A Life Revisited

There have been three distinct campaigns for Aboriginal rights and title in British Columbia. The first began when the fur trade era gave way to the settlement frontier in the 1850s and ’60s. Characterized by appeals to Indigenous law as well as to morality and Scripture, it was confined primarily to delegations sent by individual communities to seek redress from the colonial and, after 1871, provincial authorities. Its main and relatively ineffectual allies were the Aborigines’ Protection Society, in England, and a few missionaries who had come to the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia.

The second campaign began early in the twentieth century and was prompted by the increasing pressure being brought to bear on Indigenous lands by the expanding frontier. It was different from the first campaign in three respects: “pan-Indian” organizations were formed to further the...