The Indian Nuisance at Salt Spring

THE BRITISH COLONIST
2 March 1869

A correspondent writes us from Salt Spring Island to state that himself and family while walking across their farm a few days ago, observed a canoe a short distance from shore, from which was presently fired a gun, the ball whistling unpleasantly near their heads. In view of this outrage, and the bloody murders that have occurred recently on the Island, our correspondent thinks the locality must be abandoned, unless the strong arm of the Government is put forth and the savages made to feel its weight. These East Coast Indians are about the worst on the Island. They have been a pestilent nuisance from its earliest settlement to the present time, and have destroyed more whites than all the other tribes on the coast put together -- not excepting the Chilacoatan nuisance at Bute Inlet in 1864. They defied H.M. ships sent against them, but were only punished after a stubborn engagement with the gunboat Forward., five years and a half ago since [two words illegible] was administered their open courage has cowed, and they have resorted to cowardly assassinations to revenge themselves for fancied wrongs. A reservation for those rascals is needed to keep them in check.