new book

[terry glavin]

klahowya.

the terror of the coast: land alienation and colonial war on vancouver
island and the gulf islands, 1849 - 1863. by chris arnett. talonbooks,
vancouver.

i highly recommend this new contribution to our colonial history. i don't
quite agree with arnett's take on the events the book is concerned with, but
it's a work of great scholarship and very well written. a key focus of the
book centres on the arrest, trial and conviction of several
hulkiminum-speaking people (a.k.a cowichan people) on charges of murder in
1863 - a series of events that significantly influenced the course of b.c.
history with respect to the so called "indian land question," i.e. how our
politicians broke the king's promises. an important issue that arnett raises
concerns whether the accused were allowed a fair trial - a hugely emotional
and hotly-contested issue in the colonial press at the time. arnett argues
that the use of chinook (all the trials were conducted in chinook)
contributed to the injustice, because lalang is incapable of expressing key
points of law. i don't believe this is necessarily so. but there is chinook
here and there throughout the book, relying as it does, sometimes quite
heavily, on accounts from the colonial press. if nothing else, a tremendous
book about the daftness of kinchotch men, and another reminder that
hard-heartedeness and complete bloody-mindedness are certainly not the sole
prerogatives of bostonmen.

  mahsie.

 -glavin.