The Terror of the Coast. Chris Arnett
canoes of Saanich warriors proceeded to the site of the logging operation and ordered the Hwunitum to leave—which they did. Douglas then sought to make a land sale agreement with the Saanich along the same lines as the previous agreements of 1850. He informed the Hudson’s Bay Company that:
The steam saw mill Company having selected as the site of their operations the section of land … which being within the limits of the Sanitch country, those Indians came forward with a demand for payment, and finding it impossible to discover among the numerous claimists the real owners of the land in question, and there being much difficulty in adjusting such claims, I thought it adviseable to purchase the whole of the Sanitch Country, as a measure that would save much future trouble and expence. I succeeded in effecting that purchase in a general convention of the Tribe; who individually subscribed the Deed of Sale, reserving for their use only the village sites and potato patches, and I caused them to be paid the sum of £109.7.6 in woolen goods, which they preferred to money. 23
When Douglas invited the headmen of the various winter villages of the Saanich Peninsula to Fort Victoria on February 7 and February 11, 1852, they were under the impression that the Hwunitum leader wished to negotiate a peace treaty:
When they got there, all these piles of blankets plus other goods were on the ground. They told them these bundles were for them plus about $200 but it was in pounds and shillings.
They saw these bundles of blankets and goods and they were asked to put X’s on this paper. They asked each head man to put an X on the paper. Our people didn’t know what the X’s were for. Actually they didn’t call them X’s they called them crosses. So they talked back and forth from one to the other and wondered why they were being asked to put crosses on the paper and they didn’t know what the paper said. What I imagined from looking at the document was that they must have gone to each man and asked them their name and then they transcribed it in a very poor fashion and then asked them to make an X.
One man spoke up after they discussed it, and said, “I think James Douglas wants to keep the peace.”
They were after all almost in a state of war, a boy had been shot. 24 Also we stopped them from cutting timber and sent them back to Victoria and told them to cut no more timber.
“I think these are peace offerings. I think Douglas means to keep the peace. I think these are the sign of the cross.”
He made the sign of the cross. The missionaries must have already been around by then, because they knew about the ‘sign of the cross’! “This means Douglas is sincere.”
They thought it was just a sign of sincerity and honesty. This was the sign of their God. It was the highest order of honesty.
It wasn’t much later they found out actually they were signing their land away by putting those crosses out there. They didn’t know what it said on the paper … Our people were hardly able to talk English at that time and who could understand our language? 25
Unlike the previous land sale agreements, those arranged with the Saanich were made with the actual text of the deed in place at the time they were signed. However, according to the oral history, the Saanich “did not know what it said on the paper.” Even if interpreters were available to explain the wording of the deed of conveyance to the Saanich headmen there is still no assurance that the full implications of its contents were accurately conveyed to or understood by the Saanich. But with the guarantee that their winter villages, potato fields and traditional food gathering sources would be protected, the Saanich si’em saw no reason not to sign. The British had, after all, stopped cutting timber at Cadboro Bay when the Saanich protested. In any event, the oral history is clear on the point that it was the acceptance by Saanich leaders of Douglas’ perceived sincerity that convinced them to agree to accept the blankets and thereby validate the agreement.
Across the Pacific Ocean, four years earlier, the Ngai Tahu had similarly debated “Kemp’s Deed,” and, in the final analysis, some, though by no means all, accepted its promise of undisturbed Maori occupation of their lands and continued access to resources based on the word of high-ranking British officials. Among aboriginal people such as the Ngai Tahu and the Saanich, the word of a man of recognizable high rank such as Douglas was sacrosanct and entirely dependable. To break one’s word was to lose the most important aspect of a high-ranking person’s life—his honour and the respect accorded him by others.
After the treaty with the Saanich had been executed, Douglas turned his attention to territories further north on Vancouver’s Island.
From time immemorial, the Nanaimo people knew of the coal deposits in their territory and associated them with qwunus, the killer whale. The elders warned that interference with deposits would bring dire consequences:
So the head men said, “Never touch that black rock no matter where you see it, for it belongs to the great black fish, and if we touch that rock, all the fish will surely come and kill us.” 26
Qwunus did not come to kill the people, but the discovery of the valuable coalbearing “Douglas vein” at Wentuhuysen Inlet in present day Nanaimo focused Hwunitum interest on the territories of Hul’qumi’num First Nations along the east coast of Vancouver Island and hastened the alienation of those lands.
Although the existence of the rich coal deposits were confirmed in May 1850, the Hwulmuhw lands which lay between Nanaimo and the Saanich Peninsula, including the extensive Cowichan and Chemainus Valleys and the offshore labyrinth of islands, remained relatively unknown to Hwunitum. Douglas was aware of the agricultural potential of the region as early as 1849 when he informed the Hudson’s Bay Company that the Cowichan Valley “is reported by the Indians to be much superior to this part of Vancouver’s Island in respect to extent of cultivated land.” 27 Potato cultivation, introduced decades earlier, had reached such heights that Hwulmuhw farmers harvested them by the ton from extensive fields in the Cowichan and Chemainus Valleys and traded the surplus to the Hwunitum. 28
In May 1851, Douglas instructed two Hudson’s Bay employees, Joseph MacKay and Tomo Antoine, to explore the Cowichan Valley “with a view to opening [it] to settlers.” 29 Both men were seasoned veterans of the company and Antoine, of Chinook/Iroquois ancestry, would play an important role in the alienation of Hwulmuhw lands. A “slight, actively built man, with a dark copper-coloured face, lit up by keen, intelligent eyes,” Antoine served the Company “in several capacities, as guide, hunter, and interpreter in all of which capacities he [stood] unrivalled.” 30 MacKay and Antoine, the first outsiders to explore the Cowichan Valley, made their reconnaissance “under the protection of ‘Hosua’[Tsosieten] chief of the Cowitchen tribe,” and reported land suitable for agriculture along the river. 31
The first Hwunitum to live in the area was a Quebecois, Father Honore Timothy Lempfrit of the Roman Catholic order, Oblates des Mary Immaculate. Described by Douglas as “a very able and zealous teacher,” Lempfrit had been “loaned” to the diocese of Vancouver Island until the arrival of the consecrated Bishop Modeste Demers. 32 In October 1851, without the authorization of the Bishop who was in Europe, Lempfrit left Victoria to establish a mission among the Cowichan. His arrival amongst the Cowichan at the beginning of their winter dances eventually created “a great lack of cordiality between the pastor and his flock.” 33 Fearing that Lempfrit’s continued presence in the Cowichan Valley would endanger the peace of the colony, Douglas, in May 1852, dispatched a constable and ten men to rescue him in the first armed intervention in Cowichan affairs by Hwunitum. 34 Shortly thereafter Lempfrit left for Oregon. 35 Following this experience, Douglas discouraged missionary activities outside of the Colony of Vancouver Island where, in unceded territories, he was unable to guarantee their safety.
His activities drew censure from the church, but Lempfrit’s short-lived mission planted the seeds of Catholicism amongst Hul’qumi’num First Nations. As one church historian observed, during his stay, Lempfrit “in his inexperience and for the lack of someone to counsel him … baptized over four thousand Indians, and married as many of them as must receive the Church’s blessing on their union, after only eight days of instruction and probation.” 36