Bc , the Gold Rush, and the Natives - PowerPoint Presentation

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Bc, the Gold Rush, and the Natives

SS10Slide2

The Gold Rush Begins

Before 1858, British Columbia’s population

white

population was tiny; only about 800 living on

Vancouver Island

and just around

100

living on the

mainland

But around then,

gold

was discovered in the banks of the

Thompson

River, a branch of the

Fraser

River

This news reached

California,

where many American

prospectors

decided to move north to try and become rich

Over the next year, the mainland population of British Columbia

skyrocketed

by over 10,000, mostly consisting of

Americans

trying to find gold on the Fraser RiverSlide3

Fantasy Versus Reality

The gold rush was based on the

fantasy

that anyone could get

rich

quick

People believed that you could simply walk along rivers and find huge

gold nuggets

just lying in wait on the

riverbanks

In reality, the process was much more

difficult;

a

prospector

had to

stake a claim

along a river, dig a

mineshaft

through thick

bedrock

to potentially reach gold

Many miners

died

on their journeys, most never returned to their

homes,

and the vast majority of them did not become

wealthy

Most prospectors ended up working as

labourers

and

miners

for people who staked the first claimsSlide4

Boom and Bust

To serve the rapidly

increasing

population of British Columbia, many new

boomtowns

would be formed near mining areas

The most famous of these was

Barkerville

in central British Columbia, founded by named after a prospector who had struck

gold

in the area

It was initially just a small town with a few cabins and tents, but soon had a population of about

5000

For a time, it was a largest city north of

San Francisco

and west of

Chicago

However, as soon as the gold rush began to fade, its population quickly

fell,

and it was a

ghost town

by the 1900s

These kinds of cities that quickly faded away were common in gold rush regionsSlide5
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The Mainland Joins the EMpire

Because many

miners

ended up staying in British Columbia, the area now had a large

American

population

James Douglas,

governor of Vancouver Island, was worried that this could lead to America

annexing the regionHe reached out to the British, who responded by turning the region into the

Colony of British Columbia, an official crown colony

They also sent

soldiers

under the command of

Richard Moody

to help build roads and

survey

the regionSlide7
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The Natives of British Columbia

Before to the gold rush, BC’s

first nations

were the

largest

group of people in the region

They often held an

advantageous

position; they would

trade

with prospectors and acted as

guides

for people travelling to the

goldfields

But in the 1860s, BC built a

road

from

Barkerville

to

Yale

to make sure that gold would leave the region by the Fraser River

This

removed

the need for natives to act as guides for people travelling north to mines

Furthermore, many American and European miners would disturb their

salmon weirs,

disrupting the salmon harvest for nativesSlide9

A modern Salmon WeirSlide10

Death Comes to Call

In 1862, a

smallpox

epidemic struck

Victoria.

While everyone was affected, it was

worst

for BC’s

First Nations

Why do you think a disease like smallpox would be especially harsh for First Nations?

Because they had not been

exposed

to it before, smallpox was almost always

fatal

for BC’s natives

In response, authorities

destroyed

the homes of Natives living near Victoria and forced them to

leave

the area

They then would travel further north,

infecting

other Native peoples, causing entire

villages

to die away

Vancouver Island had an estimated population of about 60,000 natives prior to the

outbreak,

and over

half

of them diedSlide11

The Epidemic

The epidemic was made even worse by European

traders,

who would

steal

blankets and other goods from

dead

Natives and sell these to other Native communities

This caused smallpox to spread to BC’s

mainland,

where it continued to affect the natives living there

This caused even more deaths; even more Natives died of the

disease

on the mainland than on Vancouver Island

This drove some natives to

rebellion;

in 1864, a group of

Chilcotin

smallpox survivors

attacked railway workers, killing fourteen of them

Five

Chilcotin

were arrested and

executed

for their role in the attack