Somenos District
The Somenos District is located roughly 10 km north of Duncan.
In 1862, the amount of arable land around
Victoria was becoming scarce, so
Douglas took prospective farmers upcoast to
Cowichan Bay aboard the
Hecate to give them the opportunity to stake land in the Somenos,
Shawnigan, and
Quamichan districts.
1 According to the
British Colonist, in compensation for the land, the government gave the Indigenous people two blankets
per person for the land that they surrendered.
2The Somenos District was mapped as part of
Pemberton’s surveys of the southern
Vancouver Island during the 1850s, which can be seen on this map and another, both from 1859.
The official Cowichan Tribes website notes that the Somenos District, along with the
Quamichan and
Comiaken districts, were three of the seven traditional villages that were separated into
districts and later forced to amalgamate into the one Cowichan “band” under the Indian
Act.
3
- 1. G. P. V. Akrigg and H. B. Akrigg, British Columbia Chronicle, 1847-1871 (Victoria: Discovery Press, 1977), 255.
- 2. The Cowichan Expedition, British Colonist, August 22, 1862.
- 3. Cowichan Tribes Overview, Cowichan Tribes Overview.