With the creation of the colony of Vancouver Island in 1849, the Hudson’s Bay Company and the British Colonial Office entrust James Douglas to develop Indigenous land policy and implement private property. Douglas decides that Indigenous village sites, fields, and fisheries should be reserved by the crown and all other land be purchased. Douglas begins to negotiate land purchases with Indigenous tribes by written contract under the terms that tribal lands are to be forever surrendered and tribes may retain certain resource and land use rights.

Harris, R. Cole. Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia. (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002), 17-19.