ARancherie is a First Nations residential area of an Indian Reserve in colloquial English throughout the Canadian provinceofBritish Columbia. Originating in an adaptation of ranchería, a Californian term for the residential area of a rancho, where most hands were aboriginal, the term became in British Columbia prior to[citation needed] the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858, but from then on and in the series of gold rushes and settlement colonization that followed, the term came into wide use throughout the colony.
In modern usage it can often refer to a new residential area, but traditionally it referred and does refer to the oldest group of residences, tpyically log cabins or similar, generally clustered around a church. In some reserves where there is more than one residential area, "the rancherie" would mean a specific one of the group, typically the oldest. "Rancherie" it should be noted does not refer to the whole of a reserve, or of a group of reserves run by a gand government, but only to the community area so designated. The term is also in wide use outside of First Nations peoples, and is generally part of the vernacular in most small British Columbia towns with adjacent or contiguous Indian Reserves, with little or no derogatory overtones.
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