Saanich

The Saanich, whose name means 'the emerging people', are a Central Coast Salish people of the southern tip of Vancouver Island, the Saanich Peninsula and the neighbouring Gulf and San Juan Islands. They were divided into five independent house groups, each with winter villages and fishing grounds, and spoke a North Straits Salish dialect. Their society distinguished nobles, commoners and slaves, and stone burial cairns were raised around Victoria between about 500 and 1000.

Spanish explorers anchored at Esquimalt Harbour in 1790 and named it Puerto de Cordova, and British ships followed in 1792. From around 1800 musket-armed raiders from the northern coast pressed hard on Saanich villages, pushing the local Salish groups toward shared defensive alliances.