[1][2] The Haida of British Columbia and Alaska and others had, since time immemorial, periodically conducted raiding expeditions against the Coast Salish peoples of the Puget Sound, who were used as a source for slave labor.

Northwest Coast Native maritime technology was unsurpassed among First Nations peoples and raiding parties would travel in large dugout canoes at distances of up to a thousand miles.

USS Massachusetts arrived at Port Gamble soon thereafter and, finding that the Haida party had landed and camped at the edge of town, placed a force of 18 armed sailors ashore.

The Tlingit prisoners were issued a ration of bread and molasses and given 24 hours to bury their dead, after which they were taken aboard USS Massachusetts with the intention of deporting them to British Columbia.

In a dispatch sent to colonial secretary Henry Labouchère, Douglas described Swartwout's reaction,[8] Captain Swartwout appeared disappointed and irritated at my decision, and somewhat inconsiderately held out a threat of landing his prisoners, with or without my sanction, on some of the uninhabited islets on our coast, but on being reminded that such a course, would be a breach of international law, and immediately become the subject of complaint to his Government, he apologized for the warmth into which he had been inadvertently betrayed.Swartwout and Douglas eventually reached a compromise: the Tlingit were provisioned with food and new canoes, then dropped-off at the edge of Russian America.