User:SamanthaLeigh/sandbox

Article Evaluation
(January 17th, 2018) The article I have chosen to evaluate is the Wikipedia article on Louis Riel. The article has been rated as a featured article, and has been identified as High Importance article on Western Canadian history. The table of contents is well layer out with a balance of background information, personal details and a detailed timeline of the events he was involved in.

The article itself is full of relevant, detailed information. I feel as if more could be added on his background as a Metis, as the Louis Riel comic, written by Chester Brown, includes much more information on this subject. It of course would require more insight into primary sources, which are limited.

The links within the page are relevant, and every topic that has a page of it's own containing more information has the appropriate link beneath the heading (such as the Red River Rebellion and the North-West Rebellion). The information within the article is written in a neutral fashion and makes sure to pertain to all aspects of the history, a hard thing to do when writing on a topic as controversial as Louis Riel. At the conclusion of the article, there is a detailed account of the controversies around Louis Riel and more about the Historiography behind how he has been portrayed. This shows well researched subject matter and a consideration for how his portrayal has changed throughout history.

All sections are spaced out well and contain even amount of information. As mentioned before, any section of the article that I felt could have used more information, had its own separate article page.

The article also contains many relevant quotes that help engage the reader when talking about subjects such as Louis Riel's tria l and and his execution.

When looking at the references, all 10 random links I clicked on worked and took me directly to the Footnotes section of the page. The article itself is well cited with over 120 different references, all coming from credible sources. Further reading sections at the end of the article include links to newspaper articles written about Riel and other opinionated papers to broaden the readers perspective on the subject. There is a section for the Historiography references as well as primary sources. Having a bibliography this plentiful, full of legitimized articles really highlights how well written the article itself is.

Overall, this is a very strong historical article about a prominent figure in Canadian history. The page itself is semi protected for editing, and from the amount of edits made to the page over many years, a lot of effort has gone into the articles accuracy and neutrality. A very impressive source of information and a standard for all Wikipedia editors writing their own articles about similar subjects.

Adding to an Article
See citation 1 on the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry page. I added this based off valid information from the government website.

Seymour's Time as the Governor of British Columbia
Newcastle had hoped to create a Maritime region in the west, expanding on the success of the gold trade and the previous presence of the British Royal Navy during the gold rushes. This would require the union of the Vancouver Island Colony and British Columbia, but the extreme rivalry between the two colonies would prevent this. With the retirement of Sir James Douglas who previously served as Governor of both colonies, Capitan Arthur Edward Kennedy was appointed Governor of Vancouver Island on December 11th, 1863. Seymour was soon after appointed Governor of mainland British Columbia on January 11th, 1864. With the increase in local economy because of the gold rush, the Imperial Office hoped that British Columbia could become a self-sustaining colony with Seymour spearheading the local legislation. With Seymour’s arrival, Newcastle promised him a personal residence to be paid for by the colony as well as a yearly salary of £3000.

When Seymour arrived the settlers of the area greeted him with enthusiasm, and his passion towards bettering the colony quickly grew. He was introduced to the Royal Engineers plan to clear the hillside of the North bank of the Fraser River in order to prepare for the gold rush that would occur in the spring of the following year. The Fraser River had struck gold in 1857-58, and with the rush of miners from California and other parts of the west came a reign of bloodshed and lawlessness across the area. Douglas had struggled to control this, and with the request of reinforcement in 1858, the Royal Navy was sent in order to help control the situation. With the control of the violence within white settler and miner communities, followed the increase in violence instigated by local indigenous groups, the Chilcotin (Tub. Front).

Seymour was astounded by the wilderness of the colony and in his reports to Lord Cardwell often spoke of the grandiose job ahead of them to create mining infrastructure. He soon took up permanent residence in New Westminster, which first began as a survey camp of the Royal Engineers that became the colony’s new capital (Royal eng on BC). Seymour quickly developed warm relationships with the colonists and made friends with the local officials, all the while taking on the resident prejudice against Victoria. Seymour believed that the policies Douglas drafted while serving as Governor were to let the businessmen of Vancouver Island control the Cariboo gold trade, and that the mainland colony had long been neglected and its resources expedited elsewhere. He said that the mainland colony “was only a colony in name. There was a goldmine at one end of a line of road and a seaport town under a different government at the opposite terminus.”(For. Gov.) Douglas had put the colony deep into debt, leaving Seymour with an outstanding loan of  £100,000.This combined with the Cariboo Road debt that would accumulate, Seymour was constantly fighting with the imperial office for more money and the forgiveness of past loans. The debt would only continue to grow as Seymour mobilized troops in order to put down various indigenous uprisings. Seymour was shocked when he discovered that the Imperial Government anticipated leaving British Columbia, which would leave the colony defenseless at a time where uprisings were common. Colonies at that time were considered liabilities by the Imperial office. They were expensive, difficult to defend as well as govern. Earlier disturbances in the British Columbia territory forced Sir James Douglas to expand control to stabilize the frontier, but this had put doubt into the Imperial overseers who doubted the prosperity of the colony (Tub. Frontiers).

Moving forward with the development of the mainland economy, Seymour heavily invested in the building of wagon roads to the gold mining district of Cariboo. There was to be a 120-mile road built from Cariboo to the Blue Inlet, and the end of 1864 saw the completion of surveying for the project. This development led to the increase in frequency of indigenous uprisings and attacks on road workers. The most notable of which was Chilcotin Uprising, an attack by Tsilhqot'in warriors on a road party that ended in the deaths of 14 workmen and later the murder of a local ferryman. Clashes had become more frequent since the 1858 Fraser River gold rush, with tensions constantly growing between local Chilcotin groups and white settlers. The Chilcotin communities’ minimal interaction with fur traders and white settlers led to distaste from the beginning, only escalating as more arrived each spring to participate in the gold rush. Seymour had been in office only a few weeks when he was informed of the murders and was quick to react to these events, immediately dispatching a force from New Westminster led by Chartres Brew, Chief Inspector of Police, of twenty-eight men. When Brew returned requesting reinforcements, Seymour helped Brew raise a militia as well as chose to accompany him on his expedition. Seymour hoped to form better relations with local indigenous groups, and pushed for the expedition to reach the heart of Chilcotin Country. Seymour and Brew’s party pursued the Tsilhqot'in warriors into the heart of the territory. Seymour eventually met with the Chilcotin leader Alexis at Puntzi Lake, where he was informed that the Chilcotin chiefs had lost control of the groups performing the raids. Many had renounced their loyalty to the chiefs, and worked as separate units and had “a right to make war on [them] without it being any affair of [theirs]”. (Chil Up.) Eventually with the help of Chilcotin Chiefs, the murders were rounded up and handed over to William Cox, the Gold Commissioner of Cariboo. Seymour had the power to implement clemency, but decided against it in hope of preventing future uprisings.

After settling matters with the Chilcotin uprisings, Seymour began to travel around the colony inspecting different aspects and meeting with local officials. When visiting the Cariboo mines, he was overwhelmed by the loyalty and support he received from the miners. His three-month tour of the colony ended in discussions with various Chilcotin chiefs in order to work towards peace between the first nations and white settlers in the area. When he finally returned back to New Westminster he was faced with many problems awaiting his attention. The Collins Overland Telegraph Company looked to installing a telegraph line that would connect America and Russia, running through British Columbia Territory. New gold had been discovered on the Kootenay River east of New Westminster, which led to the implementation of a higher gold export tax that Seymour implemented in 1865.

Most notably, the question of union was becoming more prominent a concern than ever. The Vancouver Island Colony private assembly brought to heavy a cost to the Imperial government, and looked to unite the colonies under a single administration. Seymour had put much of his own faith into the future prosperity of the British Columbia colony, but with the failure of the private banking venture at the Cariboo mines in 1864 and the failure of the usual rush of miners to the area in 1865, Seymour realized union might be inevitable. Even with bleak prospects, Seymour continued to invest in road expansion in order to connect more industrial communities on the mainland and grow the colonies economy. By 1865, business in Victoria was faltering because of the failure of the usual miners rush. Governor Kennedy’s assembly began to push for the consolidation of the two colonies, and the Colonial Office looked to Seymour for advice on the possibility of a future union.

Seymour was called back to England in September 1865 to inform the Colonial Office about the conditions of the pacific coastline. When making his recommendations, Seymour mentioned “the extreme inconvenience to myself of the position of two Governors of equal authority close to each other yet far from home.” Despite this, he still strongly opposed the union with the opinion that it would do nothing for the mainland colony of British Columbia. However, during his time in England, Seymour found that not only the Hudson’s Bay Company and The Bank of British Columbia wanted union, but the military and naval men also supported an amalgamation of the colonies. Seymour was forced to accept the inevitable, and began working with the Colonial Office to construct what the union should look like.

His involvement in the discussion of union was briefly interrupted by his wedding to Florence Marie, daughter of Hon. Reverend Sir Francis Stapleton on January 27th, 1866. Even while his honeymoon, Seymour was still communicating with his attorney general on how the union should go about. He insisted that the constitution of the united colonies would be “that of British Columbia”, and the capital would be located at New Westminster. He insisted that it be he, the Governor of British Columbia, who would announce the act of union between the two colonies, and with the constitution being that of British Columbia, the preservation of British Columbia tariff acts would hold. Most of Seymour’s suggestions were used, and the act of union came to fruition after being hurried through parliament in November 1866. Soon, with the announcement by Seymour in both New Westminster and Victoria, the Crown Colony of British Columbia was brought to fruition.