Nicola (chief)
Encyclopedia
Nicola (Spokan Hwistesmetxe'qen, Walking Grizzly Bear), also Nkwala or N'kwala, was an important First Nations
political figure in the fur trade
era of the British Columbia Interior
(early 19th century to 1858) as well as into the colonial period
(1858–1871). He was grand chief of the Okanagan people
and chief of the Nicola Valley peoples, an alliance of Nlaka'pamux and Okanagans and the surviving Nicola Athapaskans
, and also of the Kamloops Band of the Shuswap people
.
and Northwest Companies
who worked at a temporary un-named trading post at the head of Okanagan Lake
. The Scots and English in the employ of the companies adapted this to Nicholas and Old Nicholas, while First Nations people adapted it to Nkwala’.
(St'at'imc) at the historic fishing grounds around Fountain
and Pavilion
. The argument between the two chiefs had begun when chief of the Lakes Lillooet provoked a violent argument by denouncing Pelka'mulox, who had hunted buffalo
on the plains and met North West Company traders Lagace and MacDonald in what is now Montana
, for describing the existence of white people and their new civilization, and calling his story a lie.
Upon his death, the chieftaincy of the Okanagan people passed to Hwistesmetxe'qen (Nicola), while his uncle, Pelka'mulox's brother Kwali'la, who had helped him survived the wars of his youth with the Thompson, Shuswap and Kutenai, assumed the joint Thompson
-Shuswap
chieftaincy at Kamloops. Kwali'la also had helped Pelka'mulox establish the Okanagan people in the area round Nicola Lake
, which had been Shuswap territory until that time (the people at Kamloops were a mix of Shuswap and Okanagan at the time). With his dying breath Pelka'mulox entrusted Kwali'la with the guardianship of his son, and that ordered that he be raised to avenge his father's death.
Pelka'mulox's status as chief of the Okanagan people in the Nicola Valley and the upper Okanagan Lake area, was passed to Nicola, who came to reside in the valley around the lake that now bears his name or at Kamloops, as Kwali'la's title as chief of the Kamloops eventually passed to Nicola upon the former's death. In addition to being presiding chief of that group of Okanagan, he was also grand chief of all the Okanagan nation, although since the drawing of the border a separate, independent American chieftaincy emerged, founded by Tonasket.
Because of his 15-17 wives, drawn from Okanagan, Sanpoil
, Colville
, Spokane, Shuswap, Stu'wix, Thompson
and maybe others, and the about 50 surviving children he had by them (from those who died in infancy or childhood), many people throughout the Interior of both British Columbia and the adjoining regions of the United States are descended from Nicola. His hereditary chieftaincy passed, however, to an adopted son, his nephew Chilliheetza (Tselaxi'tsa, spelled by Teit as Chelahitsa) who was his sister's son, and continues today amid local bands .
(Secwepemc), who was also his uncle and foster-father, reminded him of the need to avenge his father's death, and he formed an alliance of neighbouring peoples to attack the Lillooet
(St'at'imc). In no small part his power to form this alliance resided in the web of in-laws and offspring throughout the native peoples of the Interior.
). They swept through the mountainous Lillooet Country all the way to the valley of the Lillooet River, the country of the Lower Lillooet or Lil'wat, killing 300-400 and taking many women and children captive and occupying the region for some time, driving the survivors into exile in the woods away from the salmon-rich streams of the region for a generation.
The Lower Lillooet are said to have first heard a gun and seen a horse because of this war, although the Upper Lillooet (around today's town of Lillooet) were familiar with horses and may have owned them at this time, and as seen by Simon Fraser
and his men, they had guns of possibly Russian make in 1808. Fraser's journals describe also the town of Lillooet being heavily fortified and the men armoured, and their hosts full of anxiety about hostile neighbours and a state of war, but this would have been before the gift of ten guns (the temporary post on Okanagan Lake was started after Fraser's journey), so there may be no direct connection to Nicola's War. The date of the council which led to the death of Pelka'mulox is unknown - but certainly before Fraser came through the Lillooet area (as the context of the story is that Pelka'mulox was the first of all assembled to have seen white men, and this included upriver Shuswap as well as the Nlaka'pamux just down river, both of whom would have met Fraser and, in the case of the northerners, also known of Alexander Mackenzie
)..
herds that once roamed there, using techniques adapted from the buffalo hunt by driving them over cliffs, or simply driving them into enclosures. The efficiency of these hunting techniques is believed to have led to the extermination of elk in that region.
while there. It was also he who came to Nicola Lake to bury the Thompson and Stu'wix victims of a Shuswap raid on their settlement at Guichon
.
gold find at the Nicoamen River
, which enters the Thompson
just a few miles upstream from Lytton, the Kamloops people under Nicola's dominion were already trading for goods at Fort Kamloops using gold from nearby creeks. It was news of these finds which began further exploration and resulted in the find at Nicoamen, and the even bigger find at Hill's Bar, south of Yale at the lower end of the Canyon. Within months the lower Fraser was swarmed by up to 30,000 goldseekers of all nationalities, most by way of California where news of the gold had hit a time of depression as well as political turmoil. Many of the 30,000 gave up by the onset of winter but over 10,000 remained to work the bars of the Fraser between present-day Lillooet and Hope. Of those in the upper canyon around Lillooet and the fishing grounds at Fountain, especially early in the rush before the Lakes Route through St'at'imc
territory to the west was opened up, many or perhaps most came overland via the Okanagan and Kamloops, orelse by a more southerly cutoff via the Similkameen River
through what was by then known as Nicola's Country, and came in time to be known as the Nicola Country
. The Similkameen Trail is sometimes marked on maps as the "trail to the Couteau Country", meaning the country of the Thompsons, who were also called the Couteau Indians - "tellico" Indians.
The number who came overland through the Okanagan Valley and other land routes is unknown, but in the case of the Okanagan Trail numbered a few thousands, generally travelling in war parties of hundreds of men. Some of the early parties ransacked native food caches and villages and engaged in battles and potshots at natives en route, with some driven back. Nicola confronted one party ) when they arrived at Kamloops and admonished them, saying they didn't know how close to outright war they were, and demanded the punishment of the guilty men, and invoking his own observance of British law, because without it he had the power to see them all killed. The guilty men, who had been chastised by the main group and its leaders during the journey for their rogue behaviours, were handed over to face justice. Nicola then hosted the party as guests and rode with them to the goldfields by the ancient trail from the mid-Thompson across the Hat Creek-Pavilion plateau into the great fishing grounds at Fountain, which were also at the upper end of gold-mining activity on the Fraser and a hub of activity. This location was also where his father Pelka'lumox had been killed.
In 1858, Nicola used his power and influence to protect those miners coming to the Thompson
and Fraser goldfields via the Okanagan Trail
, despite their own bad conduct. This essentially prevented a spreading of the Yakima War across the international frontier and, though exhorted to quash the miners' parties, who had attacked natives and raided and spoiled food caches on their way through Okanagan and Yakima country, he refused to engage them at war and instead, in the case of one party, escorted them from Kamloops to the Fraser at Fountain. Also exhorted to join in the Spokane War
as well as the Fraser Canyon War
, he demurred on both occasions but apparently was ready in 1858 to join forces with the Thompson against the whites if events in the Canyon War had not turned out relatively peaceably. He felt sorry for the Spokanes that their country had fallen to the Americans but he held fast to his alliance with the Queen and, originally, with King George
, which he had struck before the boundary was created. It is believed he remained staunchly neutral during the Chilcotin War
of 1864 and may have used his influence to keep some of the Chilcotin chiefs neutral; this was in the year before his death.
. It is safe to say, because of his stance in the Yakima
, Spokane and Fraser Canyon Wars and in mediating an end to the violence of the Okanagan Trail, that without him the history of British Columbia might have been considerably more war-torn and BC's native peoples might have become entangled with American troops (thereby increasing the existing American threat to British control of the Interior). His son Chilliheetza continued his father's policy of loyalty to his father's alliance with the Crown, and as his father had done before him, prevented all-out war against the whites - fomented by the Thompsons and Okanagans - at the time of the Sproat Commission and also in resisting the call by the "Wild McLean Boys" (the sons of celebrated Fort Kamloops trader Donald McLean
, whose wife was one of the Kamloops Shuswap and a near relation) during their attempt to transform their own murder of rancher Johnny Ussher into a full-scale Indian uprising.
Because of the boundary treaty partitioning Okanagan territory, Okanagans south of the line became organized under a new chieftaincy founded by Tonasket, who was not of chiefly lineage but rose to prominence because of his campaigns against the miners travelling the Okanagan Trail
. Most American Okanogan people reside at Omak, Washington
, or on the Colville Indian Reservation
, where they are intermingled with other Salishan peoples of the region.
". The ongoing alliance of Thompson and Okanagan peoples in the Nicola Valley today are colloquially also called "the Nicolas". Their Nlaka'pamux component call themselves the Scw'exmx, while the Okanagan component are the Spahomin.
The name Nicola people is also used in ethnology and linguistics to refer to a now-extinct Athapaskan group who once lived amid the Scw'exmx and Spaxomin, and also in the Upper Similkameen before being driven out by the Similkameen Okanagan; they are also called the Stuwix or Stuwix'emux - "the strangers", "strange people", because they were recent arrivals in the territory and spoke an unrelated language). They are also called the Nicola Athapaskans.
Although they got along with their immediate neighbours, who had given them refuge a couple of centuries or so before after fleeing hostile neighbours in the north, they were wiped out by the late 19th Century by raids by Thompson and Shuswap, intermarriage with the Scw'exmx and Spaxomin, and also by attrition. Only a handful of placenames from their language remain in the area, and are all that is known of their language, other than it was Athapaskan, although outside of official ethnology an account by Okanagan Mourning Dove says that they were Chinookan
.
First Nations in British Columbia
First Nations in British Columbia constitute a large number of First Nations governments and peoples in the province of British Columbia. Many of these Canadian aboriginal peoples are affiliated in tribal councils...
political figure in the fur trade
Fur trade
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of world market for in the early modern period furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued...
era of the British Columbia Interior
British Columbia Interior
The British Columbia Interior or BC Interior or Interior of British Columbia, usually referred to only as the Interior, is one of the three main regions of the Canadian province of British Columbia, the other two being the Lower Mainland, which comprises the overlapping areas of Greater Vancouver...
(early 19th century to 1858) as well as into the colonial period
Colony of British Columbia
The Colony of British Columbia was a crown colony in British North America from 1858 until 1866. At its creation, it physically constituted approximately half the present day Canadian province of British Columbia, since it did not include the Colony of Vancouver Island, the vast and still largely...
(1858–1871). He was grand chief of the Okanagan people
Okanagan people
The Okanagan people, also spelled Okanogan, are a First Nations and Native American people whose traditional territory spans the U.S.-Canada boundary in Washington state and British Columbia...
and chief of the Nicola Valley peoples, an alliance of Nlaka'pamux and Okanagans and the surviving Nicola Athapaskans
Nicola Athapaskans
The Nicola Athapaskans, also known as the Nicola people or Stuwix, were an Athabascan people who arrived in the in the migrated into the Nicola Country of what is now the Southern Interior of British Columbia from the north a few centuries ago but were slowly reduced in number by constant raiding...
, and also of the Kamloops Band of the Shuswap people
Secwepemc
The Secwepemc , known in English as the Shuswap people, are a First Nations people residing in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Their traditional territory ranges from the eastern Chilcotin Plateau and the Cariboo Plateau southeast through the Thompson Country to Kamloops and the Shuswap...
.
Name
The name Nicolas ( in English, in approximation of the French) was conferred on him by French-Canadians in the employ of the Hudson's BayHudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
and Northwest Companies
North West Company
The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what was to become Western Canada...
who worked at a temporary un-named trading post at the head of Okanagan Lake
Okanagan Lake
Okanagan Lake is a large, deep lake in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. The lake is 135 km long, between 4 and 5 km wide, and has a surface area of 351 km². The lake's maximum depth is 232 meters near Grant Island...
. The Scots and English in the employ of the companies adapted this to Nicholas and Old Nicholas, while First Nations people adapted it to Nkwala’.
Lineage
Nicola was one of the four children and chiefly heir of Pelka'mulox ("Rolls-Over-The-Earth"), third chief in the lineage of Okanagan chiefs to bear that name (which was by linguistic origin Spokane), the first and second being born c.1675-1680 and c.1705-1710 respectively. The date of birth of the third Pelka'mulox, Nicola's father, is uncertain but his death was sometime in the first decade of the 19th century, caused by an arrow fired by a chief of the LillooetSt'at'imc
The St'át'imc are an Interior Salish people located in the southern Coast Mountains and Fraser Canyon region of the Interior of the Canadian province of British Columbia.St'át'imc culture displayed many features typical of Northwest Coast peoples: the...
(St'at'imc) at the historic fishing grounds around Fountain
Fountain, British Columbia
Fountain is an unincorporated rural area and Indian Reserve community in the Fraser Canyon region of British Columbia, Canada, located at the ten-mile mark from the town of Lillooet on BC Highway 99, which in that area is also on the route of the Old Cariboo Road and is located at the junction of...
and Pavilion
Pavilion, British Columbia
Pavilion is a ranching and Indian Reserve community in the Fraser Canyon area of British Columbia, Canada. Most of the community is the population of the Pavilion 1 Indian Reserve of the Pavilion Indian Band, aka the Ts'kw'aylaxw First Nation but there are also a number of ranches in the...
. The argument between the two chiefs had begun when chief of the Lakes Lillooet provoked a violent argument by denouncing Pelka'mulox, who had hunted buffalo
American Bison
The American bison , also commonly known as the American buffalo, is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in massive herds...
on the plains and met North West Company traders Lagace and MacDonald in what is now Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
, for describing the existence of white people and their new civilization, and calling his story a lie.
Upon his death, the chieftaincy of the Okanagan people passed to Hwistesmetxe'qen (Nicola), while his uncle, Pelka'mulox's brother Kwali'la, who had helped him survived the wars of his youth with the Thompson, Shuswap and Kutenai, assumed the joint Thompson
Nlaka'pamux
The Nlaka'pamux , commonly called "the Thompson", and also Thompson River Salish, Thompson Salish, Thompson River Indians or Thompson River people) are an indigenous First Nations/Native American people of the Interior Salish language group in southern British Columbia...
-Shuswap
Secwepemc
The Secwepemc , known in English as the Shuswap people, are a First Nations people residing in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Their traditional territory ranges from the eastern Chilcotin Plateau and the Cariboo Plateau southeast through the Thompson Country to Kamloops and the Shuswap...
chieftaincy at Kamloops. Kwali'la also had helped Pelka'mulox establish the Okanagan people in the area round Nicola Lake
Nicola Lake
Nicola Lake is a glacially formed narrow, deep lake located in the South-Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada approximately ten kilometres northeast of the city of Merritt...
, which had been Shuswap territory until that time (the people at Kamloops were a mix of Shuswap and Okanagan at the time). With his dying breath Pelka'mulox entrusted Kwali'la with the guardianship of his son, and that ordered that he be raised to avenge his father's death.
Pelka'mulox's status as chief of the Okanagan people in the Nicola Valley and the upper Okanagan Lake area, was passed to Nicola, who came to reside in the valley around the lake that now bears his name or at Kamloops, as Kwali'la's title as chief of the Kamloops eventually passed to Nicola upon the former's death. In addition to being presiding chief of that group of Okanagan, he was also grand chief of all the Okanagan nation, although since the drawing of the border a separate, independent American chieftaincy emerged, founded by Tonasket.
Because of his 15-17 wives, drawn from Okanagan, Sanpoil
Sanpoil (tribe)
The Sanpoil is one of 12 aboriginal Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation. The name Sanpoil comes from the Okanagan [snpʕwílx], "gray as far as one can see". It has been folk-etymologized as coming from the French sans poil, "without fur". The Yakama people know the tribe as...
, Colville
Colville (tribe)
The Colville tribe is a Native American tribe of the Pacific Northwest. The name Colville comes from association with Fort Colville, named after Andrew Colvile of the Hudson's Bay Company...
, Spokane, Shuswap, Stu'wix, Thompson
Nlaka'pamux
The Nlaka'pamux , commonly called "the Thompson", and also Thompson River Salish, Thompson Salish, Thompson River Indians or Thompson River people) are an indigenous First Nations/Native American people of the Interior Salish language group in southern British Columbia...
and maybe others, and the about 50 surviving children he had by them (from those who died in infancy or childhood), many people throughout the Interior of both British Columbia and the adjoining regions of the United States are descended from Nicola. His hereditary chieftaincy passed, however, to an adopted son, his nephew Chilliheetza (Tselaxi'tsa, spelled by Teit as Chelahitsa) who was his sister's son, and continues today amid local bands .
Trust and Duty
Nicola became trusted by the fur traders, who left him to be in charge of the trading post for the winter. He kept the place well and collected many furs, and upon their return in gratitude the traders gave him 10 guns and a supply of ammunition. Around this time Kwali'la (Duncan to the traders) the chief of the Kamloops ShuswapSecwepemc
The Secwepemc , known in English as the Shuswap people, are a First Nations people residing in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Their traditional territory ranges from the eastern Chilcotin Plateau and the Cariboo Plateau southeast through the Thompson Country to Kamloops and the Shuswap...
(Secwepemc), who was also his uncle and foster-father, reminded him of the need to avenge his father's death, and he formed an alliance of neighbouring peoples to attack the Lillooet
St'at'imc
The St'át'imc are an Interior Salish people located in the southern Coast Mountains and Fraser Canyon region of the Interior of the Canadian province of British Columbia.St'át'imc culture displayed many features typical of Northwest Coast peoples: the...
(St'at'imc). In no small part his power to form this alliance resided in the web of in-laws and offspring throughout the native peoples of the Interior.
Nicola's War
Nicola's alliance against the Lillooet comprised Okanagan, Shuswap, Stu'wix and Upper Thompson (Ashcroft-Spences BridgeSpences Bridge, British Columbia
Spences Bridge is a community in the Canadian province of British Columbia, situated 23 miles north east of Lytton and 32 miles from Ashcroft. In 1892, the population included 32 people of European ancestry and 130 First Nations people. There were 5 general stores, 3 hotels, one Church of England...
). They swept through the mountainous Lillooet Country all the way to the valley of the Lillooet River, the country of the Lower Lillooet or Lil'wat, killing 300-400 and taking many women and children captive and occupying the region for some time, driving the survivors into exile in the woods away from the salmon-rich streams of the region for a generation.
The Lower Lillooet are said to have first heard a gun and seen a horse because of this war, although the Upper Lillooet (around today's town of Lillooet) were familiar with horses and may have owned them at this time, and as seen by Simon Fraser
Simon Fraser (explorer)
Simon Fraser was a fur trader and an explorer who charted much of what is now the Canadian province of British Columbia. Fraser was employed by the Montreal-based North West Company. By 1805, he had been put in charge of all the company's operations west of the Rocky Mountains...
and his men, they had guns of possibly Russian make in 1808. Fraser's journals describe also the town of Lillooet being heavily fortified and the men armoured, and their hosts full of anxiety about hostile neighbours and a state of war, but this would have been before the gift of ten guns (the temporary post on Okanagan Lake was started after Fraser's journey), so there may be no direct connection to Nicola's War. The date of the council which led to the death of Pelka'mulox is unknown - but certainly before Fraser came through the Lillooet area (as the context of the story is that Pelka'mulox was the first of all assembled to have seen white men, and this included upriver Shuswap as well as the Nlaka'pamux just down river, both of whom would have met Fraser and, in the case of the northerners, also known of Alexander Mackenzie
Alexander Mackenzie
Alexander Mackenzie, PC , a building contractor and newspaper editor, was the second Prime Minister of Canada from November 7, 1873 to October 8, 1878.-Biography:...
)..
The Great Elk Hunts
Nicola organized great hunts in the Nicola Valley of the once-vast elkElk
The Elk is the large deer, also called Cervus canadensis or wapiti, of North America and eastern Asia.Elk may also refer to:Other antlered mammals:...
herds that once roamed there, using techniques adapted from the buffalo hunt by driving them over cliffs, or simply driving them into enclosures. The efficiency of these hunting techniques is believed to have led to the extermination of elk in that region.
Travels
Like his father, Nicola travelled widely and was well-known and also visited the Prairie for buffalo hunts. He is credited with being on the winning side in a battle with the BlackfootBlackfoot
The Blackfoot Confederacy or Niitsítapi is the collective name of three First Nations in Alberta and one Native American tribe in Montana....
while there. It was also he who came to Nicola Lake to bury the Thompson and Stu'wix victims of a Shuswap raid on their settlement at Guichon
Guichon Creek (Nicola River)
Guichon Creek is a large creek in the Nicola Country of southern interior British Columbia. It flows south from near Mount Fehr past Logan Lake through Mamit Lake, entering the Nicola River at Lower Nicola west of Merritt....
.
The Fur Trade and Fort Kamloops
Nicola attempted to take over Fort Kamloops from Chief Trader John Tod, but was outwitted , but otherwise lived in harmony with and was highly respected by the fur traders. Among his own people and neighbouring peoples his word was law, and as with the fur traders he was known for "sagacity, honesty, prudence and fair dealing, and was rather a peacemaker than a fighting man".The Gold Rush, the Okanagan Trail and the Fraser Canyon War
Before the discovery of the major placerPlacer deposit
In geology, a placer deposit or placer is an accumulation of valuable minerals formed by gravity separation during sedimentary processes. The name is from the Spanish word placer, meaning "alluvial sand". Placer mining is an important source of gold, and was the main technique used in the early...
gold find at the Nicoamen River
Nicoamen River
The Nicoamen River is a tributary of the Thompson River in the southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, located 15 km upstream from its confluence with the Thompson at Lytton....
, which enters the Thompson
Thompson River
The Thompson River is the largest tributary of the Fraser River, flowing through the south-central portion of British Columbia, Canada. The Thompson River has two main branches called the South Thompson and the North Thompson...
just a few miles upstream from Lytton, the Kamloops people under Nicola's dominion were already trading for goods at Fort Kamloops using gold from nearby creeks. It was news of these finds which began further exploration and resulted in the find at Nicoamen, and the even bigger find at Hill's Bar, south of Yale at the lower end of the Canyon. Within months the lower Fraser was swarmed by up to 30,000 goldseekers of all nationalities, most by way of California where news of the gold had hit a time of depression as well as political turmoil. Many of the 30,000 gave up by the onset of winter but over 10,000 remained to work the bars of the Fraser between present-day Lillooet and Hope. Of those in the upper canyon around Lillooet and the fishing grounds at Fountain, especially early in the rush before the Lakes Route through St'at'imc
St'at'imc
The St'át'imc are an Interior Salish people located in the southern Coast Mountains and Fraser Canyon region of the Interior of the Canadian province of British Columbia.St'át'imc culture displayed many features typical of Northwest Coast peoples: the...
territory to the west was opened up, many or perhaps most came overland via the Okanagan and Kamloops, orelse by a more southerly cutoff via the Similkameen River
Similkameen River
The Similkameen River runs through southern British Columbia, eventually discharging into the Okanogan River near Oroville, Washington in the United States. The river is approximately long, and its drainage basin is in area...
through what was by then known as Nicola's Country, and came in time to be known as the Nicola Country
Nicola River
The Nicola River, originally French Rivière de Nicholas or Rivière de Nicolas, adapted to Nicolas River, Nicola's River in English, , is one of the major tributaries of the Thompson River in the Canadian province of British Columbia, entering the latter at the town of Spences Bridge...
. The Similkameen Trail is sometimes marked on maps as the "trail to the Couteau Country", meaning the country of the Thompsons, who were also called the Couteau Indians - "tellico" Indians.
The number who came overland through the Okanagan Valley and other land routes is unknown, but in the case of the Okanagan Trail numbered a few thousands, generally travelling in war parties of hundreds of men. Some of the early parties ransacked native food caches and villages and engaged in battles and potshots at natives en route, with some driven back. Nicola confronted one party ) when they arrived at Kamloops and admonished them, saying they didn't know how close to outright war they were, and demanded the punishment of the guilty men, and invoking his own observance of British law, because without it he had the power to see them all killed. The guilty men, who had been chastised by the main group and its leaders during the journey for their rogue behaviours, were handed over to face justice. Nicola then hosted the party as guests and rode with them to the goldfields by the ancient trail from the mid-Thompson across the Hat Creek-Pavilion plateau into the great fishing grounds at Fountain, which were also at the upper end of gold-mining activity on the Fraser and a hub of activity. This location was also where his father Pelka'lumox had been killed.
In 1858, Nicola used his power and influence to protect those miners coming to the Thompson
Thompson River
The Thompson River is the largest tributary of the Fraser River, flowing through the south-central portion of British Columbia, Canada. The Thompson River has two main branches called the South Thompson and the North Thompson...
and Fraser goldfields via the Okanagan Trail
Okanagan Trail
The Okanagan Trail was an inland route to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush from the Lower Columbia region of the Washington and Oregon Territories in 1858-1859...
, despite their own bad conduct. This essentially prevented a spreading of the Yakima War across the international frontier and, though exhorted to quash the miners' parties, who had attacked natives and raided and spoiled food caches on their way through Okanagan and Yakima country, he refused to engage them at war and instead, in the case of one party, escorted them from Kamloops to the Fraser at Fountain. Also exhorted to join in the Spokane War
Spokane-Coeur d'Alene-Paloos War
The Coeur d'Alene War of 1858 was the second phase of the Yakima War, involving a series of encounters between the allied Coeur d’Alene, Spokane, Palouse and Northern Paiute against United States Army forces in the Washington and Idaho areas....
as well as the Fraser Canyon War
Fraser Canyon War
The Fraser Canyon War, also known as the Canyon War or the Fraser River War, was an incident between the Nlaka'pamux people and white miners in the newly declared Colony of British Columbia, which later became part of Canada, in 1858. It occurred during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, which brought a...
, he demurred on both occasions but apparently was ready in 1858 to join forces with the Thompson against the whites if events in the Canyon War had not turned out relatively peaceably. He felt sorry for the Spokanes that their country had fallen to the Americans but he held fast to his alliance with the Queen and, originally, with King George
George IV of the United Kingdom
George IV was the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and also of Hanover from the death of his father, George III, on 29 January 1820 until his own death ten years later...
, which he had struck before the boundary was created. It is believed he remained staunchly neutral during the Chilcotin War
Chilcotin War
The Chilcotin War, Chilcotin Uprising or Bute Inlet Massacre was a confrontation in 1864 between members of the Tsilhqot'in people in British Columbia and white road construction workers...
of 1864 and may have used his influence to keep some of the Chilcotin chiefs neutral; this was in the year before his death.
Legacy
Nicola was the most important and influential chief in the Interior of British Columbia in the time period spanning the opening of the inland fur trade to the time of the Cariboo Gold RushCariboo Gold Rush
The Cariboo Gold Rush was a gold rush in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Although the first gold discovery was made in 1859 at Horsefly Creek, followed by more strikes at Keithley Creek and Antler Horns lake in 1860, the actual rush did not begin until 1861, when these discoveries were...
. It is safe to say, because of his stance in the Yakima
Yakima War
The Yakima War was a conflict between the United States and the Yakama, a Sahaptian-speaking people on the Northwest Plateau, then Washington Territory and now the southern interior of Eastern Washington, from 1855 to 1858.- Naming :...
, Spokane and Fraser Canyon Wars and in mediating an end to the violence of the Okanagan Trail, that without him the history of British Columbia might have been considerably more war-torn and BC's native peoples might have become entangled with American troops (thereby increasing the existing American threat to British control of the Interior). His son Chilliheetza continued his father's policy of loyalty to his father's alliance with the Crown, and as his father had done before him, prevented all-out war against the whites - fomented by the Thompsons and Okanagans - at the time of the Sproat Commission and also in resisting the call by the "Wild McLean Boys" (the sons of celebrated Fort Kamloops trader Donald McLean
Donald McLean (fur trader)
Donald McLean was a Scottish fur trader and explorer for the Hudson's Bay Company and who later became a cattle rancher near Cache Creek in British Columbia's Thompson Country . McLean was the last casualty of the Chilcotin War of 1864...
, whose wife was one of the Kamloops Shuswap and a near relation) during their attempt to transform their own murder of rancher Johnny Ussher into a full-scale Indian uprising.
Because of the boundary treaty partitioning Okanagan territory, Okanagans south of the line became organized under a new chieftaincy founded by Tonasket, who was not of chiefly lineage but rose to prominence because of his campaigns against the miners travelling the Okanagan Trail
Okanagan Trail
The Okanagan Trail was an inland route to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush from the Lower Columbia region of the Washington and Oregon Territories in 1858-1859...
. Most American Okanogan people reside at Omak, Washington
Omak, Washington
Omak is the largest city in Okanogan County, Washington, United States. The population was 4,721 at the 2010 census. It is just south of the Canadian border where more populated cities are located ....
, or on the Colville Indian Reservation
Colville Indian Reservation
The Colville Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation in the north-central part of the U.S. state of Washington, inhabited and managed by the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, which is recognized by the United States of America as an American Indian Tribe...
, where they are intermingled with other Salishan peoples of the region.
Other uses
The region of his reign became known as Nicola's Country, with the river that ran through it named for him, and the largest lake and the valley it flows through named for the river, still called in regional English today "the Nicola CountryNicola River
The Nicola River, originally French Rivière de Nicholas or Rivière de Nicolas, adapted to Nicolas River, Nicola's River in English, , is one of the major tributaries of the Thompson River in the Canadian province of British Columbia, entering the latter at the town of Spences Bridge...
". The ongoing alliance of Thompson and Okanagan peoples in the Nicola Valley today are colloquially also called "the Nicolas". Their Nlaka'pamux component call themselves the Scw'exmx, while the Okanagan component are the Spahomin.
The name Nicola people is also used in ethnology and linguistics to refer to a now-extinct Athapaskan group who once lived amid the Scw'exmx and Spaxomin, and also in the Upper Similkameen before being driven out by the Similkameen Okanagan; they are also called the Stuwix or Stuwix'emux - "the strangers", "strange people", because they were recent arrivals in the territory and spoke an unrelated language). They are also called the Nicola Athapaskans.
Although they got along with their immediate neighbours, who had given them refuge a couple of centuries or so before after fleeing hostile neighbours in the north, they were wiped out by the late 19th Century by raids by Thompson and Shuswap, intermarriage with the Scw'exmx and Spaxomin, and also by attrition. Only a handful of placenames from their language remain in the area, and are all that is known of their language, other than it was Athapaskan, although outside of official ethnology an account by Okanagan Mourning Dove says that they were Chinookan
Chinookan
Chinook refers to several native amercain groups of in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, speaking the Chinookan languages. In the early 19th century, the Chinookan-speaking peoples lived along the lower and middle Columbia River in present-day Oregon and Washington...
.
See also
- Nicola peopleNicola (people)The Nicola people are a historic First Nations political and cultural alliance in the Nicola Country region of the Southern Interior of the Canadian province of British Columbia...
- Nicola Tribal AssociationNicola Tribal AssociationThe Nicola Tribal Association is the official name of what is also known as the Nicola Tribal Council and the Nicola Valley Tribal Council, is a First Nations Tribal Council composed of bands in the Nicola Valley, Thompson Canyon and Fraser Canyon areas of the Canadian province of British Columbia...
(Nicola Tribal Council) - Mount NkwalaMount NkwalaMount Nkwala, formerly Niggertoe Mountain, is a mountain in the Okanagan Valley of the Southern Interior of British Columbia, located immediately west of and overlooking the city of Penticton and the south end of Okanagan Lake.-Name origin:...
(not named for Chief Nicola, but for a novel by Edith L. SharpEdith L. SharpEdith Lambert Sharp was a Canadian writer.She was born near Carroll, Manitoba, daughter of Charles Lambert and Edna Louise Sharp. She dropped out of high school in Penticton, British Columbia after one year...
in which the young protagnist is named Nkwala.