Colony of British Columbia (1866-1871)

Colony of British Columbia
British colony
1866–1871
Colonial flag of British Columbia (1870-71): British Blue Ensign and the great seal of the colony
Anthem God Save the Queen
The modern Canadian province of British Columbia has the same boundaries as its colonial predecessor.
Capital		Victoria
Languages		English
Religion		Christianity
Government		Constitutional monarchy
Queen regnant		Victoria of the United Kingdom
Historical era		British Era
•	Established, by merger with Colony of Vancouver Island	6 August 1866
•	Entered Canadian Confederation	July 20, 1871
Preceded by Succeeded by Colony of British Columbia Colony of Vancouver Island Province of British Columbia

Colonial flag of British Columbia (1870-71): British Blue Ensign and the great seal of the colony

The Colony of British Columbia was a British Crown Colony that resulted from the amalgamation of the two former colonies, the Colony of Vancouver Island and the mainland Colony of British Columbia. The two former colonies were united in 1866, and the united colony existed until its incorporation into the Canadian Confederation in 1871.

The Colony of Vancouver Island had been created in 1849 to bolster British claims to the whole island and the adjacent Gulf Islands, and to provide a North Pacific home port for the Royal Navy at Esquimault. By the mid-1850s, the Island Colony's non-indigenous population was around 800 people; a mix of mostly British, French-Canadian, Metis, Hawaiians, but with handfuls of Iroquoians and Cree in the employ of the fur company, and a few Belgian and French Oblate priests (thousands of first nations died due to the smallpox epidemic). Three years earlier, the Treaty of Washington had established the boundary between British North America and the United States of America west of the Rocky Mountains along the 49th parallel. The mainland area of present-day British Columbia, Canada was an unorganised territory under British sovereignty until 1858. The region was under the de facto administration of the Hudson's Bay Company, and its regional chief executive, James Douglas, who also happened to be Governor of Vancouver Island. The region was informally given the name New Caledonia, after the fur-trading district which covered the central and northern interior of the mainland west of the Rockies.