Rancherie

A Rancherie is a First Nations residential area of an Indian Reserve in colloquial English throughout the Canadian province of British 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 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.