Sylvia Stark

Sylvia Estes Stark (1839 – 1944) is a noted African-American pioneer and Salt Spring Island resident, who was among 600 African Americans who migrated to the newly formed Colony of British Columbia.

Biography

Sylvia Estes was born into slavery in Clay County, Missouri, the youngest of three children of Hannah and Howard Estes. Her father bought the family out of slavery for $4,000 in 1852. The family moved to California. Faced with educational and other social barriers, the family joined a group of people who sent a delegation to speak about resettling there – they had an audience with British Columbia Governor James Douglas, who was of Creole descent.

In 1855, Sylvia married Louis Stark, a farmer. They emigrated to Canada during the 1858 BC Gold Rush, taking a ship with 600 African Americans, under the threat of the Fugitive Slave Act and the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision. In 1860, Stark, her husband Louis and her two small children, Emma Arabella and Willis Otis, settled Salt Spring Island, cleared land and made a home and orchard. They survived the 1862 Pacific Northwest smallpox epidemic and went on to raise seven children. Stark's husband died mysteriously and the family's two close friends were also murdered.

In 1875, the family moved to Cedar, British Columbia, just outside Nanaimo, but Sylvia returned to the farm in 1885. She died on Salt Spring Island in 1944, aged 106, and was buried beside her father at Pioneer Cemetery, Ganges, Salt Spring Island.

References

• Crawford Kilian. "What BC Women Should Be on Canadian Bank Notes?" The Tyee.
• Estes/Stark Family. Salt Spring Archives.
• Sylvia Stark. Black History Awareness Society.