DATE: 1864
For a time, English colonization in what is now British Columbia had little direct effect on the Tŝilhqot’in First Nation. The colony was centred in Victoria and New Westminster, while the Tŝilhqot’in lived far away in the Interior.
That changed with Alfred Waddington. The British aristocrat arrived in 1862 with money from investors in Victoria and a plan for a road between Bella Coola and Fort Alexandria. The Cariboo Gold Rush was at its peak, and the road would give miners a shorter route to the goldfields. It would also cross Tŝilhqot’in territory.
Victoria had recently experienced a smallpox outbreak. Waddington’s crew travelled north carrying the disease and infected the Tŝilhqot’in. According to Tŝilhqot’in oral history, about two thirds of the nation died within weeks.
Survivors faced hunger while the crew continued building the road. In 1864, several Tŝilhqot’in men came to the camp, asked for food, and offered to work for it. After flour disappeared from the storehouse, a worker accused them of taking it and threatened to bring smallpox to their community.
Klatsassin, a Tŝilhqot’in Chief, gathered 24 warriors. They attacked the camp early in the morning while the crew slept and killed 12 men. The warriors later attacked the road builders twice more.
Colonists on the mainland and Vancouver Island responded with anger. Governor Frederick Seymour, newly arrived from Britain, raised a volunteer force composed mostly of American newcomers and sent it into the Interior. The force failed to find the Tŝilhqot’in warriors and returned without accomplishing its purpose.
By the fall of 1864, colonial officials had changed their approach. They invited the Tŝilhqot’in to Quesnel, where Klatsassin believed peace negotiations would take place. Eight of the 24 men made the trip. Officials arrested them when they arrived. They were tried for murder before Chief Justice Matthew Baillie Begbie and a jury. Five were convicted and hanged. At the time, a murder conviction carried a mandatory death sentence. Chief Ahan, the sixth man, was hanged in New Westminster later.
Before his execution, Klatsassin said, “We meant war, not murder.” It seems that the Tŝilhqot’in won the war. Waddington’s road was never built, and little of their territory was settled by outsiders.
In 2014, British Columbia Premier Christy Clark apologized for the hangings. In 2018, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized and exonerated the six men. The Tŝilhqot’in maintain that exoneration was unnecessary because the men were warriors defending their territory during a war.
