DOUGLAS, SIR JAMES (1803-1877), Canadian adminis trator, was born on June 5, 1803, in Lanarkshire, Scotland, where he was educated. In 182o he went to Canada, and four years later became the organizer of the property of the Hudson's Bay com pany west of the Rockies. In 1830 he was transferred to Ft. Vancouver in the Oregon Territory, where he extended the tom pany's forts. In 1843 he made Camosun, the place where Victoria now stands, the chief northern centre of the fur trade. After the north-west Boundary Treaty of 1846, which moved the British frontier back to the 49th parallel, Douglas was appointed senior officer of the western department, and in 1851 became governor of Vancouver. In 1859 his statesmanship made possible the joint occupation of the island of San Juan by an equal number of British and American troops. When British Columbia was made a Crown colony in 1858, Sir James Douglas held its governorship with that of Vancouver until 5863. He died at Victoria on Aug 1, 5877.
See Coats and Go5flell, Sir James Douglas (Makers of Canada Series, vol. ix., 1926) .