James Douglas (colonial governor)

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Sir James Douglas

Sir James Douglas (born August 5 or 15, 1803 in Demerara , † August 2, 1877 in Victoria ) was a British employee of the Hudson's Bay Company . From 1851 to 1864 he was governor of the British colony of Vancouver Island , and from 1858 he was also governor of the colony of British Columbia .

family

He was the son of John Douglas, a nephew of Lieutenant General Sir Neill Douglas. John Douglas and his three brothers were traders in Glasgow . They held shares in sugar plantations in Guyana , where he had a relationship with a " Creoline ", probably a Miss Ritchie , who gave birth to three children between 1801 or 1802 and 1812: Alexander, James and Cecilia Eliza. John married Jessica Hamilton in 1809, who gave birth to a daughter named Jane Hamilton Douglas and other children in Glasgow.

youth

James Douglas attended preparatory school early, received a good education in Lanark, and probably from a Huguenot teacher in Chester . He probably also learned French from him . At 16, the two brothers began training with the North West Company . In May 1819 they sailed from Liverpool to Québec , James traveled on to Fort William , where he arrived on August 6th. He initially dealt with bookkeeping, business methods and the Indians .

In the summer of 1820 he traveled to Île-à-la-Crosse in central Saskatchewan . There it came to a duel with Patrick Cunningham in connection with the clashes between his company and the rival Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), and he became one of the Nor'Westers , who were urgently warned on April 12, 1821, within firing range of the to parading the neighboring HBC post.

First responsibility

In the same year the two warring companies were forcibly merged, and Douglas was given the post of second class clerk . In 1822 he was given responsibility for the Island Lake Post in Manitoba .

On April 15, 1825, he left Ile-à-la-Crosse via Lake Athabasca to Fort Vermilion on Peace River to take over. He then wintered at McLeod's Lake on the east side of the Rocky Mountains , and was in Fort St. James on Stuart Lake , the headquarters of the New Caledonia district , the next spring . This was to be the first of a total of seven crossings of the mountain range. Douglas first reached the Pacific in the spring of 1826 .

House of the Chief Factors in Fort Vancouver, reconstruction

Fort Vancouver , which was built on the Columbia River in 1824, was supposed to supply his district. Chief Factor William Connolly selected him to secure the route for pack horses from Fort Alexandria across the upper Fraser River to Fort Okanagan - the journey lasted from May 5th to June 16th. Connolly had him get horses from the Nez Percé and then met him at Fort Okanagan. They were back at Fort St. James on September 23rd. As early as October, Douglas was sent to the Secanni , a successful mission that enabled him to build Fort Connolly on Bear Lake .

In 1827 Douglas decided to let his three-year contract expire. But on April 27, he married Amelia Connolly, the half-Indian daughter, her mother was a Cree , the Chief Factor - the marriage was confirmed in 1837 by an official ceremony in Fort Vancouver.

During Connolly's absence, a riot broke out after Douglas had an Indian accused of murder executed. Douglas was threatened several times, such as in November at Fraser Lake and Fort St. James 1829. Douglas feared he would be murdered. On January 30, 1830, he left Stuart Lake to work as accountant for Dr. John McLoughlin (1784-1857), superintendent of the Columbia Department to become.

McLoughlin made him his right-hand man in 1835, and he attended Red River Settlement council meetings. On June 3, he became chief trader there. 1838–39 he was in charge of Fort Vancouver, the remaining coastal posts, trapping and shipping. In November 1839 he received the post of Chief Factor . He no longer received 1/85 of the company's net profit, or around £ 400 a year, but twice that. Even as a young employee, he had saved half his salary (£ 60), an amount he kept on. But he supported his sister Cecilia and donated to the Bible Society and the Christian mission in Oregon . So by the spring of 1850 he had £ 5,000.

Douglas had opposed Indian slavery from the start, but condemned it as well among the British. He was also suspicious of excessive religious zeal.

Negotiations with Russians and Mexicans

In April 1840 Douglas went to Sitka , where he agreed with the Russian negotiators to take over Stikine under the Russian American Company . This established the north-western border of the British colonial empire. He also built Fort Taku in Alaska . In December he went to California and negotiated with Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado to open trade in the region. So he was able to grow Yerba Buena in San Francisco . He was also able to have hunts carried out there, received trading rights, provisions and cattle for the HBC farms on Columbia.

Vancouver Island and Victoria

In August 1841 he traveled again to Sitka, but McLoughlin ordered the abandonment of the outermost posts. The Beaver steamboat was to expand its voyages and a new post was to be built on south Vancouver Island . Construction of Fort Victoria began there in March 1843 .

Richard Blanshard, Governor of British Columbia 1849–51

The first farms had sprung up around Fort Vancouver and in the Cowlitz Valley , but American farmers seeped into the area. Douglas tried to counter this with a provisional government, but at the latest with the train of Elijah White's people in the Willamette Valley in 1842 and the arrival of 120 wagons in 1843, the post became increasingly difficult to hold. By 1845 there were already 6,000 Americans in Oregon. Douglas became a senior member in 1846 and continued to defend British rights. But Great Britain agreed in the Oregon Compromise with the USA on the 49th parallel as the border.

Douglas reorganized the trade routes to the center of Fort Langley on the lower reaches of the Fraser River . In 1848 he expanded business to Honolulu , and in 1849 he moved with the headquarters and everything the central town needed to Victoria.

On January 13, 1849, HBC accepted Vancouver Island from the hands of Great Britain. A colony was to be established within five years, probably with Douglas as governor. Instead, Richard Blanshard became the first governor. He came to Victoria in March 1850, but was unable to establish himself.

Vancouver Island Governor

Douglas had already been appointed governor on May 16, 1851, but news didn't arrive until October 30. The gold discoveries on the Queen Charlotte Islands , the purchase of the Nanaimo coal fields, of Indian land around Fort Victoria and the establishment of the first reservations , along with road construction and schools, supported the new government. The treaties signed with the Esquimalt , Songhees , Beecher Bay , T'sou-ke , Tsawout , Tsartlip , Pauquachin and Tseycum integrated the Indians into a political and economic system that supported the city. They are still valid today by the Supreme Court , as are the "Douglas Treaties" with the Snuneymuxw near Nanaimo and the Kwakiutl in the far north of Vancouver Island.

When establishing the reservations , Douglas adhered to the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and made sure that the wishes of the Indians were taken into account. Above all, there should be no resettlements, because the traditional villages, fishing grounds and burial grounds, the cultivated land should remain in the tribal area. The criteria were permanent staffing, processing or other investments in their work. Douglas believed that the Indians would develop the same needs as all classes of Her Majesty's subjects and therefore adapt increasingly.

Instead of giving free 200 or 300 acres per settler, Douglas wanted to sell the land for a pound an acre , at least 20 acres per farm. The Company also held six square miles for itself immediately around Victoria. Douglas himself had more land bought, twelve acres around the fort, 418 at Esquimalt in 1852 , 247 in 1855, and another 240 in 1858, plus 319 in Metchosin . But the most valuable land was Fairfield Farm and an area on James Bay in what is now Victoria.

Douglas came under further pressure because he was accused of nepotism , at the latest when he fired several employees and appointed his brother-in-law David Cameron (whose wife was Cecilia Eliza Douglas Cowan) as the chief judge of the Supreme Court .

Vancouver Island became a colony with a representative body. In a way, a race began with neighboring Washington , where the land was freely given, but at least there were no Indian wars here . Farms, logging, coal mines and salmon fishing prospered. In 1859 the island became a crown colony , and Douglas became its governor, despite bitter criticism from the press - Amor De Cosmos in particular was vehemently opposed to the clique economy.

The background was probably that London could not afford conflicts, because the American prospectors were already causing enough difficulties, Douglas feared the same course as in Oregon. Without further ado he claimed the gold fields for the crown. On April 25, 1858, the first prospectors landed in Victoria. A gunboat on the Fraser River imposed fees on boat and ship licenses. The squatters sat on San Juan Island and at the mouth of the Fraser River, 8000 prospectors moved towards the Okanagan Valley . Victoria was a huge tent city. Troops and ships were drawn together to keep the outlaws at bay.

More than 10,000 men searched for gold between Fort Langley and Fort Yale. Some sat around Yale and the Great Canyon as far as Lytton . The logistics increasingly required American efforts to build roads on the Harrison River route to Lillooet . To do this, a Muliweg from Yale to Lytton had to be maintained.

Only English subjects could buy land, but anyone could be naturalized. But in London the wind turned to the disadvantage of the previous HBC policy. On August 2, 1858, the New Caledonia Territory was converted into the Crown Colony of British Columbia .

Governor of the Crown Colony

Douglas was made governor of the new colony and sworn in on November 19, 1858. The Colonial Department reviewed his administration on Vancouver Island and found that he had reallocated large sums of money at will. Douglas threatened to resign. Admiral Robert Lambert Baynes of the Pacific Fleet was to assist him, plus 65 Royal Engineers , most of whom arrived in April 1859. Until then, Douglas had a personal bodyguard of 20 sailors and 16 Royal Engineers.

In 1859 there was nowhere near as chaotic a mass influx as in the previous year. Nevertheless, a fortification was built at a place called New Westminster on the lower Fraser River. On July 27, an American military unit landed. Baynes and the Legislature were able to stop Douglas from evicting them by force. His plans to bring the area around the Puget Sound and thus the mouth of the Columbia River under British control were also rejected.

In 1860, Victoria was declared a free port to encourage imports and attract farmers. But now another gold rush threatened by discoveries at Antler Creek. In order to be able to build roads, Douglas levied taxes on goods, road use and mining licenses, as well as a bank loan of £ 50,000. He also tried to get the government to agree to a change in its Indian policy. So far he had signed contracts to get land in exchange for blankets and the like. On March 23, 1861 he wrote to London and expressed his hope that the property rights of the Indians on land would soon disappear (extinguished) and suggested the not yet "bought" areas on Vancouver Island - he names Cowichan, Chemainus and Barkley Sound - for around 3000 pounds to get around 1000 families to give up their land. He expressly stressed that this was necessary to keep the peace and that he had only changed his policy of buying land before new settlers came in 1859 under pressure of financial limits and the end of HBC rights.

In 1862 the Cariboo gold rush drew around 5,000 men again. Douglas proposed a carriage road 18 feet wide from Yale north to Quesnel and on to Williams Creek. The Great North Road was to be built by the Royal Engineers and subsequent contractors and make the Fraser the artery of British Columbia. The province was also to be linked to the eastern colonies. As early as 1863, Douglas expected a future telegraph line and a rail link to the Atlantic in the next ten years.

While Victoria rose as a trading and banking center, development in New Westminster stalled. Douglas met demands with the elevation to the city and the election of a city council on July 16, 1860. Douglas suspected a Californian-Canadian clique, the " New Westminster radicals ", to be the only dissatisfied group and to schem against him - in favor of a union the USA.

On August 11, 1863, Douglas was knighted as Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath and from then on carried the suffix "Sir".

Douglas had borrowed £ 100,000 to carry out his great street plan. At the same time, he had somehow increased his salary from £ 1,800 to £ 3,800. His successes were so significant that he stayed in office despite everything. The colony's income rose to 110,000 pounds in 1864, and Victoria now had 6,000 inhabitants.

Resignation and retirement

Arthur Edward Kennedy, Governor of British Columbia and Vancouver Island (March 1864-October 1866)
Douglas' gravestone in Ross Bay Cemetery

Nevertheless, he had to receive his hapless successor Arthur Edward Kennedy on May 14, 1864 . He traveled to London . He had already sent his ailing son James ahead. His daughter Jane lived in Scotland . In 1865 he traveled to Paris after taking a grand tour of Europe. But he broke off his trip when he heard that his daughter Cecilia, the wife of Dr. John Sebastian Helmcken . Of Douglas' 13 children, only six had grown up. His son James died in 1883. Douglas now spent most of his time in Victoria. His daughter Martha was the consolation of his old days. In 1872 she went to England for training.

About his son-in-law Dr. Helmcken is likely to have exercised a certain political influence, as he was one of the three delegates who negotiated British Columbia's accession to the Canadian Confederation . In 1872 he regretted the loss of some of the San Juan Islands to the USA.

Sir James Douglas died on August 2, 1877 in Victoria as a result of a heart attack. He is known as "The Father of British Columbia".

literature

  • Robert Hamilton Coats, R. Edward Gosnell: Sir James Douglas. Toronto 1908 ( online )
  • Dorothy Blakey Smith (Ed.): James Douglas in California, 1841 being the Journal of a Voyage from the Columbia to California. Vancouver 1965
  • James E. Hendrickson: The Aboriginal Land Policy of Governor James Douglas, 1849–1864. Burnaby, British Columbia: Simon Fraser University, 1988

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henry S. Wellcome: The Story of Metlakatla. Saxon, London 1887, p. 466f.
  2. Knights and Dames: DOO – FOW at Leigh Rayment's Peerage