[3] The West Indies were at the time an integral part of the transatlantic slave trade and the French, British, Spanish, Danish, and Dutch all operated plantations in the region to produce goods, such as sugar, for export.

[5] Boit Sr. is mentioned in a May 2, 1775 letter to Paul Revere from his wife Rachel, when he was prevented from returning home from his "midnight ride" due to the siege of Boston in the aftermath of the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

[6] He is accused of not paying his fair share of taxes by a group of Boston residents in an August 18, 1777 meeting of the Boston Board of Selectmen, saying: It is our Opinion that the following Persons, Inhabitants of other Towns in this or the Neighboring States out to be taxed here, for the Real Estate, they occupy and the Business they do here, it being agreeable to Law--Vizt: Mr Archibald Mercer, William Eskine, Henry Mitchell, ------ Blair, Mess.

Here, they assembled the sloop Adventure using materials they brought from Boston and timbers harvested from the island, making it the first American ship ever built in the Pacific.

Many of their interactions were friendly, although Boit's logbook conveys a general attitude of distrust and a belief that they would all be murdered by the Tla-o-qui-aht if the tribe got the chance.

ev'ry door that you enter'd was in resemblance to an human and Beasts head, the passage being through the mouth, besides which there was much more rude carved work about the dwellings some of which was by no means innelegant.

[12] Shortly after the Columbia returned to Boston John Boit was given command of the sloop Union for another maritime fur trading voyage to the Pacific Northwest and China.

[13] Boit traded with the Haida of Chief Cuneah in the area near Cloak Bay,[16] Langara Island, and villages such as Dadens and Kiusta.

[14] On June 21, 1795, while off the western coast of Kunghit Island, Boit wrote: Calm & pleasant, above 40 canoes came into the cove full of indians (at least 30 men each).

Called all hands to quarters; eight cheifs [sic] were on board at this time who began to be very saucy & the war canoes kept pressing alongside & the indians getting upon the nettings.

Skoich-eye, the head cheif [sic] began the attack by seizing Mr. Hudson the second officer at the same time the indians alongside attempted to board with the Most hideous yells.

The rest of the cheif [sic] on deck was knock'd down & wounded & we kill'd from the nettings & in the canoes alongside above 40 more when they retreated, at which time I could have kill'd 100 more with grape shot but I let humanity prevail & ceas'd firing.Then Boit sailed the Union south to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Columbia River, and Tillamook Bay, again trading for sea otter furs.

[13] On 12 September 1795 Boit, having finished his fur trading, sailed from Columbia Cove, making for the Hawaiian Islands and Guangzhou (Canton), China.

When Young left the Union late that night he discovered one of Boit's crew hiding in his canoe, having hoped to stay in Hawaii.

[14] Boit left the Hawaiian Islands for Canton on 17 October 1795, arriving in the Pearl River Delta area in early December.

The Union entered the strait with a convoy on January 31 and struggled with adverse winds and contrary tides until February 9, when the sloop made it to the open Indian Ocean.

"[14] In the summer of 1796, Boit left Boston harbor as captain of the snow George, also partially owned by Crowell Hatch, on a voyage to the Isle of France (Mauritius) in the Indian Ocean.

In his logbook, Boit wrote: Took a house on shore, attended by my faithful servant Chou (a Chinese)--kept Bachelor's hall--and in the gay life that is generally pursued by young men on this island passed a few months away in quite an agreeable though dissipated manner.It is often stated that Boit first met Chou, a teenage boy, in China as captain of the Union.

Boit paid for a headstone for Chou in Boston's Central Burying Ground, and had inscribed the following: Here lies interred the Body of CHOW MANDERIEN a native of China.

[19] He is believed to be the first person of Chinese descent to have lived, died, and been buried in the United States, and he is still honored and celebrated by the Chinese-American community in Boston.

[18] Not long after arriving back in the United States, Boit married Eleanor Jones on August 20, 1799, in Newport, Rhode Island.

About four weeks after they were at sea, the captain, whose name is JOHN BOIT, belonging to the state of Rhodeisland, informed them for the first time, that "they would see Africa before they saw any other land."

[21]This article was reprinted in the October 7, 1799 edition of the Delaware & Eastern-Shore Advertiser, which added, "The astonishment (tho' not the indignation) of the humane will subside, when they are told, that this ship was owned, loaded, and sent upon this execrable voyage, by an 'exclusive patriot,' a bawler for liberty, equality, and the rights of man ! ! !

In his 1941 introduction to Voyages of the "Columbia" to the Northwest Coast, 1787-1790 & 1790-1793, Frederic W. Howay claims there is a "gap in Boit's story" between his return from the Isle of France in November 1797 and his marriage to Eleanor Jones in August 1799.

Edmund Hayes relies heavily on Howay's history in his narrative of Boit's life in 1981's Log of the Union, and makes no mention of the Mac.

[23] On February 28, 2020, food blogger Richard Auffrey detailed the story of Chou and the occurrence of Boit's slave voyage with the Mac in a blog post about the history of Boston's earliest Chinese residents.