The Colonial Despatches of BC and Vancouver Island

This digital archive contains the original correspondence between the British Colonial Office and the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia. This project aims to digitize and publish online a complete archive of the correspondence covering the period from 1846 leading to the founding of Vancouver Island in 1849, the founding of British Columbia in 1858, the annexation of Vancouver Island by British Columbia in 1866, and up to the incorporation of B.C. into the Canadian Federation in 1871.

We currently have an archive of transcriptions of over 7,000 documents comprising despatches sent between the Colonial Office in London and the various governors of the Vancouver Island and BC provinces, along with ancillary correspondence. These are marked up in TEI P5, and are in various stages of completion. There are also nearly 40,000 page images of the original documents which we are linking into the transcriptions. In addition, we are creating a large collection of short biographies of people, descriptions of places, and information about seagoing vessels mentioned in the documents. There are, for instance, 294 complete biographies, with a further 663 awaiting completion (for the period 1848-1861).

It is difficult to imagine a collection of documents more significant in the history of a Canadian province than the collection represented here. The entire history of Vancouver Island and B.C., from 1846 to 1871, is represented here, in the words of those most intimately concerned with the governance and development of the land, its resources, and its population. But these documents are not only historically important; they are also enthralling and absorbing. Here are adventures and exploration, financial windfalls and disasters, conflicts, smuggling, and even murder. Look into this collection for fifteen minutes, and you will surely find yourself drawn into the stories of the early settlers and the First Nations people of 19th-century B.C.