The Chinese Must Go

by Beth Lew-Williams

  boundary, a group of white community members created their own defense

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  against Chinese migration without any government support, organ izing sea-

  borne patrols of the San Juan Islands.61

  White locals were not the only ones who aided customs officials in the

  arrest of Chinese mi grants. In August 1883, Native Americans reported to

  the local deputy collector stationed in eastern Washington that ten Chinese

  had crossed the line from British Columbia. Unable to leave his post at

  O’Sooyoos Lake, the deputy appointed Aleck Macaulay, a white commu-

  nity member, as a temporary “special inspector” and “dispatched him after

  the celestials” in the direction of Fort Colville. When word came a few days

  later that six more Chinese were “traveling along the line on the British Co-

  lumbia side with the probable intent of crossing to the United States,” the

  deputy at O’Sooyoos Lake hired an Indian messenger to send word to “spe-

  cial inspector” Macaulay. With the help of Indian informers and messen-

  gers, Macaulay was able to arrest ten Chinese. The Indian messengers and

  temporary inspector were paid for their trou ble. Although the customs

  deputy could not leave his post, he reported that he was confident that he

  could protect the border with the help of Indian in for mants.62

  Even a few Chinese residents were willing to aid in the search for smug-

  gled Chinese mi grants. Deputy Price got a tip from a Chinese man that “par-

  ties were shipping Chinamen into the United States and were using Port

  Discovery as the port and that they landed after night.” The Chinese in for-

  mant said that white men were organ izing the operation and he would at-

  tempt to tip off Price when the next group came in. The deputy was not sure

  this was truthful information, but thought it best to report it anyway. Simi-

  larly, Blake was approached by a Chinese laundryman who promised to show

  him three undocumented Chinese “if I would give him $5.00 a piece.” Al-

  though Blake reported the offer to Bash, he did not dignify it by asking if

  he should pay.63

  Though Blake would offer a bounty to a white man, he did not trust the

  Chinese man’s intentions. But perhaps he should have. Chinese shared many

  of the white and Indian in for mants’ motivations, since undocumented

  Chinese meant labor competition; reporting on them could bring compen-

  sation and good favor. Although the Chinese appeared clannish, separatist,

  and or ga nized to white outsiders, there were many internal divisions within

  the Chinese community. Since the Chinese Restriction Act, one of the largest

  divisions was between legal residents and unauthorized newcomers.64

  EXPERIMENTS IN RESTRICTION

  77

  Although many legal Chinese felt solidarity with their undocumented kinsmen,

  they may have resented how the actions of others cast suspicion on all.

  Local media took note of widespread community involvement in policing

  the U.S.- Canadian border, and some newspapers, like the Olympia Courier,

  looked with disfavor on this practice. Commenting on a case where two private

  citizens had named themselves “temporary inspectors” to arrest nine Chi-

  nese, the Courier wrote, “It is humiliating to reflect that Uncle Sam’s power ful

  government must depend upon the generosity of private citizens for the aid

  necessary to enforce its laws.” 65 Such reports in the newspapers made the

  public deeply aware of the customs officers’ strug gle to enforce the act and

  the integral role the community played in supporting them.

  The customs ser vice relied on private support not just to capture unau-

  thorized mi grants, but also to deport them. Rather than seeking conviction

  in the district courts and deportation by U.S. marshals, local officers often

  sent undocumented mi grants directly back to Canada with the help of

  shipping companies. By its very nature, this extralegal system of deporta-

  tion, which existed alongside the formal pro cess prescribed by the Restric-

  tion Act, was not well documented. But in 1885, an extralegal deportation

  gone awry landed participants in a U.S. district courtroom, and the details

  of both the par tic u lar incident and the wider practice were recorded in the

  resulting trial transcript, U.S. v. Eliza Anderson (1885).

  According to the prosecution, on October 23, 1885 the steamer Eliza An-

  derson arrived at Port Townsend from Victoria with thirty Chinese passen-

  gers on deck. Their con spic u ous arrival was observed by Deputy Blake and

  the crew of a U.S. customs ship, the Wolcott. While Blake presumably in-

  spected the return certificates of Chinese mi grants on deck, the Wolcott crew,

  usually engaged in policing the smuggling of goods, began searching below

  deck for human contraband. The Wolcott fireman, George Burns, went down

  to look at the Eliza Anderson’s fire room, where he saw a suspicious looking

  plank. Pulling down the plank, he found eight Chinese mi grants crammed

  into the small area between the water tanks and the coal bulkhead. They

  were dressed like laborers and, unlike those above deck, did not possess re-

  turn certificates. Charles Davis, a customs inspector, “joshed” to the master

  of the vessel that there must be “$600 in it for somebody.” 66

  Although eight Chinese were found concealed below deck, Captain

  Wright was (for unknown reasons) charged with smuggling only two Chinese

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  boys, Ah Wy and Ah Yuk, who testified for the prosecution. Through an

  interpreter, Ah Wy stated that he was the fourteen- year- old son of a school-

  teacher. He had spent his time in China attending school. When he arrived

  in Victoria he found “nothing to do” and managed only to work for one day

  as a cook, so he made the attempt to enter Amer ica because he had family

  in San Francisco. Ah Wy testified that he agreed to pay thirty dollars to the

  fireman of the Eliza Anderson for concealing him onboard. Ah Yuk was also

  just fourteen. Although he had found a job working for a family in Vic-

  toria, he was still eager to go to Amer ica and jumped at the chance when a

  man in Victoria’s Chinatown offered to smuggle him across the line. The

  two adolescents did not know each other before the trip, but they spent four

  hours below deck together and two or three hours in the small hiding place

  by the coal bulkhead.67

  Instead of arresting and trying the undocumented Chinese passengers and

  the white men who were trafficking them, as the Restriction Act required,

  Blake simply “told Captain Wright to take them back” to British Columbia.

  The Eliza Anderson was due at Seattle before returning to Victoria, so

  Blake put the Chinese “in irons” on the trip to Seattle. During the trial, he

  explained to the defense lawyer, “That is the custom. We always send them

  back with the master of the vessel.” When questioned further, he admitted

  that “sometimes we put them in jail,” but more often captains were told “they

  must take them back.” Blake testified that this was “general practice” among

  the masters of ships caught smuggling and was “sanctioned by the officers

&
nbsp; of the Government.” 68 He must have been referring to local government,

  because there is no rec ord that such deportations were ever reported to the

  Department of the Trea sury. Whether sanctioned or unsanctioned, this in-

  formal and extralegal system of deportation was much simpler (and cheaper)

  than the alternative, which required detention, trial, and an escorted trip

  back across the border.

  To make sure Captain Wright was complying with the orders to return

  the undocumented passengers to Canada, Blake again boarded the steamer

  after it returned from Seattle and confirmed that the eight undocumented

  mi grants were still aboard. The Eliza Anderson then proceeded to Victoria,

  and Blake trusted that the captain would land the Chinese passengers there.

  It was only when Captain Wright was unable to land Ah Wy and Ah Yuk in

  Victoria, because Canadian customs refused them, that the case entered the

  EXPERIMENTS IN RESTRICTION

  79

  U.S. legal system and the “customary” practice of extralegal deportation in

  Washington Territory left a trace.69

  The Contested U.S.- Canadian Border

  After several years of successful deportations to Canada, why did the Cana-

  dian government suddenly turn away Ah Wy and Ah Yuk? The Eliza An-

  derson case brings to light an unrecognized history of contestation along the

  U.S.- Canadian border. Previous scholars have characterized Chinese exclu-

  sion as a “binational” or “intercolonial” proj ect in which the United States

  and the British Empire, through the auspices of the Canadian government,

  worked together to police Chinese mobility.70 But such cooperation was

  scarce during the Restriction Period when the United States and Canada

  clashed over their mutual desire to bar Chinese mi grants. As the governments

  dueled over control of the border, Chinese mi grants were caught in between,

  figuratively and literally.

  In many ways, the history of Chinese migration to British Columbia,

  and of subsequent anti- Chinese legislation there, parallels events in the U.S.

  West. Chinese mi grants, along with white miners, first poured into British

  Columbia in 1858 after gold was discovered in the Fraser River. At first the

  Chinese came from California, and later they came directly from China.

  The gold- driven economy lasted less than a de cade, and eventually Chinese

  mi grants went into agriculture, lumbering, and railroad work in the sparsely

  populated but growing British colony. Early reaction to Chinese mi grants

  was mixed. Some white Canadians saw Chinese as valuable members of the

  community, but others feared that they would undercut white wages. In the

  1870s, some British Columbians formed out spoken but short- lived anti-

  Chinese socie ties, including the Workingman’s Protective Association and

  the Anti- Chinese Association. At a time of economic downturn, they claimed

  that white workers “would rather starve than go to work alongside a

  Chinaman.”71

  Although they heard the clamor of anti- Chinese British Columbians, of-

  ficials in Ottawa and London prioritized the needs of the developing Cana-

  dian economy and British trade in China. In 1881, the Canadian federal

  cabinet assisted the Canadian Pacific Railway Com pany in arranging with

  the governor of Hong Kong for the importation of Chinese labor. In 1882,

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  6,784 Chinese arrived in British Columbia, raising the total population of

  Chinese to around 12,000.72 With the recruitment of Chinese railroad

  workers and news that the United States had passed the Chinese Restric-

  tion Act in 1882, many British Columbians began to fear that Chinese mi-

  grants would soon overrun the province.

  Circumstances worsened when it became clear that the railroad could

  not reliably sustain its workforce year- round, and British Columbia saw a

  sharp increase in starvation, crime, and strikes in the winter months.

  The British Columbia provincial government responded by passing two

  anti- Chinese bills in 1884: “An Act to prevent the immigration of Chinese”

  and “An Act to regulate the Chinese population in British Columbia.”

  While the first banned all new immigration of Chinese to British Co-

  lumbia, the second taxed current Chinese residents, banned the use of

  opium for nonmedical purposes, prohibited exhumation of Chinese bodies,

  placed minimum size requirements on rooms occupied by Chinese, and

  shifted the “burden of proof ” onto Chinese defendants.73 Both laws were

  struck down by the British colonial government, but prompted Prime Min-

  ister Sir John MacDonald to instigate an investigation of the Chinese

  prob lem in British Columbia.

  British Columbians were not so easily placated; the provincial government

  again passed an act to prevent Chinese immigration in February 1885. The

  law was nearly identical to the one that had been disallowed by the dominion

  government the previous year, so there was little chance Ottawa would let it

  stand. Nevertheless, the British Columbian government attempted to put

  its provisions into practice. On April 2, 1885, a U.S. commissioner of cus-

  toms wrote to the American attorney general to complain that customs of-

  ficials had attempted to deport a group of undocumented Chinese mi grants

  to Canada, “the country from whence they came,” but the British Colum-

  bian officials had refused to receive the mi grants. The letter was quickly for-

  warded to local and federal officials in the United States and Canada, but

  within a month the issue was moot. The dominion government had again

  disallowed the act on March 28, 1885, and U.S. deportation of Chinese to

  Canada continued unabated in the spring of 1885. The incident gave both

  the Canadian and American governments notice that if Canada were to

  pass a restriction act in the future, it would affect U.S. deportation policy.

  But the United States did not heed this warning.74

  EXPERIMENTS IN RESTRICTION

  81

  In the summer of 1885, with railroad construction drawing to a close, the

  dominion government fi nally yielded to pressure from British Columbia and

  passed an act designed to restrict Chinese migration. The law placed a fifty-

  dollar tax on each new Chinese mi grant (the equivalent of two months’ wages

  for an unskilled laborer) and was designed to discourage Chinese, especially

  poor workers, from migrating to Canada. The Canadian government antici-

  pated that this new policy would interfere with U.S. immigration policy

  and sent the U.S. government a copy of the new act.75 Under the new law,

  the U.S. government would have to pay fifty dollars for every Chinese mi-

  grant they wished to deport to Canada. But the U.S. federal government

  took no proactive steps in addressing the inherent conflict in the two gov-

  ernments’ laws and did not warn customs officials in Washington Territory

  to expect prob lems.

  It was the Canadian head tax law that prevented the Eliza Anderson from

  returning Ah Wy and Ah Yuk to Victoria, threatening legal U.S. deporta-

  tions as well.76 The head tax went into effect on August 27, 1885, and im-

  mediately U.S. c
ustoms officers found it impossible to deport Chinese

  mi grants. The new collector of customs at Port Townsend, Herbert F.

  Beecher, wired the Department of Trea sury: “On 25th inst. Ah Teck an al-

  leged Chinese Merchant arrived here from Victoria B.C. . . . was refused

  admission by me sent back to Victoria on 27th. [He] was returned here same

  day having been refused admission by Victorian authorities except upon

  payment of $50. . . . He has no money. Brought him before court yesterday

  on habeas corpus which remanded him back to Victoria. Cannot lawfully

  imprison him. What shall I do with him[?]” The Trea sury Department did

  not respond quickly, so Beecher sent another urgent message the following

  week: “ Shall I pay [the head tax] in order to carry out order of court[?] If

  not he comes back on me again.” The eventual response from the Trea sury

  was short and to the point: “Chinese appropriation exhausted. Authority

  for payment of fifty dollars denied.”77 Beecher was disturbed to learn that

  at a time of economic downturn, the Trea sury Department had run out of

  funds to enforce Chinese restriction. Even if the Trea sury Department had

  the money, it was unclear whether they could legally apply their funds to

  paying Canadian taxes. Once again, the customs ser vice in Washington

  Territory was undermined by federal indifference, inflexibility, and parsi-

  mony. Since Blake’s job was dependent on this fund, Beecher was forced to

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  officially fire him on September 1, 1885, and rehire him as regular customs

  inspector.78

  Just as it became nearly impossible to deport Chinese during the summer of

  1885, the number of Chinese trying to enter the United States suddenly in-

  creased, a product of continued new arrivals in Victoria and limited job avail-

  ability in British Columbia. Collector Beecher reported to the Department

  of Trea sury: “Some 800 or 900 Chinese arrived at Victoria last week, direct

  from China. Six hundred more are expected to arrive very shortly.” This was

  particularly concerning because “[t]he construction of the Canada Pa-

  cific R.R. is drawing rapidly to a close,” meaning that the six thousand

  Chinese working on the railroad were gradually being discharged. Beecher

  predicted that it would be “impossible for that Province to employ all these