Secwépemc

The Secwépemc, known to outsiders as the Shuswap, are an Interior Salish people of the British Columbia interior, speaking the Secwepemctsín language. Their country, Secwepemcúĺecw, stretches from the Chilcotin and Cariboo plateaus through Thompson Country to Kamloops and the Big Bend of the Columbia.

The villages lived by salmon fishing, hunting and trade, and raiding parties took captives from neighbouring bands to exchange for salmon. In 1811 the Pacific Fur Company trader David Stuart wintered among the Kamloops Secwépemc.

Posts founded the following year, Fort Cumcloups and the North West Company's Fort Shuswap, merged in 1813 and passed to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821. Chief Kwa'lila moved his village beside the post to control access to the trade, and his successor Nicola went on to lead a wide alliance of plateau peoples.