d. 1862
Banfield came to
Victoria in
1849 and traded with Nuu-chah-nulth nations on the west coast of
Vancouver Island from
1854 to
1858, becoming familiar with the
daily activities
and languages of these Indigenous communities. Publishing his ethnographic writings in the
Daily Victoria Gazette, academics and politicians at that time regarded Banfield
a foremost authority on the cultures and territories of the [Indigenous] people.
For those reason, Sir James Douglas selected Banfield as
the idea candidate for Indian Agent for the southwest coast of Vancouver Island
in
1859, shortly after the “
Swiss Boy affair”—in which the merchant brig was “plundered” by the Huu-ay-aht and Tseshaht
peoples in
Barkley Sound—had damaged relations between the British and the Huu-ay-aht.
Banfield was tasked with securing an
agreement for land use
in
Barkley Sound, where colonial investors wanted to
build and operate a forestry mill
and settle on the
productive land.
In
1859, Chiefs Tliishin and Howeesem “assented” to Banfield's land purchase agreement by
affixing strips of sacred cedar bark
to the document; however, considering the conventions of Huu-ay-aht law,
Tliishin likely considered Banfield's payments as rent or homage rather than purchase.
As one scholar argues, Banfield effectively
prepared the ground for and managed the arrival of colonists
in
Barkley Sound, using violence, and threats thereof, when “necessary.”
The cause of Banfield's death, in October 1862, remains uncertain. His body was found in the water near his home in Grapper Inlet,
sparking accusations of foul play
involving Chief Tliishin. After threatening violence against the Huu-ay-aht community, the British arrested
three men who were supposedly involved in the death of Banfield, but who were all
acquitted before a judge on account of weak evidence.
Today, Bamfield, a community in
Barkley Sound, takes the name (albeit misspelled) of the colonial Indian Agent. In response to
a land agreement made in
2016, to purchase land and property near Bamfield, the Huu-ay-aht elected Chief Councillor
Robert Dennis Sr. recalled Banfield's land purchase in
1859, saying:
It's good to be getting the land back, but we had to pay a lot more for it than the
blankets and beads in those days.
- 1. Stella Wenstob, The Profusion of Potatoes in Pre-Colonial British Columbia, PlatForm 12 (2011): 149.
- 2. David A. Rossiter,Lessons in possession: colonial resource geographies in practice on Vancouver Island,
1859–1865, Journal of Historical Geography 33 (2007): 778.
- 3. Kathryn Bridge and Kevin Neary, Voices of the Elders: Huu-ay-aht Histories and Legends (Victoria; Vancouver; Calgary: Heritage House, 2013), 106-107.
- 4. Bridge and Neary, Voices of the Elders, 106.
- 5. Ibid., 107-109.
- 6. Rossiter,Lessons in possession, 779-780.
- 7. Bridge and Neary, Voices of the Elders, 109.
- 8. Ibid.
- 9. Robert Dennis Sr. in Cindy E. Harnette, Huu-ay-aht land deal gives new life to Bamfield, Times Colonist, 22 January, 2016.