“The Father of British Columbia”
1812 When Douglas was 9 years old, his father sent him and his brother away to school in Scotland. He never saw his mother again.
1818 When 15 years old he apprenticed in the fur trade with the North West Company, soon to become the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC)
In 1821 he became an employee of Hudson’s Bay Company. He was known as a "stout, powerful active man of good conduct and respectable abilities.” It was also noted that Douglas became “furiously violent when aroused.”
1826 Douglas is posted to British Columbia under the command of HBC Chief Factor Connolly.
1828 Douglas married Amelia, Chief Factor Connolly’s daughter, whose mother was Cree.
Douglas was described as “a stout, powerful active man of good conduct and respectable abilities who could become furiously violent when aroused.”
1830 Chief Factor Connolly recommended that Douglas be transferred to Fort Vancouver due to his antagonistic relationship with the Dakelh people.
1839 Douglas was promoted to Chief Factor at Fort Vancouver.
1843 he began building Fort Victoria to prevent American influence in the area.
In January 1850, Douglas told a friend that, "I am thinking of making a purchase of land on Vancouver's Island, more as a speculation than with any serious intentions of settling,” but then late in 1850 he bought a 300-acre estate, which he named Fairfield, and began building a house in James Bay.
In 1850, James Douglas began to negotiate 14 ‘treaties’ with several Lekwungen families on Vancouver Island, with the intention of freeing up land to colonize. Most of the Lekwungen signatories assumed they were signing a peace treaty to share, not cede, their lands.
The city's real estate market was just beginning to take shape, and land speculation was already a common practice. At this time, raw land in the city sold for an average price of $5 per acre, ($192 in today’s dollars)
In 1851 Douglas was appointed Governor and was instructed to create an elected legislative assembly. He believed that people really wanted “the ruling classes” to make their decisions. Because of this, he established property qualifications for the right to vote and for membership in the assembly that were so high only a few landowners qualified.
In 1852 Douglas sold himself about twenty-four acres of the northeast corner of Beacon Hill Park.
In 1854 Douglas negotiated 14 land purchases with the Lekwungen people known as the Douglas Treaties. In each, lands were purchased in exchange for small amounts of cash, clothing, blankets, occupation of reserved lands, and hunting and fishing rights on unoccupied ceded lands.
1858 Douglas established Beacon Hill Park but the Hudson’s Bay Company claimed most of the acreage belonged to the Company and began selling lots before the land titles were resolved.
The 1858 gold rush drove up the price and value of most land around Victoria.
In 1859 Britain cancels the Hudson’s Bay Company’s grant and offers Douglas the Governorship of BC should he quit his fur trade activities. He accepted their offer and he devised a land policy that included mineral rights.
In 1863 Queen Victoria knighted James Douglas making him known forever more as Sir James Douglas.
In 1864 Douglas retired with honours.
In August 2, 1877 Douglas died in Victoria of a heart attack.

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