Welcome to Rare Books and Special Collections!
What is a fonds?
The word "fonds" is used to describe most archival collections in Canada and also in many European and Latin American countries. Fonds simply means the documents in any media or format created or received by a person or an organization in the course of their personal or professional activities. For example, the "Jane Smith fonds" would refer to the records created and received by Jane Smith.
Read the wikipedia article for the term "fonds."
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Introduction
The UBC Vancouver campus is located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. The land it is situated on has always been a place of learning for the Musqueam people, who for millennia have passed on their culture, history, and traditions from one generation to the next on this site. This research guide aims to assist researchers looking for materials in RBSC that are relevant to Indigenous peoples in Canada. These materials may include textual records, photographs, and multimedia materials from a wide range of topics, including land rights, fishing rights, women's rights, and legal matters. This research guide aims to lift up and make visible those archival records that were created by and for Indigenous peoples, but also includes relevant historical records created by non-Indigenous peoples. Expanding and growing our holdings in this area is a priority for Rare Books and Special Collections. If you have materials you would like us to consider, please contact RBSC Archivist Krisztina Laszlo at [krisztina.laszlo@ubc.ca].
In April 2017, UBC Vancouver installed a symbolic art piece: Reconciliation Pole. It represents the history of Indigenous people in Canada before, during, and after the Indian residential school era. The Reconciliation Pole, installed on the southern end of campus near the Forestry building, encourages everyone who comes across it to learn more about the history of Indian residential schools and to understand their role in reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians. The Reconciliation Pole also reflects UBC’s ongoing commitment toward education and awareness on the subject, including steps that must be taken to move forward together. Notably, the pole faces in the direction of the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre (IRSHDC).
Image source: Ward, K. (2019.) What is the Reconciliation Pole? Retrieved from https://students.ubc.ca/ubclife/what-reconciliation-pole
Historical Context: Archival Materials at Rare Books and Special Collections and Indigenous Peoples
The library and archival materials at Rare Books and Special Collections reflect the history of British Columbia, including its history of colonization. It is our hope that this guide will promote meaningful access to materials by and/or about Indigenous peoples which are housed in our collection. Many of these materials are created by Non-Indigenous people and organizations, and reflect complex and unique relationships between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous peoples as a shared history developed between their different cultures, races, ethnicities, and ways of living.
Many of these records reflect the harm of activities endemic to colonization, including the oppression, dispossession, assimilation, and knowledge appropriation of Indigenous peoples. Others records document legal developments between the Nation of Canada and various First Nations, reflecting the struggle for Indigenous rights and setting crucial legal precedents. Still, other records demonstrate powerful cross-cultural relationships between workers and artists in various fields and industries as individuals and organizations collaborated to achieve shared goals. Ultimately we hope that the guide will assist researchers to discover and access these historic materials, which collectively form an integral aspect of our shared history in this province.
Note on Terminology
Visitors should be advised that some of the materials in our collections contain outdated, confrontational, and/or upsetting terminology, including offensive and derogatory terms. The presence of these terms reflects their usage at the time of the documents' creation. We understand that these terms may trigger a range of emotional responses. In this guide and in our current descriptions we strive to use respectful, accurate, and inclusive terminology in accordance with the guidelines set out in the University of British Columbia's Indigenous Peoples: Language Guidelines (2018 Version 2.0).
Conducting Research at RBSC
Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC) staff are available to assist researchers in locating archival or published material, to advise on research questions and to carry out copying requests. To contact a RBSC staff member, please see our directory.
Searching the database
Researchers looking for archival material at RBSC can search through our database of more than 700 archival fonds and collections. If you are new to archival research, the Archival Research Guide will provide you with an overview of doing research in RBSC.
Researchers can also find published materials housed at RBSC, which may include rare items unavailable in other UBC Library branches. To search for published materials, please use the UBC Library advanced search function and limit the location to Rare Books & Special Collections.
Independent research consultants
If you are not able to come to RBSC yourself, you may wish to hire an independent consultant to conduct research on your behalf. The following links are intended to help you locate a researcher. (Please be aware that RBSC cannot guarantee the work of the service providers listed here.)
- BC Archives – Independent Service Agent Register Listing of researchers located in Victoria and the Lower Mainland area along with notes about their subject specialties.
- VPL – InfoAction Fee-based division of Vancouver Public Library that “provides research on any subject.”
- Cyndi’s List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet: Alphabetical Index of Professional and Volunteer Research Services A long list of links to researchers, mainly genealogists, some in Canada/BC but most throughout the US and England.
Reproduction Requests
Rare Books and Special Collections offers copying services to both patrons in the reading room and those unable to visit in person. To place a reproduction order, please fill out our reproduction order form.
Featured Collection: Leonard and Kitty Maracle fonds
- Leonard and Kitty Maracle fonds, 1946-2000
This fonds provides a window into the lives of Leonard and Kitty Maracle, an Indigenous couple who were politically active members of their community. They each participated in political organizations dedicated to advocating for the rights of Indigenous peoples, particularly Non-Status Indians and, in Kitty’s case, Indigenous women.
Leonard Maracle was born on August 1, 1926 on Six Nations of the Grand River territory in Ontario, Canada. He married Cordelia (Kitty) Maracle (née Hill) in 1946. Both Leonard and Kitty were board members of the British Columbia Association of Non-Status Indians (BCANSI) and the Non-Status Indian. Leonard was also public relations director of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and Kitty served as president of both the B.C. Native Women's Society and the Native Women’s Association of Canada, for which she also served as vice-president. The Maracles were also very active in several other Aboriginal organizations, such as the Metis Association, Greater Vancouver Local. As well as his participation in the Aboriginal community, Leonard was a captain and pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II, a carpenter, contractor, and lawyer. Leonard and Kitty were both members of a number of clubs, committees, conferences and cooperatives. For example, both served as directors of the Longhouse Indian Arts and Crafts Cooperative and Leonard helped found Maracle Builders, Inc. Both the Maracles were also Seventh Day Adventists and were actively involved in their church. Kitty passed away in 2010 after 63 years of marriage to Leonard. They had seven children together. After Kitty’s death Leonard remarried to Verla Maracle (née Moses). Leonard passed away in 2012.
Image: Kitty Maracle, BCNWS questions a government panel on Indigenous women’s inequality
Image Source: Indian News 17, no. 5 (October-December 1975).
Cited in Nickel, S. (2019, March 21). “A genuine revolution”: Transracial gendered relationships during International Women’s Year, 1975. Retrieved from https://shekonneechie.ca/2019/03/21/a-genuine-revolution-transracial-gendered-relationships-during-international-womens-year-1975/
Supplementary Materials
- A submission to the government of British Columbia, September 20, 1973 byCall Number: KHA B758 S83 1973Publication Date: 1973
- Speaking together : Canada's Native women byCall Number: PW S64 1975Publication Date: 1975A "series of biographies and personal views ... outlining the involvement and achievements of native women across Canada"--Preface.
- B.C.N.W.S. newsletter. byPublication Date: 1976-1987
- Aboriginal women and aboriginal traditional knowlege (ATK) : input and insight on aboriginal traditional knowledge byISBN: 946888707Publication Date: 2015
Featured Collection: Delgamuukw v. British Columbia Exhibit Archive
- Delgamuukw v. British Columbia (1984-1997)This fonds provides documentary evidence of one of the largest lawsuits leveraged against the British Columbian government by Indigenous peoples. The trial, which took place over almost 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s, gives evidence of the ways in which Canadian courts have continually failed Indigenous peoples and failed to acknowledge their rights to the land that was stolen from them. At the same time, the trial represents a slow positive shift in the Canadian government’s recognition of Indigenous lands, treaty negotiations, and land rights.
In 1984, the hereditary chiefs of the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en nations filed a land title action lawsuit against the province of British Columbia. The suit was an effort to protect over 58,000 square kilometers of land in British Columbia from logging, as well as to ensure formal recognition of First Nations land rights.
The case is named after Earl Muldoe (or Muldon) Delgamuukw, a Gitxsan man from Kispiox, who was one of the claimants in the case. The name Delgamuukw is a hereditary chief name which is passed down through generations of Gitxsan chiefs, and Earl Muldoe held the title in 1987, when the trial began. Muldoe was also a master carver whose works include masks, totem poles and bentwood boxes. He was awarded the Order of Canada in 2010 for his art and his role in establishing oral history as valid evidence in Canadian courts.
In 1991, Judge Allan McEachern ruled that the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en had lost their titles to the land when British Columbia joined Confederation. The Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en appealed this ruling to the Court of Appeals of British Columbia, and in 1993, the appeal court ruled that, while the Canadian government was duty-bound to consult indigneous peoples on matters such as land rights, McEachern's decision that the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en did not have title to the land would stand.
In 1997, the case reached the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled that the government of British Columbia did not have the right to extinguish Indigenous peoples rights to their ancestral territories. The Supreme Court also reaffirmed an early decision which had ruled that oral history must be treated as equal to other types of evidence in the court.
The results of the Delgamuukw v. British Columbia Trial are considered a turning point in treaty negotiations, land use policy, and the recognition of the legal concept of Aboriginal title. The case concluded on December 11, 1997, and the Supreme Court of Canada observed that aboriginal title is an ancestral right protected by the Constitution Act of 1982. The action was brought forward by the 51 appellants, all Hereditary Chiefs either of the Wet’suwet’en Nation or Gitxsan Nation, and who individually or on behalf of their Houses and its members, claimed one or more separate specific portions of the 133 individual hereditary territories in Northwest British Columbia. In the years since the ruling was made, other First Nations have been able to use the case as precedent in their own land claims cases.
Text Partially Adapted From: Delgamuukw v. British Columbia Exhibit Archive (n.d.) Retrieved from http://rbscarchives.library.ubc.ca/index.php/delgamuukw-v-british-columbia-exhibit-archive
Supplementary Materials
- Delgamuukw : the people, the strength and the unity behind the historic decision byCall Number: MBC V53 D45 2010ISBN: 9780986792403Publication Date: 2010Research interviews, transcriptions, project management
Delgamuukw : the Supreme Court of Canada decision on aboriginal title by
Call Number: E98.L3 D44 1998ISBN: 1550546570Publication Date: 1998Beyond the Nass Valley : national implications of the Supreme Court's Delgamuukw decision by
Call Number: E98.C6 B49 2000ISBN: 0889752060Publication Date: 2000- Aboriginal law since Delgamuukw byCall Number: KE7709 .A73 2009ISBN: 9780888044860Publication Date: 2009
- UBC Law Library - Delgamuukw ResourcesThis guide highlights some resources that can be used for researching the Delgamuukw case.
Image source: British Columbia. Supreme Court. (1988, November 30). [Proceedings of the Supreme Court of British Columbia 1988-11-30] [T]. University of British Columbia Library. Law Library. KEB529.5.L3 B757. http://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0018380
Featured Collection: Thomas Berger fonds
- Thomas Berger fonds (1944-2011)
This fonds contains extensive research and documentary evidence conducted by Thomas Berger in the course of his work related to Indigenous peoples’ land rights and treaty rights. Although Berger worked on many legal cases relevant to Indigenous peoples, one of most high-profile cases was the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry. This fonds contains many materials created and collected throughout the course of Berger’s work on that inquiry, including extensive research related to the Indigenous populations of the areas that would have been affected by the pipeline. The fonds may be useful to researchers interested in current events in Canada related to pipelines and protests against those pipelines.
Thomas Rodney Berger is a Canadian lawyer, politician, judge, and author from Victoria, British Columbia. After being called to the bar of British Columbia in 1957 he practiced law in Vancouver, rising to national prominence in the 1960s as a defender of the rights of native people in British Columbia. The 1960s also saw Berger active in party politics both nationally and provincially: he represented Vancouver-Burrard as a Member of Parliament from 1962 to 1963 and as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia from 1966 to 1969, when he was briefly leader of the New Democratic Party of B.C.
In 1971 he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, serving on the bench until 1983 when he resigned to resume his law practice. Berger headed a number of commissions of inquiry in the 1970s and 1980s related to family law, the rights of native people, and the environment. From 1973 to 1975 he chaired a Royal Commission on Family and Children’s Law in British Columbia. From 1974 to 1977 he was commissioner of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry established to determine the social, environmental, and economic impact of a proposed Arctic Gas pipeline. The Inquiry gained Berger considerable celebrity, and its report, Northern Frontier: Northern Homeland, was a Government of Canada best-selling publication. From 1979 to 1980 he was commissioner of the Indian and Inuit Health Consultation, and from 1983 to 1985 he headed the Alaska Native Review Commission for the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, examining the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act; the commission’s report, Village Journey, was published in 1985. Berger’s study of human rights and dissent in Canada, Fragile Freedoms, concerned in part with constitutional issues, was published in 1981. That same year he intervened with some effect in debates concerning the framing of the new Canadian constitution, successfully advocating the inclusion of aboriginal and treaty rights.
Although the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry was one of the most high-profile cases that Berger was known for, there were many other cases that he worked on. Some of these include the Advisory Commission on Indian and Inuit Health Consultation; the Alaska Native Review Commission; Calder v. Attorney General British Columbia and Campbell v. Nisga’a Tribal Council; and Chief Paulette v. the Queen.
Image source: The Berger Pipeline Inquiry. (n.d.) Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/archives/topic/the-berger-pipeline-inquiry
Supplementary Materials
One man's justice : a life in the law by
Call Number: KE416.B47 A36 2002ISBN: 1550549197Publication Date: 2002
Hard choices : a life of Tom Berger by Call Number: FC3828.1.B47 S93 1987ISBN: 0888945221Publication Date: 1987
A long and terrible shadow : white values, Native rights in the Americas, 1492-1992 by Call Number: M B47 1991ISBN: 088894747XPublication Date: 1991
Northern frontier, northern homeland : the report of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry by Call Number: HD9580.C33 M34 1977ISBN: 9780888946010Publication Date: 1988
Village Journey : The Report of The Alaska Native Review Commission by Call Number: Md B47 1985Publication Date: 1985- Fragile freedoms : human rights and dissent in Canada byCall Number: HG B47 F73 1982ISBN: 0772013772Publication Date: 1981
- Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry fondsPlease note that this sous-fonds is located at Library and Archives Canada.
Image source: Dee, M. (2008, May 22). Honorary degree recipient Thomas Berger [P]. UBC Archives Photograph Collection. http://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0163672
Featured Collection: Thomas and Emma Crosby fonds
- Thomas and Emma Crosby fonds (1862-1927)
This fonds offers a window into the history of genocide, colonization, and the residential school system in Canada. As missionaries and founders of a residential school, Thomas and Emma Crosby brought the ideals of colonialism to the Indigenous peoples of Lax Kw’alaams by introducing western ways of life into the community and attempting to convert the community to Christianity. Many of the materials in the Thomas and Emma Crosby fonds are upsetting and chilling, and offer a visceral view of the ways in which one particular Indigenous community was negatively impacted by colonization.
In 1874, the Nine Tribes of the Tsimshian (Giluts’aaw, Ginandoiks, Ginaxangiik, Gispaxlo’ots, Gitando, Gitlaan, Gits’iis, Gitwilgyoots, Gitzaxlaal) invited Thomas Crosby and his wife Emma to come to Lax Kw’alaams (which began to be referred to increasingly as Port Simpson after 1900, although the name was never accepted by the Nine Tribes). Crosby was a minister of the Methodist Church who engaged in missionary work, encouraging the Nine Tribes to reject Tsimshian values and adopt European values, including the nuclear family. This resulted in a gradual shift from traditional homes to single family homes, which in turn resulted in an increased demand for lumber that created a sawmill economy in Lax Kw’alaams.
The fonds consists of letters written primarily by Thomas Crosby's wife, Emma Crosby. The letters help provide us with context for the complicated relationships between Indigenous peoples and missionary settlers in B.C. in the 1800s. Most historians view the introduction of missionaries such as Thomas Crosby into Lax Kw’alaams as the beginning of colonisation for the Nine Tribes.
Emma Crosby also opened and operated a residential school in honour of her husband.
The fonds consists of the incoming and outgoing correspondence, manuscripts, documents, printed material, photographs, and sketches pertaining to missionary work and family life. The correspondence includes letters written and received by Thomas Crosby relating to land issues and letters written by Emma Crosby to her mother during her early years at Lax Kw’alaams.
Image Source: The Reverend Thomas Crosby (n.d.) Retrieved from https://search-bcarchives.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/reverend-thomas-crosby
Text Partially Adapted From: Lax Kw’alaams Band (n.d.) History. Retrieved from https://laxkwalaams.ca/history/
Supplementary Materials
Potlatch at Gitsegukla by Call Number: E99.K55 B49 2000ISBN: 0774807431Publication Date: 2000-01-20William Beynon was born in 1888 in Victoria to a Welsh father and a Tsimshian mother. He was an accomplished ethnographer and had a long career documenting the traditions of the Tsimshian, Nisga'a, and Gitksan. In 1945 he attended and actively participated in five days of potlatches and totem pole raisings at Gitksan village of Gitsegukla. There he compiled four notebooks containing detailed and often verbatim information about the events he witnessed. For over 50 years these notebooks have seen limited circulation among specialists, who have long recognized them as the most perceptive and complete account of potlatching ever recorded.- Tsimshian Narratives byCall Number: BD B37 T75 1987 v.1ISBN: 0660107619Publication Date: 1988-07-28
The Porcupine Hunter and Other Stories by Call Number: [Full Text Online]ISBN: 9780889223332Publication Date: 1994-01-01Henry W. Tate (d. 1914) was a Tsimshian informant to ethnographer Franz Boas. Tate first wrote these stories in English before giving Boas the Tsimshian equivalent during the decade of 1903-1913. Boas published the stories in the much-consulted classic of ethnology, Tsimshian Mythology, in 1916. Through Ralph Maud's selection of the best of Tate's original stories, we can see the actual creative writer behind Boas' revised texts, now preserved much closer to the way Tate originally intended.- Txamsm dił sm'ooygit ts'iyoolk = Txamsm and Chief Kingfisher / told by Henry Tate ; retold in Sm'algyax by Verna Helin with the Sm'algyax Language Committee ; illustrated by Vernon Brown. byCall Number: ETE SD52 A38 1996 v.1ISBN: 189646209XPublication Date: 1996Txamsm is the Tsimshian transformer and trickster character. There are many tales of Txamsm: some are origin stories; others are tales of his voraciousness, greed and foolishness; still others tell of his travels. In this adventure, Txamsm tries very hard to be a good host, but he bungles it. Chief Kingfisher treats him to a wonderful feast using magic, but when Txamsm attempts to copy him, he fails.
- Thomas Crosby and the Tsimshian of Port Simpson, 1874-1897 byCall Number: AW5 .B7 50980ISBN: 0315030844Publication Date: 1981
Thomas Crosby and the Tsimshian : Small Shoes for Feet Too Large by
Call Number: TB B65 T46 1992ISBN: 0774804300Publication Date: 1992This book discusses the efforts of Thomas Crosby to introduce Christianity to the Nine Tribes of the Tsimshian. Readers should be warned that the book is written from a primarily western perspective.- Our work : how the Gospel came to Fort Simpson byCall Number: CIHM 81450ISBN: 066581450XPublication Date: [19--?]
Good intentions gone awry : Emma Crosby and the Methodist mission on the Northwest Coast by
Call Number: BV2813.C76 H37 2006ISBN: 9780774812702Publication Date: 2006This book focuses on the missionary efforts of Emma Crosby. Readers should be warned that the book is written from a primarily western perspective.- Among the An-ko-me-nums, or, Flathead tribes of Indians of the Pacific coast byCall Number: E99.S2 C94 1907ISBN: 0665720874Publication Date: 1907
- Up and down the north Pacific coast by canoe and mission ship byCall Number: CIHM 73838ISBN: 0665738382Publication Date: 1914
- Reverend Thomas Crosby fonds (1863 - [199-])The records in this fonds pertain to Rev. Crosby’s missionary activities and personal life in British Columbia, Canada. Personal life and missionary activity records include: photographs, bibles, hymns, scriptures, and one textile object.
This fonds is located at the University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology. - Indian Residential School History and Dialogue CentreThe IRSHDC houses some items related to Thomas and Emma Crosby and their involvement in the residential school system.
Image source: Crosby, Emma, 1849-1926. University of British Columbia. Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. Thomas and Emma Crosby fonds. RBSC-ARC-1149-2-18-05. (1925, April 25). [Envelope, Jessie Harris? to Emma Crosby, April 19, 1925] [C]. http://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0006301
UBC Theses & Dissertations
Browse theses and dissertations by UBC students related to Thomas and Emma Crosby in UBC Open Collections.