est... eee

pe SA

ie

T Omgse CI BETTE: “re,

SS

f the old Cariboo Road

A drawing o

dist
ant cit;
ms ities
“toes the *S around the world. The trickle of prospectors
by Order had become a flood of gold seekers pouring
and land.
: t . 5 “7 a
Ne duet harbor at Victoria woke to a feverish life as

0

April : followed another after the Commodore docked on

: es and still more miners streamed ashore to pitch
a ae °r build their rough shelters in the fields. Few
the Cul Ager than to buy supplies and then push on across
hi Crate Corgia by steamboat, rowboat or canoe, what-
0 Port py °Y Could get to take them up -the Fraser River
ibped ce and Fort Yale where the sand bars were being
Ang fast nd other cities were springing up along the banks.
pived Be ey streamed out in the first hectic months others
tt Vict take their place in the city burgeoning around
jul re “a, among them the craftsmen and mechanics who
i fee “a8 to build a city when the gold rush had spent
and, Not and a few who would seize the resources of a virgin

tor themed but coal and timber, to build private fortunes
Mselyes. ) 5

rs. atch;
‘tough sting the seemingly endless flood of men pour

Oh Ro ee
WO decay Victoria, Douglas was apprehensive. Less than
fen pa ses ca

u Sw ; : ’ te
he, eg, Pt into Oregon in what Hunt’s Merchants’ Maga
tec pe iNe the glosens of Manifest Destiny in 1846, had
ho e ee the irresistible progress of our people.” At the
“ttitory Mited States flag had flown unchallenged over 4
Piny, j, ablored and claimed by the Hudson’s Bay Com

fu 2
Mtther 4S New flood he saw the emergent threat of a

nu
sd es acted promptly. ‘As governor of Vancouver

hieg £ ad no authority over the adjoining mainland, but
Nete “ctor of the Hudson’s Bay Company his powers
Rings, Te he could make them, He levied two imposts, 4
*targ ve “ense and a head tax to the company, and stationed

“els at the mouth of the Fraser River to collect them.

t Ut
nat 4 Douglas had good reason to fear the miners, one
ee ea his equation of democracy with American
ters» 22d his contempt for what he termed “the lower

ne Ne Se Were not the land-hungry settlers of Oregon seek-
tt
nt C lifore Men who had followed gold rushes to Australia
UL Cal ama, and gold was the magnet that drew them to
®donia, And though they came by way of the
ce os they were of many nationalities owing scant
ta ‘ting ths any flag. They were also men accustomed to
er and Sir rights, to setting up their own rough democ-
&stablishing their own order. Inevitably the dem-

tlier, in the years 1839-46, another flood of '

Totleg in the wilderness. They were for the most

ocratic leanings of those who remained behind when the gold
rush subsided must come into conflict with an autocratic

colonial rule.

The 1837 Rebellion in the Canadas was. only a generation:

past and its influence was still strong among Canadians ae
took part in the gold rush. The Eureka Stockade, Fora
struggle of the Australian miners on the Ballarat go S s
against undemocratic government, had taken place only four
years earlier. That these events entered into the consideration
of Douglas and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, British secretary
of state for the colonies, is apparent from their eprespgae
both before and after Douglas’ appointment as governor 0
the new colony of British Columbia in 1858.
Reporting on the gold miners, Douglas was constrained
to observe: “They are represented as being with some eX
ceptions, a specimen of .the worst of the population of
San Francisco; the very dregs, in fact, of society. Their conduct
here would have led me to form a very different conclusion.
But his fears were not assuaged, “If the country be
thrown. open to indiscriminate immigration the interests of
the Empire may suffer from the introduction of a foreign
population, whose sympathies may be entirely anti-British,’
he wrote to Lytton. He asked for a small naval or mili-
tary force to be placed at his governments disposal “to en-
able us to maintain peace, and to enforce obedience to the
”
oN Tatas answer was to instruct British naval vessels at
Vancouver. Island to give Douglas full support if the civil
government should require a force to maintain order among.
the adventurers resorting to the gold fields. He also pre-
pared to send detachments of the Royal Engineers to British
Columbia, representing this to the British House of Com-
mons as “an immediate measure to secure this promising and
noble territory from becoming the scene of turbulent dis-
”
i fear of “disorder” was reflected in Douglas’ reaction
to the incident that became known. as Ned McGowan’s War.
In a Christmas Day brawl at Fort Yale in 1850 a white miner
assaulted a Negro. The Yale magistrate issued a warrant for
the arrest of the white miner, but the magistrate at Hill’s
Bar down river ordered the Negro arrested instead. An
officer of the -Hill’s Bar magistrate seeking to. arrest the
Negro was jailed by the Yale magistrate. Then Ned McGowan,
a, former judge from California whose name was on the lists

-of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee, stepped into the

squabble with a posse of miners, arrested the Yale magistrate
and fined him $50 for “contempt of court.”

When exaggerated reports of the incident reached the
government, Col. R, C. Moody of the Royal Engineers steam-
ed up river in a sternwheeler armed with a cannon and
carrying a force of 25 Royal Engineers and 100 marines and
sailors to put down the “insurrection.” But Yale was quiet
and the miners received the expedition with cheers. The “in-
surrection” ended with McGowan paying a fine and publicly
apologizing to Moody before the miners.

Throughout Lytton’s instructions to Douglas, however,
runs the consciousness that the miners and the future settlers
among them should be given no just cause for grievance.

Lytton tells Douglas that the Royal Engineers are being
“sent for scientific and practical purposes, and not solely
for military objects.” He urges him to, “secure the confidence
and good will of the immigrants” and suggests that he form
an advisory council of “men whom. if an elective council
were ultimately established in the colony, the immigrants
would be likely to elect...” And he reminds him of the
Eureka Stockade in this letter dated October 14, 1858, com-
menting on his miner’s license of 21 shilling a month:

“That such an arrangement may on the whole be

most congenial to the disposition of the California

miners whom you may have to consider; but it was

the system of enforcing, from time to time, the license

fee which created in the colony of Victoria so much!

dissatisfaction, and ultimately led to the Ballarat riot,

and to the adoption of new rules. The Victorian sys-
tem was in the main the same as that which you have
adopted. It exacted a fee of £1 from each miner

per month, and, as Sir Charles Hotham, says in a

despatch, 21st November, 1855, to Sir William Moles-

worth, ‘the great and primary cause of complaint
which I found was undoubtedly the license fee.’”
It was advice that Douglas, by his refusal to concede re-
sponsible government, essentially ignored and in so doing set
the course of a bitter eight-year struggle.

(NEXT WEEK:
THE FIGHT FOR RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT)

Top picture is of Major
General R. C. Moody, who
came to B.C. as a colonel of
the Rogal Engineers and sery-
ed under Governor Douglas
as lieutenant-governor. At
centre is the Cariboo Road
built by the Royal Engineers,
one of the great road-build-
ing achievements of Canadian
history. Bottom picture shows
a century-old pear _ tree
brought around Cape Horn
and planted at Fort Langley.

April 11, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 9