Vancouver Taishan Remittance: How Qiaopi Letters Crossed the Pacific
For a quarter-century around the turn of the twentieth century, the busiest thing crossing the Pacific between British Columbia and Guangdong was not a steamship or a passenger — it was a letter with money folded inside. Between 1895 and 1915, thousands of Taishanese men working…
Chinese in Canada Before the Head Tax: BC Gold Rush, Victoria, and the Road to 1885
For roughly a quarter-century — from the spring of 1858 until the summer of 1885 — a Chinese migrant could walk off a ship in British Columbia and simply enter. No tax at the door, no certificate to carry,…
The Chinese Head Tax: How Canada Charged Wuyi Migrants
The Price of Entry
Canada's first restriction on Chinese immigration was not a ban. It was a price — the Chinese head tax (人头税, réntóushuì), a fee collected at the gate from every Chinese person seeking entry, from 1885 to 1923.
The ladder climbed in three…