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The
first wave of Chinese immigrants followed the discovery
of gold on the Fraser River in southern British Columbia.
In the 1850s and early 1860s, gold miners travelled by
boat from California and Oregon to B.C. with hopes of
yielding great fortunes from the Fraser Canyon. These miners
consisted
of white miners of European descent and miners of other
ethnicities. Chinese miners had been of significant proportions
in California during its gold rush some years before.
The anti-Chinese sentiment that had developed in California,
however, had encouraged the Chinese to venture north
to
the British colony to find work.
In
the spring of 1859, the first Chinese immigrants to sail
directly from Hong Kong to the colony arrived.1 Unlike
most of the new arrivals to British Columbia, they were
not all seeking fortune from the banks of the Fraser River.
There were other factors that were drawing them to the
colony, and at the same time, they were feeling the push
from their home country. Overpopulation and lack of agricultural
land are two of the many factors that inspired so many
Chinese to emigrate from their home country.
Most
of the Chinese miners and labourers that arrived during
the gold rush were single men seeking work. The majority
of these men came with the intent to make a small fortune
then return home. Some would then gather their wives and
children and return to the colony while others sought wives
and brought them to the new world to build a family.2 Some
would remain in China, never to return to British Columbia.
While many men joined the other new arrivals in the Fraser
Canyon, others looked for jobs elsewhere. The colonial
government hired Chinese labourers for road construction
and other forms of hard labour.3 Chinese labour was in
high demand because it was cheaper labour than that of
white workers and because Chinese men were notoriously
hard workers.
Endnotes
1.Edgar Wickberg,
ed. From
China to Canada: A History of the Chinese Communities in
Canada (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd, 1982),
13.
2.David
Chuenyan Lai, Chinatowns:
Towns Within Cities in Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press,
1988), 16.
3.David Chuenyan Lai, "Chinese:
The Changing Geography of the Largest Visible Minority" in Canadian
Western Geographical Series 36( 2001): 148.
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