Chen Fang

Adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0Updated 7 July 20254 sources

Chen Fang (Chun Afong, 1825 – 25 September 1906), courtesy name Guofen, was a Chinese businessman from Xiangshan county, Guangdong Province, who became a wealthy merchant and nobleman in the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Life

Establishing himself in Honolulu

Chen Fang was born in Huangmaoxia village, Xiangshan county (now Meixi village, Qianshan town, Zhuhai). After his father died in 1839, he went with his uncle Chen Renjie to Macau and Hong Kong to learn commerce. In 1849 they shipped goods to Honolulu and opened a shop. Reporting his name at customs as "Chun Afong" (an Anglicization of "A Fong") his English surname became Afong.^[1] When his uncle returned to China, Chen Fang remained in Honolulu, rebuilding his business after a fire in 1855, taking out loans to recover.

By the 1860s he and fellow villager Cheng Zhi formed the firm "Fang & Cheng" trading Chinese goods wholesale, and invested in shipping between Hong Kong and Hawaii. During the American Civil War (1861–65) he invested in sugarcane plantations, founding the “Guofen Plantation” at Hilo, eventually owning half of the Pep‑eekco sugar mill. By 1870 Fang & Cheng was one of Hawaii’s eight largest firms.

Sugar industry

Taking advantage of the wartime sugar shortage on the U.S. mainland, Chen Fang expanded his sugar operations. By the 1870s his mill at Hilo produced 2,500 tons per year, the most efficient mill in Hawaii. He placed his Yale‑educated sons in management. He also founded one of Hawaii’s first rice mills, diversifying his agricultural interests.

Hawaiian nobility

Chen Fang learned English and local languages, socialized widely, and in 1856 married Julia Fayerweather, a hapa‑haole noblewoman. He entertained King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma in 1856 with a grand ball decorated with Chinese artworks. He naturalized as a subject of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1857.

In 1874 he helped quell two royalist uprisings supporting King Kalākaua, and in 1879 became the first ethnic Chinese member of Hawaii’s Privy Council. He was appointed China’s first Consul to Hawaii in 1881, establishing the Chinese consulate in his Honolulu mansion.

Retreat and return to China

Political turmoil in 1887, including the Bayonet Constitution restricting royal power, and local clan rivalries, led Chen Fang to retire. After his eldest son’s death in 1889 he sold most interests, leaving shares to his wife and children. He returned to China in 1890, settling in Hong Kong, Macau, and his native village. There he invested in shipping, real estate, a hotel in Macau, a dairy importing Holstein cows, and financed local philanthropy: rebuilding the clan hall, funding roads, schools, and modern utilities. He died in Macau in 1906 at age 81 and was buried at Meixi.

Legacy

Meixi Memorial Archways erected 1886 and 1891 by order of the Guangxu Emperor; damaged during the Cultural Revolution, now restored as a tourist site.
Featured in reports by Mark Twain in San Francisco newspapers.
Appears in Jack London’s 1909 story “Tales of the South Pacific.”
Subject of the 1953 serialized “Story of the Afong Family.”
Inspired the 1963 Broadway musical “Thirteen Daughters” by descendant Eaton Morgan.
Subject of Bob Dye’s histories "Merchant Prince: Chun Afong in Hawaii, 1849–1890" (1988) and "Merchant Prince of the Sandalwood Mountains" (1997).^[2]^[3]^[4]

References

External links

Commons category: Chun Afong

[1] ttp://zhengxie.zhxz.cn/News_show.asp?db_id=885&db_type=%CF%E3%D6%DE%CE%C4%CA%B7

[2] ttp://www.chinaqw.com/rwjj/ls/200810/06/132871.shtml

[3] ttps://books.google.com/books?id=VnKCYgEACAAJ

[4] ttps://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%99%88%E8%8A%B3#cite_ref-7

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]