King Islanders: Fur Trade and Mixed Race Families

The photographs in this exhibit and much of the background research that accompanies it come the archives of the the Oregon Province of Jesuits. This exhibit also drew from the writings of Paul Tiulana, a King Islander born in 1921 on the island who wrote in the 1980s about his community's heritage. Thus, with the exception of Tiulana's writings, much of the information about and all of the images of the King Islanders presented here come to us through a Jesuit perspective. 

This exhibit will focus primarily on the fur trade that was going on during this time and its impact on the King Islanders.  The impact of the fur trade was seen not only through the clothing that it produced but also through the conflict that it brought.  While the fur trade did provide a means for intercultural communication and revenue, it also brought forth the following: disease, alcohol, death of native trappers, and the depletion of native fur-bearing animal populations.