Chinese Immigration:
Origins and Opinions

Anti-Chinese Sentiment

"Chinese Must Go": From The Wasp v. 3, August 1878-July 1879.  Photo Courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of
California, Berkeley.  [No. 156:838]

            Anti-Chinese sentiment was growing stronger and the Chinese were always portrayed as ugly and irrepressible heathens.[1]  The typical Chinese immigrant wore wide leg trousers, a broad brimmed straw hat and a pair of sandals or wooden shoes.  They always had a queue or pigtail hanging down their backs.  Their yellow skins, dark eyes, flat faces, language, and other strange features made the Chinese easy targets for discrimination and led whites to believe Chinese were inferior.[2]  One American trader said they were “ridiculously clad, superstitious ridden, dishonest, crafty, cruel, and marginal members of the human race.”[3]  Nationwide, but more predominantly in the West, people felt, “Mongolian blood was debased, the Chinese mind was retarded, and more Chinese immigration would threaten Aryan dominance.”[4]  White being superior was the common way of thinking.   

Chinese Man in Traditional Dress.  Photo Courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University
of California, Berkeley.  [BANC PIC 1984.111:02--AX]

            Many Americans did not comprehend or care to understand Chinese culture and religion.   This led to ignorance and prejudice.[5]  These misunderstandings and misinterpretations caused whites to believe the Chinese were not capable of assimilation into American life, thus posing a threat to American institutions.[6]  An assertion made by the Social Science Association stated, “Ethnologists declare that the brain capacity of less than 85 cubic inches is unfit for free government, which is considerably above that of the coolie, as it is below that of the Caucasian.”[7]  The New York Tribune said of the Chinese:

                        The Mongolians, who are now coming among us from the other side of the continent,

                        differ from our own race by as strongly marked characteristics as do the Negroes, while

                        will not as readily fall into our ways as the Negroes…A population born in China,

                        expecting to return to China, living here in a little China of its own, and without the

                        slightest attachment to the country-utter heathens, treacherous, sensual, cowardly

                        and cruel…[8]

            Many Californians feared they were being inundated by an inassimilable race with evil habits and strange morals.  The impression was given that the Chinese culture would “infect, contaminate, and obliterate American culture.”[9]  Henry George also felt the Chinese would never assimilate into United States culture. In his letter to the New York Tribune, he stated, “the population of this country has been drawn from many different sources; but hitherto, with but one exception these accessions have been of the same race, and though widely differing in language, customs, and national characteristics, have been capable of being welded into a homogenous people.”[10]  It was feared the Chinese would take over and make the white man inferior.[11] 

             A minority in California welcomed the Chinese as “one of the most worthy [classes] of our newly adopted citizens.”[12]  However, for the majority of Californians racial and religious discrimination caused the Chinese to be victims of persecution.  Even before the Chinese moved to the more populated cities, white laborers were protesting their presence.  Some of the anti-Chinese legislation passed in California included: the 1854 California Supreme Court decision in People v. George Hall, where Chinese were deemed “colored” and were told they had no rights to testify in court against whites; all 1854 citizenship applications filed were denied, and in 1860 Chinese children were segregated from California public schools along with blacks and Native Americans.[13]  

Portrait of white young man posing with seated Chinese man. 
Photo Courtesy of the California Historical Society.  [GS Social 
Groups: Chinese ii: FN-22920]

Taxes to keep Chinese out of mining and railroad industries were also implemented in several states, not just California.[14]  For example, Oregon did not allow the Chinese to own mining claims or land, and placed a five-dollar poll tax on every Chinese miner.  Montana, Nevada, and Washington also passed discriminatory laws against Chinese miners.[15]  Chinese fisherman also became victims.  Their boats were sunk and nets slashed.  A tax of four dollars was expected each month from Chinese fishermen.  The use of mesh nets was prohibited, thus curtailing the fishing season.  Whites also claimed the Chinese killed baby fish and harvested small abalone, pushing state legislatures to pass laws against Chinese in the fishing industry.  All of these laws were passed in an attempt to discourage Chinese immigration.  Despite such efforts the Chinese held strong, worked beside whites as equal partners, and resisted paying the mining and fishing taxes that were later ruled unconstitutional.[16]   

                One idea that  triggered anti-Chinese sentiment and antagonized American laborers was the use of Chinese as strikebreakers.  This, along with Chinese competition in manufacturing, increased the apprehension of white laborers.[17]  The Chinese were the “willing pawns of the American labor market.”[18]  The American labor movement was characterized by capital’s exploitation of labor.  Capital put the Chinese in direct competition with skilled labor because the Chinese were performing the work of experience workingmen.[19]  Labor groups increasingly blamed their problems on the Chinese and their employers.[20]

            An unstable economy also promoted anti-Chinese ideas.  “For years the Chinese worked alongside European immigrants and marched in Fourth of July parades with the most elaborate and vigorously applauded displays.  In 1868, Chinese merchants were present at a banquet honoring their contributions to the life and well being of San Francisco.”[21]  However, in 1868 there was a recession and whites blamed the Chinese for their unemployment because they were a much cheaper source of labor.  Hostility toward the Chinese became one of the elements that united the California labor force.[22]

"What shall we do with our boys?": From The Wasp, v.8.  Photo Courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, 
Berkeley.  [No. 292: 136-137]. 

            Another factor strengthening hostility toward the Chinese and consolidating the labor force was the Burlingame Treaty, ratified in 1868.  Secretary of State William Seward claimed the main purpose of the treaty was to increase commerce between the United States and China.  The treaty also recognized the “inherent and inalienable right of man to change his home and allegiance and also the mutual advantage of free migration and emigration of their citizens and subjects respectively from one county to the other for purposes of trade or to become permanent residents.”[23]  This facilitated large-scale entry of Chinese laborers to the United States because before this treaty was signed, emigration from China was a crime punishable by death.  This was no longer the case.  Americans and Chinese were now free to migrate to each other’s countries.  Nativist thoughts began to take over in the minds of many Americans.[24]  Even those who lived on the East Coast began to understand the new dangers the Burlingame Treaty brought forth.

                        We warn workingmen that a new and dangerous foe looms up in the far west.  Already

                        our brothers on the Pacific have to meet it, and just as soon as the Pacific Railroad is

                        completed, and our trade and travel begins to flow from east across our continent,

                        the Chinaman will begin to swarm through the Rocky Mountains like devouring

                        locusts and spread out over the country this side.  Men who can work for a dollar a

                        day…are a dangerous element in our country.  We must not sleep until the foe is upon

                        us, but commence to fight him tomorrow.[25]

The pro-Chinese sentiment the United States government introduced by the Burlingame Treaty was short lived because groups soon began lobbying for amendments to the treaty that would restrict Chinese immigration.[26]

            Plans to import Chinese labor flooded the newspapers of every major city.  The laboring classes did not take too kindly to this because they believed the importation of Chinese laborers would replace whites and blacks already in the workforce.[27]  Henry George predicted the Chinese who came to the United States, willing to work for low wages, would push whites out of several occupations.  To top things off, a severe depression hit the United States during the mid 1870s, leading to widespread unemployment.[28]  It was one of the worst depressions Americans had faced and it hit on the national, state, and local levels.[29]  The Chinese were blamed for white unemployment and became the scapegoats for American labor ills.[30]  

"The First Blow to the Chinese Question" From The Wasp v.2, August 1877- July 1878.  
Photo Courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. 
[No. 71].

            In a letter to the New York Tribune Henry George stated:

                        The Chinese are rapidly monopolizing employment in all lighter branches of industry…

                        such as running sewing machines, making paper boxes and bags, binding shoes, labeling

                        and packing medicines…They are…used in grading railroads, cutting wood, picking

                        fruit, tending stock, acting as firemen upon steamers, painting carriages, making boots,

                        shoes, clothing, and cigars, tin and wooden ware…[31]

In patriotic calls, Americans were asked to boycott all Chinese made products.  American workingmen also formed anti-Chinese leagues and organizations in an effort to fight for their rights.[32]  The Irish were the central figures in such movements, primarily because they had to fight for the jobs they gained since their arrival in the United States, and they were not going to allow the Chinese to take over so easily.[33]  One such Irishman was Dennis Kearney.  He formed the Workingmen’s Party in California in the 1870s with the slogan, “The Chinese Must Go!”  This party was largely a labor reform organization, but its most important agenda was Chinese exclusion.[34]  “The Chinese Must Go!” was heard throughout the West Coast, resulting in the formation of more anti-Chinese associations, the holding of mass meetings, and outbreaks of violence.[35]  

Boycott!  Photo Courtesy of the California Historical Society.  [Broadside 384: boycott].

            The claim that Chinese labor displaced white labor was the issue exploding in California, and many parades and demonstrations were held up and down the West Coast stressing anti-Chinese sentiment.[36]  Eventually these parades turned to mob violence.   Most racial attacks occurred in  western states such as California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, Alaska, and South Dakota.  California newspapers and literature added fuel to this fire by focusing on the racial and cultural peculiarities of the Chinese.[37]  In 1871, over 20 Chinese were hanged and burned to death in Los Angeles.[38]  In one city’s “Negro Alley”, a mob of several hundred whites shot, hanged and stabbed 19 Chinese to death.  Six years later, arsonists returned to this area to destroy their homes.

            The next major outbreak was in 1880 on Blake Street in Denver, Colorado.  This riot was spawned by the presence of disgruntled white laborers.  The whites in Denver ran through the streets for eight hours breaking the windows and doors of Chinese dwellings and shouting:  “Kill the Chinese!  Kill the damned heathens!  Burn their homes!  Give them hell!  Run them out, shoot them, hang them!”[39]  Fortunately, only one Chinese man was killed, but others were brutally beaten and  property damage estimated at $53,655.69.[40]  The lawless elements that committed arson, robbery, and murder against Chinese were rarely caught or punished.[41]  In fact, after an anti-Chinese meeting that resulted in the fire bombing of a San Francisco community, a legal holiday was declared by the California Governor, George C. Perkins.[42]

            Not all Americans believed the Chinese were fundamentally different or should be treated as inferior.  Many missionaries defended the Chinese against mainstream criticism.[43]  One of the first champions of persecuted Chinese was a Presbyterian clergyman, Reverend William Speer.  He opened the first Chinese Christian church in  San Francisco, the first of its kind in the United States.[44]  Many clergymen believed that God sent the Chinese to the United States to be Christianized.  Clergymen also defended the Chinese by saying they were “sober, polite, thrifty, quiet and inoffensive; they were eager to learn English and read the Bible.”[45]  Other clergymen felt there were other advantages to the Chinese presence in California:  trade with China for West Coast shippers, rent from Chinese tenants for landlords, and taxes for the State treasury.[46]

The main argument for Chinese by the clergymen:

                        …Industrial resources in California could not be developed without the aid

                        of ‘Chinese cheap labor’.  That the Central Pacific Railroad was built by the

                        agency of Chinese labor;  that every agricultural and mechanical industry

                        has been developed through this agency; and in fact the whole material

                        prosperity of the Pacific Coast is due alone to this ‘blessing in disguise’

                        which a wise Providence has conferred upon this people…The plain and

                        logical deduction is, if it is His will that it should be so, that the heathen

                        may be converted to Christianity…[47]

As for the social evils that existed in Chinatown, Speer asserted that prostitution rings were maintained by “abandoned whites’.[48]  Opium smoking, Rev. D. M. Hulburd argued, was no worse than the American liquor habit.  “They smoke opium, do they?  Then let us pray to God that they never be induced to exchange opium for American whisky and even German beer.”[49] 

In the 1870s, Reverend Otis Gibson took over for Reverend Speer.  Gibson attacked the Roman Catholic Church’s attitude because these were the attitudes largely held by the Irish and working class organizations.  Catholic priests believed the Chinese were “pagan, vicious, immoral creatures that are incapable of rising to the virtue that is inculcated by the religion of Jesus Christ, the world’s redeemer.”[50]   Catholic priests also urged a restraint and moderation of the immigration of Chinese.  By 1879, it became clear that pro-Chinese clergymen were making little ground.  They tried to show the Chinese were descent, but the public usually swayed in the other direction.  In fact, a California referendum on the Chinese question showed an overwhelming majority of 154,638 to 883 in favor of immigration restriction.[51]   By 1879, pro-Chinese merchants also began to sway toward exclusion.  One clothing manufacturer said, “I thought they would make good American citizens, but I find I was mistaken.”[52]  The publisher of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin explains the change in attitude, “The merchants have been the last to realize it, but I think nearly all of them understand now that their business is falling off because the laboring men cannot earn money to buy.”[53]  Despite the attempts of the clergy to Christianize Chinese immigrants, most retained the religious beliefs of their homeland and only a few converted.[54]

Created by Jaime Boyle
Graduate Student at American University
History in the Digital Age
Professor Robert Griffith
jaime_boyle@hotmail.com

Last Updated 12/06/03