In a cemetery in Boston Common, a simple grave marked with the name Chow Manderien is more significant than it might seem. The Central Burying Ground gravestone serves as documentation of the first Chinese person in the United States. In 1794, a Chinese teenager was brought on board the Union, a ship commanded by John Boit, Jr., a merchant sailor. The then-17-year-old was acting as Boit’s servant. Onomastically, his name should be Zhou Libei, but “Chow Manderien” was a colloquial attempt to spell out his name. According to the New England Historical Society, Boit’s…
