Peter O'reilly and the Indian Reserve System in British Columbia1
TRAVELS FROM POINT ELLICE: Peter O'Reilly and the Indian Reserve System in British Columbia1 KENNETH BREALEY INTRODUCTION: POINT ELLICE HOUSE ccording to the British Columbia Heritage Trust, Point Ellice House at 2616 Pleasant Street was Victoria's third most Avisited historical site in 1996, placing after Craigdarroch Castle and Helmcken House but before Emily Carr's residence. But if visitors to these latter three sites happen to learn something about the lives of Dunsmuir, Helmcken, and Carr, and their impact on the social, economic, and cultural fabric of the province, Point Ellice House is remembered mostly for its picturesque gardens, fine collection of Victorian bric-à-brac, and English tea and crumpets served daily on the very spot where Peter O'Reilly posed for his photograph (Plate 1). Heritage Trust brochures do inform visitors that he served as magistrate, judge, and gold commissioner under 1 I would like to thank Cole Harris, Anne Seymour, two anonymous reviewers, and a receptive audience at the 1997 BC Studies Conference, Malaspina College, Nanaimo, for their insightful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. My thanks also to Eric Leinberger for the cartography in Maps 1, 9a, and 10a. I am especially indebted to Anne Seymour and Doug Johnson at the Legal Surveys Division, Natural Resources Canada, for directing me to the Department of Indian Affairs Federal Collection, Minutes of Decision, Correspondence, and Sketches, which became available in March 1997. Comprised, in part, of letterbooks, workbooks, field-books and sketches, and federal government files, the collection is the culmination of a fifteen-month project involving the reconstruction of excised and damaged correspondence and sketches dealing with the establishment of Indian reserves in British Columbia between 1876 and 1908.
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