Abner Hunt Francis was an abolitionist, social activist, and business owner in early Portland. He was born in New Jersey around 1812 to an enslaved domestic servant mother and a Black Revolutionary War soldier. In 1830, the family moved to Buffalo, New York and became active participants in that city’s abolitionist movement, alongside the city’s most famous resident, Frederick Douglass. In the 1840s, Abner Francis became involved in the Buffalo Anti Slavery Society and circulated a petition in New York to try and secure voting rights for all male citizens, regardless of race.
Francis and his wife Sydna moved to Portland, Oregon in 1850, following Abner’s brother Isaac, who had moved west shortly before. Abner and Isaac opened a mercantile business at the corner of Front and Stark Streets, right along the Portland waterfront. Their store was located in one of the first brick buildings in the city.
Soon after the Francis family’s arrival they were targeted for expulsion under the Oregon Territory’s 1849 Black exclusion law. Judge O.C. Pratt ordered their departure by January 1852. However, 211 Portland residents, nearly all of whom were White, signed a petition urging the Francis family to be exempted from the law. The Oregon legislature tabled the expulsion order and never again attempted to expel the Francis family.
Abner wrote about his experience in Frederick Douglass’ newspaper that December:
“Even in the so-called free territory of Oregon, the colored American citizen, though he may possess all the qualities and qualifications which make a man a good citizen, is driven out like a beast in the forest, made to sacrifice every interest dear to him, and forbidden the privilege to take the portion of the soil which the government says every citizen shall enjoy.”
By 1860, Abner Hunt Francis had amassed real estate and personal property estimated at $36,000 (equivalent to about $1 million today). But the racial discrimination was unbearable. In the years leading up to the Civil War, hundreds of Black Americans living on the West Coast immigrated to British Columbia. Abner Hunt Francis and his family were among them. They moved to Victoria in 1861 to join Sydna’s parents who were already living there. Abner opened another store on Fort Street, and in 1864 he sold his Portland property to William Ladd.
At a time when Black people in the United States could not vote, Black Americans who had moved to Canada were entitled to suffrage, and all the privileges of citizenship. Abner Hunt Francis ran for Victoria City Council in 1861 and lost, but was elected to the council in 1865. He lived the rest of his life on Vancouver Island with his family, passing away in 1872.