The Terror of the Coast. Chris Arnett
the colonial regime of James Douglas which provided financial and material support, including the Hudson’s Bay Company steamers Otter and Beaver, to aid the American forces. “I confess that it was not motives of humanity alone that induced me to lend such aid,” wrote Douglas to the Colonial Office, “other reasons of sound policy were not wanting … such as the conviction on my mind that the triumph of the Native Tribes would certainly endanger the position of this colony, which in that case could not be maintained without a vast increase of expence for military defences. It is therefore clearly to our interest that the American cause should triumph, and the natives be made to feel that they cannot successfully contend against the power of the whites.” 2
The town of Seattle, the major American settlement on Puget Sound, was attacked on January 26, 1856, and the Hwulmuhw were defeated after a day-long fight. Further south, not even the presence of the Beaver, carrying thirty United States regulars and Washington Territory Volunteers, could prevail over Leschi and thirty-eight well-armed warriors entrenched on the beach at Steilacoom where, after a bloodless stand-off, the Hwunitum wisely withdrew. During the unrest, Hwunitum settlers and soldiers constructed sixty-one stockades and blockhouses, and sporadic fighting continued until October 1856. 3 Hwulmuhw on Vancouver Island were well aware of what was taking place to the south. Douglas wrote that Hul’qumi’num First Nations were “elated with the recent successes of the Oregon Tribes over the United States Troops, [and that] the natives of this Colony were also becoming insolent and restive.” 4
At Fort Victoria, Douglas was also faced with large flotillas of well-armed aboriginal people from the north, heading south to trade. Some of these migrating families had ongoing feuds with Hul’qumi’num First Nations and fights, often with loss of life, occurred. Douglas informed the Colonial Office of an incident that took place in July 1856, when “a gang of Queen Charlotte Islanders … attacked and nearly destroyed a native Cowegin village situated about 50 miles north of this place. The Cowegins, few in number, fought desperately and were all slaughtered on the spot, and the assailants made off toward their own country with a number of captive women and children.” 5 Hul’qumi’num First Nations warriors retaliated by occupying strategic points “on the borders of the settlements, and shot every northern Indian, without respect to tribe or person, who ventured abroad.” 6 Douglas was obliged to provide the steamship Otter as an escort for some 300 “northern Indians” to insure their safe passage through Hul’qumi’num First Nations territories.
The inter-racial conflict in the Washington Territories and ongoing conflict between First Nations on Vancouver Island created “a well-grounded apprehension of danger, in the minds of the Colonists,” and Douglas likened the situation to “a smouldering volcano which at any moment may burst into fatal activity.” 7
Douglas was particularly worried about Hwunitum men who went to live amongst Hwulmuhw in those areas where land sale agreements had not been made. By 1856, a few Hwunitum had established themselves in the Cowichan Valley where they married Cowichan women and lived amongst the people, acquiring rights to land according to Hwulmuhw custom. Since a si’em with a Hwunitum son-in-law presumably gained easier access to Hwunitum goods, such arrangements were initially accorded some prestige. One of these early settlers, an unidentified “Scotchman,” held “an expensive piece of land from an Indian Chief on the terms of—giving him two blankets and accepting one of his daughters.” 8 Another was an Englishman named Thomas Williams, a former Hudson’s Bay Company employee, who had worked at the Uplands farm between 1852 and 1855 before moving to the Cowichan Valley in 1855 or 1856. 9 Douglas tried to prevent what he described as “the irregular settlement of the country” lest the rule of law “so conscientiously nurtured by himself” be put to risk through unauthorized contact between Hwunitum and Hwulmuhw. 10
Douglas’ worst fears were realized when, on August 22, 1856, Thomas Williams was brought to Fort Victoria “in, it is feared, a fatally wounded state, having been shot through the arm and chest by ‘Tathlasut,’ an Indian of the Saumina [Somenos] tribe who inhabit the Upper Cowegin District.” 11 The dispute centred around a woman, possibly Tathlasut’s intended bride, who went to live with Williams and “refused to be parted from him.” 12 Williams, it seems, was not well- liked and had tried to exert his own authority over Cowichan people through intimidation. As the late August Jack of Chemainus explained:
This fellow he wants to be the big chief over all the Indians in this country. Everybody’s scared of this fellow and they do what he says. One chief, he’s not scared any more, so he shoots this fellow in the arm, and the bullet goes right through and makes a big hole in his chest.
A medicine man says, “I fix you so you don’t die.” Then he plugs up the hole in this fellow’s chest with cedar bark, and he takes him to Victoria. 13 This fellow’s arm goes no good, and the white doctor cuts it off, but this fellow doesn’t die.
The Governor gets mad, so he sends ships with guns to catch the chief who shoots this fellow, and he hangs this chief up in a tree. 14
When Williams was brought to Fort Victoria Douglas was informed that Tathlasut “felt assured of escaping with impunity. He in fact told his friends that they had nothing to fear from the enmity of the whites, as they would not venture to attack a powerful tribe, occupying a country strong in its natural defences, and so distant from the coast.” 15 Douglas planned a quick response. Two recently arrived Royal Navy vessels, HMS Monarch (eighty-four guns) and HMS Trincomalee (twenty-four guns), gave Douglas the opportunity to launch the largest display of Hwunitum military force seen up to that time on the east coast of Vancouver Island. Douglas called on the services of Admiral Henry William Bruce, commander of the Pacific Station, informing him that:
… the Civil Power will require the support of a larger military force than the Colony can provide … a force sufficient to answer the ends of justice, and to teach the savages to respect the lives and property of Her Majesty’s subjects. 16
A message was sent to Nanaimo “ordering Thos. Oumtony [Tomo Antoine] to proceed at once to Victoria to act as an interpreter.” 17
Within a week, Douglas was in Cowichan Bay aboard the HMS Trincomalee, the sailing frigate commanded by Captain Wallace Houston. The sail-powered Trincomalee was deemed unsuitable to navigate the channels and capricious currents en route to Cowichan Bay and was towed to her destination by the Hudson’s Bay Company steamer, Otter. On board under the command of Captain Matthew Connolly were 437 sailors and marines from the Trincomalee and the Monarch, a field battery of two twelve-pound howitzers and eighteen Victoria Voltigeurs under the command of William J. McDonald. The force was three times larger than the expedition of 1853. 18
On September 1, the small army disembarked and camped on strategic Comiaken Hill, the site of the previous altercation in 1853. The timing of the expedition was fortuitous for the British, as the majority of the Cowichan people were absent at the Fraser River sockeye fishery. As Douglas later observed, “the Cowegin [Cowichan] Tribe can bring into the field about 1400 Warriors but nearly 1000 of these were engaged upon an expedition to Fraser’s River, when we entered their Country.” 19 While the troops bivouacked, Hwulmuhw allies were despatched to determine the whereabouts and disposition of the various Cowichan families in the villages along the river channels of the delta. The scouts returned with conflicting reports but Douglas was able to determine that Tathlasut was near the village of Somenos, some five miles inland.
Although there is no mention in the official dispatches, Cowichan oral history records that the guns of the Trincomalee opened fire on Cowichan houses to terrorize and intimidate the people.
[The HMS Trincomalee] bombarded the Indian houses, causing the Indians to flee in terror into the woods. The Indian account reflects vividly the awe experienced on the flash of fire, together with the smoke and the echoing rumble of the guns. The people ran from their houses and, not knowing which way to turn to avoid the danger, they joined together in groups within the fringes of the wood, taking comfort in the presence of each other as though by mutual support they might be able to steady the quailing of their bodies and