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Filipinos in Liverpool Capetown,SA(Part 5) Filipinos in Liverpool
(Part V). I started the ‘Filipinos
in Liverpool’ story years ago when I discovered a Filipino settlement
near the Mersey side area around the mid-1860s. These were the seafarers who found
the Atlantic Ocean, facilitated with the opening of the Suez Canal during
that decade. The canal bypassed going around the southern tip of Africa,
almost cutting the trip by half. The congregation around Frederick
Street is explained on my Liverpool Part I http://filipinohome.com/02_10_15liverpool.html. I remember John, who
was part of the De La Cruz family mention another uncle. Francis De La Cruz
left Liverpool for South Africa in the early 1900s. Although Francis adopted
his mother’s family name I kept it open, hoping that with the internet we
would find the other bookend. I am still digesting a new discovery when
an email from the grandson of Francis arrived last week. From John’s
story found on http://filipinohome.com/02_11_15liverpool.html, we get
this excerpt: Her eldest child, Francis,
is stated as being 10 years old so she would have been barely 18 years old
when she bore him. Josephina is 7, John is 5 and Madeline is 2, all born in
Liverpool. I know for certain that this is my branch of the De La Cruz
clan. Firstly, John is my grandfather, John de la Cruz II. I have early
childhood memories of Auntie Fina (Josephina). I remember that she had a
parrot which bit my finger when I tried to stroke it! I also recall my
father telling me that his Uncle Francis went to live in South Africa in the
1920’s. Because of South Africa’s strict race laws he changed his
surname to Winn, his mother’s maiden name. Family tradition says that he went
on to become the harbormaster at Durban, South Africa. I still have to
verify this. [note: this was few years ago] Last week I got this
email from Christopher Paul Winn:
I came across your
site when I googled Lita Rosa and the De La Cruz family name. My name is
Christopher Paul Winn and I think we are related thru my father Herbert Winn
who was the son of Francis Vincent Delacruz (who had subsequently
changed his name back to his mother's maiden name, Winn) and
Francisca Macranus. I was born in Wynberg, Cape Town South Africa, and I now
live in Atlanta GA. I have eight siblings, my parents had left South
Africa in 1968 and we had lived in Guyana, South America where some of my
family still reside. My sister, Allyson Flack, who is visiting me now
lives in the Isle of Man.
My wife's name is Roseanne and my daughter's name is
Annabel. My father's (Herbert
Winn) father was born Sept 1870 Francis Vincent Delacruz, who had changed his
name to his mother's maiden name, Winn, when he left the merchant marine
and settled in Cape Town. My grandfather
married Francisca Veronica Macranus in Kalk Bay Cape Town, who was
also of Filipino extraction in 1900. I have a certified copy of my
grandfather's birth certificate, he was born in the sub district of Dale
Street in the county of Lancaster, Liverpool ast 3 Court Brook Street.
His parents were John Delacruz and Elizabeth Delacruz of Liverpool. I immediately copied
John and the cousins are now rewired. Everyone is still trying to fiqure how
the separation in time and space happened. Christopher, the grandson of
Francis Delacruz, is now residing in Atlanta. His next letter was even
more interesting when he mentioned Filipinos settled in South Africa
centuries ago. He wrote and let me converge the tales of two seaports: Winn when he settled
in Cape Town: I am unsure when exactly he settled in Cape Town. I
have a copy of my grandfather's certificate
of discharge when he was in Pensacola FL d/d June
1897; he was 26 years old at the time. The name of the ship was
" Kelverdale,” Offical Number 80.087, Port of Registry: St
John NE (sic). So he had had to have gone to South Africa between June
1897 but before he married in May 1900. I have his marriage certificate
which I had gotten a copy of in the mid 1970's because I was trying to get a
British passport (I also have his British birth certificate). My grandfather
was married in May 1900 in the parish of St. James (Kalk Bay) to Francisca
Macranus who was Filipino as well. Francisca was 17 at the time and
Francis was 30. There are still Macranus' living in Kalk Bay today
which is a very picturesque fishing village. I was told by my father
(Herbert Winn) Kalk Bay was founded by Filipino fishermen who may been have
stranded in Cape Town. My father was an art teacher at the
Kalk Bay Primary School and I attended my first year of school there in 1961. There were already
Filipinos in South Africa before Francis arrived in 1900? Where is this Kalk
Bay? With the ongoing
news about the North African Pirates and the captured Filipino seafarers in
the pirate-infested North African coast of Somalia, let me shift back south
of the old continent. http://kalkbay.org/content/view/48/40/ (history of Kalk
Bay) Of all the towns and
villages in South Africa there must be very few, if any, which have had a
more interesting and fascinating history than Kalk Bay. Its modern day
history started when the Dutch East India Company proclaimed Simon's Bay a
winter anchorage for their ships from May 15th to August 15th each year from
1742. The whaling boom was
short-lived, as killing the female Southern Right Whale who had come to calve
in the warm waters of the False Bay, soon resulted in almost total extinction
of the whale population around these shores. By 1835 Kalk Bay again became a
'backwater' but this stagnation again did not last long for in the mid-1840s
a Filipino crew who were ship-wrecked at Cape Point settled at Kalk
Bay. They found the climate most favorable but above all the abundance
of the fish in the False Bay was almost too good to be true. They persuaded
fellow Filipinos, who crewed on Yankee sugar ships that lay at anchor in
Simon's Bay, to desert their ships and join them in Kalk Bay where their
leader, Felix Florez, would provide them with shelter and fishing
gear. The Filipino populations of Kalk Bay slowly grew and the
anti-Spanish riots in the Philippines in the 1850s resulted in thousands of
refugees fleeing the Philippines, and a good many joined their countrymen in
Kalk Bay. Their numbers were reduced somewhat in 1898 when America took
possession of the Philippines and many returned home. The families, who
stayed, some 60 odd, still have descendants in the village to this day and
the names of de la Cruz, Fernandez, Menigo and Erispe still appear in St
James Catholic School register. Delacruz? By Lawrence G. Green
published by Howard B Timmins Monarch house
One bold pioneer
named Felix Florez settled at Kalk Bay in the 'sixties of the (19th)
century.
By the time of the first
British occupation in 1795, Kalk Bay was already an established fishing
village, and in the early 1800s it boomed briefly as a whaling station. In
1840 the community was swelled by shipwrecked Filipinos who settled there to
fish, and later by the arrival of the railway in 1883, which brought
visitors, boarding houses and seaside homes for the wealthy in its wake. http://www.thepropertymag.co.za/pages/452774491/articles/2008/October/articles/nw-kalk-bay.asp the number of them
died in the smallpox epidemic of 1882, but the survivors kept the Spanish
countenances which you still see on the waterfront. An event worth
recording in the Filipino community in Cape Town was the birth of
quadruplets. Captain and Mrs. Bascilia Bessies of Riebeek Street were the
parents, and the quadruplets were born on May 29 1906. Captain Bessies was
skipper of one of the Stephan coasters. He is dead, but I believe Mrs.
Bessies is still living in Cape Town. Two of the “quads " died at the
age of twelve month and one at seventeen years. The survivor served in the
army in the Middle East during the recent war, and was wounded in the leg.
Not long ago he assured me that his health was perfect. Early
History of First Filipino Settlers in the Western Cape (Kalk Bay), South
Africa Kalk Bay, the little
fishing village in the Western Cape, witnessed the arrival of the first
Filipino (fishermen) settlers in the history of South Africa. With the
abundance of fish in False Bay, the arrival of these Filipinos in the
mid-1800’s signaled a major development in the establishment of a fishing
industry in Kalk Bay. Soon thereafter, as huge crowds descended on Kalk Bay,
a new community was formed from 1895 to 1913. Quite a number of
stories have been told of how these Filipino fisher folks found their way
into Kalk Bay, and here are some of those: A ship from the
Philippines was wrecked near Cape Point (c.1860) and rested in Kalk Bay while
trying to make its way to Cape Town. Ship deserters then settled in Kalk Bay;
these were Filipinos who fled from the Philippines after the rise of national
sentiment, which resulted in imprisonments or exile from Spanish rule; Felix Florez, who
came from the island of Panay, and who was born of a Spanish father and a Filipino
mother, a devout Catholic until his death in the 1890’s, became the leader of
a small community of the Filipinos who settled in Kalk Bay. He was respected
and feared, and established himself quite well, as well as becoming a source
of security to all Filipinos in the little fishing village. Although there were
fish enough in the False Bay, life in the little fishing village was not at
all a bed of roses. These fishermen were forced to row and sail their fishing
boats as far into the False Bay in search of fish and returned only after a
few days. Back sprains, ruptures, heart and muscular ailments, flu and fever
(especially during winter season), were common ailments being experienced by
these fisher folks, over and above the meager income they received after all
their hard day’s work. Medical reports and church records indicated that the
life span of these fishermen was between 40 and 50 years. As a result, other
members of the family like the wives and their children, particularly the
boys, were sent to work as domestics in houses and hotels and trained in the
basic skills of fishing, chopping and collection of wood at times. During these hard
times, Father Duignam (1874-1925), the Venerable Archdeacon Richard Brooke
(1901-1922), and Lt. Col. Henry Ashton (1860-1871), attended to the needs of
the community as follows:
After the Spanish
and American occupations, most of the Filipino fishermen stayed in South
Africa but never forgot their mother land. It was alleged that there were about
30 to 40 true-blooded Filipinos that remained (and later multiplied in the
course of inter-marriages with the other people) in Kalk Bay. Today, although few
in numbers, some of these fishermen moved on and established themselves in
other parts of the Cape peninsula, but their stories remain untold. Later, many
emancipated slaves from Batavia, Java and Malaysia settled in Kalk Bay and
fishing became their life skill. From 1955 onwards fishing stock were reduced
due to “over fishing”. Today the harbor still operates on a small scale and
one is still able to purchase fresh fish off the boats. The village has a
bohemic quality and boasts many bric a brac and antique shops, perfect for
browsing, as well as a number of fine restaurants. - Michael J Walker, Felix Florez, one of
the first Filipino ship deserters (1873) from a South Confederate Ship,
allegedly influenced many Filipino crewmembers to desert their ships while
anchored off Simon’s Town.
Further along the
Cape Peninsula are the charming seaside towns of the southern suburbs.
Interestingly, Kalk Bay, one of the quaintest and most beautiful towns in the
area, was founded by Filipino seamen who jumped ship in Cape Town in the late
19th century. It's even possible to bump into some of the descendants of
these first Filipino overseas Filipino workers, who still have family names
like Pastor, Cabacungan and Bautista.
At the end of the
Cape Peninsula lies the Cape of Good Hope, an ironic name given the
treacherous and perilous waters that have claimed the lives of many sailors.
Cape Horn or the Strait of Magellan is the American counterpart. St James is named
for the Catholic Church built in 1858 to cater to the Filipino community that
settled there after shipwrecked mariners discovered the rich fishing grounds
of False Bay and encouraged other Filipinos from cargo boats carrying sugar
to jump ship. Imhoffs Gift on the road to Kommetjie was given to widow
Christina Rousseau. http://members.home.nl/madams/Felix_Florez.html Felix FLOREZ born:
JUL 1844 in Felix Florez seems to have been a
memorable character. His father was Spanish and his mother Filipino. He had a
shop at Kalk Bay where he sold fishing tackle. As head of the community he
maintained the old Philippine traditions. For many years these poor fishermen
still contributed to charities in Manila.
Del Cano, in
correspondence sent from Fort Lafayette, dated February 12, 1862, and
co-signed by fellow inmates, mentions that he was a native of Manila, but a
resident of Liverpool, England. Fort Lafayette served as the Union
prison camp for confederate prisoners. Traffic from Liverpool was screened
closely as the defiant and elusive CSS Alabama was built in Liverpool for the
Confederate Navy. Del Cano probably
went back to Liverpool, but we will never know if he was an actual agent for
the Confederacy or not.
I now wonder if
Joseph Cruz Del Cano was related; but regardless, he probably got some
reprieve when he claimed, although a resident of Liverpool, he was a native
of Manila He was the only known veteran who might have fought for the
Confederate. This Felix Florez escapade in Kalk Bay is daunting at the least with the image of the CSS Alabama raiding the Union maritime The Delacruz Family
from the Philippines came by the sea and ship. The seafaring tradition among
the Filipino is almost legendary but it also the vehicle that brought these
people to America. The Winn Family just took the circuitous journey, from
Liverpool, Kalik Bay, Guyana to America. The opening of the Suez Canal in the
later part of the 1860 provided a more direct route to Europe from the Far
East. The increased the marine traffic in the continent brought more Filipino
Seafarers. . It also diminished the value of Cape town and forgot the
presence of the Filipino community in this part of the world. My grandfather, Enrique travelling with
Magellan passed by this route in the early 16th century on his
first and only trip to Europe (http://firstcircumnavigator.tripod.com) The
Filipino participation in the US Civil War has been my passion, the picture
of a Filipino American soldier in Union uniform has been my treasure. Now I
could add the picture of Felix Florez of the CSS Alabama in the inventory. . Chris Winn sent
article published in South Africa half century ago about the Filipinos in
Capetown. Click http://filipinohome.com/filipinosincapetown.htm |
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