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The first white contact was with fur
traders.
The native people who lived in the area of present day Enderby were not on the main Northwest Company's (and later Hudson's Bay Company's) line of communication in the interior. Fort Okanagan at the conflux of the Okanogan and Columbia Rivers was the first outpost in the interior followed by Fort Kamloops in 1821. These forts were connected by a trail that went through Grande Prairie (Westwold) and down the west side of Okanagan Lake.
We have no evidence that the 300 Splats'in people along the river valley near present-day Enderby were directly trading with the Hudson's Bay Company. It seems very likely that they traded with other bands of Shuswap, who in turn, traded with the Europeans at Fort Kamloops. The attitude toward the fur traders' goods by the Shuswap was probably very similar to the Okanagan: "Far from being exploited like children by the lure of a 'few beads and trinkets,' it seems more likely that the Okanagans welcomed the opportunity to obtain the new technology which would help them better feed and clothe their families and would give them the means to defend their peaceful way of life from their war-like neighbours." *
The other initial white contact came from the missionaries.
In 1860, a Catholic mission of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (or Oblates) was established on the east side of Okanagan Lake in the territory of the Okanagan at L'Anse au Sable (Mission Creek in present-day Kelowna) and regular missionary penetration of the Okanagan and Shuswap began. The first contact with the Splats'in people came in 1863.
While the Oblate missionaries were concerned foremost with the preservation of the Indian soul, they were also interested in education, health, economics and justice for native people.
By 1874, the Oblate's domain extended from the United States border to the North Thompson valley and west into the Similkameen valley. In that year, Bishop d'Herbonnez described the district as having 1,600 "sauvages" and 100 whites. He also figured that out of this total 1,300 were Christian. This whole area was served by only two or three missionaries stationed at the mission at L'Anse au Sable. When one was on the road, the other stayed at the mission to tend the farm.
Missionary visits to various bands were infrequent. In January 1875, Father Baudre reported he had visited the Splats'in three times and spent on average only five days on each visit in the previous year. The reason for the infrequency of visits had to do not only with limited staff but with the demands of farming and religious observance on the part of the missionaries. This limitation was coupled with the fact that often the native people were dispersed hunting, gathering, or fishing during the year.
With the increase in settlement and the emphasis on placing natives on reserves, it became easier for missionaries to play a role in native society. In the absence of interest by civil authorities in native well-being, the missionaries took it upon themselves to provide a level of band organization: "Each village had a council over which the priest reserved the right to preside, although the chief was the usual residing officer. The council usually comprised the chief plus the captain, watchmen and, for a time, the treasurer. To this council were brought civil, moral and criminal cases arising in the village." Unfortunately, few details survived about these Indian courts, but it was clear that they concerned themselves with affairs that "...were not considered offenses in English law but were based on the moral precepts of the Catholic Church..."
While it is true that the Catholic Church and its missionaries had the best interests of the native people in mind as they perceived it, there is some question as to whether or not an unhealthy dependence was created that did not allow the native people to adequately defend themselves against the onslaught of white settlement.
One of the most horrifying aspects of white contact against which the native population could not defend itself was European disease. Europeans had developed a certain immunity to some of the illnesses; native North Americans had none. A report to the McKeena Commission by A.L. Fortune, the first white settler in the Enderby area (and the North Okanagan), indicated that: "Then in the following year, that would be in 1867, there were somewhere about 22 Indians composed of men, women and children and they told me that this place was their home. They told me that some years previous, I expect it would be in 1862, that there were quite a large number of Indians here and small-pox had killed most of them. I could quite understand that because I had travelled through the country and found that the Indians had suffered very much with the small-pox in that year, and some of the Indian women showed me some of the bones of the Indians which had just been put under the surface of the ground."
* A very strong argument has been made by Robin Fisher (Contact and Conflict: Indian-European Relations in British Columbia, 1774-1890, UBC Press, Vancouver, 1992) that the fur trade did not disrupt native social organization and economy in the way that the settlers did after the gold rush of 1858. He suggests that, particularly along the coast, the trade enhanced the lives of native people similar to the suggestion made above by Ms. Mellows. Others have disagreed. Peter Carstens (The Queen's People: A study of Hegemony, Coercion and Accommodation among the Okanagan of Canada (Univ. of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1991, pp. 29-30) argues strongly that the negative impact of white culture, technology and disease impacted on the Okanagan long before the fur traders came on the scene, and that the fur traders only facilitated an on-going process that changed native culture forever.
Bob Cowan
Enderby Museum 1999
For a Bibliography please contact the Enderby Museum