Santa Cruz de Nuca

Santa Cruz de Nuca (or Nutca) was a Spanish colonial fort and settlement and the first European colony in what is now known as British Columbia. The settlement was founded on Vancouver Island in 1789 and abandoned in 1795, with its far northerly position making it the "high-water mark" of verified northerly Spanish settlement along the North American west coast. The colony was established with the Spanish aim of securing the entire west coast of the continent from Alaska southwards, for the Spanish crown.

Due to the presence and activities of several British maritime fur trading ships in the same region, and the Russian colonization of Alaska further north, this Spanish attempt at making such a substantial claim for possession and conquest along the North American west coast failed. The colony was briefly abandoned between October 1789 and April 1790. In 1795 the colony was permanently abandoned following the settlement and signing of the Nootka Convention. This final Spanish abandonment of the area left the Spanish missions in the San Francisco Bay area as the most northerly permanent Spanish settlements in western North America.

The Nootka Convention resolved the earlier armed international struggles which had surrounded the colony, including the Nootka Crisis, which had almost led to war between Britain and Spain. The colony had been protected by the adjacent Fort San Miguel. Santa Cruz de Nuca was the only verified Spanish settlement in what is now Canada. Some early Spanish maps had claimed the existence of additional Spanish settlements in the area. However, these other unverified local ghost-Spanish-settlements appear to have most probably been merely a "political fiction", created by Spanish cartographers with the aim of dissuading other nations from attempting to expand in the area.

Yuquot (meaning "Wind comes from all directions") was the summer home of Chief Maquinna and the Mowachaht/Muchalaht (Nuu-chah-nulth) people for generations, housing approximately 1,500 natives in 20 traditional wooden longhouses. Captain James Cook's visit to Nootka Sound in 1778 was the second known European sighting of Yuquot after Juan José Pérez Hernández in 1774.

New Spain claimed the entire west coast of North America and therefore considered the Russian American fur trading activity in Alaska, which began in the middle to late 18th century, an encroachment and threat. Likewise, the exploration of the northwest coast by James Cook of the British Navy and the subsequent fur trading activities by British ships was considered an invasion of Spanish territory. To protect and strengthen its claim, New Spain sent a number of expeditions to the Pacific Northwest between 1774 and 1793.

In 1789 the Viceroy of New Spain, Manuel Antonio Flórez, instructed Esteban José Martínez to occupy Nootka Sound, on Vancouver Island in present-day British Columbia, build a settlement and fort, and to make it clear that Spain was setting up a formal establishment. The Russians were threatening to take the sound, and in May 1788 the British fur trader John Meares had used Nootka Sound as a base of operations and claimed purchase of land there from the indigenous Nuu-chah-nulth people. In 1788, John Meares, an English navigator and explorer sailing under falsified papers, sailed from China and explored Nootka Sound and the neighbouring coasts. He, among other claims subsequently discredited by George Vancouver in 1792, claimed to have bought some land from a local chief named Maquinna and built a trading post there.

In 1789, the Spanish commander Esteban José Martínez led an expedition that arrived at Nootka Sound on May 5, 1789. This territory was already considered as part of New Spain by the Spanish due to the previous explorations of the region. On May 15, 1789, Martínez chose the location of his fortification and settlement at the entrance of Friendly Cove (Yuquot) on Hog Island. Work progressed so that on May 26 they were able to place their artillery followed by the construction of barracks and a powder storeroom. The new Santa Cruz de Nuca settlement included houses and a hospital.

During the summer of 1789, a number of fur trading vessels, British and American, arrived at Nootka. The American captains heeded warnings and left. On June 24, 1789 a salvo was fired from the new fort and the Spanish ships in what Martínez considered an official act of possession of Nootka Harbour. On July 4, the American vessels and their captains Robert Gray and John Kendrick (who had arrived in the harbour 7 months earlier than Martínez) fired salvos and fireworks in recognition of their recent independence from Britain accompanied by a further salvo from the Spanish fort.