History of British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost province in Canada. Originally politically constituted as a pair of British colonies, it joined Confederation July 20, 1871.

Early history

British Columbia, before the arrival of the Europeans, was home to many Aboriginal peoples speaking more than 30 different languages, including the Babine, Beaver, Carrier, Chilcotin, Gitksan, Haida, Halkomelem, Kaska, Kutenai, Lillooet, Nisga'a, Nuu-chah-nulth, Nuxálk, Sekani, Shuswap, Sinixt, Squamish, Tagish, Tahltan, Thompson River Salish, Tlingit, Tsetsaut, and Tsimshian. The abundance of natural resources, particularly salmon and cedar, led to a complex hierarchical society that evolved on the British Columbian coast. With so much food being available, the peoples of the B.C. coast could focus their time on other pursuits such as art and politics.

Early European Explorations

The arrival of Europeans began around the mid-18th century, as fur traders entered the area to harvest sea otters. While it is thought that Sir Francis Drake may have explored the British Columbian coast in 1579, it was Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra who completed the first documented voyage, which took place in 1775. In doing so, Quadra reasserted the Spanish claim for the Pacific coast, first made by Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513. Three years later, in 1778, the British Royal Navy Captain James Cook arrived, searching for the Northwest Passage. He became the first recorded European to make landfall in present-day British Columbia, at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island, where he and his crew traded with the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation. Upon receiving sea otter pelts for his trade goods, his crew traded them for an enormous profit in Macao on their way back to Britain. This led to an influx of traders to the British Columbian coast, and ongoing economic contact with the aboriginal peoples there.

The first notable European Asian settlement in British Columbia was established by the British naval officer, John Meares in Nootka Sound, he had also brought with him Chinese carpenters from Macao. Although the British had been exploiting the sea otter trade for years, this activity brought them into conflict with the Spanish territorial claims to the region. This came to a head in 1787, when a Spanish expedition seized Meares's property at Nootka Sound. The Nootka Sound Controversy almost brought Spain and the United Kingdom to war. Conflict was averted when Quadra and British captain George Vancouver met at Nootka to negotiate the competing claims to the region. The fruit of their negotiations was the Third Nootka Convention of 1794, in which Spain peaceably ceded its claim to the Pacific coast north of their California holdings to the British.

Subsequently, European explorer-merchants from the east started to discover British Columbia. Three figures dominate in the early history of mainland British Columbia: Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Simon Fraser, and David Thompson. As employees of the Northwest Company, the three were primarily concerned with discovering a practicable river route to the Pacific, specifically via the Columbia River, for the extension of the fur trade. In 1793, Mackenzie became the first European to reach the Pacific overland north of the Rio Grande. He and his crew entered the region through the Rocky Mountains via the Peace River, reaching the ocean at South Bentinck Arm, near the site of present-day Bella Coola. Shortly thereafter, Mackenzie's companion, John Finlay, founded the first permanent European settlement in British Columbia, Fort St. John, located at the junction of the Beatton and Peace Rivers.

Simon Fraser was the next to try to find the course of the Columbia. During his expedition of 1805-09, Fraser and his crew, including John Stuart, explored much of the British Columbia interior, establishing several forts (Hudson's Hope, Trout Lake Fort, Fort George, Fort Fraser, and Fort St. James). Fraser's expedition took him down the river that now bears his name, to the site of present-day Vancouver. Although both Mackenzie and Fraser reached the Pacific, they found the routes they took impassable for trade. It was David Thompson who found the Columbia River and followed it down to its mouth in 1811. He was unable to establish a claim, however, for the American explorers Lewis and Clark had already claimed the territory for the United States of America six years earlier. The American Fur Company of John Jacob Astor had founded the town of Astoria just months before Thompson arrived, and the Nor'westers had to content themselves with establishing a rival post, which they named Fort Vancouver (present day Vancouver, Washington).

From fur trade districts to colony

Although technically a part of British North America, British Columbia was largely run by the Hudson's Bay Company after its merger with the Northwest Company in 1821. The central and northern interior of the region was organised into the New Caledonia District, a name that came to be generally attributed to the mainland as a whole. It was administered from Fort St. James, about 150 km northwest of present-day Prince George. The interior south of the Thompson River and north of the Columbia River was organised into the Columbia District, and was administered first from Fort Vancouver, and later from Fort Victoria.

Victoria was established as a trading post in 1843, both as a means to protect HBC interests, as well as to assert British claims to Vancouver Island and the adjacent Gulf Islands. In 1844, the United States Democratic Party asserted that the U.S. had a legitimate claim to the entire Oregon Country, but President James Polk was prepared to draw the border along the 49th parallel, the longstanding U.S. proposal. When the British rejected this offer, Polk broke off negotiations, and American expansionists reasserted the claim, coining slogans such as "Fifty-four forty or fight!" With the outbreak of the Mexican-American War diverting attention and resources, Polk was again prepared to compromise. The Oregon boundary dispute was settled in the 1846 Treaty of Washington. The terms of the agreement establishished the border between British North America and the United States at the 49th parallel from the Rocky Mountains to the sea, the original American proposal, with all of Vancouver Island retained as British territory. In 1849, the crown Colony of Vancouver Island was created; and in 1851, James Douglas was appointed Governor. Douglas, known as the father of British Columbia, established colonial institutions in Victoria. Meanwhile on the mainland, New Caledonia continued to be an unorganised region of British North America, its 100 or so European inhabitants (mostly HBC employees and their families) under the administrative oversight of Douglas, who was also the HBC's regional chief executive.

Two colonies

In 1858, gold was found along the banks of the Fraser River in the Fraser Canyon north of Yale. When word got out, Victoria was transformed overnight into a tent city as prospectors, speculators, land agents, and outfitters flooded in from around the world, mostly from San Francisco. The Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Langley burgeoned economically as the staging point for many of the prospectors heading by boat to the Canyon.

At the time, the region was still not under formal colonial authority. Douglas, fearing challenges to the claim of British sovereignty in the region in the face of an influx of some 20,000 Americans, stationed a gunboat at the mouth of the Fraser in order to obtain licence fees from those seeking to head upstream. The British colonial office responded to the new situation by establishing the mainland as a crown colony on August 2, 1858, naming it the Colony of British Columbia. The capital was established at New Westminster on the southern reaches of the Fraser, which became the first city incorporated on the mainland in 1860. Douglas was named joint governor of the two colonies.

A second gold rush in the Cariboo region of the colony occurred in 1861-62. The influx of gold into B.C.'s economy led to the creation of basic infrastructure in B.C., most notably, the creation of the Cariboo Wagon Road which linked the Lower Mainland to the rich gold fields of Barkerville. However, poor judgement and mismanagement of funds made by the gold rush left B.C. in debt by the mid-1860s. In 1866, because of the massive debt leftover from the gold rush, the mainland and Vancouver Island became one colony named British Columbia, with its capital in Victoria.

Entry into Canada

Both the depressed economic situation arising from the collapse of the gold rushes, as well as a desire for the establishment of truly responsible and representative government, led to enormous domestic pressure for British Columbia to join the Canadian Confederation, which had been proclaimed in 1867. The Confederation League, spearheaded by three future premiers of the province — Amor De Cosmos, Robert Beaven, and John Robson — took a leading role in pushing the colony towards this goal. And so it was on July 21, 1871, that British Columbia became the seventh province to join Canada. In return for entering Confederation, Canada absorbed B.C.'s massive debt, and promised to build a railway from Montreal to the Pacific coast within 10 years. In fulfillment of this promise, the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway was driven in Craigellachie in 1885. During this period, a new source of wealth was being discovered in the interior of B.C.: minerals.

The mining frontier in B.C. led to the creation of many mines and smelters, mostly through American investment. One of the world's largest smelters still exists today in Trail, British Columbia. The capital and work to be found in B.C. during the turn of 19th century to the 20th century led to the creation of several new towns in B.C. such as Nelson, Nakusp, Slocan, Kimberly, Castlegar, Rossland, and Salmo. A large coal empire run by Sir Robert Dunsmuir, and his son and later premier, James Dunsmuir also developed on Vancouver Island during this era.

As the economy on the mainland continued to improve as a result of improved transportation and increased settlement, other resource-based economic activity began to flourish. Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, fishing, forestry, and farming (including the planting of extensive orchards in the Okanagan region) became the "three F's" on which the new province built its economy — a situation that pertained well into the late twentieth century.

With the booming economy came the expansion of the original fur trading posts into thriving communities (such as Victoria, Nanaimo, Prince George, Fort St. James, Kamloops, and Fort St. John). It also led to the establishment of new communities, such as Yale, New Westminster, and — most notably — Vancouver. The product of the consolidation of the burgeoning mill towns of Granville and Hastings Mill located near the mouth of the Fraser on Burrard Inlet, Vancouver was incorporated in 1886. Despite a devastating fire which all but wiped out the city three months later, Vancouver quickly became the largest city in the province, its ports conveying both the resource wealth of the province as well as that transported from the prairie provinces by rail, to markets overseas. Vancouver's status as the principal city in the province has endured, augmented by growth in the surrounding municipalities of Richmond, Burnaby, Surrey, Delta, Coquitlam, and New Westminster. Today, Greater Vancouver is the third most populous metropolitan area in Canada, behind Toronto and Montreal

The Twentieth Century

During the 20th century, many immigrant groups arrived in British Columbia and today, Vancouver is the second most ethnically diverse city in Canada, only behind Toronto. However, before 1945, racism was more rampant and socially acceptable in Canada and British Columbia's immigration policies of the past still leave an embarrassing scar. In 1886, a Head Tax was imposed on the Chinese, which reached as much as $500 per person to enter Canada by 1904. By 1923 the government passed the Chinese Immigration Act, which prohibited all Chinese immigration until 1947. Sikhs had to face an amended Immigration Act in 1908 that required Sikhs to have $200 on arrival in Canada, and immigration would be allowed only if the passenger had arrived by continuous journey from India, which was impossible. Perhaps the most famous incident of anti-Sikh racism in B.C. was in 1914 when the Komagata Maru arrived in Vancouver harbour with 376 Sikhs aboard, who were all denied entry. The Komagata Maru spent two months in harbour while the Khalsa Society went through the courts to appeal their case. The Khalsa Society also kept the passengers on the Komagata Maru alive during those two months. When the case was lost, HMCS Rainbow, a Canadian Navy cruiser, towed the Komagata Maru out to sea while thousands of white people cheered from the seawall of Stanley Park. The Japanese were also discriminated against, even being put in internment camps during the Second World War.

Alcohol was prohibited in British Columbia for about four years, from 1917 to 1921. A referendum in 1916 asked BC citizens whether they approved of making alcohol illegal (the other question was whether women had the right to vote). The contested results rejecting prohibition led to a major political scandal that subsequently saw the referendum being overturned and alcohol prohibited. However, by 1921 the failures were so apparent—a thriving black market, arbitrary (often class- and race-based) enforcement and punishment, rampant corruption—that alcohol was established as a commodity subject to government regulation and taxation as it is today. U.S. prohibition in the 1920s and early 1930s led to a thriving business of producing and smuggling alcohol to quench the thirst of BC's southern neighbors. Many of Vancouver's richest families built or consolidated their fortunes in the rum-running business. Some compare today's robust cannabis-growing industry in BC (the number-one cash crop) to this earlier era.

The status of the First Nations (aboriginal) people of British Columbia is a long-standing problem that has become a major issue in recent years. First Nations were confined to tiny reservations that provide no economic base. They were provided with inadequate education and discriminated against in numerous ways. In many areas they were excluded from restaurants and other establishments. Native people only gained the right to vote in 1960. They were prohibited from possessing alcohol, which rather than preventing problems with this drug, exacerbated them by fostering unhealthy patterns of consumption such as binge drinking. The lives of status Indians are still governed by the Indian Act. With the exception of what are known as the Douglas Treaties, negotiated by Sir James Douglas with the native people of the Victoria, BC area, no treaties were signed in British Columbia. Many native people wished to negotiate treaties, but the province refused until 1990. Another major development was the 1997 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Delgamuukw v. British Columbia case that aboriginal title still exists in British Columbia. Two-thirds of the bands in British Colubmia, represented by the First Nations Summit, are now engaged in trilateral negotiations with British Columbia and Canada. Only one treaty, the Nisga'a Treaty (1998) has been signed in recent years, and that one outside of the current treaty process. There is considerable disagreement about treaty negotiations. Many non-native British Columbians are vehemently opposed to it, while a substantial minority of native people consider the current treaty process inadequate and have therefore refused to participate.

In the 1960s, British Columbia ratified the Columbia River Treaty, which was intended to benefit Canadians but actually lost them roughly $808 million. The land that was flooded as a result of the treaty was fertile and contained many archaeological remains of Aboriginal peoples that are now lost forever.

Most recently, in 2003, Premier Gordon Campbell was caught for and convicted of drunk driving while in Hawaii, and the most devastating forest fires in decades demolished towns and cost millions of dollars in property damage.

External links

British Columbia History Internet/Web Site, 1995-2004, compiled by historian and archivist David Mattison, was succeeded by the British Columbia History Portal, 2003-present.
First Nations Languages of British Columbia contains information about the native languages of British Columbia.

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