b. 1816-07-25
d. 1882-01-03
Alexander Grant Dallas was born
25 July 1816 in Berbice,
British Guiana. After his birth, his family then returned to Scotland during Dallas’s childhood.
As an adult, Dallas flourished within the financial circles of Liverpool and
London. He had a successful career with Jardine, Matheson and Company and worked for their
offices in China. An illness forced Dallas to return to Britain, where he joined the
Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) in
1856. The HBC feared for the stability of their subsidiary, Puget Sound Agricultural Company,
and sent Dallas to
Victoria in
1857 to investigate. After the
Fraser River gold rush began, Dallas extended his trip due to worries over HBC interests on
Vancouver Island.
1Dallas quickly clashed with
James Douglas, who juggled loyalties between the colonies and the HBC. Dallas primarily concerned
himself with company interests and their animosity towards one another became well-known.
In
1859, after
Douglas became governor of
British Columbia, the HBC instructed
Douglas to transfer authority of the Western Department to Dallas. Despite their ill-will
towards one another, Dallas married
Douglas’s daughter Jane shortly after arriving in
Victoria.
2Dallas became known for his
sharp practice[s]
and was often involved in land disputes between the Crown and the HBC.
3 In
1859, Dallas argued for company claim over extensive land in
British Columbia, which sparked a two year negotiation. In
1861, Dallas attempted to sell the last waterfront land in the
Victoria’s business area, despite
Douglas’s desire to build government offices in that space. Dallas also sold a plot of land
to
Leopold Lowenberg in
1861. Questions around the legitimacy of this sale resulted in fours years of debate.
After representing HBC interests at negotiations in
London, Dallas returned to Canada in
1862, freshly promoted to governor-in-chief of
Rupert’s Land. In
1864, Dallas retired to Scotland. He served the HBC as an adviser until
1866.
4 His final acts in the Crown-company land dispute issue came in
1864, when a surveyor general of the colony took the HBC to court over land claims, and
in
1865, when Dallas defended himself and
Mr. Finlayson from accusations of a public park infringement in
1862.
In later years, Dallas co-founded the
London Committee for Watching the Affairs of
British Columbia with
Donald Fraser and Gilbert Malcolm Sproat. The group unsuccessfully tried to prevent the absorption
of
Vancouver Island into
British Columbia.
5 Dallas also published
San Juan, Alaska, and the North-West Boundary in
1873, where he tried to defend the surrender of
San Juan to the United States after the
San Juan Island Dispute. In
1859, amid arguments between British settlers and Americans over ownership of the island,
an American settler shot a HBC pig. During this so-called “Pig War”, officials in
Victoria apparently threatened to jail the American (Dallas denied these allegations), which
prompted American military forces to land on the island.
6 In his book, Dallas felt he needed to provide his version of events.
7 Nine years later, in
1882, Dallas died in
London.
8
- 1. W. Kayle Lamb, Dallas, Alexander Grant, Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.
- 2. Ibid.
- 3. Douglas to Newcastle, 24 October 1861, 10953, CO 305/17, p. 479.
- 4. W. Kayle Lamb, Dallas, Alexander Grant, Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.
- 5. Ibid.
- 6. Gordon Lyall, The Pig and the Postwar Dream: The San Juan Island Dispute, 1853-1872, in History
and Memory, University of Victoria, 28-29.
- 7. A. G. Dallas, San Juan, Alaska, and the North-West Boundary, (London: Henry S. King and Co., 1873), 3.
- 8. W. Kayle Lamb, Dallas, Alexander Grant, Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.