On Nov 29, 2007, at 12:04 am, M. Ono-George wrote:
Hello,
I'm a fourth year history student at the University of Victoria. I'm working
on a paper in which I compare the experiences of Japanese-Canadian and African-Canadian
settlers on Salt Spring Island from 1859-1942. Your website has been incredibly
helpful, but I still have a few questions that I was hoping you could help me
with;
1. Do you know who were the first Japanese family to arrive and settle
on Salt Spring? I know that the Okano's arrived in 1909, but were there
any others before them?
2. I've read that most of the black families that originally settled on
Salt Spring didn't remain for very long. From what I've read so far, this
is blamed mostly on First Nation people and their attacks on early settlers.
To me, this doesn't seem right since other families remained on the island and
continued to settle the island. Do you have any input on this?
3. I might be coming to the island next week for a visit and was hoping
to possibly take a tour and talk to people who might be familiar with the topic.
Is there anyone that I might be able to get in contact with?
I'm sorry for all the questions. I truly appreciate any help that you
can provide. Thanks again.
Meleisa Ono-George
Hello Meleisa,
My name is usha Rautenbach, and I have been a volunteer researcher in the Salt
Spring Island Archives.
I have researched the earliest settlers, and the early schools of the island.
I don't know the answer to 1. (I do know there were Japanese men here without
families some years before the Okano family came)
But I do have input regarding 2.
The first point to note is that the Saanich First Nation people, and the Cowichan,
seem to have had leaders who had decided that the tide of incoming Europeans
(especially, presumably, with the 1858 gold rush) was not something that was
going to go away, so they chose to make arrangements with the European leaders.
However, the leadership of the people of Penelakut and Lamalcha on Kuper Island
felt differently. So, to Kuper Island came the dissaffected and whose resentment
or adventurousness was curtailed by the elders who felt it wise not to resist.
The second point to note is that the local Coast Salish First Nations practice
of rights to harvest in a particular area were passed down through the female
line.
The European first settlers were predominantly bachelors, whom Governor Douglas
had advised to "settle down and take an Indian woman to wife", for
she would know the ways of the land and be able to ensure they would survive.
Many did so, thus "inheriting" the right to the harvest of the land
they settled.
But the Black early settlers included many families, husbands with wives and
children of African descent like themselves; in the eyes of the First Nations,
they would have had no right to the harvest of the land they settled. They also
happened to settle in the north end of the island, on land whose harvest rights
were held by the women of Kuper Island. Henry Sampson was not harassed - he
settled down with Lucy Peatson, an Indian woman from Kuper Island. Jonathon
Begg was at first harassed as a bachelor, but was soon accepted as a trader
with whom they could do business, and so his extensive use of the land he settled
was tolerated. The Lineker family was white, of European origin, a wife with
two children and their stepfather, her second husband; a ready-made family recently
arrived from Australia, and settled at the head of Ganges Harbour. The harvest
rights to this area belonged to the peoples of Kuper Island. Having no right
to harvest the seafood and berries and roots etc, this white family was harassed
just as much as the Black families were - and like some of the Black families,
also soon left. There were a number of deaths (murders). In each case, I think,
those who died were bachelors who did not open a store, or were members of families
without an Indian wife or mother.
Having had previous experience of racial discrimination (in the US), it is not
surprising if it was assumed by some of the Black community that the Indians
were singling them out with racial prejudice. But you will see that the harassment
often took the form of digging up the settler's carrots, or helping themselves
to the fruit and berries, and giving them a bit of a scare, to make the point
that the foreigners were tolerated - when they were tolerated - with a certain
degree of objection to the way they had simply claimed sole right to the area
of land they had pre-empted, without any consideration for the previous use
made of the natural plenty provided to the indigenous peoples.
My own impression is not quite that "most of the black families that originally
settled on Salt Spring didn't remain for very long."
It was a tough struggle, for all those who managed to remain. If not everyone
could stick it out, that is no surprise at all. There were a number of European
bachelors who found it impossible to carry on trying to survive. Not only Black
families left after experiencing an unpredicted harsh winter. Everyone was woefully
unprepared for that - the winter of 1960-61 I think - if I'm right about that,
it was the second winter for the earliest settlers, but the first winter for
those coming after. It was an unusually hard winter, cold, with deep snow. Their
animals died, and they barely survived themselves. Of course some settlers abandoned
their claims after that. My impression is rather that it was astonishing that
parents with small children stuck it out at all - only the Black families, and
the Lineker family (who left very soon indeed) arrived with children.
I am aware that many of the people who put their names on lists to take out
pre-emptions on Salt Spring never actually did so. It was just wise to get your
name on the list, and see if you could get yourself together sufficiently to
travel over to the island to clear the forest and erect a shelter. The rules
of pre-emption meant that you were not really able to earn money working in
Victoria or Nanaimo to earn enough to acquire the tools you would need, or the
supplies to live off until your farm was producing food - you would lose the
right to the area you were settling, if you left it, and if you did not "improve"
it by clearing land, erecting a barn, fencing etc.
There is a final factor to consider: once the Civil War was over, it was possible
for the Black families to dream of returning to where they had come from, where
their relatives and friends were, where the weather and the ways of the land
were familiar and known. That not all did is another amazing truth, the way
I look at it. Those that stayed formed a strong core part of Salt Spring Island's
community. They were more highly educated than most of the earliest Europeans,
and they had more reason to put all their heart into making this island their
Promised land, their new future, as British subjects with the vote and rights,
as people who were not discriminated against, but valued - with them had come
a qualified (Black) teacher, John Craven Jones, who immediately set up school
and taught their children. When you have a school and a teacher dedicated to
staying through thick and thin for more than a decade, you have a stronger sense
of a future, of being a community together. As the children of those Indian
women and European men were born and grew up, they joined the Black children
in John C. Jones' school.
Of his probable students in 1872, 2 had European parentage - if they were there,
and 5 had Indian mothers and European fathers. The 2 Robinson daughters had
a Black father and a white Irish mother. There were 16 school-age children who
had both a Black mother and a Black father, all of whom were recorded as literate
in the 1881 census. So we know of 18 Black students. The Superintendant's report
in July 1872 says Mr. Jones was responsible for teaching 25 students the day
he came to inspect. So 72 percent of the enrolment was from the Black families,
13 years after the first settlers arrived in 1859. Thirteen years is a long
time for one teacher to have kept a school going, especially in the pioneer
era, when it was not uncommon for small rural schools to go through at least
3 different teachers in one year. And his eldest known student, Emma Stark,
was soon to move to Nanaimo and become the first Black teacher on Vancouver
Island, at Cedar Hill.
Usha
So here is further info, regarding my sources:
Chris Arnett should be credited with what I know, though my deductions are
my own and may be erroneous, regarding Indian relations with Blacks.
Chris Arnett, Terror of the Coast, Talon Books, 1999
The first chapter tells about the First Nations understanding of rights amongst
themselves;
page 23 quotes the right to kill a trespasser who harvests from your area;
page 77 quotes how "the rights to access to local resources 'came' with
the women upon marriage, and were tranaferred to the men," and explains
how this allowed the settlers who settled down with Cowichan women to harvest
from the local resources.
(But, as I deduce myself, not to exclude others in the family thus married into
from also enjoying the blackberries and roots etc).
I checked the footnotes and see that he does not quote a specific person - that
is perhaps why I entered into discussion with him, and I remember concluding
it was common knowledge amongst the hwulmuhw (people of the land). The immigrants
were called the hwunitum - the Hungry People, which just about sums it up!
Chris himself has recently morphed himself from a historian into a rock star,
so may be away on a gig - or enjoying snow under sunshine.
Hoping that helps,
Usha
I see that Usha has already responded to your queries. However, I'll add whatever
I can to what she said.
You may be aware of my book Salt Spring: The Story of an Island. That book resulted
from the research of many people involved with our historical society as well
as many interviews that I conducted myself. One of the most important interviews
was with Kimiko Murakami, whose family--the Okanos--came to Salt Spring in 1909,
as you state below. To my knowledge, no other Japanese family settled on
Salt Spring before the Okanos, although there have been Japanese people working
and living on the island since the late-1800s. If you haven't already done
so, please read Chapter 14 in my book, as it encapsulates the information that
Kimiko provided me. I don't think you'll find this information anywhere else.
As for the black settlers, you'll find all that I know about their Salt Spring
history in chapter 4 of my book. Others have done much more research on this
topic than I have, but I think my information, based on their research, is pretty
accurate. I think you'll find that several black families remained on the island
until perhaps the 1950s or 1960s. Many intermarried, mainly with whites, and
became less visible, both through their skin colour and through their family
names. There are still descendants of the Stark and Whims families (e.g.,
in the Sampsons), and the Wood family is descended from early islanders. You
can find black ancestry in other, visually white families.
There did seem to be something between aboriginal people and black settlers.
I have often heard and read that aboriginal people were spooked by blacks, and
so there might have been bad blood between them as a result. It seems clear
that early black settlers feared the natives. For example, Louis Stark moved
his farm several times and eventually moved to Nanaimo, where, ironically, he
was murdered by white people ostensibly after his property.
Black and Japanese settlers are mainly buried in the cemetery behind Central
Hall. You can obtain good information on the Japanese from the Murakami family
(call Rose Murakami at 537-2239). You can talk to Nadine Sims (descended from
the Stark family) (537-4502) for information on the black settlers.
I would be pleased to meet with you next week. I seem to be mainly free on Tuesday,
Thursday, and Friday during the day, but please check with me before you
come as one's days on Salt Spring tend to fill up rather quickly. As well, I
work in the Archives on Mondays from 3 to 5, and that would be a good place
to meet.
Good luck with your research.
Charles Kahn
Hi Charles,
Thank you very much for your reply. All of you have been so incredibly helpful.
I have read your book, and I'm actually relying on it quite a bit for information,
especially on the black community. The apparent friction between the black settlers
and aboriginal peoples is a real interesting one for me. Usha provided me with
great information that explained why there may have been tensions. This history
is so rich.
I am planning to take a trip to Salt Spring late next week. I'm thinking it
will either be next Thursday or Friday but I will email you again once I'm sure.
Thank you for Rose Murakami and Nadine Sim's number. I will contact them as
soon as I'm sure when I can come and hopefully they will be able to meet with
me. Thanks again for all your help. I will be in touch again soon.
Meleisa