INQUIRY IDEA C -THE GOLD RUSH AND BEYOND

Consult these excerpts linked to the Web activity Inquiry Idea C "The gold rush and beyond."

28. How did immigrants from China integrate into British Columbia during and immediately after the gold rush?
29. How did the influx of gold seekers impact on the native people of British Columbia?

 28) How did immigrants from China integrate into British Columbia during and immediately after the gold rush?

“A few Chinese may have visited Vancouver Island during the late eighteenth-century trans-Pacific fur trade but the first Chinese to stay were lured by the Fraser River gold rush. Some came in 1858 with the initial gold seekers from California; others followed from Hong Kong and China. Several hundred remained in Victoria supplying provisions to the gold fields or acting as labour contractors. By the summer of 1860, approximately 4,000 Chinese resided in the new mainland colony of British Columbia, but their numbers fluctuated with the prosperity of the mines. By 1866 when gold fever was declining the governor estimated the Chinese population at 1,705. Most engaged in placer mining, an activity requiring limited capital investment, and confined themselves to diggins abandoned or sold by white men as being no longer profitable. Others provided services such as the growing and sale of fresh vegetables, the cutting of cord wood, and the operation of laundries and restaurants. […] they shared with the majority of white residents the image of being sojourners who had come to make their fortunes but not to stay. Although they mingled little with white society and experienced the anti-Chinese prejudices white men brought with them from California and Australia, in colonial British Columbia they enjoyed full legal equality.

“As the gold fields petered out, the Chinese found employment as domestic servants, mainly in Victoria, as coal miners’ helpers at Nanaimo, and as seasonal workers in the new Fraser River salmon canning industry. Employers generally liked Chinese labour because it was cheap and reliable; the public did not.”

Tan, Jin and Patricia E. Roy. The Chinese in Canada, Ottawa, Canadian Historical Association, 1985, p. 6-7.

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 29) How did the influx of gold seekers impact on the native people of British Columbia?

 “The gold rush into the Fraser-Thompson country was a turning point for the native peoples of the northern Plateau. For several decades they had adapted to the fur trade, responding to the economic opportunities it afforded and the slow acculturation. By 1858, however, the fur trade had largely ended, new diseases such as smallpox were spreading rapidly and with calamitous impacts, mining disrupted the salmon runs and drove Indians from their villages and fisheries along the rivers, settlers moved onto arable lands, and the tribes lacked the population and strength to protect their interests. New residents clamored for Indian removal, alleging that the natives were responsible for crime, prostitution, and the thriving liquor trade (Fisher 1977: 109-117).”

Beckham, Stephen Dow. “History since 1846”, In Handbook of North American Indian, vol. 12, Plateau, under the direction of Deward E. Walker Jr., Washington, Smithsonian Institution, 1998, p. 157.

“Some Indians, as individuals or groups, tried to oppose the penetration of the whites, while others merely retreated from a situation that they felt was beyond their control.”

Fisher, Robin. Contact and Conflict: Indian-European Relations in British Colombia, 1774-1890, Vancouver, University of British-Columbia Press, 1977, p. 117.

“Reserves were assigned to the Plateau groups during the 1870s and 1880s. As each band was a small, separate political unit, reserves tend to be small and scattered. Each band was given traditional village sites but lost all former hunting and gathering areas. Reserves were allocated out of lands traditionally claimed by the natives; they did not sign treaties or otherwise cede any of the remaining land.

“When native groups were confined to reserves they lost control over important economic resources outside their reserve boundaries. Ranches and settlements soon spread throughout the rest of their traditional lands, driving away game and destroying berry patches and root-digging sites. Many traditional fishing locations at canyons and falls have been flooded by dams.”

McMillan, Allan D. Native Peoples and Cultures of Canada. An Anthropological Overview, Vancouver/Toronto, Douglas & McIntyre, 1988, p. 167-168.

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