A Plan to Move Indigenous People to San Juan Island Stirs a Border Dispute
A Victoria proposal to resettle Native people on disputed San Juan Island draws a sharp warning from Washington Territory.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
We clip the following item from the Victoria Gazette of March 8th: “Objections have been urged against Speaker Helmcken’s proposed plan for removing the Indians to San Juan Island, on the ground that its possession is in dispute between the British and American Governments, and a step of this kind might cause serious complications of national importance.” It would be strong evidence of woeful lack of intelligence on the part of the citizens of Victoria not to urge objections to such an ill-advised proceeding. We seriously object, on the part of the people of this Territory, to such a plan, and would warn the authorities of Vancouver’s Island, in a spirit of friendship, against committing any such act of folly.
“We seriously object, on the part of the people of this Territory, to such a plan, and would warn the authorities of Vancouver’s Island, in a spirit of friendship, against committing any such act of folly.”
San Juan Island was then at the center of the Pig War border dispute, and Indigenous people were treated as pawns in a contest between empires. The episode is a reminder that displacement was not only a frontier policy but a diplomatic weapon.
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