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Chapter Two

The Entire Property of the White People Forever

It appears decreed that the white and red man are never to live in amity together, the history of the colonization and settlement of every portion of North America is but a continued chronicle of forcible occupations; it matters little whether the means employed be arms or negotiation, the poor savage is invariably in the end driven out of his patrimony, and the negotiation merely consists in the dictation of certain conditions by the more powerful, which the weaker has no choice but to accept; and which conditions are violated by the invader whenever it suits his convenience, or whenever he wishes a more extended boundary. Hitherto, in Vancouver Island the tribes who have principally been in intercourse with the white man, have found it for their interest to keep up that intercourse in amity for the purposes of trade, and the white adventurers have been so few in number, that they have not at all interfered with the ordinary pursuits of the natives. As the Colonial population increases … the red man will find his fisheries occupied, and his game, on which he depended for subsistence, killed by others; the fishers will probably cause the first difficulty, as all the tribes are singularly jealous of their fishing privileges, and guard their rights with the strictness of a manorial preserve. Collisions will then doubtless take place, and the Tscallum [Klallam] and the Cowitchin will be numbered with the bygone braves of the Oneida and Delaware.

—Captain Walter Colquhoun Grant,

first independent settler on Vancouver Island, 1849 ¹

According to British imperial policy, before settlement could take place on the lands “granted” to the Hudson’s Bay Company, the aboriginal title to those lands had to be extinguished. ² This policy was established in North America by the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which also stipulated that aboriginal land could only be ceded or sold to the Crown. However, events far across the Pacific Ocean in New Zealand set the precedent for the alienation of aboriginal territories on Vancouver Island. The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, which established British sovereignty, confirmed and guaranteed to “the Chiefs and tribes of New Zealand and to the respective families and individuals thereof the full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates, Forests, Fisheries and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess … so long as it is their wish and desire to retain the same in their possession.” ³

After the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, the British government advanced money to the New Zealand Company to purchase Maori land on behalf of the Crown, land which would then be sold at a profit to pakeha [European] settlers. The largest land sale in New Zealand took place on the South Island in June 1848, when 13,551,400 acres of Ngai Tahu lands were conveyed to the New Zealand Company for £2,000. ⁴ The rangatira (chiefs) initially rejected the offer but later agreed on the condition that they would be guaranteed their places of residence, their mahinga kai (places where food is produced or procured), and ample reserved land for their descendants. The rangatira insisted that these conditions be written into the deed of conveyance. The British, as was required by the Treaty of Waitangi, agreed. The original deed was written in Maori by Tracy Kemp, who negotiated the agreement on behalf of the New Zealand Company, and it was read aloud to the assembled signatories who affixed their marks and signatures to the document at Akaroa on June 12, 1848. Only later did the Ngai Tahu realize that the conditions would be ignored; that the actual amount of lands sold far exceeded what they had been led to believe; and that they would be denied access to traditional food gathering areas. ⁵

Although the new colony of Vancouver Island was administered by a governor appointed by the Colonial Office in London, control of land and settlement was entrusted to the Hudson’s Bay Company and it fell upon the company’s highest ranking official in the colony, James Douglas, Chief Factor of Fort Victoria, to negotiate with the aboriginal people for the sale of their lands.

Douglas was probably aware of the New Zealand land sales and understood the necessity of undertaking similar agreements in the newly established colony of Vancouver Island. ⁶ On September 3, 1849, Douglas wrote to the Secretary of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Archibald Barclay, that:

Some arrangement should be made as soon as possible with the native Tribes for the purchase of their lands … I would also strongly recommend, equally as a measure of justice, and from a regard to the future peace of the colony, that the Indian Fisheries, Village Sites and Fields, should be preserved for their benefit and fully secured to them by law. ⁷

Before Douglas’ letter reached London, Barclay wrote to him regarding the new colony and offered guidelines regarding the aboriginal people and their land according to the prevailing point of view of Britain’s colonial administrators:

With respect to the rights of the natives, you will have to confer with the chiefs of the tribes on that subject, and in your negotiations with them you are to consider the natives as the rightful possessors of such lands only as they are occupied by cultivation, or had houses built on, at the time when the Island came under the undivided sovereignty of Great Britain in 1846. All other land is to be regarded as waste, and applicable to the purposes of colonization … The Natives will be confirmed in the possession of their Lands as long as they occupy and cultivate them themselves but will not be allowed to sell or dispose of them to any private person, the right to the entire soil having been granted to the Company by the Crown. The right of fishing and hunting will be continued to them and when their lands are registered, and they conform to the same conditions with which other settlers are required to comply, they will enjoy the same rights and privileges. ⁸

Barclay’s instructions to Douglas were much influenced by the question of land alienation in New Zealand where British colonists managed to alienate Maori land despite the guarantees of property rights, including ownership and control of their economic resources, enshrined in the Treaty of Waitangi. Ignorant of aboriginal land tenure and the seasonal exploitation of food resources, colonist organizations lobbied for the alienation of land outside the perimeters of native settlements and agricultural plots which, under Pakeha (European) concepts of land tenure, were regarded as waste. Part of the problem was British acceptance of the social theory developed by Vattel, an eighteenth-century French legalist, who argued that cultivation alone gave the right to hold title to land. Hunting or food gathering were considered “idle” forms of existence. “Those who yet hold to the idle mode of life,” wrote Vattel, “usurp more land than they would require with honest labour, and cannot complain if other nations, more laborious and too much pent-up, come and occupy a portion of it.” ⁹

Barclay drew on the report of a select committee of the House of Commons which examined Maori title in this regard and concluded that the Maori had only “qualified Dominion” over their lands. Barclay quoted directly from the select committee’s report in his December 16 letter when he instructed Douglas that the “uncivilized inhabitants of any country have … a right of occupancy only, and … until they establish among themselves a settled form of government and subjugate the ground to their own uses by the cultivation of it … they have not any individual property in it.” ¹⁰

When the secretary’s letter arrived at Fort Victoria in the spring of 1850, Douglas lost no time in assembling the si’em of Songish, Clallam and Sooke families who occupied the lands surrounding the Fort and along the coast, west to Sherringham Point. Between April 29 and May 1, 1850, Douglas negotiated nine agreements whereby he arranged, at least according to his point of view, that “the whole of their lands … should be sold to the Company.” ¹¹ For his part, Douglas essentially made the same guarantees to the Hwulmuhw leaders of southern Vancouver Island as Kemp made to the Ngai Tahu in New Zealand. On May 16, he reported to Barclay that:

I summoned to a conference, the chiefs and influential men of the Songees Tribe, which inhabits and claims the District of Victoria, from Gordon Head on Arro [Haro] Strait to Point Albert on the Strait of De Fuca as their own particular heritage. After considerable discussion it was arranged that the whole of their lands, forming as before stated the District of Victoria, should be sold to the Company, with the exception of Village sites and enclosed fields, for a certain remuneration, to be paid at once to each member of the Tribe. I was in favour of a series of payments to be made annually but the proposal was so generally disliked that I yielded to their wishes and paid the sum at once.

The members of the Tribe on being mustered were found to number 122 men or heads of families, to each of whom was given a quantity of goods equal in value to 17s Sterling and the total sum disbursed on this purchase was £103.14.0 Sterling at Dept. price. I subsequently made a similar purchase from the Clallum Tribe, of the country lying between Albert Point and Soke [Sooke] Inlet. In consequence of the claimants not being so well known as the Songees, we adopted a different mode of making the payments, by dealing exclusively with the Chiefs, who received and distributed the payments while the sale was confirmed and ratified by the Tribe collectively. This second purchase cost about £30.0.8. I have since made a purchase from the Soke Tribe of the land between Soke Inlet and Point Sherringham, the arrangement being concluded in this as in the preceeding purchase with the Chiefs or heads of families who distributed the property among their followers. ¹² The cost of this tract which does not contain much cultivable land was £16.8.8. The total cost, as before stated, is £150.3.4.

I informed the natives that they would not be disturbed in the possession of their Village sites and enclosed fields, which are of small extent, and that they were at liberty to hunt over the unoccupied lands, and to carry on their fisheries with the same freedom as when they were the sole occupants of the country.

I attached the signatures of the native Chiefs and others who subscribed the deed of purchase to a blank sheet on which will be copied the contract or Deed of conveyance, as soon as we receive a proper form, which I beg may be sent out by return of Post. ¹³

In response to Douglas’s request for a “contract or Deed of conveyance” to append the ‘X’s made by the si’em, Barclay sent Douglas a handwritten English translation of Kemp’s Deed of 1848, with blank spaces for the names of the tribes, lands, payments and dates. In the accompanying letter Barclay informed Douglas that the “Governor and Committee [of the Hudson’s Bay Company] very much approve of the measure you have taken in respect of the lands claimed by the natives. You will receive herewith the form or contract or deed of Conveyance to be used on future occasions when lands are to be surrendered to the Company by the native tribes. It is a copy with hardly any alteration of the Agreement adopted by the New Zealand Company in their transactions of a similar kind with the natives there.” ¹⁴ Barclay’s version of Kemp’s Deed became the text of the so-called “Douglas Treaties:”

Form of Agreement for purchase of Land from Natives of Vancouver’s Island

Know all men. We the Chiefs and People of the tribe called ___ who have signed our names and made our marks to this Deed on the ___ day of ___ one thousand Eight hundred and ___ do consent to surrender entirely and for ever to James Douglas the Agent of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Vancouver’s Island that is to say, for the Governor Deputy Governor and Committee of the same the whole of the lands situate and lying between ___.

The condition of, or understanding of the sale is this, that our village sites and Enclosed Fields are to be left for our own use, for the use of our Children, and for those who may follow after us; and that the lands shall be properly surveyed hereafter; it is understood however that the land itself with these small exceptions becomes the Entire property of the White people for ever; it is also understood that we are at liberty to hunt over the unoccupied lands, and to carry on our fisheries as formerly. We have received as payment £___.

In token whereof we have signed our names and made our marks at ___ on the ___ day of ___ One thousand Eight hundred and ___. [here follow the Indian signatures] ¹⁵

Upon receipt of Barclay’s letter, Douglas adapted the text of the New Zealand-derived deed to each of the nine land sale agreements already negotiated. ¹⁶

The question arises as to whether or not the native people of southern Vancouver Island knew what they were doing when they made these agreements with Douglas. Given the economic and spiritual significance of their ancestral territories, plus the fact that they did not share European concepts of land ownership, it is likely that the “Chiefs and headmen” were unaware of Hwunitum intentions. Hwulmuhw leaders, however, were not opposed to Hwunitum settlement and, like their counterparts in New Zealand, recognized the value of making agreements with the most powerful nation on earth as a means of establishing peace in a region plagued by ongoing wars. ¹⁷ As New Zealand historian James Belich suggests, sovereignty has two distinct shades of meaning which can be distinguished by adding the words “nominal” and “substantive.” Nominal sovereignty is the theoretical dominion of a sovereign such as a monarch who “reigns but does not govern.” Substantive sovereignty, on the other hand, refers to the actual dominion of a controlling power … which exercises a decisive, though not necessarily absolute, influence over the whole of a country.” ¹⁸ Undoubtedly, Douglas had the latter meaning in mind when he forged his agreements, but it is likely that the former meaning was closer to the understanding of the Songees, Clallam and Sooke—a recognition of British nominal sovereignty in exchange for confirmation and acknowledgement of their substantive sovereignty over ancestral lands and resources.

There has been much emphasis on the low monetary value of these “transactions” which were, as Douglas himself indicated, based on the “Department” (i.e., wholesale) price of the goods, or seventeen shillings per three blankets, the number given each si’em. ¹⁹ The Hwunitum price was irrelevant and, in the minds of the Hwulmuhw recipients, had nothing to do with the value of the land which Douglas believed was being sold. The aboriginal leaders who took part in these early land sale agreements accepted the Hudson’s Bay Company blankets not as payment for “the whole of their lands,” but as a symbolic payment comparable to the blankets and other goods distributed at the stlun’uq, or potlatch, for the witnessing of important events. In this instance, the acceptance of three blankets by each si’em validated Douglas’ word that “they would not be disturbed in the possession of their Village sites and enclosed fields … and that they were at liberty to hunt over the unoccupied lands, and to carry on their fisheries with the same freedom as when they were the sole occupants of the country.” ²⁰ Hwulmuhw families saw the agreements as a confirmation of their ownership of ancestral village sites and the food-gathering resources which were the foundation of their economy.

Positive word of the “Douglas Treaties” spread to neighbouring First Nations. “The Cowetchin [Cowichan] and other Tribes,” wrote Douglas, “have since expressed a wish to dispose of their lands, on the same terms; but I declined their proposals in consequence of our not being prepared to enter into possession.” ²¹

Two years later, as the lands in the ceded territories around Fort Victoria were occupied by Hwunitum, apparently without, any objection by Hwulmuhw, Douglas, who was now Governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, looked to extinguish the title of the people whose land and resources lay northeast of Fort Victoria. Douglas and other Hudson’s Bay Company employees became shareholders in the “Vancouver’s Island Steam Saw Mill Company,” which commenced logging operations on lands owned by families near Cordova Bay. The Saanich objected to this unauthorized use of their resources. According to a Saanich elder, the late Dave Elliot Senior:

Our people got together and they said “What are we going to do about those beautiful trees? Are we just going to sit here and just let them do it?” So they talked back and forth and said, “No, we can’t just let it go, we have to say something.” So they decided to do something about it. ²²

Four canoes of Saanich warriors proceeded to the site of the logging operation and ordered the Hwunitum to leave—which they did. Douglas then sought to make a land sale agreement with the Saanich along the same lines as the previous agreements of 1850. He informed the Hudson’s Bay Company that:

The steam saw mill Company having selected as the site of their operations the section of land … which being within the limits of the Sanitch country, those Indians came forward with a demand for payment, and finding it impossible to discover among the numerous claimists the real owners of the land in question, and there being much difficulty in adjusting such claims, I thought it adviseable to purchase the whole of the Sanitch Country, as a measure that would save much future trouble and expence. I succeeded in effecting that purchase in a general convention of the Tribe; who individually subscribed the Deed of Sale, reserving for their use only the village sites and potato patches, and I caused them to be paid the sum of £109.7.6 in woolen goods, which they preferred to money. ²³

When Douglas invited the headmen of the various winter villages of the Saanich Peninsula to Fort Victoria on February 7 and February 11, 1852, they were under the impression that the Hwunitum leader wished to negotiate a peace treaty:

When they got there, all these piles of blankets plus other goods were on the ground. They told them these bundles were for them plus about $200 but it was in pounds and shillings.

They saw these bundles of blankets and goods and they were asked to put X’s on this paper. They asked each head man to put an X on the paper. Our people didn’t know what the X’s were for. Actually they didn’t call them X’s they called them crosses. So they talked back and forth from one to the other and wondered why they were being asked to put crosses on the paper and they didn’t know what the paper said. What I imagined from looking at the document was that they must have gone to each man and asked them their name and then they transcribed it in a very poor fashion and then asked them to make an X.

One man spoke up after they discussed it, and said, “I think James Douglas wants to keep the peace.”

They were after all almost in a state of war, a boy had been shot. ²⁴ Also we stopped them from cutting timber and sent them back to Victoria and told them to cut no more timber.

“I think these are peace offerings. I think Douglas means to keep the peace. I think these are the sign of the cross.”

He made the sign of the cross. The missionaries must have already been around by then, because they knew about the ‘sign of the cross’! “This means Douglas is sincere.”

They thought it was just a sign of sincerity and honesty. This was the sign of their God. It was the highest order of honesty.

It wasn’t much later they found out actually they were signing their land away by putting those crosses out there. They didn’t know what it said on the paper … Our people were hardly able to talk English at that time and who could understand our language? ²⁵

Unlike the previous land sale agreements, those arranged with the Saanich were made with the actual text of the deed in place at the time they were signed. However, according to the oral history, the Saanich “did not know what it said on the paper.” Even if interpreters were available to explain the wording of the deed of conveyance to the Saanich headmen there is still no assurance that the full implications of its contents were accurately conveyed to or understood by the Saanich. But with the guarantee that their winter villages, potato fields and traditional food gathering sources would be protected, the Saanich si’em saw no reason not to sign. The British had, after all, stopped cutting timber at Cadboro Bay when the Saanich protested. In any event, the oral history is clear on the point that it was the acceptance by Saanich leaders of Douglas’ perceived sincerity that convinced them to agree to accept the blankets and thereby validate the agreement.

Across the Pacific Ocean, four years earlier, the Ngai Tahu had similarly debated “Kemp’s Deed,” and, in the final analysis, some, though by no means all, accepted its promise of undisturbed Maori occupation of their lands and continued access to resources based on the word of high-ranking British officials. Among aboriginal people such as the Ngai Tahu and the Saanich, the word of a man of recognizable high rank such as Douglas was sacrosanct and entirely dependable. To break one’s word was to lose the most important aspect of a high-ranking person’s life—his honour and the respect accorded him by others.

After the treaty with the Saanich had been executed, Douglas turned his attention to territories further north on Vancouver’s Island.

From time immemorial, the Nanaimo people knew of the coal deposits in their territory and associated them with qwunus, the killer whale. The elders warned that interference with deposits would bring dire consequences:

So the head men said, “Never touch that black rock no matter where you see it, for it belongs to the great black fish, and if we touch that rock, all the fish will surely come and kill us.” ²⁶

Qwunus did not come to kill the people, but the discovery of the valuable coalbearing “Douglas vein” at Wentuhuysen Inlet in present day Nanaimo focused Hwunitum interest on the territories of Hul’qumi’num First Nations along the east coast of Vancouver Island and hastened the alienation of those lands.

Although the existence of the rich coal deposits were confirmed in May 1850, the Hwulmuhw lands which lay between Nanaimo and the Saanich Peninsula, including the extensive Cowichan and Chemainus Valleys and the offshore labyrinth of islands, remained relatively unknown to Hwunitum. Douglas was aware of the agricultural potential of the region as early as 1849 when he informed the Hudson’s Bay Company that the Cowichan Valley “is reported by the Indians to be much superior to this part of Vancouver’s Island in respect to extent of cultivated land.” ²⁷ Potato cultivation, introduced decades earlier, had reached such heights that Hwulmuhw farmers harvested them by the ton from extensive fields in the Cowichan and Chemainus Valleys and traded the surplus to the Hwunitum. ²⁸

In May 1851, Douglas instructed two Hudson’s Bay employees, Joseph MacKay and Tomo Antoine, to explore the Cowichan Valley “with a view to opening [it] to settlers.” ²⁹ Both men were seasoned veterans of the company and Antoine, of Chinook/Iroquois ancestry, would play an important role in the alienation of Hwulmuhw lands. A “slight, actively built man, with a dark copper-coloured face, lit up by keen, intelligent eyes,” Antoine served the Company “in several capacities, as guide, hunter, and interpreter in all of which capacities he [stood] unrivalled.” ³⁰ MacKay and Antoine, the first outsiders to explore the Cowichan Valley, made their reconnaissance “under the protection of ‘Hosua’[Tsosieten] chief of the Cowitchen tribe,” and reported land suitable for agriculture along the river. ³¹

The first Hwunitum to live in the area was a Quebecois, Father Honore Timothy Lempfrit of the Roman Catholic order, Oblates des Mary Immaculate. Described by Douglas as “a very able and zealous teacher,” Lempfrit had been “loaned” to the diocese of Vancouver Island until the arrival of the consecrated Bishop Modeste Demers. ³² In October 1851, without the authorization of the Bishop who was in Europe, Lempfrit left Victoria to establish a mission among the Cowichan. His arrival amongst the Cowichan at the beginning of their winter dances eventually created “a great lack of cordiality between the pastor and his flock.” ³³ Fearing that Lempfrit’s continued presence in the Cowichan Valley would endanger the peace of the colony, Douglas, in May 1852, dispatched a constable and ten men to rescue him in the first armed intervention in Cowichan affairs by Hwunitum. ³⁴ Shortly thereafter Lempfrit left for Oregon. ³⁵ Following this experience, Douglas discouraged missionary activities outside of the Colony of Vancouver Island where, in unceded territories, he was unable to guarantee their safety.

His activities drew censure from the church, but Lempfrit’s short-lived mission planted the seeds of Catholicism amongst Hul’qumi’num First Nations. As one church historian observed, during his stay, Lempfrit “in his inexperience and for the lack of someone to counsel him … baptized over four thousand Indians, and married as many of them as must receive the Church’s blessing on their union, after only eight days of instruction and probation.” ³⁶

Douglas was anxious to explore the area for himself, particularly in light of the discovery of extensive coal deposits at Nanaimo. In early August 1852, he “carried out the project which [he had] long entertained, of a canoe expedition, through the Canal de Arro and along the East Coast of Vancouver’s Island, for the purpose of examining the country and communicating with the native tribes, who inhabit that part of the Colony.” ³⁷ Douglas soon discovered that he was literally entering uncharted territory where, up until Lempfrit’s mission, few Hwunitum had ventured. Using the latest map of Vancouver Island as a chart, Douglas soon noted its “extreme incorrectness” beyond Cowichan Head on the east coast of the Saanich Peninsula. “From that point,” he wrote, “all resemblance to the Coast ceases.” ³⁸

Passing beneath the prominent steep slopes of the south end of Salt Spring Island, Douglas was informed that the place was called Tsuween (land [mountain] comes down to the water). ³⁹ Douglas anglicized the Hul’qumi’num place name to “Chuan” and used it to refer to the entire island.

Proceeding up the Arro Canal (Sansum Narrows), Douglas’ canoe expedition “touched at the Cowegin [Cowichan] River, which falls into the Canal … and derives its name from the tribe of Indians which inhabit the neighbouring country.” ⁴⁰ Douglas was impressed by the extent of Cowichan agriculture. “These Indians,” he wrote, “partially cultivate the alluvial Islands near the mouth of the river, where we saw many large and well kept fields of potatoes, in a very flourishing state, and a number of fine cucumbers which had been raised in the open air, without any particular care.” ⁴¹

North of the Cowichan territory, Douglas briefly explored the mouth of the Chemainus River which he recognized as being smaller than the Cowichan River, and “navigable to a short distance only from the Coast. It is inhabited by a branch of the Cowegin [Cowichan] Tribe, whom we did not see.” ⁴² Douglas then proceeded to Nanaimo where he examined the coal deposits and experienced “a feeling of exultation in beholding so huge a mass of mineral wealth.” ⁴³

Upon his return to Fort Victoria, Douglas was optimistic that further exploration of the east coast of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands would benefit the colony. In his August 17 letter to Sir John Packington, Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for the Colonial Department, Douglas wrote that:

A correct survey of these channels will remove many of the difficulties that would at present be experienced by sailing vessels navigating these straits and, should Her Majesty’s Government, at any time, direct surveys to be made in this quarter, I think the Arro Archipelago will be found to have peculiar claims to their attention, as there is a prospect of its soon becoming the channel of a very important trade. ⁴⁴

The relative isolation of Hul’qumi’num First Nations from overt Hwunitum influence on Vancouver Island’s east coast and the adjacent islands was over. The discovery and development of the Hudson Bay Company’s coal mining operations at Nanaimo focused Hwunitum attention on securing title to the valuable coalbearing deposits. On August 24, 1852, with the vast majority of the Nanaimo people away at the Fraser River sockeye fishery, Douglas instructed Joseph MacKay “to proceed with all possible diligence to Wintuhuysen Inlet, commonly known as Nanymo [Nanaimo] Bay, and formally take possession of the coal beds lately discovered there for and in behalf of the Hudson’s Bay Company.” ⁴⁵ Professional miners began work after September 6 under the direction of Scottish immigrant John Muir, and six days later the first commercial shipment of coal from Nanaimo territory left Colvilletown, as the new settlement was called, for Fort Victoria. ⁴⁶ Upon their return from the Fraser River fishery, some of the Nanaimo people also began actively gathering coal from surface deposits “with a surprising degree of industry” to trade “for clothing and other articles of European manufacture.” ⁴⁷ Douglas himself returned to the area less than five months later, only this time he did not travel in a canoe, but aboard the Hudson’s Bay Company steam vessel Beaver in command of a military expedition.

On November 5, 1852, at the Lake Hill sheep station near Fort Victoria, an employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Peter Brown, was shot several times in the chest and killed by a Nanaimo man named Siamasit and an unknown Cowichan companion, after Brown “had insulted the squaws of the Indians.” ⁴⁸ When Douglas learned of the attack he immediately informed Company headquarters in London of his plans to secure the suspects in the killing, believed to be “two Indians of the Cowegin [Cowichan] tribe”:

I propose dispatching messengers to the chiefs of the Cowegin tribe tomorrow to inform them of the foul deed that has been committed, and to demand the surrender of the criminals. I shall also offer a reward for their discovery. Should these measures fail, I shall be under the painful necessity of sending a force to seize upon the murderers. ⁴⁹

At Esquimalt, Captain Augustus L. Kuper, commander of the thirty-six-gun British frigate Thetis, acknowledged Douglas’ request for assistance, informing him “that in the event of your finding it necessary to resort to more stringent measures to enforce the surrender of the murderers, you may depend upon my hearty cooperation in this matter, as at all times when you may consider it to be necessary for the security and benefit of the colony of Vancouver Island.” ⁵⁰

Douglas sent his ultimatum to the Cowichan on November 7, and within a few days “Soseeah [Tsosieten] the Chief, who possesses the greatest degree of influence with his people,” arrived in Victoria to confer with the Hwunitum leader:

... he expresses the utmost regret, that such an unhappy event should have taken place, as his people are not disposed to quarrel with the whites to whom they are under so many obligations, and he assured me that all his Tribe, with the exception of one little party called Thlim Thlimclits [Clemclemalits] who are related to one of the assassins have resolved to give up the murderers, and should the latter attempt to screen them from justice, the rest of the Tribe are not disposed to aid or assist them in any manner in resisting the Queen’s authority. ⁵¹

This came as welcome news to Douglas, who was desirous “to avoid implicating the Tribe in the guilt of individuals … The Thlim Thlimclits [Clemclemalits] may also see the folly of taking part with the murderers, and shun a contest, which would be disagreeable to us, and calamitous to them.” ⁵²

The attack on Brown raised fears among the Hwunitum of Fort Victoria and the surrounding farms that an all-out attack by Cowichan warriors against the colony was imminent. Douglas stopped the sale of gunpowder to Hwulmuhw and announced that he was suspending all trade with the Cowichan until the matter was resolved. Another month was to pass when, after learning the identities of the two killers and realizing that their relations would not give them up, Douglas organized a military expedition to secure their capture.

Although the campaign was to take place “at a very unfavorable season,” it could not be delayed as the departure of the warship Thetis from the colony was imminent. “I feel convinced,” wrote Douglas, “of making the present attempt to capture the murderers, in order to alarm the Indians and to prevent further murders and aggressions, which I fear may take place if the Indians are emboldened by present impunity. Every exertion will be made to avoid hostilities and to bring the Indians to a friendly compromise and unless the Queen’s authority be speedily respected the tribe will be neither molested or attacked.” ⁵³

At 7:00 a.m. on Tuesday, January 4, 1853, the expeditionary force left Esquimalt under Douglas’ command. The Thetis was thought to be too large to navigate the uncharted waters of Sansum Narrows, so the Hudson’s Bay Company steam vessel Beaver was detailed to tow the brigantine Recovery and the pinnace, barge, and launch of the Thetis to Cowichan Bay. On board the various craft were one hundred and thirty sailors and marines of the Thetis under the command of Lieutenants John Moresby and Arthur Sansum. The regulars were accompanied by the local Hudson’s Bay Company militia—ten men of the Victoria Voltigeurs— under the command of Joseph MacKay. ⁵⁴

After stopping at the Saanich village of Tsawout, where Douglas made a speech and “distributed a few presents among the chiefs” to reassure them of his peaceful intentions, the force was delayed another day “in consequence of a violent head wind and strong ebb.” ⁵⁵ Finally, on Thursday morning, January 6, the British flotilla arrived in Cowichan Bay, where they caused “great excitement among the Indians who shunned the vessels.” ⁵⁶

Knowing that the suspect was from the village of Clemclemalits, Douglas sent a message ashore by canoe, inviting the Cowichan si’em on board the Beaver “to a conference in which I hope to be able to prevail upon them to surrender the murderer quietly and without a recourse to violent measures, which I consider justifiable only as a last resource.” ⁵⁷ The bearer of this message may have been Tomo Antoine, who was enlisted in the Voltigeurs as an interpreter. Fluent in English, French and Hul’qumi’num dialects, Antoine may also have been instrumental in obtaining the co-operation of certain Cowichan si’em to resolve the dispute, possibly by the distribution of gifts. ⁵⁸ The messengers returned to the vessels in the evening “with the intelligence that the chiefs of the Camegins [Cowichans] agreed to hold a conference near the mouth of the river; when they will meet us tomorrow morning, instead of coming on board the boat which they fear to do.” ⁵⁹

Early the next morning, Friday, January 7, the British troops landed and marched past the village of Comiaken where they were greeted by Tsosieten before taking up position on the rocky knoll behind the village (Comiaken Hill) where the ancestors of the place came down from the sky in the distant past. ⁶⁰ Douglas records what transpired that morning:

The tent was immediately pitched, a fire lighted, on a pretty rising oak ground and at the suggestion of “Soseiah” [Tsosieten] the Camegin chief … the sailors and marines were thrown a little back from the river in order to conceal their numbers, as he expressed a fear that the Camegins would be afraid to come if they saw so large a force. These arrangements being completed and the ground occupied, we prepared to receive the Indians as they arrived. ⁶¹

In the course of two hours the Indians began to drop down the River in their war canoes, and landed a little above the position we occupied; and last of all arrived two large canoes crowded with the relatives and friends of the murderer, hideously painted, and evidently prepared to defend him to the last extremity; the criminal himself being among the number. On landing they made a furious dash towards the point I occupied, a little in advance of the Force and their demeanour was altogether so hostile that the marines were with little difficulty restrained from opening fire upon them. When the first excitement had a little abated, the murderer was brought into my presence and I succeeded after a good deal of trouble, in taking him into custody; and sent him a close prisoner on board the steam vessel. ⁶²

The “good deal of trouble” mentioned by Douglas was not a physical struggle but protracted speeches on both sides with Tomo Antoine as interpreter. Moresby, the gunnery lieutenant of the Thetis, records that Douglas threatened the Cowichan with violence if the wanted man was not given up. According to Moresby, Douglas raised his hand and said: “Hearken, O Chiefs! I am sent by King George who is your friend, and who desires right only between your tribes and his men. If his men kill an Indian, they are punished. If your men do likewise, they must also suffer. Give up the murderer, and let there be peace between the peoples, or I will burn your lodges and trample out your tribes.” ⁶³

According to Douglas, the Cowichan man alleged to have been the warrior who shot Brown “was produced by his friends armed cap a pie [head to foot] and was heard in his defence, which went to declare that he was innocent of the crime laid to his charge. I listened to all that was alleged in his defence, and promised to give him a fair hearing at Nanaimo. He was on those terms surrendered.” ⁶⁴

What Douglas may or may not have known was that the man surrendered to him that day was not the warrior who killed Brown, but a slave (skwuyuth) offered instead as compensation. ⁶⁵ According to Hwulmuhw law it would be inappropriate to hand over a man of high rank to atone for the death of a person of low rank which Brown, in the Hudson’s Bay hierarchy, clearly was. Possibly Douglas was aware of what was going on but agreed to the exchange as a way to avoid hostilities with the Cowichan who were recognized as the most militarily capable threat against the infant colony. In doing so he resolved the dispute between the Hwunitum and the Clemclemalits according to Hwulmuhw law.

With the slave in custody, Douglas “remained on the ground for several hours,” addressed the two hundred assembled Cowichan and distributed gifts signifying to the si’em that a peaceful balance between the Fort Victoria Hwunitum and the Cowichan was restored. ⁶⁶ How much of the following speech by Douglas, given its content, was correctly translated by Tomo Antoine is not known:

I afterwards addressed the Indians who were there assembled, on the subject of their relations with the Colony and the Crown. I informed them that the whole of their country was a possession of the British crown, and that Her Majesty the Queen had given me a special charge, to treat them with justice and humanity and to protect them against violence of all foreign nations which might attempt to molest them, so long as they remained at peace with the settlements. I told them to apply to me for redress, if they met with any injury or injustice at the hands of the Colonists and not to retaliate and above all things, I undertook to impress upon the minds of the chiefs that they must respect Her Majesty’s warrant, and surrender any criminal belonging to their respective tribes, on demand of the Court Magistrate and that resistance to the Civil power, would expose them to be considered enemies. I also told them that being satisfied with their conduct in the present conference, peace was restored and they might resume their trade with Fort Victoria. The distribution of a little tobacco and some speechifying on the part of the Indians, expressions of their regard and friendship for the whites closed the proceedings and the conference broke up. ⁶⁷

Two days later the expedition continued towards Nanaimo in search of Siamasit, the other man involved in Peter Brown’s death. Siamasit was the son of a si’em of Tiwulhuw on the Nanaimo River, and “was regarded as the Hero of the Tribe.” ⁶⁸ Siamasit’s relations, according to Hwulmuhw law, offered furs in compensation for the death of the low ranking Hudson’s Bay employee, but Douglas was not prepared to negotiate. He regarded the Nanaimo as posing little threat to Hwunitum interests “not having the reputation of being so numerous or warlike in their habits as the Cowegin [Cowichan] Tribe.” ⁶⁹ Douglas seized Siamasit’s father and “another influential Indian” as hostages. After some difficulty, including a bloodless assault by marines and colonial militia on Kwulsiwul, the furthest downstream village on the Nanaimo River, Douglas marched on the village of Tiwulhuw and informed the people “that they should be treated as enemies, and their villages destroyed, if they continued longer to protect the murderer.” ⁷⁰ Siamasit was soon tracked down at his place of refuge on the Chase River where he was captured by Basil Botineau of the Victoria Voltigeurs:

A few inches of snow had fallen and his footmarks were traced, he was chased in fact, to a river (since named from this incident, Chase River); here the scout Basil Botineau found himself at fault, and, as it was getting dark, would have abandoned the search had not the Indian, who was hiding under the driftwood, snapped his flint-lock musket at him, but the priming and charge were damp and neither exploded. The scout followed the direction of the sound, but in the dusk could not see the Indian, who tried a second shot at him when the priming only exploded, but the flash exposing his hiding place, he was immediately discovered, knocked down and handcuffed. ⁷¹

On the cold morning of January 17, 1853, there was a brief trial on the quarterdeck of the Beaver, where a jury of naval officers found their prisoners guilty of the murder of Peter Brown. Siamasit and the slave shared “the melancholy distinction of being the first persons in British Columbia to be condemned by a jury and sentenced to death.” ⁷² Siamasit’s mother begged the British to hang her husband instead as “he was old and could not live long … and one for one was Indian law.” ⁷³ In a deliberate move to intimidate the local population, the men were executed at the south end of Protection Island, across from the site of the first coal shaft sunk on Nanaimo Harbour in the “presence of the whole Nanaimo Tribe, the scene appearing to make a deep impression on their minds.” ⁷⁴

Douglas was pleased at the outcome of the brief campaign, particularly the encounter with the Cowichan. In a letter to the Colonial Office, Douglas wrote:

I am happy to report that I found both the Cowegin and Nanaimo Tribes more amenable to reason than was supposed; the objects of the Expedition having, under Providence, been satisfactorily attained, as much through the influence of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s name, as by the effect of intimidation. The surrender of a criminal, as in the case of the Cowegin murderer, without bloodshed, by the most numerous and warlike of the Native Tribes on Vancouver’s Island, at the demand of the Civil powers may be considered, as an epoch, in the history of our Indian relations, which augers well for the future peace and prosperity of the Colony. That object however could not have been effected without the exhibition of a powerful force. ⁷⁵

Douglas also informed the Hudson’s Bay Company headquarters in London that the recent expedition succeeded in allaying the fears of Hwunitum colonists and impressing upon Hwulmuhw factions the efficacy of British military power: “War was carried to their door last winter and they are sensible that at any moment we can repeat the experiment.” ⁷⁶

The 1853 expedition to the Cowichan River and Wentuhuysen Inlet also established the pattern of British exploitation of interfamily rivalry to achieve results that were, it appears, mutually beneficial to the parties involved. Blankets and other gifts were used to enlist co-operation. While seen as bribery by British standards, from a Hwulmuhw point of view the exchange of gifts was a solemn recognition of alliance between Hwulmuhw and Hwunitum interests for common purpose. One of the single largest expenditures of the entire expedition was fourteen pounds, six shillings “for secret service by Indians at Cowegin and Nanaimo.” ⁷⁷ Where “bribery” failed, the British resorted to hostage-taking and threats of deadly force to achieve their ends.

The British strategy of “divide and conquer” was crucial to their success in a land where they were vastly outnumbered by Hwulmuhw populations. A comparison of population figures compiled from the 1853 and 1854 census illustrates the disparity in numbers between the Hwunitum of the Colony of Vancouver Island and Hul’qumi’num First Nations inhabiting the east coast of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. Of a total Hwunitum population of 774, half of whom were under the age of twenty, 232 lived at Fort Victoria, 151 at Nanaimo, with the balance distributed amongst outlying farms in the ceded territories. ⁷⁸ By comparison, the following excerpt of a census entitled “Original Indian Population of Vancouver Island 1853” from Douglas’ private papers, reveals the populations of various Hul’qumi’num First Nations south of Nanaimo. ⁷⁹ According to these figures, several villages alone outnumbered the entire Hwunitum population of the Colony.

FAMILY PLACE OF HABITATION	MEN WITH BEARDS	WOMEN	BOYS	GIRLS
Komiaken [Comiaken]	100	120	87	113
Thlimthim Comiaken Valley	160	160	153	162
Quamichan	430	450	400	450
Sawmina [Somenos]	80	75	63	80
Tataka Comiaken Gap	160	162	160	165
Penalahats [Penelakut]	200	219	205	195
Chemanis [Chemainus]	200	203	264	283
Sumlumalcha [Lamalcha]	20	22	36	44

While the British exerted their power and influence over various groups of Hul’qumi’num First Nations people, there were similar shifts of power amongst the people themselves. Shortly after the Hwulmuhw census of 1853, Tzouhalem, who was listed in Douglas’ census as the highest ranking si’em at Quamichan, was killed at Lamalcha on Kuper Island by Shelm-tum when Tzouhalem raided the village in an attempt to kidnap Shelm-tum’s wife, Tsae-Mea-Lae.

It was like this. Over on Kuper Island there was a Indian village where the Lamalchas lived. Now, one of the Lamalchas was a man named Shelm-Tum and he had a big, fine-looking wife called Tsae-Mea-Lae. For many months Tzouhalem had wanted that woman, and at last he made up his mind to go and take her. One day he started off with his second brother a man named Squa-Lem … Well, away they went, and when they got to Lamalcha, Tzouhalem ran to the house where Tsae-Mea-Lae lived and began singing and dancing, for the great Tzouhalem to take away.

There were not many of the Lamalchas in the house, and when they heard Tzouhalem’s voice they ran away and hid, only the brave Tsae-Mea-Lae waited, hiding behind the door. Pretty soon Tzouhalem came to the door, looked in, but could see no one. He turned to go away when, quickly Tsae-Mea-Lae leaned out and putting a thick clam stick around his breast, held him from behind and shouted to her husband to come and kill him.

It did not take Schelm-Tum long to get his axe, and with one blow he cut off Tzouhalem’s head. Later the Lamalchas sent the head back to Quamichan, but they kept the body on Kuper Island. ⁸⁰

The death of Tzouhalem, the most feared and powerful warrior amongst the Cowichan, gave the people of Lamalcha a certain notoriety despite the small population of the village. Over the next few years, Lamalcha attracted disaffected warriors who, for one reason or another, could not live in their own villages. Although the Lamalcha had killed the one man who posed the greatest military threat to Hwunitum, within a few years another formidable warrior, equally antagonistic towards the Hwunitum, would become associated with the village and lead a small band of warriors against Hwunitum incursions into his people’s territories. His name was Acheewun, a man described by the Hwunitum as “the terror of all the tribes around” and “a perfect fiend”—a man who “seemed likely to assume the mantle of Tzouhalem.” ⁸¹

In the wake of the successful campaign against the Nanaimo, Douglas acted quickly to consolidate the Hudson’s Bay Company’s occupation of the coal-bearing deposits on Wentuhuysen Inlet. In January of 1853, the Hudson’s Bay Company, concerned that the coal fields would revert to the Crown’s possession when and if its charter was revoked, instructed Douglas to extinguish the aboriginal title and purchase the land from the Crown. ⁸² Douglas’ first attempt to arrange a land sale agreement was unsuccessful but he assured the company that he would re-open negotiations “as soon as I think it safe and prudent to renew the question of Indian rights, which always give rise to troublesome excitements, and has on every occasion been productive of serious disturbances.” ⁸³ The late expedition and subsequent executions precluded immediate negotiations and almost two years would pass before Douglas was able to make an agreement with the people who owned the land in question. These people inhabited Saalaquun, the furthest upriver of five villages on the Nanaimo River. They “held aloof from the other four villages and appear to have been the most self-sufficient and dominant group,” controlling the only salmon fish weir on the river. ⁸⁴

Douglas focused on building a fort by the coal shaft to protect the coal-miners from Hwulmuhw attacks. By June 1853, two company employees, Leon Labine and Jean Baptiste Fortier, with a crew of labourers, built a two-story octagonal bastion of squared timbers armed with two six-pound carronades overlooking the dock facilities, the coal workings and the fledgling Hwunitum settlement. The guns from this two-story bastion were used to intimidate the native population with random displays of gunnery towards Protection Island and Gallows Point. ⁸⁵

Coal production continued in a haphazard way, with Saalaquun labourers mining coal at open deposits and trading it to the British until November 27, 1854, when twenty-three Hwunitum families recruited from the Brierly Hill Colliery in Staffordshire, England arrived in Colvilletown. ⁸⁶

Shortly after the arrival of the Staffordshire miners, Douglas was finally able to conclude a treaty with the people who owned the site of the coal mining operation. Just before Christmas in 1854, Douglas met with the Saalaquun si’em, Suquen-esthen, and others to formally purchase the land occupied by the coal mine “from Commercial Inlet 12 miles up Nanaimo River.” ⁸⁷ The land sale agreement had taken almost two years to negotiate and was the most expensive. It was witnessed and signed by 159 si’em, each of whom received four blankets, twice as many as those given to the Sooke and Clallam si’em, and one more than both the Songees and Saanich si’em received. ⁸⁸ It was also the only land sale agreement that bears the signature of James Douglas.

As in the previous agreements signed at Fort Victoria, the Nanaimo were misled with regards to the significance of the agreement they signed with the British. What follows is the Saalaquun version of the land sale agreement signed at Colvilletown on December 23, 1854, as recalled by Suquen-es-then’s daughter, Tstass-Aya, and her husband, Quen-es-then, who was present as a small boy:

Well, one day a Hudson’s Bay man came to see my father. “We want to talk to you and your people about this coal,” he said. “We will have a meeting. You and all your people, and you must get another chief and his people, and on a certain day we will all talk this thing over.”

So my father, Chief Suquen-Es-Then, called all his people, and he told another chief, whose name was Chief Schwun-Schn, to call his tribe, and together they went to the meeting.”

Now, you know where the big wharf is now—where the steamers come? Well, down there is a rock, in the water. In those old days it was part of the land, and at that place was a very big house. To that house there went all the Hudson’s Bay men, and the two chiefs with their people.

Here Quen-Es-Then interrupted. “I was at that meeting,” he said, “I can remember all the people in that house, and lots outside, but I was only a small boy standing beside my father.”

Then the Hudson’s Bay men talked to the Indians. “This coal that is here,” they said, “is no good to you, and we would like it; but we want to be friends, so, if you will let us come and take as much of this black rock as we want, we will be good to you.” They told my father, “The good Queen, our great white chief, far over the water, will look after your people for all time, and they will be given much money, so that they will never be poor.”

Then they gave each chief a bale of Hudson’s Bay blankets and a lot of shirts and tobacco, just like rope! “These are presents for you and your people, to show we are your good friends,” they said. The chiefs took the things and they cut the blankets, which were double ones, in half, to make more, and gave one to every chief man, then the shirts, and to those who were left they gave pieces of the rope tobacco; so that every man in the tribes had a present.

“Now you know,” said Tstass-Aya, “we think there was some mistake made at that meeting, or, maybe, the people could not understand properly what was said; but later, when our people asked for some of the money for their coal, the Hudson’s Bay men said to them,”Oh, we paid you when we gave you those good blankets!” But those two chiefs knew that the man had said, “The Queen will give you money.” ⁸⁹

According to the Nanaimo version of the agreement, Douglas made verbal promises that were not honoured. The New Zealand-derived conveyance form, if it was ever attached to the Nanaimo agreement, has since been lost. However, it seems probable that the same provisions were included and that “the conveyance obtained in 1854 was obtained on the strength of a promise that the Indians would be entitled to retain their village sites and enclosed fields, and the Indians would have the right to hunt over the unoccupied lands, as well as to carry on their fisheries as before.” ⁹⁰ In short, they would retain their sovereignty and jurisdiction over their people and lands.

That the Nanaimo signatories were familiar with the text of the deed of conveyance is strongly suggested in the wording of an address given by Nanaimo si’em to Douglas’ successor Arthur Kennedy, on the subject of land alienation on November 15, 1864:

We want to keep our land here and up the river … All our other land is gone, and we have been paid very little for it. God gave it to us a long time ago, and now we are very poor, and do not know where our houses will be if we leave this. We want our land up the river to plant for food. Mr. Douglas said it would be ours, and our children’s after we are gone. ⁹¹

In other words, the Nanaimo were demanding that the government live up to the promise of the 1854 “Douglas Treaty,” that villages, fields, and food gathering areas would, as the deed of conveyance put it, “be kept for our own use, for the use of our children, and for those who may follow after us.” ⁹²

With the arrival of the Staffordshire miners and the Nanaimo land sale agreement in place, the coal-mining operations began in earnest to supply company steamers and, increasingly, warships of the Royal Navy on patrol and survey duties for the imperial government. 1854 not only heralded the first ceded territories among Hul’qumi’num-speaking people (the Saalaquun), but also marked the beginning, thanks to the Crimean War, of the naval base in Esquimalt where a hospital had been constructed in expectation of casualties following an allied assault on the Petrovask Peninsula. More than the bastion looming over Colvilletown, the formidable, increasingly frequent appearance of Royal Navy warships coaling at the docking facilities below served to discourage Hwulmuhw resistance to Hwunitum newcomers.

The town of Colvilletown, soon to be called Nanaimo, grew to be the second largest Hwunitum settlement in the Colony of Vancouver Island. In addition to its coaling facilities, the town’s proximity to the heartland of Hul’qumi’num First Nations made it an important trading and distribution centre for Hwunitum goods, not the least of which was alcohol.

Alcohol was an important trade item, highly valued and eagerly sought by Hwulmuhw. It had become a symbol of wealth: one gallon was equal to two threepoint Hudson’s Bay blankets. ⁹³ Its consumption permeated many aspects of Hwulmuhw culture, including the stlun’uq (potlatch) and funerals. Amidst the disruption of traditional society, “drunkenness appeared as a desireable thing which outweighed its unpleasant consequences. It had preeminent value in the feast situation. The more intoxicated the guests became, the more conspicuously did they attest to the strength of the host’s liquor and to their wealth which permitted them to be so lavish with hard-to-come-by whiskey and rum.” ⁹⁴

Colonial legislation “prohibiting the Gift or Sale of Spiritous Liquors to Indians” was introduced by Douglas and approved by the Council of the Colony of Vancouver Island on August 3, 1854, but despite this measure the illegal trade in alcohol to Hwulmuhw continued unabated. ⁹⁵ Liquor consumption by Hwunitum was widespread and the profits associated with bootlegging too attractive. Commenting on the constant traffic of coastal schooners over the following decade, a former dealer stated that it “was potent to anyone of common sense that the main objective of these vessels making voyages is for gain by whiskey selling.” ⁹⁶

Between 1850 and 1854, the Hudson’s Bay Company, with increasing difficulty, negotiated fourteen land sale agreements with aboriginal people on Vancouver’s Island. The Colony of Vancouver Island composed eight districts created from these lands, but the 1854 agreement at Nanaimo would be the last of the “Douglas Treaties.” With Nanaimo to the north and Victoria to the south, the unceded territories of Hul’qumi’num First Nations along the east coast of Vancouver Island were flanked by centres of Hwunitum power and influence, who were increasingly envious of the rich agricultural lands along the Cowichan and Chemainus Rivers and the large offshore island known to the Hwunitum as Chuan or Salt Spring.

Kenipsen, Cowichan Bay, 1934. Birthplace and residence of the famous Cowichan warrior Tzouhalem.

Royal British Columbia Museum, Photo 6047

Clemclemalits, 1984. One of the larger Cowichan villages, families from Clemclemalits owned lands and resources on the south end of Salt Spring Island. In 1853, a si’em from the village killed Peter Brown, a Hudson’s Bay Company employee. Douglas accepted a slave substitute to settle the dispute.

Photo by Chris Arnett

Interior of Fort Victoria. Site of the land sale agreements of 1850 and 1852 by which Hwulmuhw on southern Vancouver Island, from Sooke to North Saanich, ceded their lands to Hwunitum.

British Columbia Archives and Records Service, Photo HP 10601