Document title

Settlement in the 1880s and 1890s

By the time the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway had begun in 1880, Victoria’s Chinatown was the largest Chinese community in the nation.¹ There were a number of brick buildings within the Chinese community either built by the Chinese, or owned by white landlords and leased to the Chinese.² These brick buildings had large wooden balconies in the front and a maze of alleys and courtyards in behind. The 1884 Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration reported 1767 Chinese individuals in the city. This figure is most likely way below the actual amount of Chinese settlers in the city. By 1885, it is estimated that the population of Chinese women in the province had not yet exceeded 160.³

The 1880s and early 1890s were a period of growth for Victoria’s Chinese community. After the completion of the CPR, Victoria received another wave of labourers returning from their work on the railraod. They were all unemployed and competing with white labourers for work in various labour industries. New businesses were forming and buildings were being constructed. In Addition to Kwong Lee & Co, Tai Soong & Co. and Yang Wo Sang & Co. were significant companies that prospered at this time. Some other significant buildings of this time are the Tong Ork On Hing building, which was built in 1882 and served as a commercial building and cigar factory, the On Hing building, built around 1891 to house an imports and exports store, and the Hart’s Herald building, built around 1890.⁴ The establishment of brick buildings in the Chinese community showed a great deal of prosperity among the business owners as brick buildings were expensive to construct. But all was not well with the conditions of the buildings in the community. In 1891, Victoria City Council deemed some of the buildings in Chinatown to be so unsanitary that they would have to be burned to the ground.⁵ This fact reveals the incredibly poor conditions in which these residents of Victoria lived.

The census of 1891 recorded Victoria’s population at 16,841 of which 12.35 percent were Chinese.⁶ Unsatisfied with these figures, Victoria’s City Council investigated and retrieved their own population totals.⁷ They recorded the city’s population at 22,981 and the Chinese population at 3,589, a total of 15.61 percent.⁸ Victoria’s Chinese community had grown at a colossal rate since the days of the gold rush. Chinatown was well-established and more diverse in residents than ever. More and more women were entering Canada from Hong Kong, families were being formed, and Chinese-Canadian children were born.

Endnotes

1. Edgar Wickberg, ed. From China to Canada: A History of the Chinese Communities in Canada (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd, 1982), 24.

2.David Chuenyan Lai, Chinatowns: Towns Within Cities in Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1988), 217.

3.Edgar Wickberg, From China to Canada, 26.

4.David Chuenyan Lai, The Forbidden City Within Victoria (Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 1991), 99-137.

5.Patricia Roy, A White Man's Province: British Columbia Politicians and Chinese and Japanese Immigrants, 1858-1914 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1989), 31.

6.David Chuenyan Lai, Chinatowns: Towns Within Cities in Canada, 199.

7.David Chuenyan Lai, Chinatowns: Towns Within Cities in Canada, 199.

8.David Chuenyan Lai, Chinatowns: Towns Within Cities in Canada, 199.