Chilcotin people

Traditional Tsilhqot'in baby cradle

The Tsilhqot'in (also Chilcotin, Tsilhqut'in, Tŝinlhqot’in, Chilkhodin, Tsilkótin, Tsilkotin) are a Northern Athabaskan First Nations people that live in British Columbia, Canada. They are the most southern of the Athabaskan-speaking aboriginal peoples in British Columbia.

The name Tsilhqot’in, also spelled Tŝinlhqot’in is the Chilcotin name for themselves "people of the red-ochre river" ("Chilko" meaning "red ochre river"). The name also refers to the Chilcotin region, the territory which they traditionally inhabited, and which still numerically dominate the Chilcotin Plateau. It consists of the inland lea of the coast ranges on the west side of the Fraser River. It is the name of the river draining that region. The Chilcotin district is mostly a wide, high plateau, stretching from the mountains to the Fraser, but also includes several fjord-like lakes which verge from the plateau into the base of the mountains, the largest of which is Chilko Lake. The Tsilhqot’in people live today in Alexandria, north of Williams Lake, British Columbia, and in a string of communities westward from Williams Lake on Highway 20. such as: Toosey Reserve, Nemiah Valley, Stone Reserve, Anaham Reserve, and Redstone Reserve. The access road was paved only in recent years.

History

Pre Contact

There was an extensive trade network, which included Salmon traded from the coast of BC to Cree territories in the East that the Chilcotin were involved in. Fish oil was also a commodity of interest.

European Trade

The Tsilhqot’in first encountered Europeans trading goods in the 1780s and 1790s when British and American ships first came to the northwest coast seeking sea otter pelts. By 1808, a fur-trading company out of Montreal called the North West Company had established posts in the Carrier (Dene) territory just north of the Tsilhqot’in and trade began face to face and through Carrier intermediaries. A fur trade fort established by what had become the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1821 at Fort Alexandria on the Fraser River, at the eastern limit of Tsilhqot’in territory, and which became their major source for European goods.

Smallpox

The isolated position of the Tsilhqot’in may have protected them from the first of the European smallpox epidemics which spread up from Mexico in the 1770s. Likewise, they may have been spared the smallpox epidemic of 1800 and the measles of the 1840s. Furniss in "The Burden of History" states that "there is no direct evidence that these smallpox epidemics reach the central interior of British Columbia or the Secwepemc, Carrier, or Tsilhqot'in." However, in the epidemic of 1836-38 the epidemic spread to Ootsa Lake, which killed an entire Carrier band. As stated evidence is lacking as to how it effected these groups.

Other Disease

The Burden of History goes on to explain the major diseases that struck periodically: Whooping cough 1845 Measles 1850 Small Pox 1855 (From infected blankets from the Thompson River area) Smallpox 1862-1863 (Reduced BC aboriginal population by 62% - completely whiped out six Secwepemc bands 850 people, 2/3rds of the Secwepemc population died, half of the 14 Fraser River Bands became extant.

Fur trade

Gold rush and European settlement

By the 1860s, miners panned along the Fraser, Quesnel, and Horesefly Rivers, and their tributaries. Various business operators and merchants followed the miners, and with them farmers and ranchers to provision the mining towns that built up around the merchants. This led to competition for resources between the Chilcotin and Europeans, leading to a stream of events known as the Chilcotin War.

The Reserves

Douglas supported a system of reserves and indoctrination to "civilized" practices such as subsistence agriculture up until his retirement in 1864. Joseph Trutch the chief commissioner of lands and works abandoned the reserve policy, and set Indian policy as them having no rights to the land. By 1866 BC colonial rule required natives to request permission fromthe Governor to use lands. Newspapers supported the preempting of native lands, seeing settlers ploughing native burial grounds. Natives who requested redress from a Justice of the Peace were refused leave.

Environmental Problems

In the 1870's the loss of hunting territories, and crashes of the Salmon runs placed more dependence on agricultural produce such as grains, hay, and vegetables. Activities migrated to cutting hay, constructing irrigation ditches, and animal husbandry. Settlers however assumed water rights making agriculture ever more fragile. Natives were huddled in on small acreages, such as with Canoe Creek, 20 acres for 150 natives. Starvation became a threat.

Canadian Government Set to Reallocate Land back to Natives

In contrast to the 160 to 640 acres per family set aside in other treaties at the time in the Praries, the Federal Government opted for 80 acres per native family to be set aside in reserve, while the provincial government was keen on 10 acres per family.

Catholic Missionaries, and the Residential Schools

Catholic Missionaries arrived to convert the Natives, and by 1891 the first group of students were sent to receive formal education. This education included, "humiliation, beatings, and physical punishment", perhaps what might be seen in non native schools of the time. The program continued for the next 6 decades up until the point natives were allowed into the public school system. 90 years after the start of the program the mission school closed circa 1981. Over the period Indian agents were empowered to remove children from homes to attend the mission school. This lead some to attempt to hide their children by sneaking out to hunting grounds or fields. Children fled the schools, and within the first 30 years 3 investigations on the physical abuse and malnutrition were conducted; however, the Natives were said to be "wild", deserving the treatment.

Disenfranchisement

Voting rights in Canadian Federal Elections were denied until 1960, and in Provincial Elections until 1949.

Communities

• Toosey [Tl’esqoxt’in]
• Stone [Yunesit’in]
• Anaham [Tl’etinqox]
• Redstone [Tsi Del Del]
• Nemiah Valley [Xeni Gwet'in]
• Ulkatcho at Anahim Lake (mixed Tsilhqot’in-Carrier community)

Aside from the aboriginal communities, there are only two small unincorporated towns in the whole region: Alexis Creek and Anahim Lake. Despite its small population and isolation, the region has produced a small but very readable literature mixing naturalism with native and settler cultures. The area is accessed by Highway 20, which runs from the port town of Bella Coola, at the head of a coastal fjord in the heart of the mountains, across the mountains and plateau to the city of Williams Lake, the principal town of the Cariboo District.

See also

• Chilcotin language
• Chilcotin War
• Carrier Chilcotin Tribal Council
• Tsilhqot'in Tribal Council

External links

• Tŝilhqot'in National Government
• Tsilhqot'in Nation
• Unjust Trial and Hanging of the Tsilhqot'in Warriors
• Tsilhqot’in Culture
• Tsilhqot’in Homeland by James Teit, 1909
• The Tsilhqot'in and Their Neighbours According to James Teit, 1909
• Tsîlhqot’in Food Supply According to James Teit, 1909
• Tsîlhqot’in Travel and Trade by James Teit, 1909
• Tsîlhqot’in Warfare by James Teit, 1909
• Tsilhqot'in National Government
• Tsilkotin Indian Tribe History
• Makuk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations, John Sutton Lutz, UBC Press, 2009, Chapter The Tshilqot'in, ISBN 0774811404, 9780774811408, pp. 119-162

Bibliography

• Nemiah: The Unconquered Country by Terry Glavin
• Chilcotin Cowboy by Paul St. Pierre
• Smith and Other Events by Paul St. Pierre
• Caruso of Lonesome Lake by Ralph Edwards
• Chiwid by Sage Birchwater
• The Chilcotin War by Mel Rothenburger
• High Slack: Waddington's Gold Road and the Bute Inlet Massacre of 1864 by Judith Williams