Boyd examines the complex interactions between the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the Chinook peoples of the lower Columbia River during the winter of 1805-1806. The article documents the Chinook’s position as the premier traders of the Pacific Northwest, controlling commerce at the mouth of the Columbia and maintaining trade relationships with European and American maritime vessels for decades before the expedition’s arrival. Boyd analyzes the cultural misunderstandings that characterized the expedition’s Chinook encounters, including the captains’ frequent complaints about theft and hard bargaining, which Boyd reinterprets as the Chinook operating within their own well-established commercial protocols. The article also addresses the devastating demographic impact of European diseases on Chinook communities, documenting pre-contact population estimates and the catastrophic epidemics of the 1830s that reduced the Chinook to a fraction of their former numbers.
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