Historian unlocks the ‘cabinet of curiosities’ that is pre-Confederation B.C.

Historian Daniel Marshall feels B.C.’s place in the Canadian story is often given short-shrift – be it in the written record, but especially in the way it is taught. His latest book, Untold Tales of Old British Columbia, in its own small way, tries to set that record straight.

“It’s a collection of about 40 stories, including stories of some of our basic foundational history. You know, how this place called British Columbia came to be,” he said. “But in addition, it’s quite an eclectic mix, really, of stories. It is not unlike a cabinet of curiosities.”

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What makes Untold Tales different is that Marshall tries to show how colonial B.C. was formed just as much by north-south pressures as it was by east-west ones.

“I seek to place British Columbia in this north-south perspective of the Pacific Slope,” he said. “So, we’re talking Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, so on and so forth. And this world that existed prior to the reach of the transcontinental railways.”

“These are trans-boundary histories looking beyond this rather abstract 49th parallel that was drawn across the map that did nothing to define, for instance, the Indigenous populations here, or indeed, these gold rush communities that were routinely traveling up and down the coast.”

Marshall’s own family roots go right back to 1858 and the Fraser River Gold Rush. A lifelong fascination with that event would set him on the path he is on now.

“So, by the time I got to the University of Victoria to start my studies in history, the Gold Rush always fascinated me. And it wasn’t until I arrived at UBC to do my doctorate that I thought, ‘Darn it all, you know, this province needs a fuller treatment of the Fraser River Gold Rush.’ And, of course, this is what led to my book Claiming the Land,” he said.

Indeed, Untold Tales picks up where his 2018 book Claiming the Land: British Columbia and the Making of a New El Dorado leaves off.

It opens with a chapter called The Colour-Blind Commonwealth, in which Marshall lays out how a collection of different races were brought together at the invitation of Sir James Douglas, B.C.’s first colonial governor, himself of mixed race, to escape exclusionary laws in the United States.

“The classic example, really, was if you were a mixed-race person, if you were a native, if you were part part-native, if you were Hawaiian, if you were a Black person or mixed race of any sort, you could not give testimony in a court of law. You know, quite extraordinary,” he said.

“And by those provisions, someone like Governor Douglas himself, a mixed-race person, a Scotch West Indian, could not have given testimony in a court of law. So, this is one of the decided differences.”

Another untold tale is how Victoria came to be home to Canada’s oldest Chinatown. Marshall says it was not only a colonial outpost but a sanctuary.

“Again, [it was] Douglas inviting members of the Chinese population of California, who, again, were being persecuted, couldn’t give testimony in a court of law, were being driven from their claims, [and] generally abused,” he said.

British Columbia was once home to a sizable Black community for similar reasons. Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, who would become Victoria’s first Black city councillor in 1866, was among hundreds of Black Californians who moved to Vancouver Island in 1858. In his words, they were drawn to “liberty under the British Lion denied us beneath the pinions of the American Eagle.”

“He represented the James Bay ward where I am right now; his house once stood just a couple blocks away from me, behind the Legislature where he raised a family,” said Marshall. “Gibbs would never have gotten elected in California. Gibbs would never have gotten elected in Oregon. So, this is a striking difference.”

Gibbs, like other Black settlers, would return south after the U.S. Civil War. He would go on to become the first Black judge elected in the United States.

Marshall laments that stories like these are still relatively unknown outside of specialist circles.

“British Columbia history, I do not believe, is being taught as it once was within the university system. And, as a consequence, it’s not being taught effectively at the school level,” he said.

“So, Untold Tales hopes to entertain and to provide a greater foundational knowledge of just how this curious place called British Columbia came into existence.”

Indeed, Untold Tales is a fine starting point to learn more about B.C. It is highly readable, and its insights are eye-opening.

Untold Tales of Old British Columbia is published by Ronsdale Press.