Name Manuel Lopes | Role Barber | |
Manuel Lopes was Seattle's first black resident whose identity is known, as well as its first barber.
Born in the Cape Verde Islands in roughly 1812, Lopes arrived in the United States on a whaling ship, possibly the victim of enslavement or kidnapping. He first settled in Maine and then in Massachusetts, in the city of New Bedford. In 1858, approximately seven years after the founding of Seattle (although some sources indicate he arrived in 1852), Lopes became not only the city's first black resident but also its first barber. Additionally, as a propertied individual, he ran a restaurant on Commercial Street (later First Ave South) in the same building in which he lived and plied his barber trade.
Lopes was a musician and was known to signal mealtimes by marching up and down Seattle's main thoroughfare, beating out a rhythm on a snare drum. He similarly headed parades celebrating Independence Day in the US.
In the early 1870s, Lopes ultimately moved to Port Gamble, Washington (where he is buried) in search of work as a result of one of many economic downturns that struck Seattle. Later in life, he apparently suffered from dropsy, for which he was admitted to Providence Hospital in 1885.
The details of his death, including exact date and reason, are unknown.