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A brief history of how Black Californians ended up in Vancouver, Canada.
In 1851 Sir James Douglas became the governor of the colony of Vancouver Island (which is confusing because the city of Vancouver isn't on the island). Which was kind of a big deal cuz his mom was a free Black from Barbados.
California was admitted to the Union as a free state in 1850 and by 1858 legislators were implementing racist laws that limited the right of Black people to work and even allowing them to be arrest as a runaway slave and sent back to their former owners.
So a group of Black people in San Francisco decided they needed to get out of the US cuz it wasn't safe so they wrote a letter to the Governor of Vancouver asking if they could come live there because the British abolished slavery in 1834 (the US didn't abolish it until 1865)
What this group of Black San Franciscans didn't know was that the governor James Douglas was mixed and he was down for the cause and told them that they could all come and move up to Vancouver.
About 800 Black people packed up and left the San Fransisco for Vancouver Island. They started a church, got involved in local politics, opened up a salmon cannery and started one of the earliest colonial militia groups, the Victoria Pioneer Rifle Corps.
One of the most important people in the Vancouver group was Mifflin Gibb. In 1867 he was elected to Victoria city council until 1869. In 1870 he moved to Arkansas to become a lawyer, then became the 1st black judge in the US. In 1897 he became the American consul to Madagascar.
And that's how Black Californians became Black Canadians.
They were trying to get the fuck up outta here lol
right and california was free state and they weren't even slaves but shit was rough and I don't blame them
