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SS10
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 River
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 claims
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 regions
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 region
He 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 region
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
natives
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 died
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