Sir James Douglas, KCB (August 15, 1803 – August 2, 1877) was a Canadian fur trader and politician who became the first Governor of the Colony of British Columbia. He is often credited as "The Father of British Columbia". In 1863, Douglas was knighted by Queen Victoria for his services to the Crown.

Douglas was born in Guyana to a wealthy Scottish planter and a free woman of colour. He started work at 16 for the North West Company and then the Hudson's Bay Company, where he eventually became a Chief Factor. From 1851 to 1864, he was Governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island. In 1858, he became the first Governor of the Colony of British Columbia and asserted the authority of the British Empire during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, which had the potential to turn the Mainland into an American state; in reaction to the threat of annexation, he sponsored the resettlement of 35 Black Americans, later known as the "Pioneer Committee", from San Francisco to Vancouver Island. Douglas remained governor of British Columbia and Vancouver Island until his retirement in 1864.

Douglas was born in 1803 in Essequibo, then briefly a colony of the Batavian Republic. His father was John Douglas, a Scottish planter and merchant from Glasgow, who with his three brothers was a minor member of the planter class of the West Indies. His uncle was Lieutenant-General Sir Neil Douglas, Commander-in-Chief, Scotland, and his aunt was Cecilia Douglas, who inherited two plantations by marriage and was an art collector. Through his paternal grandmother, James Douglas was related to the diplomat Sir Andrew Buchanan, 1st Baronet.

His mother was Martha Ann (née Ritchie, later Telfer). Ritchie was classified as free coloured, which in that time and place meant someone of mixed African and European family history, who was not a slave.According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, the couple had three children together (Alexander, born 1801 or 1802; James, born 1803, and Cecilia, born 1812), but never formally married.

In 1812, John Douglas returned to Scotland with his children and put James into school at Lanark to be educated. John married Jessie Hamilton in 1819, and had more children with her, making a second family. James went to school or was taught by a French Huguenot in Manchester, England, where he learned to speak and write in fluent French, which helped him in North America.

At the age of 16, James Douglas signed on to join the North West Company (NWC), a major organization active in the North American fur trade. He sailed from Liverpool for Lachine, Lower Canada, in spring 1819. From there, Douglas was assigned as a clerk at Fort William in what is now Thunder Bay.

The following year, he was moved to Île-à-la-Crosse on the Churchill River in what is now northern Saskatchewan. The rival Hudson's Bay Company was also active in this area, and Douglas was caught up in at least one argument with the fighting fur traders. Douglas continued his policy of self-education by reading books brought from Britain and meeting with many First Nations people.

In 1821, the NWC was merged into its powerful competitor, the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Douglas's contract was placed onto the HBC's payroll. He quickly moved up the strict HBC hierarchy. In 1825, he was put in charge of the founding of the Fort Vermilion trading post in what is now northern Alberta. He was next assigned at Fort St. James on Stuart Lake, headquarters of the company's New Caledonia District, roughly located within modern British Columbia.