John Craven Jones graduated from Oberlin College in 1856 and taught for two years in a one-room school for Black students in Xenia, Ohio. When he moved to Salt Spring Island in 1859, he pre-empted 100 acres for his home; and with the support of the community, he...
Pre-emption was the legal method of acquiring Crown land that had not been fully surveyed by claiming and improving it for settlement and agricultural purposes. The first Black pre-empters on Salt Spring from California arrived in the summer of 1859. They included...
In September 1858, the Victoria Gazette reported on the application of 52 Black men for British citizenship. Their occupations were Baker, Barber, Blacksmith, Carman, Carpenter, Carrier, Contractor, Cook, Cooper, Drayman, Farmer, Fruiterer, Gardener, Grocer,...
The Colony of British Columbia, named by Queen Victoria, with New Westminster as its capital, is the area today known as “the mainland”. It was a separate entity from the Colony of Vancouver Island. Accounts relate that James Douglas agreed to sever his ties to the...
On April 14, 1858, as the Black community were celebrating the release of fugitive slave Archy Lee at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in San Francisco, Jeremiah Nagle, captain of the steamship Commodore, arrived at the meeting. It is reported that Nagle...
