Indian Reserves
This page continues to be updated throughout 2026, the 150th year of Canada’s Indian Act.
Since the 1763 Royal Proclamation, in which King George III declared of North America:
“all Lands, not Purchased by Us,” would be “reserved to His Majesty’s Indian Allies, or any of them, as their hunting grounds,”
and the “Douglas Reserves” of the 1840s, 50s and 60s, which James Douglas – Governor of Vancouver Island and then British Columbia – described as,
“as much land in the vicinity of each as they could till, or was required for their support; that they might freely exercise and enjoy the rights of fishing the Lakes and Rivers, and of hunting over all unoccupied Crown Lands in the Colony”
there have been many changes made without the knowledge or consent of Indigenous Peoples, including colonial land legislation pertaining to pre-emption, mining, agricultural leases, and particularly the 1874 BC Lands Act – which the BC government attempted to renew in 2024 but abandoned the process a few weeks in.
The process of reserving Indigenous lands against newcomer settlement in the dozens of Indigenous Nations, now known as British Columbia, was originally very much under the control of the Indigenous Peoples themselves. The first interactions between the Imperial military court powers of the Hudson’s Bay Company and Indigenous deputies on the west coast were related to the killing of settlers for illegal trespass.
Over thirty years, a relentless combination of Imperial tactical invasions of Indigenous Nations turned that situation around, to the practice of the crown making tiny Indian Reserves in their own nations. The tactics, which involved gunboat terror and destruction towards oceanfront villages – and riverfront villages at the lower reaches of the Skeena and Fraser and Nass; imposition of British law – whenever the Hudson’s Bay Company had the power to enforce it – in trials by gunboat crew and public executions. This brought the Hudson’s Bay Company up on charges of crimes against humanity in 1857, in a British court, in London.
British Lords quickly let go of the reigns and found there was not enough evidence to confirm the charges when gold was discovered in the Fraser River, about the same time as the hearings, and the whole coast, and inland to the Rocky Mountains – was made the Colony of British Columbia in 1858.
By that time, there were only fourteen small treaties, made with Peoples who did not read English, around Fort Victoria, Nanaimo and Fort Rupert. Biological warfare ensued with the spread of smallpox throughout the lands most desired for settlement and exploitation, while members of the BC government were involved in land development and sales schemes that closely followed rates of Indigenous mortality at up to 90% of their populations.
Douglas was knighted in 1863, when huge areas were opened to settlement in BC by the destruction of the Peoples.
The Chilcoten War of 1864 followed that, being declared by the massacre of a road building party of settlers at Bute Inlet. This event coincided with the first ever “Governor’s Picnic,” announcing the retirement of James Douglas and his successor Frederick Seymour.
Many huge national boundaries, or “reserves” which had been agreed in solemn compact under Douglas’ term had been mapped, and even marked on bronze disks placed on mountaintops between nations, were ignored and the written evidence of them – including correspondence with Britain describing them – was “lost” or destroyed.
This period was followed by the arrival of more Missionaries who promised salvation and justice in the wake of the smallpox, and smothered responses to settler encroachment with promises of “British justice.”
When confederation with Canada was made in 1871, Douglas’ old promises – that Indigenous Nations’ self-described heartlands would be reserved against newcomer settlement or uninvited disturbance of any kind – were broken. Douglas himself testified to his approach, described above, in the Inquiry that was reported as “Papers Connected with the Indian Land Question, British Columbia, 1850-1875.”
Douglas Reserves
Governor Douglas sent out surveyors to map areas which would be reserved to the Indigenous as they instructed, and would be protected from colonial development. He wrote to his colonial overseers:
“I also explained to them [the Indians] that the Magistrates had instructions to stake out and reserve for their use and benefit, all their occupied village sites and cultivated fields, and as much land in the vicinity of each as they could till, or was required for their support; that they might freely exercise and enjoy the rights of fishing the Lakes and Rivers, and of hunting over all unoccupied Crown Lands in the Colony; and that on their becoming registered Free Miners, they might dig and search for Gold, and hold mining claims on the same terms precisely as other miners.”
(PABC, B.C., Colonial Despatches, 1860: Douglas to Newcastle, 9 October and 25 October 1860.)
Here is another excerpt from the PAPERS connected with the Indian Land Question, written by a Missionary:
“The existing Reserves are shown to be by the correspondence both irregular in quantity and misplaced as to locality by following tribal divisions, which is no doubt a mistake and fraught with bad consequences.
“My advice would be in the meantime simply to ignore them, as it certainly would not be wise to regard them as a precedent, and it would be impolitic to have two systems of Reserves in the Province, one tribal and the other national.”
- William Duncan, writing to the Attorney General G.A. Walkem, 6th July, 1875.
And here is another example from the Papers 1850-75:
“Report of a Committee of the Honorable the Privy Council, 21st March. 1873, relative to difficulties apprehended with Indians at Alberni”:
“The Deputy Superintendent states that the apprehended trouble appears to arise (as shown by correspondence, copies of which the Superintendent has furnished) in consequence of the sale of lands in that locality having been made by the Local Government to Messieurs Anderson & Company, and a contention on the part of two settlers who had attempted to pre-empt land at that place.
“That it would seem no reservation for the Indians had been made there, nor other satisfactory arrangements entered into with them, &c., &c., &c.”
This copy of the “British Columbia PAPERS connected with the Indian Land Question 1850-1875″ (file available for download above) was kept in the University of California, LA. It is 192 pages, 8.5″x11” or letter size. It includes charts describing Indian Reserves locations and acreages. It exposes a level of desperation on the part of individuals in the BC government which produces an incomprehensible approach to laying out Indian reserves – none of which are ever accepted by the Indigenous Peoples themselves. The correspondence back and forth, which makes up the bulk of this collection, reveals that officials were making decisions with no reference to law or policy whatsoever.
1871 BC confederation with Canada
Article 13 of the Terms of Union:\
The charge of the Indians, and the trusteeship and management of the lands reserved for their use and benefit, shall be assumed by the Dominion Government and a policy as liberal as that hitherto pursued by the British Columbia Government shall be continued by the Dominion Government after the Union.
To carry out such policy, tracts of land of such extent as it has hitherto been the practice of the British Columbia Government to appropriate for that purpose, shall from time to time be conveyed by the Local Government to the Dominion Government in trust for the use and benefit of the Indians on application of the Dominion Government; and in case of disagreement between the two Governments respecting the quantity of such tracts of land to be so granted, the matter shall be referred for the decision of the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
BC Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works, Joseph Trutch
In the context of a new British Columbia, now a Canadian Province, under the dreadful influence of Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works, Joseph Trutch, and in the situation where the same Commissioner completely disposed of the instructions of the previous Governor, James Douglas, and started dramatically reducing Indian Reserves to suit colonial expansion, 109 Chiefs from Douglas Portage at the Head of Harrison Lake to the Bute Inlet, nearly adjacent to the northern tip of Vancouver Island, wrote a petition to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs of Canada.
The new Provincial administration had taken the approach of reducing reserves to ten acres (or less) per family head, or adult male. Governor Douglas had previously followed an agreed policy with the Colonial Secretary of England to demarcate as much land as any Indian community should recommend to be their Reserve.
Trutch overthrew this policy with the stroke of a pen, at a critical moment in the land interests of the Shuswap at Kamloops and Adams Lake. Because the vast Secwepemc Reserve visited by Commissioner Cox, some several square hundred miles along the Shuswap River, was seen to be inconvenient to the use of the river as the central route of transportation for the colony to the New Caledonia lines, Trutch simply stated to his government representatives that Cox had got it wrong and couldn’t possibly be serious about reserving such a large area. At this time he personally authored the policy of reserving as little land as possible.
The Privy Council had sent two official reports to the Commissioner of Lands and Works, indicating that no less than twenty acres must be allocated per family, and also their dissatisfaction with the complaints from the Indians that they were being encroached upon by settlers. Those reports had no effect.
1874 BC Lands Act
Excerpt from:
An Act to amend and consolidate the Laws affecting Crown Lands in British Columbia
Unsurveyed Land
- Any person being the head of a family, a widow, or single man over the age of eighteen years, and being a British Subject, or any alien upon making a declaration of his intention to become a British subject, …may record any tract of unoccupied, unsurveyed, and unreserved Crown lands (not being an Indian settlement) not exceeding 320 acres in extent, in that portion of the Province situate to the northward and eastward of the Cascade or Coast Range of Mountains, and 160 acres in extent in the rest of the Province. Provided, that such right shall not be held to extend to any of the Aborigines of this Continent…
1874 Petition of the Douglas Tribes
Protesting the imposition of small “postage stamp” reserves and the dispossession and settlement of traditional territories without permission or compensation.
“For many years we have been complaining of the land left us being too small. We have laid our complaints before Government officials nearest to us; they sent us to some others; so we had no redress up to the present; and we have felt like men trampled on, and are commencing to believe that the aim of the white men is to exterminate us as soon as they can, although we have always been quiet, obedient, kind and friendly to the whites.
“Discouragement and depression have come upon our people. Many of them have given up the cultivation of land, because our gardens have not been protected against the encroachment of the whites. Some of our best men have been deprived of the land they had broken and cultivated with long and hard labour, a white man enclosing it in his claim, and no compensation given. Some of our most enterprising men have lost part of their cattle, because white men had taken the place where those cattle were grazing, and no other place left but the thickly timbered land, where they die fast. Some of our people are now obliged to cut rushes along the bank of the river with their knives during winter to feed their cattle.”
1875 state of Indian Lands in British Columbia
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30TH JUNE, 1876. Printed by Order of Parliament. OTTAWA: PRINTED BY MACLEAN, ROGER & CO., WELLINGTON STREET, 1877
File Name: 1876-IAAR-RAAI
The following excerpt is from p17-19 in the above named pdf file page numbers:
BRITISH COLUMBIA INDIAN LANDS.
In the annual report for last year the then Superintendent General was enabled to state that, while the report was in the hands of the printer, he received intelligence from the British Columbia Government that they had accepted the basis proposed by the Dominion Government for the settlement of this grave and complicated controversy, which had been the subject of correspondence between the Governments for the two preceding years.
The despatch from the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia announcing the acceptance by his Government of the terms proposed by the Dominion Government, is dated 8th January, 1876, and was received here in the latter part of that month.
It was agreed between the two Governments that the settlement of the Indian Reserve question should be referred to three Commissioners, one to be appointed by, the Dominion Government, another by the Government of British Columbia, and the third to be named jointly by the Dominion and Local Governments; that these Commissioners should visit, as soon as practicable, each Indian nation in British Columbia, and, after full enquiry into all matters affecting the question, determine for each nation the number, extent and locality of the Reserves to be allowed to them. In doing so the Commissioners were to be guided generally by the spirit of the terms of union between the Dominion and Local Governments, which contemplated a “liberal policy” being pursued towards the Indians.
They were to have special regard to the habits, wants and pursuits of each Indian nation, to the amount of territory available in the country occupied by them, as well as to the claims of the White population.
Early in May, Mr. Alexander C. Anderson, of North Saanach, British Columbia, was appointed by His Excellency in Council as the Indian Commissioner on behalf of the Dominion Government. The British Columbia Government was at once advised of the fact, and requested to name their own Commissioner, and also to submit the name of the gentleman whom they would propose as the third or joint Commissioner for the two Governments.
The Government of British Columbia took no action in the matter until the month of August, when they notified the Department by telegraph that Mr. Archibald McKinley, of Lac la Hache, British Columbia, had been selected as their Commissioner, and they submitted the name of Mr. Gilbert Malcolm Sproat as the third or joint Commissioner. Mr. Sproat was appointed on the 15th August as the joint Commissioner of the Dominion Government also.
The necessary Commissions, accompanied by full instructions, were sent to the Dominion Commissioner and to the joint Commissioner on the 23rd August last. The Commissioners were instructed to assure the Indians of the anxious desire of the Government to deal justly and liberally with them in the settlement of their Reserves, as well as in all other matters. They were to inform the Indians that the aim and object of the Government was to assist them in their efforts to raise themselves in the social and moral scale so as ultimately to enjoy all the privileges and advantages which were enjoyed by their white fellow subjects.
As regards the views of the Government on the subject of the land question, the Commissioners were referred to the documents connected with the matter, printed in the Annual Report for last year, in the spirit of which they were requested to act. They were reminded that the Government considered it a matter of paramount importance that in the settlement of the land question, nothing should be done which could militate against the maintenance of friendly relations between the Dominion Government and the Indians of British Columbia, and they were officially enjoined as little as possible to interfere with any existing tribal arrangements; and, particularly, that they were to be careful not to disturb the Indians in the possession of any villages, fishing stations, fur trading posts, settlements or clearings which they might occupy, and to which they might be specially attached.
The Commissioners were, moreover, warned against making any attempt to cause any violent or sudden change in the habits of the Indians, or to divert them from any legitimate pursuits and occupations in which they might be profitably engaged, but rather to encourage them in any branch of industry in which they were so employed.
The Commissioners were instructed to confer in all matters with the two Superintendents in British Columbia, namely, with Dr. Powell, of Victoria, and Mr. Lenihan, of New Westminster, and these gentlemen were directed to co-operate with and assist the Commissioners in the execution of their important labours.
Finally, the necessity of bringing their labours to a close as soon as practicable, with a view to the early adjustment of this grave controversy, was strongly impressed on the Commissioners.
It may be here remarked that all the Commissioners appointed have been for many years past resident in British Columbia, and thoroughly identified with that Province. They are, moreover, all men of high standing and character in the Province, and who have taken much interest in public affairs, especially in matters affecting the Indians.
In the month of September, the Department was notified that the Commissioners had organized themselves and entered upon their labours. It will be seen from the foregoing statement that the Commissioners are clothed with ample power to deal in a practical and summary manner with this long standing controversy – one in which the interests of the White settlers of British Columbia, as well as of the Indians of British Columbia are so deeply involved; and the constitution of the Commission gives good reason to expect that the Commissioners will so deal with the question as to do justice to all parties interested.
Certain of the provisions of the “Indian Act of 1876,” passed last session (subsequent to the date of the Order in Council regulating the powers of the Commission), being in conflict with the large powers thereby conferred upon the Commission, Your Excellency was advised to issue a Proclamation, under the provisions of the 97th section of that Act, exempting the Indian Lands and Indian Reserves in British Columbia from the operation of certain sections of that Act.
The Proclamation bore date the 23rd December, and the effect of it will be to enable the Commissioners to deal absolutely and at once with the British Columbia Reserves, without reference to either the Dominion or Local Governments, in the manner originally intended by the Order in Council of 6th May, 1876.
The question of the rights of the Indians in all the lands in British Columbia in which their rights have not been extinguished by treaties between themselves and the Crown is still unsettled.
The Indian Reserve Commissions on the Northwest Coast
followed BC confederation with Canada in 1871. They were much delayed by BC’s refusal to cooperate.
With the “COMMISSION APPOINTED TO ENQUIRE INTO THE CONDITION OF THE INDIANS OF THE NORTH-WEST COAST” reporting in 1888, and the shadow report compiled by the Methodist Missionaries of the Tsimshian area, 1889, the illegal invasions of settlers and Crown surveyors were well documented.
1876 Speech of Lord Dufferin on the Indian Land Question in BC
The “extraordinary” public speech Dufferin gave at Government House in Victoria on September 20, 1876:
“Now we must all admit that the condition of the Indian question in British Columbia is not satisfactory. Most unfortunately, as I think, there has been an initial error ever since Sir James Douglas quitted office, in the Government of British Columbia neglecting to recognise what is known as the Indian title.
In Canada this has always been done: no Government, whether provincial or central, has failed to acknowledge that the original title to the land existed in the Indian tribes and the communities that hunted or wandered over them. Before we touch an acre we make a treaty with the chiefs representing the bands we are dealing with, and having agreed upon and paid the stipulated price, oftentimes arrived at after a great deal of haggling and difficulty, we enter into possession, but not until then do we consider that we are entitled to deal with a single acre. The result has been that in Canada our Indians are contented, well affected to the white man, and amenable to the laws and Government.
At this very moment the Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba has gone on a distant expedition in order to make a treaty with the tribes to the northward of the Saskatchewan. Last year he made two treaties with the Crees and Chippeways, next year it has been arranged that he should make a treaty with the Blackfeet, and when this is done the British Crown will have acquired a title to every acre that lies between Lake Superior and the top of the Rocky Mountains.
But in British Columbia – except in a few places where, under the jurisdiction of the Hudson Bay Company or under the auspices of Sir James Douglas, a similar practice has been adopted—the Provincial Government has always assumed that the fee simple in, as well as the sovereignty over the land, resided in the Queen. Acting upon this principle they have granted extensive grazing leases, and otherwise so dealt with various sections of the country as greatly to restrict or interfere with the prescriptive rights of the Queen’s Indian subjects. As a consequence, there has come to exist an unsatisfactory feeling amongst the Indian population. Intimations of this reached me at Ottawa two or three years ago, and since I have come into the province my misgivings on the subject have been confirmed.
Now, I consider that our Indian fellow-subjects are entitled to exactly the same civil rights under the law as are possessed by the white population, and that if an Indian can prove a prescriptive right of way to a fishing station, or a right of any other kind, that that right should no more be ignored than if it were the case of a white man.
I am very happy that the British Columbian Government have recognised the necessity of assisting the Dominion Government in ameliorating the present condition of affairs in this respect, and that it has agreed to the creation of a joint commission for the purpose of putting the interests of the Indian population on a more satisfactory footing.
The concealed Indian Reserve agenda of the Northwest Coast Commission
“you will please be careful while assuring the Indians that all they say will be reported to the proper authorities not to give undertakings or make promises, and in particular you will be careful to discountenance, should it arise, any claim of Indian title to Provincial lands. I need not point out that the Provincial Government are bound to make, at the request of the Dominion, suitable reserves for the Indians; and it will be advisable, should the question of title to land arise, to constantly point this out, and that the Terms of Union secure to the Indians their reserves by the strongest of tenures.”
- Instructions to Commissioners, Misters Planta and Cornwall, in a letter from Alex E. B. Dame, Attorney-General, Victoria, BC, September 17, 1887.
“The demands made during the meeting at Port Simpson, which extended over Friday afternoon and the whole of Saturday, were of a character very much in accordance with those of the upper river Indians of the Naas nation referred to above, and they were invariably attended with threats as to what would happen were they not complied with, such as that “they would follow their brethren into Alaska,” that is, expatriate themselves; that if things were not arranged to their liking “there would be no peace;” “if it is not settled about our land we shall go on talking till it is,” and so on.
- 1888 Report of “The Commissioners of the Dominion and Provincial Governments, appointed conjointly by these Governments, and acting under a Commission issued in pursuance of the “Public Inquiries Aid Act, 1872,” and the “Public Inquiries Aid Amendment Act, 1873,” to enquire as to whether any and, if any, what causes of complaint exist among the Indians of the North-West Coast of British Columbia”
“They have never fought and conquered our people and taken the land in that way, and yet they say now that they will give us so much land—our own land.”
In 1886 provincial surveyors arrived for a second time in the Nass Valley to mark out Indian Reserves. The Nisga’a expelled them. Nisga’a and Tsimshian Chiefs went to Victoria, met Premier Smithe, refused to give in to his humiliating treatment, and succeeded in convincing him that the Haida, Tsimshian and Nisga’a all wanted a proper treaty. In 1887 the first Royal Commission, a joint federal and provincial endeavor, began hearing and documenting the debacle which was the fallout from Trutch’s Reserve selection process—mostly in response to the Nisga’a.
David Mackay, Nisga’a, told the Commission:
“What we don’t like about the Government is their saying this: ‘We will give you this much of land.’ How can they give it when it is our own? We cannot understand it. They have never bought it from us or our forefathers. They have never fought and conquered our people and taken the land in that way, and yet they say now that they will give us so much land—our own land.”
Memorial to Frank Oliver 1911
“Many of us were driven off our places where we had lived and camped from time immemorial, even places we cultivated, and where we raised food, because these spots were desirable for agriculture, and the Government wanted them for white settlers.
“This was done without agreement with us, and we received no compensation. It was also in direct opposition to the promises made to us by the first whites, and Government officials, that no white men would be allowed to locate on any place where Indians were settled or which were camping stations and gardens. Thus were we robbed by the Government and driven off many of our places by white settlers (backed by the Government), or coaxed off them with false promises.”
—Memorial to Frank Oliver, Minister of the Interior and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, May 10, 1911. The affidavit was signed by some 80 representatives of Carrier, Talhltan, Lillooet, Secwepemc, Nlakapamux, Okanagan, Tsilhqo’tin and Sekani.
The Indian Reserve Agenda of the 1912-16 McKenna-McBride Commission
Instructions to to Indian Reserves Commissioners was clear: do NOT discuss the matter of land title, but secure tight boundaries for lands to be reserved for Indians.
Lawyers for the concurrent Nishga title case, representing all the Allied Tribes as a test case, suggested to the united Chiefs that they do not discuss Indian reserve boundaries with the Commissioners visiting in 1913. For various reasons, most of them did engage in those discussions, and provided their own witness testimony which was then recorded in the Commission’s Minutes.
These testimonies resulted in some of the only surviving documentation of economic and constructive arrangements made between Indigenous leaders and representatives of the Imperial Crown in the 19th century.
For instance, Chief Joe Hall of Sq’éwlets, Sto:lo, testified to the Reserve Commission that Governor Frederick Seymour promised his people one third of revenue and resources from all developments off-reserve, on traditional Sto:lo lands, and that Governor Douglas had characterized the lands which were neither Reserve nor pre-emptions as “like a fruit tree benefitting Natives and non-natives alike.”
In terms of the issue regarding compromise to the Nishga Privy Council case, the following exchange took place in Skidegate, Haida Gwaii, September 13th, 1913:
Solomon Wilson, Haida:
I want to say, really in regard to what you are here for, will this interfere with any of our lawyer questions.
The Chairman of the Commission, N.W. White:
I am not prepared to say. It may or it may not.
Wilson: I want a true answer please.
Chairman: I cannot give you any other answer.
Wilson: If we were to ask you for anything will it interfere with our other claims?
Chairman: I say it may. I cannot say whether it will or not.
Wilson: Then you are leaving us to risk it?
Chairman: Well, I will not tell you that it will, and I will not tell you that it will not, because I do not know.
The Chairman to the Interpreter: After hearing what this man has said to them, what conclusion have they come to with respect to giving testimony as the quality of the reserves, and as to any additional lands they may require, or any other matters affecting their reserves?
The Interpreter: Mr. Wilson’s idea when he got up to ask you that question, as to whether anything that was stated would interfere with the matter lawyers Clark [the Nishga lawyer] has got in hand, was he wanted to know if we would have the right to vote and we also wanted to ask you for 160 acres, and we wanted to find out if asking these things would interfere with our other business which lawyer Clark has in hand.
The Chairman: I am not prepared to say whether it will or will not. I say it may.
The Interpreter: We have just got a telegram from Prince Rupert, from Peter Kelly, saying, “Make the Commissioners wait.”
Mr. Shaw: Who is Peter Kelly?
The Interpreter: He is a member of this band, and one of our advisors. He is at present at New Westminster College, studying for the ministry. We would like the Commission to wait until he comes, as he had got a holiday on purpose to appear before the Commission.
NOTE by the Chairman, written into the Report: On being interrogated as to whether any person is prepared to testify as to the character of the reserves, the population thereof, and state as to the property on the reserves and the area of the reserves, I am asked if this will prejudice their rights as to the “Indian Title.” I stated that it may, and thereupon being again asked if any person would testify no one responded. I therefore hold that they do not wish to give testimony.
The Chairman, speaking: I don’t wish it to be understood, that we intend to force our rights under this Commission if you do not wish to testify as to the reserves, but don’t run away with the idea that the Commission is without power to act, because we could order witnesses to be summoned to give evidence before us, and if they refused to come we could arrest them, and bring them here, and when we got them before us, if they refused to testify we could imprison them, but we don’t intend to take that course at all.
We don’t desire to act in any unkind way towards the Indians. We want to maintain good feeling all round, but we are going to call witnesses ourselves, and that course having being entered on our books, whatever evidence we take would not prejudice you, because we will produce the evidence and you won’t.
If you call the witnesses it might prejudice you as I have stated. If we call the witnesses, it won’t. That is all.
Their tribe don’t want any additions to their villages. Any evidence which the Indians gave in which they asked for increases on the Reserves might prejudice their claims with respect to “Indian Title,” now we propose to call evidence that is called by us cannot prejudice your claim. Any evidence that is taken is taken at the distinct instance of the Commission.”
This section from “Commission minutes” was printed in Haida Laas, journal of the Haida Nation, September 2001.
“If you do not wish to testify as to the reserves,
don’t run away with the idea that the Commission is without power to act,
because we could order witnesses to be summoned to give evidence before us,
and if they refused to come we could arrest them, and bring them here, and when we got them before us, if they refused to testify, we could imprison them.”
Commission Chair N. W. White, speaking at Skidegate, addressing the Haida Chiefs and witnesses,
September 13, 1913
The Royal Commission Chairman, N. W. White, in 1913.
Photo reprinted from Haida Laas, Journal of the Haida Nation, September 2001.
Map of Indian Reserves in British Columbia 1984
Map of Indian Reserves in British Columbia prepared by the Ministry for Energy, Mines and Resources – Canada.
“National Atlas Data Base Map Series. Map No. NADM-5” “Canada-Indian and Inuit Communities British Columbia,” 1984.
1985 Province of BC defense in the Clayoquot and Delgam Uukw title cases
In reply to both Moses Martin and his claim to Nuu-chah-nulth title at Meares Island, Clayoquot; and to Delgam Uukw v. The Queen and claims to title throughout Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en, the defendant crown in right of the Province of BC responded:
“That if the Plaintiffs or their ancestors, or the Indian Tribes or Indian Nations which they allegedly represent, ever had aboriginal title or rights over any part or parts of Meares Island / the Province of British Columbia, which is not admitted,
the same was voluntarily given up to the Crown in right of one or both of the Colony of British Columbia and the Province of British Columbia by requesting that, out of lands in the territory outside those already set aside as Indian reserves, additional lands be set aside as Indian reserves and accepting the lands that were set aside.”
- Moses Martin v. The Queen et al, No. C845934 Vancouver Registry, “Defense of Her Majesty The Queen, July 8, 1985,” and “Defense of Her Majesty the Queen July 12, 1985.” In Delgam Uukw v. Her Majesty the Queen (1984).
Indian Reserve dispossesion
The West Wasn't Won 