Native Brotherhood of British Columbia

Native Brotherhood of British Columbia

Formation	December 13, 1931; 93 years ago (1931-12-13)
Founder	Alfred Adams William Beynon William Jeffrey
Founded at	Port Simpson, British Columbia, Canada
Region	British Columbia
Website	https://nativebrotherhood.ca/

The Native Brotherhood of British Columbia was a province-wide First Nations rights organization. It was founded on the 13 December, 1931, during a week long series of meetings between Haida representatives from Masset and Tsimshian representatives in the Tsimshian community of Port Simpson (a.k.a. Lax Kw'alaams). Masset Haida chief Alfred Adams, Tsimshian ethnologist and chief William Beynon and Chief William Jeffrey were among its four founding members. It was modelled in spirit and structure on the Alaska Native Brotherhood.

Since its absorption of the Pacific Coast Native Fishermen's Organization and its primarily Kwakwaka'wakw membership in 1942, it became oriented more towards fishing rights.

In 1945, Andy Paull and chapters centered in Coast Salish communities in BC split off to form the North American Indian Brotherhood.

The formation of the Brotherhood in BC is recounted in North Vancouver filmmaker Marie Clements' 2017 musical documentary The Road Forward.[1]

References

1. Gee, Dana (2017-04-26). "DOXA: Festival has important role telling untold stories". Vancouver Province. Retrieved 2017-04-28.

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. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. OCLC 298024002. OL 6264765M. Retrieved 2024-12-12 – via Internet Archive.
• Jamieson, Eric (2016). The native voice : the history of Canada's first Aboriginal newspaper and its founder Maisie Hurley. Halfmoon Bay, BC: Caitlin Press. ISBN 9781987915174. OCLC 932093535.
• 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.
• O’Donnell, Jacqueline Patricia (1985). The Native Brotherhood of British Columbia 1931-1950 : a new phase in native political organization (MA thesis). Vancouver: University of British Columbia. doi:10.14288/1.0096506. Retrieved 2024-12-12.
• Parker, Peter (1992). "We are not beggars" : political genesis of the Native Brotherhood, 1931-1951 (MA thesis). Simon Fraser University. Retrieved 2024-12-12.
• Siegel, Leah (2021). "The Native Brotherhood of B.C.: The Tsimshian and Haida form Canada's longest-running Indigenous organization". British Columbia: An Untold History. Knowledge Network. Retrieved 2024-12-12.