Claiming the land : Indians, goldseekers, and the rush to British Columbia ...

• Main Author: Marshall, Daniel Patrick
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2009
• Subjects: First Nations
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0089642; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0089642

During the Fraser River gold rush of 1858, over 30,000 goldseekers invaded the Aboriginal lands of southern British Columbia, setting off Native-White conflicts similar to the Indian Wars of the American Pacific Northwest. Prior to the establishment of the Colony of British Columbia, 19 November 1858, British sovereignty was marginal and the Fraser gold fields clearly an extension of the American West. The Native world was not defined by the 49th parallel, nor the kind of violence that crossed the international border with the expansion of the California mining frontier. These goldseekers, in prosecuting military-like campaigns, engaged in significant battles with First Nations, broke the back of full-scale Native resistance in both southern British Columbia and eastern Washington State, and brokered Treaties of Peace on foreign soil. The very roots of Native sovereignty, rights and unrest, current in the province today, may be traced to the 1858 gold rush. This dissertation maintains that British Columbia's ...