On April 20, 1863, the British naval gunboat Forward used its powerful cannons to blast a Native village on Kuper Island in Georgia Strait.

The openly unfriendly village, according to the British, was harbouring Native suspects in two allegedly murderous assaults against European transients in the Gulf Islands. During a fierce battle, with casualties, a handful of Lamalcha warriors managed to repulse the British.

This unsuccessful British attack marked a new low point in the relations between Native and non-Native residents of the B.C. coast and is the subject for Chris Arnett's second book, The Terror of the Coast: Land Alienation and Colonial War on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands 1849-1863 (Talon $24.95).

Arnett is a fourth-generation British Columbian on his mother's side and a member of a New Zealand Maori tribe, the Ngai Tahu, on his father's side. In 1993 he co-authored They Write Their Dreams on the Rock Forever: Rock Writings of the Stein Valley of British Columbia (Talonbooks).

In The Terror of the Coast he argues that the war between the Hwulmuhw or 'People of the Land' and the colonial government of Vancouver Island is of utmost significance in the context of unsettled First Nations' land claims.

After the British suffered their humiliating defeat at the hands of the Natives, British vengeance in the form of the "Colonial War"; was swift and savage. It included burning, looting, interrogations under the lash, show trials (without defence counsel or adequate interpreters) and the hangings of innocent people.

According to incidents outlined in The Terror of the Coast, the so-called 'Colonial War' launched in reprisal from Victorian England was in reality nothing more than brutal suppression of B.C. coastal Natives. It has therefore been an uncomfortable and largely ignored subject for Natives or non-Natives alike.

Arnett is not loathe to describe a much less 'civilized' time-it was an era when inter-tribal raids and warfare were still prevalent; when some Native peoples were still practising a form of slavery (which gave slave-holders the power of life and death); and when, to further their own ends, some Natives helped white people subjugate with deceit, destruction, division, torture, intimidation and judicial murder.

While degradations and brutality on both sides are recalled in fascinating detail, he also emphasizes that Native jurisdiction was rapidly eroded after the war of 1863 and aboriginal land was extensively 'alienated'.

In the Colony of Vancouver Island, land acquisition agreements were often deliberately made with small groups of Native peoples while the rest of their tribe was away for seasonal food harvesting. Promises of compensation made to Natives were frequently broken by Governor James Douglas.

At the time Vancouver Island was still its own colony, with its own Governor, and white settlement was spreading up the coast in patches as far north as Comox. The colonial authorities had to reassure white settlers that the coast was 'safe' to take.

In the wake of what happened, and given the historical setting of the incident, it is hardly surprising that the naval "bloody nose"; received by the British, and the nasty series of events surrounding it, are not taught in our schools or widely discussed in media.

In B.C., as in much of the rest of the world, the history of the European conquest and colonization of aboriginal peoples has been written almost exclusively by observers of mostly European origin, with their own in-built cultural biases. Most Native peoples who were colonized did not maintain written records.

While consulting a wide range of sources-such as newspaper editorials, letters, articles, government and police correspondence, naval ships' logs and 'Letters of Proceedings'-Arnett also sought out and interviewed some descendants of the Native people involved in the events. As well, some contemporary writings were critical of the British government and have been overlooked by other writers. Arnett brings these back into circulation to provide a valuable alternate perspective.

The Terror of the Coast is a lengthy and well-referenced book that adds an important chapter to B.C. history. It's not an easy read--an index would have enhanced its value as a reference book and made it easier to follow--but it does convincingly show the 'Colonial War' of 1863 was one more disgraceful event in the still-evolving colonization of what was later to become British Columbia.

Colonization where we live wasn't as benign and bloodless as many historians have led us to believe. 0-88922-318-1

[Quentin Dodd / BCBW 2000]