|
The Fraser Canyon War, also known as the Canyon War or the Fraser River War, took place in the fall of 1858 during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in the newly-declared Colony of British Columbia, which would later become a province of Canada. Largely ignored by Canadian historians, it was one of the seminal events of the founding of the colony, and although it ended relatively peaceably it was a major test of the new administration's control over the goldfields, which were distant and difficult to get to from the centre of colonial authority at Victoria in the Colony of Vancouver Island (New Westminter had recently been surveyed as the de jure capital, but the de facto capital was in Victoria, where the Governor was located and ruled from). The Gold Rush of British Columbia occurred after gold was discovered in the Fraser River Valley. ...
The Colony of British Columbia was a crown colony of British North America from 1858 until 1871. ...
Victoria is a Canadian city, and the provincial capital of British Columbia. ...
See main article Vancouver Island Colonial flag of Vancouver Island, consisting of the British Blue Ensign and the great seal of the colony. ...
Member of Parliament Peter Julian (NDP) Dawn Black (NDP) Member of the Legislative Assembly Chuck Puchmayr (NDP) Mayor Wayne Wright Councillors Jonathan Cote Calvin Donnelly Bill Harper Betty McIntosh Bob Osterman Lorrie Williams Location , Population (2001) 54,656 Immigrant Population 15,025 (28%) Languages English(Official) 78% French(Official) 1...
British troops were not involved, except for arriving on scene once the war was over. The combatants of the war were six hastily-assembled regiments of irregulars mustered from the goldfields around Yale, British Columbia and the Nlaka'pamux people of the Fraser Canyon upstream from there. The Nlaka'pamux, usually known in English as the Thompson or Hakamaugh (an attempt at pronouncing "Nlaka'pamux"), also came to be known as the Couteau or "Knife" Indians, partly as a result of this war (their region, the middle Fraser Canyon and Thompson Canyon, also appears on period maps as "the Couteau Country", which may also be a reference to the serrated benchlands lining the rivers' canyons). Front Street, Yale, British Columbia circa 1882 during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. ...
The Nlakapamux (also Thompson River Salish, Thompson, Thompson Salish, Thompson River) are an indigenous First Nations/Native American people of Salish ethnicity in southern British Columbia and northern Washington. ...
View of Fraser Canyon near Fountain, BC View of Fraser Canyon looking upstream from Fountain, B.C. The Fraser Canyon is a stretch of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains enroute from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser...
The war was precipitated when the Nlaka'pamux retaliated for the rape of one of their young women, apparently by French miners, in the area of Kanaka Bar. Their bodies were decapitated and sent down-river, eventually circling in a large eddy near the town of Yale, the main commercial centre of the rush, after alarming the thousands of miners lining the riverbanks between there and Kanaka Bar. The reputation of the Nlaka'pamux was well-known and the riverbanks north of Yale were emptied, as miners in the thousands fled south to the relative safety of Spuzzum and Yale. In fluid dynamics, an eddy is the swirling of a fluid and the reverse current (water) created when the fluid flows past an obstacle. ...
Spuzzum is a very small town (population below 50) in British Columbia, Canada on the Trans-Canada Highway, approximately 50 kilometres north of Hope, thus is often referred to as being beyond Hope. ...
Meetings were held by the miners, most of whom had been in the California gold rush but were a diverse lot of men from all over the world. Of the six regiments hastily organized to respond to the war, one named the Austrian Company, captained by a John Centras, was composed of French and German irregulars who had served with the William Walker filibustering campaign in Nicaragua in 1853, and had relocated to the California goldfields afterwards, following the other Californian miners northwards to Yale when news of the Fraser rush reached San Francisco (many of the Americans in the goldfields had also served in Walker's rebellion). Another regiment, the Whatcom Company, was formed of mostly southerners under the command of Captain Graham, and were of the "a good Indian is a dead Indian" persuasion and were bent on a war of extermination. The Whatcom Company's name was taken from that of the Whatcom Trail, which traversed what is now Whatcom County, Washington State from Bellingham Bay on Puget Sound, and which was used in open defiance of the British colonial administration's edict that access to the goldfields be made from Victoria and via steamboat from there only; in other words, their name implicitly indicated their annexationist sentiments. William Walker may refer to: William Walker (composer) (1809–1875), composer in the shape note tradition, author of Southern Harmony William Walker (diplomat), U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, 1988–1992; leader of the Kosovo Verification Mission William Walker (diver) (1869-1918), the diver who saved Winchester Cathedral from collapse...
A filibuster is a private individual who engages in unauthorized warfare against a foreign country, often with the intent of overthrowing the existing government. ...
1853 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...
Solid line is Whatcom Trail, dotted line is Skagit Trail Settlements extant in 1858 are shown only The Whatcom Trail was an overland trail from the Puget Sound area of Washington Territory during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858-60. ...
Whatcom County is a county located in the state of Washington. ...
This article deals with the U.S. state. ...
Bellingham, Washington is the county seat of Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. ...
Puget Sound Puget Sound is an arm (sound) of the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. ...
The largest and most influential company formed in the chaotic sitation was the New York Pike Guards, led by a Captain Snyder , who swayed the assembled miners' committees for a war of pacification, rather than a war of extermination as was the wish of Captain Graham and others. . Snyder proposed that a distinction be made between warlike and friendly Indians, and messengers should be sent up the Canyon in advance of the advancing companies for friendly natives to display a white flag as a sign of peace.
The war parties left Yale and progressed to Spuzzum, where the companies found 3000 panicked miners encamped in a small area near the native rancherie, worried for their safety but unable to proceed any farther south. Snyder's and Centras' companies crossed to the east side of the river at this point, which was one of the only viable crossings, with Snyder sending Graham's group up the west side of the river. Spuzzum is a very small town (population below 50) in British Columbia, Canada on the Trans-Canada Highway, approximately 50 kilometres north of Hope, thus is often referred to as being beyond Hope. ...
The New York and Austrian Companies met no resistance on the journey north, and sent messages forward to Camchin, the ancient Nlaka'pamux "capital" at the confluence of the Fraser and Thompson Rivers (today's town of Lytton, that they were coming to parley peace, not make war. Meanwhile, Graham and his men rampaged up the west bank of the Canyon, destroying native food caches and potato fields but otherwise encountering only a few natives, most of whom had withdrawn into the deep mountain valleys flanking the canyon as refuge. The Whatcom Company were wiped out in a night-time gun-battle, witnessed by the other companies who were encamped across the river at the time , but this was not due to native attack, but rather to a panicked reaction to a rifle falling over and misfiring; causing a melee from which only two or three men survived, as all the rest died shooting at each other in the dark. Camchin, meaning rivers meeting, is the ancient Nlakapamux name for the confluence of the Thompson and Fraser Rivers in the Fraser Canyon of British Columbia, Canada. ...
The Nlakapamux (also Thompson River Salish, Thompson, Thompson Salish, Thompson River) are an indigenous First Nations/Native American people of Salish ethnicity in southern British Columbia and northern Washington. ...
The Fraser River is the longest river in British Columbia, Canada, rising in the Rocky Mountains near Mount Robson and flowing for 1400 km (870 mi), into the Pacific Ocean at the city of Vancouver. ...
The Thompson River is a major tributary of the Fraser River in the south-central portion of British Columbia, Canada. ...
Lytton in British Columbia sits at the confluence of the Thompson River and Fraser River on the east side of the Fraser. ...
At Camchin, the assembled leaders of the Nlaka'pamux and allies from the Secwepemc (Shuswap) and Okanagan peoples held council. The Nlaka'pamux war leader tried to incite the assembled warriors to wipe out the white men once and for all, but the Camchin chief Cxpentlum (known commonly in English as Spintlum, or David Spintlum), who had good relations with Governor Douglas argued for peace and co-existence. This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ...
James Douglas can refer to: James Douglas (the Good, the Black) an early-14th century Lord of Douglas and champion of Robert the Bruce James Douglas a mid-19th century governor of Vancouver Island James Buster Douglas, a boxer James Douglas, 4th Duke of Hamilton James Douglas, 4th Earl of...
Snyder and Centras marched into the midst of the Nlaka'pamux war council undaunted; if they had known about the thousands of warriors watching from the surrounding mountainsides they might not have been so bold. As per native custom, they were given the right to speak, presumably speaking through translators, and told the assembled natives that if the war were to continue, white men by the thousands would come and occupy the country and destroy all the natives forever (true enough). In their own notes they presumed it was because they showed the natives their more-modern rifles (most natives, if they had firearms, had only muskets and carabines) and thought that that had persuaded them to make peace. In reality, the decision to make peace had already just been arrived at, as the native account has shown, but it is probable that the notion that it would be impossible to wipe out all white men helped persuade any chiefs sitting on the fence to take the side of the peace-maker Cxpentlum.
Six treaties were made that day, known as the Snyder Treaties, none of which has survived either in print or oral form, dealing with the co-existence in the Canyon and the working of the goldfields lining it (natives were the first to mine gold on the Thompson, and remained active miners throughout the rush).
No formal figures of the dead from the Fraser Canyon War exist, and much hyperbole has been made by both sides. Estimates of the white dead range from several dozen to several hundred or even in the thousands; some say the native casualties were extreme.
Just after the war parties' return to Yale, Governor Douglas and a contingent of Royal Engineers arrived to take control of what was feared to have been a situation that could easily have led to a war not only of extermination, but also of annexation. Douglas had already been mortified that miners' committees had been established and the "California system" of claims had been implemented, without his say-so and outside the bounds of British law. He was even more mortified to discover that Snyder and Centras, without a mandate, had proceeded to make treaties with the natives, which was under British law entirely the jurisdiction of the Crown. He admonished the Americans, but they were conciliatory and swore to abide by the Queen's laws henceforth. James Douglas can refer to: James Douglas (the Good, the Black) an early-14th century Lord of Douglas and champion of Robert the Bruce James Douglas a mid-19th century governor of Vancouver Island James Buster Douglas, a boxer James Douglas, 4th Duke of Hamilton James Douglas, 4th Earl of...
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army. ...
It was during this visit that the stage was set for the impending McGowan's War fiasco, as it was during this visit that the justices for Yale and Hill's Bar (Whannell and Perrier, respectively) were appointed by Douglas, who had no idea of their real characters and the consequences these appointments would all too quickly bring to local politics. And also accompanying the Governor on his steamboat journey to Yale on this occasion was one Ned McGowan, known as "the notorious" or as "the ubiquitous", whose presence would precipitate the subsequent series of improbable events known as McGowan's War later in the winter. McGowans War, also known as Ned McGowans War, was an episode during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush which precipitated a political and military crisis with the potential to foment annexation of the newborn Crown Colony of British Columbia to the United States. ...
McGowans War, also known as Ned McGowans War, was an episode during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush which precipitated a political and military crisis with the potential to foment annexation of the newborn Crown Colony of British Columbia to the United States. ...
See also
McGowans War, also known as Ned McGowans War, was an episode during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush which precipitated a political and military crisis with the potential to foment annexation of the newborn Crown Colony of British Columbia to the United States. ...
The Gold Rush of British Columbia occurred after gold was discovered in the Fraser River Valley. ...
The mid-nineteenth century found the Yakama Indians living along the Columbia and Yakima Rivers on the plateau in central Washington Territory, on land in the path of white settlement. ...
The Cayuse War was an armed conflict that took place in the northwestern United States between 1848 and 1855 between the Cayuse people of the region and the United States Government and local white settlers. ...
Solid line is Whatcom Trail, dotted line is Skagit Trail Settlements extant in 1858 are shown only The Whatcom Trail was an overland trail from the Puget Sound area of Washington Territory during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858-60. ...
References - McGowan's War, Donald J. Hauka, New Star Books, Vancouver (2000)
- British Columbia Chronicle, 1847-1871: Gold & colonists, Helen and G.P.V. Akrigg, Discovery Press, Vancouver (1977)
External links - Digital Collections Ghosts of the North West Coast page on McGowan's War
|
Feeds |
Contact