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Hudson’s Bay Company

This video was made to provide insights into the Métis people and their contributions to British Columbia. Western and Northern Canada had a unique political environment for 200 years. The Hudson’s Bay Company was the legal government according to King Charles II Charter. Parliament tried several times to overturn the Charter and open the vast territory to settlement but it failed. It was only in 1858 when the West Coast statutory grant expired and finally in 1870 with the purchase by Canada that settlement could proceed. But during those intervening years, the collision of the industrializing great Britain with the hunter gatherer societies of Canada created the need for a new people that was an indigenous response to the changing needs. The ethnogenesis of this people often manifested with race people. HBC prevented its employees from becoming settlers by requiring them to return to Montreal after their contracts to get paid. They developed new cultural norms like holding land individually and excelling in communications and technology. They developed hybrid languages like Michif and Chinook Jargon. Métis people were a significant presence on the West Coast before the creation of British Columbia before 1858 and before the province joined confederation in 1871. Kumtuks is a video blog that shares knowledge and explores new narratives especially related to British Columbia. Some quotes and descriptors have been adjusted for clarity and brevity. Please subscribe if you would like to be notified of new videos. If you would like to receive commentary and invitations and support more videos https://www.patreon.com/kumtuks Sam Sullivan narrates this video. He is a Member of the Order of Canada, a former Mayor of Vancouver and Cabinet Minister responsible for Cities, Culture and Transit, a Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia and an Adjunct… Read More »Insights Into Métis History

Insights Into Métis History

For 150 years the Nation State has been the dominant for of government. People today can hardly imagine anything else. But for most of history a host of other forms have thrived. The Company State was both fully business and fully government. The Hudson Bay Company and East India Company were the largest. Between them they governed ten percent of the Earth’s surface and population. As governments they held the title “Honorable”. Their headquarters were next to each other in London. They shared both people and ideas. These Company States protected their interests from the Nation State. They occasionally turned their guns on the Royal Navy and had different foreign policies. The HBC government was neutral toward Russia in Alaska while Britain fought it in the Crimea. Company States were not just state-like or quasi-governmental nor “imitations” or ”extensions” of the Nation State. They should be understood as governments on their own terms. The Honorable Hudson Bay Company was the legal government in the Hudson Bay watershed and it governed Columbia to the Pacific Ocean through 21-year agreements. In proto-British Columbia it created and defended settlements, managed the economy and administered transportation, communication and legal systems. It was not a Nation State with total sovereignty over bound territory. It shared overlapping heteronomy with First Nations and it respected their legitimacy. Its economic success depended on healthy Native communities and cultures. Many Aboriginal people embraced the global economy, welcomed manufactured products and provided export goods. Some became the Home Guard around each trading community, acting as middlemen for trade and providing defence. The Hudson Bay Company state was secular Banned missionaries, encouraged mixed-race marriages and restricted European settlement. It practised harm reduction over prohibition and it managed resources to protect the environment, refusing to purchase endangered… Read More »Government in Proto-British Columbia

Government in Proto-British Columbia

During the Caribou Gold Rush, a ship with hundreds of miners from San Francisco arrived in Victoria. One of them had smallpox. It takes 12 days to get symptoms and become infectious; the trip had taken 4 days. The infected miner shared a room with others who got sick. Dozens of settlers and one third of all First Nations people would die. When the Hudson Bay Company governed western Canada Governor James Douglas had inoculated indigenous people and quarantined ships. But settlers petitioned London to end Company government and make the Governor accountable to an elected Assembly. When Douglas announced that smallpox had arrived and ‘strongly recommended…instant measures be adopted’, the House resisted, refusing to reinstate quarantine. Douglas warned native leaders and soon Dr. John Helmcken vaccinated five hundred. All the Songhees people moved to an island. Douglas had Helmcken send vaccine around the province. To Hudsons Bay Company officials in Fort Rupert and Kamloops, To a missionary in Nanaimo. Priest Fouquet in the Fraser Valley visited one hundred communities vaccinating thousands. The Lytton Police Commissioner hired a doctor to inoculate along the Fraser and Nicola Rivers. Douglas reimbursed him. Smallpox infection worst in northern British Columbia Southern and some interior First Nations avoided the worst. The north was a catastrophe. Douglas had an aboriginal wife and children; but anti-Company settlers spread rumours that Douglas was infecting them with blankets. Smallpox is an airborne disease spread through breathing and dies quickly when cold, making infection by blanket unlikely. Every summer hundreds of northerners camped near Victoria for work and trade. Newspaper editor Amor De Cosmos criticized Douglas for allowing this. Douglas refused to move them citing ‘faith of solemn engagement’ and benefits to native people. When the body of a white settler washed ashore, the… Read More »BC’s Deadly Smallpox Epidemic

BC’s Deadly Smallpox Epidemic

Chinook Wawa is linked with the history of British Columbia. Chinook Wawa is linked with the history of British Columbia. We might even call one form of it British Columbian. James Cook and his midshipman George Vancouver sojourned at Nootka Sound. Their Nuuchahnulth word lists became a Nootka Jargon that spread through the Maritime Fur Trade. Supported by Chief Concomly and the Chinook Nation, Fort George became the Canadian depot for Columbia furs. French-speaking traders married into Chinook families and learned a Broken Chinook. Proto-British Columbia Britain granted governmental powers to the Hudson Bay Company, although First Nations remained sovereign. Vancouver became the capital of Columbia, or proto British Columbia. Governor John McLoughlin’s son married the daughter of Chief Concomly. It may have been after the move to Vancouver that Broken Chinook, Nootka Jargon, French and other languages combined to form Chinook Wawa. No one had described or named the new language at Fort George. The first record of Wawa was among the mixed race families of Vancouver. Their schoolteacher made the earliest wordlist; Sunday School was conducted in Wawa. The Governor, his officers and workers used it among the thirty-five ethnic groups in multicultural Vancouver. Priests reached Vancouver and compiled the first dictionary. They noted the fathers spoke French, but mothers and children spoke only Wawa. And people who came to Vancouver for trade spread it widely. Aboriginal eyewitnesses confirmed the language arose from the Hudson Bay Company milieu. The 1849 Border Treaty shocked all; it gave away Columbia to the United States. Governor James Douglas led a caravan to his new capital, Victoria The US waged a dozen wars against native people, annulled their mixed marriages and banned black and Hawaiian people. Many went north and established a new Vancouver and a new… Read More »Can You Speak British Columbian?

Can You Speak British Columbian?

This video is about the formative time before we were officially named British Columbia. Columbia, or Proto British Columbia, was the direct precursor of our province and its tragic story haunted the important figures of our early history. Its story contains important lessons and inspiration for our future. The North West Company established the first long-term presence on the West Coast. It created two administrative districts called New Caledonia in the north, run from Fort St. James and Columbia in the south, run from Fort George (now called Astoria). When the North West Company was taken over by the Honorable Hudson Bay Company these territories were amalgamated into one called Columbia. Because the HBC was given the powers of government it created its new capital in Vancouver (now in Washington State). This form of government is called a Company State, exactly like the East India Company that governed India. For over two decades the HBC created a multicultural society living in peace with First Peoples. Its working languages were French and Chinook Wawa, a hybrid language made originally mostly from Chinook and French. Columbia was the original area that is sometimes called Cascadia, which comes from the French word used for the mountains ‘Les Cascades’. After the 1846 Border Treaty (also called the Oregon Treaty) was implemented in 1849, many of the people from Columbia went north to the new Columbia, British Columbia — especially since the new US regime did not allow black people or Hawaiians to live in their newly acquired territory. In the north, political governance was from Victoria, Langley and New Westminster, although many settled in what is now Surrey, Richmond, Burnaby, Coquitlam and some around Burrard Inlet and False Creek. You can learn how more about how ‘British’ Columbia lost… Read More »Columbia: the Forgotten History of British Columbia

Columbia: the Forgotten History of British Columbia