columbia, Canada.
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In early August, 1791, John Kendrick had arrived in Clayoquot Sound and bought land from Wickaninnish in exchange for firearms. The land purchased was near the village of Opitsaht. By the time Gray arrived in late August, Kendrick had fortified a small island and given it the name Fort Washington. Kendrick soon left for China while Gray remained for the winter. For most of the winter relations with Wickaninnish and his people were good. On Christmas Day Wickaninnish and a number of other chiefs dined aboard the Columbia, and on New Year's Day the Americans were entertained onshore by the natives.[1]
The men of the Columbia began building their winter quarters on September 21, 1791.[2] They were done building the main building by September 30.[2] This main building measured 36 feet (11 m) long by 18 feet (5.5 m) wide and was two stories tall.[2] Fort Defiance also had a brick fireplace, as the traders had brought with them 5,470 bricks from Boston.[3] The main building had two cannons mounted and musket loop holes for defending against any native attacks.[4] Additionally, other buildings constructed included a blacksmith shop, two sawpits for cutting logs, cabins, and a boat builder's shed.[3][5] Once the fort was complete, four cannons, 40 muskets, and various other weapons were transferred from the Columbia and Robert Haswell was placed in charge of the base and ten men.[6] At this point the focus of Fort Defiance became the construction of the ship Adventure, whose skeleton had been brought aboard the Columbia.[7]
On October 3 the keel was laid for the ship.[8] Over the winter the ship slowly began to take shape.[9] On February 23, 1792, the ship was launched, making it the first American-built vessel in the Pacific Northwest.[10][11] Once the ship then sailed in March, the fort was abandoned.[12] However, Gray desired to leave nothing of use to the natives and had Haswell remove anything of value.[13]
When Gray left these winter quarters at Clayoquot Sound, as revenge for a foiled attack against his men conceived by the Tla-o-qui-aht people and a Sandwich Islander of his own crew, Gray ordered the destruction of 200 homes in the local village of "Opitsitah" (Opitsaht),[14] an act that the keeper of his own ship's log considered having let his passions go too far.[15]
This winter quarters for the crew was built on Disappointment Inlet (now called Lemmens Inlet[16]) on Meares Island,[17] which is in Clayoquot Sound just north of Tofino.[18] At the inlet, Fort Defiance was on the eastern side where the geography could provide natural defenses against attacks.[2] Gray named the cove Adventure Cove.[19] The location of the post was identified in 1966.[20] That name was officially adopted by British Columbia in 1975. At the same time the little island in the cove, which Kendrick had fortified, was named Columbia Islet.[21][22] Fort Defiance itself was on the mainland of Meares Island. Today it is a protected 135-acre (0.55 km2) archaeological site.[23]