Colony of Vancouver Island

The Colony of Vancouver Island (officially known as the Island of Vancouver and its Dependencies), was a crown colony of British North America from 1849 to 1866, after which it was united with British Columbia. The united colony joined the Dominion of Canada through Confederation in 1871. The colony comprised Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands of the Strait of Georgia.

Establishment of the colony

Captain James Cook was the first European to set foot on the Island at Nootka Sound in 1778, claiming the territory for Great Britain. Fourteen years later, under the provisions of the Nootka Convention, Spain ceded its claims to Vancouver Island and the adjoining islands (including the Gulf Islands). It was not until 1843, however, that Britain — under the auspices of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) — established a settlement on Vancouver Island. The settlement was in the form of a fur trading post originally named Fort Albert (afterward Fort Victoria). The fort was located at the Songhees settlement of Camosack (Camosun), 200 metres northwest of the present-day Empress Hotel on Victoria's Inner Harbour. The fort was originally known as Fort Camosun.

With the signing of the Treaty of Washington in 1846, the HBC determined that its trapping rights in the Oregon Territory were tenuous. Thus in 1849, it moved its western headquarters from Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River (present day Vancouver, Washington) to Fort Victoria. Fort Vancouver's Chief Factor, James......
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