The Chinese Must Go
Page 17
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
113
114
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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115
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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117
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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119
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-