The Native Brotherhood of British Columbia is a province-wide First Nations rights organization. It was founded on the 13 December, 1931, during a week long series of meetings between

Haida Haida may refer to: Places * Haida, an old name for Nový Bor * Haida Gwaii, meaning "Islands of the People", formerly called the Queen Charlotte Islands * Haida Islands, a different archipelago near Bella Bella, British Columbia Ships * , a 1 ...

representatives from

Masset Masset , formerly ''Massett'', is a village in Haida Gwaii in British Columbia, Canada. It is located on Masset Sound on the northern coast of Graham Island, the largest island in the archipelago, and is approximately west of mainland British Col ...

and

Tsimshian The Tsimshian (; tsi, Ts’msyan or Tsm'syen) are an Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Their communities are mostly in coastal British Columbia in Terrace, British Columbia, Terr ...

representatives in the Tsimshian community of Port Simpson (a.k.a.

Lax Kw'alaams Los Angeles International Airport , commonly referred to as LAX (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles, California and its surrounding metropolitan area. LAX is located in the W ...

). Masset Haida chief Alfred Adams, Tsimshian ethnologist and chief

William Beynon William Beynon (1888–1958) was a Canadian hereditary chief of the Tsimshian Nation and an oral historian; he served as ethnographer, translator, and linguistic consultant to many anthropologists who studied his people. Early life and educatio ...

and

Chief William Jeffrey Chief William Jeffrey (born 1899, date of death unknown) was a Canadian hereditary Tsimshian Chief, First Nations activist and carver. He attended residential school from 1914 to 1917. Though he desired to be a lawyer, his status as a First Nations ...

were among its four founding members. It was modelled in spirit and structure on the

Alaska Native Brotherhood The Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB) and its counterpart, the Alaska Native Sisterhood (ANS), are two nonprofit organizations founded to address racism against Alaska Native peoples in Alaska. ANB was formed in 1912 and ANS founded three years lat ...

. Since its absorption of the

Pacific Coast Native Fishermen's Organization The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

and its primarily Kwakwaka'wakw membership in 1942, it became oriented more towards fishing rights. In 1945,

Andy Paull Andy Paull, (Andrew Paull, Xwechtáal, Xwupúkinem, Quitchtaal) (February 6, 1892 – July 28, 1959) was a Squamish leader, activist, coach, and lawyer. Early life and family Born to Dan Paull and Theresa Paull (née Lacket-Joe) of a prominent fa ...

and chapters centered in

Coast Salish The Coast Salish is a group of ethnically and linguistically related Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, living in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. They speak one of the Coas ...

communities in BC split off to form the

North American Indian Brotherhood North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' i ...

. The formation of the Brotherhood in BC is recounted in North Vancouver filmmaker

Marie Clements Marie Clements (born January 10, 1962) See p. 147. is a Canadian Métis playwright, performer, director, producer and screenwriter. Marie was founding artistic director of urban ink productions, and is currently co-artistic director of red diva pr ...

' 2017 musical documentary '' The Road Forward''.

Bibliography

* "B.C. Indian Authority Dies" (obituary for William Beynon). Vancouver, ''Province'', Feb. 11, 1958, p. 28. *Drucker, Philip (1958) ''The Native Brotherhoods: Modern Intertribal Organizations on the Northwest Coast.'' (Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, no. 168). Washington. *Kew, J. E. Michael (1990) "History of Coastal British Columbia since 1846." In ''Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 7: Northwest Coast,'' ed. by Wayne Suttles, pp. 159–168. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.

References

First Nations organizations in British Columbia Indigenous rights organizations in Canada {{NorthAm-native-stub