Missionary Letters from 1845-1847 Reveal New Historical Insights

Jim Cooperman

Research into the nineteenth-century history of the BC Interior has always been limited by the lack of source material, as the only available documents are primarily fur trader reports, journals, and diaries. By happenstance, 237 pages of letters written by Italian-born Jesuit priest Father Giovanni Nobili from 1845 to 1847 arrived by email from a friend and author in Williams Lake. These documents, which have yet to be read by most historians in the province, had been in the Vatican vaults until the Tŝilhquot’in Nation was able to acquire them several years ago for the Xeni Gwet’in land claims court case. Their legal team, Woodward and Company, translated the letters from Italian into English. Missions to the Interior Father Nobili (1812–1856) was the second Jesuit missionary to arrive in the…

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British Columbia History (Digital) - 1 Issue, 56.3 Fall 2023

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