The election of Mifflin Wistar Gibbs to Victoria city council on Nov. 19, 1866, was an important event and certainly merited the day being named in his honour 150 years later. A historical quibble — he was not the first black elected to office in Victoria. That distinction goes to Abner Hunt Francis, who was elected to city council one year before Gibbs. However, immediately after being sworn in, it was revealed that Francis did not have the property qualifications to run for office and he resigned his seat.
Another event of note on Nov. 19, 1866, was the proclamation of the union of the colonies of Vancouver island and British Columbia. Unlike the election of Gibbs, this was not a happy occasion for some. Former governor James Douglas wrote: “It makes me savage even to think of the ruin and oppression this measure will lead to.” He also wrote this diary entry: “The ships of war fired a salute on the occasion. A funeral procession, with minute guns would have been more appropriate to the sad, melancholy event.”
The reasons for Douglas’s wrath were that union did away with the elected Assembly of Vancouver Island (the first such elected body in what is now western Canada) and ended Victoria’s status as a free port and as the capital of the united colony, in favour of New Westminster.
Ironically, Nov. 19 is also known as Douglas Day because it was on that date in 1858 that he was sworn in as the first governor of the Colony of British Columbia. By then, he had also been governor of the separate Colony of Vancouver Island since 1851.
John Adams
Victoria
