The Kamloops Indian agent may have spoken Creole
The Canadian federal government’s person put in charge of Indigenous affairs in the Kamloops, BC area was John Freemont (or Fremont) Smith (1850-1934).
Smith was born in Saint Croix, in the Danish West Indies, which we now call the US Virgin Islands.
Smith and family around the time he became Kamloops Indian Agent (image credit: The Discover Blog)
That fact suggests he heard and understood one or more creole languages:
- The English-based Virgin Islands Creole, common in his home area.
- The Dutch-based Creole language of those islands, Negerhollands, spoken more on the other islands of that territory.
John F Smith had an exceptional life, traveling to northern Europe as a very young man on a scholarship, then roving Europe, the Mediterranean, and South America. He arrived in Victoria, British Columbia via San Francisco, CA, which are among the places he must have heard and understood (West Coast-variety) Chinese Pidgin English.
Smith is also known to have spoken Chinook Jargon (Northern Dialect). He was sometimes a juror for Judge Matthew Baillie Begbie, some of whose trials involved CJ.
As I tend to point out, pidgins and creoles (“contact languages”) are often in contact with one another. Smith’s life is an example of this happening.
Agent Smith is documented as having worked hard in favor of the Indigenous people in his district, including to protect their designated reserve lands from being nibbled away in haphazard sales.
He’s one of the many African-descended Canadians and Americans who spoke Chinuk Wawa, a demographic I’ve tried to highlight through the years on this blog.
