The Great Darkening
Swanky, Shawn Based on survivor accounts, native elders from across British Columbia have long taught that the devastating smallpox epidemics that swept B.C. in 1862/63 were an ethnic cleansing exercise. Natives died by the tens of thousands in only one year.
Natives believed that the settler community under Gov. James Douglas intended to kill them in order to impose British institutions without treaties & to seize control of land without paying. As it t...