I think you'll find it goes back 30 or 40 years before that to Bushi Matsumora. With his relationship to the Okinawan King he certainly had the connections to train in China where he studied for many years before returning to Okinawa about 1840 or before. Okinawan Te was certainly around before that so I'm not sure what you are basing your date of 1880 on. There were others before Matsumora but they didn't have the same mass following. I doubt many Okinawans learned Kung fu while working in China. That would be at odds with my understanding of how the martial arts were taught in China. The ones who actually put Karate on the map were guys like Matsumora, Higaonna and Uechi. All of them went to China specifically to learn the martial art. Then in Fukien the Crane styles were dominant so it makes sense that they would have been learned and incorporated.That is true and karate is no older than 1880's no mater what okinawian katare people may say . At the time , end of 19th and beginning of 20th century , okinawian people went to work to Fujian , much like many Philippines Thay and Indonesian people are going to Taiwan or Hong Kong today . There they learned arts they could afford to pay and would be accepted in schools . White Crane was pretty much out of their social and financial level , reserved for rich people . What they had learned they brought back and combine it among them self and adapting it to their own needs and perspective .