Keeping British Columbia British: The Law-and-Order Question on a Gold Mining Frontier

Abstract

THE GOLD RUSH was a great nineteenth-century phenomenon, and in the case of Califormia, British Columbia, Australia, and New Zealand, the lure of gold attracted a type of population anxious for easy profit. Not surprisingly, therefore, the question of law and order teetered precariously in the balance in each of these places. Each rush found Americans in the gold fields, and these persons influenced to varying degrees, and sometimes adversely, the developments of progress and especially law and order on the frontier. In British Columbia, as in other parts of the British Empire, a high degree of law and order was maintained, and this in marked contrast to the American record in California. Where law was strictly upheld, there it was respected. Among the documents in the Huntington Library relating to British Columbia are several interpretations of the Fraser River gold rush of 1858. What makes these letters especially noteworthy is that they are among the very few extant reports by Californians who either were considering going to the mines or were actually in the gold fields. Hitherto unused, they provide us with an indication of what American citizens either expected to find or found in British Columbia; they go far in showing that the fear of lawlessness was not held by British citizens and officials alone, and that prospective American miners similarly feared the breakdown of law and order. They also show that some Americans on their way to the gold fields were anxious to violate English law if they could and to twist the Lion's tail when the opportunity arose. One Californian, James T. Jones of San Francisco, wrote a series of letters in 1858 to his mother, who lived in the eastern United States. As far as is known, Jones never got to Fraser River. He knew well, however, that the effect of the new rush on California would be great indeed. The new humbug mines in the British possessions are taking many from this state, he wrote from San Francisco on June 5. If a Ten thousand dollar lump is taken from our old California Mines, it creates no excitement, but if a letter from John Brown is received from some new place, a thousand miles off, saying there is color of gold, everyone is crazy to go. -there is not one word of reliable information so far from Frazer's River, and no gold. Newspapers here are not to be believed.'