To Share, Not Surrender

To Share, Not Surrender presents multiple views and lived experience of the treaty-making process and its repercussions in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, and publishes, for the first time, the Vancouver Island Treaties in First Nations languages.

Neil Vallance is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Victoria, undertaking ethno-historical research on Vancouver Island Treaty claims. Hamar Foster is a professor emeritus of law at the University of Victoria. He has co-edited five books and authored numerous articles on Aboriginal law and legal history. Graham Brazier is an independent scholar studying the human history of islands in the Salish Sea. John Lutz is a professor of history at the University of Victoria and author of Makúk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations. Peter Cook is an associate professor of history at the University of Victoria and has published in a variety of scholarly periodicals.

Contributors: Keith Thor Carlson, Robert Clifford, Emchayiik Robert Dennis Sr., STOLCEL John Elliott Sr., Elmer George, Stephen Hume, Maxine Hayman Matilpi, Kevin Neary, Adele Perry, Sarah Pike, Chief Ron Sam, and Laura Spitz

Alan Hanna, University of Victoria:

"To Share, Not Surrender is a book that could help every British Columbian to better understand the historical, political, and relational fabric of this province – and the obligations that flow from this."

Robin Fisher:

The past is with us and history matters. Read To Share Not Surrender as a great example of how there can be different interpretations of the past.

Kent McNeil, author of Flawed Precedent: The St. Catherine’s Case and Aboriginal Title:

The connection that To Share, Not Surrender makes between the events of the 1850s and 1860s and the modern-day treaty process in British Columbia is extremely valuable. It helps the reader develop a better understanding, not only of colonial history, but also of the relevance of Indigenous law to territorial claims today.

After James Douglas negotiated treaties on Vancouver Island, he never made another in BC. Why not? Some of the foremost experts in the field work here to answer this question, analyzing Douglas’s policies and their lasting impact on BC First Nations’ continuing battle with rights and title.