Fort Victoria (British Columbia)
Fort Victoria | |
---|---|
in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada | |
Type | Fur trading post |
Site information | |
Controlled by | Hudson's Bay Company |
Website | bcheritage |
Site history | |
Built | 1843 |
In use | 1843–1864 |
Demolished | November 1864[1] |
Garrison information | |
Past commanders | James Douglas Roderick Finlayson |
Official name | Fort Victoria National Historic Site of Canada |
Designated | 4 June 1924 |
Fort Victoria began as a
The location of Fort Victoria was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1924.[2]
History
The original headquarters of HBC operations on the Pacific Coast of North America at the time of Victoria's founding was
Erected in 1843 on a site originally called
In 1849, the Colony of Vancouver Island was established and the HBC was granted exclusive proprietary rights over Vancouver Island. The condition imposed by the Colonial Office was that the company would establish a settlement within five years or see their grant revoked. It was also to spend ninety percent of what it made on land sales on infrastructure such as roads and schools. A town was laid out on the site and made the capital of the colony. London sent Richard Blanshard to be its governor.
Even as the settlement began to grow, the nature of the company's business was changing. Animal populations were beginning to dwindle from overtrapping, slowing the fur trade, but the California gold rush created a huge demand for resources with few places to buy them on the unsettled west coast. By 1850 there were several sawmills operating at Victoria to feed the hungry California market. The company was soon trading salted salmon with Hawaii and outfitting Royal Navy ships with supplies for the Crimean War.
The Colony prospered and grew with the gold rush and by 1860, a small legislature was formed. However, Governor James Douglas turned down any suggestion of a responsible government.
See also
- Bastion (Nanaimo)- a similar structure in Nanaimo
Sources
- Jean Barman, The West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991)
- Margaret Conrad and Alvin Finkle, History of the Canadian Peoples: Vol. I—Beginnings to 1867, 4th ed. (Toronto: Person Longman, 2006) and was founded in 1893.
References
- ^ "Chronological City History". Victoria Heritage Foundation. Archived from the original on 2010-08-30. Retrieved 2010-02-05.
- ^ Fort Victoria. Canadian Register of Historic Places. Retrieved 20 January 2012.
- ^ Songhees First Nations. "Songhees Legacy". Archived from the original on 2011-07-25. Retrieved 2011-01-01.
- ^ W. Kaye Lamb, "The Founding of Fort Victoria", B.C. Historical Quarterly, Vol. VII (April 1943), p. 88.
- ^ City of Victoria - History Archived 2009-04-15 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ A Review of the Alaska boundary question", p.11 Archived 2011-05-27 at the Wayback Machine, Alexander Begg, publ. unknown, Victoria 1900]
- ^ Barman, 43
- ^ "Author Profile: Roderick Finlayson". ABC Bookworld. Retrieved 12 June 2013.
External links
- Some Reminiscences of old Victoria, by Edgar Fawcett, 1911