British Columbia (colony)

The expeditions of James Cook and George Vancouver , as well as the concessions made by the Spanish Empire in 1794, laid the foundation for British claims to the Pacific coast of North America north of California. Claims on the intracontinental territories were based on the expeditions of John Finlay , Alexander Mackenzie , Simon Fraser , Samuel Black and David Thompson , as well as on the networks of trading posts created by the Northwest Company and the Hudson's Bay Company . Nevertheless, until 1858, the mainland of the modern Canadian province of British Columbia did not have an administrative structure, and was divided by fur production companies into two trade and procurement districts: New Caledonia north of the Thompson River Basin, and Columbia , which lies south, in the basin of the same river .

After signing the Oregon Treaty in 1846, which established the U.S. northern border at the 49th parallel, the Hudson's Bay Company moved its headquarters in the District of Columbia from Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River to the newly - built Fort Victoria at the southern tip of Vancouver Island . Vancouver Island and the adjacent Gulf Islands became a crown colony in 1849, but the mainland continued to be managed by the Hudson's Bay Company, whose executive director James Douglas also became governor of Vancouver. The population of the mainland, not belonging to the natives, in those days did not exceed 150 people and consisted mainly of employees of the Company and members of their families.

In 1857, rumors spread about the discovery of gold deposits on the Thompson River among American and British settlers. During the night, 10 to 20 thousand people arrived in the Yale area, marking the beginning of the gold rush on the Fraser River . Governor Douglas and the Colonial Department were suddenly confronted with the need to extend British power to a very large number of alien populations. To do this, Douglas, who had no administrative authority over New Caledonia, sent a gunboat at the mouth of the Fraser River and began to take tax levies from prospectors trying to go upstream. In order to legalize Douglas’s jurisdiction and nullify the Hudson’s Bay claims of the continent’s natural wealth, the British Parliament transformed the county into a crown colony on August 2, 1858 and gave it the name British Columbia. The Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs, Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, offered Douglas the post of governor of the new colony, provided that he quit the Hudson's Bay Company. Douglas agreed and also received a knighthood. Since 1859, New Westminster became the capital of British Columbia, but Douglas continued to manage both colonies from Victoria for another six years.

The influx of people into the new colony forced Douglas to quickly write laws and create infrastructure. Magistrates and constables were hired, laws on mining were written to avoid unauthorized settling of the crown lands, settlements were laid that later grew up in Yale, Hope and Fort Langley. Roads were paved into the areas of the most intense gold mining around Lillouette and Lytton. However, no representative bodies were created in the colony, as it was unclear whether the gold rush would lead to the formation of a permanent settled population. Entrained in a long conflict with a similar body in the Vancouver colony, Douglas was only happy about this.

The gold rush, however, turned out to be short-lived, and by the time the army sappers had erected the capital of the colony, New Westminster , the stream of prospectors, speculators, and traders was already exhausted. However, exploration continued, and discoveries in 1860 on the Caribou Plateau became a sign that everything would happen again. By that time, the provision of food had already become an acute problem, and it was obvious that in order to supply the interior of the mainland, it was necessary to switch from pack horses to caravans of wagons, which, in turn, required new infrastructure. In 1862, a gold rush began on the Caribou Plateau , attracting another 5,000 prospectors, and Douglas accelerated the construction of the Great Northern Road (better known as the Caribou Road ) through the Fraser River Gorge to the mining area around Bakerville.

By the time of the second gold rush, the character of the colony had changed: a significant number of British settlers appeared in the region, who opened sawmills, engaged in agriculture and fishing. With the advent of the resident population, objections were voiced about the lack of a permanent governor and responsible government in the colony, the leader of these objections was the influential publisher of the New Westminster newspaper “British Columbian” and future provincial prime minister John Robson. However, Douglas and the Colonial Department ignored a series of petitions demanding the creation of a representative body, and the colony received a permanent governor with the Assembly only after Douglas left in 1864.

Replacing James Douglas, Frederick Seymour finally gave the inhabitants of the colony a representative Assembly. The new governor before this appointment for twenty years served in the land of Van Diemen , in the British West Indies and British Honduras . In a new place, he had to face great difficulties: the debts inherited from his predecessor (mainly taken to build a road for wagons, which encountered great engineering difficulties in overcoming the narrow canyon of the Fraser River) formed a hole in the budget of the colony of 200 thousand pounds and the suppression of the Chilkotin revolt in 1864 cost another 18 thousand pounds. Taking a personal part in the suppression of the uprising, Seymour returned through the mine region to the Caribou Plateau and the Fraser Valley, which convinced him of the rich future of the colony, but upon his return to the capital of the colony, he faced a difficult financial reality. Despite all the measures taken by the administration to increase revenues and improve the road network in order to attract miners and settlers, the economic situation was getting worse and voices were heard calling for the unification of the British Columbia and Vancouver colonies. Seymour at first did not agree with this, but gradually, under pressure from various groups of the colony government, relented, recommending that British Columbia become the main part of the new united colony, and (which did not work out) that New Westminster become the capital. On August 6, 1866, the formation of a new united colony, which retained the name British Columbia , was proclaimed.

• James Douglas Biography in Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• Frederick Seymour's Biography in Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online