Conference

In February 2017 scholars from History, Law, and Education at the University of Victoria partnered with the Songhees Nation to host a conference “First Nations, Land, and James Douglas: Indigenous and Treaty Rights in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, 1849-1864” at the Songhees Wellness Centre. Three hundred people, half First Nations, half settler attended.

The 2017 conference commissioned the first ever translations of the treaties into Lekwungen, by Songhees elder Dr. Elmer George and a history of the treaty making by STOLȻEȽ John Elliott Sr. in the SENĆOŦEN language of the W̱SÁNEĆ and its translation back into English. Elmer George and John Elliot were awarded the Meritorious Service Award by the Governor General of Canada in recognition of this work.

• Conference Program
• Presentations Short video summaries of the conference presentations.
• Gallery Images from the Conference
• Presentations at the earlier Conference on Pre-confederation Treaties in 2012: VI Treaties: The Vancouver Island Treaties of 1850-54. This is an external webiste.
• Conference Organizers

Program

Presentations

For access to all available conference presentations, please follow this link to the Vimeo site (you will be directed away from this webpage). To access specific presentations, please follow the links attached to that presentation below.

Gallery

Photos from the conference "First Nations, Land and James Douglas: Indigenous and Treaty Rights in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, 1849-1864", held February 24th – 26th (Victoria, BC). Spencer Pickles photographer.

Conference Organizers

The archived version of the original conference site can be viewed here.

The First Nations, Land, and James Douglas: Indigenous and Treaty Rights in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, 1849-1864 conference (February 2017) was organized jointly by the Songhees First Nation and the University of Victoria History Department and Faculty of Law.

The organising committee was Graham Brazier (Independent Scholar), Cheryl Bryce (Songhees), Nick Claxton (UVic Education), Peter Cook (UVic History), Hamar Foster (UVic Law), John Lutz (UVic History), John Rice Jr. (Songhees), Mark Salter (Songhees), Neil Vallance (UVic Law).

The Conference Co-ordinators were Sarah Taekema and Mark Salter.

The video team was Jeff Tanaka and Sean MacPherson.

Thank you!

Thank you! The Organizing Committee want to express our sincere thanks to elders John Elliot and Elmer George for their translations of the treaties and to John Elliot for his keynote speech. We express our gratitude to the witnesses: Stephen Hume, Maxine Matilpi, Douglas White III, and Robert Clifford. We also want to thank Chief Ron Sam of the Songhees Nation, President Jamie Cassels, Dean of Humanities Chris Goto-Jones, and Dean of Law Jeremy Webber, and the History Department from the University of Victoria for their support.

Major funding for this conference was provided by the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada and the Te’mexw Treaty Association, the Songhees First Nation, the University of Victoria and the following firms: Frey and Company, JFK Law, Arbutus Law Group, and Woodward and Company. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Royal BC Museum for the very special loan of the original Vancouver Island (Douglas) Treaties and the Asian Canadians on Vancouver Island project for support with videotaping the conference.