Tsawwassen
The Tsawwassen are a Canadian first nation on the east side of the Strait of Georgia , near the border with the United States . They belong to the Salish language family and speak a dialect called Hun'qum'i'num. The government recognized exactly 354 people as tribesmen in February 2015. Of these, 191 lived on reservations , although the Tsawwassen reservations are generally referred to as First Nation Land and their own reservation as Tsawwassen Land .
history
The earliest finds in the area of the Tsawwassen First Nation can be traced back to about 2260 BC using the radiocarbon method . To date. Other sites such as Whalen Farm and Beach Grove date the presence of the Tsawwassen at least to between 400 and 200 BC. BC back.
The traditional Tsawwassen area extended in the northeast to the area around Pitt Lake , down the Pitt River to the Pitt Meadows , where the river flows into the Fraser River . It included the Burns Bog peat bog and parts of New Westminster . It stretched from Sea Island to Galiano Island and included Saltspring Island , Pender Island and Saturna Island . To the northeast, the Point Roberts Peninsula was added, then the area around the Serpentine and Nicomekl River.
Like most West Coast Indians, the Tsawwassen lived in family groups that inhabited longhouses . But they did not carve totem poles , but decorated house poles, masks, tools with carvings, etc. They also processed cedar wood fibers and goat hair into clothes and headgear. The wood also provided building materials, firewood, canoes and clothes.
Using tide traps, fishing rods, nets and harpoons, they hunted fish, mainly salmon and pike . For this purpose, oysters , crabs and other marine animals were hunted and collected. The salmon was considered a supernatural being and therefore had to be hunted and eaten in a very specific way. The remains were returned to the sea in a separate ceremony. Numerous species of birds were also on the menu, such as ducks, loons, seals and sea lions. Land mammals such as elk, deer, black bear and beaver were hunted seasonally.
Also Camas , cranberries and medicinal plants were harvested, and with them was also traded and exchanged.
Reserves, land loss
In 1851, the last border regulations followed as a result of the 1846 Border Treaty between the USA and Great Britain . Part of the Tsawwassen area was now in Washington State . More land was lost when white settlers bought it. In 1858, British Columbia's first highway connected Tsawwassen Beach with Fort Langley . In 1859, the North Road between Burnaby and Coquitlam was the first inner-city street to follow .
A tiny reservation was assigned in 1871 and expanded to 490 acres in 1874 . Today it covers 717 acres or 290 hectares. 40,000 acres had since gone to white settlers. The neighboring settlement of Delta grew to 2,000 inhabitants by 1903, of which 350 were Chinese, almost all of whom worked in fish factories.
In 1914, Chief Harry Joe sent a petition to the McKenna-McBride Commission asking them to review the reservations. But she was rejected. Nevertheless, supported young Tsawwassen the Canadian Army in the First and Second World War .
industrialization
There have long been serious disputes with the Delta Council over the question of the supply of good drinking water. The same applies to the issue of sewage disposal, although for decades even industrial sewage has been disposed of untreated - be it in the Fraser River , Boundary Bay , Burrard Inlet or the Strait of Georgia . Delta, which forms part of the Metro Vancouver metropolitan area, consists of the cities of Ladner , Tsawwassen, and North Delta.
In 1958 BC Ferries built the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal , a terminal for their ferries. For this purpose, a long house was demolished. When the terminal was enlarged in 1973, 1976 and 1991, there was no consultation with the Tsawwassen. In 1968 the construction of the Roberts Bank Superport , a gigantic terminal of the port of Vancouver began - by 1983 it became an island with an area of 113 ha. Noise, pollution and vibrations had to be accepted by the tsawwassen living next door. The formerly fish-rich bay has become a dead industrial body of water with an almost completely changed flora and fauna , which has displaced the endemic species. The authorities have only spoken to them since the Tsawwassen went to court.
Retrieval of resources
1995–97 a new nave was built. In the meantime, over 120 species of migratory birds are visiting the Tsawwassen area again. In February 2015, 183 Tsawwassen were living on the reservation, 163 outside and another 8 on other reservations - a total of 354 registered members. The Tsawwassen themselves currently count more than 430 people in their tribe, around 60% of whom are under 25 - a very young people. However, the unemployment rate is 38%, the average annual income is just over 20,000 CAD, whereas in the neighboring delta one earns over 60,000.
After the Nisga'a , the Tsawwassen are among the first tribes to have reached the final stage of the so-called BC Treaty Process . On December 8, 2006, a contract was signed with the government. In this Canada recognizes that many injustices have been done to the Tsawwassen. Now the tribe is supposed to participate more in the economic development and Canada tries to support the Tsawwassen in all questions of the protection of the cultural identity. In many areas the Tsawwassen can live according to their own laws within their area. The disposal of archaeological finds is also amicable between the museums and the representatives of the Tsawwassen.
But the 2003 contract would have enabled the Roberts Bank Superport to be expanded. In March 2007, the majority of the Tsawwassen voted against the treaty because all rights of the Indians should have been given up. Two other tribes behaved similarly, the Temexw and the Lheidli T'enneh , who also viewed the contract as a sell-off.
However, in July 2007, the Tsawwassen voted for a new package of contracts that increased their area to 724 hectares and included $ 13.9 million in cash and $ 36 million for a development program. In addition, the contract in this form reserves the salmon catch for the tribe. In return, the Tsawwassen give up further land claims and basically agree to pay taxes, from which the First Nations have so far been largely excluded.
Since 2009 the industrial use, here called "Development", has been in the hands of the First Nation. This removed the restrictions of the Indian law to which the tribe was subject until then, and contracts with investors and companies such as Ivanhoe Cambridge and the Property Development Group could be concluded. In accordance with the contract of April 2011, companies are to be settled on 70 hectares of land in the traditional territory, including the Tsawwassen Mills, a shopping center that is to be completed by 2015. In the more rural region, the criticism is directed against the economic sense of the project as well as against the transformation of the more rural character.
See also
- History of the Coastal Salish
- History of British Columbia
- First Nations history
- List of Indian tribes recognized in Canada
literature
- Randy Bouchard / Dorothy Kennedy: Tsawwassen Ethnography and Ethnohistory, in: Archaeological Investigations at Tsawwassen, BC , Port Coquitlam: Arcas Consulting Ltd. 1991
- William C. Sturtevant (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Volume 7: Wayne Suttles (Ed.): Northwest Coast . Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1990, ISBN 0-87474-187-4 .
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ a b First Nation Detail. Tsawwassen First Nation. Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada , January 23, 2015, accessed March 27, 2015 .
- ↑ The contract can be found here ( PDF ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ).
- ↑ The celebrations as a video: Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. and the official communication from the negotiating group ( PDF ( Memento of the original from September 22, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ).
- ^ As Canada's First Nations Start Developing Their Land, Is Sprawl Inevitable? , in: Atlantic Cities, February 9, 2012.
