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Chapter Five

Pay the Indians for the Land or We’ll Have an Indian War

Douglas realized that before Hwunitum settlement of the Cowichan and Chemainus valleys could occur, and to ensure the safety of Hwunitum settlers on Salt Spring Island, Hwulmuhw title to the land would have to be extinguished. In an address to the House of Assembly on March 1, 1860, he asked the House “to provide means for extinguishing, by purchase, the native Title to the Lands in the Districts of Cowichan, Chemainus and Salt Spring Island which are now thrown open for settlement. The purchase should be effected without delay, as the Indians may otherwise regard the settlers as trespassers and become troublesome.” ¹

In early June 1860, Douglas instructed Sheriff George W. Heaton to make reconnaissance of the area and conduct a census of Hul’qumi’num First Nations, presumably in preparation for a land sale agreement and to assess Hwulmuhw opposition to Hwunitum settlement. As usual, the colonial officials went during seasonal migrations by the majority of families to their food gathering properties. “The taking of this census,” wrote Heaton, “was attended with considerable difficulty in consequence of the Indians, as is usual at this season, being scattered in all directions for the purpose of fishing.” ² Accompanied by local trader Samuel Harris, Heaton visited all the major Hwulmuhw settlements on the east coast of Vancouver Island from the Cowichan River north to Nanaimo, including those on Willy Island and Kuper Island.

Heaton described the majority of the people he met as “perfectly civil and friendly on the occasion of my visit … well supplied with all the neccesities of life— adding to the fish with which their waters are so abundantly supplied the produce of numerous patches of potato ground.” ³ However, at the village of Quamichan, which Heaton described as “the most numerous of the Cowichan families,” he found “a turbulent spirit and, among the younger men of the tribe—one antagonistic to the whites.” ⁴

Leaving the Cowichan territory, the two Hwunitum travelled further north along the east coast of Vancouver Island to the villages of Halalt, Sunuwnets, and Chemainus. At Penelakut, on Kuper Island, where there was anger over the recent occupations of territories on Salt Spring Island, Heaton and Harris encountered more hostility. In contrast to many of the people he met, the Penelakut, wrote Heaton, were “an exception to the general civility. They declined to furnish their numbers or to allow them to be taken.” ⁵

Heaton met a similar reception from the Lamalcha people on the south end of the island whom he described as “ci-devant [former] slaves … considered by the neighbouring Indians to have no territorial rights.” ⁶

It is interesting to note that Heaton emphatically states that the Lamalcha were a village of ex-slaves with “no territorial rights.” While some Lamalcha households may have been less well-connected to lands and resources, elders today recognize that Lamalcha families owned resources on the north end of Salt Spring Island, Secretary and Galiano Islands, and accessed other locations through marriage. ⁷ Heaton’s claim seems calculated in light of the reputation of the Lamalcha as strong opponents of Hwunitum settlement, and the fact that land desired by Hwunitum settlers, particularly in the Chemainus Valley and on the north end of Salt Spring Island, lay within their territories. In fact, Heaton drew attention to the wealth of natural resources within the Lamalcha territory that could be exploited by Hwunitum:

There is an excellent site for a white fishing station on their island; fresh water favourable to oyster beds, cod, rock-cod, salmon, halibut—cuttlefish (occasionally), herring, dogfish, sea cow, porpoises and whales in their greatest abundance in the neighbouring waters. ⁸

Heaton’s report of June 12, 1860, gave Douglas valuable information regarding Hul’qumi’num First Nations on the eve of the alienation of their land and resources. For example, a comparison of the population figures of the various villages with those of Douglas’ 1853 census revealed that in seven short years Hwulmuhw populations on the east coast of Vancouver island and adjacent islands had dropped by fifty per cent.

Based on the population figures contained in Heaton’s census, and according to his own calculation that £3 worth of goods to each si’em would be sufficient, Douglas estimated that it would cost £3,000 to extinguish the title of lands belonging to Hul’qumi’num and Nanaimo First Nations. ⁹ The House of Assembly had agreed with his earlier request to set aside funds for the purchase of Hwulmuhw lands and included £2,000 in the budget estimates, but the item was struck out during a meeting on July 3. ¹⁰ Some members apparently believed that the funds should be supplied by the British government and not raised locally. Whether the House of Assembly approved the funds or not, Douglas faced even greater obstacles, not the least of which were internal divisions amongst the Hul’qumi’num First Nations regarding negotiations with the Hwunitum.

Following the eviction of Hwunitum settlers from the Chemainus Valley, a series of violent confrontations between native people in the Gulf Islands in the spring and summer of 1860 reminded Hwunitum settlers of their precarious position in the unceded lands. The Battle of Hwtlupnets had put an end to large scale raids by Kwakwaka’wakw people, but violence continued between Hwulmuhw populations and smaller migratory bands of people en route from the north to Hwunitum establishments in Victoria. Alcohol was a factor in many of these confrontations and Hwulmuhw insisted that, among Kwakwaka’wakw-speaking people, “whiskey” was “the principal reason of their going south to Victoria.” ¹¹

In the early spring of 1860, there was a raid on Penelakut by “northern Indians” which left several people killed and one of the si’em badly wounded. ¹² Penelakut was put on military alert and it was only by chance that two Roman Catholic missionaries, Fouquet and Chirouse, were not killed in an ambush during a visit to the village shortly after the raid. ¹³ Around this time Hulkalatkstun, another si’em of the village, was wounded in a fight with northern people near Esquimalt, setting the stage for retaliation. ¹⁴

A potent reminder to Hwunitum settlers of Hwulmuhw sovereignty occurred on the fourth of July 1860, when resident Lamalcha and Penelakut warriors attacked the occupants of a Bella Bella canoe at the head of Ganges Harbour on Salt Spring Island, killing ten of them. According to one of the settlers, the attack was in retaliation for previous events, the Hwulmuhw warriors having “owed them a grudge for some injury done years ago.” ¹⁵

A canoe carrying “nine men, two boys and three women of the Bella Bella tribe” was on its way to Victoria when a Hwunitum by the name of McCawley met them at the Salt Spring Settlement where he convinced the Bella Bella to take him to Victoria. Lieutenant Mayne, who described the passenger as “one of the settlers on the north end of Saltspring Island,” writes that McCawley “asked them to take him to Victoria, calling at the settlement in Ganges Harbour on the way. They were willing to take him to Victoria, but objected going to Ganges Harbour on account of the Cowitchins. The settler, however, overruled their objections, and they finally assented to his wish.” ¹⁶

Thomas Lineker, the settler with whom McCawley “had business,” recalled that there were fifty Indians of the Cowichan tribe encamped there,” no doubt in their houses at the head of the harbour. ¹⁷ Lineker noted that they “manifested an unfriendly spirit” when the Bella Bella canoe arrived, but “professed friendship, which misled the Bella Bella.” ¹⁸ According to Lineker, “while McCawley was up at my house, we were startled by the sound of firearms on the beach. The Indians by this time had got into a regular fight, which lasted about an hour and terminated in the Cowichans killing eight men and plundering the canoe, which they carried off with the women and boys, whom they took prisoners. This occurred close to the beach. They fired some 200 shots, some of the bullets flying close to our heads.” ¹⁹

Two of the female Bella Bella prisoners were subsequently killed. ²⁰ There were no Hwulmuhw casualties. ²¹

In a letter written to Governor Douglas five days after the fight, Lineker outlined the precarious position of the settlers. ²² The Penelakut and/or Lamalcha warriors had departed and without their protection Lineker feared for the safety of the settlers in the event of a retaliatory attack by relatives of the vanquished Bella Bella. He wrote: “The Indians have all left here, probably anticipating an attack, in such an event we should be anything but safe, especially should they in any way molest the Settlers. We number here twenty-six men, scattered over about two miles square. Considering their defenseless position the Settlers trust that Your Excellency will deem it expedient to afford them such protection as you in your wisdom may think necessary.” ²³

The HMS Satellite, a twenty-four-gun corvette, was dispatched to the area, where its commander, Captain James Charles Prevost, ensured that the settlers were safe. On the shores of Ganges Harbour, Prevost located the bodies of six victims, noting that they “were slaughtered with the most barbarous wanton cruelty … there were marks of bullets discernible all around their hearts, and … their heads were fearfully battered in.” ²⁴ The British negotiated the release of the sole surviving Bella Bella woman from “the offending tribe” and re-united her with the sole male survivor who, it turned out, was her husband. ²⁵

Douglas was later informed that the Hwunitum at Ganges Harbour “though greatly alarmed suffered no molestation whatsoever from the Victorious Tribe, who, before leaving the settlement expressed the deepest regret for the affray, pleading in extenuation that they could not control their feelings, and begging that their conduct might not be represented to this government in an unfavourable light.” ²⁶ Apparently it was not. The Battle of Shiyahwt [Ganges Harbour] was an important victory for the Lamalcha/Penelakut. Most significant was the fact that the fight occurred in the midst of the largest Hwunitum settlement outside of the Colony of Vancouver Island. The settlers were endangered by the fighting. Bullets flew over the heads of the Lineker family and hit the walls of their cabin. ²⁷ The fact that there were no reprisals or censure made against the Kuper Island people suggests British recognition of Hwulmuhw jurisdiction and sovereignty over their lands on Salt Spring Island. Although there were calls for a resident magistrate on Salt Spring Island, Douglas refused. As he pointed out in correspondence to the Colonial Office, he only selected magistrates “from the respectable class of Settlers,” and that none of the resident settlers on Salt Spring Island had “either the status or the intelligence requisite to enable them to serve the public with advantage in the capacity of local Justices.” ²⁸ Douglas knew that any interference with local Hwulmuhw jurisdiction could precipitate an attack on Hwunitum settlers.

Douglas took no direct action against the Lamalcha and Penelakut, but the fight at Ganges Harbour and other violence caused by the presence of northern people in the south prompted him to request that the three British warships, HMS Plumper, HMS Termagant and HMS Alert, then present in the colony, be sent north under the command of Captain George Henry Richards to visit the major northern aboriginal settlements “to extract promises from their chiefs that they would live according to the [British] law and stop fighting each other, especially during the annual voyages to Victoria.” The success of the cruise was negligible. Although it has been claimed that the cruise “put an end to marauding expeditions among Northwest Coast Indians,” the fact is that internecine violence continued well into the following decade. ²⁹

The HMS Termagant arrived in the colony on July 12, 1860, as an escort for two gunboats, the Forward and the Grappler, both of which were to play an important role in the subjugation of Hwulmuhw populations and the enforcement of Hwunitum law. The one-hundred-foot steam-powered gunboats were part of a large group of small warships specially built for service in the shallow waters of the Black Sea and the Baltic during the 1854–56 Crimean War with Russia. ³⁰ It was soon realized by the Admiralty that the these “Crimean Gunboats” would be equally useful in similar conditions along the Pacific Coast. In addition to state-ofthe-art steam engines, the gunboats were equipped with simple fore and aft rigs and were reported to sail “remarkably well for the small amount of canvas [they] could spread.” ³¹ They were armed with a thirty-two-pound rifled cannon located aft on a pivoting carriage, which enabled the gunboat to fire exploding shrapnel and other projectiles in any direction, and two twenty-four-pound howitzers amidships. With thirty-six well-armed sailors and marines, commanded by aristocratic naval officers, the gunboats were formidable opposition to lightlyarmed aboriginal forces. The Forward and Grappler represented a permanent force which the colonial government could rely upon to assist the civil power in exercising its jurisdiction over aboriginal people.

For the British seaman, service on board these small gunboats was unpleasant: “With the machinery and boilers taking up over half the space between decks, the crew of thirty-six were squeezed into the remainder at the extremities, officers aft, the men forward. In an age when seamen had nothing in the way of luxuries afloat, life on these little craft was well below the already low average and pretty unpopular.” ³²

Shortly after its arrival, the Forward was involved in its first fight against aboriginal people at Tsuqlotn on Quadra Island when its commander, Charles Robson, went in pursuit of Lekwiltok warriors who had robbed some boats off Salt Spring Island owned by Chinese traders. ³³ Robson found the Lekwiltok in a fortified position at Cape Mudge on the south end of Quadra Island and a fire-fight ensued. “Had it not been for the rifle-plates,” wrote Lieutenant Mayne, “a good many might have been hit, as the Indians kept up a steady fire upon them for a considerable time.” ³⁴ Mayne observed that the Lekwiltok “are alone as yet in standing out after the appearance of a man-of-war before their village,” but Tsuqlotn would not be the last battle fought between the Forward and aboriginal fighters.

The gunboats added to a growing British military presence in the region, augmented by the arrival from operations in China of two companies of the First Brigade of Royal Marines, to counter the growing threat from American expansion. ³⁵

Royal Navy officers became interested in land speculation, particularly in the unceded lands of Hul’qumi’num First Nations. Three officers, Mayne, Lyall, and Bedwell, had purchased “Cowichan Scrip,” and the Navy sought to establish a naval depot in the heart of their territories on Stu’kin (Thetis Island). As early as June 30, 1859, the senior naval officer, Captain Michael Decourcy, of HMS Plyades, “made application on behalf of the Lords of the Admiralty to be put in possession of the title deed of Thetis Island.” ³⁶ Within a few years, another young, wealthy naval officer, Lieutenant Commander the Honourable Horace Lascelles, preempted large acreages surrounding the Hudson’s Bay Company coalfields at Nanaimo with the intention of developing additional coal mining operations.

On the sixth of February 1861, a petition was prepared by the House of Assembly to formally request that the British imperial government provide funds for the purchase of Hwulmuhw lands at Cowichan, Chemainus (including Salt Spring and other islands) and Barclay Sound. It was addressed to the Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Duke of Newcastle. The petition and a dispatch sent by Douglas to accompany it warned of the possibility of inter-racial war if the aboriginal title to the lands in question was not properly extinguished:

WE, Her Majesty’s faithful and loyal subjects, the members of the House of Assembly of Vancouver Island in Parliament assembled, would earnestly request the attention of Your Grace to the following considerations:

1. THAT many Colonists have purchased land, at the rate of One Pound Sterling per acre, in districts to which the Indian title has not yet been extinguished.

2. THAT, in consequence of the non-extinction of this title, those persons, though most desirous to occupy and improve, have been unable to take possession of their lands—purchased, in most cases, nearly three years ago; and of this they loudly and justly complain.

3. THAT the Indians, well aware of the compensation heretofore given for lands, appropriated for colonization, in the earlier settled districts of Vancouver Island, as well as in the neighbouring territory of Washington, strenuously oppose the occupation by settlers of lands still deemed their own. No attempts of the kind could be persisted in, without endangering the peace of the Country, for these Indians, though otherwise well disposed and friendly, would become hostile if their supposed rights as regards land were systematically violated; and they are still much more numerous and warlike than the petty remnants of tribes, who in 1855 and 1856, in the western part of the adjacent United States territory of Washington, kept up for nearly a year, a desultory and destructive warfare which compelled the whole agricultural population of the Country to desert their homes, and congregate in blockhouses.

4. THAT within the last three years, this Island has been visited by many intending settlers, from various parts of the world. Comparatively few of these have remained, the others having, as we believe, been, in great measure, deterred from buying land as they could not rely on having peaceable possession; seeing that the Indian Title was still unextinguished to several of the most eligible agricultural districts of the Island.

5. THAT the House of Assembly respectfully considers, that the extinction of the aboriginal title is obligatory on the Imperial Government.

6. THAT the House of Assembly, bearing in mind, that from the dawn of modern colonization until the present day, wars with aborigines have mainly arisen from disputes about land, which by timely and moderate concession on the part of the more powerful and enlightened of the disputants concerned, might have been peaceably and economically adjusted; now earnestly pray, that Her Majesty’s Government would direct such steps to be taken, as may seem best, for the speedy settlement of the matter at issue, and the removal of a most serious obstacle to the well being of this Colony.” ³⁷

Confident that the British government would provide the necessary means for the extinguishment of Hwulmuhw title, the colonial government went ahead with its plans for an official pre-emption system to apply to the ceded lands of the colony and to unceded Hwulmuhw land including Salt Spring Island, “the Chemainus,” and James Island in Haro Strait. A full eighteen months had passed since the first allowance of pre-emptive rights by Pemberton in Chemainus and on Salt Spring Island and the official proclamation of the new policy. On February 19, 1861, Douglas issued the first Land Proclamation Act in which he announced that he was “empowered by Her Majesty’s Government to fix the upset price of country land within the colony of Vancouver Island and its dependencies at 4s. 2d. per acre,” far less than the previous price of £1, and more in line with American prices. The proclamation announced that “British subjects may enter upon and occupy land, not being otherwise reserved, in certain quantities and in certain districts— That from and after the date hereof, male British subjects, and aliens who shall take the oath of allegiance before the Chief Justice of Vancouver Island, above the age of eighteen years, may pre-empt unsold Crown lands in the districts of Victoria, Esquimalt, the Highlands, Sooke, North Saanich and South Saanich, Salt Spring Island, Sallas [James] Island, and the Chemainus (not being an Indian reserve or settlement).” Interestingly enough, the Cowichan territories of the Cowichan Valley were not included. Single men were allowed to occupy up to one hundred and fifty acres and married men with a wife “resident in the colony” were allowed two hundred acres with an additional ten acres for each child. ³⁸

When the House of Assembly petition for assistance to extinguish Hwulmuhw title was sent to London on March 25, 1861, Douglas accompanied it with the following dispatch. Besides being “evidence that Governor Douglas was prepared to vouch for the fact that the Indians had their own legal system, and that each tribe had title to its own territory and that its rights with regard to its territory were recognized by all other tribes,” his letter underlined the importance of a land sale agreement to avoid a situation “that would endanger the peace of the Country.”

My Lord Duke,

I have the honour of transmitting a Petition from the House of Assembly of Vancouver Island to Your Grace praying for the aid of Her Majestey’s Government in extinguishing the Indian Title to the public lands in this Colony: and setting forth, with much force and truth, the evils that may arise from the neglect of that very necessary precaution.

2. As the Native Indian population of Vancouver Island have distinct ideas of property in land, and mutually recognize their several exclusive possessory rights in certain districts, they would not fail to regard the occupation of such portions of the Colony by white settlers, unless with the full consent of the proprietary Tribes, as national wrongs; and the sense of injury might produce a feeling of irritation against the Settlers, and perhaps disaffection to the Government, that would endanger the peace of the Country.

3. Knowing their feelings on that subject, I made it a practice, up to the year 1859, to purchase the Native rights in the land, in every case, prior to the settlement of any District; but since that time in consequence of the termination of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Charter, and the want of funds, it has not been in my power to continue it. Your Grace must indeed be well aware that I have, since then, had the utmost difficulty in raising money enough to defray the most indispensable wants of Government.

4. All the settled Districts of the Colony, with the exception of Cowitchen, Chemainus, and Barclay Sound, have been already bought from the Indians, at a cost in no case exceeding £2.10 sterling for each family. As the land has since then increased in value, the expence would be relatively somewhat greater now, but I think that their claims might be satisfied with a payment of £3 to each family; so that taking the Native population of those districts at 1000 families, the sum of £3000 would meet the whole charge.