page_title: Haida people
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Haida people / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Skidegate Indian Village of the Haida tribe. Skidegate Inlet, British Columbia, Canada. Français&#160;: Des mâts totémiques à Skidegate, en Colombie-Britannique (Canada).
context_page_description: Haida are a nation and ethnic group native to, or otherwise associated with, Haida Gwaii meaning "Coming out of concealment" or sometimes "island of the People", and the Haida language. The Haida language is an isolate language, that has been spoken historically across Haida Gwaii and other islands on the Alaska Panhandle. Prior to the 19th century, Haida spoke a number of coastal First Nations languages such as Tlingit, Nisg̱a'a and Coast Tsimshian. This resulted in a sudden decline in its usage throughout the 1900s. Haida language champions are working through multiple initiatives to revitalize the Haida language along with Haida law, customs, and cultural identity.
  In Haida Gwaii, the Haida government consists of a matrix of national and regional hereditary, legislative, and executive bodies including the Hereditary Chiefs Council, the Council of the Haida Nation, Old Massett Village Council, Skidegate Band Council, and the Secretariat of the Haida Nation. These are based in the archipelago of Haida Gwaii outside the territorial seas of Canada off of northern British Columbia, Canada.
context_section_description: The Haida are known for their craftsmanship, trading skills, and seamanship. They are thought to have been warlike and to practise slavery.  Anthropologist Diamond Jenness has compared the Haida to Vikings while Haida have replied saying that Vikings are like Haida.
  The Haida conducted regular trade with Russian, Spanish, British, and American fur traders and whalers. According to sailing records, they diligently maintained strong trade relationships with Westerners, coastal people, and among themselves. Trade for sea-otter pelts was initiated by British Captain George Dixon with the Haida in 1787. The Haida did well for themselves in this industry and until the mid-1800s they were at the centre of the profitable China sea-otter trade.
  Like other groups on the Northwest Coast, the Haida defended themselves with fortifications, including palisades, trapdoors and platforms. The Haida were known to go to war with other Indigenous nations. They took to water in large ocean-going canoes, each created from a single Western red cedar tree, and big enough to accommodate as many as 60 paddlers. The aggressive tribe were particularly feared in sea battles, although they did respect rules of engagement in their conflicts. The Haida developed effective weapons for boat-based battle, including a special system of stone rings weighing 18 to 23 kg (40 to 51 lb) which could destroy an enemy's dugout canoe and be reused after the attacker pulled it back with the attached cedar bark rope. The Haida took captives from defeated enemies, however the Haida also owned slaves, who were war captives or the children of captives. Although they had gone on expeditions as far as Washington State, at first they had minimal confrontations with Europeans. Despite this between 1780 and 1830, the Haida turned their aggression towards European and American traders. Among the dozens ships the tribe captured were the Eleanor and the Susan Sturgis. The tribe made use of the weapons they so acquired, using cannons and canoe-mounted swivel guns.
  In 1856, an expedition in search of a route across Vancouver Island was at the mouth of the Qualicum River when they observed a large fleet of Haida canoes approaching and hid in the forest. They observed these attackers holding human heads. When the explorers reached the mouth of the river, they came upon the charred remains of the village of the Qualicum people and the mutilated bodies of its inhabitants, with only one survivor, an elderly woman, hiding terrified inside a tree stump.
  Due to smallpox and other diseases brought over by the Europeans resulted in their population dropping to 588 people by 1915. It was not until nearly the 1900s that the European settlers drastically populated Haida Gwaii. Over time Europeans increasingly infringed on Haida territories and eventually the Haida had no choice but to move onto smaller parcels of land.
  Also in 1857, the USS Massachusetts was sent from Seattle to nearby Port Gamble, where indigenous raiding parties made up of Haida (from territory claimed by the British) and Tongass (from territory claimed by the Russians) had been attacking and enslaving the Coast Salish people there. When the Haida and Tongass (sea lion tribe Tlingit) warriors refused to acknowledge American jurisdiction and to hand over those among them who had attacked the Puget Sound communities, a battle ensued in which 26 natives and one government soldier were killed. In the aftermath of this, Colonel Isaac Ebey, a US military officer and the first settler on Whidbey Island, was shot and beheaded on 11 August 1857 by a small Tlingit group from Kake, Alaska, in retaliation for the killing of a respected Kake chief in the raid the year before. Ebey's scalp was purchased from the Kake by an American trader in 1860. The introduction of smallpox among the Haida at Victoria in March 1862 significantly reduced their sovereignty over their traditional territories, and opened the doorway to colonial power. As many as nine in ten Haidas died of smallpox and many villages were completely depopulated.
  In 1885 the 
caption: Houses and totem poles, 1878
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