Sir James Douglas, born August 15, 1803 in Demerara, British Guiana – died August 2, 1877, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, was a statesman known as the "father of British Columbia."

James Douglas was the illegitimate son of a Scottish sugar planter and a "free coloured woman" who lived in the planter and slave society in British Guiana until he was nine years old. In 1812 he was sent to a school in Scotland and seven years later emigrated to Canada.

He became an executive with the Hudson's Bay Company and was appointed the first governor of British Columbia when it was a newly formed wilderness colony.

Sir James Douglas is interred in the Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria, British Columbia.