Glynn-Ward on BC Indian English & CJ

[David Lewis]

It could be that the Kanaks ie Hawaiians already had the rancharia
designation from their previous experiences with Spanish speaking
immigrants to Hawaii.

At 10:14 PM 1/30/1999 -0800, Mike Cleven wrote:
>At 02:22 PM 1/30/99 -0800, David Lewis wrote:
>>Rancharias were the Spanish Indian Workcamps which gathered local Indians
>>into artificial villages about the rancheria to work in Agriculture and in
>>California mostly Ranching with millions of head of cattle. This
>>arrangement was throughout 'Latin America' or the Spanish held areas of
>>Indian lands. For more info research Mission Tribes of California. The
>>furthest northern rancharia that I know of are Smith River and Elk Valley
>>rancherias of California. The designation may have been adopted by many
>>Western Indians to  mean Indian Village. I personally am not aware of any
>>rancherias north of California or Colorado but this word is the beginning
>>of our English word Ranch.
>
>Actually, most of the rancheries in BC are re-settlements away from the
>original village sites.  In Lillooet's case, the original village had been
>where today's Main Street is, the Squamish one (at Mosquito Creek) being a
>mile or so away from the original main village at Homulchesan (both are
>communities of the Squamish Nation today).  I'm not sure about Lillooet's,
>but the Squamish case was at the instigation of the Catholic Church, whose
>mission was built at the mouth of Mosquito Creek.  The idea in those days
>was to get the natives into "civilized" dwellings (square-cornered log
>cabins, or clapboard at least) and out of the old longhouses and
>pitdwellings (keekwulee houses); the communities that remained in
>traditional housing were _not_, to my knowledge, named as rancheries.  Only
>the resettlement villages were; the policy of the government was
>(ostensibly) to turn them into agrarianists, hence the ranching association
>and the not-accidental relation to the Spanish Empire's labour camps.  Of
>cousre, they never gave them enough arable land or water supply to make any
>agrarian activity worthwhile.
>
>The Kanaka Rancherie, on the other hand, seems to have been named as a
>somewhat slangy application of the term for the Hawaiian community on Lost
>Lagoon.  Also known as "the Cherry Orchard", for reasons obvious even today
>(even though the houses are long gone), it was downright genteel, almost
>English in its quality of quaint gardens and well-kept cottages.  The
>Hawaiians moved there voluntarily after a bout of anti-Chinese riots in
>Gastown (about a mile away) in the winter of 1885-6, which broke up the old
>multiracial, multiethnic quality of pre-railway "Vancouver"; it was better
>to "live apart" as non-whites, even though Hawaiians were pretty much
>accepted as equals (at least by long-term resident whites, if not by
>eastern newcomers brought in by the railway boom) and highly respected for
>their work ethic and skills.
>
>
>