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The Douglas Treaties, 1850-54

Lekwungen settlements around Victoria

“I was born a member of the Songhees tribe, who then lived in small bands along the waterfront from Beacon Hill to Cadboro Bay and Cordova Bay. The tribe also had a central camp site on Mud Bay in Victoria Harbor, where now stands the Empress Hotel and the Union Club.”

“I forget how long it took to build the fort and the other structures, but Douglas went away for a while. I am not sure whether it was at his first visit that he arranged for the withdrawal of the Songhees to the other side of Victoria Harbor, but I think not. At the time I was resident at Brentwood with the Saanich Indians. I do well remember hearing that Douglas called a meeting of the four sub-chiefs of the Songhees, heads of the groups living at Clover Point, at Cadboro Bay, at Cordova Bay and at Mud Bay. I remember the sense of wealth shared by the Mud Bay group when, after they had agreed to abandon Mud Bay and remove to the old Songhees reserve on the Inner Harbor, Douglas gave the sub-chief a bale of fifty blankets for distribution among the families of the group. He also gave the other groups presents for waiving their rights of assembly at Mud Bay.

A few years later, when the gold rush was on, practically all the colonies of Songhees removed to the Inner Harbor reserve, to share in the wealth to be earned by transporting the miners and their supplies to the Fraser River fields.”

(Source: Chief David Latasse in the Victoria Daily Times, 1934)

Sample treaty negotiated by James Douglas:

Swengwhung Tribe – Victoria Peninsula, South of Colquitz

Know all men, we the chiefs and people of the family of Swengwhung, who have singed our names and made our marks to this deed on the thirtieth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and fifty, do consent to surrender, entirely and for ever, to James Douglas, the agent of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Vancouver Island, that is to say, for the Governor, Deputy Governor, and Committee of the same, the whole of the lands situate and lying between the Island of the Dead, in the Arm or Inlet of Camosun, where the Kosampson lands terminate, extending east to the Fountain Ridge, and following it to its termination on the Straits of De Fuca, in the Bay immediately east of Clover Point, including all the country between that line and the Inlet of Camosun.

The condition of or understanding of this sale is this, that our village sites and enclosed fields are to be kept for our own use, for the use of our children, and for those who may follow after us; and the land shall be properly surveyed hereafter. It is understood, however, that the land itself, with these small exceptions, becomes the entire property of the white people for ever; it is also understood that we are at liberty to hunt over the unoccupied lands, and to carry on our fisheries as formerly.

We have received, as payment, Seventy-five pounds sterling.

In token whereof, we have signed our names and made our marks, at Fort Victoria, on the thirtieth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and fifty.

(Signed) SNAW-NUCK his X mark,

and 29 others.

Done before us,

(Signed) ALFRED ROBSON BENSON, M.R.C.S.L.

JOSEPH WILLIAM McKAY.

From Papers Connected with the Indian Land Question, 1850-1875 (Victoria: Richard Wolfenden, 1875), 6.

James Douglas describes purchasing land:

“summoned to a conference, the chiefs and influential men of the Songhees Tribe, which inhabits and claims the District of Victoria, from Gordon Head on Arro [Haro] Strait to Point Albert on the Strait of [Juan] De Fuca as their own particular heritage. After considerable discussion it was arranged that the whole of their lands… should be sold to the Company, with the exception of Village sites and enclosed fields, for a certain remuneration, to be paid at once to each member of the Tribe.”

Douglas then

“informed the natives that they would not be disturbed in the possession of their Village sites and enclosed fields… and that they were at liberty to hunt over the unoccupied lands, and to carry on their fisheries with the same freedom as when they were the sole occupants of the country.”

(Source: James Douglas May 1852 in Keddie, Songhees Pictorial, 48-49)

Purchasing land for a sawmill company:

James Douglas to HBC, 18 March 1852

“The Steam Saw Mill Company having selected… the section of land marked on the accompanying map north of Mount Douglas, 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 claimants, the real owners of the land in question… I thought it advisable to purchase the whole of the Sanitch Country, as a measure that would save much future trouble and expense.”

(Keddie, Songhees Pictorial, 49)

Negotiating the treaties: Did the two parties understand each other?

“It is clear that Douglas and the Native groups whose lands he assumed he had purchased faced linguistic and cultural problems of translation that must have made it virtually impossible for the one to understand the intentions of the other or to hold remotely equivalent views of what had transpired.”

(Source: Cole Harris, Making Native Space, 25)

“When Douglas set about his work, he had no written text. So he formalized the first nine transactions simply by attaching a paper with ‘X’s’ made by the chiefs to a blank sheet, intending to fill in the terms when he received them from Barclay. This may seem outrageous, but it is unlikely that prior possession of the written terms would have made the process any more intelligible. The Indians could not read English, nor could the HBC people speak or understand any of the Coast Salish and Wakashan languages.

The oral tradition of the Saanich people who signed two of Douglas’s sheets of paper is that, whatever may have been said or written a the time they believed that the document was a peace treaty. There had been trouble over logging and over the shooting of a young Indian lad, and when Douglas produced piles of blankets and asked them to put ‘X’s’ on a piece of paper, they thought they were being asked, under the sign of the Christian cross, to accept compensation for not making war. Whatever the different perceptions, it seems tolerably clear that the Saanich people could not have understood the significance of their actions in English law, although they were certainly aware that the newcomers wanted to stay and to share their land and resources.”

(Source: Hamar Foster, “Letting Go the Bone,” 41).

“I think it was at a time when our people were “barely” understanding English. You know, there was trade language that happened to be taking place – between our people and the white people, they talked Chinook.

And, some of our people knew it and some people didn’t.”

(Source: Saanich elder John Elliott Sr. in Knighton, “The Oral History of the 1852 Saanich Douglas Treaty.”)

“The arrangements entered into… respecting their claims… were made [by] the Home Government. During Governor Blanshard’s incumbency Mr Douglas was Land Agent for the Crown Lands of Vancouver Island. The then secretary for the colonies sent to Douglas… instructions as to how he should deal with the so called Indian Title… Douglas was very cautious in all his proceedings. The day before the meeting with the Indians. He sent for me and handed me the document [the legal wording of the treaties] telling me to study it carefully and to commit as much of it to memory as possible in order that I might check the Interpreter Thomas should he fail to explain properly to the Indians the substance of Mr Douglas’ address to them.”

(Source: Joseph MacKay in Keddie, Songhees Pictorial, 49. MacKay was a Hudson’s Bay Company trader, and a treaty witness.)

“The four Bundles of Blanket was merely for peace purposes… The Indians fully understood what was said As it was Interpreted by Mr McKay, who spoke the Saanich language very well… Mr McKay, … saying these blankets is not to buy your lands, but to shake hands… in good Harmoney and good tumtums (heart). When I got enough of your timber I shall leave the place… When James Douglas knew he had enough of our timber he left the place.”

(Source: Saanich chiefs and councilors to provincial government, 4 April 1932. In

Keddie, Songhees Pictorial, 49)

Not asked to give up their lands

“In the years around 1850 the Indians considered that there was lots of land and had no thought of or fear of extensive settlement by white men. The whites were welcomed, they provided a fine market for the large amount of fur which the tribesmen annually collected. The trade goods the whites gave in return for the furs were highly regarded. The whites at that time also had no idea of asking the Indians to give up their lands. Areas proposed to be used by whites were limited and the gifts of blankets and trade goods were nominal annual dues…”

(Source: Chief David Latasse in the Victoria Daily Times, 1934)

Was it an authentic treaty?

“I say truly that I have no knowledge of payments of money, as mentioned in papers supposed to have been signed by Chief Hotutston and Whutsaymullet and their sub-chiefs. I know of no act of signing such papers and believe that no such signatures were in fact made by those tribesmen. There was no payment in goods, instead of money. If there had been, custom would have required immediate public distribution of the trade goods to the tribesmen and the women folk. Then all members of each sub-tribe would have known of the payment and the reason why it had been made by the white men.”

(Source: Chief David Latasse in the Victoria Daily Times, 1934)

What was the purpose of the treaties: Peace agreement, land rental, or land purchase?

Avoiding war:

“There [were] two instances. One of them was, that there was a messenger, a Saanich runner, sent with a message and he was running, and James Douglas’ man shot that boy, fourteen years old.

And the other instance was that there was some trees taken off Cordova Bay, and I was told that these trees were especially suitable for masts – sailboat masts. And the people on the inside of the bay, that’s in Brentwood Bay, now known as Brentwood Bay, they decided to stop them.

So they had several, several canoes and several men left there in a battle dress. They were going to then – they were going to do what they had to do to stop Douglas’ men from taking those trees. They did arrive there and they sat – the canoes were facing the shore, and they called for someone that would come down who was able to communicate. Whatever was said, I never heard all of that, only that Douglas’ men packed up and left.”

(Gabriel Bartleman in Janice Knighton, “The Oral History of the 1852 Saanich Douglas Treaty.”)

“They [James Douglas’ people] wanted to make peace with the Saanich people. And so, that was the understanding that our people had; that it was a gathering to talk about peace, because we had been quite a threat to them.

And because of that young boy, Saanich boy. And because of the ones that they were taking away, there was tall trees there, tall, tall trees for mast poles. I guess they were shipping them away for sailing those days, their sail boats from England. They were shipping them away, and so that’s how our people came to this gathering where they were making “X’s” on the paper.”

(John Elliott Sr. in Janice Knighton, “The Oral History of the 1852 Saanich Douglas Treaty.”)

“There was some blankets and I believe some metal it was called – the money was called metal then, and to make a cross on a piece of paper, on a blank piece of paper, native people thought this was the sign of the [Christian] cross, and his good feelings. So they pardoned him for that, they wanted to forget that. That’s what I understood.

Douglas’ word was before that, but what they were thinking then was that it was a peace offering for the damage that he had done.”

(Gabriel Bartleman in Janice Knighton, “The Oral History of the 1852 Saanich Douglas Treaty.”)

A rental agreement

“More than eighty years ago I saw James Douglas, at the place now called Beacon Hill, stand before the assembled chiefs of the Saanich Indians with uplifted hand… I heard him give his personal word that, if we agreed to let the white man use parts of our land to grow food, all would be to the satisfaction of the Indian peoples. Blankets and trade were to be paid. We, knowing a crop grows each year, looked for gifts each year, what is now called rent. Our chiefs then sold no part of Saanich.”

(Chief David Latasse interviewed by Frank Pagett, “105 Years in Victoria and Saanich!” Victoria Daily Times, 4 July 1934, Magazine Section, p. 1 and 8)

“It is in this matter that the Indians claim they have been unjustly treated. When Douglas met with Chief Hotutston in 1852, and discussed with him and his sub-chiefs the allotment of lands to the Hudson’s Bay Company, it was arranged that lands not needed by the natives might be occupied by the whites. The Indians were to have reserved to their use some choice camping sites, were to have hunting rights everywhere and fishing privileges in all waters, with certain water areas exclusively reserved to the use of the tribes.

In return for the use of meadow lands and open prairie tracts of Saanich, the white people would pay to the tribal chieftains a fee in blankets and goods. That was understood by us all to be payable each year. It was so explained to us by Joseph MacKay, the interpreter for Governor Douglas. The governor himself solemnly assured us that all asked to be ratified would be entirely to the satisfaction of the Indians. He also stated that the only object of the writing was to assure the Hudson’s Bay Company peaceful and continued use of land tracts suitable for cultivation. That was accompanied by [a] gift of a few blankets. We all understood that similar gifts would be made each year, what is now called rent.”

(Source: Latasse, Victoria Daily Times, 1934)

Events leading up to the North Saanich Treaty – resource conflicts and murder

“There are many, many things that have brought us to where we are – broken promises, discrimination, legislation.

Just take the Saanich Peninsula, the Saanich Peninsula was the homeland of the Saanich People for who knows how long. When James Douglas moved himself and his people into Victoria Harbour he moved right in with the Songhees people, the LEQENEN. He made that the headquarters of the Hudson Bay Company. Then after some time they began to claim the land, they began to exploit the land.

One of the things they were doing was logging this beautiful stand of timber in the Cadboro Bay area. This timber was tall and slim going straight up, no limbs ‘til almost way up to the top, maybe sixty, seventy, eighty, one hundred feet up. A beautiful stand of timber in great demand for ships’ masts. This is why they were there. Of course you know all shipping those days was by sail.

(70)

This is why masts were in such demand. They were taking them away by the shipload for the purpose of using them for masts.

I don’t know how long they had been cutting this timber when our people became aware of it. Actually it wasn’t in our territory, it was the Songhees territory but the Songhees weren’t doing anything about it.

Our people got together and they said, “What are we going to do about these people falling those beautiful trees? Are we just going to sit here and just let them do it?” So they talked back and forth and said, “No, we can’t just let it go, we have to say something.” So they decided to do something about it.

At that time they always had fighting men, warriors ready to go out at any time. It was still part of the way of life, because we had to be on guard for the northern raiders. We had an army ready at all times.

They loaded up four big canoes with warriors, with their fighting equipment and battle dress, painted faces and they paddled around the Peninsula and right to where those people were working. When they reached the place, they went in and stood offshore and lined up side by side. There was somebody walking around there, close to the beach and they hailed him to come down.

This man came down and they said, “Tell your boss to take his men and his tools and go back to Victoria and cut no more trees.” This man took a look at these four canoes facing the beach, warriors, ready to fight, battle dress on and faces painted for war. He quickly hurried back up into the woods and told his boss to come down. When he took a look and saw what they were faced with, he told his men to gather up their tools and they went back to Victoria.

(71)

There was another incident besides that, that already made things not exactly in a state of peace. An Indian boy crossing Douglas’ property had been shot and killed. Douglas’ property was in the area of Mount Douglas. He had a farm there, and this boy was crossing through. For what reason they shot the boy, I don’t know.

We weren’t in a state of war, but almost. After these loggers left Cadboro Bay and went back to Victoria, our people just turned around and came home. That’s the way things stood when they got the message, or invitation to come into Victoria. Douglas invited all the head people into Victoria.

When they got there, all these piles of blankets plus other goods were on the ground. They told them these bundles of blankets 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 the 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 these crosses on these papers. One after another, they were 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

(72)

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 wanted to keep the peace.”

They were after all almost in a state of war, a boy had been shot. 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 that paper.

I think if you take a look at the document yourself, you will find out, you can judge for yourself. Look at the X’s yourself and you’ll see they’re all alike, probably written by the same hand. They actually didn’t know those were their names and many of those names are not even accurate. They are not even known to Saanich People. Our people were

(73)

hardly able to talk English at that time and who could understand out language?

(Source: Dave Elliott, Saltwater People, 69-73)

Conflict over logging and compensation

“For some time after the whites commenced building their settlement they ferried their supplies ashore. Then they desired to build a dock, where ships could be tied up close to shore. Explorers found suitable timbers could be obtained at Cordova Bay, and a gang of whites, Frenchmen and Kanakas [Hawaiians] were sent there to cut piles. The first thing they did was set a fire which nearly got out of hand, making such smoke as to attract attention of the Indians for forty miles around.

Chief Hotutstun of Salt Spring sent messengers to chief Whutsaymullet of the Saanich tribes, telling him that the white men were destroying his heritage and would frighten away fur and game animals. They met and jointly manned two big canoes and came down the coast to see what damage was being done and to demand pay from Douglas. Hututstun was interested by the prospect of sharing in any gifts made to Whutsaymullet but also, indirectly, as the Chief Paramount of all the Indians of Saanich.

… As the two canoes rounded the point and paddled into Cordova Bay they were seen by camp cooks of the logging party, who became panic stricken. Rushing into the woods they yelled the alarm of Indians on the warpath. Every Frenchman and Kanaka dropped his tool and took to his heels, fleeing through the woods to Victoria. As they ran they spread the cry that the Indians were on the warpath.

Douglas hastened to meet the two chieftains and found that the party, with scarcely a weapon other than a few fish spears, were camping in harmony with the white members of the logging detachment. All that was asked was pay for trees cut and damage wrought, which Douglas promptly agreed was right and proper. He ordered two bales of blankets brought from the fort and gave each chief one of them. There was no suggestion that the compensation was for anything other than the timber, no suggestion of title to any land was involved in that matter. That fact is important in view of claims made later, that other big talks for use of land, in which similar small payments of goods and trade were made to Indians to pay for title to land given by the Indian chieftains.”

(Source: Chief David Latasse in the Victoria Daily Times, 1934)

“The only Knowledge we Know was in regards to a dispute… at the time of James Douglas – that there was a settlement of that dispute (in regards to timber matter) that James Douglas gave four bundles of Blankets, one bundle to Tseycum, one bundle to Tsartlip, 2 bundles to Tseaut… It was not to sell land or surrender any Territory rights.”

(Source: Chief David Latasse of the Tsartlip Reserve to the provincial government, 4 April 1932. Keddie, Songhees Pictorial, 49)

Fair value?

“Today, why should the white people treat us so? We never fought them, yet they took away our property. This land is ours… Never, never did the Indians sign away title to their land just for a few blankets.”

(Source: Chief David Latasse in the Victoria Daily Times, 1934)

What were the terms, and what was agreed to?

“They took them up to that mountain up there,

The one where they call it Mount Douglas today,

It’s one of the highest mountains in that area. We call it P’kols.

And, pointed outward where our people could roam freely and not be bothered. And, I think that’s what he was pointing out. And my understanding is, is that was the first reserve. That’s my understanding of it. I could be wrong, but I think that’s what our people understood. That he was pointing out the borders of where we were free to roam and hunt, and fish.”

(John Elliott Sr. in Janice Knighton, “The Oral History of the 1852 Saanich Douglas Treaty.”)

Fenced fields and treaty promises

The James Douglas Treaty was not the most honest treaty and they did not even live up to their own document. We were to keep our “enclosed fields and village sites”. The old people used to tell me that our real boundary went up to that long smoke stack in Brentwood Bay. We had a fence over Willis Point from there. That land was fenced. The fence is probably still there, at least parts of it are probably still there. I hunted along that fence many times.

The reason that point was fenced off was because Willis Point had beautiful springs in there all year round and when people used to go away fishing in the summer they would drive the horses and cattle up to the mouth of Tod Inlet and swim the animals across. The land was fences, and once the animals were inside that fence, they only needed the one fence from east to west right over the point. It’s not that many years ago.

Willis Point was where we used to keep our stock while we were away fishing. The animals could look after themselves, there was plenty of feed there and lots of water, and that’s why that place was fenced.

We knew it was our land, we never had any other thought but that it was our land. We used to go out into the islands that were in our territory and fish for sockeye, humpbacks and spring salmon. Our livestock could take care of themselves on Willis Point.

Well like so many things the way of life became gradually changed. We lost the land somehow.

One after the other – land, fishing rights, hunting rights were legislated away. Our fishing grounds in the San Juan Islands were lost to the State of Washington when the International Boundary was set up.

The treaty with James Douglas said we could hunt and fish as formerly. We can’t. It doesn’t live up to its promises.”

(Source: Dave Elliott, Saltwater People, 73)

The impact of settlers pre-empting land

“So it stayed that way, the people, you know, they hunted and fish, all, like in the winter time, all the way into wherever there was, they used to cure the hunt wherever they went. They hunted grouse or deer, wherever they walked, they carry guns with them and hunt, cause they had guns by then. So that’s the way it was.

Until, the people, this is getting into another subject, they thought the Indian

people had too much land. They had too much land and they wanted this, this area here because it was fertile soil for farming. And, so from there on, they, I understand that that’s where they went.

After Douglas went, they made this pre-emption agreement. Some kind of pre

emption law. It wasn’t even an agreement it was law, they said that they could take our lands away from us, and that’s when, I think, things went wrong for the Saanich People because they took the lands away that Douglas said we could have [retain] – from when he pointed from the different points of land from the top of that mountain.

That’s when the lands were taken away, because we were able to go between our

villages and hunt and camp. And the people from Tsawout, or East Saanich, on the east side of the peninsula they would walk over here – and we would walk over there.

When sometimes they would camp over there beside the creek that’s half ways, or

part ways between Tsawout and here, and they would stay and pick berries and camp, and eat trout. They’d camp along the creek or they’d camp up near the swamp area there and pick berries and get ducks for feathers and what not, and nobody bothered them – until that pre-emption thing came out.”

[Source: John Elliott Sr., a member of the Tsartlip Indian Band, was interviewed by Janice Rose Knighton, for her project “The Oral History of the 1852 Saanich Douglas Treaty: A Treaty for Peace” (Community Government Project Report, MA in Indigenous Studies, University of Victoria, 2004).]