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Page One

Dr. Ormsby:

Thank you very much.    I've chosen to speak about a man in whom I'm tremendously interested, and I've recently been doing some research and writing about him and I thought perhaps there were some aspects of his policies and his philosophy with which you might not be familiar.    This man is the fur trader, James Douglas, who was to become first, the second governor of Vancouver's Island, first governor of British Columbia, and who merits the description which was given to him many years ago by Dr. Sage as a father of British Columbia.

Now, he's a fascinating person, both by background and by family connections, and because of the values that he held.   It's still a bit of a mystery as to who this man was.   We know quite definitely who his father was.   His father was a Scottish merchant who had, who along with two brothers had, interests in a sugar plantation in Demerara.   Who James Douglas's mother was is still a mystery and although a great deal of searching has been done we're not certain at all as to who she was.    Apparently, well we know, she lived in Demerara but we don't know whether she was Spanish, or whether she was a Creole, used in the sense that term was used at that time, whether in fact she was a mulatto, although I don't think there was enough evidence to indicate that she was not.

The father of James Douglas married ..., for a second ... apparently he had entered into a liaison with this woman in Demerara.   He married in Scotland later and had a second family in Scotland, but apparently also returned to Demerara where a third child was born in the first family. And when James Douglas, after his retirement from the governorship, went back to Scotland, he met his half-sisters and his other relatives and found that the Douglas family was very well connected in Scotland and he developed a great affection for a half-sister by the name of Jane, Jane Hamilton Douglas.

At the age of sixteen the two Douglas boys, who have been sent from Demerara to Scotland to be educated, were apprenticed to the North West Company and one of them was completely unsuited to the fur trade: Alexander.   James Douglas was perfectly suited to the fur trade and he absorbed the habits and the methods and the business practices of the fur traders.   He was a rather a violent young man.   He was in the employe of the North West Company at first, and the North West Company was combating seriously the Hudson's Bay's rights in Rupert's Land and elsewhere, and as a young man of eighteen James Douglas was warned at Ile-á-la-crosse to desist from marching within gunshot of the Hudson's Bay post and displaying drums, fifes, and other things.   He also seems to have been a man of violent temper in his early days and when he was eventually sent across the mountains to Fort St. James on Stuart Lake, he became involved in what he referred to as a "tumult" with the Indians.

Now it's about his Indian policy that I'd like to speak in particular.   Fort St. James was in the fur-trading district of New Caledonia and New Caledonia was called the Siberia of the fur trade.   New Caledonia also produced the best black beaver pelts that could be found anywhere.   There were only a few men at each of the small posts in New Caledonia and these men were surrounded by hundreds of Indians.

In 1828, when Douglas was left in control of Fort St. James, when Connolly, the Chief Factor, went to Fort Vancouver, an incident took place.   The details of this are not too clear. Douglas himself said a "tumult" occurred with the Indians, but the officers at the post at Fort St. James had decided to punish an Indian murderer and there was a tremendous clash.   As to how violent Douglas was on this occasion was a question.   As to how well he handled the situation is another question.   A few months later he was attacked by the Carrier Indians near Fraser Lake and there was a third clash on January 1st, 1829 at Fort St. James.    The result of this was that William Connolly said, "Douglas's life is so much exposed among the Carriers, he would rather face a hundred of them, but he does not seem disposed to the idea of being assassinated".    So at this point there is nothing but a deep antagonism between Douglas and the Indians.   Only a few years later George Simpson said, "Douglas is a man of a violent temper".   Now when he, as a result of these difficulties with the Indians, he was so discouraged by the fact that his relations were so bad with them. He was also discouraged by the kind of diet that prevailed at Fort St. James, which was almost totally a diet of salmon.    The salmon run failed while he was there and he almost faced starvation.   He was discouraged by the fact that there weren't many books there and he was a man who was determined to pull himself up by his bootstraps and he paid a great deal of attention to educating himself.   But, discouraged by all these things, he was going to leave the fur trade.   However, it was agreed that he should be transferred to Fort Vancouver, and it was after his transfer to Fort Vancouver and his work with Dr. McLoughlin there that he began to evolve a policy and practices that improved his relations with the Indians.    He described what these were in 1841. He wrote rather sharply to A.C. Anderson at that time, "I am informed that it has been said within a circle of Bachelors Hall that you are unpopular with the Indians of Nisqually.   Without reference to the truth of this rumour, I wish to caution you against the exercise of any avoidable severity towards the natives.   I'm assuming...In assuming a new charge it has been always my study to act with the utmost circumspection until I become fairly established in the good opinion of the Indians.   Then, but never sooner, I would begin to lecture and reform abuses, having recourse, if necessary, to the infliction of moderate punishments, but I always did so with the apparent reluctance and always with due allowance for the ignorance of the party with whom I was dealing".   In other words, by this time, in 1841, the policy had become one of benevolent paternalism.

Douglas is very much a mid-Victorian figure, a figure who believes that it is the duty of those in positions of power to elevate and educate others.   So that his policy with regards to the Indians was to try and understand their wishes, but also to elevate their standards of behaviour.   Now when it came to this elevation of standards of behaviour, it seemed necessary - it seemed apparent to Douglas, as to other Mid-Victorians, that it was the European standard of the day that was the right standard.   So that the Indians were to be protected while at the same time improved, were to be taught the standards of European society at that time.   Now there wasn't anything unique about this.   This is what the Colonial Office was saying in London.   The Colonial Office always took a great interest in the treatment of the natives.   It always sent the governors of colonial territories instructions that the natives were to be treated well.    But it always assumed that this good treatment involved the gradual raising up of moral and ethical standards to the point where they combined with the British standards and the European standards of the day.

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Page Two

Dr. Ormsby:

There was another concept too, that was taken for granted, and Douglas certainly thought this, and this was the concept of private property.   All the British of the day, I suppose, had thought that the institution of private property was something that was here to stay forever and Douglas just took it for granted that it was too.   He was an officer in a great commercial company, the biggest trading company in North America.    He considered that the company's posts and its farms belonged to the company and that they were to be protected.   And, right from the beginning, he thought that private property was something that existed by right.

Now as far as Indians were concerned, they did make really a remarkable adjustment to the idea that their standards of behaviour were to be changed, supposedly raised, but the Indians in this part of the world really didn't have a sense of private property.    In fact, the kind of lives that they led prevented them from having this.    As was later pointed out in dealing with the Indians, there were at least three groups who followed different practices.   There were the North Coast Indians, who were fisherman and who eventually undertook long trading expeditions to Fort Victoria.   These were people who went onto the sea and lived by going onto the sea.   There were the Indians of Vancouver's Island and the lower Fraser region, who were more or less fixed in the area in which they resided, but who were more organized by households than anything else.    And who also had a certain mobility because they hunted and they also fished and during the fishing seasons they would travel from place to place.   So that they were used to moving about.   And then the third group were the Indians of the interior of what became the province, who were really a pastoral people.    They were people who had cattle, and had horses.    And because they were people who had cattle and horses, they needed a large area, a lot of range land in which to move about in.    So, the kind of way in which the Indians got their livelihood and supported themselves made the concept of private property one that was completely foreign to them.

Now in his dealings with the Indians Douglas became quite enthusiastic about what could be achieved by Christian missionaries in changing standards, although he was very much discouraged by what happened when the Methodist missionaries went into Oregon and he wasn't at all happy about the Anglican chaplain who was sent to Fort Vancouver.   But after William Duncan came out, was sent out by the Church Missionary Society, and after William Duncan set up Metlakatla, which was a model Indian village, as it was always referred to, even Lord Dufferin, when he came out in '76, called this a model Indian village.    Douglas thought that Christian missionaries could achieve something.   As far as the missionaries were concerned, their standards were pretty well European standards too.   Duncan, in a way, used Indian customs and the Indian hierarchy to achieve his purpose.   This model village was partly industrial, partly agrarian and he used the...the hierarchy of the Indian organization to see that peace and quiet was kept in the village. James Douglas was very enthusiastic about this.   He thought this was the way to handle things.   Yet, he'd also learned something as a Hudson's Bay man and he never quite put behind him what he had learned in the Hudson's Bay service.   If the Hudson's Bay Company believed in anything, it believed that attacks on private property, on what it called outreaches, should be punished and punished very quickly.   Its policy worked well for a very long time, and it's interesting to note that there weren't Indian wars and there weren't disturbances on a large scale as long as it was in control of things.

And you can see Douglas following these practices pretty well when a murder takes place in 1852 on Vancouver Island. When the shepherd, Peter Brown, is murdered by the Indians, Douglas enlists the aid of the Navy, which he did on many occasions.   He enlists the aid of the Navy, he decides to make a sortie into the Cowichan country.   The Cowichans are involved in this murder.   He faces the Indians standing alone and with at least two hundred war-like Indians facing him.   But he makes a great show of bravery, which the Hudson's Bay man always did.   But he's very careful to recognize, the authority of the chief, and this was Hudson's Bay practice.   It was what William Duncan did it at Metlakatla.   He recognizes the authority of the chief.   He tells him that the murderer must be apprehended and that he must be surrendered, and then he lectures the Indians about their behaviour and, although he doesn't quite say so, he implies that this is not Christian behaviour in the plot to murder. But his presence is authoritative and he is so self-confident.   He's also so brave - the Indians are very impressed with his bravery - that the chief takes the necessary action, has a search made for the murderer.   The murderer is taken into custody, is turned over to Douglas.  He is then put on board ship.   A proper trial is conducted and the man is eventually executed.   So there is this policy of recognizing the sociological values, shall we say, of the Indians, but also insisting that European form and European practice must be followed.  

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Page Three

Dr. Ormsby:

Now I'd like to speak about his attitude about Indian lands.   As you know, we have a curious policy in this connection and the whole history of Indian Lands Policy is completely different in this province from what it is on the prairies.   In 1849, when the British Colony at Vancouver Island was set up, it was a peculiar sort of colony.   The boundary line, you remember, between American possessions west of the Rocky mountains and British territory west of the mountains had been drawn in 1846, the Oregon Boundary Line had been drawn.   The Hudson's Bay headquarters had been moved by Douglas from Fort Vancouver to Fort Victoria in 1842.   He had investigated Victoria Harbour and the Hudson's Bay Company had subsequently built the fort, which became, after the Oregon Boundary Treaty, the Company's headquarters on the Pacific.   In 1849, to check the American advance northward, about which the British Government was very worried, the Hudson's Bay Company was given a Royal Grant to Vancouver Island.   Well it was given it on condition that it sponsor colonization. There are certain parallels with the Red River, but in the case of Vancouver Island the Company had a great deal of responsibility.

In 1851, Douglas became the second Governor of Vancouver Island, the first governor, Richard Blanchard, who was absolutely independent of the company, not having proved to be a success.   In 1851, Douglas filled four important offices.   He was the senior member of what's called the Board of Management of the Hudson's Bay Company.    This was a three-man Board, which supervised all the Company's operations west of the Rocky Mountains.   He was also a Chief Factor of the Company.   Only a limited number of Chief Factors and they had responsibility for the posts at which they resided and other affairs too.    The Company on Vancouver Island was entitled to a percentage of revenues from mines and timber and other resources.    Douglas was agent of the Company and he had to collect this.   And he was also agent for the subsidiary company which had been formed, a company subsidiary to the Hudson's Bay Company, called the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, which had great farms on Vancouver Island.   So he had more than enough to do. He was supposed to encourage Immigrants to come.    The Hudson's Bay Company itself sent out labourers.    He was to supervise their work.   He was to supervise the farms; he was to undertake the sale of lands; he was to make sure that Fort Langley, for example, developed a salmon fishery and farming and he was engaged in multifarious activities.

Well, the thing that worried him was this little trading post at Fort Victoria was surrounded by about 700 Indians.   And the Indian troubles were gaining in intensity on American soil in Washington territory and they would culminate in the dreadful Cayuse war.   There was a danger that the Indian troubles would spread to Vancouver Island.    In face of this situation, he commenced in 1850 to make what are, what he called "agreements", but what are virtually treaties and he entered into these with the Indians in the immediate vicinity of Fort Victoria and eventually he made fourteen of these treaties.    These fourteen treaties were intended to protect the white settlers in the colony and the people actually resident within the Fort Victoria.    Under these agreements there was no acknowledgement of what is called Aboriginal Title.   Douglas said the lands belonged to the Crown.   Title remains with the Crown.    The great grievance of the Indians of British Columbia of today is that Aboriginal Title has not until this time been formally recognized.   The agreements were made with groups of Indians rather than with households of Indians and perhaps Douglas, who did know more about the Indians than anyone else around, perhaps, it's possible, he didn't take into full account the fact that Indians are mobile, that they do move from place to place.

He made these arrangements in return for money payments, in some instances, in return for what were called "gifts" of blankets.    As far as the payments were concerned, in these fourteen agreements, they were to average two pounds-ten shillings per head of family.    When the first treaty was made, it was written out in Douglas's hand.   It was signed by crosses by the Indians.  It declared: "a condition of our understanding of the sale is this, that our village sites and enclosed fields are to be kept for our own use, for the use of our children and for those who may follow after us.   It is understood, however, that the land itself, with these small exceptions, becomes the entire property of the white people forever.   It is also understood, that we are at liberty to hunt over the unoccupied land.    And to carry on our fisheries as formerly.    We have received this payment: 27 pounds ten shillings Sterling".   Now, this is the principle that underlies this first treaty.    There is really no acknowledgement of Aboriginal Title, but the treaty is seen as being made for the protection of the rights of the Indians.   The benevolent, paternalistic attitude is there.   It says that the land becomes the entire property of the white people forever, but since the Indians didn't have a concept of private property, that I explained, people wonder now whether they really understood what that meant.   Because they really didn't know what private property was.

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Page Four

Dr. Ormsby:

However, this became the pattern for the arrangements that were made with the Indians, and when Douglas was specifically asked in 1874 what his policy had been in laying of the Indian reserves, he made this answer.    He did have the idea of a reserve, in mind.   "To your inquiry, it is the letter to Dr.  Powell who was Indian commissioner.    To your inquiry, I may briefly rejoin, by the laying out of Indian reserves, no specific number of acres was insisted on.    The principle followed in all cases was to leave the extent and selection of the land entirely optional with the Indians, who were immediately interested in the reserve, the surveying officers having instructions to meet their wishes in every particular, and to include in each reserve the permanent village sites, the fishing stations and burial grounds, cultivated lands and all the favourite resorts of the tribes and, in short, to include every piece of ground to which they had acquired an explicable title through continuous occupation, tillage or other investment of their labour". And he said, "this was done with the object of securing to each community their natural or acquired rights, removing all cause for complaint on grounds of unjust deprivation of the land".    In the case of Vancouver Island, he said he was surprised at how modest the Indians were when they requested land and usually they didn't request more than ten acres per family.   "In none of these cases did the request exceed the proportion of ten acres per family, so moderate were the demands of the natives&qout;, but, he said, &qout;it was never intended that they should be restricted or limited to the possession of ten acres of land.   On the contrary we were prepared, had such had been their wish, to have made for their use much more extensive grants".   And he pointed out that in the interior, where the pastoral Indians were, there was recognition of a much other larger, of a demand for a much larger acreage than this.    "The purpose", he said, "in making these arrangements was to provide for the future, contemplating the probable advance of the aborigines in knowledge and intelligence and assuming that a time would certainly arrive when they might aspire to a higher rank in the social scale and feel the essential warmth's of, and claims of, a better condition. It was determined to remove every obstacle in their path by placing them in a most favourable circumstance for acquiring land in their private and individual capacity".

It's rather interesting to note that after the gold rush started and he began to work on the Land Policy for the colony in British Columbia, he permitted direct sale of land to Indians.    There were some requests made at New Westminster and he did permit the Indians to buy land directly and he also permitted Indians to pre-empt land and they were put on exactly the same basis as everyone else.    The question is, what had the Indians yielded in entering into these arrangements.    It's very likely that the Indian chiefs didn't feel they had alienated the land.    It's very likely they thought they...that they were just permitting others to use the land.    From Douglas's point of view, with his whole background, they had in actual fact alienated and this is what makes the whole matter so difficult, because everyone who came out to British Columbia and who dealt with the Indians transported his own knowledge and his own values and really didn't, found it impossible to get inside the Indian man's mind and understand what those values were.    From Douglas's point of view, I think, the Indians had yielded rights to private owners, but I don't think the Indians saw it in this light.   But they didn't question, at least they didn't raise the matter, the problem, until 1876.   It was never raised in Douglas's time as governor.  He stepped down in 1864 and the Indians didn't raise that question.   And after Trutch came into office as Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works there was a change of policy.   But as late as 1876, when lands were allotted to the Indians, the Indians hadn't raised this question.

The second question is, had the Indians become wards of the Crown?   Now the Colonial Office, which is instructing Douglas, saw native peoples as becoming wards of the Crown, and Douglas also thought native peoples became the wards of the Crown.   As far as reserves went, Douglas also thought it was natural that the Indians would want to preserve their communities.   He did think of reserves.   He mentioned these as necessary to be set up in order to prevent the native tribes raising vindictive warfare against the white settlement.    But always he considered that the Indians retained their rights to hunt and to fish.    He also thought each family on the reserve had right to have land for its own use.   Now the situation changes after his retirement and it seems to change with Trutch becoming Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works.   And also with the white settlers, miners becoming part settlers and retired Royal Engineers, miners becoming settlers on the land and Royal Engineers who stay in the colony taking up land.   It's then discovered that these people are claiming land that the Indians are also claiming and there's a new attitude that develops towards Indian rights.   As far as Douglas is concerned, his attitude is one of benevolent paternalism.   But then there's a change and there's a feeling that Indian claims are really interfering with the rights of the new settlers.   Indian policy will become a matter of federal jurisdiction when and if British Columbia enters confederation.   There's some discussion about this fact on the eve of confederation in this area.    At that time, the Governor of the United Colony of Vancouver Island and British Columbia writes, this is Musgrave, writes to Granville enclosing a memo by Trutch.   The memo states "the title of the Indians in the case of the public land or of any portion thereof has never been acknowledged by Government, but on the contrary, is distinctly denied".   So there's a complete denial at that time.    "In no case has a special agreement been made with any of the tribes on the mainland for the extinct...extinction of their claims of possession.    But these claims have been held throughout being clearly satisfied by securing from each tribe, as the progress of the country seems to require, the use of sufficient tracts of land for their wants for agricultural and pastoral purposes."

By 1875, there's a real problem in this connection and the dispute about Aboriginal Title starts and it's to continue down to our own day.   Trutch, incidentally, as early as 1867 was denying that there is any such thing as Indian Title.   Now what had Douglas done, in short.   Well, if he'd had major achievement, there was no spread of Indian warfare to the territories, which came under his control.   Nothing occurred on this frontier that resembles in any way what happened in Washington Territory.    There were peaceful relations between the two.   He had also had a respect for Indian customs and for Indian rights.   His policy was based on two principles.   The rights of the natives must be respected.   Clashes must be avoided with what he called the agrarian element, with the farmers.    So, around the same time he attempted to keep good relations with the Indians and prevent war, keep white settlers from being menaced.    He's taken for granted that his Christian values would become the Indian's values.   Although he'd had a long association with the Indians and certainly had more knowledge about their mythology or their beliefs than anyone else, but he took it for granted that Christian values would be theirs.   He'd assumed that these people would be Christianized and probably had assumed too that they would become farmers.   But, in all, his attitude was a benevolent one and it wasn't until after his time that the problems arose.

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