The First Nations of British Columbia witnessed the arrival of many immigrants from the Pacific Rim during the last half of the 19th century, with almost 11% of the population claiming Asian ancestry in the 1901 census. Earlier, during the Fraser River Gold Rush of 1858, there were more Chinese settlers than British settlers living in the Lower Fraser Valley. Hence, the First Nations people who lived in the area interacted with Chinese immigrants from the 1860s through the 1880s.
The southwestern corner of British Columbia was long inhabited by Coast Salish people, who are known by nearly two dozen tribal names. Together they are today called “Stó:lõ,” or “River People.”
The first people to arrive from the east were Hawaiians who first came to North America’s Pacific Coast in the late 18th century. They came with traders who stopped at the Hawaiian Islands on voyages to China. Hawaiians became crew members on traders’ ships. Between 1829 and 1850, the Hudson’s Bay Company kept an agent in Honolulu to recruit local men. By 1812, approximately 40 Hawaiians lived at the mouth of the Columbia River. Hawaiians largely worked at sawing wood and clearing land for farming. Early on some of these men married Aboriginal women.
More than 30,000 men from around the world poured into the Lower Fraser Canyon in the summer of 1858 in search of gold. Many of them were Chinese. By 1861, more than 2000 Chinese miners were working the gold bars in the Lower Fraser. There were so many Chinese in the Fraser Valley that one newspaper reporter at Yale commented that he had nothing to report because he could not speak Chinese.
Complex Relationships
As some Stó:lõ people accepted some of the newcomers, others united with them in marriage. The First Nations and Chinese understood one another by speaking. The two groups spoke a mixture of Cantonese, Aboriginal and a hybrid language called Chinook. This shared language made the possibility of marriages between Stó:lõ and Chinese easier.
The two peoples interacted in other ways. Stó:lõ frequented stores and businesses operated by Chinese families, providing the basis of understanding between the groups. Stó:lõ hunters knew enough of the needs of local Chinese doctors to sell the claws and gall bladders of the bears they killed. At times, as well, some Stó:lõ might visit Chinese doctors to cure illness.
Relations between First Nations and Japanese were more problematic. The two peoples competed in the fishery. In 1902, a First Nations representative complained to a royal commission that the Japanese were controlling the fishery, preventing his people from getting work and earning money, and they could not get food because of it.
These different experiences show that the Stó:lõ had complex relationships with immigrants from the Pacific. Since the establishment of Fort Langley in 1827, people from South and Southeastern Asia and Hawaii have played an important part in how Stó:lõ people understood themselves and all other newcomers. The Stó:lõ who arranged the first marriages with the men at the first Fort Langley did not differentiate between Hawaiians, Canadians and British. These categories were alien to Coast Salish society. In time, however, the Stó:lõ became aware from the Europeans at the fort that the Chinese were of a lower social status there. As a result, they preferred marriages with the British and Canadian employees who could best satisfy their family’s status.
As Stó:lõ women married Chinese men, disputes arose within Stó:lõ communities as to who was an accepted member of a family, especially as reserve lands became smaller and access to resources more difficult.
Economic competition in the fisheries between Stó:lõ men and Japanese men, and between Stó:lõ women and Chinese men, heightened tensions in the early 20th century. Stó:lõ leaders challenged the dominance of Japanese fishermen in the province’s economy, not because of racist feelings, but out of frustration with what they saw as an abandonment by the provincial and federal governments of their relationship with Stó:lõ people.
In conclusion, in the early days the First Nations did not see the newcomers from Asia in racial terms, as Europeans and Americans did. They categorized newcomers based more on familiarity than physical differences. They incorporated newcomers into their existing categories, which were well established but also flexible enough to accommodate new situations.
Learn more: Coast Salish