172_Arnett-Chris_Ganges-Harbour-Battle.mp3

otter.ai

11.03.2023

no

Unknown Speaker 0:07
Filming maybe yesterday by not everybody can see that

Unknown Speaker 0:26
that's great. Well, speaking of land claims. So today, well, it's great to see this wonderful turnout. I'm quite honored. Today I'm going to talk about the battle Ganges or the bloody Ganges massacre, a historic event that took place in Ganges Harbor on July 4 1860 140 years ago this year. It's an event it's pretty well known. I mean, people know that this battle took place, but historical context is usually missing. And that's what I'd like to address today. So we'll get to a little background. I have here a map of the land claim of the Hulk coming in first nations. And as you can see, it includes Salt Spring Island, the most of the Gulf Islands and this large area of Vancouver Island. This the whole community first nations are comprised of a number of different groups. They include the Cowichan people that live in this area. And the other group which is collectively referred to as the chumminess they live north of the cow action between maple Bay and to Gabriel island, but chumminess domain is proper refers to one village up in Cooley Bay, for a number of villages in this area, inelegant Cooper Island Lacson, all this island, sick to me, lady Smith, harder number of groups, but for the purposes of land claims all these people because they speak a common language. Getting a claim under the collective title Hulkamania first nations will come in and refers to the language that they all speak. These people have lived in this area, they have an occupancy of some 5000 years. 5000 years ago, there were a number of factors going on in the environment. Sea levels kind of established themselves to where they are today. Salmon had started going into screens shellfish beds began to things were stabilized. And this allowed the creation of sedentary villages in a number of areas and the development to the economy based on the exploitation of the various resources found in the mountains of Vancouver Island and rivers Vancouver Island and the islands of Gulf Islands. Indeed, this culture that developed in this area also extended over to the across the street to the Fraser River where every summer the village is here with the park on mass to treat the river to take part in a Fraser River Sockeye fishery. And as you can see on this map is also included as part of our traditional territory or former village sights on the Fraser River. So quite an extensive network of people. Back to this map and a bit here, this photo, this is a photo of the village of Farmington, which is found on the delta of the Cowichan River. This was taken about 1863. And it gives you a pretty good idea of what villages were like. That's important to remember among the whole community first nations that the the highest unit of common allegiance was the extended family. And you can see these different houses here these large cedar playing house, each one of those houses a family, I believe in the 1860s were some 15 or so these houses so family was the basic political unit. Now how did these people people make a living Well, they had a system of land tenure, the you when you were born and one of these houses you owned, these families own the house that they were born in, called the Nov, which is a place where you are from. And they also owned various resources in the surrounding countryside. And this ownership, the system of land tenure is very ancient, it could go back as far as 5000 years, it's something that hasn't been exactly kind of defined because there hasn't been a heck of a lot of archaeological work done in this area. But the work is continuing, but what we find is that certain houses, everybody had access to some resource, but there was some sort of differentiation in the amount of resources available to individual families and this was all based on the size of the family, for example, large families often had large network of relations all over the place, you know, in the Gulf Islands and on the mainland, and Vancouver Island. Other families that were smaller and less well off have less access to resources. The ownership was validated in an institution that most of us are familiar with, called the Potlatch and these were gatherings where family rights and privileges which included names and access to various resources was validated. Right recognized by the participants who are invited to these affairs

Unknown Speaker 7:04
now

Unknown Speaker 7:16
familiar names for familiar places, this map gives you an idea these are a number of Hulkamania and place names. Some of them include with your villages here in the power scenario, unlike Farmington here, and other villages to Camille chumminess These are ancient villages, you know, that was 5000 years ago, the other day, find the gold mines here, referred to summer village sites, but many of them identify resources. And the names often give us a clue as to what was available in this specific location. For example, here we have Virgo and Bay in for Virgo and Bay was what block one means place of the merganser duck. And it was named one because historic times 1000s of these ducks flock to this area at a certain time of year and the families that own access to this resource, set up these huge aerial nets and they capture them by the 1000s and then preserve them for winter use. Another example of a place name of great resources is stock stock, which is the old premium name for long harbor sauce needs. halibuts refers to the halibut this used to be caught there I don't know if they're available anymore. Another place is west, west one Provo Island, West one means place in the first seal. And it was a another area that was accessed by certain families in particular from Farmington, but other places as well. This access was established over 1000s of years depending on merits pies are very complicated. Another example, Sunny point very tip of Salt Spring Island refers to the masses of white shell that can still be seen on the beach and which the remnants of the 1000s of years of shellfish shellfish harvesting and processing that went on in that area. Not all names referred to resources. Other names refer to unusual shape the land and or historic events. For example, is one example when Enix fanatics, which is the name in the name for Fulford harbour It means move your bio, lowering rear ends in the water, you know, refers to some incidents in the past, I haven't really found out all the details yet. But other examples, yeah, and so on. So when people learn their territory, they learn by learning these, this inventory of names, they've learned the resources available in certain places, as well as the shape of the land and the history associated with land, you will be able to the name and so on. Now around Oh, I should get into one other aspect of land tenure, trespass, with resources, access to resources was was very much restricted and punishable, in fact, by death. I have an account here from from the the couch in area which quotes every family had its own hunting and fishing grounds. And the tract of land which each one claimed was in proportion to the size of the family, there was a large family and had a large tract of land and vice versa. Sometimes one family had to its credit many miles of land for its hunting and fishing purposes. When Indian found another man poaching on his land, he immediately shot and killed him as it was within the law to do so. There were very few laws. But what there were was strictly kept, as a punishment for breaking them was very strict. And this smear of people were rarely killed for trespass in the in the old days, because even though there was this recognized system of ownership, if someone asked permission, you know, there was a protocol involved. So if you ask permission, it was rarely refused. And so, you know, because the resources that individual families owned, were these families were stewards of the land, and they manage these resources in various ways. So, but there were instances especially when the, the white started to come into the country where people were killed, according to the native law. But before the white man showed up, approximately 1782 There was a devastating epidemic that hit this area, and it actually started in Mexico City. And geographers have traced this play, originally Mexico City and went up through northern Mexico into the United States and down in Colombia and eventually up into this region, the coast and it devastated the people who lived in this area because the so called Coast Salish, plague only went up about as far as Komatsu then petered out. But early European explorers in the 1790s recorded saw remnants of this plague everywhere they went, you know, people would popcorn faces and deserted villages. So, so this created a sort of a vacuum in a way north of this area, the clock will walk where people began to make contact with the new child people on the coast and to gain access to firearms. And beginning in the late 1700s, early 1800s began to raid down into this area, in search of slaves, mostly, with the establishment of Fort Langley and 1827. More and more people began to come down on raids up the Fraser and it was really a lot of a lot of warfare going on. And a lot of destruction and however, in 1840, who was an unprecedented alliance of all these people and this is this is quite unusual because you know, the highest unit common allegiance with the family, but all the the people that Coast Salish on this area, and on the other side, the Squamish Musqueam recognize that this was a threat that they had to deal with. So an 1840 The united in a unprecedented Alliance, under the command of two well known warrior chiefs who Calum and post yet power Canaria. And in 1840, this group is already defeated a large walk a walk up and co ops army at Maple Bay and and they were decisively defeated. After this battle, there were were marriages arranged between various chiefs in this area with the Fokker waka, people of Cape mage, and the Comox. The same occurred over in Squamish. And so peace was established through marriage between the Coast Salish people and the waka waka a pavement. Now we get up to 1849.

Unknown Speaker 15:48
Now, at 49, the colony of Vancouver Island was established, and one of the first orders of business for the colonial government and we'll actually get colony was a Bank of Rome was granted by the Imperial government of Great Britain to the Hudson's Bay Company to develop it and you're given a 10 year sort of mandate to to organize this colony and attract settlers and proceeds are the expenses of the colony were to be paid through land sales, but before they could sell any land, they had to extinguish title. And Douglas recognizes right away just a few months after the establishment of a colony on September 3 1849, he wrote to the Secretary that since big company that, quote, some arrangements 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 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. And the company agreed. Douglas was following a an Aboriginal land policy that was established that decade in New Zealand and sort of founding document is the Treaty of white Tang, and the Treaty of Waitangi. Basically, in exchange for recognizing British sovereign tree, the Maori tribes in New Zealand were allowed to basically continue their way of life there. They were allowed to, you know, occupy their villages work their fields and access their traditional food gathering areas, and land would only be sold to the crown. And then the crown would turn or sell the land to, to the settlers. And this this policy, of course, established in North America even earlier in 1763. Royal Proclamation which said basically the same thing that prior to any occupation of land title to the land, and it had to be extinguished. So Douglas recognized this, Douglas was the second governor of the colony, Vancouver Island. And beginning in 1850, we negotiated a series of land sale agreements with various families that live in vicinity of Fort Victoria. First agreements were made with chiefs, the heads of the families in this area. Victorious Flymo have chosen and soon there were nine sales, nine land sale agreements, and these agreements. Basically, follow the law and follow the same policy established in New Zealand in exchange for recognition of British sovereignty. The native people were guaranteed their home villages, their fields, by this time the people were heavy into potato cultivation, and their traditional food gathering areas. The chief saw no reason not to accept these terms, you know, they they recognize the British as as the most powerful nation in the world and saw that they would be of some help in preventing wars which were continuing all over this place. In fact, I'm sort of in the process now going through archival documents to just get a handle on all the fighting is actually taking place. Rarely. Rarely have sort of eyewitnesses which is when I get to the battle Ganges it's one interesting thing about that fight or something very significant about it, in that it was witnessed by whites. So These land sale agreements at 50 were completed at 52. Douglas started one of the first logging companies on Vancouver Island on Vancouver Island steam logging company. And they started logging. So Sanic and Spanish people got word of this and central Ward party to the logging operation and stopped it. Douglas then made a land sale redeem the south Saanich and the North Saanich sphere. And under the same terms as the previous agreements, the Spanish chiefs didn't seem to have a problem with this because it guaranteed them their way of life and their economy. So they saw this as a good thing. And also the people at this time the native people were were welcome introduction to European Technology and European settlements, they saw it as a positive thing, improve their way of life as well. So the final tree land sale agreement that Douglas was able to negotiate was, was in at 40, at the Nymo. Because, you know, these valuable coal deposits were found, and this was like, you know, the Sahara, the oil fields at this time, because coal is, you know, something that fuels the industrial revolution. So it's incredibly exciting for the Nanaimo coal fuel discovery, but it was very difficult treaty negotiated, it took over two years, and there was some military expeditions in there, there were clashes over jurisdiction, where white settlers have been attacked and gone out and punished, or tracked down the people responsible. And we'll get into those in much detail. They're all in my book. Quite interesting, because at least two cases they were settled according to Indian law. And in one instance, the British accepted the slave substitute for the guilty person, according to native law. But after 1854, that was found increasingly difficult to negotiate land sale agreements, particularly it was a whole country and First Nations who occupied the area we're looking at the first image. And there were some reasons for this. Some, some of the chiefs were in favor of selling land or setting aside pieces of land for white settlers, but there are others that were adamantly opposed and they look to the Bredesen system itself as a consulting work working out as well down here as they should have been so they were overall fine, large, post mighty land sale agreements. And this caused Douglas a lot of anguish, particularly because colony Vancouver Island one reason because it didn't sort of take off gangbusters was because the shortage of agricultural land once it was taken up, you know, there wasn't really that much. Damage towards parts of the planet there, they're quickly taken up. And Douglas knew that couch and area up here at incredible agricultural land and saw it as a future the colony, but the owners refuse to sell. So other things began to happen in 1858. gold was discovered in the Fraser River and there was an unprecedented influx of foreigners into Victoria 30,000, white men flooded into the to the sport and then proceeded on their way to the Fraser River. And the same time Douglas was informed that the Hudson's Bay charter to Vancouver Island was to be extinguished. So the Hudson's Bay Company would be out of the colony business, and they knew this. And they knew the date. The Charter was to expire may 3359. And Douglas tried, again to negotiate land sale agreements in Cowichan. area. The Chiefs recuse, so he went ahead anyway. And he took the opportunity leaves in March and he took nine and majority Cowichan all the way to a major herring fishery in the boat violence. He sent surveyors in and the surveyor survey these five districts can see up here Shawnee survey the land, divided it into 100 acre lots and promptly sold it to various Hudson's Bay Company employees Royal Navy officers and wealthy merchants. Speculative scene and the heroes they only had to pay a quarter down and the balance is payable on the settlement of the of the Indian title near all promises. This is totally illegal. And Douglas covered this up in his correspondence with the federal government. He mentioned that he was doing this. And when he eventually developed a preemption system, he left these areas out of it. So what happened? Getting back to the gold rush at 59 Victoria is once again in inundated. And these are only the sort of unemployed miners, the men who have gone to the Fraser and not struck and rich and couldn't get back home. And they began clamoring for land. They heard about this land that had been surveyed and sold to Hudson's Bay Company cronies and they were really

Unknown Speaker 25:47
upset about and wants it, the land and bank began to petition the government for it and hold raucous meetings with Victoria. Douglas announced an unofficial preemption system to kind of direct these settlers or potential settlers to other areas. And so in 1859, he opened up Saltspring Island and the germaneness area, just your district to settlement under this preemption system. And basically what this preemption system was, individuals could select a piece of land. And you know, it was sort of a three step process, they would clear the land and improve it, and eventually they would be entitled to it. But none of this land was none of the title had been extinguished. And these early settlers ran into some difficulty, some of them

Unknown Speaker 26:57
here Saltspring Island, circa 1858 1859. So the white settled in three major areas, right up there, north of the lake and the Fernwood area was one settlements. We settled in the center here. The base settlement and down in here is a foolproof vertical line Valley. Now, how does the native people feel about this? Well, the settlement took place in July, August of 1859. And the majority of couch and hope Amina first nations were away at the Fraser River fishery. So settlers landed here and there was nobody around and so they took up the land. When they when the native people came back, there was quite a bit of anger. And it seems quite evident from the the historical sources, for example.

Unknown Speaker 28:02
Oh, I can't find it.

Unknown Speaker 28:05
On North End. Well, the newest New Westminster paper reported in September of 1859. At the Connecticut's accused Governor Douglas of stealing the island they claimed the island is theirs, and you put delegates in their own log of the resources and land up at the north end. However, something happened there. between that time and following year. One year later, the bishop Anglican bishop went and found quite a peaceful colony. And they also found that most of the settlers 16 had married native women. And this is how the conflict was resolved in the north. Basically, according to native law, the settlers married the daughters of Connecticut as well to chiefs who owned the rights and the resources of the land. And so the North End settlement which in turn allowed the whites to occupy the land legitimately according to native law. Same thing happened on the south end where many of the settlers were Roman Catholic persuasion and married the daughters of a high ranking chiefs from villages climates like how would you Bay and similarly they were basically accepted into the family. In fact, tonight we have with us two descendants of those families. Mr. Aikman and Barbara Lambert, descendants of regional alliances in the south. So the North End and South End. Settlements didn't run into any problems. Other areas, there were problems have mentioned tomatoes Valley, tomatoes Bell Only 910 settlers took up land there by spring of 1860. They've been driven away. They've been threatened with the lives even though Governor Douglas had promised the Chiefs compensation, nothing was forthcoming and so they left similar similarly, in the central settlement, Ganges area, the there was little if any effect I don't think there was any intermarriage with Native people. And the central area was was very important to the people from Supermileage launcher that Connecticut and he had a canoe Portage, which extended from booth canal to the head of Ganges Harbour. And they use this frequently as a shortcut to you know, access. Well, actually, they use it mainly during the migration to the Fraser River Sockeye fishery. And they had established camps throughout the island and they barely tolerated the settlers in the central settlement effect I'll show you a

Unknown Speaker 31:22
dandy.

Unknown Speaker 32:35
wife and two small children recently immigrated from Australia and New Zealand, they took up land right in the midst of this canoe Portage. They had an exchange. In this instance, here, the native people who didn't drive them out, but they made arrangements for them. For example, the minOccurs were forced to share their home with Lamington, Connecticut whenever they they came by. And one of the daughters who was interviewed in 1910 recalled their visits to the to the family cabin near their house instead, it was one of the first built in the settlement in November 1859. She recalled bands of Indians might come to the cabin and quite fill up the small place before the fire, they would sit perhaps a whole day for no one dared ask them to move. They talked among themselves and intimated by suggestively drawing a hand across the throat, what would happen to the unlucky mortal adventurer to disturb them, the family did not stay very long in the island. And you can see here by the time this map was made Lakers needs Henry Monroe was taken over. So and there were a lot of there was a lot of turnover in the economy preemptions and simply because, you know, people didn't feel safe on the land. Three early accounts, you know, native people robbing the gardens and stuff, but these weren't robberies because the native people, this is their land and they believe that any single on land belong to them, and they would probably take a portion of the crop, whatever as tribute.

Unknown Speaker 34:33
And Douglas, you know, he recognized these problems, these areas, such as, again, he suddenly here, were not officially part of the colony of Vancouver Island effect they referred to as dependencies. And they weren't because he knew that the title had not been extinguished, in fact, in March 1 1862 He addressed the House of Assembly Victoria quote, to provide means for extinguishing by purchase the native title to the land and the districts of Cowichan chumminess 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. They did have trouble getting back to these focusing on the battle again. We talked earlier about the qwaqwa waka and they raise large flotillas of armed warriors that came down in 1840s. Well, after the the piece that had been established, the clock will walk well. Well, well, I should say these was established with a copper walkway this year, but it was still a vast area to the north. Were beginning around 1850 And he wants these people knew of the establishment of the port and at 49 inventory and they started to come down by the 1000s. And beginning around 1850 You get reports of you know 2000 6000 Native people from the Queen Charlotte's as far as a claim get people from Russian territories, and all the way down from sin Shan area Niska Bella Bella, we're making these annual migrations every summer down to Victoria. And purpose was trade and that trade, unfortunately evolved to alcohol, very important trade item, and also the prostitution of women in Victoria. The money and this, this created a lot of problems, not so much in Victoria and that that are particularly amongst the people on Route. And there was a lot of fighting, there was a lot of violent encounters dealing with traditional volume trespass people beyond the land and they would be killed. And then there was retaliatory violence, those people would kill the people that who killed their relatives and so on, and it was just quite a mess. Now route 18 April 1860 or so. A canoe a kid about chief from way up there. That was channel Kitimat left his village with his wife and two slaves and a number of retainers. And they made the long 1000 Kilometer canoe journey down to Victoria. On the way we stopped at the the Ganges settlements or not the Ganges the firmest settlement, and picked up a white man by the name of Callie, who was there and he's described as a settler at the firm with settlement, but I don't think he was he's sort of sort of a shadowy character people have identified him as a liquor trader and various other things. But anyway, they picked him up. And he asked the Bella Bella or not, they weren't Bella Bella Kitimat take to take him to the Ganges harbour settlement. And they were very reluctant, but he insisted. And so they agreed. And in July 4 1860, the paddled into Harvard year and landed right up there on the corner of Lakers play, and let Macaulay to go go about his business he was going to meet later for some business. Now, by this time, once the settling I didn't mention this but but when the settlers arrived and Ganges harbour Ganges had been used for millennia as the resource gathering area for all kinds of things. Extensive mid in deposits all around the harbor. Once the White said began, began building houses there in 1859, a group of inelegant and wobble chip established the village houses right ahead of the harbor there. And the when the Bella Bella came in, there were 50 people camped there, and we probably amongst 50 There may have been 12 warriors and balanced women and children. And when they saw the Bella Bella canoe coming in, they were very anxious because there had been some fight In the previous months, for example, in April 1860, the village of Penelope and Cooper island had been attacked by a group of Bella Bella possibly or some northern Indians, and they wreaked havoc on the village. And so they're very weary when they saw these Kitimat coming in. But the decided on a plan of action, and they may have recognized them as actually participants in some of these earlier clashes. But they pretended to welcome the Kitimat and so the Kitimat landed, and while McCauley was up visiting with liquor, the two of them heard the sounds of gunfire on the beach. And I'll read what Linacre wrote he, he wrote two accounts of this incident. On the fourth of July last at noon a canoe with nine men two boys and three women of the Bella Bella tribe came in here with a person named Macaulay who had business in some of the settlers. While he was talking to me the couch ins numbering some 50, who were encamped here and who on the rival of the Bella Bella is manifested, and unfriendly spirit, but afterwards appeared friendly, commenced firing. A general fight ensued which lasted about an hour and ended in the couch and is killing each of the others and carrying off the women and boys as prisoners. The fight occurred so close to my house that I sent my wife and family into the woods for safety. He also mentioned that bullets flew over their heads, and his daughter later recalled the bullets that hit the side of the tablet, and so it is quite, quite afraid. The end so the firefight lasts about an hour at the end of it. All the belvilla are all the kinematic or dead except for the chief and his wife. From some accounts, they escaped, he began to somehow got into their canoe, left the beach and then they're dead comrades and headed to one of the small islands in Ganges harbor. But they were pursued the wife and her two slaves and a couple of children were captured but the cheek managed to escape and he had been shot in the in the mouth and in the arm. And he eventually made his way to literatures cabin and Linacre, you know sort of Fritos and no, I can't be here to you and send him off a trail. Two different versions went over to boot canal went to the north settlement. But in any event, he made his escape. The the women were taken into custody by the Connecticut launcher, the two slave women were subsequently killed, brought the total of Kitimat killed to can and women was because they recognize your high rank was held as a hostage. Eventually word of this got to Victoria and Douglas sent out the the HMS satellite, which is a large amount of war to to investigate and to ensure that the settlers are safe. When they arrived, they found the bodies of the victims and all the mutilated they had their heads bashed in and around the chest were full of bullet holes. And but they did manage to ransom the high ranking woman who had been captured. And it's interesting they took her back to Victoria and she was reunited with her husband who after a long arduous journey had made it somehow to Victorian they were reunited and much to each other surprise but everyone else had been killed and letters that had been sent to Victoria gone missing and always so now what's interesting about this event, so was that there's sort of a revealing passage and one of Linacre is letters to

Unknown Speaker 44:07
Governor Douglas concerning this fight. Like he wrote to the Indians have all left here probably anticipating in an attack in such an event we should be anything but safe, especially should they in any way molest the settlers. And he said words to a similar effect, and basically reading between them. In another letter basically reading between the lines, we realized that the settlers here relied more on the presence of the penelitian allowance of warriors with protection than the British government. And so he was very worried when the Panella cuts left probably continue their journey and this was July after all, you're probably on your way to the Fraser River fishery. So Douglas sent the satellite up. The ship investigated and like I said, restored the one of the lady, the high ranking woman to her husband, but the tribe Dogs weren't punished in any way. You know the settlers in the area at least the linen crews were clearly endangered by the fighting. And Douglas later wrote a letter to the Duke of Newcastle who was the head of the colonial office administrated the colonies of the Empire, and wrote that the settlers so greatly alarmed, suffered no molestation whatever from the victorious tribe, who before leaving a settlement, expressed the deepest regret for the afraid, pleading an extenuation that they could not control their feelings, and begging that their conduct might not be represented to this government in an unfavorable light, and apparently was not, it was nothing, no retribution or anything taken against them. And this is kind of kind of interesting, because in other correspondence with Douglas, he writes, so he sort of had his hands full, just stuff going on in the colony itself, let alone these other areas were titled enough and extinguish, so he tended to to disregard any inter tribal fighting or conflict, and probably because he recognized the jurisdiction of the native tribes. So the aftermath of the fight. The native people continue to live in Ganges harbor and the land title problem was remained unresolved, even though in 1861, Douglas petitioned the imperial government again, to assist in negotiating some sort of land sale agreements, but nothing was forthcoming. In 1862, the lauten Panella came to a cap tear fired on the gumbo forward, which was towing some, some hider back to the nine where he had to pass the by the Royal Navy was doing this all the time, through the territory of the whole community, First Nations. Because it wasn't you know, it wasn't, it was unceded territory. And the Indian people from the north visited Victoria demanded protection on Route. So it was a frequent thing for the gunboats to tow more than Ninian's through the character the first nation at 62 done before was fired on here but people and put the forward had an officer who wouldn't take this and loaded the cannon with great shot and pursued the Lamington, Connecticut and arrested two chiefs, took them on board and flog 36 lashes each. This, of course, did nothing to improve relations. In that same year, Douglas organized an expedition to Cowichan, which is backed by two Royal Navy vessels, and they landed here basically occupied the land again, while the Cowichan people were away at the Fraser River fishery the following year, as documented in this book, they just wrote and I won't get into the story because it's too long and in depth. Between April and July 1863 colonial government waged a war against the certain families from Cooper Island and Connecticut who own the rights on Saltspring Island, various other areas put against harbor waging war against them. Some were killed, and four were eventually hung in Fashion Square on the same date as the battle Ganges July 4. Three years later. I'm still in the midst. Now sorting out the names of these people. We sort of know this is one sort of significant thing about the battle Ganges, as I mentioned earlier, it was witnessed by European settlers. And you can start to tie in these incidents with genealogies from an elephant pouch and this is something that's going on now. So eventually, we're going to be able to identify the names of the individuals who took part in many of these spades sort of vague for now historical events. As you can see by this map, which just came out a couple of years ago, things are still unresolved. They're at the agreement in principle stage, but having talked to three negotiators of the Hulkamania First Nations, they don't seem too optimistic, because of various factors. So It's still history that we're still living with today and dealing with but I think that before we can really understand what we're at we have to appreciate what what has happened in the past and I think that will guide us to reconciliation in the future well, that's sort of my rambling this source does anybody have any questions about this material or

Unknown Speaker 50:34
yes

Unknown Speaker 50:38
said that the links to the resources for larger families together families

Unknown Speaker 51:04
decided probably through genealogy and in the context of the Potlatch like

Unknown Speaker 51:20
Yeah, but what you had, the larger the family, usually the more people they have resources and you know, they could, they could work together to put on a Potlatch to do a Potlatch in the first place involved in a lot of organizing and resources. So if you had a lot of people to draw upon, facilitate that. And, and also, if you had a larger family, you would have more daughters and sons to marry out. And this was an important factor because people rarely married within the village they were encouraged to marry outside of the village. By doing so you would establish alliances and connections with groups from all over and they nice days a married people in the states and over in Olympic Peninsula wide ranging.

Unknown Speaker 52:29
Possibly, but I think in practice, you know, if you had a large family to begin with, I mean, I agree there was a lot of disruption, especially with that play in 1782. That did a real number. Yeah, and I think all villages were decimated in that time, and yeah, accidents it's possible stuff is still being figured out Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 53:10
Yeah, actually, yeah, you're right, because getting back to the mythological times when the first ancestors landed on the alighted on the land, and these people believe that their ancestors dropped out of the sky, on various mountains on Vancouver Island for emerged out of the ground on Cooper Island has a number of myths like this. And they also when they appeared, there also appeared the Schnipper Hall, which was the cultural teachings. And apparently, this was sort of a, an early sort of a template for this land tenure, like it was the name of is actually the most important thing. All these early ancestors, they had names and long and the name was passed down through the generations and along with the name came all these rights and privileges which included access to resources. And this was validated in the Potlatch where you get a whole bunch of people getting together and gifts would be distributed and you know, to to validate someone's claim and people accepted the gifts they accepted the claim person and that's usually what happened and this sort of worked in in the treaties to the Douglas treaties, Douglas distributed blankets and stuff to the people in to validate what he had told ya

Unknown Speaker 54:46
well, I just tried to get over the affordances of this particular event and how

Unknown Speaker 54:54
well my my way of looking at it was fight was important stuff. You're right, it wasn't massacre, but that sort of gets into, you know what any warfare was like it was very efficient, ruthless, I mean, they fought to win. This is why a lot of it meant to us it looks like treachery, these guys were, you know, in waiting for them to come ashore and pretended to be friendly. And then, you know, blasted them. And this is sort of a very typical tactic. I mean, it was used in that large battle I talked about earlier, naval day, same similar sort of ruse was used. And I've documented many instances of this, just because they wanted to win. So they wiped these guys out. But what, to me what's significant about the battles that took place in the midst of the largest white settlement outside of the colony of Vancouver Island, and establish the jurisdiction of these people on that land, the British did not challenge it. And they didn't go in there and punish these guys, because they knew they couldn't, and they didn't have the rights to do it as well. But following few years, as I documented his book, they did. I mean, they realized who these guys were, I mean, the inelegant launcher, again, these Harvard would have nothing to do with land sale agreements. And they were, they were very militant, very much opposed to any dealings with whites. They just wanted to keep things the way they were, they didn't want to give any of their land away or selling. So that's

Unknown Speaker 56:31
it the last

Unknown Speaker 56:46
video, it's harder to make your hair use.

Unknown Speaker 56:52
There you go. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it's, I think they didn't live there. You know, temporarily. I mean, they didn't, it wasn't what you'd call a winter village. But in the past, there was a winter village. Again, it's harder at with the old the hill property there. Yeah, the arbor house. And so the further back you go on time, and they and there was a dig in long harbor a few years ago, where they found huge house posts. And that's, that's, that's, you know, a sign of a permanent dwelling. What, but a bishop Hill who visited again Sarver In September he can 60 walks through a deserted Indian village, on Linacre, whose property and I have a pen main left. Panamanians visited the Ganges harbour in April 1860 mentioned a village that had been established there after the settlers. And so what happened, I forgot to mention this. Once the set the the whites occupied these pieces of land and Ganges, the the owners came and erected houses to just, you know, to reinforce their claim on the land. And these are the houses there and I have a feeling this is where these people were in 1860. They were in these houses when when the Kitimat arrived. But, you know, what's really needed is more world archaeology, I think, throughout the Gulf Islands, because you know, you can start to identify historic occupations. For example, there's a longhouse down here. No one knows the name of it or anything, but, you know, this is the remains of a longhouse and they come gunflint and stuff. So it's a historic Indian wedding, but much more. Yep. That shows

Unknown Speaker 58:52
the overlapping landlines here, because that's the opposite Russell is held by the standing right.

Unknown Speaker 59:04
And then the Helen whitely.

Unknown Speaker 59:09
This is a big problem.

Unknown Speaker 59:13
And then the other thing is that I'm interested to see if you can give us

Unknown Speaker 59:18
something on that.

Unknown Speaker 59:22
Whether it's meant to apply to relation to the

Unknown Speaker 59:30
sacredness of life, some sort of I don't understand.

Unknown Speaker 59:38
Well, I suppose the last but sacred is the psaltery replaces on Saltspring that were considered sacred or special and this includes the Sarita mountains in this vehicle. 22 been corrupted to Toine Sweeney means straight down from the heights to the water. Come in this way to couch it in a canoe or approach this area in the land and straight down. So we named it sweet. And people used to train there, the supernatant for power. In fact, with the Buddhist Monastery at the top of Mount palm is the site of a training area. And there are other places around Saltspring. But Saltspring interviewed elders today, they would call it in their districts is more of a breadbasket grocery store is the place to have a ton of food. And, you know, extremely valuable. Getting to the point where the overlapping claims, I mean, for sure. Like, for example, any reserve is foolproof Harvard, most people call it sanics. But I talked to a couch and elder Dennis on Fox, and he told me that he was only made a century because there happened to be a Spanish family camping there in 1870s. When a commissioner went through, he just gave it to him said, Okay, you guys are here. Your reserve. I mean, that could have been one family, they may have been couch and families. And he heard back in the 70s that, quote, hippies are camping there. And he went over there to kick them off. And they said, Oh, no, this is sad place. So he that was the first he'd heard about it. As far as the Ellen point goes, Ellen point in the 1860s. There were no sadness, people living there. They were inelegant, and couch and ancestry. And how the Senate should have cut hold of that is, you know, something I haven't researched. But I think a lot of this has to do with these commissioners who went around 1870s, they had no understanding or comprehension of any land tenure, and they just basically designated reserves to whoever happened to be there at the time. And yeah, so yeah, because, you know, most people consider the various percentage and Santa studious, and I mean, it's a lot of overlap. And you got to remember people from couch and married people in Santa. So if you are a man living in Farmington, and you marry a woman living in Soweto, um, you would have access to all the resources and her family over in San Juan's all over it. And this is something kind of bothers me about land claims today, you know, we've come up with the sort of specific territories. And it's a modern construct. And the, again, the family was the basic unit, families own territories. But the group collectively as a whole didn't really I mean, there could be families in there who have very limited access to resources because of one reason or another, and others that have incredible access. So it's quite complicated.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:57
Yeah, I don't think the women had much choice. In fact, I think of the north end of Saltspring, that that was the way that they sort of resolved the conflict. I mean, they had these white six flunked on the land, and you had sort of a couple of options. You could go in and kill them or something, and that could lead to a big war, we'd be wiped out. Are you married? And I think a similar thing happened in the Burgoyne Valley. You know, it's I don't know if it was by coincidence, or design or whatever. But it's, it's kind of unique. Well, I don't know if it was even unique consulting. I think it proved throughout BC, where his wife suffers married native women and were accepted by the native people. Because, you know, they were just wanting, you know, a member of the family. So there's no conflict. That's why the blacks for example, in the central settlement, they had no intermarriage with Native people and They