<shabon> ... this gets kind of technical ...

[Mike Cleven]

>From: David Robertson <drobert at TINCAN.TINCAN.ORG>
>Reply-To: David Robertson <drobert at TINCAN.TINCAN.ORG>
>To: CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>Subject: Re: <shabon> ... this gets kind of technical ...
>Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 20:32:52 -0800
>
> > >>entered CJ via frequent, and perduring, contact between Indians and
> > >>cheechako -- i.e. in and near permanent settlements.
> > >
> > >There were no permanent settlements pre-1858.
> >
> > What is this definition of permanent settlement? Indigenous peoples had
> > permanent settlements. And in Oregon, Jason Lee, and McLaughlin had
> > permanent settlements established before this time. Maybe you mean in
>BC?
> >
> > David [Lewis]
>
>[Dave Robertson responding:]  What I meant by 'permanent settlements' was
>any permanent settlement, indigenous or not, though mostly the latter
>since I imagine most Interior Salish traditional life to follow a seasonal
>round of migration.  In fact I more or less exclude permanent winter camp
>sites, thinking rather of locations where the indigenous and the outsiders
>would have had those 'frequent, and perduring, contacts':  Around HBC
>forts, for example, and around ['White'] towns.
>
>With regard to the suggested date of 1858 for earliest permanent
>non-Indian settlement, I suspect I will disagree with that.  Kamloops, for
>example, was certainly an HBC hub decades before that.  Fort Colvile goes
>quite a ways back as well.  Fort Camosun (which became Victoria) also
>predates that mark.
>
>But Mike may be referring to the earliest official incorporation of a
>'White' town in BC, about which subject I'm entirely ignorant.

Because you were talking about the presence of French speakers in the region
that became the Interior of BC, I assumed you _weren't_ meaning _native_
permanent settlements, which were many; notably Camchin/Kumsheen (Lytton)
and the various village sites at Lillooet; several of which may be thousands
of years old; those at Seton Portage only date as far back as the creation
of the Portage geologically (can't remember if that's 2k or 10k years).
Presumably at other obvious village sites in the Interior as well there were
permanent sites, but I'm not sure where; the geography in the Fraser Canyon
is more demanding/limiting and you really don't have many choices.

Cayoosh/Lillooet came into existence as a "permanent settlement"
(non-native) in 1858, but it was not incorporated as a municipality (town or
village I'm not sure) in the winter of 1859-60, when it was renamed
"Lillooet".

I'd also excluded HBC posts from consideration because the non-native
communities based there were not "permanent", except perhaps for the factor;
the French staff were migratory as was the nature of their job.  And again,
I'd thought you were talking about the Interior of BC, which Colville and
Camosun certainly aren't, although Colville is of course Interior.

And again, the French presence in BC was the dominant element of the
non-native population (such as it was) of the Interior until the coming of
American and other goldminers in 1858; if BC had remained an HBC demesne,
its non-native population might have been dominantly francophone as indeed
was Saskatchewan Territory (now AB, SK and MB; Riel's "Nord-Ouest") were
until colonized by imperialist forces from the Canadas. '-)

MC
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com