Wrecked: Unsettling Histories from the Graveyard of the Pacific

Since 1692, more than 2,000 ships have fallen victim to dangerous reefs, shoals, and storms on the Pacific coasts of the states of Oregon and Washington and of Vancouver Island in Canada’s British Columbia. This so-called “Graveyard of the Pacific” is among the deadliest expanses of the world’s oceans. Eschewing sensational tales of wrecked ships and doomed sailors, Thrush (history, Univ. of British Columbia; Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of Empire) uses this critical history of shipwrecks to explore the complex relations between Indigenous peoples and newcomers, including castaways, rescuers, salvors, treasure hunters, and tourists. During the 1800s, the Clatsop, Hesquiaht, and other tribes frequently rescued castaways and salvaged wrecks from as far away as Russia, England, and Japan. Well into the 20th century, coastal residents would rush to strip stranded ships of equipment and cargo. Shipwrecks influenced and continue to influence popular culture in the form of ghost stories and beloved movies like The Goonies. Wrecks also give historians a vehicle for rethinking settler colonialism, Indigenous survivance, and Pacific Northwest history.