The history of British Columbia covers the period from the arrival of Paleo-Indians thousands of years ago to the present day. Prior to European colonization, the lands encompassing present-day British Columbia were inhabited for millennia by a number of First Nations.
Several European expeditions to the region were undertaken in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. After the Oregon boundary dispute between the UK and US government was resolved in 1846, the colonies of Vancouver Island and colony of British Columbia were established; the former in 1849 and the latter in 1858. The two colonies were merged to form a single colony in 1866, which later joined the Canadian Confederation on 20 July 1871.
An influential historian of British Columbia, Margaret Ormsby, presented a structural model of the province's history in British Columbia: A History (1958); that has been adopted by numerous historians and teachers. Chad Reimer says, "in many aspects, it still has not been surpassed". Ormsby posited a series of propositions that provided the dynamic to the history of the province: the ongoing pull between maritime and continental forces; the opposition between a "closed", hierarchical model of society represented by the Hudson's Bay Company and colonial officials, and the "open", egalitarian vision of English and Canadian settlers, and regional tensions between Vancouver Island and the mainland, metropolitan Vancouver and the hinterland interior.
Indigenous peoples
Human history in what has come to be known as British Columbia dates back thousands of years. Archaeology finds in British Columbia have been dated to as early as 13,543 years ago, with some exciting potential for underwater sites beginning to be detected.
The geography of the land influenced the cultural development of the peoples, and in places allowed for the cultural development of permanent villages, complex social institutions, and a huge range of languages. British Columbia (BC) is divided by anthropological theory into three cultural areas: the Northwest Coast, the Plateau, and the North. First Nations in each area developed customs and approaches to living that fit the resources in the region. Through much of British Columbia, salmon formed a substantial part of the diet where available. The term pre-contact is used to describe the period prior to contact between First Nations and European explorers. The exact time of contact varied according to circumstance but took place on the coast during the 1770s. In places in the Interior, it occurred later.
British Columbia, before the arrival of the Europeans, was home to many Indigenous peoples speaking more than 30 different languages, including Babine-Witsuwit'en, Danezaa (Beaver), Carrier, Chilcotin, Cree, Dene language, Gitxsan, Haida, Haisla, Halkomelem, Kaska, Kutenai, Kwak̓wala, Lillooet, Nisga'a, Nuu-chah-nulth, Nuxalk, SENCOTEN, Sekani, Shuswap, Sinixt, Squamish, Tagish, Tahltan, Thompson, Tlingit, Tsetsaut, and Tsimshian. There was frequent contact between bands, and voyages across the straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca were common.
The abundance of natural resources, such as salmon and cedar, enabled the development of a complex hierarchical society within coastal communities. With so much food being available, the peoples of the coastal regions could focus their time on other pursuits such as art, politics, and warfare.
Early European explorers The first European visitors to present-day British Columbia were Spanish sailors and other European sailors who sailed for the Spanish crown. There is some evidence that the Greek-born Juan de Fuca, who sailed for Spain and explored the West coast of North America in the 1590s, might have reached the passageway between Washington State and Vancouver Islandtoday known as the Strait of Juan de Fuca. (A later British explorer named Charles William Barkley named the passage after Juan de Fuca's reputed visit.)
Spanish expeditions
While there is a theory and some evidence that Francis Drake may have explored the British Columbia Coast in 1579, it is conventionally claimed that it was Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra who completed the first documented voyage, which took place in 1775. In doing so, Quadra reasserted the Spanish claim for the whole of the Pacific coast, first made by Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513, who declared the whole of the Pacific and its shores as part of the Spanish Empire. Quadra sailed over Sonora Reef, named after his boat, on Destruction Island in 1775. Some of his crew were murdered by the cannibal natives on the beach, and they attempted to board his ship until his remaining crew destroyed them with cannon fire. Quadra left the coast of Washington and sailed to Sitka, Alaska, but he did not make landfall or "discover" British Columbia.
In 1774, the Spanish navigator Juan José Pérez Hernández, a native of Mallorca, sailed from San Blas, Nueva Galicia (modern-day Nayarit), with instructions to reach 60° north latitude to discover possible Russian settlements and take possession of the lands for the Spanish Crown. Hernández reached 55° north latitude, becoming the first European to sight Haida Gwaii and Vancouver Island. He traded with the natives near Estevan Point, although apparently without landing. The expedition was forced to return to Nueva Galicia, due to the lack of provisions.
Since Pérez Hernández's first expedition failed to achieve its objective, the Spanish organized a second expedition in 1775 with the same goal. This expedition was commanded by Bruno de Heceta on board the Santiago, piloted by Pérez Hernández, and accompanied by Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra in La Sonora. After illnesses, storms, and other troubles had affected the expedition, de Heceta returned to Nueva Galicia, while Quadra kept on a northward course, ultimately reaching 59° North in what today is Sitka, Alaska. During this expedition, the Spanish made sure to land several times and formally claim the lands for the Spanish Crown, while verifying the absence of Russian settlements along the coast.
British exploration and the Nootka Crisis
Three years later, in 1778, the Royal Navy captain James Cook arrived in the region, searching for the Northwest Passage and landed at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island, where he and his crew traded with the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation. Upon trading his goods for sea otter pelts, his crew in turn traded them for an enormous profit in Macau on their way back to Britain. This led to an influx of traders to the British Columbian coast, and ongoing economic contact with the aboriginal peoples there. In 1788, John Meares, an English navigator and explorer, sailed from China and explored Nootka Sound and the neighbouring coasts. He bought some land from a local chief named Maquinna and built a trading post there.
Two years later, in 1789, the Spanish commander Esteban José Martínez, a native of Seville, established a settlement and started building a fort in Friendly Cove, Nootka Sound, which was named Fort San Miguel. This territory was already considered as part of New Spain by the Spanish due to the previous explorations of the region. Upon Martinez's arrival, a number of British ships were seized, including those of Captain Meares. This originated the Nootka Crisis, which almost led to a war between Britain and Spain. Some months later, Manuel Antonio Flórez, Viceroy of New Spain, ordered a Francisco de Eliza to rebuild the fort. The expedition, composed of three ships, the Concepción, under the command of De Eliza, the San Carlos, under the command of Salvador Fidalgo and the Princesa Real, under the command of Manuel Quimper, sailed in early 1790 from San Blas in Nueva Galicia and arrived at Nootka Sound in April of that year. The expedition had many Catalan volunteers from the First Free Company of Volunteers of Catalonia, commanded by Pere d'Alberní, a native of Tortosa. The expedition rebuilt the fort, which had been dismantled after Martínez abandoned it. The rebuilt fort included several defensive constructions as well as a vegetable garden to ensure the settlement had food supplies. The Catalan volunteers left the fort in 1792. The Nootka Crisis however ended very much in favour of the British after the Spanish capitulated to British terms. Spanish influence in the region ended in 1795 after the Nootka Convention came into force.Catalans al Canadà, page 7 , study from the Fundació d'Estudis Històrics de Catalunya
Later British expeditions (1790s–1821)
Subsequently, European explorer-merchants from the east started to discover British Columbia. Three figures dominate the early history of mainland British Columbia: Alexander Mackenzie, Simon Fraser, and David Thompson. As employees of the North West Company, the three were primarily concerned with discovering a practicable river route to the Pacific, specifically via the Columbia River, for the extension of the North American fur trade. In 1793, Mackenzie became the first European to reach the Pacific overland north of the Rio Grande. He and his crew entered the region through the Rocky Mountains via the Peace River, reaching the ocean at North Bentinck Arm, near present-day Bella Coola. Shortly thereafter, Mackenzie's companion, John Finlay, founded the first permanent European settlement in British Columbia, Fort St. John, located at the junction of the Beatton and Peace Rivers.
Simon Fraser was the next to try to find the course of the Columbia. During his expedition of 1805–09, Fraser and his crew, including John Stuart, explored much of the British Columbia interior, establishing several forts (Hudson's Hope, Trout Lake Fort, Fort George, Fort Fraser, and Fort St. James). Fraser's expedition took him down the river that now bears his name, to the site of present-day Vancouver. Although both Mackenzie and Fraser reached the Pacific, they found the routes they took impassable for trade. It was David Thompson who found the Columbia River and followed it down to its mouth in 1811. He was unable to establish a claim, however, for the American explorers Lewis and Clark had already claimed the territory for the United States of America six years earlier. The American Fur Company of John Jacob Astor had founded Fort Astoria just months before Thompson arrived, though within a year the local staff at Astoria sold the fort and others in the region to the North West Company, which renamed it, Fort George. Though "returned" to US hands as a result of treaty complications at the end of the War of 1812, this meant only there was a parallel US fort adjacent to the NWC one, which was the more prosperous of the two. Following the forced merger of the North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company in 1821, Fort Vancouver was established as the new regional headquarters.
From fur trade districts to colonies (1821–1858) The arrival of Europeans began to intensify in the mid-19th century, as fur traders entered the area to harvest sea otters. Although technically a part of British North America, British Columbia was largely run by the Hudson's Bay Company after its merger with the North West Company in 1821. The Central Interior of the region was organized into the New Caledonia District, a name that came to be generally attributed to the mainland as a whole. It was administered from Fort St. James, about northwest of present-day Prince George. The Interior south of the Thompson River and north of California was named by the company the Columbia District, and was administered first from Fort Vancouver (present-day Vancouver, Washington).