his was warfare on the Northwest Coast. The Sliammon way
 of life did not include much war. The Sliammon people were not
 noted for having been aggressive,
hostile warriors, searching out and plundering their 
enemies' villages for no apparent reason. Instead the Sliammon people would stay within
 their traditional territory, defending their families against attack from 
the LeKwiltok and Haida, who came from the north to raid for slaves; and also 
from the Chilcotin who came from the Interior to raid the rich 
stocks of coastal salmon.

ithin villages and among neighbouring villages, the Sliammon people made 
every effort to keep the peace. Some hostilities were visible at potlatches, 
but disputes were resolved amicably and the fighting was with property, not 
with weapons; at least up until trading of firearms with the Europeans in 1774.

he Coast of British Columbia was generous to the people who lived along its 
shores. Like other coastal native peoples, the Sliammon people were well
provided with food, housing, transportation, hunting, fishing implements and 
numerous necessities for their everyday life.  Trading, therefore, took 
place only for certain desirable goods that were not available in their own 
territory, such as sturgeon and surf smelt from the Sechelt people.  Grass 
for basketry from the West Coast Nootka people and dried roots and native 
hemp fibers from the Lillooet Interior people.  For these items, they gave
in exchange smoke dried salmon, inner cedar bark and shells.

fter first contact with the Europeans, the number of trade goods increased
and blankets, guns, ammunition, sugar and flour became major the items of
trade.

he earliest written records of contact between the people of Sliammon and 
Europeans are the journals of George Vancouver's voyage of exploration along the 
shores of the Northwest Coast of North America on July 02, 1792. He was
accompanied into the Johnstone Strait that year by the Spanish ships 'Sutil' and
'Mexicana' followed by other commercial traders.

t was in 1843, when the Company shifted its headquarters from Fort Vancouver on
the Columbia to Victoria on Vancouver Island that the forces of European influence 
began to be felt among all coastal aboriginal communities within the Gulf of
Georgia.

or decades to follow, coastal aboriginal communities were struck with wave after
wave of contagious diseases. Influenza, measles, small pox, tuberculosis.The
Kwakiutl lost 2/3 of their population, the Haida 3/4. We can only imagine the
number of dead amongst the Sliammon people. The Coast Salish population,estimated
to have been 12,000 in 1835, dropped to a low of 4120 in 1915. The epidemics
seemed to hit Vancouver Island particularly hard as record numbers of aboriginal
deaths were recorded in the Victoria area, the Pentlatch people immediately south
of the Island Comox were extinguished and the few surviving were absorbed by
neighbouring villages.