In 1857 Govenor Douglas was presented small gold nuggets from the banks of the Thompson river. With everything that had gone on in 1848 and 1849 with all the unfortunate gold rushers that were in sanfransisco this was huge news. The Gold miners then moved north to set out to British Columbia's Cariboo territory. The economy was booming in this big get rich quick scheme and James Douglas needed to tame it and make sure there would be no territorial dominance by the US so he decided to make the Cariboo road which whent to the goldfields. When he did this he was trying to gather more economic growth and make sure nobody would be able to leave the region through the US. This was very intriguing economicly for the whole province but not that intriguing at all for the Chilcotin and their way of life. They knew the lands like the back of their hand and like a lot of situations in Canada their land and way of life was being threatened by the expansion and growth of Canada. Because of the building of the road the Chilcotin were exposed to european workers who exposed them to smallpox. So many died. At first it was an accident but then many european traders and prospectors started to get smallpox infected blankets and clothes and willingly donated them to the natives. More died and the tragedy grew. The natives whent to war in 1864 and 5 were executed in court. This just shows how negative this event was. No matter what we do we have to think about what the outcome might be and if so how can we solve it. The government of Canada at that time knew the outcome and did not try to solve it in any way. That is why this horrific event is a negative part of Canadian history.
-Events from 1815 - 1914
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