Claiming the Land

Claiming the Land_FC

Claiming the Land

British Columbia and the Making of a New El Dorado

by Daniel Marshall

$24.95

  • June 2018
  • print ISBN: 978-1-55380-502-1
  • e-book ISBN: 978-1-55380-503-8
  • PDF ISBN: 978-1-55380-504-5
  • 6″ x 9″ Trade paper, 400 pages
  • Bibliography, 30 black & white photos
  • Nonfiction, History



This trailblazing history of early British Columbia focuses on a single year, 1858, the year of the Fraser River gold rush — the third great mass migration of gold seekers after the Californian and Australian rushes in search of a new El Dorado.

“The Fraser Canyon War, as it came to be called, was ‘a conflict of cataclysmic proportions . . . . and it’s also one of the greatest untold stories of our time. . . . This whole country needs a deeply inclusive story that all of us can see ourselves in’ is the case Claiming the Land author Daniel Marshall makes” – Terry Glavin, Maclean’s Magazine

”Marshall has, in effect, rewritten the pivotal history of the birth of the province. This book is long overdue and will form the basis for further research for years to come.” – Canada’s History

”Our efforts toward reconciliation, seen from this perspective, still have very far to go. Claiming the land continues; now it is Indigenous peoples versus pipelines. The stakes are as high as they were in 1858.” – The Tyee

“It’s one of those stories you never heard about in school. . . Meticulously documented, Claiming the Land: British Columbia and the Making of a New Eldorado belongs in libraries and schools among the history books that tell our country’s founding story. It helps fill a major gap in our historical narrative — the largely untold Canyon War and the central role of Indigenous peoples — the original discoverers of gold and their important role in B.C. being a part of Canada” – Vancouver Sun

“I say it is a vital new book, because, first, any book about the virtually unknown and bitterly deadly Fraser Canyon War of 1858, is welcome. . . . It’s brilliant. So much that has been unclear is suddenly in clear light” – The Ormsby Review

“Marshall . . . reminds us how everything changed for Indigenous peoples in 1858 — something we continue to grapple with today” – BC Bookworld

“Marshall’s lucid script documents the complexities of the 1858 Gold Rush and the various confrontations between Indigenous people and gold-seeking immigrants. . . [a] revisionist history concerning an often-overlooked topic” – “Recommended” – Canadian Literature

“The year 1858 is considered the birth of British Columbia, as we know it, but the events of that year have never before been considered as critically and exhaustively as they have been in this book. Marshall has, in effect, rewritten the pivotal history of the birth of the province and of Victoria. This book will form the basis for further research for years to come” – Times-Colonist

“Claiming the Land. . . . reveals how Indigenous people, backed up by British colonial and fur trade officials, neutralized lawless paramilitary brigades of American gold miners on the Fraser River in the summer of 1858” – BC Booklook

“Marshall is for the first time writing the full history of the Fraser River Gold Rush. And it’s a history which has not seen the light of day until now” – Hope-Standard

“That the war even happened will take many people by surprise. Downplayed or ignored in Canadian research, its significance gets special emphasis in Claiming the Land: British Columbia and the Making of a New El Dorado. The war constitutes one of a number of surprises in what author Daniel Marshall. . . . calls a ‘substantial revisionist history’” – Resource Clips

Marshall’s history becomes an adventure, prospecting the rich pay streaks of British Columbia’s “founding” event and the gold fever that gripped populations all along the Pacific Slope. Marshall unsettles many of our most taken-for-granted assumptions: he shows how foreign miner-militias crossed the 49th parallel, taking the law into their own hands, and conducting extermination campaigns against Indigenous peoples while forcibly claiming the land. Drawing on new evidence, Marshall explores the three principal cultures of the goldfields — those of the fur trade (both Native and the Hudson’s Bay Company), Californian, and British world views. The year 1858 was a year of chaos unlike any other in British Columbia and American Pacific Northwest history. It produced not only violence but the formal inauguration of colonialism, Indigenous reserves and, ultimately, the expansion of Canada to the Pacific Slope. Among the haunting legacies of this rush are the cryptic place names that remain — such as American Creek, Texas Bar, Boston Bar, and New York Bar — while the unresolved question of Indigenous sovereignty continues to claim the land.

Click here to read an excerpt from Claiming the Land.

Awards:

Winner, Canadian Historical Association’s Clio Prize, British Columbia

Winner, Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for Outstanding Book on British Columbia

Gold medal winner, IPPY Award, Best Regional Non-fiction Canada-West