Settler lasting, as usual: Keith Thor Carlson, ‘“The Last Potlatch” and James Douglas’s Vision of an Alternative Settler Colonialism’, in Peter Cook, Neil Vallance, John Lutz, Graham Brazier, Hamar Foster(eds), To Share, Not Surrender, University of British Columbia Press, 2021 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler lasting, as usual: Keith Thor Carlson, ‘“The Last Potlatch” and James Douglas’s Vision of an Alternative Settler Colonialism’, in Peter Cook, Neil Vallance, John Lutz, Graham Brazier, Hamar Foster(eds), To Share, Not Surrender, University of British Columbia Press, 2021

19Jul24

Excerpt: On April 27, 1864, William McColl, a retired royal engineer turned con-tract surveyor, was still working with Fraser Valley Indigenous leaders to identify lands to be included as Indian reserves when an editorial appeared in the British Columbian under the headline “The Last ‘Potlatch.’” In the article, John Robson directs vitriol at the man who had provided McColl with his instructions – the outgoing governor, James Douglas. Setting himself up as the voice of British Columbia’s emergent settler colonial population, Robson works his prose to undermine Douglas’s authority by suggesting the governor’s well-known empathy and sympathy for Indigenous peoples had caused him to betray the interests of white colonists and, by extension, the future of British Columbia.

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