Trudeau apologizes to Tsilhqot’in community members for 1864 hanging of chiefs
CHILKO LAKE, B.C. — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized to the Tsilhqot’in community for the hanging of six chiefs more than 150 years in an emotional ceremony Friday that one chief says brought an end to a “difficult journey.”
Speaking to hundreds of the First Nation’s members in British Columbia’s central Interior, Trudeau said the colonial officials of the day erred in inviting the chiefs for peacekeeping talks where they were instead arrested, tried and hanged. He said the chiefs are fully exonerated without any wrongdoing because they were acting as one independent nation engaged in war with another when they attacked a road crew that intruded on their territory.
“These are mistakes that our government profoundly regrets and are determined to set right,” Trudeau said of the incident during the so-called Chilcotin War.
Chief Joe Alphonse, tribal chairman of the Tsilhqot’in nation, said the apology was significant not only because it was the first time that a prime minister visited title lands, but because it was made directly to community members.