10. The Fathers of BC

Victoria Archives PR-0014-M07348 & On This Spot Enterprises

1895

James Douglas, born in British Guiana the illegitimate son of a Scottish plantation owner and a free woman of mixed race, would eventually become the second Governor of Vancouver Island, and, finally, the whole of British Columbia. Douglas was also the man who chose the site of Fort Victoria for the HBC, and governed it as chief factor for the company in the decade to follow. His relatively liberal stance on race relations influenced his policies, and helped stamp early BC with a decidedly racially tolerant outlook. When the 1858 Gold Rush prompted a mass migration of American miners into what is now British Columbia, James Douglas sought to counterbalance this with increased emigration from those more likely to be loyal to Britain. At that time San Francisco's black community was threatened by recent supreme court rulings that sought to deny them full citizenship. To Douglas these seemed natural settlers whose loyalty to Britain over America would be all but guaranteed. He promised them land, and full citizenship as British subjects after five years of owning that land, and the full protection of the law during that period.xx1 As a result, several hundred black families moved to the colony, settling in Victoria, Salt Spring Island, and elsewhere in the colony. Even before the Gold Rush, Douglas was reaching out to local First Nations to negotiate the sale of land and the rights of the indigenous concerning land use through treaties. However, the legitimacy of these treaties has been long debated as both parties entered the agreement with different ideas as to what was being agreed upon. To Douglas and other colonial authorities, they were agreeing to pay a one-time payment for complete ownership of the land, while the First Nations would keep their traditional village sites, camas fields, and hunting and fishing rights. However, Indigenous oral histories, and the first-hand account recorded in 1934 of Chief David Latass who was present at the signing of the treaties, maintain that the indigenous understood the agreement as a peace treaty. The treaty would allow the settlers to make use of some land for agriculture in exchange for yearly payments.xx2 Despite the controversial nature of these agreements, and the failure of colonial governments to observe them, the Douglas Treaties were the only such documents in existence for the entirety of Southern British Columbia. Their spirit would be brutally and effectively undermined by the work of BC's first Lieutenant-Governor and the other 'Father of British Columbia': Joseph Trutch. Born in England in 1826 and raised in Jamaica by his lawyer father, Trutch spent several years as an engineer in the United States before eventually migrating to Victoria, attracted by the economic boom surrounding the Fraser Gold Rush. Trutch's views of indigenous peoples was the polar opposite of Douglas. In a letter sent to his parents after witnessing the active genocide of the indigenous people in Oregon, he had stated the indigenous were "the ugliest and laziest creatures I ever saw, and we should as soon think of being afraid of our dogs as of them."xx3 In 1864, Trutch's first few acts as the Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works of Victoria reflected his racist attitudes. He emphatically denied the existence of the Douglas treaties, and reduced the size of reserve lands to as much as 10%.xx4 While Douglas had believed that the First Nations had a role in BC's future and worked to protect their reserve lands from encroachment, Trutch was firmly of the belief that First Nations had no valid claim to the land, and therefore there was little point in negotiating or offering compensation. He was also the author of Clause 13 of the 1871 Act of Union which brought BC into Canada. It stated in an elusive manner that the federal government would be responsible for pursuing an Indian policy "as Liberal" as the colonial policy of British Columbia. This loose phrasing allowed BC to effectively impose as racist of policies as it liked (which was often), and tied the federal government's hands from preventing the worst excesses. This was to far reaching effects for decades to come.xx6 After Douglas's retirement and demise shortly after, the early period of positive race relations in Victoria would come to a close. Victoria's First Nations, Blacks, Chinese, Japanese, Germans, and more experienced acts of racism and marginalization throughout the city's history. While Victoria opened its doors and offered opportunity to those of many backgrounds and creeds, the duality represented by Douglas and Trutch illustrate the spectrum of attitudes towards race that have created modern British Columbia.