Jean Baptiste Lolo and family

Image Credit: Public Domain

Jean Baptistes Lolo, aka St. Paul, is a mysterious character in the early history of Kamloops and that history is constantly evolving.

Depending on who is telling the story, he comes across either as a champion of First Nations peoples in the Interior of BC in the early to mid-1800s or a faithful servant of the white man’s Hudson’s Bay Company.

One thing that is undisputed is that all the historical records of that time were written by white Europeans, although some are said to have done so based on the oral histories told to them by First Nations elders.

“He’s a very mysterious person,” Thompson Rivers University law professor Craig Jones told iNFOnews.ca. “He’s quite elusive. The legend of Lolo is, sort of, that he was the great chief of the Shuswap. The reality of it is, he was probably sort of hatchet man for the Hudson’s Bay Company.”

In fact, most sources agreed that, while he was called a chief, he never actually was one.

READ MORE: The myths and legends of this Kamloops founding father

Even Aaron Hutchison, who is helping organize a gathering of Lolo dependents at the university in June in order to explore Lolo’s history, figured that the man was never officially a chief.

Until mid-January, that is.

“According to the Department of Indian Affairs, LoLo was the Chief of Tkemlups in 1862,” he wrote in an email to iNFOnews.ca. “I had no idea.”

He came across historical records from the department listing Lolo as a chief, which he posted on the Lolo Facebook page.

Also quite recently, the Lewis and Clarke Trail Heritage Foundation published an article on Lolo with a large, bold subheading: Trickster.

“According to Samuel Black (1790-1840 or 41), the Chief Factor in the Hudson Bay Company’s Columbia District, Lolo was not above tricking Indians into doing whatever he wished, such as: holy water in wash hand-basins, dressing up your cook to make him hold it, walking about the house with a whitewash brush in your hand with many mumblings and magical words, sprinkling the natives in said holy water, telling them that if they do not come to your place to dance and bring their furs with them this fall, they will be swallowed up like another Sodom into a fiery furnace or boiling caldron... thereby frightening the Indians from walking on God’s earth and going about their usual occupations,” the article said.

Hutchison took offence to that depiction, went back to the original source materials – the Hudson Bay Company’s journals of the day – and asked for a correction.

Those journals show that, in fact, it was Black who wrote those words to Alexander Fisher, who was in charge of the Alexandria fort, accusing Fisher of the one doing the tricking, based on reports of Fisher's misdeed relayed to Black by Lolo.

The Lewis and Clarke foundation initially refused to retract the passage saying they would publish Hutchison's letter in the next edition of its journal.

In the end, following questions from iNFOnews.ca, the posting on Lolo no longer carries the “Trickster” section.

Not so easy to dismiss is Jones’s suggestion that Lolo was a hatchet man for the company.

“There is no instance that I have found, and I’ve read quite a lot, where he actually represented the interests of the Nation,” Jones told iNFOnews.ca. “He was always representing the Hudson’s Bay Company, or after 1843 his own interests.”

Both man recount the story – with some variation – of the murder of the Fort Thompson Hudson Bay Company factor Samuel Black in February 1841 by a young Shuswap man named by Jones as Kiskowskin.

Posses were formed by the company but the young man could not be found until the following summer when Lolo provided the information that led to Kiskowskin’s arrest and subsequent death.

READ MORE: The true story of Grand Chief Nicola, told by his descendant

Both man also agree that Lolo traded the information for ammunition so his people could hunt and escape from the near starvation they were facing.

But was that really more about Lolo ingratiating himself to John Tod, who later became chief factor in Kamloops, married one of Lolo’s daughters and, according to Jones, set Lolo up in the old Fort Thompson in 1843 after Fort Kamloops was built?

Tod at that time had become a shareholder in the Puget Sound Agriculture Company which was essentially a subsidiary of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

The HBC by, its charter, could only trade in furs. The subsidiary, whose shareholders were all HBC officers, could trade in food, cattle and horses.

Lolo, based in the old fort, grew food, raised cattle and horses and sold them to the Puget Sound and therefore the Hudson’s Bay Company, Jones said.

“After 1843, Lolo is described by various sources as becoming, by the standards of the Interior, a very wealthy person,” Jones said. “That’s when Lolo first began to be referred to as a chief but only, really ever, by either the Hudson’s Bay Company or other members of the community that were relying on the Hudson’s Bay Company for their information.”

And it now seems also by the Department of Indian Affairs.

In 1860, when the Kamloops Indian Reserve was established, Lolo’s land was to go into the reserve but HBC argued that it still owned that land.

In the end, Governor James Douglas ruled the land belonged to Lolo who, upon his death, donated it to the reserve.

So, does all that make him self-serving?

Hutchison thinks not.

“Lolo was trusted not only by the Salish peoples in the Interior, but the Carriers in the north,” he wrote in an email to iNFOnews.ca. “LoLo's relationships with Indigenous peoples was valued. He was a peacekeeper who no doubt prevented escalations that could have reached the level of the Chilcotin Uprising.”

That 1864 uprising resulted in the death of 18 Europeans and eight Tsilhqot’ins, six of whom were hanged.

Hutchison pointed out that Lolo exposed Fisher as a trickster to the company and referred to another example where Lolo was in Fort Fraser and was severely beaten for no cause by the factor William Thew.

The villagers grabbed axes and stormed the fort in Lolo’s defence frightening Thew so much that he threw gifts to them, promised to make Lolo a chief and compensate him for his ill treatment.

“If LoLo was a self-promoter, why would the Indigenous people in Northern BC at Fraser Lake be ready to storm the fort and attack William Thew after he assaulted LoLo?” Hutchison wrote. “Is that what people do for lackeys?”

Surely there will be more stories – and quite likely impassioned debates – about Jean Baptiste Lolo when up to 300 of his descendants gather to remember him at Thompson Rivers University on June 1.

Go here to learn more.

 — This article was updated at 8:07 a.m. on Feb. 20, 2024 to correct an error in Lolo's name.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Rob Munro or call 250-808-0143 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. SUBSCRIBE to our awesome newsletter here.

News from © iNFOnews, 2024