{"id":93,"date":"2014-06-13T19:40:27","date_gmt":"2014-06-13T19:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/?post_type=chapter&p=93"},"modified":"2014-08-11T19:28:05","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T02:28:05","slug":"4-5-summary","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/chapter\/4-5-summary\/","title":{"raw":"Summary","rendered":"Summary"},"content":{"raw":"The area now known as British Columbia (BC) has been inhabited for at least 10,000 to 12,000\u00a0years. The term \"Aboriginal\" refers to the ancestors of those inhabitants and\u00a0 includes the distinct subgroups of Inuit, M\u00e9tis and First Nations peoples. Precontact Aboriginal\u00a0communities were located throughout BC in\u00a0three cultural regions identified as\u00a0the northwest coast, southern Interior and northern Interior.\r\n\r\nPrior to 1881, the pre-contact Aboriginal population numbered over 300,000. However with the establishment of the European settlement in 1881 the Aboriginal population numbers were reduced to an estimated 40,000.\u00a0In fact, increasing European contact and settlement from the 19th century until present day has had a major impact on every\u00a0aspect\u00a0of Aboriginal life, which is articulated in the case study on the Indian residential school system.\r\n\r\nIn 1858 the Fraser River gold rush drastically increased European and American migration and settlement to BC, with 25,000 to 30,000 people entering the area.\u00a0The increase of settlers in the area caused\u00a0conflict over\u00a0trespass\u00a0and land use.\u00a0Gold mining destroyed natural habitat, especially in freshwater marine environments, which in turn disturbed key food systems on a broader scale.\r\n\r\nUnlike much of the rest of Canada, the majority of\u00a0First Nations in BC have no negotiated treaties. The first treaties created in BC were established by Sir\u00a0James Douglas (Vancouver Island governor)\u00a0as the Hudson's Bay Company moved its fur trading headquarters from Fort Vancouver (present-day Vancouver, Washington, at the mouth of the Columbia River) to Fort Victoria (present-day Victoria, BC). These treaties are called the Douglas Treaties and resulted in land purchases\u00a0covering some 930 square kilometres on Vancouver Island.\r\n\r\nAttempts to create further treaties and to address Aboriginal title and rights have until relatively recently\u00a0been stymied by laws that made First Nations customs illegal (such as the potlatch) and limited political enfranchisement and legal representation. The Nisga'a agreement <\/strong>was hailed as BC's first modern-day land treaty. It is\u00a0a comprehensive agreement that includes surface and subsurface rights, removal of Indian Act application, cash compensation, agreements around wildlife and\u00a0fisheries\u00a0and self-government providisons. As of 2014, a few treaties have been completed, including\u00a0the Maa-nulth First Nations Treaty\u00a0and the\u00a0Tsawwassen First Nation Treaty. Other treaties are pending final ratification by the Canadian government, such as the\u00a0Tla'amin Nation Treaty and\u00a0Yale First Nation Treaty.","rendered":"

The area now known as British Columbia (BC) has been inhabited for at least 10,000 to 12,000\u00a0years. The term “Aboriginal” refers to the ancestors of those inhabitants and\u00a0 includes the distinct subgroups of Inuit, M\u00e9tis and First Nations peoples. Precontact Aboriginal\u00a0communities were located throughout BC in\u00a0three cultural regions identified as\u00a0the northwest coast, southern Interior and northern Interior.<\/p>\n

Prior to 1881, the pre-contact Aboriginal population numbered over 300,000. However with the establishment of the European settlement in 1881 the Aboriginal population numbers were reduced to an estimated 40,000.\u00a0In fact, increasing European contact and settlement from the 19th century until present day has had a major impact on every\u00a0aspect\u00a0of Aboriginal life, which is articulated in the case study on the Indian residential school system.<\/p>\n

In 1858 the Fraser River gold rush drastically increased European and American migration and settlement to BC, with 25,000 to 30,000 people entering the area.\u00a0The increase of settlers in the area caused\u00a0conflict over\u00a0trespass\u00a0and land use.\u00a0Gold mining destroyed natural habitat, especially in freshwater marine environments, which in turn disturbed key food systems on a broader scale.<\/p>\n

Unlike much of the rest of Canada, the majority of\u00a0First Nations in BC have no negotiated treaties. The first treaties created in BC were established by Sir\u00a0James Douglas (Vancouver Island governor)\u00a0as the Hudson’s Bay Company moved its fur trading headquarters from Fort Vancouver (present-day Vancouver, Washington, at the mouth of the Columbia River) to Fort Victoria (present-day Victoria, BC). These treaties are called the Douglas Treaties and resulted in land purchases\u00a0covering some 930 square kilometres on Vancouver Island.<\/p>\n

Attempts to create further treaties and to address Aboriginal title and rights have until relatively recently\u00a0been stymied by laws that made First Nations customs illegal (such as the potlatch) and limited political enfranchisement and legal representation. The Nisga’a agreement <\/strong>was hailed as BC’s first modern-day land treaty. It is\u00a0a comprehensive agreement that includes surface and subsurface rights, removal of Indian Act application, cash compensation, agreements around wildlife and\u00a0fisheries\u00a0and self-government providisons. As of 2014, a few treaties have been completed, including\u00a0the Maa-nulth First Nations Treaty\u00a0and the\u00a0Tsawwassen First Nation Treaty. Other treaties are pending final ratification by the Canadian government, such as the\u00a0Tla’amin Nation Treaty and\u00a0Yale First Nation Treaty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"menu_order":5,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-93","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":225,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/93\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1088,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/93\/revisions\/1088"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/225"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/93\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/geography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}