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Colonial Wars of 1863

Chris Arnett

Chris Arnett talking to the Salt Spring Historical Society on gunboat justice in the Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island around 1863.

Accession Number Interviewer SSI Historical Society Address
Date March 11, 1997 Location Central Hall
Media cassette tape Audio CD mp3 √
ID 132 Duration

132_Arnett-Chris_Colonial-Wars.mp3

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20.02.2023

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Unknown Speaker 0:06
Have the tape he won't buy the book. Anyway, it's really good to be here. Yeah, as Ken mentioned, I've been working for the last few years on a project

Unknown Speaker 0:22
on focusing on the period between 1850 and 1863, when the balance of power shifted between the Hallmark and the one item, I use that terminology, I won't be using the word Indian or white man or anything. A coma is the name that native people use to refer to themselves. It means roughly people of the land and coordinate them. It's a name for the European or the white man. And I've talked to people about what it means and it might mean something nasty, because they never answer me. But I have a feeling it's a attempt to pronounce the English word white man when native white man. So I'll be using those terms whenever I refer to those two different groups. The topic in my book is a little known war, which the object of which was the removal of active hormone opposition to win native encroachment on the traditional territories of Cowichan Valley, to Manus Valley, Saltspring Island and the other Gulf Islands. And this was a small war, compared to the other engagements that were taking place in the world at a time like the Civil War. And Napoleon's invasion of the point of thirds invasion in Mexico and all these other flag operations was really a world racked with war 1863. But it was a significant war for British Columbia because mark the first time in the history of our province, that colonial government departed from the process of making treaties in favor of military force. And not many people are familiar with this war, because they were, although the Royal Navy was involved, there were no glorious victories or naval heroes. In fact, the one major engagement fought at Cooper Island, the naval forces were defeated by less well armed, smaller Aboriginal force. And the naval officers didn't see much glory in hunting down groups of fugitives and flogging them to exact confessions. And it was sort of a nasty bit of work. But it wasn't entirely you didn't entirely involve native versus former factions, there were a lot of former factions that allied themselves with the British because they had their own reasons for taking part. Before it gets the actual conflict, it's important to kind of place it in its historical context. Many of you have no doubt heard that Saltspring Island was never lived, or the home I never lived here. And, of course, this is a myth that was actually the earliest reference to it a found is in left tenant means book, where he settlers claim that the Indians have never lived here. And it was basically just to justify their occupation of land, but I'll get into that in a minute. But the people that use this area, trace their origins back to a period in time called a swallow em, which is equivalent to the mythological time, the dream time of the Australian Aboriginal people at a time so far back that you know, it's so far back, but they're, the people lived in this area descended from ancestors who landed the top various mountains, which you can see from the Soviets on Mount Provo, on the west coasts in Paul Watson and shore CONUS, which was Mount Sychar. And other people emerged from the beach sands of Cooper Island, and other ancestors landed in various hills in the Cowichan Valley, and other places and these are the ancestors of the island helping mainland people. These people lived in numerous villages throughout the islands. They are basically divided into two groups to an unhealthy male, and they would call it son who lived in the Cowichan Valley and about you know, 10 or so villages, and the other group is commonly referred to as the chumminess, but in fact chumminess includes a number of groups. The poets and referred to the humaneness, who lives on the other side of the domain, this river or north of the Cowichan valley as the snarling people of the other side. They included they usually call themselves after their winter villages which were halt which is which was Willie Island at the mouth of tremendous River, the slum matzah and the Panella hut and the college who lived on Cooper Island, the chumminess or Shep Smith, which lives in Collete Bay. The pKa lived in both his island and the connection, he lived in Galiano Island. And Saltspring island had a number of winter villages at one antic, which is Fulford harbour, and it should watch which is Ganges and possibly other areas. Saltspring at the time of the rival law Needham, there were no it was one permanent village, and it was located it went Anik. And it was eventually there were four houses there were a Drummond Park stance, and the people eventually relocated to the present day fever point reserve. And that house stood until the 1920s. And so that's one of the longest most continuously occupied places on Saltspring. And, of course, these these villages, we can't think of them as autonomous, sort of independent units. They were the highest political unit among the home of people was the house, the extended family. So if you had a village with eight houses in it, you would ostensibly have eight different political units, eight different chiefs, there was no sort of chief in charge of a village, there might be one family that because of its wealth, and numbers would be pre eminent and powerful, but people would usually not look to them as leaders or anything and they rarely cooperated. Except in unusual circumstances, one of which was mutual defense. Other than that, they were pretty well autonomous units, the individual families, they also had a rigid class system of nobles, commoners and slaves, the nobles made up the greatest unit, and then less were the commoners and then the smallest unit is usually the slaves, there often be only two or three to a village, but the upper class people made up the majority of because everybody wants to be upper class right. And these people own their house in the village in the winter village house was the basis of their economy, it was sort of the they lived in it for half the year during the winter. And during the rest of the year uses it as a base to access other places which they owned. And there was no place on the Gulf Islands, no bay or standard woods or, or any resource that was not owned by a specific family. And these territories were all inherited, they were and passed on and recognized through institutions such as the clinic for the Potlatch, which was a an institution where like people gathered together to witness the inheritance of various rights and privileges which included territories and land as far as land tenure went land was per se wasn't valuable, but it was the resources the land are the most important thing various stands of timber, cedar groves, to lay patches around various lakes clan beds, certainly were all owned Camus beds were owned, and ownership was very strict. If people trespassed on privately owned land, they could be shot and killed, and that was perfectly within the homologue to do that. However, if permission was asked of the chiefs if recognition was made of the owners, it was rarely refused. So The system kind of worked that way and places like Saltspring they were accessed by groups from all over, you know, from Collison Valley, for example, one of the villages in collets. And in the Cowichan Valley club lamella. Let's was

Unknown Speaker 10:20
families from the lung let's own resources and burgling Bay, which was called Brooklyn. And people on Connecticut, which is a village at the north end of Cooper island had access to our own property along the east side of the hook of Saltspring Island all the way to Ganges harder resources around their clan beds and so on. It's quite a list of stuff that people owned and had access to. So anyway, when the colony of Vancouver Island was established, in 1849, the chief factor of Fort Victoria James Douglas, one of his first instructions, from the secretary of the Hudson's Bay Company, was to extinguish Native Title before when Aiden settlement could take place on any land. And this was imperial policy. This is actually a policy to begin in New Zealand, with the Treaty of white tangy with the famous Treaty of 1840 with recognized aboriginal title to the land. And in exchange for Aboriginal recognition of British protection and sovereignty. was also the other point was that any land that was to be alienated or sold could only be sold to the crown. And so this was fine. But the British soon found that the the Maori weren't willing to part with all their lands. So a number of wars took place until 1849. When Douglas received his instructions, he was told that things have changed now. We want you to extinguish titles so that settlement can proceed but you're only to reserve your only to recognize any entitled to their villages and their potato patches, any cultivated lands. And so Douglas received these instructions and went about negotiating nine treaties with a number of families that lived in the vicinity of Fort Victoria, because this was the first place that was to be settled. He was also he was approached by couch and families, colleagues and families to who also wish to negotiate a treaty. But at that time, Cowichan Valley was far removed from Fort Victoria. And so he was not interested in negotiating any treat at all. So he basically went ahead. But he departed somewhat from the instructions of the Secretary and recognized, direct quote from Douglas I informed the natives, that they would not be disturbed in the possession of their village sites and enclosed fields, which are a 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. Now, we don't know what the Hello most people thought of these treaties, but Well, actually, we do know, some, something of it, because they were guaranteed pretty well access to all their, you know, the richer villages as well as their traditional food gathering territories. And that was fine with them, as long as they could carry on their economy as before, everything was fine. And they also welcome the protection of the British because they recognize British military superiority and all that, and protection against tribes from the north, which were often raiding this area. So Douglas, negotiating his treaties, and then he wrote to the Secretary and said, I need a text, but I have all these signatures and they weren't signatures are actually the sign of the cross, which the former people at that time were becoming Christianized. And they saw this making of the cross as a solemn kind of symbol of the agreement Douglas had made with them. And so this is fine. So he wrote for a text to a pen to these signatures, and the Secretary sent him a treaty that was used in New Zealand to purchase land in the South Island, from the tribe that I'm a member of the night Tahu. And it was a treaty originally written in Maori and translated into English. And the English version was a little different than the Maori version, of course, didn't recognize the things that the Maori had agreed to. And Douglas use this treaty or this English translation as basically word for word he's this treaty to do to append to the nine treaties he signed around for Victoria, as well as the two treaties, which he signed in 1952 with the Saanich. And according to the senatorial history, the scientists believed they were signing a peace treaty again and they weren't extinguishing title to the land by any means. But so the treaty in question, recognized Indian title and guaranteed them the ownership of their villages, enclosed fields. And their what Maori we call mahinga Kai, which were the food gathering resources. So, and there was another treaty done in 1854. And this was just standard cross prop standard procedure as when am settlements spread out from Fort Victoria. treaties were negotiated. Now, something happened in 1856. There was a Hudson's Bay employee named tomo Antoine who is a half Iroquois haChinuch man who lived at Cowichan and he was involved in an altercation with a Samina chief at present day Duncan and it was an argument over a woman chief's wife, and he's shot tomo Antoine and wounded him in the army lost his arm. And Douglas is very good friends with this guy. And so he organized a military expedition. And it was the first wasn't the first but he led a military expedition to Samina and the couch Valley in those days was quite unfamiliar to Douglas. And this expedition led him right up to present day Duncan, they seize the tomo and Walker, the man talk Lisette who killed or wounded Tom Antoine and hung him. He wasn't seized by the British, he was turned over by allies of Douglas. And but the end result of this altercation was a Douglas saw the the richness of the couch and Valley in particular, he was he noticed the potato fields that the couch and people had been cultivating since the 1840s, they've really gotten into potato growing in a big way. Notice, you know, recognizing its superiority over Native root crops. And so they cleared large areas of land. And so this was this proved very attractive, and their form of agriculture was to clear a piece of land planted with potatoes for a couple of years. And then the ground was of course, exhausted, they would move on. So over the years, it would clear large patches. And of course, to European eyes, this is very desirable, because settlements around Victoria was, you know, in the colony, Vancouver Island, it progressed very slowly, because Well, for one thing, land is very expensive, it's four times the price of land in the US, and there was also agricultural land was very limited. So it wasn't much of it. And so people would come here, and they, you know, the CDC is Douglas firs, and they say, I'm out of here, I'm going to California. However, with Douglas made a note of the couch and valley, and he started to make, you know, inquiries among the various GM the heads of families about purchasing land, but they were totally against it by this time. They didn't want anything to do with parting of the territories. So, a few years past, and then there was a pivotal event in BC history that altered forever, the history of the province. And that was the gold rush of 1858, when in a number of months, 30,001 Atim, flooded into the colony of Vancouver Island and onward to British Columbia. Appalling the British Columbia was established. And the rest of the course was short lived. Within a few months, most people had acted, acted in and headed back to Victoria and then back to California. But there were a number of unemployed when Atum usually have less desirable social standing, and they were kind of milling about the town. And so Douglas and wanted to you had to do something about this. And so we started to think about the couch and valley began to start serving. And summer, spring of 1859 he initiated survey and the entire area from the Shawnigan district up to germaneness. River was surveyed. And the people were still unwilling to sell the land. And but that didn't matter. Douglas decided to just put the land up for sale anyway. And it was bought by I believe eight or nine speculators who bought 8000 acres of the prime agricultural land but of course they couldn't occupy it because the college and wouldn't allow them. So there was a movement started in 18, summer of 1859. In Victoria, much these various unemployed when Adam and Douglas

Unknown Speaker 20:08
couldn't allow them to go, they wanted to go to the couch. And because everybody knew that was the best agricultural land, he said, No, it's been bought by speculators, and they haven't quite made their choices and the Indians, the hormone won't allow us to move there. Anyway. So he, they decided on an unofficial preemption system where they allowed groups to settle on Saltspring Island, and in the chumminess Valley, which had both both were unsurveyed at the time. And they were allowed to settle there in the condition that when the place was properly surveyed, they would pay the going rate. So that was fine. A group of 18 men sailed out from Victoria landed at Walker hook and settled on the north end of the island at Plum, which is salt. And that was the Salt Spring settlement. These people didn't. They were tolerated by the this part of Salt Spring, of course, was traditional territory, the keeper Island people assembled in the Panella hut. And they had first resented the intrusion, but within a number of years, most of the settlers there had married Daughters of the various chiefs of Cooper Island, especially the Connecticut ban. Probably the best known example is Henry Sampson. He married a woman named Mary. I don't have her Indian name, right. And she was the daughter of Hulk collapse and who was the preeminent chief at Panella hut. And so basically, they were allowed to their presence was tolerated, they were allowed to stay because they become basically part of the family. Similar situation happened in the Burgoyne Valley. With these lung omelets, people married their daughters to really settlers such as the Maxwells and Michael guides, married a woman who of course bought a Cummins grandmother. And this was fine with the people there because the you know, when Atim son in law was a valuable source of trading goods and all kinds of items and another group that was allowed to settle here stay with the, the the sandstone quarryman at SU Vyas, and I've had some some references to this group. They were sort of liquor traders. And so there was some nefarious trading going on there and another trader who was allowed to settle at the Fernwood settlements. What became Fernwood was Jonathan banks because he operated a store which had a lot of valuable goods that people were interested in and so they didn't mind him. However, at some Ynez Valley, the settlers were driven out and weren't allowed to stay because it was quite a valuable piece of land or the former had extensive potato patches. And it represented the best agricultural land. And so by 1860, there were I don't believe there are any point eight and settlers in the Indus Valley there were none in the Cowichan except for two men who had married into native families. And the largest Native settlement was on Saltspring Island. And it was mostly because they had managed to cultivate good relations through intermarriage with the the owners of the of the territory the pinata hit in a slump.

Unknown Speaker 23:45
But things started to deteriorate. Besides these people who would who had intermarried with the bands, others came and just squatted on the territory, there was a guy named RO, who was apparently a surveyor. He's been described who was a bit of a madman, he described himself as the czar of Saltspring. And I've read references to him. He was sort of crazy fire at people and very anti social and would ask people to bow to him and he causes a lot of trouble. He was eventually killed, like by Culbertson, the warriors at Saanich. And this is basically how they would deal with undesirables. Most of the gold rush the people that were the one at them who weren't able to do find places to squat safe places or intermarry with bands we'd often wander about the islands and a lot of them were involved in, in the liquor trade, which was a very lucrative business in those days, and it was a way to make a lot of money for little efforts, and there was quite a demand for it because alcohol was a very desirable commodity among the native people. It became a symbol of wealth and although they recognize the the bad aspects of it in some ways that it fit into the pattern of pulling through the cultural tradition, spirit possession. And I have a theory that in some way well, and there are actually references to back this up that they believe they're being possessed by the white man's guardian spirit, when they consumed alcohol, and often when people drank it was almost ritualistic. And they would dress in white men clothing, and then talk and swear, in English, even though that was the only English they knew. And it was in a way to kind of imitate a native which by this time, they recognized as having a superior technology and verging on conquering their their traditional lands. In 1862, there was there was still no that the population of Victoria, the colony of Ankara began to grow again, with the discovery of new gold fields in the caribou. And so Douglas decided to forcibly occupied the Cowichan Valley. And so there was a meeting held in in Victoria in August 1862. And Douglas and various governments or he wasn't there at the meeting, but the Attorney General and surveyor General's addressed the big public meeting, and they called on 100 settlers to go to the couch and valley and they assured them that there would be protection from the Coxon and that they would be accompanied by the Royal Navy vessel, the Hickety, which was five guns, Six Gun paddle wheel, flute, and that the grappler, the HMS or HMG, grap grappler, which is another gun boat would also be stationed there to ensure their safety. It was also time of year when the couch and were conveniently away, they were the majority of the people, three quarters of them were in the Fraser River. So they landed in August. Douglas addressed the few call it some people, their president promised them that a treaty would be made, they would be compensated for their land. And then the settlers were distributed in various places with military precision and three different groups, mostly around Duncan and sort of inland away from the coast. And so when the people came back, they of course, very surprised to see this and it caused a lot of trouble. In the winter of 1860 to 1863, various Homer warriors began to well, actually, there was a backtrack a bit there was another a couple events in 1862. And in the summer of June, which had an effect on subsequent events, one was the outbreak of smallpox. Smallpox didn't affect the people here very much because they had built up immunity because there was a an earlier plague in 1782, which devastated this area. But by 1862, the people were pretty well, immune. Many of them, in fact, been vaccinated by the missionaries, but there was a large contingent of Northern Indians in Victoria and the government wanted them out. So the HMS forward and other gunboat took them up past Saltspring Island and as they passed them out the Ganges harbor in June, they were fired upon by spinella Bunnell ahead and lots lots of warriors and warriors were I guess, firing at the Indians in the in the northern canoes, but a lot of bullets flew over the gumbo forward and the commander Horace Lascelles ordered a boat lowered away, and he chased the went ashore chased the people who had fired and had them brought on board and had them flogged. And this caused a lot of trouble because flogging was considered very degrading, and it made them very angry with the HMS forward. Later that month, shortly after Douglas had occupied the Cowichan valley, a group of Philomel to warriors encountered another group of liquor traders on an unknown beach and the Gulf Islands might have been sitting on a beach I'm not sure. And they proceeded to drink they they all got an E braided and the samosa slaughtered the liquor traders, and there were no survivors. They were their bodies were hidden and the boat destroyed. But word of this, I think, reach the police and the government officials because according my research, they were also involved in the liquor trade because there's lots of money to be made for it. The police at the time were quite corrupt, and they were very poorly paid. And they saw the opportunity to make money by through bribery and allow the country has to carry on the business so that I think they knew about this but they still couldn't act on it because of what was involved, but nevertheless, it gave the slomo bad reputation. They also had an increasing reputation one band in the slum also lives in the south end of Cooper island in a place called Lommel to Bay, and they began to gain a reputation through a number of their leaders as being adamantly opposed to the occupation of their territories or any dealings with with NATO whatsoever. In April 1863, there were two notorious attacks on transient when Aden on Pender Island, and the turn Island one was the marks family who were on Route. The marks were a family of German immigrants who had lived in Washington territory that homestead they had fled the fighting which was going raging in Washington and territories. Between the Indian people there and the Americans it fled. Waldron Island tried to make a global farm there, it didn't work. They're invited to main island by a man named Christian Meyer who had settled there and married into a local band. And they were on their way to in two boats to main island when they were separated. Marx and his daughter landed at Turner island where they were killed. The marks when they didn't show up at their point of destination. Their friend went to look for them found the site on the Turnitin, which had levers to turn a beach and found the boat destroyed found no trace of the bodies. So they found a couple of barking dogs. And immediately went to Victoria where they recorded what had happened. And this caused a big fear within the next day actually, a badly wounded half Cherokee halfway native man named John Henley arrived in Victoria and he and his companion Bill Brady had been attacked on within days of the attack on the marks on Pender Island, where they had entertained a group of people from the village of chromatin. And they divided them for supper. And during the course of the meal, or after the meal, it all that shared meal, they all lay down and sleep together and then one of the counts and felt ill and they talked about this amongst themselves, and they believe that gradient is companion to try to poison them. And this may sound far fetched, but in those days, witchcraft was endemic in the Gulf Islands, especially among the home of people. And they decided that they had been bewitched, or Brady was a sorcerer trying to poison them. So they made plans to attack them in the night. And they gathered around their tent fired into it, killed or mortally wounded Brady

Unknown Speaker 32:42
hit his friend and a number of places, but he was a very strong man, he was over six feet tall, and he managed to emerge from the tent, he had a repeating rifle and he fought off his attackers, five of them, and tended a sick friend until he died, and then went to Victoria and he arrived there a day after the disappearance of the marks was reported. This, of course, causes a lot of concern in Victoria, because there had been rumors of attacks on vanadium in the Gulf Islands since 1858, but they were never survivors. So there's never any evidence or anything to go on. Now. They had a witness, as well as evidence that other people had been killed. And so the government immediately made plans to to investigate. Unfortunately, it was no gunboat available, the one available gunboat was under repair. And so there was a number of days passed. And the tone in the press got increasingly frantic about the delay in investigating these killings. But eventually, the HMS forward arrived and it was forthwith sent to investigate these killings. Now the foreword took on board the Superintendent of Police and the began to just cruise around the Gulf Islands, they didn't really have much to go on. They went to the site of my pristine mayor's ranch on main island where the marketers were to do to arrive. And they they found a hello, my man there who, who agreed to help them. And they also got a hold of Tom Antoine, the fellow who was mortally wounded years ago, at Cowichan. And he was very knowledgeable and decided to help them. But they had nothing really to go on. Yet the names of some people and it turned out to be the wrong name. But on a hunch, and it was only a hunch they went to Whole Melissa and Cooper Island. The forward steamed into the bay and the village. This was before the salmon season so the people were all present. There were eight to 22 warriors and they saw the gumbo coming and they immediately took up as this shown on either end of the bay like the bay Cooper monitor Bay is sort of a crescent shaped bay with two prominent points and so the gathered on those two points, but at the center of the bay it was quite an elaborate for it because the they had a well built block house there built a squared timbers loopholed and it was also surrounded with trenches, and even had anti artillery bunkers in the inside which were deep trenches covered over thick plank. So they were prepared to fight. And even each Miss forward went in there and saw this fort and figured this is where the slumps of warriors were. So the anchor directly off the fort, sort of parallel to the beach. The gunboat exposed to these two points of land where the some of the warriors were hidden. The commander of the gunboat ordered, or ordered his interpreter to call the flummox the chiefs on board and of course, they wouldn't go on board because they remembered what happened a few months previous when some of their people went were captured by the the commander in Flog. So they said that they wouldn't they wouldn't have nothing wouldn't have anything to do with the before and they didn't know why the forum was there. And although they had a good idea, I mean, there are lots of things that they had done. The foreword the man on the forum became increasingly frustrated. And the commander decided he had enough of this resistance to what he thought was his authority and he fired on the village. All were visible in the village of women and children on the beach and fire to Shell directly at them. The moment he did so, the warchief, whose name was Qualcomm orders meant to open fire the fired on the gunboat from both ends the head of the bay, rake to gunboat fore and aft killed the British sailor outright and wounded several others. The British are totally stunned by this. They pulled up anchor, they pulled out about 200 yards offshore and then they proceeded to just bombard the place. heavily with their 32 inch canon 24 inch howitzer and numerous rounds from rifles they just they fought for her exchange rounds for about three hours. Finally, the flameouts had retreated inland were later they claimed that they laughed at the the attempt by the gunboat or the the laughter the fact that GunVault was wasting all its ammunition firing it a non existent enemy. Lascelles, after three hours of firing, basically retreated, he would not allow his mentioned land, they were afraid that if they did land, they would be shot down. And he called off the battle and sailed across Stuart channel to Willie island where he anchored for the night. And it was one writer said an enormous situation. As far as I can tell, the only tactic the feet of the Royal Navy by an Aboriginal tribe, Aboriginal people in its entire history. So they were not very happy about this. And for the next couple of days before read kind of sealed aimlessly about the Gulf Islands. They went to Cowichan where the commander tried similar tactics against the people they're ordering them to turn over the murders of these settlers, where he would bombard the villages and the people there instead of fight fighting back just abandoned their villages on mass, but to Lascelles, this time refrain from opening fire and basically, was at a loss of what to do so he failed north to look for a larger gunboat HMS Devastation which at that time was on a cruise in the north. I noticed I should be going to pick up my young son Do you want to get him Paul? People want to hear the rest of this story. So let's take up the

Unknown Speaker 39:08
right Okay, now we can get into the war. So the forward went north. And all this time, there was no word sent to Victoria what had happened. And

Unknown Speaker 39:39
the British onboard the four were quite worried about what had happened they had engaged the enemy contrary to Douglass instructions, not to use force if it could have we all could it could be at all prevented. So

Unknown Speaker 39:58
the devastation eventually did show up. Actually the sales went all the way up to Comox. We spent about four months you're not four months sorry, four days and komak Harbor drilling is man in preparation for the keys drilling man in preparation for warfare so he eventually the devastation sailed by comb ox to Nanaimo, unfortunately met up with another gunboat. And eventually it got word to the cells in comb ox that they were down in Nanaimo and come on down. So he went down there. And they immediately made plans to for nighttime assault on the village hallmarks because they had heard that they had assaulted reoccupied the village shortly after the battle. Samosa had skipping a lot of stuff here. The slums abandoned the village temporarily because they knew that further combat was the British might result in a defeat. So they left a temporarily and then reoccupied it. Where did it got to Lascelles, the commander of the foreword and the other British that the that they had returned, so they made plans for a nighttime raid, which they did they left 901 In the morning, and steamed down towards keeper island on a moonlit calm night. And of course, does anybody knows on the moon that night in the Gulf Islands, you can hear boats a mile away in the slum, Alton no doubt, heard these two gunboats approaching so there wasn't much of a surprise. When they arrived at Donald to Bay they found the place deserted, and the gunboat forward immediately floundered on the sandbar. So it's very lucky that the Sonics weren't there because if they were British probably would have suffered a second defeat. They still did not land. Although no sorry, they did land that day. Once they determined that there were no there was no opposition and they burned the village and destroyed it. And then proceeded to Ganges harbour, the grappler was which was always prone to mechanical difficulties of one sort or another, laid over and Ganti saga for repairs and the forward proceeded on to to Pender Island to search for the body of Brady. By this time they had coerced a man they captured during this cruise to tell them where Brady's body was, they landed and found it and identified it. And then they went to Cowichan. To rest the others who were taking part in this attack on Bill Brady and John Henley. And they were helped to couch and by the Roman Catholic Bishop Modesta nares, who had a lot of influence over the native people. And he actually had a mass that day, it was a Sunday. And he warned the people did not hand over these two men that they, the British would destroy their villages. And so acting on that threat they decided to surrender the two men and a woman and they very much protested it because according to their law is one of your people was killed by someone else. And all you were responsible, you only have to provide another person in compensation. So they thought it was quite unfair that they had to turn over three people for actually for the life of one man, but they did because there were three large naval vessels largest naval force I've ever seen in Cowichan Bay anchored just off shore. So they sail back to Victoria with these captives. They eventually tried they made no contention of what they did, and they were hung. Islamics, on the other hand, when they saw the gunboats lead plane to victory, immediately. There were word spread amongst the collection people and the other people the area there was there was fears general uprising was imminent. There were many threats made against the settlers on Saltspring. The stone cutters at the CVS were warned that if they didn't to leave their throats would be cut. Farmers on the north end of the island were warned that they would be shot in their fields by the samosa if they were careful. And they also reoccupied the village, their current village and began to fortify it refortified. There also rumors the press also began to characterize the summit's as criminals, outlaws, murderers pirates, and began to also seek out allies amongst other home of factions who had their own reasons for had their own inter tribal disputes happening with the tunnels people so dug a sword and there was another horrid rumor that began surface that Caroline Harvey who was Mark's daughter had been raped when that when the marks is were attacked by six colleagues and men and there's no real, nothing to substantiate this rumor. There were witnesses to this. This killing later who came forward and there was no mention of any sexual assault, but they didn't make any difference at the time just added to the fear. So Douglas ordered a second expedition to to to basically capture the Lemelson leaders and eliminate them. And he announced that he would personally accompany expedition I use in the 60th year this was the last year of his his long tenure as governor, and he wanted sort of to go out the Big Bang, big blaze of glory. So he announced that he would lead this expedition personally, and that he would raise the body of colonial troops to assist them. And so he gave orders to the Superintendent of Police to go out and search for suitable recruits and to meet at a pre arranged time to except his leadership into being listed and all this and so they did, they showed up, and Douglas offered the meetcha uniform equipment in $1 a day, but they all want to $3 a day. And he wouldn't budge and disgusted he abandoned the idea and decided to rock rely completely on the Royal Navy. It was quite a disappointment for him, and which you can get gauge from his letters at the time and he never did lead the expedition. The expedition was led by Captain John pike at the devastation, which was the sixth gunpowder wheel salute. It included the gate the gunboats forward and grappler which has a lot of weaponry as well, as well as two armed launches from the HMS Topaz and he's Lauren launchers are 20 foot 24 feet long it was it was special, it was a special amphibious unit, each carry 35 Marines and a 24 pounder howitzer. There was also a reward offered for capture the murder of Mark $500 and $100 each for any accomplice and this was of course a heck of a lot of money in those days. But Douglas also gave his most important instructions were that the British enlist the assistance of Homer allies, which they did the first or the expedition left early in May. They sailed to Pender islands main island they listed the services of a man named Jack they failed to build this island and listen surface services have settled lotsa who's important chief gm of that area. They went to Connecticut, and halt all these places they secured allies who would help them people that had grievances against the Salza because the British basically did not know where they were because they had scattered all over the Gulf Islands. The ensuing campaign took two weeks, it was mostly consistent sailing back and forth chasing false leads. And there were a lot of near misses. One instance, it's a cliche, the British landed and searched the shoreline around Cooley in the pouring rain for many hours. Finally, Smith's man was superintendent police and he had the whole male allies and as well as some colonial troops and his command came upon the sonnets unexpectedly and were so surprised they dropped the weapons and ran the sawmill at the same time ran into the bush. And were upon the Marines landed and pursued them into the bush a certain distance but again, they, they they couldn't come to grips and there was actually not much fighting that took place. But it was a lot of a lot of time that the British would simply just cannonade they would just sort of stand off a village and just fire blank rounds. And of course, it's much to intimidate people. And I've I have the ship's logs. And every once in a while you have these in the afternoon, they just decide to drill the ships cruise and they did a lot of the sort of intimidation. Another thing that happened to them bit by bit people attracted to the reward began to bring in some of the people as you know in hopes of getting reward but none of these people had anything to do these killings. Or the attack before by this time the British of course had the names of the various leaders and they weren't so much interested in the people killed the marks but they were interested in the people who had defeated them at

Unknown Speaker 49:48
the kilometer Bay. After two weeks, they had 18 adults in custody and numerous infants and all of them with the exception of children were flawed. and tortured in various ways to exact confessions of one sort or another indeed, and the confessions were all, you know, didn't mean anything, they, all of them seem to confess that they were the ones who had killed the settlers, when in fact, many of them had nothing whatsoever to do and they simply confess, because it was a way to stop me and Flog. However, the man who did who hit who did kill the marks, whose name was Pollock, he was shot at the Tamina River in a short skirmish with some Walmart allies. And his body was brought on board, the devastation and so they had the man killed marks, but it didn't satisfy the Royal Navy, they still wanted the the leaders of the who defeated that keep your island. But quite the British commander by this time after two weeks of sailing back and forth and then and doing entrusted this miserable job of interrogating these these captives, many of whom were innocent, decided to return to Victoria. With the 18 adults who were, who were all jailed and placed in the police barracks at present eight baskets where Douglas wasn't happy. He was adamant that the leaders be captured in order to third expedition. And this one involved the HMS chameleon, which is the state of the art sloop of war just been built two years previous and had all the modern weaponry Armstrong rifled cannon, just newly arrived from Mexico and the men were very eager to for some action, so Douglas ordered it to go out with the foreword and to proceed straight to Penelope. Because he received word that the chief there Hoka Latson had agreed to, to locate the summit's leaders who knew where they were. They were hidden in a cave of refuge on Galleon wireless at Montague Harbour, and he led them directly there. This was the this campaign lasts about three days. The gunboats went to Connecticut, they took onboard the scouts went direct to Montague harbor, and within a few hours, all collapsed and the other allies had tracked the some of the leader down whose name by the way is collect to one and captured him after a fight. He'd caught you and put up a fight. He tried to fire on these attackers, but he's gotten fired, misfire twice. But he manhandle three British sailors. He's very strong man. But he's fun to do. He and his brother and another man and his his wife and child were taken on board the forward quality one and the other guy who were both recognized leaders were both flawed. And in the British also did a mock hanging where they put a noose around his neck and strung them up on the deck, but not quite off the deck. Again, in order to trying to get him to divulge the whereabouts of other people. When they were looking for by now it's Qualcomm who was the war leader, who had commanded the samosa forces that llama Tobago, he was never captured. After another week or so of searching, they gave up, they went back to Victoria, there were three trials. Many of the people captured had decided to turn Queens witness, Crown witness, under the again under threats. And the trial was actually a sham. According to the clock, just according to my analysis, but according to the press of the day, they were outraged that these guys were being charged with they had nothing to do with the attack on the marks or any of these settlers, their only crime was firing and self defense against the HMS forward. And for that four of them were hung. On the leading newspaper men of the day wrote the following words in regards to this. We have disgraced our humanity or religion or law in our free Constitution by staining our hands with innocent blood. There was even a petition circulated once these men were condemned to hang. The jury recommended mercy. And no, I mean, recommended mercy before the sentence. You know, they said they were guilty of the death of this British sailor who was killed in the battle. The British obviously didn't recognize this as an act of war. And petition was circulating Victoria and even in Victoria that day, which was quite, you know, by our terms today, quite a racist kind of oriented society 458 Or over 151 Eight a men sign this petition. These are people that knew about the trials and saw the injustice and I tried to convince the governor to commute the sentence but for his own reasons, which I think have to do with his involvement in this clandestine liquor trade. Douglass and the other officials of the government ensured that the men were home. So basically, the aftermath of this, there was still a lot of violent incidents on the Gulf Islands, or settlers were killed. But basically after 1863 There was no active opposition to the native settlement. And the treaty process which Douglas, which had begun in 1850, Douglas said promise to continue using was at an end. And he quit within months of this and historians have tended to kind of bury this as a pass it off is sort of a police action, not sort of looking at it as context. And it's good reasons for this because they base a lot of their information on on when am sources of the 19th century, which tended to overlook a lot of the the inequities that happen, especially the trials. And basically, there's a land claim going on today. And that's the six nations that make up this area. And we still live with a legacy of this. Anyway, that's a very truncated abbreviated account of this. And I realize now I've left out a lot of details, but that's what the book is for. It should be published by the end of this year. And I don't know if anybody has any questions, probably. flesh things out a lot better. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 56:53
Oh, well, it was I'm not absolutely sure he was the editor of the of the tortilla Chronicles, probably DW Higgins. He was a well known journalist, he wrote a popular book called The passing of a race, which has just been republished excerpts of it, until the Pioneer journalists. Just DM ers. He was, he was a Roman Catholic bishop, he came here to 1852. And that's another angle I didn't get into in this brief talk, because it was part of Douglass's strategy to, to Christianize, the people as sort of a strategy to undermine the traditional culture in India were quite successful in 1859, established a Catholic mission at Cowichan, which within a few years, that really undermined the traditional system and created its own kind of hierarchy of chiefs, like the priests and the bishops appointed their own hereditary leaders. And this serves at odds with the traditional hereditary hereditary leaders. And he'd be a lot of the allies I mentioned in here, the former allies were Catholics, who hated the British

Unknown Speaker 58:17
sort of told us that that was was was not sympathetic at all, to the native people. And yet, given his own background, I had been under the impression that

Unknown Speaker 58:31
he was Yeah, that's one of the sort of the myths about Douglas, he was sympathetic to those that were on his side. And he, you know, he cultivated, he understood, like, you know, I don't know if I explained very well with the treaties, but you know, he departed from the instructions of the Colonial Secretary, in that he recognized that the Indians know more than just their villages and their potato patches that they places all over. But yeah, if they, if they were on his side, you use your he was happy, but the samosa were a group that would have nothing to do with them. In fact, their leaders used to boast that they did not fear him and did not fear the man of war. He sort of singled them out for his wrath. But it's true I mean, he did. In the past, he did even actually settle disputes according to Indian law, as opposed to British law. For example, the the expeditions a couch and he accepted. One instance he accepted the slave as a substitute for a man who had killed a big company Shepherd. He wasn't averse to selling things according to Indian law.

Unknown Speaker 59:56
Richard Phillips,

Unknown Speaker 1:00:03
Yeah, not too much. I know there was a big house there is an archaeological site on that. It's the property with a little colony. ISIS is the longhouse site there and that's probably the that settlement. There were settlements all over Saltspring I didn't get into it, but prior to 1840 There was a lot of fighting going on between Fort Rupert coffee like the Indians further north from here, acquired guns before the the former people. So as a result, they had a military experience here at edge and so they would come down here and raid and they were basically invincible. And so around 1840 There was a leader, a sandwich leader named Leshem, who convinced people at Fulford harbour Ganges Pender Island main island to relocate at what is now solid on the Saanich Peninsula. So the band in the village is here just that's sort of a temporary thing to kind of band together in sort of a large group in order to better resist these guys but that by no means they gave up they didn't give up their land is still with us it sort of the offseason, like these raids usually occurred in the summer. So it was sort of a temporary abandonment. The first step was came here in 1859 This summer, and this is the case there's no one here because they were all somewhere else. But didn't mean they didn't live here. Miss started. People never lived here

Unknown Speaker 1:01:34
I'd like to make progress on behalf of society. Fascinating.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:45
via your way the names of intelligence that'd be a topic