can anyone give me any information at all re. the employment of Chinese labour on the Crowsnest Pass Railroad?
can anyone give me any information at all re. the employment of Chinese labour on the Crowsnest Pass Railroad?
The labour wasn't Mc Donalds doing nor Van Horne. The Chinese Benevolent Society funded by the Tongs and a guy name Au Tom who was one of the few to make it big in the BC gold rush.Remember Wikipedia has been known for mistakes but it gives you a start
Canadian Pacific Railway in British Columbia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Owing to labour shortages, Onderdonk contracts labour agents in Kowloon to supply thousands of Chinese coolies for the project. BC was up in arms over the mass transfer of labour and "Asiatics" fearing it would upset the White Anglo Saxon classes in "British" Columbia. Macdonald accedes owing to the labour costs that would be saved. BC at the time only had two or three thousand Europeans, not nearly enough people to build such a large project. Macdonald's riposte was BC could either have Chinese workers and a railway, or no Chinese and no railway.Historians estimate he brought in several thousand Chinese from China and many more thousand from California. The Chinese workers were always kept on crews separate from the white workers and often given the most dangerous jobs including the tunnel blasting using the highly unstable nitroglycerin explosive. Many Chinese were killed in accidents or died of scurvy during the winter, though part of the blame for the scurvy lies with the workers' dietary reliance on rice. Unlike the white workers, injured Chinese workers were not provided access to the company hospital and were abandoned to the rest of the workers to help. Discrimination and racism led to fights between the Chinese workers and the white workers, including white foreman of the Chinese crews. Generally the Chinese were seen by management as efficient, hard working and well behaved workers. The Chinese crews thus worked year round in the cliffs and forests leveling a grade. In British Columbia, the CPR hired workers from China, nicknamed coolies. A navvy received between $1 and $2.50 per day, but had to pay for his own food, clothing, transportation to the job site, mail, and medical care. After two and a half months of back-breaking labour, they could net as little as $16. Chinese navvies in British Columbia made only between $0.75 and $1.25 a day, not including expenses, leaving barely anything to send home. They did the most dangerous construction jobs, such as working with explosives. The families of the Chinese who were killed received no compensation, or even notification of loss of life. Many of the men who survived did not have enough money to return to their families in China. Many spent years in lonely, sad and often poor conditions. Yet the Chinese were hard working and played a key role in building the western stretch of the railway; even some boys as young as 12 years old served as tea-boys.
No. Contact the Chinese Benevolent Assoc in Vancouver (formed to look good as they were criminals for prior 40+ years) in 1895.these workers would have already been living in Canada for some time.
You could try checking out the various census records. There are hundreds of chinese listed and it usually gives their occupation. It may not say which railroad but by their location you should be able to figure that out on your own.can anyone give me any information at all re. the employment of Chinese labour on the Crowsnest Pass Railroad?
No. Contact the Chinese Benevolent Assoc in Vancouver (formed to look good as they were criminals for prior 40+ years) in 1895.
They've trafficed people all over north america for well over 150 years.
You could try checking out the various census records. There are hundreds of chinese listed and it usually gives their occupation. It may not say which railroad but by their location you should be able to figure that out on your own.
They'll have all you need inregards to their history and more than happy to share.i'll try this. even if they weren't instrumental in placing these workers, they may still have some info. thanks.
Sorry but I don't agree with you. The list is much too long to consider that most may have eluded the census. There are pages and pages. I would have to go back in my records to tell you the years and that would take me quite some time but I know that here in BC at least, I was amazed at how many chinese were listed because I did not realize so many chinese people were in this country at that time. I don't know if the page is still available but I was searching the records held by (the name at the time) the Okanagan College. I believe the name was changed to something like "Living Landscapes". It was a site that held a lot of information regarding BC natives but it also had the census for various years. Somewhere in my belongings I have printed off a lot of the pages from before they changed the name and did a lot of changes to the site. A shame because it was better before they changed it. I moved 6 months ago and have not even begun to un-pack things like genealogy records so I cannot tell you addresses or years but maybe I have given you a little to go on. I have not worked on my genealogy for well over a year and it's a winter project if I get time this year so it could be a long time before I get to the un-packing part. Between my husband's family and my own, we have boxes. Mine just happens to include a lot of chinese names due to the census records I was searching. As I look at some of my genealogy sites, I am wondering about your question. Are you searching for a particular person or just knowledge on any and all chinese who may have worked on the railroad? If you are searching for a person, you can go to the random acts of kindness site and donate what you can for someone to look something up for you from an area. The more information you have to give them, the better. I used this service to locate a specific address where one of my grandfather's was buried. The person there was back to me within hours with the exact information. This is where you would look if that is the case: http://www.ragk.org which is random acts genealogy kindness organization or you can also try http:www.ragk.com/listing.htm You can also try a site called Post 1901 Census Project. http://wwwglobalgenealogy.com/census/ These are sites I have had bookmarked for quite some time and I have no memory of what is on them but it doesn't hurt to have a glance and see if they bring you anything.most Chinese who were not really settled anywhere (prospectors, railroad workers, etc.) managed to elude the census. thanks.