Chun Afong


Chun Afong was a Chinese businessman and philanthropist who settled in the Hawaiian Kingdom during the 19th century and built a business empire in Hawaii, Macau and Hong Kong. He immigrated to Hawaii from Guangdong in 1849 and adopted the surname Afong after the diminutive form of his Cantonese given name, Ah Fong.
Afong started off working for his uncle's retail store in Honolulu and later became the co-owner of a chain of stores selling Oriental novelties. In due time, he made a fortune investing in retail, shipping, opium sales, and sugar and coffee plantations, eventually becoming the first Chinese millionaire on the islands. In 1856, Afong helped organize a ball in honor of the wedding of King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma that helped to solidify the Chinese community's position in Honolulu. He briefly served as the commercial agent and diplomatic consul for the Qing Dynasty to the Hawaiian Kingdom and was a member of King Kalākaua's Privy Council.
While retaining a separate family in China, Afong married Hawaiian-British noblewoman Julia Fayerweather Afong, a marriage which brought with it closer ties to the Hawaiian nobility and ruling class. They raised a large mixed-race family which included many daughters and two sons: Chun Chik-yu and Chun Lung, who assisted him with his business empires. After four decades in Hawaii, Afong retired to his home village in 1890 leaving Julia and most of her children behind. He relocated his business empire to Macau and Hong Kong. In his last years, his charitable deeds were recognized by the Guangxu Emperor who erected the Meixi Memorial Archways and made him a mandarin of the first rank. He died in his home village in 1906. His life has been caricatured in 1912 short-story "Chun Ah Chun", by American novelist Jack London and 13 Daughters, a short-lived 1961 Broadway musical written by his great-grandson. In 1997, Bob Dye, who married one of Afong's descendants, wrote a book chronicling his life titled Merchant Prince of the Sandalwood Mountains: Afong and the Chinese in Hawaiʻi.

Biography

Afong was born in the village of Wong Mau Cha, Xiangshan County, the present day Meixi Village, Qianshan, Zhuhai, Guangdong. He was of the Punti Cantonese community which held a longstanding dispute with the Hoklo and Hakka peoples; the latter conflict spilled into the Punti-Hakka Clan Wars from 1855 to 1868. Competition between Hakka and Punti continued in the immigrant communities of Hawaii.
Afong arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1849 with his uncle to assist at his retail store in Honolulu. At the time, Hawaii was known by the Chinese as the "Sandalwood Mountains" after the abundant sandalwood trees which were exported to Asia during the reign of Kamehameha I. When asked his name by a Hawaiian immigration official, he responded by giving his Chinese family name Chun followed by Ah Fong using the common Cantonese diminutive prefix . However, the official thought he had given his name in the Western fashion and thus he became Chun Afong with his Chinese given name used as his surname.
He started his own business with his friend Qing Ming Qwai or Achuck in 1865. They became the co-owners of Afong & Achuck, a chain of stores selling Oriental novelties including brocades and silks to Chinese residents and the upper echelon of Honolulu society. In 1856, Afong and the Cantonese merchant community hosted a ball in honor of the wedding of King Kamehameha IV and Emma Rooke. The multi-racial event helped to solidify the Chinese community's position in Honolulu.
Afong returned to China in 1850 to marry Lee Hong, who became his primary kit-fat . However, he would marry again in Hawaii while Lee Hong remained in China. In 1857, he was naturalized as a Hawaiian subject in order to marry the British-Hawaiian noblewoman Julia Fayerweather Afong. The union connected him to the ruling Hawaiian elite class including the future king, Kalākaua, who owed his 1874 election as monarch in part to Afong's financial support. His business in Hawaii grew steadily with investments in retail, shipping, opium sales, and sugar and coffee plantations. Afong soon became the first Chinese millionaire in the Hawaiian Islands.

Political appointments

King Kalākaua appointed Afong to the Privy Council of State, the advisory council to the monarch, on June 5, 1879. However, he resigned shortly afterward to become a diplomatic agent for the Chinese government in Hawaii.
He was appointed commercial agent for China by the Chinese Minister to the United States in Washington, DC, Chen Lanbin, on August 13, 1879. He was not recognized by the Hawaiian government until mid-February 1880 when he was issued an exequatur. He resigned as consul in March 1882.
Ultimately, the Aki opium scandal became one of the corruption charges leading to the July 1887 coup of the king by his opponents. He was forced to sign the 1887 Bayonet Constitution which restricted his executive power. After the signing of the Bayonet Constitution, the suffrage system in the kingdom was changed. New racial and property restrictions targeting poor Native Hawaiians and all Asians were implemented. These groups, along with many naturalized subjects of Chinese descent who had been able to vote in previous elections, were disenfranchised, while the vote was extended to non-naturalized foreign Euro-American residents.

Return to China

After his eldest son Alung died in August 1889, he sold or reorganized most of his business holdings in Hawaii and invested in the Douglas Steamship Company in Hong Kong. He named Samuel Mills Damon as administrator of an estate left in Hawaii to support his wife Julia and their many children. He relocated his business quarter to Hong Kong and Macau and sailed from Hawaii for a final time on October 17, 1890.
Toney, his eldest son by Julia, accompanied him back to assist him and would later become an influential businessman in his own right. Afong would remain in China for the rest of his life while managing his remaining business abroad.
On September 25, 1906, Afong died quietly at the age of 81 at his home in Meixi Village.

Legacy

Former residences and memorials

In his hometown, the Meixi Memorial Archways, combining Chinese and European architectural elements, were built by order of the Guangxu Emperor in 1886 and 1891 to commemorate the charitable deeds of Chun Afong and his father in their home village. He was also made a mandarin of the first rank by imperial edict and was awarded with four tablets bearing the words: "Generous, Charitable, Selfless and Kindhearted". The property, part of the larger Chun family estate, includes the family mansion, gardens, ancestral temple, and the cemetery grounds of the extended family. The site was looted and vandalized during the Cultural Revolution and one of the four arches was destroyed. Even Afong's grand tomb was ransacked and his remains later reburied in a more simple grave next to his first wife, his concubine and son Toney. The residence was subsequently used as barracks and later dormitories for factory workers. The Chun family estate in Meixi is presently a museum and tourist attraction.
The first lychee tree in Hawaii was planted at Afong's Honolulu mansion on Nuʻuanu Avenue and School Street in 1873 by his business associate and friend Achuck, who had brought the plant back from a trip to China. The tree later became known as the "Afong" tree. The cultivar variety once identified as Guiwei was later re-identified as the Dazou variety. The lychee tree still stands at the former Nuʻuanu Shopping Plaza along with a banyan tree also planted by Afong. A second historic banyan tree was cut down in 2005.
The site of Afong's Waikīkī villa, where he entertained royalty and dignitaries, was sold in 1904 to the United States Army Corps of Engineers for the construction of Battery Randolph and Battery Dudley, built to defend Honolulu Harbor from foreign attacks. It is now part of the property of the U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii and Fort DeRussy Military Reservation. There is an informational marker describing the villa and Afong's legacy and it is a stop on the Waikīkī Historic Trail.

Literary representation

In 1909, Chun Afong's life was fictionalized in the short magazine story, "Chun Ah Chun", by American novelist Jack London. It was later published in his 1912 book The House of Pride: And Other Tales of Hawaii. London's highly embellished story of Afong depicts him as a "crafty coolie" who spites the white capitalist establishment through his own business success. He also entices white men with money to marry his racially-mixed daughters across the color-line. In 1961, his great-grandson Eaton "Bob" Magoon Jr. wrote the book, music and lyrics to 13 Daughters, a short-lived Broadway musical. Don Ameche played the eponymous Chun.
In 1997, Kailua-based freelance writer and historian Bob Dye wrote Merchant Prince of the Sandalwood Mountains: Afong and the Chinese in Hawaiʻi. The book was dedicated to his wife ballet dancer Tessa Gay Magoon Dye, a great-great granddaughter of Chun Afong, who assisted her husband with her personal research into her family history. The couple visited the site of Afong's old family compound in Meixi and were consulted by the local Chinese authorities when they were transforming it into a museum and tourist attraction. Dye's book was praised for its meticulous research and detailed account of the experiences Afong and of the Chinese immigrant community in Hawaii. In a 1998 review in Hawaiian Historical Society's The Hawaiian Journal of History, contributing professor Loretta Pang noted:
Bob Dye has enriched our understanding of the complexities of life in Hawaiʻi. This labor of familial love pares away some of the myth surrounding Chun Afong and the immigrant experience. In a way, what emerges is a cautionary tale of the dangers of a single-crop economy and weak political leadership, the human cost of diplomatic maneuvers, and the difficulties of creating a multicultural society free from exploitation. Yet although the title of the book refers to Afong and the Chinese in Hawaiʻi, the two dimensions alluded to are not explored as fully as they might be. That is, Afong's relations with and place among the Chinese in Hawaiʻi and the place of the Chinese among the native people of Hawaiʻi with whom Afong associated are topics deserving fuller treatment in their own right and as approaches to understanding Afong.

Marriage and children

Chun Afong fathered a large family with his two wives Lee Hong and Julia Fayerweather Afong and one concubine. The following list of descendants is compiled from the family history of his descendants in Dye's Merchant Prince of the Sandalwood Mountains:
With his primary wife Lee Hong, he had three sons:
  1. Chan Lung, known as Chun Lung or Alung,, married Ung See Soy and had three children: Chan Mui-Ngan, Chan Wing-On and Chan Unnamed. He graduated from Yale University and co-partnered with his father in his business in Hawaii.
  2. Chan Kang-Yue, had no children.
  3. Unnamed
With his second wife Julia Fayerweather Afong, he had sixteen children:
  1. Emmeline Agatha Marie Kailimoku Afong, married firstly Henry Giles and had one daughter; and married secondly John Alfred Magoon and had seven children.
  2. Antone "Toney" Abram Kekapala Keawemauhili Afong / Chun Chik-yu, married Chang Julien and had three children: Chun Wing-Sen, Irene Chun Wing-Luen, Chun Wing-Keu. He served as governor of Guangdong from 1922 to 1923.
  3. Nancy Eldorah Luhana Frederica Afong, married Francis Blately McStocker and had three children. Her husband served as chairman of the Executive Committee of the Annexation Club and helped form the Citizens' Guard, the armed militia of the Republic of Hawaii.
  4. Mary Catherine Afong, never married.
  5. Julia Hope Afong, married Arthur Miller Johnstone and had eight children.
  6. Marie Kekulani Afong, married Abram Stephanus Humphreys and had four children.
  7. Elizabeth K. Afong, married Ignatius R. Burns and had no children.
  8. Henrietta Patrinella Kealaiki Afong, married firstly United States Navy Rear Admiral William Henry Whiting and had a daughter; and married secondly Rear Admiral Ammen Farenholt and had no children.
  9. Alice Lillian Afong, married Edson Lewis Hutchinson and had one son.
  10. Helen Gertrude Afong, married firstly William A. Henshall and had one son; and married secondly her husband's brother George F. Henshall and had no children.
  11. Caroline Bartlett Afong, married first Jacob Morton Riggs; and married secondly Leonard Camp. No children from both marriages.
  12. James Edward Fayerweather Afong, died young, known as Jimmie.
  13. Albert Fayerweather Leialoha Afong, married Anna Elizabeth Whiting and had four children: Elizabeth Kamakia Afong, Mary Katherine Afong, Katherine Whiting Afong, and Julia Fayerweather Afong. He became the first person of Chinese descent to head the Honolulu Stock Exchange.
  14. Martha Muriel Afong, married Andrew J. Dougherty and had three children.
  15. Beatrice Melanie Afong, married firstly James Walter Wall Brewster and had two children; and married secondly Frank Moss and had no children.
  16. Abram Henry Afong, married May Harvey and had one son Alvin Henry Afong.
With his concubine Lam May Chin, he had a son:
  1. Chan Ying Siu, born c. 1870s in China.

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