Colonists and Contradictions

Less Racist Attitudes

A letter to the editor in the Weekly Victoria Gazette on 2 April 1859 shows that some colonists realized how limiting racism was, and how it arose from ridiculous generalizations:

... Ours is indeed a small community, and small communities, as is well known, have small ideas. We have been clamorous, and still are so, for population, and yet blessed as we are with barely 3000 souls, have just been driving away from our midst about 500 Indians; at this moment, if each of the inhabitants of Victoria were consulted, there would probably be hardly a soul left in the place. For instance:

The Indians would be sent away for their thieving and immorality;

The Chinese as composing a filthy and unprofitable race;

The colored population for their impudence and independence;

The Irish for hating everything English;

The German for liking everything American;

The Americans for being troublesome, aggressive, and insulting;

The French as Roman Catholic;

The Hudson Bay Co., as a matter of course, and the half-breeds as a consequence;

The English: well one half of them should be sent away also.

Such are the results of illiberality and narrow-mindedness, and yet each of the very parties who despise or detest (each in his own way) the one or the other of the above classes, considers himself undoubtedly a liberal man; much like the trader who only cheated one class of his customers, and thought himself honest. But when I hear old settlers, who have been living for years among the Indians, and who have been too happy to trade with them, who moreover profess to be liberal, and now proclaim the fervent wish that the disgusting creatures be driven away from their homes, without further notice; I say that I execrae such feelings, and that such men have no true liberality about them. ... AN ASS

An extract from the Journals of the Colonial Legislature from 15 February 1859 also shows an example of someone who questioned the double standards of many colonists. Just before this excerpt, Yates argued that the government should sell the Songhees Reserve without letting the Songhees know what it was worth:

Mr. Pemberton Thought [sic] that in common justice the land reserved for the Indians ought to be used for their benefit; it was only now that these lands had become valuable, that the Indians were found to be a nuisance; if bad spirits were the cause of preventing the improvement of Indians let the grog shops be removed. He thought if the Indians enquired how we had acquired their lands that we should stand in a much worse light than they would with their reserve.¹⁹

Colonists and Contradictions