Summer of 1877, Part 1:
Indigenous anger,
Indian reserve commissioners, and
the North-West Mounted Police
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Please read my Disclaimer page for further details.
If you would like legal advice or just want to chat about this post, please do not hesitate to contact me.
In completing my LLM research a few years ago, one of the discoveries I found the most historically and legally fascinating, but also the most sobering, was the nature and depth of Indigenous-settler conflict over land in the Shuswap and Okanagan in the summer of 1877. To try to explain some of what happened during that summer 143 years ago, I have a three-part post, although an entire book could be written about that one summer:
- This post will describe, very generally, what I learned about Indigenous peoples’ anger over the occupation of their lands and about the Indian reserve commissioners’ response, including their calling in the North-West Mounted Police from Edmonton.
- My next post will highlight the federal Indian reserve commissioners’ communications with Ottawa by a telegram “in cypher” - one for which I do not have the “key”, although I will post both the cyphered and uncyphered versions, and perhaps someone can crack the code.
- My final post will discuss the trade-off that Canada made that summer: it would not press the province to negotiate with Indigenous peoples in BC to extinguish their Indian (Aboriginal) title - as Canada was doing that very summer in the area that would become Alberta by negotiating and then signing Treaty 7 - if the reserve commissioners could appease the Secwépemc and the Syilx (Okanagan) by the allotment of comparatively generous Indian reserves.
Indigenous anger over settler occupation of their lands
In May and June of 1877, settlers, missionaries, the Dominion’s Indian Superintendent at Hope, and the provincial government all urged the Indian reserve commissioners to go and allot reserves in the Shuswap and Okanagan valleys as soon as possible, because “serious consequences are impending.” Indeed, scholars now agree that a war over land between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples was only narrowly averted that summer. (You can read more about this time period in chapter 4 of my thesis, as well as in the sources I cite in that chapter and at the end of this post.)
When the commissioners arrived in Kamloops on June 20, they understood the Secwépemc to be at a “great final meeting” with the Syilx communities at the head of Okanagan Lake to determine what action they might take to protest the settlers’ occupation of their lands. Settler occupation and acquisition of land had begun some sixty-five years before, with the arrival at Kamloops of the Pacific Fur Company (later the North West Company and then the Hudson's Bay Company), but it had accelerated dramatically in the last twenty, since the 1858 gold rush and the establishment of the English Colony of British Columbia. Within months of its establishment in 1858, the Colony had created rules for how settlers could acquire land, but it never created any formal rules or process for protecting Indigenous peoples' lands or negotiating for the relinquishment of the Aboriginal title in those lands.
When the commissioners arrived in Kamloops on June 20, they understood the Secwépemc to be at a “great final meeting” with the Syilx communities at the head of Okanagan Lake to determine what action they might take to protest the settlers’ occupation of their lands. Settler occupation and acquisition of land had begun some sixty-five years before, with the arrival at Kamloops of the Pacific Fur Company (later the North West Company and then the Hudson's Bay Company), but it had accelerated dramatically in the last twenty, since the 1858 gold rush and the establishment of the English Colony of British Columbia. Within months of its establishment in 1858, the Colony had created rules for how settlers could acquire land, but it never created any formal rules or process for protecting Indigenous peoples' lands or negotiating for the relinquishment of the Aboriginal title in those lands.
Reserve commissioners' wish for the equivalent of a "gunboat"
Once the Secwépemc, led by Klick.thick.kun (Chief Louis) of the Tk’emlúps, returned about a week later, the commissioners learned they were facing a Secwépemc and probably Syilx “confederation”: an agreement to take a united position in respect of their land demands. The commissioners did not know what the Secwépemc would do if dissatisfied with their reserve-allotment decisions, but they knew that war was a distinct possibility. As a result, the commissioners decided to attempt to break up the confederation by appeasing the Secwépemc and Syilx through the allotment of large Indian reserves. They were also prepared to use military force to ensure that the Secwépemc and Syilx respected their decisions. Seven months earlier, the commissioners had called a British Navy gunboat to Chemainus and Penelakut Island to force the Penelakut to remove fences from land the commissioners had refused to allot to them. Now, in Kamloops, Sproat (the commissioner jointly-appointed by the province and the Dominion) expressed his regret that “the Government cannot coerce the Indians here by HM [Her Majesty’s] gunboats as is possible on the coast.”
Backroom meeting at the Kamloops courthouse
As the commissioners allotted the Indian reserves for one Secwépemc community and continued meeting with Chief Louis and the Tk’emlúps, they also met with representatives of the anxious settler community in Kamloops. On July 7, the commissioners attended “a strictly private meeting in a back room of the courthouse” with four of them. The settlers believed the Secwépemc were behind “many suspicious circumstances” and that they planned some “sinister movement,” depending, perhaps, on Indigenous success in an “Indian war” in nearby American territory. Several argued that they were “entirely without protection” and proposed two options: arm a local force of settlers or have the province send materiel and a militia from Victoria. Others felt it best to remain quiet and that any movement on the settlers’ part or the sending of materiel or men from Victoria would hasten “an attack.” The best way to prevent an “outbreak,” this group thought, was by “having some force in this part of the country that would answer the same ends as the cruises of HM gunboats on the coast.”
Decision to ask Canada to send the North-West Mounted Police
The four settlers and three Indian reserve commissioners eventually agreed to ask the Dominion to send a North-West Mounted Police (“NWMP”) detachment to the area as “the cheapest, most effective and least alarming force to introduce.” The commissioners thought the Dominion could send the NWMP secretly from Edmonton in about a month. They reasoned that if the NWMP did not arrive before news of their impending arrival did, the settlers could tell the Secwépemc and Syilx that the NWMP did not come with hostile intent but, rather, “to arrange matters on the boundary line” with the United States.
Two of the meeting attendees, both also Justices of the Peace, followed up the meeting with a long letter to the commissioners, “repeating in writing the substance of the oral representations made” and begging the commissioners “to represent by telegram to the Dominion government the condition of affairs, and to suggest the necessity of some provision being made for their future security.” They reported that they had “every reason to believe that many Indians of the Okanagan, Nicola, and Shuswap tribe are very much dissatisfied, and when assembled in Council have advocated a general uprising, and massacre of every white settler in this section of the Province.” They implored the commissioners “to give this matter your most serious consideration, and beg of you to lose no time in communicating with the Dominion Government.”
After much deliberation, the commissioners felt themselves compelled “to admit the reasonableness of the position.” Although it was “possibly beyond the strict line of [their] duties,” they acceded to the settlers’ request, and, while the commissioners believed that a police force would actually impede their work, they nonetheless considered that a show of force by the NWMP would help “to sustain the law.” Anderson, the federal commissioner, described the commissioners’ reasoning this way:
Two of the meeting attendees, both also Justices of the Peace, followed up the meeting with a long letter to the commissioners, “repeating in writing the substance of the oral representations made” and begging the commissioners “to represent by telegram to the Dominion government the condition of affairs, and to suggest the necessity of some provision being made for their future security.” They reported that they had “every reason to believe that many Indians of the Okanagan, Nicola, and Shuswap tribe are very much dissatisfied, and when assembled in Council have advocated a general uprising, and massacre of every white settler in this section of the Province.” They implored the commissioners “to give this matter your most serious consideration, and beg of you to lose no time in communicating with the Dominion Government.”
After much deliberation, the commissioners felt themselves compelled “to admit the reasonableness of the position.” Although it was “possibly beyond the strict line of [their] duties,” they acceded to the settlers’ request, and, while the commissioners believed that a police force would actually impede their work, they nonetheless considered that a show of force by the NWMP would help “to sustain the law.” Anderson, the federal commissioner, described the commissioners’ reasoning this way:
We are impressed with the conviction that the demonstration, after the principal reserve questions shall have been settled by us, of a certain show of power to sustain the law, and to afford protection to the scattered settlers around, will, if prudently managed, have a beneficial future effect on the Indian mind, while restoring confidence to the settlers in the capacity and willingness of the government to protect them. We regard it however prospectively as a temporary measure only, the continuance of which would be found to be no wise necessary.
July 16 telegram, in cypher
On the evening of July 13, Anderson and Sproat dispatched a telegram to the Minister of the Interior, David Mills (who was also the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs for Canada), in cypher (reproduced below in uncyphered form), to be sent from Cache Creek, some fifty miles away. This telegraph was actually transmitted on July 16:
Indian situation very |
On July 16, Sproat wrote his own letter to Mills. He reiterated that Her Majesty’s navy helped the provincial government “to maintain its general authority over the Indians on the seacoast.” He emphasized the dire situation he felt the settlers in the interior - and Canada - now faced: “an Indian outbreak of the kind believed to be contemplated in this part of the country would be war against Canada; it would be an attempt by the direst methods, to take and hold Canadian territory by force.”
Canada's refusal to send the North-West Mounted Police
On July 22, in reply to their July 13 telegram, the commissioners received one (also in cypher) from R. W. Scott, the Secretary of State for Canada. Scott told them it would be “impossible” for the Dominion to send the NWMP and that they must advise the Indigenous peoples that both governments were endeavouring “to remove causes of irritation” and that “any rash move will jeopardise their own interest.”
A few weeks later, Sproat received an August 3 letter from Mills justifying the Dominion’s refusal to send the NWMP on the basis that, “should anything so disastrous as an Indian war occur,” the Canadian government would be “obliged to content itself with the effort to exclude supplies from the Indian country until the Indians were peaceably disposed and prepared to treat for the surrender of the territory, to the Provincial Government on such terms and conditions as the Indians would be willing to accept, and the Provincial Government would be able to fulfil.”
A few weeks later, Sproat received an August 3 letter from Mills justifying the Dominion’s refusal to send the NWMP on the basis that, “should anything so disastrous as an Indian war occur,” the Canadian government would be “obliged to content itself with the effort to exclude supplies from the Indian country until the Indians were peaceably disposed and prepared to treat for the surrender of the territory, to the Provincial Government on such terms and conditions as the Indians would be willing to accept, and the Provincial Government would be able to fulfil.”
In my next post, I will provide the July 16 telegram in its cyphered and uncyphered versions. I have not yet been able to crack the code or find the “key”, which might have been called “Slater’s key”.
In the final post of this series, I will discuss Canada's position with respect to Indian (Aboriginal) title, as expressed by the Minister of the Interior & Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, David Mills, in his 3 August 1877 letter. Among other things, Mills acknowledged that since the British North America Act (what we now know as the Constitution Act, 1867) placed "Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians" under Dominion control, the Dominion had “the legal right to interfere and prevent the Provincial Government from dealing with any public land the Indian title to which has not been extinguished, and they have the right, also, as such guardians, to be present at any negotiation which takes place between the Indian population and the Provincial authorities in order that Indian interests may be adequately protected.”
In the final post of this series, I will discuss Canada's position with respect to Indian (Aboriginal) title, as expressed by the Minister of the Interior & Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, David Mills, in his 3 August 1877 letter. Among other things, Mills acknowledged that since the British North America Act (what we now know as the Constitution Act, 1867) placed "Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians" under Dominion control, the Dominion had “the legal right to interfere and prevent the Provincial Government from dealing with any public land the Indian title to which has not been extinguished, and they have the right, also, as such guardians, to be present at any negotiation which takes place between the Indian population and the Provincial authorities in order that Indian interests may be adequately protected.”
Sources
Articles, Books & Dissertations
Marianne Ignace & Ronald E Ignace, Secwépemc People, Land and Laws : Yerí7 re Stsq’ey’s-kucw, McGill-Queen’s Native and Northern Series 90 (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017).
Cole Harris, Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002).
Robin Fisher, Contact and Conflict: Indian-European Relations in British Columbia, 1774-1890, 2nd ed. (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1992).
Duane Thomson, A History of the Okanagan: Indians and Whites in the Settlement Era, 1860-1920 (PhD dissertation, University of British Columbia, 1985) [unpublished].
Kenneth Brealey, “Travels from Point Ellice: Peter O’Reilly and the Indian Reserve System in British Columbia” (Autumn/Winter 1997-98) 115/116 BC Studies 181.
Keith D. Smith, Liberalism, Surveillance, and Resistance: Indigenous Communities in Western Canada, 1877-1927, The West Unbound: Social and Cultural Studies Series (Edmonton: AU Press, Athabasca University, 2009).
BC Archives
Anderson to Sproat & McKinlay (16 May 1877), Victoria, B.C. Archives (GR-494).
Mara & Tait to JIRC (13 July 1877), Victoria, B.C. Archives (GR-494).
Federal records (RG 10, Indian Affairs)
Richards to Sproat & McKinlay (9 June 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3597, file 1353, reel C-10103).
Sproat to Superintendent General (30 June 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3650, f. 8497).
Joint Indian Reserve Commission, “Journal of the Proceedings of the Commission for the settlement of the Indian Reserves in the Province of British Columbia, continued from Vol. 1”, Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 1284, reel 13902), Victoria, B.C. Archives (GR-1965).
Sproat & Anderson to Minister of the Interior (13 July 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3651, f. 8540, reel C-10114).
Sproat to Minister of Interior (16 July 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3651, f. 8540, reel C-10114).
JIRC to Lenihan (16 July 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 1021, reel T-1459).
Sproat & Anderson to Minister of the Interior (16 July 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3651, f. 8540, reel C-10114).
Scott to Sproat & Anderson (undated), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3651, f. 8540, reel C-10114).
Copy of telegram in cypher, Scott to Sproat & Anderson (19 July 1877, received 23 July 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3651, f. 8540, reel C-10114).
Mills to Sproat (3 August 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3597, f. 1353, reel C-10103).
Marianne Ignace & Ronald E Ignace, Secwépemc People, Land and Laws : Yerí7 re Stsq’ey’s-kucw, McGill-Queen’s Native and Northern Series 90 (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017).
Cole Harris, Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002).
Robin Fisher, Contact and Conflict: Indian-European Relations in British Columbia, 1774-1890, 2nd ed. (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1992).
Duane Thomson, A History of the Okanagan: Indians and Whites in the Settlement Era, 1860-1920 (PhD dissertation, University of British Columbia, 1985) [unpublished].
Kenneth Brealey, “Travels from Point Ellice: Peter O’Reilly and the Indian Reserve System in British Columbia” (Autumn/Winter 1997-98) 115/116 BC Studies 181.
Keith D. Smith, Liberalism, Surveillance, and Resistance: Indigenous Communities in Western Canada, 1877-1927, The West Unbound: Social and Cultural Studies Series (Edmonton: AU Press, Athabasca University, 2009).
BC Archives
Anderson to Sproat & McKinlay (16 May 1877), Victoria, B.C. Archives (GR-494).
Mara & Tait to JIRC (13 July 1877), Victoria, B.C. Archives (GR-494).
Federal records (RG 10, Indian Affairs)
Richards to Sproat & McKinlay (9 June 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3597, file 1353, reel C-10103).
Sproat to Superintendent General (30 June 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3650, f. 8497).
Joint Indian Reserve Commission, “Journal of the Proceedings of the Commission for the settlement of the Indian Reserves in the Province of British Columbia, continued from Vol. 1”, Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 1284, reel 13902), Victoria, B.C. Archives (GR-1965).
Sproat & Anderson to Minister of the Interior (13 July 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3651, f. 8540, reel C-10114).
Sproat to Minister of Interior (16 July 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3651, f. 8540, reel C-10114).
JIRC to Lenihan (16 July 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 1021, reel T-1459).
Sproat & Anderson to Minister of the Interior (16 July 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3651, f. 8540, reel C-10114).
Scott to Sproat & Anderson (undated), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3651, f. 8540, reel C-10114).
Copy of telegram in cypher, Scott to Sproat & Anderson (19 July 1877, received 23 July 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3651, f. 8540, reel C-10114).
Mills to Sproat (3 August 1877), Ottawa, LAC (RG 10, vol. 3597, f. 1353, reel C-10103).