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The Chinese Must Go

Page 17

by Beth Lew-Williams


  pose of expelling the Chinese.” He feared this was the beginning of a mass

  movement “not only to drive [the Chinese] from their localities, but to se-

  cure their expulsion from Amer ica.” If the federal government did not in-

  tervene, Zheng believed the Chinese would be banished from the country.49

  As the vio lence spread, it also continued to divide the Chinese commu-

  nity between laborers and the elite. While many Chinese merchants de-

  manded the right to stay, most workers deci ded the right choice was to

  leave. At first, Minister Zheng pleaded for the United States to save the Chi-

  nese from banishment, echoing the demands of the merchant class. But

  soon he saw the logic behind the workers’ actions. Zheng wrote to the Chi-

  nese Foreign Office that it was foolhardy for Chinese mi grants to remain in

  this violent land. The only way to stop the vio lence and protect Sino- American

  trade, he came to believe, was to prevent Chinese workers from coming to the

  United States in the first place. The only solution was to build Chinese ex-

  clusion on Chinese terms.50

  4

  The People

  IT IS TEMPTING, in retrospect, to believe it all began in Eureka. In 1885, the

  United States had entered its third year of recession, the Customs Depart-

  ment was struggling to guard the nation’s borders, and a Chinese man shot

  a white man in Eureka, California. The shooting, all parties acknowledged,

  was accidental. On February 6, City Councilman David Kendall was

  crossing the street when he was mortally wounded, caught in the crossfire

  between two Chinese men. Despite the circumstances, the white commu-

  nity was up in arms, chanting “Let’s go and burn the dev ils out!” and “Hang

  all the Chinamen!” Fearing a riot, police arrested a group of Chinese men

  and dispatched the local militia to protect the county jail. Dissuaded from

  immediate vio lence, the mob gathered at Centennial Hall to discuss what

  was to be done. After dismissing proposals for a massacre and arson, the vigi-

  lantes, who described themselves as “the people,” announced they would

  drive out all the Chinese by the following after noon. That night, as vigilantes

  ran through the town and neighboring farms announcing the expulsion,

  leaders erected gal ows and hanged a “Chinaman” in effigy. Within forty- eight

  hours, the vigilantes had expelled the entire Chinese community (perhaps as

  many as eight hundred people) from Eureka.1

  Although most newspapers criticized the vio lence, a few lauded the ex-

  pulsion. The Stockton Mail, for example, noted “This is one town rid of its

  obnoxious alien ele ment,” and said the expulsion “conveys a lesson which

  other communities might learn to their advantage.” This “lesson,” at least

  at first, attracted little interest. The expulsion proved contagious only in

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  VIO LENCE

  Eureka’s immediate proximity. Nearby Arcata expelled dozens of Chinese

  a week later, but Eureka was not patient zero in the epidemic of vio lence

  that was to follow. One local incident did not so easily trigger a mass move-

  ment against the Chinese. Across the U.S. West, many white Americans

  shared Eureka’s hatred of the Chinese and fear of economic hard times, but

  they were not yet ready to copy the city’s example.2

  Take, for example, James Beith, who lived near Eureka and, like most of

  his neighbors, was no friend to the Chinese. He believed that all members

  of the “Caucasian race” shared “the altar of common civilization,” whereas

  the Chinese “notoriously despise our religion, customs and habits.” And yet

  he was disturbed by the one copycat incident that occurred in Arcata. He

  penned in his diary, “Eureka has partial justification for her action” because

  of the murder of Councilman Kendall, but he was concerned that “Arcata

  without a shadow of provocation insists upon mea sures equally severe.”

  Although he supported the anti- Chinese cause, Beith believed “the men of

  Eureka had a real grievance— those of Arcata none.”3 He had put his fin ger

  on what impeded the spread of anti- Chinese vio lence in the spring of 1885.

  The violent anti- Chinese movement would not take shape until men like

  Beith were convinced that all communities in the U.S. West had a “real

  grievance,” and that the very presence of Chinese was sufficient “provoca-

  tion” for expulsion.

  An ele ment of vio lence always existed within the anti- Chinese movement

  in the U.S. West, but it was not until 1885 that vio lence formed the basis of

  the movement. That year, a po liti cal phenomenon (with occasional bursts

  of vio lence) became a violent one (with more than occasional bursts of

  po liti cs). On its face, the tactics of this new, virulent anti- Chinese move-

  ment were simple and effective: local white community members terrorized

  their Chinese neighbors until they left town. This seemingly parochial, not-

  in- my- backyard phenomenon had a wide, cascading effect as more than a

  hundred and fifty communities joined the fray. Lacking central leadership,

  local communities claimed victories for the movement through boycotts,

  harassment, coercion, arson, roundups, and assaults.

  Why did the anti- Chinese movement turn to vio lence? Individuals joined

  the mob for personal, heterogeneous, and often unknowable reasons. And

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  yet, certain societal structures and discourses laid the tinder, and specific

  people and events lit the spark. The societal structures that undergirded the

  movement were not new. In the U.S. West, there had long been gaping eco-

  nomic disparities between workers and cap ital ists, a racially divided labor

  system, and a pervasive belief in white supremacy. Then in September 1885,

  the dominant discourses about these conditions shifted. In the wake of a

  massacre of Chinese miners early that month in Rock Springs, Wyoming

  Territory, anti- Chinese spokesmen constructed a compelling narrative that

  Chinese migration posed an existential threat to white settlement in the U.S.

  West. The federal government had failed to protect American citizens from

  imminent danger, went the story, rendering the massacre justifiable. It was

  an act of preemptive self- defense.4

  The massacre at Rock Springs launched a national conversation about the

  meaning of anti- Chinese vio lence, but it was the expulsion of Chinese from

  Tacoma two months later that gave the violent movement its widespread ap-

  peal. The vio lence at Tacoma differed from incidents at Eureka and Rock

  Springs. The Tacoma expulsion was not a spontaneous act by a mob angered

  by a triggering incident. Rather, it was cold and deliberate collective action

  that was publicly announced well in advance. The vigilantes in Tacoma

  helped normalize tactics of terror, lowering the threshold for violent action

  and providing a strategic blueprint for communities across the U.S. West.

  In part, the Tacoma method proved contagious because anti- Chinese

  spokesmen, labor organ izations, and sympathetic newspapers laid channels

  for communication among communities. But the vio lence als
o spread because

  it worked. Anti- Chinese expulsions redrew the racial landscape of the U.S.

  West and reordered power relations within local communities, giving white

  workers uncommon power over white elites. And, more surprisingly, it shifted

  power on the national stage.5

  The anti- Chinese movement’s turn toward local vio lence in 1885 can ob-

  scure its continued connection to national politics. No doubt for some vigi-

  lantes, the movement was simply a local exercise toward local ends. For

  others, the local campaign to terrorize the Chinese was an act of scale

  jumping; they used physical force on the local scale to secure national po-

  liti cal power. Vigilantes may have joined the movement hoping to get rid of

  the Chinese cook next door, but they often articulated loftier communal

  goals before or after the fact. Their vio lence was a call to end Chinese

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  VIO LENCE

  migration, prevent Chinese labor, and settle a race war. It arose from the

  abject failures of the Restriction Act to settle these matters. Since more

  conventional forms of politics had failed, they used vio lence to reaffirm

  their rights as American citizens and demand the exclusion of Chinese

  aliens.6

  Although the vigilantes themselves often denied that their actions con-

  stituted vio lence, these expulsions represented both ethnic cleansing and po-

  liti cal terrorism. The term “ethnic cleansing” encompasses a wide range of

  practices, ranging from mass murder to mass displacement and forced as-

  similation. What these disparate forms of vio lence hold in common is the

  deliberate removal of a specific population on the basis of their assumed eth-

  nicity.7 The term “po liti cal terrorism,” in its broadest sense, connotes the

  systematic use of vio lence, and threats of its use, to intimidate a civilian pop-

  ulation and secure po liti cal goals.8 When anti- Chinese vigilantes committed

  intentional expulsions of Chinese civilians, they sought to incite fear among

  the Chinese, their employers, and anyone who defended their right to remain.

  The vigilantes hoped to rid their territory of all Chinese people, regardless

  of class or immigration status, and draw fresh attention to their po liti cal

  demands for Chinese exclusion.

  The terms “ethnic cleansing” and “po liti cal terrorism” apply to the anti-

  Chinese movement, but lack specificity and are borrowed from other times

  and places. It is more fruitful to consider the peculiarities of anti- Chinese

  vio lence, rather than placing it within nebulous and controversial catego-

  ries. Anti- Chinese expulsions are better understood as a form of violent ra-

  cial politics, that is, group vio lence intended to make a national po liti cal

  statement but meted out against a local racial minority. In 1885 and 1886,

  vigilantes expelled thousands of Chinese from western communities to

  advance a campaign for federal exclusion and, in so doing, reinvented the

  anti- Chinese movement.

  “Much as Vio lence Is to Be Deplored”

  In Eureka, it was the death of Councilman Kendall. In Rock Springs, it was

  a fistfight over the rights to a coalmine. In Tacoma, it was merely a news-

  paper article that began talk of expulsion. On Thursday, September 3, 1885,

  the Tacoma Daily Ledger described the massacre in Rock Springs:

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  Driving Chinamen out of Town.

  Special from Rock Springs, Wyoming: . . . .This after noon, the entire force

  of whites about 150 strong, or ga nized and armed with shot guns, marched to

  Chinatown. After firing a volley into the air they ordered the Chinese to

  leave. Their order was obeyed at once; the Chinese fleeing to the hills like a

  drove of sheep, closely pursued by the miners who fired several volleys at the

  fugitives with fatal effect. The Chinese quarters were then set on fire.9

  In the end, at least twenty- eight Chinese miners were killed and fifteen

  wounded, while the remaining several hundred fled. The Rock Springs mas-

  sacre was the deadliest outbreak of anti- Chinese vio lence in the country

  until that time, but it held additional significance in the minds of many Ta-

  comans reading the morning paper. In a single day, white miners in Rock

  Springs had achieved the complete expulsion of Chinese from their town.

  Most conservative and East Coast newspapers discounted the vio lence as

  “wanton and unprovoked.” But the West Coast press, especially working-

  men’s newspapers, cast the incident as a justifiable reaction against the ur-

  gent threat of Chinese migration. The Daily Ledger declared the expulsion

  “altogether an effective way of settling the Chinese question . . . much as vio-

  lence is to be deplored.” The paper paid no attention to the local circum-

  stances of the expulsion, attributing the vio lence, instead, to a universalized

  grievance: “the past twelve months of distress and suffering” and the “dis-

  abled condition” of the Restriction Act. This workingman’s newspaper called

  for lawmakers to take notice, because soon “the contagion of this Rock

  Springs episode will be universal” and lead to “a simultaneous concert of

  action in expelling the Chinamen from the country.”10 Within a few sen-

  tences, the Ledger had transformed the vio lence at Rock Springs from a local

  riot to the opening shots of a race war.

  The Rock Springs massacre set a critical example for the people of Wash-

  ington Territory by demonstrating that violent grassroots action was a viable

  means of ending Chinese labor competition and achieving local racial pu-

  rity. In Squak Valley, white and Indian hop- pickers had needed no more than

  this model. Angered by the arrival of Chinese workers only days before, vigi-

  lantes drove them out with bullets and fire. But for the vio lence to spread to

  communities that had no immediate provocation, anti- Chinese advocates

  required more than a template. They needed a motive. In the U.S. West,

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  VIO LENCE

  white Americans had long understood the Chinese to be racially inferior,

  but this belief alone was not usually enough to incite vio lence. In the weeks

  after Rock Springs, however, local anti- Chinese spokesmen translated ab-

  stract notions of Chinese inferiority into urgent signs that the Chinese would

  soon destroy the U.S. West. In doing so, they articulated a new rationale for

  the necessity of preemptive vio lence.

  Many out spoken anti- Chinese leaders had personal reasons for supporting

  the movement. Daniel Cronin, for instance, was in search of recruits. Leaving

  behind his wife and five children in California, Cronin journeyed to Wash-

  ington Territory in the summer of 1885, planning to establish new assemblies

  for the Knights of Labor. The Knights, a national labor organ ization, advo-

  cated for the cooperative owner ship of industries.11 During the boom- and-

  bust economy of the 1870s and 1880s, the Knights endorsed the popu lar

  notion that government should break up monopolies to promote free market

  competition, prevent cyclical recessions, and redistribute wealth. On paper,

  it was a highly centralized union fighting corporate cap
ital ists and the

  excesses of the Gilded Age. In practice, it was a loose collection of local

  assemblies that contained many impulses and ideas. Though the national

  platform included talk of racial equality in the form of “universal brother-

  hood,” local assemblies were guided by regional beliefs. In the U.S. West, this

  meant that the Knights of Labor were at the forefront of the anti- Chinese

  movement. And in Washington Territory, the Knights bore Cronin’s per-

  sonal stamp.12

  When the Rock Springs massacre renewed interest in the anti- Chinese

  movement, Cronin saw a recruiting opportunity. He knew from personal

  experience how anti- Chinese fervor could unify a white community; he had

  witnessed firsthand the Eureka expulsion. Now he hoped anti- Chinese agi-

  tation could boost the fortunes of the Knights in Washington Territory. He

  was not shy about discussing his pragmatic motives. “The Chinese question

  is only a local affair; useful for agitation and education,” he told an anti-

  Chinese rally. “The object of the Knights of Labor [is] not to drive the Chi-

  nese out; that was merely a side show.” The primary objective of the Knights

  of Labor, and of Cronin himself, was “to free the laboring man from the

  shackles that he now bears.” To this end, Cronin used the anti- Chinese “side

  show” as a ploy to strengthen local assemblies.13

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  With Cronin’s help, the Knights gave structure to the anti- Chinese move-

  ment in Washington Territory. Though they were the largest single group

  to advocate Chinese expulsion in the 1880s, the Knights were not alone. The

  anti- Chinese movement was quick to attract the largest demographic group

  in the U.S. West: recently arrived Eu ro pean mi grants, and their children,

  who performed unskilled or semiskilled labor.14 Though these citizens and

  aspiring citizens dominated the movement, small businessmen also joined

  the ranks, showing sympathy with the antimonopolist cause. In Tacoma,

  this meant that most white men played a part, including the mayor, sheriff,

  chief fireman, and members of the chamber of commerce.15

  Tacoma’s po liti cal leadership, like Cronin, claimed that Chinese migra-

  tion posed an urgent crisis. Standing before swelling crowds, Cronin con-

 

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