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As
soon as the first wave of immigration to British Columbia
began, Chinese immigrants from the
United States and from Hong Kong began settling in Victoria. They
established a community in downtown Victoria that exists
today as the oldest Chinatown in Canada. By
1958, the Chinese settlers had already established a Chinese
laundry.1 A successful Chinese company
based out of San Francisco had already set up shop in the
area.2 This
dry goods merchant, Kwong Lee & C., would become one
of the largest companies in Victoria, comparable to the
Hudson’s Bay Company.3 Some
smaller businesses included stores, barber shops, butcher
shops and doctors. Some
of the stores and services established by the foreign settlers
catered to both Chinese colonists and European colonists. One
Chinese fisherman ran his own company that sent dried and
salted fish from Victoria to the miners in BC.4 Soon
the companies had developed networks of associated businesses
all across BC.
After the gold rush in the Fraser Canyon,
Chinese miners flooded into the towns to find work. By the early 1860s, Victoria’s total population
consisted of 6% Chinese.5 The Chinese population was primarily men as very few women had
followed their husbands into the colony.
This
newspaper article from The Colonist (1 March
1860) announces
the arrival of the first woman into the colony:
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Endnotes
1. Wickberg, From China to Canada, 14.
2.Wickberg, From China to Canada, 14.
3.Wickberg, From China to Canada, 16.
4.Wickberg, From China to Canada, 17.
5.David
Chuenyan Lai, The Forbidden City Within Victoria(Victoria:
Orca Book Publishers, 1991), 3.
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