Despatch to London: Douglas to Stanley

Despatch to London: Douglas to Stanley

British Columbia
Gold Rush
Fraser River
Migration
settler

This report describes a number of different aspects all related to the Fraser River. Douglas first acknowledges that a large amount of people are coming to the area from San Francisco, in order to mine for gold. Towards the end of the document, Douglas says he is asked by the miners for protection against the natives. The document helps to show how busy the Fraser River area was in terms of the number of different ethnic/national groups, and the growth of the commodity extraction business. With the miners asking for protection from the natives, this suggests there were native groups that were either attacking and/or retaliating to settlers and miners. On the other hand, albeit a few decades after, there were natives that mined and panned for gold in the Fraser River area that the authorities were aware of [See ‘A First Nations Family…’ photograph]. This suggests a growing and ever changing relationship between settlers and natives in British Columbia.

James Douglas

Colonial Despatches, Despatch to London: Douglas to Stanley. 7832, CO 305/9 pg.116.

http://bcgenesis.uvic.ca/getDoc.htm?id=V58028.scx&search=fraser#searchHit1

1858

Robert Catarinicchia

The National Archives, London

English

Textual - handwritten report

19th century British Columbia