Episode 5 of 5
Shift in Land Tenure Policy
- When
- 1864
- Where
- British Columbia
Following the epidemic, colonial authorities abandoned treaty processes, establishing a precedent for taking Indigenous land by fiat.
In 1864, Chief Commissioner Joseph Trutch decided to stop recognizing Aboriginal title and abandon treaty processes. This shift occurred after the epidemic devastated Indigenous populations. Settlers occupied depopulated lands, leading to conflicts such as the Chilcotin War when the Tsilhqotʼin resisted unauthorized wagon road construction.
Sources
- 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-15
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.