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Avove the Katzie were several villages that, according to Simon, were wiped our or nearly so, by smallpox before Fort Langley was founded. [Listed sites at Derby, Whonnock, Ruskin, and at Hatzic.] On the south bank between the last two were the Matsqui, who survived the epidemic.
Simon referred to the "Derby people" as a "separate tribe" who owned the Salmon River on the south side of the river and possibly Kanada Creek on the north side. He referred to the Nicomekl River, from which the Indians and early traders portaged to the Salmon River, as ... the "river of the Semiahmoo. However, a Semiahmoo informant at Lummi said the original inhabitants of Mud Bay, where the Nicomekl has its mouth were a tribe called [Snokomish] and that their river was called [Snokomish, now become Nicomekl. The [Snokimish] were wiped out by the smallpox before the whites came, whereupon the Semiahmoo, who had intermarried with them, extended their territory northward to include that of the former [Snokomish] around Mud Bay.
In view of these two accounts it seems likely that the Derby people, who we might call "Sokomish," occupied both a segment on the Fraser and a bit of saltwater shore-line at Mud Bay, together with the two streams that make canoe navigation from one
place to the other possible with only one short portage. After the Snokomish were wiped out, the Semiamoo took over the salt-water section of their territory so that what the Semiahmoo considered the "Snokomish" river came to be the "Semiahmoo" river for the people of the Fraser.
According to Simon, after the Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Langley the Kwantlen moved up-stream to be near to the fort and established themselves on McMillan Island. For this reason they became called the "Langley tribe." After this move they took over the territory of the other villages wiped out by smallpox mentioned above.
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