Native Brotherhood of British Columbia

The Native Brotherhood of British Columbia is a province-wide First Nations rights organization founded in the Tsimshian community of Port Simpson (a.k.a. Lax Kw'alaams), British Columbia, in 1931. The Tsimshian ethnologist and chief William Beynon and Chief William Jeffrey were among its four founding members. It was modeled in spirit and structure on the Alaska Native Brotherhood.

Since its absorption of the Pacific Coast Native Fishermen's Organization and its primarily Kwakwaka'wakw membership in 1942, it became oriented more towards fishing rights.

In 1945, Andy Paull and chapters centered in Coast Salish communities in B.C. split off to form the North American Indian Brotherhood.

Bibliography

• "B.C. Indian Authority Dies" (obituary for William Beynon). Vancouver, B.C., Province, Feb. 11, 1958, p. 28.

• Drucker, Philip (1958) The Native Brotherhoods: Modern Intertribal Organizations on the Northwest Coast. (Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin, no. 168). Washington.

• Kew, J. E. Michael (1990) "History of Coastal British Columbia since 1846." In Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 7: Northwest Coast, ed. by Wayne Suttles, pp. 159–168. Washington: Smithsonian Institution.