Since the 1970s, historians of British Columbia representing various ideological schools and methodological approaches have debated the role of race in the provinces history. Many of the earlier works discussed whether race or class was the primary determinant in social relations while more recent works have argued that factors such as race, class, and gender combined in different ways and in different situations to inform group interactions. However, the application of these terms in describing aspects of the thoughts and actions of non-Western peoples can be problematic. This thesis attempts to approach the question of race and its role in British Columbias past from the perspective of the Indigenous population of the Lower Fraser River watershed from 1828 (the establishment of the first Hudsons Bay Company post on the Fraser River) to the 1920s, examining shifting notions of the way Aboriginal epistemologies have conceived of otherness through contact between Stó:lõ people and Euro-Canadian and -American, Hawaiian, Chinese, and Japanese immigrants. The main contention is that, contrary to the historiographys depictions of unified and static interactions with newcomers, Stó:lõ people held complex and dynamic notions of otherness when newcomers arrived with the fur trade, and that such concepts informed interactions with people from throughout the Pacific. Numerous factors informed the ways in which Stó:lõ people approached and engaged in relationships with newcomers, but the strongest ones originated in Stó:lõ cultural and historical understanding of others rather than in the racial ideas of Euro-Canadians. <p>Following a discussion of the historiography of race relations and Native-Newcomer interactions in British Columbia, this thesis examines relationships during the fur trade between Hawaiian men employed at Fort Langley and Kwantlen people; the ways in which Stó:lõ people grouped the miners who came to the Fraser Canyon in 1858; Stó:lõ peoples interactions with Chinese immigrants from the 1860s through the 1880s; and the ways in which the presence of Japanese and Chinese Canadians influenced how Stó:lõ leaders articulated their claims to rights and title in the first decades of the twentieth century. It concludes that Aboriginal relations with non-Europeans took a different path than relations with Europeans. Several factors contributed to the branching of paths, including pre-contact views of <i> outsiders</i>, kinship ties in the fur trade, economic competition, and the unsettled Indian Land Question. Moreover, the different relationships must be seen as affecting the other, making understanding the nature of Aboriginal associations with non-Europeans an important part of making sense of aspects of Aboriginal relations with Europeans.

This thesis examines the pre-1900 relationship between the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a French order of Roman Catholic priests, and the Sto:lo of the Fraser Valley. It considers the effects of the strict and inflexible Oblate system on the Sto:lo. Primary sources for this study were found at the Oblate Archives, the Archives of the Sisters of St. Ann, and from various oral testimonies. Under a regime called the "Durieu System", the Oblates encouraged the creation of segregated, self-sufficient agricultural villages on Sto:lo reserves. Ecclesiastically appointed watchmen recorded the names of transgressors against the Oblate "norms" of behaviour. No deviation was tolerated under this regime of surveillance and segregation. The thesis focuses on the Sto:lo children sent to the residential school at St. Mary's Mission; Sister Mary Lumena's diaries and the reminisces of a Metis student, Cornelius Kelleher, were the main sources of information. There were two schools on the site; the boys' under Oblate control, the girls' under the supervision of the Sisters of St.Ann. The schools were residential because the Oblates sought to isolate the children from Sto:lo elders who adhered to the "old ways". At school, children spoke only English and learned by rote-recitation. Sto:lo cosmology was replaced with the Roman Catholic religion. To prevent "immorality", the Oblates segregated the pupils from outsiders and the opposite sex; even their parent's visits were supervised. The school was self-sufficient so as to keep contact with the outside world at a minimum. The Oblates held a utopian vision of a docile, pious, capable, Roman Catholic peasantry. They hoped former pupils would return to their village and educate others or settle in agricultural villages under Oblate control. However, as this study shows, most pupils were orphans or Metis and did not have much influence in their village. This thesis suggests that the small numbers who attended St. Mary's found the transition between the Oblate and Sto:lo worlds difficult to make. Present-day informants described their reactions (which ranged from negative to ambivalent) to the residential school system and the effects of cultural confusion on their lives.

This thesis examines the pre-1900 relationship between the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a French order of Roman Catholic priests, and the Sto:lo of the Fraser Valley. It considers the effects of the strict and inflexible Oblate system on the Sto:lo. Primary sources for this study were found at the Oblate Archives, the Archives of the Sisters of St. Ann, and from various oral testimonies. Under a regime called the "Durieu System", the Oblates encouraged the creation of segregated, self-sufficient agricultural villages on Sto:lo reserves. Ecclesiastically appointed watchmen recorded the names of transgressors against the Oblate "norms" of behaviour. No deviation was tolerated under this regime of surveillance and segregation. The thesis focuses on the Sto:lo children sent to the residential school at St. Mary's Mission; Sister Mary Lumena's diaries and the reminisces of a Metis student, Cornelius Kelleher, were the main sources of information. There were two schools on the site; the boys' under Oblate control, the girls' under the supervision of the Sisters of St.Ann. The schools were residential because the Oblates sought to isolate the children from Sto:lo elders who adhered to the "old ways". At school, children spoke only English and learned by rote-recitation. Sto:lo cosmology was replaced with the Roman Catholic religion. To prevent "immorality", the Oblates segregated the pupils from outsiders and the opposite sex; even their parent's visits were supervised. The school was self-sufficient so as to keep contact with the outside world at a minimum. The Oblates held a utopian vision of a docile, pious, capable, Roman Catholic peasantry. They hoped former pupils would return to their village and educate others or settle in agricultural villages under Oblate control. However, as this study shows, most pupils were orphans or Metis and did not have much influence in their village. This thesis suggests that the small numbers who attended St. Mary's found the transition between the Oblate and Sto:lo worlds difficult to make. Present-day informants described their reactions (which ranged from negative to ambivalent) to the residential school system and the effects of cultural confusion on their lives. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate