Freedom Village (

Halkomelem Halkomelem (; in the Upriver dialect, in the Island dialect, and in the Downriver dialect) is a language of various First Nations peoples of the British Columbia Coast. It is spoken in what is now British Columbia, ranging from southeastern ...

: Chi'ckem) was a historic village founded by the former slaves (Halkomelem: skw'iyeth) of the Stó:lō,

Chawathil First Nation The Chawathil First Nation or Chawathil Indian Band ( hur, Chowéthel) is a band government of the Sto:lo people located in the Upper Fraser Valley region near Hope, British Columbia, Canada. They are a member government of the Stó:lō Tribal ...

who lived near present-day

Hope, British Columbia Hope is a district municipality at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Hope is at the eastern end of both the Fraser Valley and the Lower Mainland region, and is at the southern end ...

History

Starting in the late 18th century the peoples in what is now the Fraser Valley were undergoing intense social change. Starting in 1782 waves of the

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

virus started to wipe out local First Nation peoples. As they dealt with this and other diseases, Europeans started to settle in the area starting with the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...

establishing trading posts at

Fort Langley Fort Langley is a village community in Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada. It has a population of approximately 3,400 people. It is the home of Fort Langley National Historic Site, a former fur trade post of the Hudson's Bay Company. ...

(in 1827) and Fort Yale (1848). Greenwood Island (Halkomelem: Welqdmex), near the town of Hope in British Columbia, was a slave village to the Chawathil First Nation peoples who lived near what is now Hope. For generations, the Chawathil had raided surrounding First Nation communities and taken slaves. The slaves on the island more than offset this loss and increased their population through natural childbirth. There were so many slaves that the slaveholders, fearing a revolt, forced them all out of their longhouses and onto the island, where they created their own community. This in turn slowly slipped out of the slaveholders’ control until a decision by the Chawathil elders was made to abandon the village. Once the slaves became aware that they were "free" they decided they didn't want to live so close to their former masters, and so they created large catamarans by dismantling their longhouses and using the planks to connect their canoes. When they were finished they floated down the Fraser River and founded Freedom Village (Halkomelem: Chi'ckem) in present-day Agassiz. The area was previously the site of a First Nation village of the ''Steaten'' people that had been wiped out by disease years earlier. Over time, the former slaves that made up the Chi'ckem village intermarried into the surrounding communities and became absorbed into the local First Nations populations.

Bibliography

Notes References * * - Total pages: 368 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Freedom Village History of British Columbia First Nations culture Sto:lo Slavery in Canada Heritage sites in British Columbia