History of an idea with a long history

Robert Jago of Kwantlen First Nation, on Twitter, draws our attention to debate in the British Parliament in 1858, regarding the foundation of a British colony to be called British Columbia on the Pacific coast of North America:

He (Mr. Roebuck) would warn the right hon. Baronet against any mock sentimentality on that point. He was about to establish a colony before which the Indian would disappear. The successful civilization of the white man, as a necessary consequence, killed out the brown man, and depend upon it the red man would have to disappear before it in this instance; and the same feeling would exist amongst the Indians against all the colonists as now existed against the Americans. The Americans had been successful colonisers, and there was universal hatred of them amongst the Indians. In Canada, Lower and Upper, there was hardly an Indian left, because these colonies had been peopled by a civilized white population. He knew something of Canada, and he could state from personal knowledge that in that country the Indians were like the wandering gypsies of other countries. They were disappearing fast from the face of nature. One might occasionally see a poor wretched being, clothed in a dilapidated blanket, creeping along, degraded and miserable, and that was the Indian of Canada. That was what we were going to do in New Caledonia. We were about to introduce civilization there.Before that civilization the Indians must disappear, and the more rapidly the better. This might seem harsh and cruel language; but it was the language of truth.