History

A fur trader, Charles Barkley, reached the remote Coast Salish region in 1787, exploring the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and was quickly followed by others. Spanish ships under Dionisio Alcalá-Galiano and Cayetano Valdés y Flores Bazán, and the British under George Vancouver, arrived in 1792. Vancouver charted most of the region but missed the Fraser River. Simon Fraser, a North West Company fur trader, descended the Fraser River from the interior, through the difficult canyon, thereby being the first European to establish the existence of the Fraser River in 1808. Land-based fur traders were at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1811 and in the Plateau region in the same period, creating a series of forts, among them Fort Shuswap in 1812–13. The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) explored the Fraser in the 1820s, establishing Fort Langley in 1827. The Kwantlem, residents of the area, welcomed the traders and provided materials and labour. Some elite native women married men in the fort, furthering this connection. In 1843 Fort Victoria was established on Vancouver Island in Songhees territory, drawing native people from up and down the coast to trade and work for wages. The HBC began the process of establishing non-native authority in the region, a fact underscored by the appointment of the company’s chief factor, James Douglas, as the first governor of the Vancouver Island colony in 1850.

In 1846 the Treaty of Washington divided the Coast Salish country into British and American territories, placing closely related peoples under differing political systems. In Canada, villages were treated as separate bands and small, local reserves were created, unlike the American pattern of large, consolidated reservations. In the 1850s Douglas purchased the lands of a few Vancouver Island bands, but these were the only lands to which native title was extinguished. All the same, land was taken by the Crown and reserves established, leaving the unresolved issue of title to be worked out within a treaty process – still unfinished – established in 1993.

After the establishment of the international border in 1846, the pace of settlement by non-natives increased. In 1858 gold was discovered along the Fraser River, leading to the arrival of tens of thousands of gold prospectors, many departing from the California gold-fields. Organized into para-military groupings, miners killed and displaced an unknown number of Coastal and Interior Salish peoples. In addition, the miners began the process of imposing new names on the landscape. These names, including Boston Bar and American Bar, remain in use along the Fraser River. Canadian fear of American encroachment led to increased efforts to bring non-natives into Salish areas of Canada, especially along the border, and Sto:lo and other groups were quickly forced to move.

To make matters worse during this difficult period, the Salish peoples faced a series of devastating epidemics. Smallpox arrived by 1782, before the first white people themselves, killing perhaps two- thirds of the Sto:lo and other Salish people. More epidemics followed: smallpox or measles in 1824, measles in 1848, and smallpox in 1862. In addition, there may have been an 1801 smallpox outbreak. Influenza, venereal disease, and tuberculosis carried off huge numbers. Innoculation programs, initiated around missions and populated areas, reduced the death count in 1853 and in 1862. Disease disrupted seasonal economic activity, undermined native cultural practices by killing elders and curers, and may have opened Salish peoples to evangelization by Christian denominations.

The first missionary in the Coast Salish region was Modeste Demers, a Catholic, who arrived at Fort Langley in 1841. Oblates established a mission at St Mary’s on the Fraser in 1863, and Bishop Durieu established a “theocratic state” among the Sechelt in the 1860s and 1870s, relying on a hierarchical system of authority. Methodists established schools at Hope in 1859 and near Chilliwack in 1886.