A History of Dispossession: An Analysis of Indigenous-Settler Relations in the Secwepemc, https://www.syilx.org/about-us/syilx-nation/ Nlaka’pamux, and Syilx Territories of British https://nntc.ca/pages/hom e.aspx Columbia Deanna Brady, Thompson Rivers University https://tkemlups.ca/

Introduction Figure 1.1

• , has a long history of failing to recognize Indigenous rights and Indigenous title to Indigenous-settler relations in the Interior as described land. • Aside from a small portion of Vancouver Island and a portion of North Eastern BC, there are no treaties that by the Sir Wilfred Laurier Memorial: surrender Indigenous title to land yet colonialism and settler life flourishes throughout the province. • This makes for a complex and unique Indigenous-settler relationship in BC. • British Columbia was considered Terra Nullius (meaning empty land) by the British Crown even though “They say the Indians know nothing, and own nothing, yet Indigenous peoples lived on the land and relied on its resources to survive. their power and wealth has come from our belongings. The • Indigenous peoples in BC became acquainted with newcomers (mainly European and Spanish explorers and traders) as early as the fifteenth century. queens law which we believe guaranteed us our rights, the • Indigenous history is often generalized which does not consider the diversity of Indigenous cultures here in B.C government has trampled underfoot. This is how our Canada. • In order to refute this trend and provide new and noteworthy dialogue, this research focuses solely on three guests have treated us – the brothers we received hospitality Indigenous nations in the Interior of BC: the Secwepemc Nation (Shuswap), Nlaka’pamux (Thompson), Syilx in our house.” (Okanagan) see figure 1.1 for geographical reference. • Indigenous peoples lived in these regions and they were hot spots for explorers, fur traders, gold miners, and eventually settlers. Main Findings

Research Question: My research question seeks to • The Secwepemc, Nlaka’pamux, and Syilx reacted with kindness when the first whites arrived. This was before 1850 resolve why and how the British Crown found ways to and were mainly explorers and fur traders. • Even when the other whites arrived, and gold miners increased foreigner population on their land and people began surpass treaty creation, with reference to the to settle, they still treated newcomers with respect even though their title to land was not acknowledged. consequences to Indigenous-settler relations. • The provincial government made empty promises and poorly allocated reserve land that was neither sufficient in Eric Leinberger from At The Bridge by Wendy Wickwire Figure 1.1 terms of resources or big enough for the population of the people living on the land. This was also poorly Indigenous peoples of British Columbia documented. Literature Review • The three chiefs (Secwepemc, Nlaka’pamux, and Syilx) who wrote the Wilfred Laurier Memorial condemned the BC Bibliography land policy and labeled it as “utterly unjust, shameful, and blundering in every way.” • Within academic scholarship, there are three main approaches that academics have used to study • They also claimed that the land policy is the “main cause of the unsatisfactory condition of Indian Affairs in this “B.C & Indigenous Peoples.” Government of BC, https://www.welcomebc.ca/Choose-B-C/Explore-British-Columbia/B-C-First-Nations-Indigenous-People. accessed 08 November 2019. Indigenous-settler relations: in relation to the ideology of colonialism (broad analysis), a specific place-based country and of animosity and friction with the whites.” British Columbia Papers: Connected with the Indian Land Question, 1850-1875. James Bay: Government Printing Office, 1875. approach (narrow analysis), an analysis in relation to land issues (broad analysis). • They were not approached when making decisions to the land they had title to, and this was never legally Carlson, C. Catherine. “Indigenous Historic Archaeology of the 19th-Century Secwepemc Village at Thompson’s River Post, Kamloops, British Columbia.” Canadian Journal of Archaeology • Outside of these three approaches is a fourth unique approach taken by Wendy Wickwire, an associate acknowledged. 30, no. 1 (2006): 193-250. de Costa, Ravi. “National Encounters Between Indigenous and settler peoples: Some Canadian Lessons.” What Good Condition? Reflections on Australian Aboriginal Treaty 1986-2006, edited History professor at the University of Victoria. Her approach entailed looking specifically at the primary • The British Crown claimed they had no more money to make treaties throughout BC. by Peter Read, Gary Meyers, and Bob Reece. Canberra, Australia: ANU Press, 2006.

source research of ethnographer James A. Teit. • The colonial office advertised BC as “wild and unoccupied” thus giving colonists the “right to land ownership based de Costa, Ravi. “History, Democracy, and Treaty Negotiations in British Columbia.” Rethinking Indian Treaties in the Pacific Northwest, edited by Alexandra Harmon. : Washington University Press, 2008. • All of these approaches are productive in interrogating Indigenous-settler relationships in British Columbia on the stage of civilization to have existed on the land at the time of acquisition.” de Leeuw, Sarah. “’If anything is to be done with the Indian, we must catch him very young’: colonial constructions of Aboriginal children and the geographies of Indian residential schooling and are all necessary in order to understand its complexity. • Settlers took possession of land in the Interior and the provincial government continued to legislate racist land in British Columbia, Canada,” Children’s Geographies 7, no. 2 (2009): 123-140. Feltes, Emma. “Research as Guesthood: The Memorial to Sir Wilfred Laurier and Resolving Indigenous-Settler Relations in British Columbia.” Anthropologica 57, no. 2 (2015): 469-480. • The place-based approach along with Wendy Wickwire’s method reveals specific depictions of what ordinances and policies that disabled Indigenous peoples from accessing their own lands. “Frequently Asked Questions: Treaties and Negotiations,” BC Treaty Commission, http://www.bctreaty.ca/faq, accessed 9 December 2019. Indigenous-settler relationships looked like in the past and thus eliminate the flaw of overgeneralizing • The Indigenous-settler relationship for the Indigenous peoples in the Interior became even more convoluted when Green, Robyn. “The economics of reconciliation: tracing investment in Indigenous-settler relations.” Journal of Genocide Research 17, no. 4 (2015): 473-493. Canadian Indigenous history. the was passed in 1867. This act put even more restrictions on the Nlaka’pamux, Syilx, and Secwepemc Harris, Cole. “How Did Colonialism Dispossess? Comments from an Edge of an Empire.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 94, no. 1 (2004): 165-182. people, and disenfranchised them from their political community, in which they were seen as minors and wards of • In order to rebuild and reconcile, the academic literature needs to approach this topic in a way that “History of Treaties in B.C.” Government of BC, https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/natural-resource-stewardship/consulting-with-first-nations/first-nations- negotiations/about-first-nations-treaty-process/history-of-treaties-in-bc. accessed 04 November 2019. acknowledges the distinctness of Indigenous territories, nations, and bands. the government. Ignace, Marianne and Ronald. Secwépemc People, Land, and Laws. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2017. • In British Columbia alone, there are 198 First Nations with more than thirty languages and sixty dialects, • The impact of this relationship on Indigenous communities in the Interior of BC are enormous and on-going. “Indian Delegates Meet Executive.” Victoria Daily Colonist. March 4 1911. and the literature needs to reflects this. • Settlement marked the demise of Indigenous culture and history. Iredale, Jennifer. “Mali Quelqueltalko: The Writings of a Nineteenth-Century Nlaka’pamux Woman.” BC Studies. No. 203, 2019: 83-109. • Land is crucial in Indigenous culture. It is related to language, the way of knowing and being in the world, and Ishiguro, Laura. “’ A Dreadful Little Glutton Always Telling You about Food”: The Epistolary Everyday and the Making of Settler Colonial British Columbia,” The Canadian Historical Review • The scope of this project is not limited to one characteristic of the relationship between Indigenous peoples 99, no. 2 (2018): 258-283.

and newcomers as the scholarship is quite limited. their history. Jorgenson, Mica. “’Into that Country to Work”: Aboriginal Economic Activities during Barkerville’s Gold Rush.” BC Studies 1, no. 185 (2015): 109-136.

• The time period analyzed will be as early as the nineteenth century and will extend to the mid-twentieth • Indigenous people in the Interior have adapted and participated historically in colonial life to have their voices Keith, Lloyd H. “’ A Place so Dull and Dreary”: The Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Okanagan, 1821-1860.” The Pacific Northwest Quarterly 98, no. 2 (2007): 78-94. century. heard. Lowman, Battell Emma. “” My Name is Stanley”: Twentieth-Century Missionary Stories and the Complexity of Colonial Encounters.” BC Studies 1, no. 169 (2011): 81-99. • As seen in the Wilfred Laurier Memorial, the Interior chiefs welcomed newcomers and accepted their way of life and Lutz, Sutton Jon. Makúk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008. Memorial to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Premier of the Dominion of Canada: From the Chiefs of the Shuswap, Okanagan and Couteau Tribes of British Columbia. Presented at Kamloops, 25th all they asked was for similar respect in return. August, 1910.

• Once settlement began, respect was disregarded, and the British Crown and the provincial government let it Pegg, Brian. “The Archaeology of 1858 in the .” BC Studies, No. 196, 2017: 67-87. Key Primary Sources happen. Read, Phillip John. “The Hudson’s Bay Company and Retaliation in Kind Against Indian Offenders in New Caledonia.” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 43, no. 1 (1993): 4-17. • The main feature of the Indigenous-settler relationship in BC is dispossession of land. It has had an undeniable Sloan Morgan, Vanessa and Heather Castleden, “Framing Indigenous-Settler Relations within British Columbia’s Modern Treaty Context: A Discourse Analysis of the Maa-nulth Treaty in Mainstream Media” The International Indigenous Policy Journal 5, no. 3 (2014): 1-30. • The Memorial to Sir Wilfred Laurier, Premier of the Dominion of Canada: From the Chiefs of the Shuswap, negative effect on Indigenous populations, history, language, and culture. Smith, D. Keith. Strange Visitors: Documents in Indigenous-Settler Relations in Canada from 1867. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014. Okanagan, and Couteau Tribes of British Columbia. Presented at Kamloops, 25th August, 1910. • The issues brought up in the Wilfred Laurier Memorial in 1911 are still pertinent today. Smyth, Lindsay. “A Just Retribution: The Strange Conclusion of the Fraser Canyon War.” Battles and Massacres. • British Columbia Papers: Connected with the Indian Land Question, 1850-1875. James Bay: Government • Thanks to dispossession, disease, and other forms of genocide, the Nlaka’pamux, Secwepemc, and Syilx have lost Teit, James. The Jesup North Pacific Expedition. Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, Volume II Part VII. “The Shuswap.” New York: G.E Stechert & Co, 1909. Printing Office, 1875. culture and history which they will never get back. “Treaty 8 Agreement: Treaty 8 Agreement Between Nations of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Northwest Territories,” Treaty 8 Tribal Association, http://treaty8.bc.ca/treaty-8-accord/, accessed 9 December 2019. • The Victoria Daily Colonist • The respect, the hospitality, the kindness, the patience, and the trust that has been continually shown by the Wickwire, Wendy. At The Bridge: James Teit and an Anthropology of Belonging. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2019. • James A. Teit, The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History, Secwepemc, the Nlaka’pamux, and the Syilx needs to be returned by the provincial and federal government. This is Wickwire, Wendy. “To See Ourselves as the Other’s Other: Nlaka’pamux Contact Narratives,” The Canadian Historical Review 75, No. 1, 1994: 12. Volume II Part VII, “The Shuswap,” New York: G.E Strechert & Co, 1909. not a question and not up for debate. Wickwire, Wendy. “’We Shall Drink from the Stream and So Shall You’: James A. Teit and Native Resistance in British Columbia, 1909-22.” The Canadian Historical Review 79, no. 2 (1998): 199-236.