UVic Releases Tales of Murder and Intrigue in Colonial Times

The discovery of gold, shipwrecks and murder—it’s all in The Governor’s Letters: Colonial Correspondence 1846-1857, the most authoritative documentary source available for the colonial period in BC. Now these important records—called Colonial Despatches (the 19th century spelling of dispatches)—are available online thanks to staff and faculty at the University of Victoria.

“What’s really cool about this project is that the despatches have not been accessible by most British Columbians before,” says UVic historian John Lutz. “The originals are in England and Ottawa, and while there was a microfilm copy in the BC Archives, that has deteriorated and can no longer be used. However, now this scholarly resource is available to everyone and is searchable in a number of ways that the originals weren’t.”

At a ceremony at Government House today, UVic launched The Governor’s Letters that contain fascinating day-by-day reports from the governors of the colony, as well as the Colonial Office minutes, their responses and associated correspondence from other British government departments. Also presented at the event were related learning resources—in both French and English—for students in both middle and high school and all of the early BC maps from the Colonial Office (1775-1875).

This online resource (http://bcgenesis.uvic.ca) is a joint project of the UVic Libraries, the Humanities Computing and Media Centre, and the Department of History. It builds upon the work of UVic historian Dr. Jim Hendrickson (emeritus). UVic students Jenny Clayton, Caitlin Croteau, Rosemary MacKenzie, Loring Rochacewich, and Leanna Wong, along with alumnus Kim Shortreed-Webb, also provided assistance. This is the second phase of an on-going project and it focuses on the earliest records from the Hudson’s Bay’s Vancouver Island Colony. The first phase (launched in 2008) dealt with the 1858 BC Colony.

“The Governor’s Letters and the maps are an historical treasure and UVic Libraries is proud of our role in making this previously almost inaccessible material readily available to the public everywhere,” says UVic Librarian Marnie Swanson.

Martin Holmes, of UVic’s Humanities Computing and Media Centre, is the lead programmer on the project: “The biggest surprise for me was finding out how remote and isolated the original settler population was in the early years, and how few military and naval resources they could call on to police and defend themselves.”

The project was made possible through the Canadian Culture Online Program of Canadian Heritage, Library and Archives Canada and the Canadian Council of Archives, Archival Community Digitization Program. The Ike Barber BC History Digitization Project, UVic Libraries and the UVic Humanities and Computing Media Centre provided additional support. For more information visit www.govlet.ca for The Governor's Letters (lesson plans) and http://library.uvic.ca/site/lib/dig/earlyBCmaps.html (early BC maps).
 

 

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