Colony of British Columbia (1866–1871)

This article is about the united colony of Vancouver Island and British Columbia. For the former mainland colony, see Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866).

Colony of British Columbia
British colony
←   ← 1866—1871 →
Colonial flag of British Columbia (1870-71): British Blue Ensign and the great seal of the colony.
The modern Canadian province of British Columbia has the same boundaries as its colonial predecessor.
Capital	Victoria
Language(s)	English
Government	Constitutional monarchy
Queen regnant	Victoria of the United Kingdom
Historical era	British Era
- Established, by merger with Colony of Vancouver Island	August 2, 1866
- Entered Canadian Confederation	July 21, 1871

The Colony of British Columbia is a crown colony that resulted from the amalgamation of the two former colonies, the Colony of Vancouver Island and the mainland Colony of British Columbia. The two former colonies were united in 1866, and the united colony existed until its incorporation into the Canadian Confederation in 1871.

Background

Main Article: History of British Columbia

The Colony of Vancouver Island had been created in 1849 to bolster British claims to the whole island and the adjacent Gulf Islands, and to provide a North Pacific home port for the Royal Navy at Fort Victoria. By the mid-1850s, the Island Colony's non-indigenous population was around 800 people; a mix of mostly British, French-Canadian, Metis, Hawaiians, but with handfuls of Iroquoians and Cree in the employ of the fur company, and a few Belgian and French Oblate priests (thousands of first nations died due to the smallpox epidemic). Three years earlier, the Treaty of Washington had established the boundary between British North America and the United States of America west of the Rocky Mountains along the 49th parallel. The mainland area of present-day British Columbia, Canada was an unorganised territory under British sovereignty until 1858. The region was under the de facto administration of the Hudson's Bay Company, and its regional chief executive, James Douglas, who also happened to be Governor of Vancouver Island. The region was informally given the name New Caledonia, after the fur-trading district which covered the central and northern interior of the mainland west of the Rockies.

All this changed with the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1857-58, when the non-aboriginal population of the mainland swelled from about 150 Hudson's Bay Company employees and their families to about 20,000 prospectors, speculators, land agents, and merchants. The British colonial office acted swiftly, and the Colony of British Columbia was proclaimed on August 2, 1858.

United colonies

Douglas administered the mainland colony in absentia, remaining in Victoria. British Columbia's colonial capital, New Westminster would welcome its first resident governor, Frederick Seymour, in 1864. Meanwhile Sir Arthur Kennedy had been appointed to succeed Douglas as Governor of Vancouver Island. Both colonies were labouring under huge debts, largely accumulated by the completion of extensive infrastructure to service the huge population influx. As gold revenues dropped, the loans secured to pay for these projects undermined the economies of the colonies, and pressure grew in London for their amalgamation. Despite a great deal of ambivalence in some quarters, on August 6, 1866, the united colony was proclaimed, with the capital and assembly in Victoria, and Seymour was designated governor.

Seymour continued as governor of the united colonies until 1869, but after the British North America Act joined three colonies (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Province of Canada) into the Canadian Confederation in 1867, it seemed increasingly only a matter of time before Vancouver Island and British Columbia would negotiate terms of union. Major players in the Confederation League such as Amor De Cosmos, Robert Beaven, and John Robson pushed for union primarily as a way of advancing both the economic health of the region, as well as increased democratic reform through truly representative and responsible government. In this effort, they were supported and aided by Canadian officials, especially Sir Samuel Tilley, a Father of Confederation and Minister of Customs in the government of Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald. Seymour, ill and beset by protests that he was dragging in his feet in completing negotiations for the HBC's territory, was facing the end of his term, and Macdonald was pressing London to replace him with Sir Anthony Musgrave, outgoing governor of the Colony of Newfoundland. Before the appointment could be finalised, however, Seymour died.

With Musgrave's appointment, the British colonial secretary, Lord Granville, pushed Musgrave to accelerate negotiations with Canada towards union. It took almost two years for those negotiations, in which Canada eventually agreed to shoulder the colonies' massive debt and join the territory to a transcontinental railroad, to be finalised. His efforts led to the admission of British Columbia as the sixth province of Canada on July 20, 1871.

Governors of the united Colony of British Columbia

• Frederick Seymour, 1866-1869
• Sir Anthony Musgrave, 1869-1871

Legislative Council of the United Colony of British Columbia

1866 to 1869 14 members were appointed by the governor and nine were elected by the public.
1869 to 1872 13 members appointed by the Governor, eight elected by the public.

Elections to the Legislative Council of the United Colony of British Columbia

British Columbia general election, 1866
British Columbia general election, 1869

See also

• Former colonies and territories in Canada
• Territorial evolution of Canada after 1867

External links

• Order in Council determining British Columbia's terms of union with the Dominion of Canada, 1871
• Biography of Seymour from Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• Biography of Musgrave from Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online