The Critical Period of British Columbia History, 1866-1871

Abstract

boundary by the Oregon Treaty of 1846. They were Vancouver Island and British Columbia. Vancouver Island, which dates from the year of the great California gold rush, was a child of the Hudson's Bay Company, merely an adjunct to the fur trading monopoly. Terms of settlement so severe as to discourage immigration were laid down by the Hudson's Bay Company.! The one independent settler, Captain W. Colquohoun Grant, was for a time employed by the company as surveyor. A royal governor, Richard Blanshard, whoserule lasted from March, 1850, to September, i851, was a pathetic figure, a governor without a colony. The real ruler was Chief Factor James Douglas of the Hudson's Bay Company, who after the departure of Blanshard became the de jure as well as de facto governor. He ruled by means of an appointed council chiefly made up of officers and ex-officers of the company. In 1856 a legislative assembly was set up but it had little power. At least five of the seven members had been or actually were in the company's employ. The gold rush to Fraser River in the spring of 1858 led to the establishment of a new colony on the mainland. This was British Columbia, so named by Her Majesty Queen Victoria. James Douglas became governor of the new gold colony but was forced by Downing Street to relinquish all connection with