The Ganga cleanses ... but, only if you truly repent

We had a tasty lunch with fresh garden ingredients, in a gorgeous setting overlooking the water, and with a gentle breeze blowing to soothe us on a warm afternoon.  It is a popular spot, and our first choice for a salad was already sold out :(

Such a farm-to-table operation is possible because there are farms all over the charming island.  Only a few looking commune-like, which might have been set up by hippies of the past.  Most farms, on the other hand, looked like they were thriving and prosperous; perhaps they are the expensive hobbies of the digital hippies who have more than a few dollars to spare while telecommuting from their farms.

Prior to the internet economy, and tourism and forest-bathing, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, labor was imported from across the Pacific, from Hawaii and Japan.  Which means, for all purposes, Salt Spring Island was a mini-USA, with the exception of Mexicans.

So, like the US, Canada, too, reacted to the Japanese population on the island similar to how FDR's government treated them.  The few with Japanese links were forced into internment camps in other provinces that were inland and away from the Pacific.  The horror!

When the Japanese were gone, their land and property were conveniently sold by the government.  The families had nothing to return to, even if they wanted to.  Only one family returned and put down their roots, again.  We saw the sign on the way to the small little museum in town.

Life is calm and peaceful now because, unlike the US, Canada has been actively engaged in making its peace with its past, and now warmly embraces non-whites and non-Christians.  Good for our northern neighbors that they don't have as a head of government a pathological narcissist who stokes fear and hatred.  Maybe some day we, too, will have a truth and reconciliation commission, and we can finally let go of our awful baggage.

I roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me , a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

Everything flows into the Ganga

All we were taught back in elementary school was that Columbus discovered America, because history is always written by the rich and the powerful, which the white supremacists were for a long time.  Not anymore, because the poor and the powerless are not poor and powerless as they were, though we have to live through the repercussions of the white supremacist actions over the centuries.

Salt Spring's story does not end with the white supremacist invaders and the natives.  The history over the past 150 years is multi-layered.  This post is about blacks in Salt Spring.

The lucky ones who were freed from the chains of slavery in the US, fled to a few states to lead better lives.  Some of them went to California, which did not have slavery. But, that did not mean that California did not have white supremacists.  Blacks felt threatened by some of the legislative shenanigans that were directed towards restricting the freedom.

Before you read on, pull up a map and familiarize yourself with the locations of California and Salt Spring Island.

And then think about the transportation systems of about 1850. No planes. No trains. No automobiles.

Now, consider the nightmarish logistics of getting from northern California all the way to Salt Spring Island, about 170 years ago.

Yet, blacks ventured out to a tiny island far away from anything they would have ever known.

When lives are in danger, people flee.  The logistics matter the least.  That was the story back in 1850, which is no different from what is unfolding in the waters between Africa and Europe, or on land at the US-Mexico border.

Many of Salt Spring's first settlers were Blacks who came from San Francisco. While some of these were former slaves or children of slaves, all were free citizens of the United States when they immigrated to British Columbia. They included a wide cross section of society?merchants, miners, farmers, educators, and others. What these Blacks all had in common was a desire to escape the discrimination they faced then under California law and to be able to function in society as free citizens. Like many other settlers, they had little money. Thus, it was the offer of free land that drew them to an island wilderness.

The governor of British Columbia, Sir James Douglas, welcomed them.  At least partly because of his own roots--his mother was black.

Charlotte Girard, a former University of Victoria professor who began researching the Douglas family tree in the 1970s, determined that Douglas’s mother was Martha Ann Telfer, a free coloured woman of mixed race living in British Guiana. His father was John Douglas, a white Scotsman.

Incidentally, Her fucking Majesty's Ship Ganges that wiped out the natives on Salt Spring Island was built with genuine Malabar teak in Bombay, India!  "Building began in May 1819, under the direction of master shipbuilder Jamsetjee Bomanjee Wadia."  Why a person in a colony of the white supremacists would gladly and proudly build a flagship with 84 guns is simply beyond me!

An unexpected series of lessons in an island that has the contemporary reputation of being home to hippies with artsy galleries, and aging Vietnam war draft dodgers.

Ganga, Tirukoṇamalai, and Salt Spring Island

Remember those British bastards who screwed up the lives of people all over the world?  For ever and ever?  How could you not?  After all, we are all products of the white supremacists' empire building!

They haunt me even when I go far, far, far away!

Yes, I am pointing to "Ganges" on the sign-post.

Notice the small little Salt Spring Island?  Of course, it is way small.  But, of course, no island was too small for the island that is increasingly irrelevant to the world!

Zooming into Salt Spring will reveal the reason behind the title of this post:

The spot marked is Ganges, and the channel to the north and east is, as you can read it, Trincomali Channel.

Yep, at a location that is about 49 degrees north of the Equator is Ganges by Trincomali Channel.

The backstory is all about the British colonial bastards.

Ganges Harbour, from which Ganges takes its name, was originally called Admiralty Bay but was renamed by Captain Richards in 1859 after HMS Ganges, and indirectly after the Ganges river in South Asia.

What about Trincomali Channel? "It is named for HMS Trincomalee which was assigned to the Royal Navy's Pacific Station at Esquimalt in the 19th Century."

The island had been home to indigenous people for about 8,000 years.  And then, one day, the white man arrived.

The rest of the story unfolded as one would hypothesize: Small pox wiped out most of the natives.  The women "married" the white invaders, the marriage then making it "rightful" for the white man to claim property that was not otherwise claimed through guns.

god save the queen, of course!

Photo of the day: Indian summer!

FP: An Indian child cools off under a roadside tap in Allahabad on May 27. The graffiti above him reads: "Wash your sins in the Ganges, not your fault or dirtiness."