Tales of Conflict

Stafford Johnston was a freelance reviewer living in Mitchell, Ontario.

Republication of this collection of reports on white-Indian conflict along the British Columbia coast is timely. Efforts of the Haida Indians to stop logging operations on the Queen Charlotte Islands have been much in the news in 1985 and 1986. Elsewhere in Canada these flashbacks to the beginning of resistance by the Haida, Kwakiutl, Nootka and other Pacific Coast tribes to incursions by white men can provide useful historical background. East of the Rockies the story of dealings between white traders and Indians has been one of co-operation. West of the Rockies the story has been quite different. The 18 stories in this collection cover events from 1790 to 1887. They narrate such conflicts as cannon being fired into a group of Haida, killing 50; ships being boarded by Indian attackers, with all of the crew killed; punitive forays by the Royal Navy to destroy Indian villages, food supplies, and canoes. One of the remarkable tales is of a decision in 1864 by Mr. Justice David Cameron, in Vancouver Island court, that evidence in a murder trial could not be taken from Indian witnesses, because they were heathen and could not swear a Christian oath. The presumed murderers went free, because the Crown witnesses were Indians, and the judge ruled that the Crown had no evidence. Bruce McKelvie (1890-1960) put together a body of material to show that the whites in British Columbia treated Indians as sub-human.