SOSC 3210 Chapter Notes -Social Darwinism, Monody, Canadian Historical Association
17 Nov 2014
School
Department
Course
Professor
10 October New Recruits to Industry: Race and Industry
John Lutz, “After the Fur Trade: The Aboriginal Labouring Class of British Columbia,
1849-1890,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, V. 3, no. 1 (1992): 69-93.
- challenges the long standing view that aboriginal people were bystanders in the conic development and
industrialization of british columbia outside and after the fur trade
-from the establishment of the colony of vancouver island, confederation and completion of canadian pacific
railway, aboriginal people comprised the majority of the population in present day british columbia and the
majority of the workforce in agriculture, fishing, trapping and the burgeoning primary industries
-denial of citizenship rights to a large segment would agree to trap, hunt, or do wage work for capitalist
economy —are major issues of national development and central to Canadian history
-aboriginal wage labour within gold rushes, founding of giant export saw mills, confederation, the development
and spread of the salmon canning industry, to just past the completion of the Canadian pacific railway in 1885
-throughout this period aboriginal people in BC comprised the majority of the population
-with the gold rush, the colonies with comprise modern BC changed from “colonies of exploitation, which made
use of indigenous manpower, to colonies of settlement, where the indians became at best irrelevant”
-this paper—aboriginal people were not made irrelevant bc the coming of settlement but were the main labour
force of the early settlement era, essential to the capitalist development of British Columbia
-trading was a major attraction—the variety in victoria was greater, alcohol was more easily available, and the
prices of goods were perhaps better than at closer trading posts; and in the beginning at least curiosity to see the
alien community was another factor
-for the object of indians in visiting this place is not to make war upon the white man, but to benefit by his
presence by selling the furs and other commodities
-aboriginals sold labour (less skilled, industrious than the white men, work at a comparatively much cheaper
rate so they are exceedingly useful to the colonists)
-seasonal migration cycle from permeant winter villages to harvesting roots and berries in the summer
-others who did not join the migration, found work closer to their own villages in the expanding activities of the
hudson bay company posts, cutting shingles, spars, picking cranberries, harvesting ice, as well as gardening,
fishing, preserving food and doing general construction
-while the summer migrants from the north worked on the farms and public works, some of the local songhees
people became established in year round employment in the homes of the better off colonists as servants and
cooks
-aboriginal people were not made redundant but he influx of non aboriginals to the gold fields, just less visible
in the increasingly polyglot society of the colonies
-gold and coal became focal points of the economy of the pacific northwest between the 1840s and 1880s in
both cases, aboriginal people were the discoverers and first miners and continued to work the mines throughout
the century
-Besides mining and packing, the aboriginal people of the southern interior took up farming on their own behalf
and worked as farm labour for others
-his customary and casual and seasonal work schedule hardly prepared him for the discipline, pace and rhythm
of industrial employment—yet the evidence shows aboriginal people were among the regions first factory
workers
-as with other settlements around the colonies, whole aboriginal communities relocated to the sawmill sand in
burrard inlet, most of the workers inside and outside the factory were aboriginal
-in 1881m aboriginal sawmill workers were preferred to whites and workers of both races earned up to 2.50 a
day
-some aboriginals moved into skilled jobs but the majority of the aboriginal workers were unskilled
-in addition to working for the big export mills, aboriginal people worked and ran several smaller sawmills that
were scattered throughout the province, many of them first established by missionaries in order to encourage
aboriginal people to adopt capitalist christian ethics
-not only was sawmill labour predominately aboriginal but so were the longshore men and women
-while the sawmills of burrard inlet were getting into full swing, the second major factory based industry
(salmon canning ) was in its infancy
-25 years after the gold rush, aboriginal people had not been marginalized —rather they remained at the centre
of the transformed capitalist economy activity
-almost all the labour of the province is done by indians and Chinese, the federal minister of justice reported in
1883
-chiefs acted as labour brokers for their local groups
-recruitment became more of an issues with the advent of large sawmills and canneries (factories) became they
demanded an unfair work discipline
-aboriginal people under some circumstances could be paid less than white labour
-many aboriginal groups opted to travel long distances to obtain employment while their neighbours did not
-the industrial workplace favoured younger people;agriculture, on the other hand, did not discriminate between
young and old or between men and women
-native men would fish and women would mend nets and work in the canneries
-the traditional division of labour between male hunters and female processors of the catch was generally
carried over into the capitalist economy of the sealing industry as well
-1840-90 both men and women worked at non industrial occupations such as gold mining, farming, agricultural
labour, rendering oil and loading coal
-men are more often mentioned as cutting and selling firewood while women are commonly record as bringing
fish and game to urban markets
-urban areas—women did domestic work such as washing clothes, taking in ironing, cleaning houses and
employed to make fishnets
-prostitution as additional income
-aboriginal women carried on and even enlarged their roles as providers for households in the substance
economy
-increasing social status and power of women
-aboriginal people in BC chose to work for pay
-prior to wide scale opportunities for wage labour most of the peploses of the west coast participated in the fur
trade for reasons which were broadly based in their own cultures traditions
-with some exceptions, aboriginal people welcomed the arrival of traders on boats and the establishment of
trading posts in their territories
-same cultural forces that drew aboriginal people into the fur trade continued to operate and draw them into the
wage industrial labour force
-aboriginal people permitted, if not welcomed, initial non aboriginal expansion into their terrorizes to take
advantage of the wealth generating potential that the aliens offered
-aboriginal people apparently found that these new forms of work could be used like the fur trade, to enhance
their position in their own society
-aboriginal people worked to be able to potlatch
-income from wage work was used to enhance the prestige of the labourers
-shamans paid to cur illness, families paid bride price
-aboriginal people were not servants of industry but also made industrialization serve their interests as well
-aboriginal people had their own reasons for working for wages and chose when they would enter and leave
labour force frustrated white employers
Jin Tan, “Chinese Labour and the Reconstructed Social Order of British Columbia,”
Canadian Ethnic Studies, V. 19, no. 3 (1987).
.jpg)