British Columbia: The Hudson's Bay Company Era

After the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) absorbed the North West Company in 1821, the region became a preserve of the new company. In 1843, Fort Victoria was established by James Douglas as an HBC trading post. Rival British and American claims to the area were settled three years later when the boundary was set at the 49th parallel (see Oregon, state), but further controversy led to the San Juan Boundary Dispute. Partly as protection against American expansion, Vancouver Island was ceded (1849) to Britain by the HBC and became a crown colony.

In 1858 gold was discovered in the sandbars and tributaries of the Fraser River. The gold rushes that resulted brought profound changes. Fort Victoria boomed as a supply base for miners, and a town sprang up around it. Officials of the crown were dispatched to keep order and to supervise government projects and the building of roads. Some 30,000 miners moved into what was then unorganized territory; this led to the creation (1858) of a new colony on the mainland, called British Columbia, and the end of the HBC's supremacy. In 1863 the newly settled territory about the Stikine River was added to British Columbia.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• The Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries
• Confederation
• The Hudson's Bay Company Era
• Early History
• Economy and Higher Education
• Geography
• Bibliography

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