1858, BC: “Ho! For the new mines” with American assumptions about Chinook
Back when Steilacoom (in Washington Territory) was still a major metropolis, it was a conduit for information on — and relating to — the new Fraser River gold rush in BC.
J.S. Jaquith wrote the letter from there that’s reproduced in today’s reading.
He speaks mainly of his experience 3 years previous, going to the Colville mines, but extrapolating from that to discuss how folks ought to go to British Columbia now. I appreciated the following passage:
Having been a resident of this town something
over six years, and being pretty well acquainted
with the Indians, and also well versed in Che-
nook, I think I could get along probably better
than strangers. The statements above made are
not from hearsay.
— from the Steilacoom (WT) Puget Sound Herald of July 16, 1858, page 2, column 2
What’s important to explain here is that Jaquith was able to use Chinook Jargon in 1855 in north-central Washington Territory. He assumes & implies that the same is true in BC.
As we’ve been showing on this site, that wasn’t true. CJ was a new language in interior British Columbia; it arrived with the American miners.
Bonus fact:
There’s also an article on the “Suswap” (Shuswap/Secwépemc) mines, showing that this particular BC gold rush wasn’t limited to its titular Fraser River.
That report, too, explicitly says “the Indians are friendly” — as I’ve pointed out, a major component in the rapid establishment of Chinuk Wawa in a region where it hadn’t been spoken before.
