History
British sailors surveying the area in 1851 cruised into a tiny group of five unnamed islands in the Strait of Georgia, naming the two largest Kuper and Thetis, after their Captain Augustus Leopold Kuper R.N. (1809–1885) and his frigate, HMS Thetis, a 36-gun Royal Navy frigate on the Pacific Station between 1851 and 1853.
On April 20, 1863, the British gunboat HMS Forward attacked the native village on the then-named Kuper Island. The captain believed that the village harboured individuals of the separate Lamalchi tribe involved in two recent assaults in the Gulf Islands in which three Europeans had been murdered. The gunboat fired on the village but, unprepared for a naval landing, was repulsed with casualties after a fierce battle with a handful of warriors. Following this defeat, the colonial government responded with one of the largest military operations in British Columbia's history, which took place on the east coast of Vancouver Island and extended throughout the waters and islands of Active Pass, Trincomali Channel and Stuart Channel. In the end, the government publicly hanged four natives in Victoria. The Lamalchi village site was confiscated and awarded to the family of a sailor who had been killed.
Read more about this topic: Kuper Island
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