Indigenous peoples of British Columbia

The Indigenous peoples of British Columbia are the Indigenous peoples of Canada's westernmost province of British Columbia. The term Indigenous is used to describe the first known inhabitants of a region. In Canada, it includes all native people who claim Inuit, Métis, or First Nations ancestry. The Inuit are a specific group of native people living in Canada's Far North who are differentiated from other Indigenous peoples under Canadian law. Métis (from a French word meaning "mixed") is a term used to indicate any Canadian person of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous heritage. First Nations describes all Indigenous Canadians who are neither Métis nor Inuit.

The Indigenous peoples of British Columbia have lived in this area for more than fourteen thousand years. During this time, more than 198 distinct cultures developed before the arrival of European colonists. Since the eighteenth century, when European settlers moved into the present-day borders of British Columbia, native cultures have been forced to undergo dramatic adaptations. Despite the challenges of these cultures, British Columbia retains one of the most vibrant and healthy communities of Indigenous peoples in Canada. As of 2021, 290,210 Indigenous people lived in British Columbia, a population that included people who spoke more than thirty First Nations languages and almost sixty native dialects. Indigenous peoples make up 5.9% percent of the population of British Columbia, one of the highest concentrations of native people in Canada. Despite occupying only a small portion of Canada, British Columbia contains native peoples from the coastal, plateau, and subarctic cultural groups—three of the six traditionally defined Indigenous cultural regions of Canada.

Brief History

The first inhabitants of British Columbia are believed to be descended from people who crossed into Alaska either via a land bridge in the Bering Sea or by traveling over the Pacific Ocean in small vessels. Approximately twenty thousand pre-contact archaeological sites testifying to the presence of native peoples in British Columbia have been discovered. One of the earliest known pieces of evidence indicating the Indigenous settlement of Canada was identified on Triquet Island on British Columbia's central coast. This island, which is part of the traditional lands of the Heiltsuk Nation, prominently factored into the tribe's oral histories. According to tradition, the island remained ice-free during the last ice age, and the ancestors of the Heiltsuk gathered there for survival. Excavation of the site in 2017 revealed a 14,000-year-old village, which dates to the last ice age. The tools excavated at the site showed that the villagers had advanced knowledge of hunting techniques, including those used to hunt deep-sea mammals. The findings may also shed light on ancient human migration patterns. Researchers previously believed that 13,000 years ago, ancient peoples moved across a land bridge connecting what is now Siberia to Alaska. However, the discovery of the village suggests that humans may have entered North America along the coast.

Scientists have speculated that some of the first humans to enter North America might have followed a path from Alaska along the coast of British Columbia into the Pacific Northwest of the United States. This route remained largely free of the glaciers that are believed to have initially impeded colonization of the interior of Canada. However, how North America was colonized remains uncertain and a point of continuing debate among scientists, cultural anthropologists, and oral historians of the First Nations tribes.

Many of the first inhabitants survived through simple hunting and gathering practices. They did not form permanent settlements or develop agricultural economies. Rather, in the interior regions of British Columbia, they followed herds of animals, while coastal peoples became more reliant on the sea for food.

Due to problems with accessing the west coast of Canada created by two sets of mountain chains, this region was among the last areas to be colonized by European settlers. Spanish explorers were likely the first Europeans to reach this area, although given the lack of obvious precious natural resources, they showed little interest in the region. Rather, most Indigenous peoples' first contact occurred with fur traders.

Beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, Russian fur trappers began to frequent the coast, while small groups of French fur traders moved into the interior from the eastern regions of Canada. In 1858, gold was discovered in the Fraser River. This led to a massive influx of gold miners. Competition for gold led to multiple clashes between miners and Indigenous peoples. To assert control, the British claimed the region as the colony of British Columbia.

The introduction of foreign diseases to Indigenous populations by European settlers took a heavy toll. In particular, smallpox epidemics in the 1780s, 1830s, and 1860s killed tens of thousands of Indigenous peoples in British Columbia. Further encroachment on their territories created unrest between native groups and European arrivals. Early treaties between British Columbian authorities and Indigenous peoples were often not honored. In 1871, British Columbia was officially brought into Canadian Confederation as a province, which shifted responsibility for Indigenous relations to the federal government.

In 1876, the Canadian government passed the Indian Act, which was intended to create a unified legal code for all its Indigenous peoples. This set of rules included many discriminatory policies, including an 1884 revision that banned the potlatch ceremony that was an important ritual of the coastal Indigenous populations. A series of commissions in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries established reserves for various Indigenous populations. By 1930, approximately fifteen hundred such reserves existed in British Columbia. Traditional Indigenous culture suffered from repression of the native institutions throughout the twentieth century. In 2000, the Canadian government agreed to settle ongoing negotiations by granting Canadian Indigenous populations the right to self-governance.

Demographics

According to Statistics Canada in 2021, British Columbia had a population of 290,210 people who identified as being of Indigenous ancestry. They composed 5.9 percent of the province's population. A quarter of these people lived in the Vancouver metropolitan area, although they made up only 2 percent of the city's overall population. Of British Columbia's Indigenous population according to the 2021 census profile, 180,085 people belonged to the First Nations, 97,865 identified as being Métis, and 1,725 people had Inuit ancestry. All three populations grew between 2016 and 2021. In this period, the First Nations population grew by 4.8 percent, the Métis by 9.5 percent, and the Inuit by 6.5 percent. Approximately 79 percent of all First Nations people were registered as being a Treaty Indian according to Canada's Indian Act. Of British Columbia's Indigenous population, approximately 39 percent lived on a reserve as of 2021.

Coastal Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous groups from the Northwest Coast region of British Columbia were reliant upon the oceans and rivers for sustenance and often gathered on the rivers in the southern reaches of British Columbia to hunt salmon. Compared to many other areas of North America, the environmental conditions in the Northwest Coast offered fewer hardships, enabling residents to enjoy a more comfortable lifestyle. This region had mild winters and a year-round food supply. With less stress placed upon mere survival, inhabitants accumulated greater levels of security and wealth. This in turn enabled them to develop a comparatively rich cultural and artistic society.

Among their best-known cultural artifacts are totem poles. These tall decorative objects consist of carved figures placed one on top of the other. They were used to depict a clan or family's history, mythology, rank, or symbols of identity.

Complex rituals called potlatches served important social functions among the coastal Indigenous peoples. The potlatch was an elaborate ceremony in which members from different tribes exchanged gifts with one another to strengthen bonds. They were celebrated to recognize major events such as births, marriages, deaths, and other important occasions. They were also used as a means of demonstrating wealth, establishing territories, settling disputes over hunting rights, and conferring status among individual members. Tribes exchanged valuable items such as guns, slaves, clothing, canoes, food, blankets, and handmade items. On some occasions, gifts were destroyed in a ceremony to demonstrate the privilege and strength of the hosts. Some potlatches lasted more than a full day. They typically included ceremonial practices such as dancing, feasts, and other cultural rituals. Potlatches were banned in Canada between 1884 and 1951 as part of the federal Indian Act as they were regarded as pagan. This region includes many Indigenous tribes, including the Coast Salish, Haida, Kwakwaka'wakw, Nootka, Tlingit, and Tsimshian.

Coast Salish

The Coast Salish are related to the Interior Salish of central British Columbia. They share related languages but have different cultural traditions. In British Columbia, the Coast Salish live on eastern Vancouver Island and the southwestern coast of the mainland province. In contrast to most other coastal tribes, they follow a patrilineal form of kinship in which descent is traced through the father's family.

Haida

Most Haida live in the Haida Gwaii, an archipelago of islands off the coast of northern British Columbia. Their language is an isolate, meaning there are no known related languages. The Haida are particularly known for their artisanship in such arts as woodcarving and weaving.

Kwakwaka'wakw

The Kwakwaka'wakw were formerly known as the Kwakiutl until the 1980s when they officially changed their tribal name to a term meaning "Kwak'wala-speaking groups" in Kwak'wala, their native tongue. They live along both coasts of the Queen Charlotte Strait on the northern end of Vancouver Island and the adjacent coast. This tribal group is subdivided into four distinct clans that have related but distinct individual cultural histories, mythologies, and territories. They have complex social customs regarding marriage, inheritance, and status.

Nootka

Also known as the Nuu-chah-nulth, the Nootka are related to the Kwakwaka'wakw tribe, with whom they share a similar tongue in the Wakashan language family. The name Nootka is derived from explorer James Cook's mistaken belief that the tribe's name for Nootka Sound was shared by the tribe. The Nootka primarily live on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The Nootka lived in large houses as long as 30 meters (100 feet) in length and 12 meters (40 feet) wide. Several different families related through their male lineage typically shared one of these houses.

Tlingit

Tlingit, which means people of the tides in their native language, live in a region stretching from northwestern British Columbia to southeast Alaska. The Tlingit believe that every member of the tribe had a guardian spirit called a tu-na-jek. Depending on their morality in life, these spirits either ascended to Kiwa-wa, a place similar to heaven, or Ketl-kiwa, which is akin to hell.

Tsimshian

The Tsimshian are a collection of four related tribes. Tsimshian means "inside the Skeena River." They live in a coastal zone on British Columbia's north coast. Like most coastal Indigenous cultures, they follow a matrilineal descent system, in which each member's status is linked to the mother's family.

Interior and Subarctic Indigenous Peoples

The tribes belonging to the interior of British Columbia can be separated into two categories of traditional Canadian Indigenous cultural regions: the peoples of the subarctic and those of the plateau. The plateau region stretches from the Rocky Mountains of west-central Canada to the Coast Mountains of the Pacific Coast. The plateau occupies more than 70 percent of British Columbia's total land area. This region is characterized by both desert and forest. Many native people who live here formed small settlements near rivers in the winter to capitalize on seasonal salmon runs when these fish gather in rivers. Tribes of the plateau region include the Interior Salish, Ktunaxa, and Tsilhqot'in. Many interior tribes constructed pit houses that were carved out of the ground. These buildings contained a hole in the roof through which the smoke from fires exited the building. These smoke holes contained a ladder that inhabitants used as the entrance to the buildings.

The tribes who live in the subarctic regions formerly tended to be more nomadic. Male tribe members hunted such animals as caribou and moose, while women fished and hunted for smaller game. As with the plateau tribes, they gathered around rivers during peak salmon seasons to catch and dry fish that helped feed them for the remainder of the year. Due to the comparative lack of resources, many subarctic tribes shared resources or hunted together to assist their mutual survival. Among the most prominent subarctic people are the Carrier tribe.

Interior Salish

The Interior Salish describes a group of related tribes found in southern British Columbia and points south. This broad group can be subdivided into several individual tribes, including the Lillooet (or Lil'wat), Nlaka'pamux (or Thompson people), Okanagan, and Shuswap (or Secwepemc). In the summer, the Interior Salish built tipis covered with bark. The more mountainous tribes constructed lodges in the winter where several families lived together for warmth.

Ktunaxa

The Ktunaxa are also known as the Kutenai or Kootenay and are divided into upper and lower bands. They speak a language that is distinct from every other known tongue. They share many cultural traditions with Plains tribes, including annual bison hunts.

Tsilhqot'in

Formerly known as the Chilcotin, the Tsilhqot'in are an Athabaskan-speaking tribe who live between the Fraser River and the Coast Mountains. Their ancestral culture was largely egalitarian. Prior to their contact by European settlers, they typically engaged in subsistence activities.

Carrier

The Carrier (also known as the Dakelh) live in an area located along the Fraser River in the northern interior area of British Columbia. The name Carrier was derived from a cultural practice that required widows to carry the ashes of their deceased husbands.

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