Attorney-General Documents Regarding Japanese Immigration

From this file, LOI has digitized one textual record or image.

This file contains records concerning the immigration of Japanese people to British Columbia and fraudulent naturalization at the turn of the century. Three men were arrested in 1900 in connection to the case, but more instances of fraud were identified. The case went to a preliminary hearing before a police magistrate; Regina v. Hanichi Shibato et al. Solicitors, Bowser, Godfrey & Co. informed Attorney-General D.M. Eberts that one of the immigrants in question received his naturalization paper from “another Jap” who “told him to keep it.” Shibato worked in a cannery in Rivers Inlet, but the majority of these fraudulent naturalization cases concerned men who were ostensibly destined for the United States. The solicitors identified a couple notaries in connection to the naturalization papers who were “at least most careless” or more likely “drumming up a business” in illegal documentation. Ultimately, the solicitors decided that due to the extent the fraud, their best option was to “with-draw these cases without going to any further expense.” They confiscated the “bad” naturalization certificates and presented them to the Provincial Constable.

The Provincial Government of British Columbia created this archive.

The digital copies of the records were acquired by the Landscapes of Injustice Research Collective between 2014 and 2018.

This record was digitized selectively.