The Many Voyages of Arthur Wellington Clah

First-hand accounts of indigenous people’s encounters with colonialism are rare. A daily diary that extends over fifty years is unparalleled.

Drawing on her painstaking transcription of Arthur Wellington Clah’s diaries, Peggy Brock pieces together the many voyages – physical, cultural, and spiritual – of a Tsimshian man who moved in both colonial and Aboriginal worlds. From his birth in 1831 to his death in 1916, Clah witnessed profound change. His diaries reveal the complexities of personal interactions between colonizers and the colonized and the inevitable tensions that arose. They also show how Clah’s hopes for his people were gradually eroded by the realities of land dispossession, interference by the colonial state in cultural and political matters, and diminishing economic opportunities.

Clah’s personal journey reflects Tsimshian responses to these changes, including modifications to potlatching and the chiefly system that had evolved during the fur trade era. Taken together, his many voyages offer an unprecedented Aboriginal perspective on colonial relationships as they played out on the Pacific Northwest Coast.