City in Colour: Rediscovered Stories of Victoria's Multicultural Past

By May Q. Wong

A timely, intriguing collection of the overlooked stories of Victoria’s pioneers, trailblazers, and community builders who were also diverse people of colour.

Often described as “more English than the English,” the city of Victoria has a much more ethnically diverse background than historical record and current literature reveal. Significant contributions were made by many people of colour with fascinating stories, including:

• the Kanaka, or Hawaiian Islanders, who constructed Fort Victoria, and members of the Kanaka community such as Maria Mahoi and William Naukana
• three Metis matriarchs—Amelia Connolly Douglas, Josette Legacé Work, and Isabelle M. Mainville Ross
• the Victoria Voltigeurs, the earliest police presence in the Colony of Vancouver Island, and who were primarily men of colour
• Grafton Tyler Brown, now known in the United States as one of the first and best African American artists of the American West
• Manzo Nagano, Canada’s first recorded immigrant from Japan
• and many more

With information about various cultural communities in early Victoria and significant dates, May Wong’s City in Colour is a collection of fascinating stories of unsung characters whose stories are at the heart of Victoria’s history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Touchwood Editions
• Release date: Oct 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781771512862

May Q. Wong

May Q. Wong was born of Chinese immigrants and raised in the diversity of Montreal’s “Main.” She was educated at McGill University and the University of Victoria, and spent her career in the British Columbia Public Service working toward improving the lives of those in need. Since retiring in 2004, May has devoted her time to travelling with her husband and writing about the people they have met and the places they have been. A Cowherd in Paradise: From Canada to China is May’s first book. She is currently working on her second.

Book preview

To Li Qun, Jade,

Gwendolyn, and Mina:

you are my inspiration.

CONTENTS

Introduction

1.Juan de Fuca

2.Kanakas of British Columbia

3.Amelia Connolly Douglas, Isabella M. Mainville Ross, and Josette Legacé Work

4.Victoria’s Colourful Policing History

5.Black Colonists

6.Sylvia Estes Stark

7.Amelia Copperman

8.Victoria’s Naughtiest Secrets

9.Temple Emanu-El

10.Judge Samuel Davies Schultz

11.Manzo Nagano

12.Grafton Tyler Brown

13.Lim Bang

14.Chan Dun

15.Dr. Victoria Toy Mea Chung

16.The Japanese Gardens of Isaburo Kishida

17.Japanese Gardeners

Significant Dates in British Columbia’s Early History

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

Selected Bibliography

List of Images

Index

INTRODUCTION

A walk through the streets of Victoria showed the little capital to be a small polyglot copy of the world. Its population is less than 5,000; but almost every nationality is represented. Greek fishermen, Kanaka sailors, Jewish and Scottish merchants, Chinese washerwomen or rather washermen, French, German and Yankee restaurant-keepers, English and Canadian officeholders and butchers, negro [sic] waiters and sweeps, Australian farmers and other varieties of the race, rub against each other, apparently in the most friendly way. The sign boards tell their own tale: Own Shing, washing and ironing; Sam Hang, ditto; Kwong Tai & Co., cigar store; Magazin Français; Teutonic Hall, lager beer; Scotch House; Adelphic and San Francisco saloons; Oriental and New England restaurants; What Cheer Market and Play me off at ten-pins,’ are all found written within gunshot, interspersed with more commonplace signs.¹

Various are the nationalities and religions represented in Victoria; the people are wonderfully fused in one, and there is a general spirit of mutual toleration, kindness, and active good will that makes it a pleasant town to live in.²

Victoria, British Columbia, sounds like an idyllic place to live, with a diverse population living in peaceable and willing acceptance of one another. It is what many of us strive for globally in the twenty-first century.

Yet, these words were written in 1872, a year after British Columbia joined Confederation, fourteen years after the onslaught of seekers of gold and other adventures, and about thirty years after the building of Fort Victoria. The city was still a small, remote community, thousands of kilometres away from what those early settlers would have called home.

The person who shared these observations was Reverend George M. Grant, of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Serving as secretary, Grant accompanied his friend, Sandford Fleming—who was famous for establishing international standard time zones—on a surveying trip from Toronto to the Pacific Ocean. The resulting book was a bestseller, and also served to sell the idea of building a trans-Canada railroad linking British Columbia to the rest of Canada. When the last spike was stuck, Sandford Fleming was one of the three main characters posing for the iconic photograph.

Reverend Grant’s colourful description made me curious about the lives and contributions of those early inhabitants of my city. History takes note of its most brilliant and its most notorious. But sometimes, it is the story of the commoner that makes the biggest impression, perhaps because he or she is easier to relate to.

In these pages, you will meet the surprisingly diverse immigrants who contributed to Victoria’s history, economy, social life, and culture: Greeks, Hawaiians, Métis, Blacks, Jews, Chinese, and Japanese. Maybe you will see someone you recognize.

May Q. Wong

Coolangatta, Queensland, Australia

November 17, 2017

Strait of Georgia & Strait of Juan de Fuca, Washington. 1900 chart map of the U.S. Coast Survey COURTESY OF THE DAVID RUMSEY MAP COLLECTION, WWW.DAVIDRUMSEY.COM

CHAPTER 1

Juan de Fuca: The Apocryphal Greek Mariner

The question of the discovery of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, is . . . one of the most curious and celebrated in cosmography, commerce and maritime discoveries . . . It has been a vexed question in history, geography, biography, policy, lying, [and] cheating.¹

In his native island home of Cephalonia, Greece, and particularly among the Greek community on Vancouver Island, he is known as Ioannis Apostolos Focas-Valerianos, and celebrated as an ancient mariner, navigator, pilot, and explorer. His accomplishment as the first Greek to see Vancouver Island, in 1592, is a source of national pride. The body of water separating southern Vancouver Island and the state of Washington, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, now bears his name.

Ioannis Focas was born in 1536 and died in 1602 in the town of Valeriano in the Eleon valley, on the Ionian island of Cephalonia, Greece. His ancestor Senator Soani Focca was involved in a failed 1182 rebellion against the emperor of Constantinople and fled to the Peloponnesus for safety. His grandfather Emanuel Phokas later settled in Eleon in the fifteenth century and added Valerianos to his surname, perhaps to differentiate the origins of his family from others in Cephalonia. Over time, the family has produced at different periods . . . learned and skilful men, lawyers and intrepid sailors.²

From the time of Ioannis Focas’s birth until 1797, the Venetian Republic ruled the Ionian Islands, making him a nominal Venetian. The Spanish presence in nearby Italy offered both commercial and employment opportunities for islanders, and he eagerly joined the Spanish fleet at a young age. His Greek name was changed into Spanish, and he was thereafter known as Juan de Fuca. This much we know from an 1859 article written by the American researcher Alexander S. Taylor, based on correspondence between himself and A.S. York, the United States consul to the Ionian Islands in 1854. ³

Nothing has been found of de Fuca’s work life and claim to fame, however, in the official records of his Spanish employers, either in Spain or Mexico, which was then called Nova Spania.

Bust of Ioannis Apostolos Focas-Valerianos, aka Juan de Fuca COURTESY OF ALAN TWIGG

What follows are the key objects of speculation that continue to this day. This is the story Juan de Fuca related to Michael Lok (or Locke), a well-known merchant, diplomat, and promoter of exploration, when they met in Venice in 1596. Their meeting had been arranged by a mutual acquaintance, an English mariner by the name of John Dowglas (Douglas), who witnessed their discussion.

Juan de Fuca related how his skills as a mariner and navigator attracted the attention of King Philip II of Spain, who had appointed him as a pilot. In those days, the pilot was a ship’s second in command, after the master or captain. For forty years, he was responsible for navigating, ship handling, and even command over seamen.

Since 1565, the Spanish fleet controlled trade between the Caribbean Islands; the Americas, including Mexico and Peru; and the Philippines. Taking advantage of the Kuroshio Current in the Pacific Ocean, the Manila Galleon trade route linked Spain, Nova Spania, and Asia for 250 years. Ships sailing west from Acapulco, Mexico, to Manila, Philippines, carried goods such as silver, gems, manufactured tools, munitions, sugar, cocoa, tobacco, animals, and plants to trade for luxury items from East Asia for consumption in the New World and Europe. These included fine silks, rugs, porcelain, gold coins, ivory, cinnamon and other spices, camphor, musk, and beeswax in bulk. From Acapulco, some of the goods were distributed to merchants in Nova Spania and the rest were transported east, overland, to the port at Veracruz and shipped to Spain via the Caribbean.

Juan de Fuca talked to Michael Lok about his career in the Caribbean, later sailing to the Philippines and China, and becoming familiar with the Manila Galleon route. In fact, returning to Nova Spania in 1587, he had had an opportunity to invest his own money on trade goods worth up to 60,000 pesos. Unfortunately, his galleon, the Santa Ana, laden with 122,000 pesos in gold—worth more than a million dollars today—and a treasure in pearls, silks, damask and other luxuries,⁴ was attacked and plundered at Cabo San Lucas by the English privateer Thomas Cavendish (or Candish). So lavishly did the boastful Cavendish spend when he returned to London, the value of precious metals fell sharply in England!

In 1590, Juan de Fuca said he was pilot of three small ships and 100 soldiers, sent by the Viceroy of Nova Spania, Luis de Velasco, to discover the Strait of Anian or Northwest Passage, linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. He was to build strategic forts there to prevent English encroachment. The mission was aborted, however, when the crew mutinied against the Spanish captain’s homosexual misconduct, and they all returned to Mexico, where the captain faced prosecution.

Two years later, Juan de Fuca was once again commissioned by the viceroy to find the Strait of Anian and to follow it to the North Sea. This time, he had two ships with sailors, but no arms or soldiers. He sailed up the west coast of Nova Spania, past California,

until hee . . . [found] a broad Inlet of Sea, betweene 47. and 48. degrees of latitude: he entered thereinto, sayling therein more than twentie dayes, and found . . . [a] very much broader Sea then was at the said entrance, and that hee passed by divers Ilands in that sayling. And that at the entrance of this said Strait, there is on the North-west coast . . . a great Hedland or Iland, with an exceeding high Pinacle, or spired Rocke, like a piller . . . Also . . . he went on Land in divers places and . . . saw some people . . . clad in Beasts skins; and that the Land is very fruitfull, and rich of gold, Silver, Pearle, and other things, like Nova Spania.⁵

He believed the much broader sea to be the fabled Strait of Anian. Feeling he had accomplished his mission, and being reluctant to stay any longer for fear of being attacked by hostile locals, he returned to Acapulco to receive his just rewards.

The discovery of the Strait of Anian was the key attraction for Michael Lok, for he himself had previously financed three expeditions led by Martin Frobisher that had failed to find the elusive passage in Canada’s north. Although he had lost a lot of money, Michael Lok was undaunted, and he continued to follow any clue that might lead to a wondrous shortcut to aid British imperial expansion and commerce—his own included.

Juan de Fuca lamented that while both the viceroy in Nova Spania and the king of Spain had congratulated and fêted him heartily, neither had given him any significant compensation for his discovery on their behalf. After several years, he had given up and decided to appeal to Britain, Spain’s major rival. Through Michael Lok, he made an offer of service to Queen Victoria. If she would help him recoup his losses from Thomas Cavendish’s piracy of the Santa Ana and provide him with a ship and a pinnace, he would undertake a thirty-day voyage of discovery to the Strait of Anian for her.

Michael Lok might have financed the voyage himself, but he was also facing financial difficulties. However, he wrote down the details and passed the information to Lord Treasurer Cecil and Sir Walter Raleigh, asking for funds to help bring Juan de Fuca to England, but to no avail. Juan de Fuca returned to Cephalonia to retire and await a response, while Michael Lok sorted out his finances. They corresponded over the next few years; the last letter from Juan de Fuca was written in 1577. By 1602, Michael Lok was finally financially able to bring Juan de Fuca to England himself, but the Greek mariner had already passed away.

Hillside view of Juan de Fuca’s home village of Valerianos, Greece COURTESY OF NIKIFOROS ZAPANTIS

But Juan de Fuca’s story, and the tempting possibility of a northwest passage, did not die with him, for Michael Lok had also written to his colleague, Richard Hakluyt, the key publicist of British sea voyages of the time. His 1589 publication Principal Voyages and Navigations was a bestseller. While Richard Hakluyt did not publish the report himself, when he died it was included in the documents left to Samuel Purchas, who continued to publish new accounts. Hakluytus Posthumus; or, Purchas His Pilgrimes, published in 1625, included Michael Lok’s account of Juan de Fuca’s tale, rekindling the imaginations of rulers, explorers, map-makers, and trading companies around the world.

Much money, time, and many lives have been expended seeking a northwest passage. Finally, Captain George Vancouver, having spent three summers (1792–1794) exploring the Northwest Coast up to Alaska and circumnavigating Vancouver Island (which he named Quadra and Vancouver’s Island), definitively concluded that a northwest passage did not exist between 47° and 48° latitudes. It was not until the explorations of Norwegian Roald Amundsen in 1903–1906 that a sea route was found in the Arctic, at 70° latitude. Unfortunately, it is not the easily accessible shortcut envisioned by those early merchants and governments.

Meanwhile, Europeans had yet to confirm the existence of the strait described by Juan de Fuca. In 1778, Captain James Cook missed the entrance to the strait while battling strong winds and heavy squalls, and thus dismissed the mariner’s tale. Nine years later, honeymooning Captain Charles Barkley recognized the latitude and longitude as that mentioned by the ancient mariner, and as his seventeen-year-old wife, Frances, noted in her diary in July:

My husband immediately recognized as the long lost strait of Juan de Fuca, and to which he gave the name of the original discoverer, my husband placing it on his chart.⁶

Captain Charles Duncan, on August 15, 1788, would draw the first eyewitness map of the entrance to the strait. He showed the pinnacle rock, now known as Fuca’s Pillar, and included notes about the tides, currents, and local Indigenous Peoples and their habitations.

In 1846, when the Oregon Treaty set the continental boundary between the then-British and American territory at the forty-ninth parallel, it also determined that the middle of the Strait of Juan de Fuca be the international boundary at sea. This left the whole of Vancouver Island to the British.

Despite continuing prudent doubt among current marine historians as to whether Juan de Fuca actually worked for the Spanish, and whether he was the first non-Indigenous visitor to sail into the strait, no one begrudges him the honour of its name. Not only have the strait and pillar been named after Juan de Fuca, but a variety of places on both sides of the border also bear his name. In his hometown of Valerianos, he is a national hero and is memorialized with a plaque and a bust.

JUAN DE FUCA’S LEGACY

• Juan de Fuca Provincial Park, created in 1996, along the west coast of Vancouver Island between Sooke and Port Renfrew, offers day-use as well as camping facilities. It features short walking trails through forests to the ocean.

• Juan de Fuca Trail, part of the Juan de Fuca Provincial Park, is a forty-seven kilometre marine trail linking China Beach and Botanical Beach.

Plaque in Valerianos, Greece, commemorating Ioannis Apostolos Focas-Valerianos COURTESY OF ALAN TWIGG

• Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre, in Colwood, British Columbia, includes a golf course, pool, arena, and library.

• Juan de Fuca Plate is the smallest of Earth’s thirteen major tectonic plates, and extends from mid–Vancouver Island to southern Oregon. The plate subducts along the Cascadia Fault (the second-largest tectonically active fault in North America).

• Juan de Fuca Ridge (a volcanic area that pushes plates apart) is the largest in the Vancouver Island region.

• Juan de Fuca Canyon is a 135-kilometre-long, 8-kilometre- wide undersea trench that attains a depth of 500 metres—twice as deep as the surrounding sea floor. It provides nutrient-rich deep ocean water to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and eastward through Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia.

• The Victoria and Vancouver Island Greek Community Society in Victoria is conducting a genealogical project documenting the community and its inhabitants dating back to Juan de Fuca.

• Strait of Juan de Fuca Scenic Byway (state route 112) on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State, links Port Angeles to Neah Bay, the traditional lands of the Makah, the Cape People.

• Juan de Fuca Festival (inaugurated in 1994) features music, dance, storytelling, and theatre. It is held annually on the Memorial Day weekend in May in Port Angeles, Washington.

CHAPTER 2

Kanakas of British Columbia

Kanaka Row, Kanaka Creek, Kanaka Bluff—these are names seen around British Columbia. As you might have guessed, they are Hawaiian in origin, Kanaka being a Polynesian term meaning person or human being.¹ So how did that happen?

Hawaiian Islanders played a largely unknown, but significant, role in the settlement of the Pacific Northwest (PNW). This is the story of how these remote and isolated islanders came, what their contributions were to settling the PNW, what the relationship between British Columbia and Hawaii was, and what it might have been.

Explorer Captain James Cook was the first European to land on the Hawaiian Islands, on January 18, 1778. ² It was during his third and final voyage of discovery for Britain that Cook explored the Hawaiian Islands. He took the liberty of naming them the Sandwich Islands in honour of his patron, then First Lord of the Admiralty, the Earl of Sandwich. He recorded that Owyhee, which sounded like Hawaii, was the native name for the islands. Cook only stayed a month; the islanders were curious but cautious. They had lived in isolation, as they were 3,220 kilometres of ocean away from the closest large island or continent. While Cook was there, his ships visited the islands of Oahu, Kauai, and Niihau. After provisioning, refilling fresh water barrels, and making necessary repairs, they continued on their trip north and northeast, toward the North American continent.

Captain Cook had orders to find the elusive Northwest Passage— the hoped-for navigable shortcut between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Along the way, he charted the west coast of North America, from Spanish-held California to Alaska. Due to foul weather, he unknowingly passed the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and dismissed the fact of its existence (see "Juan de Fuca: The Apocryphal Greek Mariner," p. 5). In March of that same year, he arrived and anchored in the waters near Yuquot, on Vancouver Island, which he named Nootka Sound, also referring to it as Friendly Cove.

During his month-long stay, Cook traded with local Indigenous Peoples for sea otter pelts in exchange for what he considered trivial items, such as copper, knives, fishhooks, and glass beads, and immediately recognized the potential of the fur trade on this coast. Continuing north, he charted the extent of Alaska, but still was unable to discover any access to the Northwest Passage. Captain Cook returned to Hawaii in 1779 and stopped to repair a broken mast. He was killed during an altercation at Kealakekua Bay, on the Big Island of Hawaii. Captain Cook’s journal and charts from this last voyage made it safely back to England, and the information about his discoveries caused a sensation. An international rivalry for a foothold in the PNW sea otter trade with China was launched.

Within ten years of Cook’s discovery, the Hawaiian Islands became a regular midpoint wintering, watering, and refuelling spot for European and American merchant vessels and whaling ships. Before King Kamehameha I consolidated his rule over all the islands in 1810, decades of wars and skirmishes were fought between island kings and chieftains. Foreign arms and ammunition were sought-after barter items in exchange for food and water from the islands. Apparently, foreign seafarers were known to jump ship (or were kidnapped), offering their services as interpreters dealing with international vessels and especially their knowledge about the use of firearms.

While in port, foreigners had opportunities to witness the superb swimming, diving, and boat-handling abilities of the Kanakas, and before long, realized the Hawaiian Islanders’ value as seafarers and labourers. They had other skills to offer as well. The first two recorded visitors to the PNW did not leave Hawaii together but met in far-away Asia and shared part of their journey home. This is the story of Winee and Prince Ka’iana, true pioneers of the Hawaiian diaspora.

THE FIRST HAWAIIANS TO REACH NORTH AMERICA

Winee’s story begins in 1786, when Captain Charles William Barkley, who was working for a private British consortium (of which he was a partner, by investing a considerable sum of his own money), and commanding the British ship Loudoun stopped in Ostend, Belgium, for supplies.³ There, two events happened that would change their lives.

First, to try to get around expensive and time-consuming licensing requirements to trade furs in Asia, Barkley had the ship registered under the Austrian flag and changed the ship’s name to the Imperial Eagle, all done with the knowledge and consent of the consortium. He also met a vivacious seventeen-year-old girl with a head of beautiful red-gold hair, and they fell in love. She was the daughter of an English Protestant minister working at the port, who conducted their wedding ceremony on October 27. Frances Hornby Trevor, now Mrs. Barkley, joined her husband as he continued on his journey, just a month after their nuptials. In May 1787 they landed in Hawaii, where Frances met a young Hawaiian woman named Winee. The European was so charmed that she took Winee on as a maidservant.

When the Imperial Eagle reached Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island in June to trade for sea otter pelts, it was the largest ship ever to have arrived, and it happened to be the first of the season. Captain Barkley filled the holds, taking all the available furs, much to the chagrin of those who arrived later. Frances also became the first European woman to sail around Cape Horn and visit the area, and Winee was the first Hawaiian known to have visited the Pacific Northwest. As they sailed south along Vancouver Island exploring and trading, the Barkleys bestowed names to different landmarks, such as Barkley Sound, Frances Island, Hornby Peak, Loudoun Channel, and Imperial Eagle Channel, among others.⁴ Significantly, Captain Barkley noted the opening to the Strait of Juan de Fuca on his chart. By the end of 1787, the Barkleys had sold their furs for a tidy profit in Macau (near Canton, now known as Guangzhou, China) and planned to sail to Mauritius with new cargo to trade. However, they had to leave Winee in Macau, for she was ill and wanted to return home to Hawaii.

In Mauritius, Barkley found that his attempt to avoid getting proper papers had backfired. The East India Company, which held the monopoly on trade in Asia, brought charges against him for trading without a licence. Worse, his consortium partners abandoned him and left him to deal with the legal and financial consequences on his own. The Barkleys sold the ship, and one of the partners, British trader John Meares, confiscated Barkley’s journals and charts,⁵ and the tidy profit became a significant loss. Barkley sued and was granted compensation, but the couple was stranded in Mauritius for some time before making its way back to England. Undaunted, the Barkleys set sail again from England in 1791, and Frances would go on to sail around the world a second time with her husband, their children in tow, before they both retired.

Captain John Meares, sailing the Nootka, also under false papers,