Saltspring Island - History

History

Salt Spring Island, or xʷənen̕əč, was initially inhabited by Salishan peoples of various tribes. Other Saanich placenames on the island include: t̕θəsnaʔəŋ̕ (Beaver Point), čəw̕een (Cape Keppel), xʷən̕en̕əč (Fulford Harbour), and syaxʷt (Ganges Harbour).

The island became a refuge from racism for African Americans who had resided in California. Settled in 1858 by ex-slaves from Missouri who travelled to California, and then north to British Columbia at the invitation of Governor James Douglas, himself a Guyanese mulatto, the island was not only the first of the Gulf Islands to be settled, but also, according to 1988's A Victorian Missionary and Canadian Indian Policy, the first agricultural settlement established anywhere in the Colony of Vancouver Island not owned by the Hudson's Bay Company or its subsidiary the Pugets Sound Agricultural Company.

Salt Spring Island was also the first in the Colony of Vancouver Island and British Columbia to allow settlers to acquire land through pre-emption: settlers could occupy and improve the land before purchase, being permitted to buy it at a cost per acre of one dollar after proving they had done so. Before 1871 (when the merged Colony of British Columbia joined Canada), all property acquired on Salt Spring Island was purchased in this way; between 1871 and 1881, it was still by far the primary method of land acquisition, accounting for 96% of purchases. As a result, the history of early settlers on Saltspring Island is unusually detailed. Demographically, early settlers of the island included not only African Americans, but also (largely) English and European, as well as Irish, Scottish, aboriginal and Hawaiian. The method of land purchase helped to ensure that the land was used for agricultural purposes and that the settlers were by and large families. Ruth Wells Sandwell in Beyond the City Limit indicates that few of the island's early residents were commercial farmers, with most families maintaining subsistence plots and supplementing through other activities, including fishing, logging and working for the colony's government. Some families abandoned their land altogether as a result of lack of civic services on the island or other factors, such as the livestock-killing cold of the winter of 1862.

During the 1960s, the island once again became a refuge for US citizens, this time for draft dodgers during the Vietnam War.