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Land, Indigenous peoples, settlers, and today’s communities.

Since time immemorial, Ancestors of the people called K’ómoks today consisting of the Pentlatch, Ieeksan (eye-ick-sun), Sasitla (sa-seet-la), Xa’xe (ha-hey) and Sathloot (sath-loot) people have been the caretakers of this land, which they called the “Land of Plenty.” This Land of Plenty stretched from what is known today as Kelsey Bay in the north, down to Hornby and Denman Island in the south, and included the watershed and estuary of the Puntledge River, also acknowledging that these boundaries and place names are colonial constructs.

The K’ómoks First Nation refer to the lands between the bays of Comox and the Beaufort mountain range as the path between, it was a travel and trade route to the Alberni corridor and a connection to the indigenous communities on the western side of the island.

Land agreements included the 1884 Settlement Act stripped these lands for its caretakers. At the Museum we acknowledge that we are a colonial created institution, and I would like to thank Charlene Everson, Emily Shopland and Violet Williams for guiding the museum in early discussion on what reconciliation could mean for our organization and how we could create actionable steps; in maintaining a positive dialogue with a forward focus, sharing contemporary K’omoks narratives, and incorporating First Nation languages where they felt it appropriate. Their time and guidance helped us gain insight and learn how to best support their voice in our museum’s walls. This is an ongoing process and we have so much more to learn.

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C040-345
Group of four unidentified chinese men outside of no. 7 mine in Cumberland B.C. (994.109.018)
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Labour Movement

Forging Solidarity

The Perseverance of Chinese Workers

Pre-existing racial biases and discrimination against the Chinese in Canada, dating back to the 1850s, escalated and became more pronounced with the commencement of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) construction.

As the Chinese population in British Columbia grew, so did the intensity of the prejudice and hostility towards them, leading to a deteriorating social climate.

The typical Chinaman will bear any amount of oppression without dreaming of retaliation; an absolute despotism at home has thus modeled his mind for the purposes of capitalists abroad; and he will work many hours a day for wretchedly small remuneration."

Miners’ Advocate (Middlesbrough), 7 March 1874, as quoted in Belshaw, John Douglas, “The British Collier in British Columbia: Another Archetype Reconsidered”, Labour/Le Travail, 34 (Fall 1994), 11-36, pg. 25.

Chinese workers were exploited and grossly under-compensated compared to their white counterparts, as employers capitalized on their vulnerable circumstances.

Driven by necessity, Chinese migrants reluctantly accepted meager wages, which in turn forced them into squalid, overcrowded living conditions in segregated, neglected areas of major cities like Victoria and Vancouver.

This perpetuated harmful stereotypes among white society, who viewed Chinese migrants as unclean, diseased, and morally corrupt. These prejudices, in turn, fuelled demands for stricter legislation to curb Chinese immigration to Canada, creating a vicious cycle of discrimination and marginalization.

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Political cartoon regarding anti-Chinese immigration (39046)

In the mines of Vancouver and Cumberland, Chinese workers navigated fierce extortion, alienation, and discrimination in a community they helped shape and mold.

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Chinese residents building their homes in Chinatown, Cumberland B.C. (994.109.019)

By the mid-1880s, Chinese labourers constituted nearly 50% of the mining workforce on Vancouver Island. However, attitudes amongst different factions of the mining industry varied significantly.

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Census 1891 Nanaimo City listing Chinese mine labourers (23967085)

Mine Owners

Chinese workers were attractive to mine owners because they were willing to accept difficult and hazardous working conditions at a lower pay rate than their white counterparts. Robert Dunsmuir, the “Coal Baron of Vancouver Island”, was particularly enthusiastic about hiring Chinese workers at meagre wages. By 1878, Chinese workers comprised a third of his 240-miner workforce at Wellington (now part of Nanaimo).

In testimony before a Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration, Dunsmuir extolled the virtues of Chinese workers, citing their strong work ethic and willingness to take on tasks shunned by white workers. He highlighted the economic benefits of their low wages, stating that mine owners would struggle to compete in the coal market without access to Chinese labour at significantly lower pay, declaring: 'I believe their presence is beneficial to the progress and development of the country.’

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Nanaimo Industries coal mine no. 1, South Wellington (193501-001)

For Dunsmuir and his managers, the exploitation of Chinese miners served to stabilize the wages of other workers.

Publicly, Dunsmuir claimed that economic necessity forced him to hire Chinese workers, and he threatened to stop employing them if the Mine Regulation Act, originally enacted in 1859, was amended to allow him to hire boys as young as 14 at similarly low wages.

However, in reality, Dunsmuir and other employers used Asian miners as a tactic to undermine the control held by white miners, reducing their bargaining power and ability to negotiate better wages and working conditions.

Strikebreakers

Early Vancouver Island mines were notorious for their harsh conditions and meager pay. This created a contentious relationship between miners and mine owners, leading to strikes in 1861, 1865-66, and 1870-71.

The second strike, which lasted six months between 1865-66, marked a turning point. For the first time, Chinese workers, many of whom were former gold rush workers, were hired as strikebreakers. After the strike was broken, they were retained as employees.

Samuel Robins, the operations manager of the Vancouver Coal Mining and Land Company, openly admitted that the company hired Chinese miners as a strategic tactic to gain an upper hand in a labour dispute at Nanaimo, effectively using them as a bargaining chip to counter the demands of white miners and assert management's control. Robins discontinued the hiring of Chinese underground after May 3, 1887, the date of B.C.’s worst mining disaster at No.1 Esplanade in Extension, (now Nanaimo) where 150 men died, including 53 unnamed Chinese.

The use of Chinese miners as strikebreakers was a typical trend among mine owners, none more so than Robert Dunsmuir.

In 1883, when Wellington miners went on strike demanding higher wages, Dunsmuir swiftly hired Chinese laborers to replace them, breaking the strike.

This tactic was repeated in 1889 and again in 1903 during the Cumberland strike. As tensions escalated, unrest swept through the mines, reaching a breaking point in 1907, when over 3,450 miners in British Columbia and Alberta walked off the job. Operations were continued by hiring strikebreakers, many of whom were Chinese.

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Newspaper clipping about 1865 Nanaimo strikes (Read more)

This period of turmoil culminated in The Big Strike, also known as the Great Strike of 1912-1914, which disrupted the coal industry on Vancouver Island for nearly two years.

Cumberland was at the epicenter of the strike, with Chinese strikebreakers coerced into signing two year contracts by the coal company, who had the National Guard surround Chinatown to “encourage” cooperation. This sparked widespread outrage and solidarity among the miners, who flew the socialist red flag in a defiant display of solidarity.

Extortion

Chinese miners had no power or influence.

Chinese immigrants faced economic discrimination that left them vulnerable to exploitation, enduring low pay and harsh conditions. Burdened by a rising head tax, from $50 in 1885 to $500 in 1903, many were recruited by Canadian Collieries Ltd., paying their taxes and travel expenses, which were later deducted from wages, set at half of white miners' pay, leaving workers indentured for years.

As anti-Chinese immigration sentiments intensified so did federal and provincial legislation. In a brazen display of defiance, James Dunsmuir, Robert's son, moved his Chinese miners from Wellington to Cumberland and employed them underground.

The economic discrimination faced by Chinese immigrants forced them into a vulnerable position, forcing them to accept poor pay and endure terrible working conditions.

Upon arrival in Canada, they were burdened with a hefty head tax, which skyrocketed from $50 in 1885 to $500 in 1903. Canadian Collieries Ltd., capitalised on this, paying the workers' head tax and travel costs for prospective Chinese immigrants on the condition that they worked for their company. The debt was deducted directly from wages already set to half of what white miners were paid. Three years' wages in their entirety could not replay what was owed. Canadian Collieries Ltd essentially bought and owned their labour.

As immigration policy intensified against Chinese immigrants in the late nineteenth century, so did federal and provincial legislation. In a brazen display of defiance, James Dunsmuir, Robert's son, moved his Chinese miners from Wellington to Cumberland and employed them underground.

When the Chinaman comes here, he intends to return to his own country; he does not bring his family with him; he is a stranger, a sojourner in a strange land, for his own purposes for a while; he has no common interest with us, … A Chinamen gives us his labour and gets his money, but that money does not fructify in Canada; he does not invest it here but takes it with him and returns to China."

PM John A. MacDonald in a speech regarding the Royal Commission on Chinese, 1885

Chinese immigration circumstances made work imperative. With extreme poverty at home and no support in Canada from the corrupt Chinese government, they were truly strangers in a strange land. 70% of the “single” men were married with families back in China to support. As little as they were paid, it was riches compared to opportunities at home.

The seeds of labour struggle on Vancouver Island were planted as early as 1850, at the Hudson Bay Company’s coal-mining operation in Fort Rupert, B.C. A small group of Scottish miners, appalled by the working conditions, took a bold stand and went on strike, refusing to work until conditions improved. This early conflict marked the beginning of a long and arduous journey for labour rights on the island.

Throughout the following decades, strikes were commonplace in the mining towns of B.C. Vancouver Island communities such as Nanaimo, Ladysmith, Cumberland and Wellington all witnessed strikes where workers demanded safer conditions, improved pay and hours, and union recognition. Each time they were met with staunch opposition by mine owners, often outright refusing their demands and hiring strikebreakers to continue with operations.

Strikebreakers were often Chinese labourers who could not refuse work based upon their social, economic and legal situation within Canada.

These exploitative labour practices not only perpetuated racist attitudes towards Chinese workers, but also fuelled the fire of xenophobia. Mine owners cynically exploited the situation by pitting white workers against Chinese workers, leveraging the latter as a cheap and vulnerable alternative to undermine the former's bargaining power and wages.

3 Asian Canadian miners with hand Pick and Shovels
Three miners (981.326.001)

…The mutual protection of the working classes of British Columbia against the great influx of Chinese; to use all legitimate means for the suppression of their immigration; to assist each other in the obtaining of employment; and to devise means for the amelioration of the condition of the working classes of the province in general."

Workingmen’s Protective Association (1878).

The exclusion and prevention of Asian employment became a cornerstone of labour movements in British Columbia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

White workers were infused with rage that Chinese workers were used as strikebreakers, declaring they undermined their cause, undercut their wage, calling for their banishment from the mines.

White miners also advocated that they were dangerous workers, blaming various disasters on their recklessness and calling for their exclusion from the mines, stating it was imperative for the safety of the other miners.

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Newspaper clipping of anti-Chinese sentiments among miners in 1888 (Read more)

Unions opposing Chinese workers included the The Miners and Mine Laborers’ Protective Association, which represented the majority of all Nanaimo and Wellington miners, as well as the Knights of Labor, a high-profile labour reform group originating in the United States. Both campaigned vehemently against Chinese immigration and employment in its entirety.

In 1885, F.L. Tuckfield, representing the Knights of Labor, testified before a Royal Commission on Chinese immigration, stating that Chinese labourers, unencumbered by family responsibilities and able to survive on a meager diet, would inevitably outcompete white workers, rendering them powerless in the labour market.

Tuckfield's testimony perpetuated the stereotype that Chinese workers were willing to accept abysmally low wages and living standards, further fuelling anti-Chinese sentiment and fears of economic displacement.

However, not every labour activist believed that Chinese labourers were to blame.

Cumberland’s own Joe Naylor, was the president of the local United Mine Workers Association (UMWA) branch and an active member of the Socialist Party.

Naylor distinguished himself by bucking the trend of anti-Chinese sentiment.

At the 1914 convention of the B.C. Federation of Labour, Thomas Jordan of Nanaimo Local 2824 of the UMWA put forward a resolution calling for the "total exclusion of Asiatics from this dominion," citing competition with white labour as his rationale.

Naylor boldly opposed Jordan, pointing out that Chinese and Japanese miners in Cumberland had been coerced into returning to work by 200 special policemen, and would not have done so voluntarily. He shifted the blame for labour issues from Asian immigrants to white strikebreakers, declaring, ‘It's not the Chinese and Japanese who are the curse of B.C., but rather the white men, particularly those from my own country of England, who are the real problem in this province.’

Rebellion and revolt amongst the miners of Vancouver Island reached a crescendo in 1912 with the eruption of the Big Strike.

Miners refused to work, in a bold protest against the hazardous working conditions and unjust treatment they had long endured.

Chinese workers played a significant role in the 1912 strike, initially participating alongside their white counterparts, demonstrating a keen interest in unionization, harkening back to their 1906 attempt to strike for better wages.

However, their resolve was short-lived.

On September 24, 1912, the government deployed 12 special provincial policemen to block entry to Cumberland's Chinatown. The workers were forced to sign two year wage agreements. Rumours circulated that the Chinese workers had been threatened with deportation if they didn’t sign. Many were still repaying the debt incurred when the colliery paid their head tax and passage from China. The debt bound them to the colliery, which deducted 50 to 70 cents daily from their wages, giving them little choice but to agree to return to work.

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Troops marching (998.047.075)

After nearly two arduous years, the Big Strike ground to a halt in the summer of 1914.

The mines had continued to operate throughout the eighteen month job action. By the second year of the strike, they were producing almost as much coal as before the strike began. The ability to employ Chinese strike-breakers as well as workers of other nationalities who were hired unaware of the labour dispute, coupled with protection of these “scab” labourers by government-funded militia, meant the mine owners had no reason to bend to the miners' demands.

In the years that followed the Big Strike, Chinese miners continued to be poorly paid, alienated, and often used as scapegoats when accidents or disasters struck in the Cumberland mines.

Two bad mining accidents in 1922 and 1923 at No.4 Mine, blamed unjustly on the carelessness of Chinese workers, foretold the end of underground work in Cumberland.

On July 01, 1923 The Chinese Immigration Act came into effect, severely limiting immigration. Canadian Collieries (Dunsmuir) Limited, who had long flouted the Mine Safety Act and paid the fines to use Asian labour underground because it was cheaper, were unable to replenish their cheap work force.

The Chinese workers who continued to live in Cumberland Chinatown moved to other communities for better paying work. Those few that remained continued to be employed for jobs above ground, until most of the local mines closed in the 1930s.

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Street in Chinatown, Cumberland B.C. with a dog lying in the middle of the road (985.044.004)