Day 317: Fort Vancouver Village, Vancouver, Washington
📌APIA Every Day (317) - Between the 1820s and 1840s, Fort Vancouver in the Oregon Territory was home to a multiethnic village including a significant population of Native Hawaiian residents. As a fur trading post, the Fort served as the commercial headquarters of the prosperous Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). Hawaiian laborers had been working for HBC as ship crew members as early as 1821, facilitating trade between the Oregon Territory and Hawai’i. Over time, many of these Native Hawaiians settled at the Fort, taking on local jobs and establishing homes in the surrounding area.
The village that developed outside the stockade walls of Fort Vancouver—often referred to as "Kanaka Village" due to its large Hawaiian population—became a community of various ethnic groups, including Hawaiians, Métis, and Indigenous Americans. Residents were expected to construct their own residences out of whatever material they could salvage. An estimated number of 40 to 60 houses were built in the area and the Hawaiian residents numbered possibly as high as 138 in 1844—representing nearly a third of the village’s total population.
Some Hawaiian men lived in the village seasonally, working as sailors for the HBC, while around 50 to 60 Hawaiians made the Fort their permanent home. They worked in various roles, such as sawmill laborers, servants, farmers, soldiers, and cooks. Within the village, it was common for single Hawaiian men to marry Native American women, forming multiethnic families. Many of these men opted to stay in the Northwest with their new families rather than return to Hawai’i once their labor contracts were fulfilled.
One of the most notable Hawaiians in the village was William Kaulehelehe, a Methodist preacher hired by the company in 1845. Along with his wife, Mary Kaai, he became a key figure in ministering to the Hawaiian community at the Fort. Kaulehelehe established a small church and schoolhouse, called “Owyhee Church,” within the Fort’s walls. The couple was the only Hawaiian family to live within the Fort compound after they moved from their previous home in the village. Eventually, the couple’s old home, along with the rest of the village, was destroyed due to fire in 1960 after the U.S. Army occupied the site.
In 1966, Fort Vancouver was added to the National Register of Historic Places, however, the original buildings of the village no longer exist. Instead, reconstructed cabins outside Fort Vancouver provide a glimpse into the lives of early HBC laborers on the site. Archaeological work at the Fort is ongoing, uncovering more artifacts like ceramic jars at the location of Kaulehelehe and Kaai’s demolished village house, to better understand the early Native Hawaiian history at the compound.
Written by Avneet Dhaliwal
LEARN MORE:
National Park Service: Hawaiians at Fort Vancouver
National Park Service: Hawaiian Presence at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site
National Park Serice: William Kaulehelehe and Mary Kaai
National Park Service: The Fort Vancouver Village
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