The 1856 military expedition against the Somenos profoundly influenced the future of the Cowichan people by bringing “the whites into their midst, for one of the principal legacies of the expedition was the discovery of the expanse and fertility of the Cowichan plain.” 42
Upon his return to Fort Victoria, Douglas wrote enthusiastically to his friend and colleague, James Murray Yale, that “Cowegin is a fine valley far more extensive and valuable as an agricultural country than I had any idea of”—a statement which reflects his enthusiasm for the potential of the Cowichan Valley to alleviate the crucial shortage of agricultural land, the main impediment to Hwunitum settlement facing the Colony of Vancouver Island. 43 Douglas predicted that the valley could support 50,000 settlers: “I have therefore bright hopes for our future,” he wrote, “and no longer despair of the Colony.” 44
The major obstacle was Hwulmuhw ownership. Rear Admiral Bruce shared Douglas’ optimism and made the improbable claim that the Cowichan people would welcome Hwunitum settlers. “Its present population consists of 4,000 Indians,” he wrote, “who are friendly to the English, and desirous for their residence among them; notwithstanding the summary infliction of justice they so recently witnessed at our hands.” 45 Bruce was probably referring to Lohar who, according to his daughter, “was always very friendly to the white men … He wanted them to come and live in our land.” 46 Other Cowichan si’em were opposed to any land sale agreements and preferred to exercise their own sovereignty and jurisdiction over their lands.
None of this seemed to matter to Douglas who, after two successful military campaigns against Cowichan people, went ahead with his plans to alienate from Hwulmuhw ownership the majority of the Cowichan Valley. In 1857 Douglas authorized the Surveyor General, Joseph Despard Pemberton, a Protestant Irish immigrant who had been in the colony since 1851, to undertake a reconnaissance of the area and to report on the feasibility of settlement. Tomo Antoine led the small party up the Cowichan River to Cowichan Lake and down the Nitinaht River to its outlet on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Pemberton’s exploration confirmed British impressions regarding the potential of the Cowichan Valley as a future addition to the colony. 47 Douglas was now prepared to allow other agents of colonization to enter the territories of Hul’qumi’num First Nations as a preliminary stage in the alienation of their lands.
Hwunitum desire for Hwulmuhw land was matched by the quest for their souls. Quebecois Roman Catholic clergy contributed to the destabilization of Hwulmuhw culture in ways equally as effective as Douglas’ hangings and naval bombardments. The success of the Quebecois missionaries in obtaining numerous converts while simultaneously undermining traditional Hwulmuhw culture was partly the result of the drastic decline in Hwulmuhw population. Hwulmuhw witnessed disease, alcoholism, violence and subsequent high mortality rates, wreaking havoc among them while the Hwunitum suffered little and in fact prospered. The acceptance of Christian deities seemed necessary to restore order in a world out of balance. 48
As early as 1843, when Father Jean-Baptiste Bolduc arrived at the future site of Fort Victoria and offered to baptize a large congregation of Hwulmuhw assembled there, an elder addressed him saying:
Your words are good; but we have been told that those that were baptized of the Kwaitlens and the Kawitshins (on the Fraser River) died almost immediately; however, as you say it is a good thing, we believe it. Since that will make us see the Master on high after death, baptize all those in our camp; do them this charity; they are to be pitied; almost all die. 49
When the Bishop of Vancouver Island, Modeste Demers, arrived in the colony in September, 1852, on the heels of Timothy Honore Lemprit’s ill-fated Cowichan mission, he began to make frequent visits to the Cowichan Valley, and possibly other areas, where he was well received.
Born in the little village of St. Nicholas in Lower Canada in 1809, Demers arrived in the Pacific Northwest overland in 1838. 50 From his base in the Oregon Territory he travelled extensively throughout the land, “contacting and converting the Indian tribes from the northern boundary of Oregon to Stuart Lake in what is now the Interior of British Columbia.” 51 Demers and another priest, Blanchet, employed and elaborated “Chinook,” a five hundred word trade jargon invented by Hudson’s Bay Company employees to facilitate communication with indigenous peoples. 52 Demers created a vocabulary, composed canticles, and translated prayers into Chinook which “enabled the two first missionaries to do a great deal of good among the Indians and half-breeds.” 53 In 1847 Demers was consecrated Bishop of Vancouver Island.
Upon his arrival in the Colony of Vancouver Island, Bishop Demers found himself chronically short-handed and, receiving no assistance from the largely Protestant Hudson’s Bay Company establishment, Demers worked on his own:
Losing no time in undertaking his arduous activities … he, himself, began his frequent visitations to the natives of the East Coast of the Island to whom, in a very short time, he became so well known and beloved as the “Great Priest with the long hat and the crooked stick, the Man of Prayer” … soon his visits to the natives took on the nature of triumphal processions in which the tribes would vie with one another in their demonstrations of faith. 54
A church historian provides a description of a typical visit by the Bishop to a Hwulmuhw village:
In the eyes of the aborigines, the priest was above all the “man of God,” a being quite apart in creation, upon whom too much honour could scarcely be lavished. As soon as his canoe, manned by a crew hailing from the last village visited, was in sight, a volley of musketry saluted the temperance flag which floated in the wind over the frail skiff. Then the men on shore separated from the women and, forming lines distinct from theirs in front of the village, received a hearty handshake from the missionary, after each person had blessed himself with a generously proportioned sign of the cross. As he passed along, the priest had to be very careful lest he should forget even the smallest babe in the distribution of his fatherly attentions.
Then the chief welcomed the envoy from Heaven in the name of his people, and the missionary reciprocated by telling the villagers of his happiness in meeting his children, and delicately hinted at the great expectations he entertained with regard to their docility to the voice of God, whose instrument he was to be among them. 55
Hul’qumi’num First Nations were generally unfamiliar with the Chinook trade jargon and Demers’ missionary activities were facilitated to a large degree by the Hudson’s Bay Company interpreter Tomo Antoine, of whom the bishop wrote, “the Iroquois named Thomas, a devout young man, assisted by interpreting sermons and teaching them hymns and prayers in their own tongue.” 56 An early convert was Jean-Baptiste Glasetatem, a si’em of Comiaken, who was appointed by Demers “to act as a priest among his own people” pending the establishment of a resident priest. 57 Lohar, the other prominent si’em of Comiaken, also “liked the priests and always tried to help them; they were his good friends … Lohar did all the priests told him.” 58 Another early convert to Catholicism was the Kuper Island warrior and si’em Hulkalatkstun from Penelakut who, as a young man, “had been taught by the priests and ‘got religion.’” 59 It was said that Hulkalatkstun, who was baptized Pierre, was “the first chief to welcome Roman Catholic missionaries to the Pacific Coast.” 60
In 1858, Bishop Demers authorized Father Pierre Rondeault, a secular priest and recent arrival from Lower Canada, to establish a mission at Comiaken on Cowichan Bay. A Cowichan elder, Quon-us, recalled Rondeault’s (Londo’s) reception:
That good man came when I was a little boy. My people told me how he paddled all alone from Saanich up to Comiaken. He had nothing with him, just a sack of flour and his Book, a gun to get food with, and maybe a blanket. When the Cowichan people heard he was coming, everybody went down to the water to look at him, and to tell him how glad they were that he had come! and everybody wanted to shake his hand. All that day Father Londo was shaking hands and talking to the people. My father’s friend Tsulchamel, who the priests by and by called Gabriel—he told father Londo to come and