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The Lower Nicola Indian Band belongs to the Swxexmx (“People of the Creeks”) branch of the Nlaka’pamux Nation of the Interior Salish peoples of British Columbia.
The Band has ten reserves (totaling 17,500+ acres) surrounding the town of Merritt.
The majority of the on-reserve population lives in the community of Shulus, some 8 km west of Merritt on Highway 8.
Nlaka’pamux head Chief David Spintlum (1812 - 87) described the ‘posts’ or boundaries of Nlaka’pamux territory for ethnographer James Teit:One post up the Fraser at (Fountain) - one down the Fraser at Spuzzum - one up the Thompson River at Ashcroft - one up the Nicola River at Quilchena - one down the Similkameen River at Tcutcuwixa (near Hedley). All the country between these posts is my country and the lands of my people. At Lytton is my centre-post. It is the middle of my house, and I sit there. All the country to the headwaters of all the streams running into the valleys between these posts is also my territory in which my children gather food. We extend to meet the boundaries of the hunting territories of other tribes. All around over this country I have spoken of, I have jurisdiction. I know no white man’s boundaries or posts. If the whites have put up posts and divided my country, I do not recognize them. They have not consulted me. They have broken my house without my consent. All Indian tribes have the same as posts and recognized boundaries, and the chiefs know them since long before the first whites came to the country.
Earliest archeological evidence of Nlaka’pamux occupation of their territory comes from a site near Yale, where excavated materials have been dated to about 9000 years before the present. In the Nicola Valley, the earliest excavated sites are about 3000 years old. Between that date and European contact there was very little change in lifestyle and patterns of subsistence.
Even before the horse made its way northward from Mexico sometime before the end of the 18th century, the Sxwexmx lived a highly mobile lifestyle. Their living depended on the taking of salmon, freshwater fish, and game animals, as well as gathering roots and berries from widely separated regions throughout the entire territory at different times of the year. They were also part of a highly sophisticated trade system that extended throughout the province. Trading rights were as well-guarded as other aboriginal rights among B.C. First Nations.
When Simon Fraser encountered Nlaka’pamux people on his way south along the Fraser River in 1808, he noted the presence of a number of horses. The Nlaka’pamux were already aware of the existence of the newcomers, having heard about them through trading contacts east of the Rockies, and from their cousins, the Coast Salish peoples, who had been in contact with seafaring fur traders on the Pacific before the turn of the 19th century.
From the start, the Nlaka’pamux showed no hesitation when it came to participating in the non-native economy and incorporating new technology into their lifestyles. Hunting diversified into trapping; salmon preserved for the winter months became an eagerly sought after trade commodity to feed the employees of the newly established fur trading forts. While the horse fit readily into the lifestyle of the people, the people had to accommodate their lives to fit the horse. Previously open expanses of rangeland became just as important as hunting or fishing territory.
When gold was officially discovered in Nlaka’pamux territory in 1858, the Nlaka’pamux response to encroaching gold miners on their fishing grounds was swift. Miners complained that aboriginal people rustled their livestock and ruined their crops. They also objected to the practice enforced by some groups of taxing them for working diggings on traditional fishing sites. For their part, the Nlaka’pamux objected to being pushed off the gold bars as stampeding miners plundered their food supplies and destroyed fishing, fish-drying and camping sites. The Nlaka’pamux engaged the miners in a bloody conflict known as the Fraser Canyon War during the summer of 1858 and were not placated until Governor James Douglas negotiated a settlement.
1862 was the year that smallpox carried away about one-third of all the Nlaka’pamux people. The staggering death rate meant that the aboriginal population represented much less of a threat to settlement than a decade earlier, and for the rest of the 60’s, the Sxwexmx had to suffer the indignity of seeing much of their best land pre-empted from under them by enterprising white settlers, who were entitled to 320 acres per pre-emption.
Throughout the 1870’s the Sxwexmx joined their voices with other First Nations in the interior to demand settlement of what was becoming known as “the land question”. By the time Indian reserves were established (without the benefit of a treaty) in the Nicola Valley, the bands had such extensive livestock holdings that commissioners were obliged to exceed the meager 10 acres per family rule considered adequate by the government of the day, and set aside rangeland for the Indians’ benefit. Although these reserves were further altered by the McKenna-McBride Commission of 1912, in the ensuing century the Sxwexmx developed their haylands and grasslands to their full extent. Lands were subdivided over time into smaller lots and until the advent of social assistance in the 1950’s and 60’s, every family had a garden plot.
While the land question was never far from the surface, Sxwexmx people easily found employment with local ranches and became important participants in the growing agricultural economy throughout their territory. To a lesser extent, they also participated in the mining and forestry industries which remain the backbone of the local economy and - despite artificial Indian Act limitations on entrepreneurial activities - created a market for local crafts, like beautifully woven cedar root baskets, tanned buckskin clothing and beadwork.
Political activity in B.C. went into a brief hiatus after amendments to the Indian Act in 1927 prohibited almost every course of action related to advancing land claims. The Sxwexmx had been active participants in organizations such as the Allied Tribes of B.C., which petitioned the Canadian Prime Minister in 1910 and sent delegates to London in 1906 and 1909 to further their claims.
In 1969, Sxwexmx people were directly involved in the creation of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, the most obvious symbol of rebirth of the struggle for recognition of aboriginal rights and sovereignty over unceded lands in B.C. In 1974, the five bands of the Nicola Valley amalgamated into the Nicola Valley Indian Administration and began actively taking over their affairs. This process was accelerated by a province-wide rejection of government funding the next year, and the ousting of the Central Interior District office of Indian Affairs from Interior Salish territory altogether (the District office moved to Vancouver, where it remains to this day).
Through the Nicola Valley Indian Administration, the Sxwexmx bands embarked on an aggressive course of economic development in the 1970’s and 80’s, buying and developing land in the town of Merritt, acquiring a local hotel, starting a number of on and off-reserve businesses, and encouraging individual members to launch businesses of their own. As individual bands’ confidence grew in their ability to manage and deliver services and programs formerly controlled by Indian Affairs, they assumed greater administrative autonomy, and by 1995 the Nicola Valley Indian Administration had evolved into the Nicola Valley Tribal Association.
The Lower Nicola Indian Band is responsible for operating a number of entities (a band school, child development centre, community (health) services centre, adult education centre and firehall) as well as two band owned enterprises: Shulus Cattle Co. Ltd.; and Lower Nicola Band Enterprises, a holding company for 63 acres of undeveloped land on the Coquihalla Highway. With the other member bands of Nicola Valley Tribal Association, Lower Nicola Band is partners in Nicola Valley Indian Services Association (which owns and operates a modern office building in Merritt); Valley Business Computer Services (Internet provider for Merritt); Nicola Valley Indian Development Corporation; Spayum Developments/Days Inn Hotel, Merritt; and the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology.
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