Leave It To Beaver

September 8, 2012 by Upside Downtrodden

It’s Saturday September 8th! Do you know where your podcast is? On this day in history back in 1810, Jacob Astor’s sailing ship Tonquin left New York bound for Oregon. Six months later, they arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River to open Astor’s new Pacific Fur Company in what would become the town of Astoria. The new American fur industry had an insatiable appetite and was able to meet its growing demand courtesy the pelts of Castor Canadensis. Astor’s thugs and countless others involved in the birth and expansion of the completely unnecessary fur industry killed millions of beavers pushing the species to the brink of extinction. To this day, the Oregon beaver population is only 10% of what it was before the white settlers began to obliterate their numbers. In addition to the rapacious massacre of beavers, Astor and his fellow capitalists began the systematic exploitation and theft of the Chinook land on which they had been allowed to conduct their pernicious business. This was made easier to perpetrate thanks in large part to the Lewis and Clark Expedition a few years earlier. The following summer the Tonquin had made its way North to Vancouver Island. In response to the disrespectful treatment of a Nuu-Chah-Nulth elder by the captain of the Tonquin during a bartering exchange, many Nuu-Chah-Nulth tribesmen came together to fight back against the unwelcome aggressors. The tribesmen followed the Tonquin, boarded it from their large canoes, and attacked the crew. An armed struggle took place on board. The ship was blown up with the gunpowder it carried by a remaining member of the crew who barely survived to tell the story. All other members of the crew, and approximately a hundred Nuu-Chah-Nulth, were killed. This is the story of the dominant culture. Like all abusers, if you try to fight back, they’d rather kill you and themselves then let you live in peace free from their violence. In over 200 years, the story is still the same. The only thing that has changed is the level of violence. It continues to increase exponentially. We must change, or we can tell you how our story will end. Before we turn our last page, be sure to check out our brand new episode. It won’t give you smallpox, malaria, or a sexually transmitted disease (which is more than the dominant culture can say with regard to its destruction of the indigenous populations). Ninety minutes of your time in exchange for our abundance of thought-provoking information, opinion, and entertainment? Now, that’s what we call a fair trade! Click the link below, and start listening today!

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