Bluesprint: Black British Columbian Literature and Orature

by Wayde Compton (Editor)

Overview

In 1858, 600 blacks moved from San Francisco north to the colonies that would eventually become British Columbia (B.C.), Canada. The move was in part initiated by an invitation penned by the governor of the British colonies, James Douglas, who is commonly believed to have had African ancestry, a rumor he neither confirmed nor denied. His appearance was such that he could "pass" for white. By 1871, after swelling to more than 1,000, the black population in B.C. had dwindled to fewer than 500. But in the late 19th-century, and on into the 20th, blacks continued to come to B.C. From the time of the first arrivals, the population and history of B.C.’s black community has been always in flux. If there is a unifying characteristic of black identity in B.C., it is surely the talent for reinvention and for pioneering new versions of traditional identities that such conditions demand.

Bluesprint is a groundbreaking, first-time collection of the creative output of B.C.’s black citizens, and includes an astonishing range of styles: journal entries, oral histories, letters, journalism, poems, stories, screenplays, and hip-hop lyrics.

The Pacific Northwest has never been thought of as a place with much of a black community, but Bluesprint is surprising and revealing proof of a vibrant community whose ethnicity is a source of strength and pride.

"Offers a treasure-trove of historical photos, lost writings, and rare transcribed recollections . . . it’s a valuable historical reference work that attempts to trace a cultural lineage for a population that has always been in flux."—Globe & Mail

Wayde Compton has an M.A. in English from Simon Fraser University. Fast becoming a respected cultural critic, he is working on a novel about telepathy and mixed-race. His most recent work is a "turntable" poem, performed in the DJ milieu.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781551521183
Publisher:	Arsenal Pulp Press, Limited
Publication date:	01/01/2003
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Wayde Compton is a poet, turntablist, and black historian in Vancouver.

Table of Contents

	Foreword	13
	Introduction	17
41
	from Journal of James Douglas, 1843. Including Voyage to Sitka and Voyage to the North-West Coast
49
	A Voice from the Oppressed to the Friends of Humanity
51
	Lines Written After the Great Fire at Barkerville, 16th September, 1868
	The Old Red Shirt
53
	from Shadow and Light: An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century
65
	Letters to The Cariboo Sentinel
70
	from The Life of Wm. H. H. Johnson, from 1839-1900, and the New Race
78
	from Notes made by Marie Albertina Stark (afterwards Mrs Wallace) from the recollections of her mother, Sylvia Stark, who was born a slave in Clay County, Missouri, and settled on Salt Spring Island with her husband, Louis Stark, and family in the year 1860, as homesteaders
95
	from Opening Doors: Vancouver's East End
101
	from Opening Doors: Vancouver's East End
105
	from Opening Doors: Vancouver's East End
111
	from Opening Doors: Vancouver's East End
115
	from Opening Doors: Vancouver's East End
121
	from Being Brown: A Very Public Life
128
	Koopab ...
	The Return
	Mourne Fortune, Castries, St. Lucia
136
	Powell Street Conspiracy
	One Road to the Sea
	from "Blue Notes of a White Girl"
147
	Waiting
	Immigrant
	Hope Hotel
153
	The Literature of Africa and Its Diaspora: Black History Month, 1997
160
	from A Credit To Your Race
168
	Out of order / talk'n about them folks jimi--a tale of black male of black mail
	Christopher's blues
	Talk'n about ho bo'n it jimmy
171
	1980
	Landed
	Repatriation
	Tongues in memory of Bob Marley
	Into Consciousness
183
	from Into and Out of Dislocation
194
	from Je me souviens: Memories of an Expatriate Anglophone Montrealaise, Quebecoise Exiled in Canada
197
	Returning to the place where there were so few of us when I grew up
	This Is Not the Miscegenation Blues of a Tragic Mulatto
	Mending Clothes as I Think of Sojourner Truth
200
	Like Koya
203
	Trunk Music
213
	Bus Fucking
	Sadie mae's mane
215
	Talk Show
	Biopsy
	Oh Joshua Fit de Battle
220
	Icarus
	Home Alone and Cooking
	When I Grow Up I Want To Be an Old Woman
225
	Land for Salt
	(for Sidane Arone)
	Hair: It Can Be a Big Thing
232
	from diss/ed banded nation
235
	from Threads
245
	Black Mary
	Bus Ride East
249
	from Shadowtown: Black Fist Rising
253
	Lena & Hue
256
	Offering
	from "The Lost Conquistador"
261
	Eshu Got Venus
265
	Back
	Dewdrop
269
	Natural Histories of Southwestern British Columbia
272
	JD
	Legba, Landed
277
	Bangkok Business
	Three
	Floored
280
	Red Sea Crossing
	Tizita
282
	Sex speaks
	alterNation
	Fau(x)ve
	from Aunt Ermine's Recipe for Brown Sugar Fudge
291
	Dreaded Fist
294
	On Being a Black Woman in Canada (and Indian and English too) To the Tune of Pensees (VII Contradictions) by Blaise Pascal, Which Has Here Been Adapted to Show the Proper Terms by Which One Should Understand and Communicate One's Race, According to the Language and Syntactical Structure (and, By Way of Extension, the Philosophies and Logic) of One of the Greatest Modern Thinkers Ever to Have Lived
	A Bibliography of Black British Columbian Literature and Orature	297
	Publication Credits	303
	Notes on Contributors	307