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Canada contributes to Carifesta X today
Today, Canada will make its contribution to Carifesta X when a statue of Sir James Douglas is erected in his home town of Mahaica.
The reception held on Monday night in honour of Guyanese born Sir James Douglas
The sculpture will be erected at the old train station.
On Monday evening, Canadian High Commissioner Charles Court held a reception at his official residence in honour of Douglas.
Sir James Douglas is best remembered as the founder of settlement, trade and industry for British Columbia and in particular Vancouver Island.
The Father of British Columbia, Douglas also helped the Hudson’s Bay Company become a trading monopoly in the North Pacific.
James Douglas was born in Mahaica, in what was then British Guiana, in 1803.
He has been described as “Scotch West Indian”, the son of Scottish Merchant John Douglas and a free coloured woman Martha Ann Ritchie.
At the age of nine he left Guyana, and at twelve, he was taken to Lanark, a small town in the central belt of Scotland, for schooling. At 16, Douglas was apprenticed to the North West Company and entered the Hudson’s Bay Company’s (HBC) employ, in Canada, on the merger of the two companies in 1821.
Four years later, while attached to Fort St. James in the New Caledonia district, Douglas accompanied Chief Factor William Connolly on the first annual fur brigade to Fort Vancouver.
The Statue that will be erected today
There he met Amelia, Connolly’s part-Indian daughter, and on April 27, 1828 the couple was married.
In 1843, Douglas began constructing Fort Victoria on the southern tip of Vancouver.
Fort Victoria became the main pacific depot in 1849 for furs being transshipped from the interior.
He was instrumental in the formation of British Columbia and became its first governor.
He was knighted by Queen Victoria for his devoted service to British Columbia and the colony became a province of Canada in 1871.
After his term as governor, Sir James Douglas continued to reside in Victoria until his death August 2, 1877.
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