Via Victoria News, a report by Eric Cardone on the early days of the pioneers: Black roots. Excerpt:
Why Sir James Douglas contacted a group of Caribbean men in San Francisco and asked them to form a policing unit 1,200 kilometres away in Fort Victoria isn’t known, exactly. But black history researchers, including Vancouver author Crawford Kilian, suspect it was Douglas’ own black roots.
The governor of the colony’s mother was Guyana-born, and though Douglas often tried to conceal his mixed race, he likely felt sympathy for the gross racism the blacks faced in San Francisco.
“One of the first things Douglas did ... was to set up a police force made up of Jamaicans,” said Kilian, who has written two books on B.C.’s black history.
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