The records of William Pearce question the traditional history of Western Canadian settlement as a peaceful and accountable application of British justice. The process was in fact shot through with deception and exploitation by the highest respresentatives of government and private enterprise.

1. Friends of the BC Archives
The Enormous Condescension of Cartography:
Squatters’ Rights and the Archival Meridian of William Pearce, Director of the
Dominion Lands Board
Raymond Frogner
January 19, 2014
William Pearce,
[ca. 1885]

2. University of Alberta Archives
William Pearce fonds

3. “Pearce to G.E. Grogan,”
3 November 1908, 74-169-442-6, William Pearce Papers UAA, p. 1.

4. Squatters in Juridical Context
• Who Was Pearce?
• The traditional history of Western Canadian Settlement
• The Unbearable Vagueness of English Common Law
Title and Possession
• What served as evidence of Common Law Possession in
Frontier Canada?

5. “Pearce to G.E. Grogan,”
3 November 1908, 74-169-442-6, William Pearce Papers UAA, p. 1.

6. Squatters in Juridical Context
Juridical system v. Political Discourse:
Traditional and cultural practice vs. Black Letter
Law.
• Historical Context: Squatters’ Rights=Adverse
Possession
• Squatter:
• the destitute, the Aboriginal, the loyalist
settler, the religious order, the NWMP officer
or any other entity not unambiguously
recognized by law to hold lands patent.

7. Squatters in Juridical Context
• Lower Canada:
• Source: Eric Whan, Improper Property: Squatters and the Idea of
Property in the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada, MA Thesis,
1996
• 1858: 15,000 Squatters Lower Cdn Commissioner of Crown
Lands
• 1838: Lord Durham’s Pre-emption proclamation
• 1859: Squatting made illegal

8. Squatters in Juridical Context
• Upper Canada
• Grand River lands of the Six Nations Confederacy
• Lieutenant Governor Frederick Haldimand 1784
• Between 1800 and 1850 Upper Canada received
almost a million people, many started as
squatters.
• a sort of Trojan horse to provide entry for
Loyalist settlers to previously conveyed land.

9. Squatters in Juridical Context
• Squatters’ Rights
• Lower Canada
Squatters depicted as problem
• Upper Canada
Squatters tolerated and tacitly encouraged
• Positive Law:
• William Blackstone, Commentaries on the
Laws of England.

10. “Pearce to H.H. Smith,” November 6, 1886.
Pearce Letterbook, Private, 1883-1888, 74-169-9/2/4-1,
William Pearce Papers, UAA, p. 507.

11. “Pearce to Thomas White,” 14 November 1885,
Land Claims, Vol. 2, 1884-1886, WPLB, UAA p. 693.

12. “Pearce to H.H. Smith,” 31 October 1885, Letterbook: Land
Claims Vol. II, 1884, 74-169-9-2-4-4 William Pearce Papers,
UAA, p. 668

13. “Pearce to A. Walsh,” 12 March 1884, Letterbook: Land
Claims Vol. I, 1884, Prince Albert, 74-169-9-2-4-3
William Pearce Papers, UAA, p. 496

14. “Pearce to the Dominion Lands Board,” 24 September 1884, Letterbook: Land
Claims Vol. II, 1884-1886, 74-169-9-2-4-4 William Pearce Papers, UAA, p. 458

15. “Pearce to H.H. Smith,” 6 November 1886 Letterbook: Private,
1883-1888 74-169-9-2-4-1 William Pearce Papers, UAA, p. 507

16. “Strictly Confidential Memo,” WPLB, Private 1883-1888, William
Pearce Papers, U.A.A., p. 391-392.

17. Titles to Land in the Three Prairie Provinces: Early Administration
and Development, Unpublished Manuscript, 74-169-467, William
Pearce Papers, UAA.

18. Colonial Archives and the Prairie Gothic
Buffalo bones at Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
74-169-15-91

19. Squatters on Colonial Vancouver Island
“Thomas Williams is one
of the chap of man
known in this country as
‘squatters,’ that is,
persons who have not
purchased, and
therefore have no legal
claim to, the land they
occupy ….”
28 August 1856.
Tathlasut - Cowichan
Valley First Nation

20. HBCs Anterior Claims
• 7 September 1846
• Public Offices
document Pelly to
Grey 1074, CO
305/1, p. 1; received