In the late 1770s, some 120 Chinese contract labourers arrived at Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island.[1]:312 The British fur trader John Meares recruited an initial group of about 50 sailors and artisans from Canton (Guangzhou) and Macao. At Nootka Sound, the Chinese workers built a dockyard, a fort and a sailing ship, the North-West America. Regarding this journey was and the future prospects of Chinese people settlement in colonial North America, Meares wrote:
<span>The Chinese were, on this occasion, shipped as an experiment: they have generally been esteemed as hardy, and industrious, as well as ingenious race of people; they live on fish and rice, and requiring low wages, it was actually not a matter also of economical consideration to employ them; and during the whole of the voyage there was every reason to be satisfied with their services. If trading posts should be established on the American coast, a colony of these men would be a very valuable acquisition.<span>— John Meares, Voyages Made in the Years 1788 and 1789, from China to the North West Coast of America[2]:2</span></span>
The next year, Meares had another 70 Chinese shipped from Canton. However, shortly upon arrival of this second group, the settlement was seized by the Spanish in what became known as the Nootka Crisis. The Chinese men were imprisoned by the Spanish. It is unclear what became of them[1]:312 but likely that some returned to China while others were put to work in a nearby mine [3]:196 and later brought to Mexico.[4]:106 No other Chinese are known to have arrived in western North America until the gold rush of the 1850s.
