Sorry, you need to enable JavaScript to visit this website.
Skip to main content

1800's - Trade and Expansion

The 1800's in British Columbia were notable for trade and expansion. In this era, British Columbia went from being a trading outpost to a newly formed province of Canada. The Northwest Company and Hudson's Bay Company established a number of trading posts and forts throughout British Columbia, including Fort St. John, Fort George and Fort Langley. The two companies eventually merged. James Douglas, of Scottish and Guyanese origins, became British Columbia's first colonial Governor.

  • In 1803, Maquinna, chief of the Nuu-chah-nulth people of Nootka Sound, led an attack on the American trading vessel, the Boston.
  • In 1808, Simon Fraser began an expedition of the present day Fraser River.
  • In 1821, the North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company merged, creating three new trading regions, New Caledonia, Thompson River Watershed and Columbia District.
  • In 1846, the British relinquished any claim to territory south of the 49th parallel in signing the Oregon Treaty.
  • In 1847, the discovery of gold on the Fraser River attracted over 30,000 miners and dreamers, marking the start of the Gold Rush.
  • In 1858, James Douglas became Governor of the newly formed colony of British Columbia.
  • In 1871, British Columbia became the sixth province to enter the Confederation of Canada.
  • In 1885, Canadian Pacific completed the transcontinental railway from Montreal to Port Moody.

Useful Websites

Useful Website Description

The BC Archives is the archives of the Government of British Columbia, and provides research access to records of enduring value to the province for both the provincial government and public researchers.

Useful Website Description

The City of Vancouver Archives, begun in 1934, is the largest collection of historical documents and photographs on Vancouver in existence.

Useful Website Description

Fort Langley National Historic Site is a former fur trading post operated by the Hudson's Bay Company, originally constructed in 1827.

Useful Website Description

Museum of Anthropology, a place of world arts and cultures with a special emphasis on the First Nations peoples and other cultural communities of British Columbia, Canada. The Museum is built on traditional, ancestral, unceded land of the Musqueam people and it is fitting that the first artworks and words you encounter outside the Museum are a welcome from our generous First Nations hosts.

Useful Website Description

Provides a look at the fascinating heritage, culture and natural history of the Lower Mainland. Includes information on the museum's exhibitions, collections and programs.

Useful Website Description

Founded in 1886, the Royal British Columbia Museum consists of The Province of British Columbia's natural and human history museum as well as the British Columbia Provincial Archives.

Useful Website Description

Use the following VPL resources to find historical photographs of Vancouver and BC; research names and city streets; listen to reminiscences about the West End; find articles and stories on BC history; learn about the history of the Vancouver Public Library; or dip into a lively, short-lived weekly newspaper from the early twentieth century.

Digital Library Resources

Image
Culture and History Subject Icon

British Columbia city directories from 1860 to 1955. Directories include detailed historical information about British Columbian communities.

Access:
Everywhere for everyone
Image
Newspapers and Magazines Subject Icon

Digitized newspaper archives covering The Province (1898 - present), The Vancouver Sun (1912 - present) and The Times Colonist (1884 - present).

Issues from most recent 3 months not available in this collection. See Canadian Newsstream for current issues.

Access:
Everywhere for Vancouver residents
Image
Newspapers and Magazines Subject Icon

Search and view community newspapers from around BC published between 1865 and 1994. This collection makes many of BC's earliest newspapers freely available in digital format

Access:
Everywhere for everyone
Image
Culture and History Subject Icon

Includes the complete text of the Canadian Encyclopedia in English and French, interactive resources and timelines of Canadian and world events.

Access:
Everywhere for everyone
Image
Culture and History Subject Icon

A selection of historical images of Vancouver and British Columbia from the 1880s to the 1980s.

Access:
Everywhere for everyone
Image
Culture and History Subject Icon

Searchable primary source material dating from as early as the 16th century to modern times. Excellent for historical research. *Also suitable for research at the elementary, high school and post-secondary levels.

Access:
Everywhere for everyone

Recommended Titles

Remote Media URL
Cover Image for British Columbia and Yukon Gold Hunters: A History in Photographs
Waite, Donald E.
Call Number
971.102 W14b
Publication Year
2015
Although the 1848 discovery of gold in California was the first bonanza to trigger an invasion of migrants to North America's Pacific Coast, it was relatively short-lived. Soon, grander findings farther north led to an even greater influx of gold hunters. In 1851, a twenty-seven-ounce gold nugget was found on Haida Gwaii, ushering in fifty years of gold fever that brought a wave of Californians to the Fraser River and then farther inland to the gold-laden creeks of the Cariboo.
Remote Media URL
Cover Image for Epic Wanderer: David Thompson and the Mapping of the Canadian West
Jenish, D'Arcy
Call Number
971.2 T46j
Publication Year
2003
Epic Wanderer , the first full-length biography of David Thompson, is set in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries against a broad canvas of dramatic rivalries -- between the United States and British North America, between the Hudson's Bay Company and its Montreal-based rival, the North West Co.
Remote Media URL
Cover Image for James Douglas: Father of British Columbia
Ferguson, Julie H.
Call Number
971.1 D73f
Publication Year
2009
James Douglas's story is one of high adventure in pre-Confederation Canada. It weaves through the heart of Canadian and Pacific Northwest history when British Columbia was a wild land, Vancouver didn't exist, and Victoria was a muddy village.

Northwest History Index

This card index in Special Collection provides access to the Northwest History Collection, a heritage collection covering the early history and exploration of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest.

The collection includes:

  • magazine and newspaper articles
  • pamphlets
  • books
  • chapters in books
  • many other resources

As of August 1998, no new material has been added to the Northwest History Index. It is continued by the British Columbia Index.