Photos tell bittersweet history of Japanese in Sierra foothills
The stretch of Sierra foothills 50 miles east of Sacramento is mostly out of the way and unsung. But a glimpse into the area’s extraordinary past emerged this week with a donation of historic photographs chronicling the bittersweet story of America’s first Japanese settlers.
The nearly 150-year-old portraits, which a local family is giving to the state-park system, evoke a time when samurai swordsmen and silk traders found refuge from a bloody uprising against Japan’s shogun in California’s Gold Country.
Against an unfamiliar backdrop of mining towns and timber mills, the Japanese refugees built an agricultural community on mulberry trees, tea plants and bamboo shoots. The so-called Wakamatsu Colony didn’t last long, however, owing to drought and a lack of money, but it endures in the history books as an important footnote in California’s cultural evolution.
“Most Japanese believe it was the Plymouth Rock of Japanese immigration,” said Herb Tanimoto, a historian who leads tours of the former colony outside Placerville (El Dorado County). “It really opened the door to a much
“Before the photographs were found, we really didn’t know what the colonists looked like.” Herb Tanimoto, historian
larger influx from Japan.”
Eleven original black-andwhite photographs of the settlers are scheduled to be officially handed over Friday by descendants of a prominent pioneer family, the Veerkamps. A ceremony is being held at nearby Marshal Gold Discovery State Historic Park, with representatives of the Japanese Consulate due to attend.
The pictures reveal the faces of many of the estimated 22 Japanese who sailed into San Francisco Bay in May 1869 and headed to the foothills, reportedly with 6 million tea seeds, 50,000 mulberry saplings and an unknown number of silkworms.
The settlers are dressed in tailored suits and gowns in the photos, which were taken at a studio in Placerville that stands today. Many wear hardy boots suited to their life on the land, a precursor to the larger migration of Japanese to California fields that would begin around the turn of the century.
“Before the photographs were found, we really didn’t know what the colonists looked like,” said Tanimoto, whose family immigrated to California from Japan on the heels of the Wakamatsu Colony. “There are really no other records.”
The leader of the colony, John Henry Schnell, a Prussian who came to Japan to sell arms to groups loyal to the shogun, is pictured in one image with a beard and a long coat. The globetrotter was so beloved by the Japanese, legend has it, that he was given a Japanese name and samurai status, and allowed to marry a woman of samurai class, before embarking for the New World with his pregnant wife.
The group’s roughly 200 acres of farmland didn’t last long after the first planting, historians say. Dry weather tested the tea plants, mulberry trees and other crops, and an effort to irrigate the fields went bad when the water was found to be contaminated with iron from nearby mines. Meanwhile, the community’s endowment from Japan dried up.
Some of the settlers left the property for farm work elsewhere, and others returned to their homeland, historians say. Schnell’s fate is uncertain. The property was sold to the Veerkamps, who later sold it to the American River Conservancy for preservation.
An old farmhouse remains on the property, as does the grave of a nursemaid for the Schnells, Okei Ito, who is believed to have died when she was just 19. She is thought to be the first Japanese woman buried on American soil.
Barry Smith, the superintendent of Marshal Gold park who has studied the history of the colony, said the photos are a reminder of the state’s rich and influential past.
“No matter what culture you come from, you’ll find some relevancy in California,” he said. “It’s really a neat story for us to share.”