The first pre-empters on Salt Spring from California arrived in the summer of 1859. They included E.A. Booth, Armstead Buckner, William Isaacs, and Fielding Spotts.
Later in the year settlers included Abraham Copeland, Levi Davis, W.L. Harrison, William Isaacs, the Jones brothers (John Craven, William, and Elias), William Robinson, and Hiram Whims. Daniel Fredison, a Black man from Hawaii, also settled on the island.
On this map the Salt Spring Island Archives has documented 26 Black homesteads