Fraser Canyon Gold Rush facts for kids
The New Eldorado: "A Complete View of the Newly Discovered Goldfields"
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| Duration | 1858 – c. 1927 |
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| Location | Fraser Canyon, British Columbia |
| Type | Gold rush |
The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, (also Fraser Gold Rush and Fraser River Gold Rush) began in 1858 after gold was discovered on the Thompson River in British Columbia. People rushed to the area around Fraser Canyon.
Although the rush was mostly over by 1927, miners spread out and found other gold fields throughout the British Columbia Interior and North. The most famous of those was in the Cariboo. The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush started the European-Canadian settlement on the mainland of British Columbia. The settlers built roads and founded the Colony of British Columbia, along with many towns within it.
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Gold rush
Although the area had been mined for a few years, San Francisco learned about the discovery of gold there when the governor of the colony of Vancouver Island, James Douglas, sent a shipment of ore to that city's mint. News spread quickly, and within a month, 30,000 people rushed to Victoria, British Columbia, hoping to find gold. The rush disrupted the established balance between the Hudson's Bay Company's fur traders and indigenous peoples.
By the fall, most of the new miners had failed to find gold and returned home. Other men quickly replaced them. Governor Douglas later required that people enter the colony through Victoria, but thousands used other trails like the Douglas Road, the Okanagan Trail, the Similkameen Trail, Whatcom Trail, and the Skagit Trail illegally. This made it difficult to accurately record the number of miners who participated in the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush.
Richard Clement Moody and the Birth of British Columbia
When news of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush reached London, the Colonial Office hand-picked Richard Clement Moody to establish British order. His job, under Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, was to transform British Columbia into the British Empire's "bulwark in the farthest west" and "found a second England on the shores of the Pacific."
Moody arrived in British Columbia in December 1858, commanding the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment. He founded the new capital city of New Westminster.
Related conflicts
During the fall of 1858, tensions increased between the miners that flooded the area and the the Nlaka'pamux, the First Nations people of the Canyon. This led to the Fraser Canyon War. Governor Douglas contracted the buiding of the Douglas Road and arrived in Yale to accept the apologies of the Americans who had waged war on the natives. He appointed British justices of the peace and changed mining rules to try to maintain order in the area. However, this was difficult to enforce because of the lack of troops.
Competition and interracial tensions between European Americans and non-white miners erupted on Christmas Eve 1858, with the beating of Isaac Dixon, a freed American black. He was the town barber and in later years was a popular journalist in the Cariboo. Dixon was beaten by two men from Hill's Bar, the other main town in the southern part of the goldfields. This resulted in a complicated series of events known as McGowan's War.
Aftermath
By 1860, miners had depleted the gold and gone either home or further into the British Columbia wilderness in search of undiscovered riches. Other gold rushes followed in the area, which drew people away from British Columbian cities.
Interesting facts about the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush
- The Indigenous communities traded with newcomers and provided them with food and goods necessary for travel and gold-mining.
- They also acted as trusted guides and translators.
- James Douglas of New Caledonia did not want to lose more territory to Americans, so he asked Queen Victoria to establish a colonial government there.
- The queen renamed the territory British Columbia and made Douglas its first governor.
- If Douglas had not asked for help from the queen, America may have taken possession of New Caledonia.
- The rush disrupted the Nlaka'pamux salmon fishery, which was considered a critical economic activity for the people.
- A smallpox epidemic broke out in 1862 that killed several indigenous people.
- On August 22, 1858, the Nlaka’pamux agreed to grant the miners access to their resources and territories.
See also
In Spanish: Fiebre del oro del cañón del Fraser para niños
