Building BC: Gold, Blood, Sweat &

Tears

James Cook – to HBC Fur Trade

• James Cook in 1778 visited the coast.

• Cook's men had traded for sea otter pelts and exchanged them in China.

• The first British trader to arrive was Capt James Hanna in 1785

• Led to HBC establishing itselfin Victoria

BC: Pre Gold Rush• Co-managed

by US & Britain

• Oregon Territory

• Led to Oregon Boundary Dispute

FORT VICTORIA 1843• Est. to assert British claims to Vancouver Island & Northern Oregon Territory

• HBC created Fort Vic Fur trade

• American expansionists asserted or claimed all Oregon Territory (including BC!!)

• `Fifty-Forty or Fight`

FORT VICTORIA

The Douglas Treaties:On the Colony of Vancouver Island

• Between 1850 and 1854, James Douglas, made fourteen land purchases from aboriginal peoples.

• The Douglas Treaties cover approximately 358 square miles of land around Victoria, Saanich, Sooke, Nanaimo and Port Hardy, all on Vancouver Island.

• Treaty negotiations by Douglas did not continue beyond 1854 due, in part, to a lack of funds and the slow progress of settlement and industry in the 1850s.

Douglas Treaties Cont..• Douglas' policies toward aboriginal peoples and land were

generally consistent with British principles. Those of his political successors, however, proved to be not as consistent.

• An area of land was surrendered "entirely and forever" in exchange for cash, clothing, or blankets.

• The signatories and theirdescendants retained existing village sites and fields for their continued use, the "liberty to hunt over unoccupied lands" & the right to "carry on their fisheries as formerly."

GOLD @ FRASER CANYON!!• In 1858, gold was found on the banks of the Thompson River

triggering the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush.

• Victoria was transformed overnight into a tent city as prospectors, speculators, land agents, and outfitters flooded in from San Francisco & around the world

• Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Langley, boomed economically as the staging point for many of the prospectors heading by boat to the Canyon.

• The steamer Commodore docked at Victoria with 450 men, 60 of whom where British and the remainder Americans, Germans, Italians, Chinese and a variety of other nationalities.

• Doctor J.S. Helmcken recalls the events of April 25th, 1858:One sunday morning we were astonished to find a steamer entering the Harbour from San Francisco....(the miners)...built tents of grey cotton: hundreds of these tents dotted the land from Government Street almost as far as Spring Ridge.... The town thus grew and grew...Everyone wanted to get to Frazer's River." (BC Archives Add Mss 505 Helmcken Papers)

VICTORIA INVADED!!!

Annexation Threat? Seize that Colony!• James Douglas, fearing American challenges to the region & 20,000 Americans, stationed a gunboat at the mouth of the Fraser

• The British colonial office responded by establishing the mainland as a crown colony on August 2, 1858, naming it the Colony of British Columbia

• Fort Langley, was its provisional capital.

• New Westminster was chosen as its first official capital, for reasons of military security.

GOLD….AGAIN @ CARIBOO!!• A second gold rush

- Cariboo region - 1861-64

• Cariboo Wagon Road linked Lower Mainland to the gold fields of Barkerville

Billy Barker & Barkerville

CARIBOO GOLD RUSH GAME

• Lets Play!• Flash Story of Gold Rush

BC: A Wealth of Natural Resources

Victoria Continues to Grow

-FIRST NATION, CHINESE & OF COURSE BRITISH INFLUENCE

Moments of significance:

• BC Parliament Buildings began operation officially during 1898

• In 1907 -Uplands purchased & designed by leading landscape architect john Olmsted

• Ms. MacMaster comes to Canada • Mr. B Comes to Canada - 1990

People & Places of Early BC & Victoria

1. Amor De Cosmos2. James Douglas3. Richard Blanshard4. James Cook5. Emily Carr6. Empress Hotel7. James Dunsmuir

8. John Robson9. Lord Strathcona10. Songhees First Nations11. Amor De Cosmos12. Mathew Begbie13. Joseph Trutch14. Anthony Musgrave15. Frederick Seymour