Joseph Trutch and Gunboat “Justice” A Change of Leadership Rings in a New Discriminatory Colonial Era for British Columbia.

Joseph Trutch and Gunboat “Justice”

A Change of Leadership Rings in a New Discriminatory Colonial Era for British Columbia.

JOSEPH TRUTCH

Joseph Trutch succeeded Douglas as the administrator of First Nations policies.

He stated flat out that the First Nations people had NEVER owned the land and stuck to the 10 acres per family rule.

This statement contradicted the earlier Royal Proclamation of 1763, the policy of the British government, and the intent of the Douglas Treaties.

The statement did work well for the British settlers who felt that the land was “empty” and unused.

Gunboat “Justice”

During the 1800’s, violence or the threat of violence was used to keep order on the coast.

The British empire used its Royal Navy to keep order in its colonies.

At its base at Esquimalt, near Victoria, the Royal Navy stationed gunboats-sailing ships armed with cannons with names like Forward, Grappler, and Devastation.

When ever a First Nations person committed a breach of British justice, the gunboats would be sent.

Why?

The crime that usually warranted sending out the gunboats was murder.

Sometimes these murders would be committed by First Nations citizens who were engaging in traditional inter-tribal warfare.

Often they were a result of conflict between First Nations and settlers who were moving on to their traditional territories.

Some were acts of protest.

The threat of the gunboats was usually used at first as a show of violence to stop the First Nations from breaking the law.

What Happened? By 1849, when Vancouver Island became a colony, until 1910 when

the Canadian Navy took over, Britain’s Royal Navy provided this method of law keeping.

It was believed that First nations people only understood brute force and could not be reasoned with.

The navy would be sent to the scene of the crime where they would anchor the ship directly in front of the village.

The commander, sometimes called the “man-of-war,” would go try and arrest the accused.

If he faced resistance he would send the marines to take hostages who were usually chiefs and their families.

If the suspects still failed to turn themselves in, the commander would threaten to destroy the whole village and would often fire their cannons to demonstrate their might and scare the people.

The next step, if nobody came forward, would be to fire the cannons and blast and destroy the village, the canoes, and the people living there.

State-Sanctioned Brutality

There were at least 14 major incidents during the time gunboats were used to bring “justice.”

Eight of these incidents reluted in the villages in question being destroyed.

The most disastrous campaign involved the Nuu-chah-nulth groups on the west coast of Vancouver Island in 1864 where 9 villages were destroyed as well as 64 canoes.

The gunboats were used on the Skeena River as late as 1888.

When subjects were captured they were hanged publicly in the British colonies, or made an example of in the FN village.

With houses, villages, and canoes destroyed, many FN groups were forced to relocate and live with relatives in other villages.