Snuneymuxw First Nation has launched a new website – www.snuneymuxw.ca. There are several interesting articles including one on the Snuneymuxw Treaty signed in 1854.

Originally, Vancouver Island was under the control of the Hudson Bay Company.  In the 1850s, before the gold rush, Britain decided to take over control of Vancouver Island and appointed Richard Blanshard as its first governor.

As Blanshard found out within a few months of landing in Fort Victoria, it was very difficult for him to govern “Vancouver’s Island” when it was entirely controlled by a corporation. Blanshard made considerable notes regarding the Company’s exclusive monopoly over the Island’s resources and their trade with the First Nations.

Within a year, James Douglas, who was the head of the HBC, drove Blanshard out and took over as Governor of the Colony of Vancouver’s Island.

Other people in the British Parliament were not favourable to HBC’s exclusive control over Rupert’s Land (much of Canada) and were also concerned because the HBC did everything they could to discourage settlement. Around this time, the United States was pushing its boundaries north as part of their Manifest Destiny policy.  In a short time, British control was pushed back from what is now Oregon and the U.S. sent frigates north to see what other islands could be taken over.

As a result of these events, Douglas was perceived of as not really doing his job and in fact, how could he when he had thumbs in both pies? No elections were held to vote him in power and of the handful sworn into the Colony’s legislature, the majority of them were key executives for the HBC.  Today, we would consider that Douglas had a conflict of interest, but in those days, that was a moot point.

To appease the British government, Douglas said that he was in fact on good terms with the First Nations on Vancouver Island and he drafted treaty papers signed by first nations including the Snuneymuxw.

In 1859, the Hudson’s Bay Company’s control over the Colony of Vancouver Island was not renewed and its monopoly for exclusive trade west of the Rockies was revoked.

The Douglas Treaties as they were known were largely ignored in later years when the government decided to draw up reserve boundaries in the late 1870s.

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