page_title: History of British Columbia
section_title: Early European villages (1788–1790 s)
hierarchical_section_title: History of British Columbia / Early European villages (1788–1790 s)
context_page_description: British Columbia is the westernmost province of Canada. Originally politically constituted as a pair of British colonies, British Columbia joined the Canadian Confederation on July 20, 1871. Perhaps the most influential historian of British Columbia has been Margaret Ormsby; in British Columbia: A History she presented a structural model that has been adopted by numerous historians and teachers. Chad Reimer says, "in many aspects, it still has not been surpassed". Ormsby posited a series of propositions that provided the dynamic to the history:
  the ongoing pull between maritime and continental forces; the opposition between a "closed", hierarchical model of society represented by the Hudson's Bay Company and colonial officials, and the "open", egalitarian vision of English and Canadian settlers, and regional tensions between Vancouver Island and mainland, metropolitan Vancouver and the hinterland interior.
context_section_description: In 1788, John Meares, an English navigator and explorer, sailed from China and explored Nootka Sound and the neighbouring coasts. He bought some land from a local chief named Maquinna and built a trading post there.
  Two years later, in 1789, the Spanish commander Esteban José Martínez, a native of Seville, established a settlement and started building a fort in Friendly Cove, Nootka Sound, which was named Fort San Miguel. This territory was already considered as part of New Spain by the Spanish due to the previous explorations of the region. Upon Martinez's arrival, a number of British ships were seized, including those of Captain Meares. This originated the Nootka Crisis, which almost led to a war between Britain and Spain. The controversy resulted in the abandonment of the Nootka Sound settlement by the Spanish. Some months later, Manuel Antonio Flórez, Viceroy of New Spain, ordered a Francisco de Eliza to rebuild the fort. The expedition, composed of three ships, the Concepción, under the command of De Eliza, the San Carlos, under the command of Salvador Fidalgo and the Princesa Real, under the command of Manuel Quimper, sailed in early 1790 from San Blas in Nueva Galicia and arrived at Nootka Sound in April of that year. The expedition had many Catalan volunteers from the First Free Company of Volunteers of Catalonia, commanded by Pere d'Alberní, a native of Tortosa. The expedition rebuilt the fort, which had been dismantled after Martínez abandoned it. The rebuilt fort included several defensive constructions as well as a vegetable garden to ensure the settlement had food supplies. The Catalan volunteers left the fort in 1792 and Spanish influence in the region ended in 1795 after the Nootka Convention came into force.
caption: Friendly Cove, Nootka Sound. Volume I, plate VII from: "A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World" by George Vancouver.
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