Beren to Lytton

Beren to Lytton

Hudson Bay Company
War
British Columbia

The letter denotes the story of a violent skirmish between Native peoples and American colonial settlers. This was not uncommon due to the late 1850s seeing a rise in expansionist movements of colonial settlers. The colonists would come into direct conflict with the native settlers as the natives would see this as an invasion of their sacred homelands and thus be forced to either forcibly relocate or fight back. The British recipients of the letter note that the proximity of the incident is far, from British territory. However, in anticipation of similar incidents in British territory they begin to formulate contingencies. This links to the theme of Native/Colonial interaction and how periods of peace would always mostly inevitably give way to a conflict due to the need for the colonial settlers to expand their territories thus always ending up with the eventual displacement of the Native peoples.

Henry Hulse Berens
Hudson Bay House

Colonial Despatches

http://bcgenesis.uvic.ca/getDoc.htm?id=B585HB09.scx

3 August 1858

Muhammad Ali

Colonial Despatches - the National Archives, London

English

Textual - handwritten letter

19th century British Columbia