In 1852 Chilkat Tlingit warriors attacked and burned Fort Selkirk, Yukon, the Hudson's Bay Company post at the juncture of the Yukon and Pelly Rivers.
In 1855 an alliance of Tongass Tlingit (Stikines) and Haida raided Puget Sound on a slaving expedition. They were confronted at Port Gamble, Washington Territory by the USS Massachusetts and other naval vessels and suffered casualties, including a prominent Haida chief. A return expedition by the alliance the following year was punitive in character, with Isaac N. Ebey chosen at random as a high-ranking white man whose death would avenge the death of one of the raiding chiefs the year before. The territorial government pressed the colonial government of Vancouver Island to apprehend the killer, but the British had insufficient military capacity to take on the allied Haida and Tlingit and the killer was never identified or caught.