He was instrumental to the resettlement of 35 African Americans fleeing a life of racial persecution in San Francisco who arrived in the province aboard the steamship Commodore in what later became known as the Pioneer Committee.

[3][4] Ritchie was classified as free coloured, which in that time and place meant someone of mixed African and European family history, who was not a slave.

The rival Hudson's Bay Company was also active in this area, and Douglas was caught up in at least one argument with the fighting fur traders.

Douglas continued his policy of self-education by reading books brought from Britain and meeting with many First Nations people.

He was next assigned at Fort St. James on Stuart Lake, headquarters of the company's New Caledonia District, roughly located within modern British Columbia.

Douglas and Amelia were married on 27 April 1828 'à la façon du pays', a ceremony repeated almost a decade later at Fort Vancouver.

Douglas was said to have marched into the Stuart Lake village and seized the accused murderer, but the exact events of the day are disputed.

Fearing for Douglas's life, Connolly asked HBC Governor George Simpson to transfer the younger man elsewhere.

In Hamburg in early 1839, Simpson and Governor of Russian Colonies in America Ferdinand von Wrangel negotiated a commercial treaty that established future relations between the two state companies.

The RAC-HBC Agreement let the HBC rent a portion of Russian American claimed territory referred to as the "Stikine lisière."

In return, the RAC received 2000 otter pelts and a number of other goods, notably a large supply of wheat and provisions needed at various Russian stations.

George Simpson had recommended a second line of forts be built in case the Columbia River valley fell into American hands.

That proved beneficial when in 1846 the Oregon Treaty was signed, extending the British North America and the United States border along the 49th parallel from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Georgia.

However, most practical authorities rested with Douglas as the chief employer and person in charge of its finances and land, and he effectively drove Blanshard from the position.

As governor, Douglas faced a number of significant challenges, not least of which was the expansionist pressure of the neighboring United States of America.

After facilities of the key port proved inadequate, the British government charged Douglas to build a hospital at Esquimalt harbour, as well as improve Royal Navy supply capacity.

Douglas pressed Britain to exert sovereignty over all islands in the archipelago dividing the Strait of Georgia from Puget Sound.

While opposing troops remained garrisoned on San Juan Island, the dispute was eventually settled by arbitration in favour of the United States.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Oregon and Washington Territory the Cayuse and Yakima Wars and other conflicts between Americans and indigenous peoples were raging.

[citation needed] The treaties that he concluded were later criticized as having provided woefully inadequate compensation to First Nations in return for their cession of large swaths of territory (in most cases, a few blankets or a few shillings).

[citation needed] The treaties, concluded between 1850 and 1854, acquired 14 parcels of land for the Crown from the native peoples, totaling 570 square kilometres (220 sq mi).

A major task during the huge inflow of settlers was to prevent violence between the recent arrivals and the local First Nations peoples.

[11] Lytton desired to send to the colony "representatives of the best of British culture, not just a police force," sought men who possessed "courtesy, high breeding and urbane knowledge of the world,"[12] and decided to send Moody, whom the Government considered to be the archetypal "English gentleman and British Officer"[13] at the head of the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment.

Moody had been selected by Lord Lytton due to his possession of the quality of the archetypal 'English gentleman and British Officer', his family was 'eminently respectable': he was the son of Colonel Thomas Moody, one of the wealthiest mercantilists in the West Indies, who owned much of the land in the islands where Douglas's father owned a small amount of land and from which Douglas's mother, 'a half-breed', originated.

[14] Mary Moody, the descendant of the Hawks industrial dynasty and the Boyd merchant banking family,[15] wrote on 4 August 1859 'it is not pleasant to serve under a Hudson's Bay Factor' and that the 'Governor and Richard can never get on'.

During the trip, he encountered a great number of squatting foreigners, reducing the total possible revenues for land sales to the government.

In attempt to suppress unlawful acts, Douglas appointed regional constables, a Chief Inspector of Police (Chartres Brew), and a network of intelligence officials.

Such preventive measures helped ensure that the chaos accompanying the California Gold Rush was not repeated in British Columbia.

[23] In December 1861, during the ongoing Trent Affair, Douglas argued for his London superiors to invade and conquer the Washington Territory as America was too busy in the East with the Civil War.

He also said the Royal Navy and Marines were powerful and could easily do the job, ending with a statement that "with Puget Sound, and the line of the Columbia River in our hands, we should hold the only navigable outlets of the country — command its trade, and soon compel it to submit to Her Majesty's Rule.