British Columbia, as we know it geographically and politically today, did not exist until 1858. The boundaries of the present-day province were defined in a piecemeal and haphazard manner, and are still disputed by the First Nations, who have never accepted the 1927 agreement between the federal and the provincial governments that defined the extent of their territories within the province. Historians can never entirely escape superimposing the tidy political map of contemporary British Columbia over an untidy geography, and an equally untidy history. Human conflict and human diversity mark British Columbia's past. Based on current scholarship, this volume provides a detailed account of the multitude of experiences within British Columbia.
