This trailblazing history focuses on a single year, 1858, the year of the Fraser River gold rush--the third great mass migration of gold seekers after the Californian and Australian rushes in search of a new El Dorado. Marshall's history becomes an adventure, prospecting the rich pay streaks of British Columbia's "founding" event and the gold fever that gripped populations all along the Pacific Slope. Marshall unsettles many of our most taken-for-granted assumptions: he shows how foreign miner-militias crossed the 49th parallel, taking the law into their own hands, and conducting extermination campaigns against Indigenous peoples while forcibly claiming the land. Drawing on new evidence, Marshall explores the three principal cultures of the goldfields--those of the fur trade (both Native and the Hudson's Bay Company), Californian, and British world views. The year 1858 was a year of chaos unlike any other in British Columbia and American Pacific Northwest history. It produced not only violence but the formal inauguration of colonialism, Native reserves and, ultimately, the expansion of Canada to the Pacific Slope. Among the haunting legacies of this rush are the cryptic place names that remain--such as American Creek, Texas Bar, Boston Bar, and New York Bar--while the unresolved question of Indigenous sovereignty continues to claim the land. "Marshall has, in effect, rewritten the pivotal history of the birth of the province.

This book is long overdue and will form the basis for further research for years to come."--Canada's History "Our efforts toward reconciliation, seen from this perspective, still have very far to go. Claiming the land continues; now it is Indigenous peoples versus pipelines. The stakes are as high as they were in 1858."--The Tyee "This is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the gold rushes of the Western Cordillera and the geopolitical origins of British Columbia."--The Ormsby Review "Marshall's lucid script documents the complexities of the 1858 Gold Rush and the various confrontations between Indigenous people and gold-seeking immigrants."--Canadian Literature Literary Nonfiction. California Interest.

Native American Studies.