Upheaval and Settlement
Gold and settlers
The gold rushes of the late 1850s and 1860s, on the Fraser River and in the Cariboo, brought thousands of newcomers to the colony of British Columbia. Many passed through or settled around Kamloops. The land was being taken up by people who had never asked the Secwépemc.
Disease
A smallpox epidemic swept through the region in 1862 and 1863. It killed a great many Indigenous people across what is now British Columbia, and it left communities grieving and weakened at the very moment that settlement was growing.
Reserves and the Indian Act
Colonial and, later, Canadian governments set aside small reserves for Indigenous people, far smaller than the land the Secwépemc had used and relied on. In most of British Columbia no treaties were signed. The Indian Act of 1876 gave the federal government wide control over the lives of First Nations people, including their movement, governance and land.
The railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway reached Kamloops in the 1880s. It linked the town to the rest of the country and brought more settlers, while the Secwépemc were pushed further from their lands and resources.