Colonial land, Indian labour and company capital the economy of Vancouver Island, 1849-1858
Date
1984
Authors
Mackie, Richard
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Abstract
The subject of this thesis is the economic development of colonial Vancouver Island from its creation in 1849 to the Fraser River gold rush in 1858. Though this period witnessed the important beginnings of non-Indian settlement in British Columbia, its economic and settlement history have never been systematically studied. In the thesis introduction, the notion is challenged that the economic and social development of the colony was hindered, if not entirely prevented, by the monopolistic policies of the Hudson's Bay Company. Issue is taken with the unsubstantiated or traditional notions that the Company's overriding concern was with trading animal furs from the Indians, and that the Company prevented private traders from securing access to the island's Indian and colonial markets. The thesis also questions the traditional position that the Company--instead of colonizing the island--succeeded only in locating a handful of retired fur traders haphazardly around the wooden pickets of Fort Victoria. It is suggested that such misleading generalizations as these are largely the result of an entrenched but compelling anti-Company popular and intellectual bias. It is suggested that such generalizations ignore the very real economic developments of the early colonial years, which are the subject of the systematic and detailed analysis of the first three chapters. Far from being exclusively a fur trading concern, it is argued that Company capital and trading expertise permitted the production of such articles as salmon, potatoes, agricultural products, ice, shingles, lumber, cranberries, coal and salt. Such articles were intended both for colonial consumption and for export to major markets at Honolulu, London and San Francisco. The Company's fur trade employees and the Company's indentured labourers hired in Britain became the island's first colonists. These same colonists formed joint stock companies based at the colonial and fur trade capital, Fort Victoria. These same pioneers made their commitment to the economic and social development of the colony permanent by buying land in and around Victoria. The "fur trade" epithet is therefore a wholly inadequate and misleading description of the process of economic and social change on Vancouver Island prior to 1858. It is proposed that the three main ingredients of the Company's successful colonization of the island were colonial land, Indian labour and Company capital. First, influenced by the colonial settlement and economic theories of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the Company offered land for sale of three different varieties, and at three different prices, which were intended to attract the different classes of colonial settlers. Second, Vancouver Island's large Indian population was transformed from a source primarily of trade into an abundant and inexpensive pool of labour. Third, it is proposed that the Company's large reserves of capital enabled it to effectively colonize the island and develop its natural resources. Finally, Victoria-based settlement resulted in the emergence there of a powerful group of bureaucrats and businessmen, with roots in the Hudson's Bay Company, later known accurately but pejoratively as the family-company-compact. It is suggested that this powerful group of l and-owning, business oriented colonists gave the isl and the social, political and economic leadership necessary to withstand the impact of the gold rush. The overall conclusion is that the exploitation and development of natural resources was of immediate and profound importance in both the Indian and colonial cultures of nineteenth century British Columbia.