Times Colonist from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada • 51

D3 150 YliARS MAJOK liVKNTS MIFFLIN GIBBS Baeisni Mowed merchant north Incident at theatre marred the Island stay of successful black entrepreneur if VVK hiic v.ukumi uiii6Huiuinuuiii i) (j i i i) IVT 1 1 CJ! SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7,2008 1 ft t- vI' MtH DAVE OBEE Times Colonist Mifflin Wist arGibbs and Nathan Pointer were probably not looking for trouble when they took their wives to a benefit concert in Victoria's theatre on Wednesday evening, Sept. 25, 1861. Trouble found them, though, because of their skin colour. They were the first blacks to take seats in the theatre, and that caused problems. Emil Sutro was one of the first to object.

He had been scheduled to play in the orchestra, but refused to take the stage unless the "coloured people" were moved out of prominent seats in the dress circle. The performance went on without Sutro, but as it neared its end, someone threw a package of flour on Gibbs and Pointer. Gibbs responded by punching a man named William Ryckman. As the British Colonist reported the following day, a general row started, with several persons knocked down and trampled. The fire bells rang and the police were called to put an end to the disturbance.

"No one can defend the particular act by which several of our colored citizens were gratuitously insulted," the Colonist said in an editorial. "They bought and paid for their tickets for the concert; took the seats the tickets called for; and consequently the right they thus acquired ought in all cases to be maintained." The newspaper's position was clear. "It matters not whether a man carried a black skin or a white one under his shirt," said Mie editorial, which was probably written by Amor De Cosmos, the newspaper's owner at the time. "If he has lawfully purchased a privilege to attend a concert no one should interfere with his enjoyment." The editorial provides a window into 19th-century attitudes about race in Victoria. It said many people in the community believed in the "superiority of the Caucasian over the African," and added that the majority of people in the community would not want to attend concerts if it meant they would be in close contact with blacks.

Further riots were possible, it said, with a risk of loss of life. "That our colored population will ever succeed in being admitted into our theatres to mix promiscuously with the whites we do not believe," the Colonist said. "Colored amusement-seekers will either be excluded or will have to be content with a place by themselves." The the- 1 Fraser gold rush lured thousands of people north. For Sutro, it was a chance to make some money, while for Gibbs and Pointer, Victoria represented a chance to escape some of the racism they had endured in California. Gibbs had helped organize the emigration, which started in April, and made the trip north in June.

He and his business partner, Peter Lester, opened a store that was said to be the first in Victoria not run by the Hudson's Bay Company. He was elected to Victoria city council in 1866, representing the James Bay ward, and Merchant Mifflin Gibbs came to Vancouver Island in part to escape the racism he had experienced IMAGE B-01601 COURTESY ROYAL B.C. MUSEUM, B.C. ARCHIVES in California. He returned to the U.S.

in 1869. 1906 ROYAL VISIT i Prime minister's secretary needed tact and ingenuity helped push for British Columbia's confederation with Canada. After dissolving his partnership with Lester, Gibbs became involved in coal mining in the Queen Charlotte Islands, and had 50 men working for him. With the end of the Civil War, many of the American blacks in British Columbia returned to the United States. Gibbs left in 1869, and by 1871 was working as a lawyer in Arkansas.

He was a delegate to the Republican national conventions in 1880 and 1884 and held a variety of government and judicial positions over the years. at Cowichan Lake "killing thirty fine trout" and then headed east via CPR for Strathcona and Edmonton, capital of the new province of Alberta. Sir Joseph wasn't looking forward to this section of the trip where he feared "the wild and woolly west" would contrast unimpressively with stately Victoria. On arrival in Edmonton he asked about royal banquet arrangements and was taken "to what looked to be a large shop, hastily converted into a banquet hall for the occasion (and) everywhere a complete absence of order and direction." When he asked "a shock headed fellow rushing about" if lunch was ready the reply was easy to understand if impure frontier: "No, it isn't ready, I dont know when it will be ready and for two pins you'd get no expletive lunch at all." Sir Joseph snapped, "Shut up, the Prince will hear you" and the banquet maestro replied: "I don't care for no Gibbs served as the American consul in Madagascar from 1897 to 1901, and then became the president of a bank in Little Rock, Ark. In his autobiography, Shadow and Light, he wrote fondly of his time in Victoria.

Pointer remained in Victoria, staying active in business with a clothing store, and died here in 1903 at the age of 81. A few years after the flour incident, Sutro returned to San Francisco and became a banker. One of his cousins was one of the most prominent businessmen in California at the time. Prince. I can cook a lunch and I can serve a lunch, but I don't want no expletive idiots round me when I'm at work." In the end it all appeared to go well.

Sir Joseph reported the "viands were excellent, the prairie chicken delicious" and "the wine (probably from the Hudson's Bay Company cellar) was something long to be remembered." He added with a delightful diplomatic touch that 17 district mayors had attended the banquet and showed, courtesy the fine wine, "a slight disposition to conviviality, but under the circumstances their manifestations of loyalty were quite excusable." The next day the royal party chuffed off across the prairies for more whistle stops and banquets en route to Ottawa then Montreal and home. We are never told if the Duke or Sir Joseph sent compliments to the "shock headed fellow rushing about" who wined, dined and cussed them so well in true western hospitality style. tered with charges of assault against Gibbs and Pointer. Gibbs pleaded guilty, and the charge against Pointer was dismissed for lack of evidence. A few days later, after several witnesses testified that Ryckman could not have thrown the flour, the charges against him were dropped.

Gibbs was fined five pounds and ordered to pay for a new coat for Ryckman. Two other men, J.A. McCrea and Edward F. Boyce, were charged with conspiring to cause a riot at the theatre. Sutro, Gibbs and Pointer had all come to Victoria from San Francisco in 1858, when the thence to Ottawa over the CPR." In other words two-thirds of the way by CPR, a third by Northern and Lord Grey probably died thinking he'd won the argument.

Sir Joseph and his official greeting party had arrived in Victoria after "a pleasant run to Vancouver (from Ottawa via CPR) and thence to Victoria where we arrived on a Sunday afternoon, putting up at the old Driard." Sir Joseph reported to Lieutenant Governor Sir Henri Joly de Lotbiniere first thing Monday morning to discover the liner carrying the royal party was already in sight and would be dockside hours ahead of her scheduled arrival. Unflappable Sir Joseph with Governor General Lord Grey's aide-de-camp Capt. Gerald Trotter "got a launch and went out to the ship, boarded her at quarantine" only to find to their dismay "the royal party preparing to land in tweeds and bowler hats." It takes brave bureaucrats to face royal princes and tell them they are improperly dressed but Sir Joseph and atre ruckus dominated the headlines for several days. The Colonist ran a letter from someone identified only as "an offended Englishwoman," noting that Sutro, a Jew, was himself part of a much persecuted race, and as such his sympathies should have been with the blacks. Another letter, from "an Englishman," said that the concert had been a swindle because the organizer had not warned patrons that blacks would be admitted.

On Sept. 30, the matter went to court. Gibbs and Pointer accused Ryckman of flouring them, while Ryckman coun Royal about to cross Canada by train take home favourable views of the ever-expanding Dominion. Sir Joseph ran into early difficulties when Lord Grey told him he wanted the royal party brought across Canada by the Canadian Northern railway route. Sir Joseph pointed out that long sections of the northern line rail bed "were more or less unballasted" and would probably be a bit bumpy for the dukes, admirals, generals, colonels and captains in the official party.

He recommended the Canadian Pacific Railway for a more comfortable journey. But Lord Grey was adamant The Duke must travel CN. Sir Joseph later reported with a skill all bureaucrats will recognize and admire: "The upshot of the matter was that we arranged to run by Canadian Pacific from Vancouver to Strathcona, along the Canadian Northern to Winnipeg, and Princes had to be advised on proper clothing, banquet proved challenging Capt. Trotter were up to the task: "We both pointed out that the Lieutenant Governor and his Ministers looked forward to a more ceremonious landing and that preparations had been made with that end in view." The Duke was good natured about having to change and "after a little grumbling on the part of some of his suite, they consented to don their uniforms." The "little grumbling" must have had a sharp edge but Sir Joseph was unrepentant in his call for a change of clothes. "Those of us who had charge of the arrangements felt there was a time for all things, and if ever there was a time for a formal display, this was the occasion.

A Prince of the blood, returning from a Royal Mission to a foreign power, being greeted by the Lieutenant Governor in the presence of assembled numbers gathered to do him honour what could be more fitting." The royals stuck around for a few days, did a little fishing JIM HUME Times Colonist Times Colonist readers were introduced to Sir Joseph Pope, private secretary and confidante extraordinaire to Prime Ministers Sir John A. Macdon-ald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier, on Nov. 2 in the Monitor section. As reported then he was a world traveller, the keeper of weighty official secrets and often charged with high circle protocol duties, duties he carried out with great skill and, always, a keen sense of gentlemanly amusement. Back in 1906 Sir Joseph was in charge when His Royal Highness Prince Arthur Duke of Connaught touched base in Victoria en route home to England following a royal mission to Japan.

Officially the Duke's mission was over when he sailed from Japan but Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier and Governor General Lord Grey were anxious a British Distribution of this special section is made possible with funding support in part t0'i.