The many “Stop of Interest” signs around British Columbia commemorate significant geographical features, people, places, buildings, and events in our province’s past. While many of these are awe-inspiring, famous, and even whimsical—see the entry for Jackass Mountain for an example of the last—the “Yale Convention” is anything but, and the wording on the sign marking it does little to encourage a passer-by to rush off and learn more.
The sign beside the Trans-Canada Highway reads “THE YALE CONVENTION. By 1868, the gold rushes that had founded British Columbia were over, the public debt was soaring and many were dissatisfied with the colonial government. On September 14, 1868, 26 delegates from all over the colony met at Yale for a convention of the Confederation League. This convention did much to stimulate popular support for the idea of union with Canada as a solution to the colony’s problems.”
Until 1866, British Columbia had been comprised of two colonies: Vancouver Island (which became a colony in 1849) and mainland British Columbia (1858). In 1866 the two were united into a single colony, with the capital in Victoria. It was an important move financially, as it got rid of the expense of having two separate governments, but it did little to help the overall financial situation, which was dire indeed.
It’s true that tens of thousands of people had streamed into the mainland between 1858 and 1866, but the vast majority of them were looking for gold, which meant that their presence was almost always transient: they put down few roots, and were apt to return home when their chasing of the Golden Butterfly brought negligible, if any, rewards.
By 1867, when the colonies of what are now Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia joined together to form the Dominion of Canada, ranching, farming, industry, and natural resource extraction (apart from gold and some forestry) were barely established in British Columbia, while the colony was still deeply in debt, in large part due to the cost of construction of the Cariboo Wagon Road north from Yale to the goldfields of the Cariboo.
Many people in the new colony looked eastward, and began to think that becoming a part of the new Dominion was the answer to their prayers. Perhaps the most passionately keen person in favour of this idea was a B.C. legislative council member named Amor de Cosmos. He was a journalist, publisher, and politician who had been born William Alexander Smith in Nova Scotia (he successfully petitioned to change his name while living in California, and said that Amor de Cosmos was a translation from the Latin and Greek meaning “lover of the universe”), and he began to advocate for the colony to join with the rest of the fledgling country.
Many people on the mainland agreed with him, while many on Vancouver Island opposed the idea, preferring to remain a colony. Still others argued in favour of British Columbia joining the United States, pointing to the relative proximity of, and relatively easy travel to, larger centres along the west coast. These three groups each sought to advance their position, with those in favour of joining the Dominion forming a Confederation League in 1868. In September of that year a convention of the League was held in Yale, with 26 members from the island and the mainland in attendance.
Thirty-seven resolutions were passed at Yale, nearly all of them dealing with the outline of union with the Dominion and what the terms would be. Canada would be asked to take responsibility for the colony’s debt and pay a grant per head of the population. There would be the introduction of responsible government (there was considerable dissatisfaction with the exorbitant salaries of Governor Frederick Seymour and other government representatives), and the building of a good wagon road to British Columbia from the east. B.C. sought assurances regarding the colony’s ability to deal with immigration and First Nations affairs, and offer grants of land to encourage would-be settlers to migrate to the region.
It all sounds logical enough. However, the resolutions were heatedly debated; Yale had probably not seen such furor, arguments, clashes of opinion, and angry words since the earliest wild and woolly days of the gold rush. For the duration of the convention all eyes were on the town and what was happening there, with opponents of Confederation jeeringly calling the meeting “the Yale Conspiracy”. When the proposals formed at the convention were brought before the Legislative Council in Victoria for a vote they were defeated, with the mainland in favour of them and the island firmly against. Government prevarication won the day.
There things stood until 1869, when the Dominion purchased the Hudson’s Bay Company lands through what is now Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. This meant that Ottawa could contemplate building a viable transportation corridor—which soon evolved from a wagon road to a rail line—to link the provinces of the east with British Columbia on the west coast. Governor Seymour—who, doubtless with one eye on his large salary, had been opposed to joining Canada—died in June 1869, and new governor Anthony Musgrave was charged by the British government to encourage the entry of the colony into Confederation. While the debate was a lengthy one, the promise of a rail line was enough of a sweetener to encourage British Columbia to join Confederation on July 20, 1871, thus making the proposals first put forward at the Yale Convention a reality.
Had the outcome after the convention in 1868 been the opposite, and the vote gone in favour of joining the Dominion of Canada, then Yale would be celebrated as—if not a birthplace of Confederation like Charlottetown, then the place where British Columbia secured its part in the Dominion of Canada. As it is, the Yale Convention is—150 years after it took place—little more than a footnote in B.C. history, commemorated by a Stop of Interest sign.
Next instalment: the railway comes to town.
editorial@accjournal.ca
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