Vancouver Island (Douglas) Treaties

We make a distinction between the oral agreements that the colonial officials made with the different Vancouver Island First Nations which are the real Vancouver Island Treaties, and the record that was made by James Douglas which we believe differed significantly from the First Nations understanding of the oral agreement. What was written by Douglas -- the Douglas Treaties – we call the Douglas Forms because, a full nine months after the first oral treaties were made, Douglas received a standard form from his superiors at the Hudson’s Bay Company in London. He slightly adapted the template and then inserted below it the names of the Indigenous people who participated in the earlier oral agreement, as if they had signed it. None of the First Nations saw this written version until decades later, and none could have read it as it was written in English, a foreign language to them.

It is clear that some agreement was made between James Douglas acting for the British Crown in his capacity in the Hudson’s Bay Company, and fourteen First Nations. There are several First Nations oral histories that can help us understand what their interpretation of those agreements were.

• A Treaty Timeline
• The Douglas Treaties (Forms) (links to the BC Archives who have transcribed as well as copied the originals in a pdf.)
• Vancouver Island Treaties 101 (powerpoint introduction to the treaties prepared by UVic Historian Dr. John Lutz)
• A general overview of the treaties was published by Times Colonist writer Sarah Petrescu in February 2017.
• Comparing First Nations and Douglas Views of the Agreements (chapter from Neil Vallance Ph.D.) dissertation.
• A translation of the Chokonein Treaty (the Douglas Form) by Lekwungen elder Dr. Elmer George.
• A history of the treaty making by STOLȻEȽ John Elliott Sr. in the SENĆOŦEN language of the W̱SÁNEĆ and its translation back into English

Treaties Timeline

(compiled by Neil Vallance and Hamar Foster)

• From time immemorial First Nations make treaties amongst themselves concerning the allocation and use of the land and its resources.
• 1843 The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) builds a fort at Victoria. Local First Nations trade furs and salmon for blankets and trade goods.
• 1846 The Treaty of Washington (or Oregon Treaty) between Britain and the U.S. extends the international boundary westward to the Pacific Ocean.
• 1849 Britain grants title to Vancouver Island to the HBC for ten years, on the condition that they promote colonization. The HBC moves its western headquarters to Victoria. HBC Chief Factor James Douglas takes charge of the fort and Company executives in London instruct him to extinguish any Aboriginal interest in land around Fort Victoria.
• 1850 Between April 29th and May ^1st Douglas meets with representatives of the Songhees, Esquimalt, Beecher Bay and Sooke First Nations and enters the names of the representatives on nine sheets of blank paper. No minutes are kept. He then writes to London requesting that a ‘proper form’ be sent ‘by return of post’. Several months later he receives a template, fills in the blanks, and inserts the completed text onto the sheets of paper. Each completed text contains a surrender of First Nation land in return for compensation paid mainly in blankets, reserving only their ‘village sites’ and ‘enclosed fields’. The documents also confirm their right to hunt over ‘the unoccupied land’ and guarantee their fisheries ‘as formerly’.
• 1850 Richard Blanshard is appointed Governor of Vancouver Island, but authority over land remains with Douglas and the HBC.
• 1851 Blanshard resigns as governor and Douglas replaces him, making similar agreements with two First Nations at Fort Rupert, near present-day Port Hardy.
• 1852 Douglas makes two similar agreements with the First Nations resident on the Saanich Peninsula.
• 1854 Douglas makes a fourteenth and final agreement with First Nation representatives at Fort Nanaimo.
• 1855 Britain confirms that the grant of Vancouver Island will expire in 1859.
• 1858 Douglas resigns from the HBC when he is made governor of the new colony of mainland British Columbia. He is now governor of both colonies. No treaties with First Nations are made on the mainland until the Nisga’a Treaty in 2000.
• 1862 The British Colonist reports that a treaty similar to the first 14 has been made at Cowichan, but no official record of it exists. It is not usually included in the list of “Douglas Treaties.”
• 1864 Douglas retires as governor of the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia.
• 1864 - 1964 The settler community appears to have little or no awareness of the fourteen treaties.
• 1866 The Colony of Vancouver becomes part of the Colony of British Columbia.
• 1871 British Columbia joins Confederation. Under the Terms of Union, Canada assumes responsibility for ‘Indians and the lands reserved for the Indians’.
• 1875 A booklet entitled Papers Concerning the Indian Land Question is printed, reproducing (for the first time) the written versions of the 14 Vancouver Island (Douglas) Treaties.
• 1913 Snuneymuxw elder Dick Whoakum testifies before the McKenna/McBride Commission. He provides his recollection of the 1854 Nanaimo treaty terms, claiming there was no surrender of land.
• 1934 Saanich Chief David Lattass tells his story of the formation of the Songhees and Saanich Treaties in a newspaper article, claiming they agreed to share, not cede, their land.
• 1964 The MR. v. White and Bob case is decided by the BC Court of Appeal. As a defence to a charge of hunting out of season, the defendants, members of the Snuneymuxw First Nation, rely on the hunting guarantee in the 1854 Nanaimo treaty. The Crown argues that the agreements are merely private agreements with the HBC. The Court of Appeal (affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada) disagrees: they are treaties under the Indian Act, so the hunting guarantee takes priority over provincial game laws.
• 1984 The R. v. Bartleman case is decided by the BC Court of Appeal. Another hunting case, it affirms that the Saanich treaty right to hunt on unoccupied land includes lands anywhere in their traditional hunting territory.
• 1989 The >Saanichton Bay Marina case is decided by the BC Court of Appeal. The Tsawout people use their 1852 treaty to stop development of a marina that would have adversely affected their treaty right to enjoy “their fisheries as formerly.”
• 2017 Esquimalt and Saanich elders produce the first versions of the treaties written in local Coast Salish languages.