The Despatches of British Columbia
by Dr. James E. Hendrickson
Introduction to the Documents
The exchange of despatches (to employ the orthography of the nineteenth century)
between the governor and the home government in London constitute a most important
source of primary information about the colonization of British Columbia. Governors,
by
the terms of their instructions, were required to report fully on everything of
importance that was happening in their colony. Virtually all of this material was
written by hand, and some of it is extremely difficult to decipher.
Upon arrival in London, the despatches were processed by a small but efficient
bureaucracy within the Colonial Office, whose job it was to advise—by way of written
minutes—the Secretary of State for the Colonies, the minister responsible. To this
end
they were obliged to monitor events within the colony, share relevant information
with
other government departments, obtain advice or approval from them as necessary, and
finally draft replies for the minister’s signature.
Despatches to and from London were numbered sequentially (except for certain
communications labeled Private, Confidential, etc.) each calendar year and might run
to
three digits in a twelve month period. Whenever there was a change of author or
recipient, the numbering reverted to “1.” Copies marked “Duplicate” were forwarded
by
the next mail in case a ship was lost at sea.
Referring to despatches by number served two functions. It enabled both the governor
and the Colonial Office to ascertain what information was in the other's possession
at
the time of writing, and it immediately alerted the recipient that a despatch might
have
gone missing.
The Colonial Office assigned class list CO 60 to the records relating to British
Columbia. After a sufficient number of files were accumulated, in a few months, the
files were bound into volumes, which were then numbered sequentially and placed on
a
shelf for ready reference. The original records are housed in the British National
Archives at Kew. They have long been available on microfilm (35 reels), except for
a few
oversized items and comments that were written too close to the inner margin to be
legible on microfilm. Because of their organization and difficulties in deciphering
some
of the handwriting, it is safe to assume that no single individual has ever read them
in
their entirety.
The despatches from British Columbia (CO 60) run to hundreds of pages of digitized
copy. They are filed under three heads, as follows:
-
Despatches to London. Technically referred to
as despatches, these are the governor’s formal communications to London.
-
Public Offices. These contain letters (as
distinct from numbered despatches) between the Colonial Office and other departments
or agencies. They were filed alphabetically by department, and then by date.
-
Correspondence. This contains letters from
private individuals to the Colonial Office related to British Columbia. They are filed
alphabetically by author and then by date.
The files also contain drafts of replies or instructions to the governor, and the
Colonial Office also kept letter-book copies (CO 398) for their own reference. The
originals, of course, were sent to British Columbia. When British Columbia joined
Canada
in 1871, the original despatches were transferred to Ottawa, except for those labelled
“Confidential,” which were returned to the Colonial Office. The despatches labelled
“Duplicate” remain in the British Columbia Archives. The copies digitized for this
site
are those held by the Library and Archives Canada.
Because there was no effective British jurisdiction on the mainland at the time of
the
gold rush to the Fraser River in the spring of 1858, Governor James Douglas of Vancouver
Island took it upon himself to protect British interests there. Consequently, the
first
despatches relating to the gold rush exist as part of the despatches from Vancouver
Island, (CO 305).
It took about three months for mail to be conveyed between Victoria and London at
the
beginning of 1858 (and perhaps two months by its end) so the Colonial Office did not
establish a separate file for British Columbia until mid-June, by which time the
decision had been made to establish a separate colony on the mainland. Thus records
relating to British Columbia before it was formally established were filed elsewhere
than CO 60, notably in CO 6, North America, General, and certain other files. In the
interest of historical integrity, these additional documents are also included in
the
records of British Columbia and scheduled accordingly.
Although Douglas received the first despatch marked "British Columbia" in August 1858,
he did not himself begin identifying, numbering, and filing his despatches for British
Columbia until October 12, after he had accepted appointment as governor. And only
on
November 19 was the government formally established at Fort Langley.
This site is a project still under construction. While transcripts exist for some
of
the more important enclosures, many other enclosures remain to be transcribed. Draft
replies have not been transcribed (unless certain issues provoked extensive revisions)
nor are transcripts provided for certain extraneous material, such as routine
solicitations for patronage appointments, unless such applicants are known to have
ended
up in Vancouver Island or British Columbia. However every document appearing in a
file,
including those not transcribed, are listed in the file, along with a brief
description.
The Colonial Office in 1858
Looking back over nearly three centuries of colonial history, the British imperial
historian and essayist Sir John Robert Seeley concluded, “We seem, as it were, to
have
conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind.” The characterization was apt, for the British Empire,
like Topsy, was never planned but “just grew.”
Although it has long been popular, as it was in the nineteenth century, to ascribe
responsibility to Colonial Office officials for running the British Empire, it is
probably more accurate to say, as Helen Taft Manning has argued, that nobody “ran”
the
Empire. Rather, both
politicians and the Colonial Office tended to be reactive instead of proactive to
events
in its many dependencies. Nevertheless, as decisions were made, those ultimately
responsible depended to an extraordinary degree on the advice from a handful of senior
officials whose business it was to monitor events in colonies throughout the world.
From the planting of the first colony of Virginia in 1607, British expansion took
place
in the absence of any preconceived policy but instead occurred primarily in response
to
particular opportunities or events, either economic or political in nature. Such were
the considerations that had led Parliament to grant the venerable Hudson’s Bay Company
the proprietorship of Vancouver Island in 1849, and such led to the establishment
of the
colony of British Columbia on the adjoining mainland in 1858.
Following the American Revolution, responsibility for colonies had been transferred
from the Board of Trade to the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The
acquisition of many new dependencies following the Napoleonic wars, and relative peace
thereafter, greatly increased the colonial work even as that of the military declined.
Then, with the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, a fourth secretary was created
to
take over the War Office, leaving the “Colonial Department,” as it had come to be
called, under its own secretary of state for the first time.
That the administration of colonial affairs was rarely high on Parliament’s agenda
is
amply illustrated by the response of a new secretary of state on being welcomed to
the
office by his permanent under-secretary. As the secretary, unnamed, is alleged to
have
said, “And now Mr. Merivale, tell me, where are the Colonies?”.
The Colonial Office was the first government department in which the work was so
voluminous and complex that secretaries of state realized they required specialized
assistance. Although it took time to evolve, the solution was to grant some of the
permanent staff additional responsibilities.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, both the staffing arrangements and the
administrative routine had become highly regularized, primarily through the efforts
of
Sir James Stephen, who became permanent under-secretary in 1836. Assailed during his
lifetime as “Mr. Over-Secretary,” or even more familiarly as “Mr. Mother-Country,”
Stephen was an exceptional civil servant, a workaholic who made himself indispensable
by
meticulous attention to detail and an accumulation of knowledge of the far flung empire
that any minister would ignore at his peril. Stephen’s great legacy was to institute
an
efficient and methodical system for handling the office records, a practice that
remained virtually unchanged for almost forty years.
To rationalize the system, Stephen urged as a rule that advice should be rendered
in
writing rather than orally, that the handling of paperwork should be regularized,
and
that drafts of all outgoing communications should be retained. To this end, he
introduced a rubber stamp to be applied to incoming documents, bearing the names of
senior officials for them to initial, so one could see at a glance through whose hands
the document had passed and when.
A further legacy of the Stephen era was the codification in 1837 of the “Rules and
Regulations for Her Majesty’s Colonial Service,” which spelled out in minute detail
how
governors were to conduct colonial business. The “Rules and Regulations” quickly became
an essential manual for governors, supplementing their formal Commissions and
Instructions. Its injunctions ranged widely, covering everything from the method for
citizens to petition London (only through the governor), how legislation was to be
reported (with appropriate marginalia), to the size of stationery required for
despatches (government issue only).
In 1858, the number of the “fixed establishments” (i.e. permanent positions) of the
Colonial Office had reached thirty-nine, and they were divided into two classes
according to whether their duties were considered “intellectual” or “mechanical.”
The
former were those who could be called upon to render advice to the secretary of state,
namely the permanent under-secretary, assistant under-secretary, chief clerk, and
four
senior clerks who headed the four geographic departments within the office: Eastern,
North American, West Indian, and Mediterranean and African. To this handful of men
was
added the parliamentary under-secretary, who served as the political point man for
the
government, and a précis writer, who served as a troubleshooter for particularly
vexatious and complex issues.
The method of processing correspondence was described in some detail by a Parliamentary
Committee in 1854:
When the letters of the day have been registered, they are delivered to the Senior
Clerk of the Departments to which they respectively belong, who minutes them with
those prominent points which his experience and constant reference to the general
correspondence suggest, and proposes, in ordinary cases, the form of the answer, or
the practical course of dealing with the subject; and when the correspondence,
having been prolonged or complicated, requires an examination or analysis, he
forwards with the papers such a statement of facts, prepared either by himself, or
under his supervision, as may assist the practical consideration of the question.
The papers are then sent either to the Assistant Under Secretary, or to the
permanent Under Secretary, according to the nature of the subject, each of whom
passes them to the parliamentary Under Secretary with his observations upon them,
and from them they reach the Secretary of State, who records his decision upon them,
after he has considered all that has been submitted to him, and called for such
further information as he may require. After that, the papers are returned through
the same channel to the Senior Clerk, and then it becomes his duty to examine
carefully the minutes and drafts, in order to see whether any point in the
instructions is at variance with facts, regulations or precedents not known to the
Secretary of State or Under Secretaries; and to execute all the final instructions
he may receive, by preparing the drafts, or causing them to be prepared by his
assistants, and superintending the copying and despatch of the letters to be written
from them. The usual practice is for the senior to pass on to his assistants those
papers which require ordinary drafts, or drafts closely following the minutes,
reserving to himself such as involve any question of doubt, or on which no very
precise instructions have been given. Drafts are also frequently prepared by the
permanent Under Secretary and Assistant Under Secretary, in cases which they
consider to require it. All drafts finally receive the sanction of the permanent
Under Secretary and of the Secretary of State.
The secretary of state was formally responsible for all decisions of his department,
and his signature was required on all formal communications. Although often referred
to
as the colonial secretary, that title is misleading and should be avoided because
technically the colonial secretary was the official in a colony who served as the
secretary to the governor.
As a practical matter, the secretary’s tenure reflected the political fortunes of
party
politics, which were especially volatile in the years following the repeal of the
Corn
Laws in 1846. By contrast, each of the clerks in charge of the four geographic
departments had served for more than thirty years. Moreover, the complexity of issues
arising from some fifty disparate colonies was so great that the secretary was compelled
to depend upon his senior staff for advice. On ocassion, if a secretary was comfortable
having a staffer handle issues on his behalf, a document might be marked “Immediate,”
which signified that an action was being taken by staff without reference to the
secretary.
The year that British Columbia was founded, no fewer than three men served as
secretary. Henry Labouchere, who had served since 1855 as a part of Lord Derby’s first
administration, was followed in February by the able Lord Stanley, who served in Lord
Palmerston’s administration. Stanley, in turn, was succeeded in July by Sir Edward
Bulwer-Lytton, who received the appointment for Lord Derby’s second administration.
Thus
it fell primarily to Lytton to preside over the establishment of a separate colony
on
the North American mainland.
Undistinguished as a statesman, Lytton was a popular author of florid prose, whose
literary proclivities tended toward the theatrical and melodramatic. He is perhaps
best
remembered today for a popular fiction contest bearing his name (sometimes referred
to
as the “Dark and Stormy Night Contest” from the opening line of his novel Paul Clifford) for the worst opening sentence for an imaginary
novel. Lytton’s career as a statesman has been similarly deprecated. “It was not that
secretaries of state were generally incompetent,” observed historian John W. Cell,
“Only
Sir Edward Lytton really deserves that description.”
The Colonial Office at this time was blessed with a staff of considerable seniority
and
ability. Appointed assistant under-secretary in 1847, Herman Merivale succeeded Stephen
as permanent under-secretary the following year. A devotee of free trade, he was
appointed by Earl Grey on the recommendation of Stephen. A precocious child who began
reading Latin at age four, he was educated at Harrow and Oxford, where he earned a
first
in classics, before taking up law for a time and then serving as Dummond Professor
of
Political Economy at Oxford. A frequent contributor to literary and historical journals,
he achieved a considerable reputation as a commentator on imperial affairs with the
publication of his Lectures on Colonization and the Colonies in
1841.
T.F. Elliot, assistant under-secretary, had been first appointed to the Colonial Office
in 1825, at the age of seventeen, based largely family connections. Two years later
he
was promoted to précis writer, then clerk to the Emigration Commission, and in 1833
to
senior clerk of the North American department. His ability was noticed most dramatically
when, as secretary to a commission of inquiry in Canada, 1835-37, he wrote a letter
that
provided the imperial cabinet with the best description of politics in Lower Canada
they
had ever received. Then when the government decided to replace an unpaid committee
of
philanthropic gentlemen overseeing land and emigration policy in Australia (where
land
revenues were used to assist emigration) with a paid agent general, he accepted that
appointment. These duties expanded in 1840, when the Colonial Land and Emigration
Commission was established and given responsibility for the entire empire. Elliot
returned to the Colonial Office in 1847 as assistant under-secretary.
As senior clerk in charge of the North American department, Arthur Blackwood was the
man who monitored affairs in British North America the most closely. The son of an
admiral, he was appointed junior clerk in the Colonial Office in 1824 and promoted
to
assistant clerk five years later. In 1840 he became senior clerk of the North American
Department and, as such,
was
normally the first person to read incoming despatches from British Columbia, and decided
how they should best be handled.
Henry Howard Molyneux, the fourth Earl of Carnarvon, became parliamentary
under-secretary in April 1858. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he was a relative newcomer
to politics and took his seat in the House of Lords in 1854 as a supporter of the
Aberdeen ministry. An able administrator, he took a genuine interest in colonial affairs
and became a strong advocate for allowing colonies to become self-reliant and
self-governing.
Below these men were the registrar, librarian, private secretaries, and junior and
assistant clerks, mostly faceless people who did the tedious and unrewarding manual
work
of copying, filing, and running office errands. Clerkships were part of the patronage
system, and were usually filled by well-connected young gentlemen just out of school.
After a year of perfunctory probation, they enjoyed a virtual sinecure for life,
regardless of their ability, but their prospects for advancement were dismal. Instead,
they might spend ten or fifteen years in mind-numbing chores that anyone could do.
The senior staff generally worked long hours, doing much of their work at home with
little assistance from the junior clerks. For the latter, the routine of office life
proceeded at a leisurely Victorian pace, in an atmosphere more appropriate to a social
club than a working office. Working hours were normally 11:00 to 5:00, Monday to Friday,
with breaks in between for lunch and afternoon tea. This routine was interrupted
somewhat during the sitting of parliament, and always by the arrival of the mails,
which
invariably occasioned a flurry of activity, often until late at night.
The quarters the Colonial Office occupied were in appalling shape, two ancient houses
at 13 and 14 Downing Street that dated back to the seventeenth century. As business
had
increased, the building at 14 had been annexed in 1827 and joined at the hip with
its
neighbour by cutting passageways between them on what the British refer to as the
first
and second floors. The ground floors remained with separate entrances. The buildings
had
long outlived their usefulness and had in fact been condemned in 1837 as unsafe and
unworthy of repair.
Every year the Office of Works sent routine requests to the various departments for
any
unusual needs or repairs they might require for the coming year. In 1858, the dispirited
staff pondered whether or not it was even worth replying.
I suppose that it will be most convenient if we return the normal accommodating
answer that nothing particular is required; but if we were to inform the First
Commissioner of the real state of the h[ou]se I imagine that we s[houl]d say that
we
needed almost everything. We really are in a destitute and deplorable condition.
We have no maps that are fit to be consulted, none of the mechanical apparatus for
carrying on the gov[ernmen]t of fifty Colonies in various stages of civilization and
in different parts of the world.
We have no furniture—carpets, chairs, tables are all decrepit.
We have no room I believe for the storing of papers and official records.
And lastly the ceilings, passages, and even the walls appear to be in the last
stage of existence. Occasionally a sudden sound and vibration is heard and on
enquiry it turns out that some internal dislocation of beams or masonry has taken
place and that the office is threatened with entire demolition.
This is however perfectly well known and I suppose that nothing will be done untill
some great downfall has occurred. At present the only remedy wh[ich] I can perceive
has been an application of ladders against the wall & on the roof, but the
advantage is not very obvious.
The matter is really a serious one, but I suppose that there is nothing to be done
or said about it?
Lytton, then new to the office, was inclined to reply “in a voice of thunder” but
decided instead to request that the building be inspected by a “competent architect”
and
pointing out “that a room or rooms have, for a long time past, been urgently wanted
for
the deposit of papers and records," and expressing regret that additional shelves
and
bookcases at least could not be immediately provided.
To rub salt into wounds, Works requested a description of the shelving needed,
protesting they “had never had their attention called to this before,” causing an
exasperated chief clerk to declare that he had notified them in writing on March 29
last
that they were “in urgent want of additional Book Cases and Shelves for the preservation
of numbers of Books and of Papers which are lying on the Floors.” And he had appealed
to
them again on August 6, all without even receiving a reply. In the end, the office received some additional shelving, but
not until 1876 was a new building constructed and the staff were finally able to move
into new quarters.
Mail Service
Although mail service between Victoria and London in 1858 was still measured in months,
it had in fact improved by quantum leaps during the preceding decade. When Richard
Blanshard had resigned as governor of Vancouver Island in November 1850, for example,
it
took almost nine months before he received notification that his resignation had been
accepted and he was authorized to quit the Island. By 1858 the turn-around time had
been
reduced almost by half, thanks to improvements in transportation, not the least of
which
was the application of steam power to ocean transport.
Before the colonization of Vancouver Island, the only mail service available to fur
traders west of the Rockies had been provided by their annual supply vessels, six
months
around Cape Horn, or via their canoe brigades to and from Montreal. The only other
possibility was the unlikely visit by a ship of the Royal Navy being sent into the
North
Pacific.
The practice of the British Post Office conveying packets of mail by sea dates back
to
the reign of Charles I, when private ship owners were contracted to deliver the “King's
Post” to the continent and elsewhere. Following the Napoleonic wars, the Royal Navy
became responsible for this practice, but service was sporadic, subject always to
the
vagaries of weather and the Admiralty’s priorities throughout the empire. major reason
the Admiralty was interested in subsidizing mail service was its long tradition of
co-opting merchant vessels to augment the fleet during times of war.
The advent of steam propulsion offered considerable advantages over sail, both terms
of
speed and regularity. In 1840 Samuel Cunard, a shipping magnate from Halifax, Nova
Scotia, won the first contract from the Admiralty to iregularly scheduled service
between Britain and North America, conveying the mail by steamship between Liverpool
and
Halifax.
About the same time, a former a manager of a sugar plantation in the West Indies
persuaded the Admiralty to allow a private company to construct a fleet of ships
especially designed for mail service. The ensuing contact called for the formation
of
the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company (chartered in 1839) and a fleet of seventeen vessels
(fourteen of them steamships) to transport mail from Britain to Barbados and other
West
Indies ports twice a month, leaving at the beginning and mid-point of each month,
with
extension stops at New York and Halifax. The inaugural service began in 1842 (the
year
Britain issued the first postage stamps) with sailings from Falmouth and Southampton
to
Barbados, with extension stops in New York and Halifax.
Four years later agreement was reached with the Admiralty to extend the line to the
isthmus to Panama, and from there by canoe and mule train via the Chagres River to
steamers of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company for conveyance of mail as far south
as
Valparaiso. This service was first put into effect in 1846, the year the United States
declared war on Mexico.
These British initiatives, in turn, prompted the US Congress to pass a naval
construction bill in 1848, authorizing the US Navy to subsidize companies to build
steamships built to naval specifications so they could be converted to wartime service.
Supporters argued that such vessels would also expand opportunities for training naval
officers in the use of steam at a time when the Navy itself was still in the process
of
converting from sail. During consideration of the bill, a provision was added to
subsidize such steamers to carry mail.
The US established uniform postal rates and issued its first stamps in 1845. Following
the acquisition of Oregon in 1846, Congress sought to establish communication with
Oregon and pressured the postmaster general to offer subsidies for conveying mail
by
steamer to ports in the Columbia and Puget Sound communities. This proved to be a
significant challenge, given the relative lack of population and port facilities—to
say
nothing of the complete absence of coal in the North Pacific.
A year later the US Navy awarded a ten-year contact to the United States Mail Steamship
Company to convey mail between New York and Liverpool, in direct competition with
the
Cunard Line, and another contract for it to provide fortnightly service between New
York
and New Orleans, with a branch line to Chagres on the Isthmus of Panama. The company
was
chartered in March 1848, and its first steamer departed New York for Chagres on December
1. At a stop in New Orleans, the passengers learned for the first time that gold had
been discovered in California.
The contract to supply service from Panama to Oregon was secured by William Henry
Aspinwall, a New Yorker with extensive shipping interests, in November 1847. If his
prospects for returns beyond government subsidies meagre, his timing could not have
been
better. On January 24, 1848, gold was discovered in California, although the news
would
take months to reach the US; on February 2, by the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, Mexico
ceded more than half of its territory to the United States, including all of Alta
(upper) California; and on April 12 Aspinwall received a charter for the Pacific Mail
Steamship Company.
In keeping with his contract, Aspinwall built three steamships, the
California,
Oregon, and
Panama, and sent them
around the Horn to inaugurate the service. The
California left New York on October 6, 1848 and arrived at San Francisco Bay
on February 28, 1849. Within a week the entire crew, save for the captain and one
engine
boy, had deserted for the gold fields.
So great was the demand for passage between Panama and San Francisco that within three
years the Pacific Mail added fifteen more vessels to their fleet. Although the original
contract called for monthly service, the company voluntarily inaugurated bi-monthly
service to San Francisco in July 1850. This practice was regularized by executive
order
in December, calling for mails to be dispatched on the 1st and 15th of each month.
Thereafter these days became known locally in San Francisco as “steamer days.”
For those who could afford it, steamer service immediately made Panama the easiest
and
quickest route to California, as well as the major means of exporting bullion. The
fifty-mile crossing from Chagres to Panama City on the Pacific was initially carried
out
using mules and canoes. Aspinwall formed a syndicate with John L. Stephens and Henry
Chauncey and in May 1850 began construction of a railway from the Atlantic terminus
of
Colon to Panama City. In 1852 Colon was re-named Aspinwall and the Panama Rail Road
began carrying the mail on a per pound basis. After major construction challenges
and
delays, and the rail line was finally completed in January 1855.
Meanwhile, the Panama-San Francisco run proved so lucrative that it quickly attracted
competitors, the most prominent of whom was another New Yorker, Cornelius Vanderbuilt,
who offered a shorter route via the San Juan River and across Lake Nicaragua to within
a
dozen miles of the Pacific, promising to cut some 600 miles and 2 days off the Panama
route. After purchasing a charter from the Nicaraguan government and test-running
a
small steamboat up the San Juan River, he placed a steamboat on Lake Nicaragua, built
a
carriage road from the west shore of the lake, some twelve miles to a terminus he
named
San Juan del Sur (i.e., San Juan of the Pacific). The sudden prominence of California
quickly took precedence over mail service to Oregon. In 1849 the company obtained
permission to send the mail north by schooner, but the following year it was required
to
provide monthly steamer service to Fort Nisqually on Puget Sound. This arrangement
was
suspended after a few months in favour of Portland. Mail for Puget Sound ports was
then
conveyed by canoe up the Cowlitz River and from there by stage to Olympia, where the
US
government established a customs office in 1851.
Two years later, when Washington Territory was formally separated from Oregon
Territory, Olympia designated the capital. From there the mails were transported to
other ports along the Sound by canoe until steamship service began in 1853. In April
1855 Congress finally authorized semi-monthly service from San Francisco to the head
of
Puget Sound, with the stipulation that the mail must be conveyed at least as far as
Port
Townsend.
As these events were unfolding, Victoria quickly became dependent on the American
postal service, using the Hudson's Bay Company's
Otter or messengers traveling by Indian canoes to connect with the American
authorities. By February 1854, James Douglas felt compelled to advise the Colonial
Office, “The transmission of intelligence by the Panama Mail route is so much more
expeditious and certain that I trust your Grace will excuse me for recommending that
mode of conveyance in preference to any other for the communication of Her Majestys
Government.”
At this time British postal regulations still required that mail for the North Pacific
be dispatched only via West India Mail Packets. By 1856, the Postmaster General bowed
to
the fact that the American mails were proving to be more expeditious and directed
that
henceforth “all Letters and Newspapers for California, Oregon and the Sandwich Islands
to be forwarded, in future, as a rule, via the United States, and only those Letters
&c to be sent by the West India Packets, which bear a special direction that they
are to be so forwarded.”
The Fraser gold rush in the spring of 1858 drew steamships and mail service directly
to
Victoria for the first time. In London, the Colonial Office raised with Treasury the
possibility of improving postal service to British Columbia, and Treasury responded
by
suggesting the present service to Halifax and Nassau be extended to Colon, and that
the
Pacific Mail be requested to adjust their departure times to suit the Royal Mail
packets, or else a line of British postal steamers be established from Panama to
Victoria.
Asked for his views, Douglas replied expressing general satisfaction with the present
service, responding that people were “not being aware probably that the mails are
already conveyed to Pugets Sound and this place by the United States Mail Steamers.”
He
went on to summarize the current state of affairs and suggest areas where they might
be
improved:
4. By existing arrangements we receive
our mails once a fortnight and have not much reason to complain. From England to
Colon two routes are open, vizt New York, and by the Royal Mail line. The former is
the more certain of the two for letters, and the one generally adopted by business
men, as it connects with the line between Panama and San Francisco. The last named
could hardly alter their periods of departure without confusion on the Atlantic
side.
If Her Majesty's Government carry out their views and
establish a line from Nassau, we should thus have three lines arriving at Colon. As
there will probably, be a weekly line soon from Panama northwards, there would
appear to be little gain by interfering with present arrangements between San
Francisco and New York, Canada and England.
5. A detention of sometimes a week
occurs at San Francisco, not necessarily but from want of arrangement on the part
of
the American Authorities. The Steamer conveying the mail northward frequently calls
at the Columbia River, where she is liable to detention, and also frequently does
not deliver our Mail till her return voyage from Olympia at the head of Puget's
Sound, occasioning a loss of two days, and giving us no time to reply to letters
received by the same mail.
6. The only detention and irregularity
therefore which we would wish to see remedied lie between San Francisco and this
place, and this could easily be effected by an arrangement with the Pacific Mail
Company, or perhaps by the preferable mode of inviting tenders for the service.
7. It would be advisable to stipulate,
in any such arrangement that the Steamer leave San Francisco for Victoria direct
within 12 hours after departure of the Atlantic Mail at San Francisco, and leave
Victoria on her return trip to San Francisco, in time to overtake the next
succeeding mail. The voyage either way ought to be performed in about four days,
thus allowing six days to reply to letters from Europe.
8. When the resources of the Colony
are more fully developed, a line of British Postal Steamers from Panama to Victoria
would be the most satisfactory and advantageous to British interests in this part
of
the world...
Oregon Boundary Settlement
The discovery of gold on British territory north of the forty-ninth parallel lent
urgency to marking the precise boundary between British and United States territory
west
of the Rocky Mountains.
For more than a century, no fewer than four European nations, Russia, Spain, Britain,
and the United States, had sought to lay claims to the continental lands facing the
North Pacific. Although the Russians were the first to sight the northwest coast,
the
Spaniards were the first actually to land and execute formal rites of taking possession.
Spain’s reach was exceeded by its effective grasp, and it was soon check-mated by
the
British at Nootka Sound in 1790. Meanwhile, both the British and American adventurers
and fur traders penetrated the area and mounted overland expeditions to the Pacific.
And
between 1818 and 1825 a flurry of diplomatic activity addressed the welter of
conflicting claims to the area, which included James Monroe, the American president,
throwing down the gauntlet and issuing the Monroe Doctrine, warning European powers
against further attempts at colonization in North America.
In 1818, in an attempt to settle some of the debris from the War of 1812, Britain
and
the United States signed a convention that established the northern boundary of the
Louisiana Territory, which the United States had acquired from France in 1803, at
the
forty-ninth parallel from Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains. At this time the
Americans sought to extend the line through to the Pacific, but the British countered
with the the forty-ninth parallel to the Columbia River and then to its mouth. When
the
Americans insisted their instructions precluded such an option, an agreement was
negotiated instead that allowed nationals of both countries to occupy the region for
a
period of ten years.
One of the reasons the United States did not at that time push her claims to all of
Oregon, as the territory beyond the mountains was called, was
that they were also then negotiating with Spain to settle the south and western
boundaries of Louisiana. This was accomplished in 1819 when the Adams-Onis
(Transcontinental) Treaty was signed, by which Spain agreed to sell Florida to the
United States as well as to transfer all her claims to territory beyond latitude 42º
(the present boundary between California and Oregon), thereby vacating the field to
the
Russians, Americans, and British.
The Russians had established the headquarters of their fur trade at Sitka in 1799,
and
in 1812, with Spanish permission, built Fort Ross on the Russian River, some eighty
miles north of present-day San Francisco. In 1824 Russia signed a treaty with the
United
States, restricting Russian claims to latitude 54º 40', just north of Dixon Entrance
and
the Queen Charlotte Islands, and American claims to the south of the line.
The following year the Russians and British concluded a similar treaty that separated
their respective claims to the same line but limited Russian claims inland to today’s
Alaska Panhandle. This action left only the American and British as contenders for
the
Oregon territory. In 1826 the Americans again offered to divide the territory at the
forty-ninth parallel and pledged free navigation of the Columbia River. The British
countered with the forty-ninth parallel and the Columbia River.
At this time the only occupants of the area were British fur traders of the Hudson’s
Bay Company, which had merged with their rivals, the North West Company, in 1821 and
received from the British government an exclusive license to trade with the natives.
With the convention providing for joint occupation soon due to expire, it was renewed
indefinitely in 1827 with the proviso that either country could terminate it by giving
the other one year’s notice.
The status quo might have continued for some time had it not been for the sudden
appearance of American missionaries in the Columbia basin to establish missions among
the aboriginal population. Although their efforts at proselytization met with little
success, their glowing accounts of the agricultural potential of the region in letters
home to New England caught the attention of the nation and touched off a major migration
westward over the Oregon Trail, beginning with the first wagon train in 1842. By the
end
of 1845, more than five thousand Americans had arrived, virtually all of them settling
south of the Columbia in the Willamette Valley.
The columns of wagons moving westward over the Oregon Trail became potent symbols
of a
country fulfilling its “manifest destiny” to occupy the remainder of the continent.
Meanwhile, the newcomers quickly raised questions about obtaining title to land, which
led to the establishment of a provisional government and call for Congress to extend
its
jurisdiction over Oregon. During the presidential elections in 1844, the Democratic
platform proclaimed that their title to the whole of Oregon was “clear and
unquestionable,” and that no portion of it “ought to be surrendered to England or
any
other power.”
The winning Democratic candidate was James K. Polk, the first “dark horse” candidate
in
American history, whose jingoistic rivals raised the slogan of “Fifty-Four Forty or
Fight.” Polk, an expansionist, was determined to add Texas and Alta (upper) California
to the Union. Because both of these were viewed as potential slave territories, he
decided to appease his anti-slavery critics by adding Oregon to the equation; there
the
provisional government had prohibited entry to blacks.
By this time the British Foreign Office realized that joint occupation was no longer
viable and offered to submit the issue to arbitration, which the Americans promptly
declined.
In his inaugural address, Polk reiterated that US claims to all of Oregon were “clear
and unquestionable” and vowed his government would protect those “preparing to perfect
that title by occupying it with their wives and children.” He then offered again to
divide the territory at the forty-ninth parallel, but Richard Pakenham, the British
ambassador, hastily rejected the offer without referring it back to London. This allowed
an indignant Polk to withdraw the offer, telling a doubting Congressman, “the only
way
to treat John Bull is to look him straight in the eye.” The debate that followed,
longer
than any Senate debate until the Civil Rights bill of 1964, foreshadowed the growing
sectional crisis over the expansion of slavery that was threatening even then to tear
the nation apart. The Senate finally agreed to terminate the joint occupation
agreement.
Lord Aberdeen, the British Foreign Secretary, alarmed by Polk's strident bellicosity,
decided Oregon was not worth a war, and immediately agreed to accept a boundary at
the
forty-ninth parallel and the Straits of Juan de Fuca, plus free navigation of the
Columbia River. Polk pretended to be reluctant and referred the treaty to the Senate
without recommendation. After a short debate, the Senate ratified the treaty on April
23, 1846, by a vote of 41-14.
So Polk won. That he had been bluffing became clear on May 11 when Polk delivered
a war
message against Mexico, which Congress passed the next day, high-handedly declaring
war
on Polk's real target; and the last thing Polk wanted was to fight was a war on two
fronts with two different enemies at the same time.
Article I of the Treaty of Washington was worded as follows:
From the point of the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, where the boundary
laid down in existing treaties and conventions between the United States and Great
Britain terminates, the line of boundary between the territories of the United
States and those of her Britannic Majesty shall be continued westward along the said
forty-ninth parallel of north latitude to the middle of the channel which separates
the continent from Vancouver's Island, and thence southerly through the middle of
the said channel, and of Fuca's Straits, to the Pacific Ocean: Provided, however,
That the navigation of the whole of the said channel and straits, south of the
forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, remain free and open to both parties.
Drawing astronomical lines on a map without knowledge of, or regard to, topography
is
poor way to establish boundaries—as the absurdity of Point Roberts effectively
demonstrates.
A decade after the treaty was signed, the Foreign Office persuaded the United States
it
was time to take steps to survey and mark the boundary. On 11 August 1856, Congress
authorized the appointment of representatives to a joint boundary commission. Archibald
Campbell was named chief commissioner and Lieutenant John G. Park the principal
surveyor.
The British named separate commissioners for the land and sea portions. To determine
what the treaty ambiguously referred to as “the middle of the channel which separates
the continent from Vancouver's Island,” Captain James C. Prevost of HMS
Satellite was appointed first commissioner,
and Captain George H. Richards of the survey vessel
Plumper second commissioner. W.A.G. Young served as secretary—until Douglas co-opted him to
be his colonial secretary. Prevost arrived in Victoria in June 1857 to begin work
on the
Vancouver Island boundary, with Richards following in early November.
Campbell arrived for his first meeting with Prevost aboard the
Satellite in Esquimalt Harbour on June 22, when it was
discovered that there had been some miscommunication because while Campbell was
authorized to determine both the land and maritime line, Prevost's commission applied
only to the latter. And because Richards had not yet arrived, Campbell crossed over
to
the mainland and proceeded to set up camp at Semiahmoo and begin work there, including
establishing an initial boundary location on Point Roberts.
Surveying the land portion was the more challenging assignment, and news of increasing
gold strikes left the British authorities scrambling. In December 1857, the War Office,
acting on a request of the Foreign Office, decided to deploy a contingent of regular
troops under the command of a Royal Engineer and requested that Douglas take steps
to
provide accommodations at Victoria for not less than seven officers and thirty
non-commissioned men. He was also asked to advise them as to logistics for transport
and
assist in obtaining local labour.
Douglas received this news in March 1858, just as the gold rush was beginning in
earnest. In reply, he promised to give immediate attention to these instructions but
warned that gold fever was then at such a pitch, “the whole floating white population”
of the island appeared headed for the mines. To avoid making a critical labour shortage
even worse, he recommended doubling the number of men to be sent out and supplementing
their efforts with native labour.
The command of the British commission was entrusted to Captain John S. Hawkins, RE.
Although the War Office had hoped to arrange for departure of the men by February
1,
they did not get away until April 2. The contingent of fifty-six non-commissioned
officers and men finally reached Esquimalt on July 12, where Douglas had erected a
single building to accommodate the officers, leaving the men to be housed in tents.
A month later, Prevost escorted Hawkins via the
Satellite to Semiahmoo for a meeting with Campbell. Thus began a relationship
between the two men that remained cordial but not overly friendly. Hawkins, who was
under orders to avoid friction with Campbell, soon found it necessary to develop what
he
later referred to as his “untiring patience” to maintain a proper working relationship
with his counterpart.
At this meeting, the two men worked out a modus operandi for the work at
hand. Hawkins wanted to establish iron markers at frequent intervals, and every mile
on
open ground, and clear-cut a line for a considerable distance on each side of the
markers, Campbell insisted the cost would be prohibitive. In the end the two men agreed
to carry on independently rather than jointly, and rather than clearing the entire
boundary, they would instead determine astronomical points at convenient locations
on or
near the line, and cut a track twenty feet wide for a minimum of one-half mile on
either
side of each marker.
Hawkins then proceeded to establish camp near Sumas Prairie, working east and west
from
a point where the Americans had made an astronomical fix for the forty-ninth parallel
the previous summer, leaving the Americans to work the lower end. That fall the British
established a second camp near Cultus Lake. Confronted by trees that often “exceeded
30
feet in circumference and measured from 200 to 250 feet,” Hawkin's men set to work
with
good grace. Only when the winter rains set in did they beat a welcome retreat to
Victoria for the winter.
The size of the trees was child's play compared to the mosquitoes. So thick were the
swarms at times that a simple chores became “perfect agony,” wrote one of the men
the
following July. “We sit wrapped up in leather with gloves on and bags round our heads
& even that cannot keep them off; none of us have had any sleep for the last two
nights & we can scarcely eat...”
Three weeks later, the situation had little changed:
My hands, during the last few days, have been so swollen & stiff that I could
hardly bend my joints & have had to wrap them in wet towels to be ready for the
next day's work; one's hands are literally covered with them when writing & even
when wearing kid gloves the bites through the needle holes in the seams were
sufficient to produce this. Each mule, as it is packed, is obliged to be led into
a
circle of fires continually kept up, as they are quite intractable when worried by
mosquitoes; two of [them] have been blinded & 6 of our horses were so reduced
that we had to turn them out on the prairie and let them take their chance of
living. I never saw anything like the state of their skins, one mass of sores. Our
tents used frequently to be so covered with mosquitoes inside & out, that it was
difficult to see the canvas... We are all of us, as you may imagine, a good deal
pulled down by want of sleep & continual irritation; Lord & Lyall especially
look some years older than before, their faces drawn in as if they had been short
of
food, it has brought several grey hairs on the Doctor though he wont acknowledge
them; however we shall all get fat again at Victoria during the winter.
Despite the fact their two countries nearly came to blows in 1859 over the location
of
the maritime boundary and the ownership of San Juan Island, the work on British
Columbia's boundary went on without interruption. The British crew spent the entire
season marking the line from Chilliwack to the crest of the Cascade Mountains. When
the
mosquitoes got too bad, the men moved up to the higher elevations of the western slope
of the Cascades until the snow forced their return to Victoria. That winter Hawkins
returned to England to report on the San Juan Crisis as well as progress with the
survey.
It took two more years of hard work to complete the line from the crest of the Cascades
to the crest of the Rocky Mountains. To transport necessary provisions and stores,
pack
animals purchased in California were driven north to the Dalles on the Columbia, the
head of navigation, and used to transport supplies overland to Fort Colvile, which
then
became the new British base of operations.
During the winter of 1860-61, the British passed their time at Fort Colvile and the
Americans in a camp some fifteen miles distant, which provided a chance for the two
groups to exchange mutual civilities, although Campbell himself returned to Washington.
The survey of the boundary line was finally finished in late 1861. In all, 28
astronomical stations marked the 409.4 miles to the crest of the Rockies. The first
45
miles were marked at 42 points with iron markers; the next 108 miles to the Similkameen
River with 19 stone cairns; the next 95 miles to the Columbia River with 69 stone
cairns
and a single earth mound, and from the Columbia to the crest of the Rockies, another
27
cairns.
With the US Civil War then raging, the Americans were immediately deployed elsewhere.
It was too late in the season for the British to return to Victoria, so they spent
a
final winter at Fort Colvile except for a dozen men who were sent back to England
for
health reasons. So great was the wear and tear on their bodies that it was feared
they
might not survive the winter on their own.
Hawkins stopped at Washington on the way home in 1862, hoping to collaborate with
Campbell on a final report. When nothing came of that, he returned to England and
produced one of his own for the Foreign Office. The two men finally met in Washington
in
May 1869, after the Civil War was over, and jointly produced a final report. At this
time they resolved discrepancies between the work of the two commissions, agreeing
to
select a mean line down the middle. They also agreed that the boundary between markers
should be understood to follow a straight line between the two points rather than
lines
following the earth's curvature.
By a quirk of fate, when settlers moved into boundary areas with conflicting border
cuts and the authorities sought to verify the line from the official maps, they were
unable to locate the final report—in either country. Only in 1898 did the British
report
turn up when it was spotted by a visiting Canadian astronomer, Otto Klotz, during
a
visit to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. Two years later, parts of the American
report were discovered by a cartographer of the US Geological Survey. The publication
of
these reports led both governments to resurvey the line in 1901-07 to eliminate any
further misunderstandings.
Discovery of Gold
Unlike California, where the discovery of gold can be dated from James Marshall's
spying gold in Jacob Sutter's millrace on the American River on January 24, 1848,
there
is no comparable event that led miners suddenly to emerge along the banks of the Fraser
River a decade later. Instead the series of strikes in what shortly became British
Columbia was part of the larger search for minerals following the rush to California
in
1849.
It took months for news of the California strike to spread, but when it did it
triggered the greatest gold rush in history in 1849, giving California an instant
population of 100,000 by the end of the year. The era of placer mining, when miners
could capture the precious metal with a pan and a shovel, was short-lived, and during
the next decade miners relentlessly fanned out throughout the entire mountain West,
pushing also north into British territory.
In 1850 gold was discovered on the Spokane River near Fort Colvile, the last remaining
Hudson's Bay post in Oregon Territory. Late in 1851, a small rush to the Queen Charlotte
Islands developed after natives there produced specimens of gold, and the following
year
much more substantial discoveries along the Rogue River in southern Oregon Territory.
In
1855 a major strike occurred between the Spokane and Pend d’Oreille Rivers, near Fort
Colvile in newly fashioned Washington Territory. Neither the relative remoteness of
the
area nor the threat of hostile natives was enough to discourage companies of miners
from
banding together and packing supplies into the region.
That fall, a full-scale Indian War broke out in Washington Territory in which the
natives took on the US Army with such fierceness and skill that settlers in most open
areas were forced to abandon their farms and flee to coastal towns for refuge. The
ferocity of the conflict, and the emboldenment of the natives with each victory, left
James Douglas appalled. “I hope they will receive a timely check,” he wrote, “or the
evil spirit may spread among the aboriginal population of British Territory, which
is
far more ignorant and barbarous, and in point of numbers is, as five to one, compared
with the Native population of American Oregon.” Although the American authorities immediately rushed in
large troop reinforcements from California, the wars continued off and on, along with
the search for gold, for the next three years.
Despite the hostility of the natives, in the spring of 1856 Angus McDonald, in charge
of Fort Colvile, informed James Douglas that miners had moved up the Columbia River
into
British territory and were finding pay dirt there, averaging from £2 to £8 ($10 to
$40)
per man. In relaying this intelligence to the Colonial Office, Douglas wondered if
these
miners should be taxed for the privilege, although he admitted that would be impossible
without the presence of some kind of military assistance.
About the same time, natives brought gold dust to Fort Kamloops at the junction of
the
North and South Thompson, where Chief Trader Donald McLean presided. McLean was
reluctant to accept it because he had no way of measuring it, but Douglas instructed
him
to give every encouragement to the natives and obtain all the gold he could get. McLean
also uncovered small samples of the metal along the Nicomen River, a small stream
flowing into the Thompson, about ten miles above its junction with the Fraser; some
time
later, he extracted three dollars worth of gold with the aid of his knife from a rocky
ledge along another tributary of the Fraser.
Douglas himself attributed the initial strikes along the Thompson as the precursor
to
the Fraser River gold rush the following year. The man who was probably in the best
position to monitor events was unequivocal as to its origins: “Gold was first found
on
Thompson River by an Indian 1/4 of a mile below Niconim [sic],” he wrote. “He is since
dead. The Indian was taking a drink out of the river. Having no vessel, he was quaffing
from the stream when he perceived a shining pebble which he picked up and it proved
to
be gold.”
Despite the fact that the natives were destitute of mining tools and on the verge
of
starvation that summer, they continued searching for gold, digging it out with knives
and their bare hands. In this they were joined by former HBC employees, which caused
Douglas little concern, as long as “the heterogeneous population of American Oregon”
were excluded. Indeed, the few Americans who chose to enter the area found it politic
to
pass themselves off as British subjects.
By the end of October 1856, Douglas informed the Colonial Office he had received
reports that considerable amounts of gold had been found, and several men had apparently
accumulated large quantities. Although he could not vouch for the accuracy of these
reports, he thought them credible because he had already received 220 ounces of gold
dust direct from the Upper Columbia region. Gold was also being found on tributaries
of
the Fraser. Judging from the success of these operations, he believed the gold region
was proving to be very extensive, “and I entertain sanguine hopes that future researches
will develop stores of wealth, perhaps equal to the gold fields of California.”
So optimistic was Douglas about the prospect that he also raised the possibility that
the mines could become a source of revenue. “I do not know if Her Majesty's Government
will consider it expedient to raise a revenue in that quarter, by taxing all persons
engaged in gold digging,” he wrote, “but I may remark that it will be impossible to
levy
such a tax, without the aid of a military force, and the expense in that case would
probably exceed the income derived from the Mines.” As it happened, those strikes
along
the Columbia did not continue to produce in paying quantities, and the miners moved
on.
Activity increased during the summer of 1857, as some Canadians from Fort Colvile
prospected around the Thompson and Bonaparte area, and other adventurers arrived via
the
Columbia or Okanagan into the area the fur traders called the Couteau country between
the lower Thompson and Shuswap Lake. Reports reaching Douglas were that men were finding
gold at various sites between the Columbia and the Fraser, although not yet in great
quantities. Although couteau is the French word for “knife,” the area was
actually named after the local Nicoutameen Indians.
To reach the Couteau country required a major effort on the part of the gold seekers.
Supplies and provisions to last for several weeks had to be packed in from Portland
on
the lower Columbia through regions where the US Army was conducting running battles
against a variety of Indian tribes. The miners were invariably well-armed and often
sought safety in numbers by banding together to ward off hostile encounters with the
natives. Crossing the border into British territory did little to change either their
tactics or mentality, making clashes with the natives almost inevitable.
That the natives resisted this invasion of gold seekers into their territory speaks
volumes about their shrewdness and sophistication. Although they had almost universally
welcomed fur traders to their midst—because access to trade goods gave them the
advantage of becoming middle-men to their neighbours—the First Nations people had
learned quickly to distinguish between the “King George” men and “Boston” men.
By mid-July 1857, a vanguard of miners had reached the Thompson River, where the
earlier strikes had been recorded and the most serious clash occurred. Here, in an
action Douglas branded as “high handed, though probably not unwise,” the Indians
promptly drove the miners off, not simply to preserve the gold for themselves, but
almost certainly also because they feared disturbance to their salmon fisheries. News
of
this incident caused Douglas immediately to caution the men at Fort Kamloops to be
careful to respect the feelings of the natives and not to engage in any activity without
their “full approbation and consent.”
Although he was confident his own traders would avoid provocations, he warned there
was
“much reason to fear that serious affrays may take place” between the natives and
“motley adventurers” from Oregon, should the latter attempt to overpower the natives
by
force of arms. In that case, he continued, “it may not become a question whether the
Natives are entitled to the protection of Her Majesty's Government; and if an officer
invested with the requisite authority should not, without delay, be appointed for
that purpose.”
By October 1857, some 300 ounces of gold had been relayed to HBC headquarters at Fort
Victoria, most of it traded by natives. There is no way of knowing how much the more
expert white miners took home with them, but the more experienced among them became
convinced that the whole area was auriferous, and reports began circulating among
the
Puget Sound and lower Columbia communities of the reputed wealth awaiting north of
the
border.
John Sebastian Helmcken recalled how Douglas had entered the mess hall in Fort
Victoria, and displayed for all present a few grains of gold dust he had received,
likely from Chief Trader McLean at Fort Kamloops. The moment made a lasting impression
on Helmcken because it was the first raw gold he had seen, but of all those assembled,
he said, only Douglas grasped its true significance as the harbinger of great changes
and busy times. “He spoke of Victoria rising to be a great city—and of its value,”
wrote
Helmcken, “but curiously enough this conversation did not make much impression and
some
of them thought it was a sort of advertisement to sell 'town lots.'" A few weeks later,
Douglas brought in another display, this time “a soda-water bottle half full of scaly
gold,” which the Indians had collected, presumably also from the Thompson
River.
Some critics at the time, and many writers since, have suggested that the HBC had
long
known about the presence of gold but had carefully concealed this knowledge to protect
its fur trade monopoly. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that far from being
party
to such a conspiracy, Douglas genuinely welcomed the discoveries, which offered the
prospects for incentive and growth that would provide the needed foundation for a
viable
English presence along the northern Pacific coast.
As Douglas already realized, the gold discoveries on the mainland could become the
kind
of powerful economic engine that Vancouver Island had long lacked but desperately
needed
to become a thriving community. Should the gold fields offer an auriferous hinterland,
supplementing the trade in furs and fish, Victoria could become a commercial entrepot,
second only to San Francisco.
The real danger, of course, was what would happen if hordes of “forty-niners,” long
accustomed to taking law into their own hands, suddenly invaded the territories of
determined natives on the mainland. An even greater worry, from Douglas' point of
view,
was the inexorable pressure such a population would present upon arrival for annexation
of the territory by the United States.
Thus far the Colonial Office had seemed almost indifferent to Douglas' efforts to
keep
it informed of events occurring on the mainland. To his initial report of miners
crossing the border to work the Columbia in April 1856, in which he also raised the
possibility of taxing the miners, he was informed that Whitehall was not looking for
any
revenue from such a “distant quarter” and was not prepared to incur any expense to
obtain it. Instead, it was left to his discretion to determine the best means of
preserving order should large numbers of miners flock to the region.
In his July 1857 despatch, Douglas had detailed the clash between miners and Indians
on
the Thompson, questioning if Her Majesty's Government did not owe the natives protection
and requesting that an officer be appointed for that purpose. To this he received
no
reply, not even an acknowledgement. This does not mean the Colonial Office was
indifferent to the possibility of a major rush to the mainland, only that it was
pondering the larger question as to the future status of this territory. But of these
considerations, of course, Douglas remained ignorant.
As 1857 drew to a close, Douglas had decided a full-scale influx of miners from the
United States was imminent, once the winter rains subsided. Although he was aware
his
jurisdiction was limited to Vancouver Island, in the absence of any other available
authority, he decided the time had come to act.
Drawing on his prior experience with the gold discoveries on the Queen Charlotte
Islands in 1851-52, on the 28th of December he issued a proclamation “on behalf of
Her
Majesty,” declaring that all minerals were the property of the crown and that anyone
taking or searching for gold without authorization would “be prosecuted both criminally
and civilly as the law allows.” The next day he issued regulations stipulating that,
effective February 1, 1858, anyone searching for gold would be permitted to do so
only
under license.
The licensing requirement, which had been used during the gold rushes in California,
Australia, and elsewhere, was designed both to force an acknowledgment of British
authority over the area to provide a source of revenue. Whether it would succeed or
not
would depend upon how events would unfold in the spring.
Next section: The Fraser River Gold Rush (coming soon).