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Kumtuks Videos on Understanding British Columbia

Proto-British Columbia: before BC

These videos trace the earliest history of British Columbia, or Proto-British Columbia, when government was in the form of a Company State.

This pre-colonial government shared heteronomy with First Nations governments, integrated with them through mixed marriages, was secular in that it prohibited missionaries, respected and to some extent adopted elements of aboriginal culture and was remarkably multicultural.

Its heartland was the lower Columbia River and its capital was the original Vancouver.

How did “British” Columbia lose what is now Washington, Oregon, Idaho and parts of Montana?

Our Kumtuks videos Losing Columbia and Keeping New Caledonia explain.

This whole territory is full of place names from the old Columbia and it maintains a cultural connection to this day. This leads some people to refer to the whole area as a single cultural region — Cascadia.