The History We Live With
Indian Land Claims in B.C.

Publisher:  Victoria Indian Cultural Centre, Victoria, Canada
Year Published:  1977  
Pages:  22pp   Price:  $1.00  
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX209

Booklet discussing the history of treaties and land claims in B.C.

Abstract:  This booklet is based on an ecumenical conference on land claims by Doug Sanders, a lawyer working with Indian groups. He first gives a history of B.C. Indian Treaties beginning with English colonialization and the economic control of the Hudson's Bay Company. The latter first entered into a series of treaties in 1850. It explains dealings between the Federal and Provincial government over the aboriginal rights for Indians. It describes the first Inter-tribal organization, struggling to be not just one group of Indians, as the government tended to deal with them, but in fact many separate tribes and language groups. The booklet points out that though all these treaties, often referred to as legalized theft, there was a massive land transfer, accompanied by transfer of resources such as timber, fish and minerals. All this added up to greatly benefit the whites and impoverish the Indians who once controlled the land and resources.

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