The Theft of Northern Coast Salish Lands and the Colonial Conundrum of Gilbert Malcolm Sproat, 1876–1880

Abstract

The legacy of Gilbert Malcolm Sproat, who served as British Columbia’s Indian Reserve Commissioner as the Pacific Province dealt with its nascent ‘Indian Land Question’ in the late 19th Century, needs to be carefully considered. Sproat was the vanguard of settler colonialism – he created space for settlers while carving up Indigenous territories. But Sproat also battled with powerful investors, politicians, and British Columbia’s elites in an attempt to create an Indian Reserve Commission a process that championed “friendly conversation as between men with equal rights, and gentle treatment on equitable principles” – lofty goals that conflicted with the visions of powerful stakeholders in Victoria. This article considers Sproat’s legacy at a time when we sit uncomfortably in the ‘Truth’ stage of Truth and Reconciliation, and argues that binaric depictions of Sproat as either a forward-thinking progressive, or a racist colonizer, obscure important lessons we can learn from the past.