A Brief History of Chinese Migration
to Canada
For more on Chinese-Canadian History, see our blog.
In 1788-1789, 50 Chinese people first arrived in Nuu-Chah-Nulth territory (now part of Vancouver Island) with Captain John Meares. They arrived on Vancouver Island to build a fortress and a 40-tonne (schooner) sail boat for Captain Meares and the British navy.
Meares wrote in his memoir, “if hereafter trading posts should be established on the American coast, a colony of these men should be a very important acquisition.” His remarks proved prescient: over the next hundred years, cheap Chinese labour was instrumental to creating and maintaining non-Indigenous settlements and expansion.
Although Chinese workers were common in colonial and fur trade outposts, there would be no written evidence of further Chinese migration on Canada's west coast for another 69 years afterwards.
1858 marked the first wave of Chinese that arrived in British North America, which would later form the present-day Canada, during the gold rush.
The launch of the North-West America at Nootka Sound, 1788. Image credit: gov.bc.ca.
Most of the migrants were from the province of Guangdong in southern China and were young, landless and illiterate. They sought to escape the harsh conditions in China, at the time, such as famine, internal rebellions, population pressures and the threat of Western colonialism.
1880s marked the second wave of Chinese migrants arriving to Canada to work on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). By the end of 1882, of the 9,000 railway workers, 6,500 were Chinese. Before the 1990s, nearly all Chinese migrants in Canada were concentrated in BC.
The Chinese-Canadian narrative is shaped by anti-Chinese legislation and policies (e.g. The Head Tax) that existed until the Second World War, as well as the institutional racism and discrimination that still exists today.
An Immigration Certificate. Image credit: Library and Archives Canada.
However, while keeping this complexity and history in mind, we should also celebrate histories of resistance and resilience that are equally significant to Chinese-Canadian culture and identity. Throughout the first half of the 1900s, Chinese immigrants circumvented exclusionary policies by forming their own networks of allies and community members in order to land safely in Canada. They also organized strikes over low wages and unfair taxation that directly caused changes in legislation.
Today, Chinese-Canadians continue to negotiate between and within their communities and find new ways to explore or define what it means to be Chinese-Canadian.
Sources and Further Reading:
Statistics Canada, Section A: Population and Migration (archived content, 2 July 2014).
"Exclusionary Policies" Chinese Canadian Cultural Centre. 2008. Web.
"History" Chinese Canadian Cultural Centre. 2008. Web.
"ARCHIVED - The Early Chinese Canadians 1858-1947." Library and Archives Canada. 2009. Web.
"History and Pioneers: Migration and Settlement." Chinese-Canadian Genealogy. Vancouver Public Library. 2012. Web.
Mar, Lisa Rose. "Beyond Being Others: Chinese Canadians as National History." BC Studies, no. 156/157, 2007, ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/bcstudies/article/download/608/650. Accessed May 17, 2018.
Anthony B. Chan "Chinese Canadians" The Canadian Encyclopedia. Eds. . Toronto: Historica Canada, 2013. Web. 26 May. 2018. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/chinese-canadians/