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CHAPTER ELEVEN Rock Springs and More THE HISTORIAN Shih-shan Henry Tsai wrote that, “For ChineseAmericans ,theExclusionActof1882hasbecometheirethnicPearlHarbor.”1 Subsequent legislation would impose even more onerous restrictions. The act succeeded in its goal of shutting down Chinese immigration. In 1882, the last year of unrestricted immigration, 39,579 Chinese crossed the Pacific to American shores, the most for any year. By 1883, with the ban fully in effect, the number fell to 8,031, and by 1884, just 4,009.2 Some human smuggling continued, especially across the border from Canada. But although the Exclusion Act effectively blocked new laborers, it failed to protect the estimated 132,300 Chinese who remained. If anything, violence and mistreatment became worse. Thousands of Chinese were driven from their homes and businesses across California, including from Redding, Eureka, and Truckee.3 In San Francisco, white mobs set fire to Chinatown and murdered thirteen Chinese over a three-month period from September to November 1885.4 The highly organized anti-Chinese movement didn’t just focus on California. Fueled by agitators, it spread like wildfire across the West. In Tacoma, in the Washington Territory, a white mob encouraged by Mayor Jacob Weisbach, a German immigrant, evicted three hundred Chinese, during the winter of 1885.5 Herded onto wagons, many were dumped in a forest far from town, where men, women, and children huddled in a cold rain while their homes and shops were sacked and burned.6 Some would go to Portland.7 Violence also threatened the Chinese population in Seattle, resulting in several deaths. President Cleveland, acceding to a request from Washington Governor Watson Squire, dispatched soldiers from Fort Vancouver on November 7, 1885—the first use of federal troops to protect the Chinese.8 On February 10, 1886, Cleveland ordered troops to Seattle a second time when Chinese were again threatened.9 A white mob had forced about four hundred Chinese from their homes and marched them to the city docks to put them aboard a ship for California. Authorities intervened, but about half of the Chinese, tired of the harassment, still chose to leave.10 Before troops Chapter Eleven: Rock Springs and More 77 arrived, a citizens’ militia called the Home Guards fired on a Caucasian mob on February 8, killing or injuring five whites.11 Elsewhere in the Washington Territory, three hop-pickers were killed at Squak Valley and the homes of forty-nine miners were burned at the Coal Creek mine—both incidents occurred near Seattle in 1885. They were cited in a Chinese legation complaint to the State Department.12 Still in 1885, five Chinese were hanged by vigilantes after being accused of murdering a white merchant, David M. Fraser, in Pierce, Idaho.13 In Anaconda in the Montana Territory, a mysterious explosion blew apart a Chinese restaurant, killing four Chinese.14 In Portland, nearly two hundred so-called delegates convened an antiChinese “Congress’’ on February 10, 1886, with the aim of setting a thirtyday deadline for the ouster of all Chinese from Portland and Oregon.15 The city’s Chinese population was then estimated at about four thousand.16 Alarmed, Portland Mayor John Gates joined with state and county authorities to protect the Chinese by organizing a security force of more than one thousand, including seven hundred volunteers, seventy-five city militia, two hundred special sheriff’s deputies, and seventy-five Army veterans.17 Gates’ actions received strong backing from The Oregonian newspaper and its prominent editor, Harvey Scott. Citing agitators’ success in ousting Chinese from communities in California and the Washington Territory, Scott predicted it wouldn’t happen in Portland and issued a stern warning to the agitators. The Chinese are here under stipulations of a treaty between their own country and the United States. That treaty is one of the supreme laws of the land. It is the duty of every citizen to serve and obey it, and the duty of the authorities, state and national, to enforce it. They therefore who are concerting measures for expulsion of the Chinese are proposing rebellion against the United States. From many localities, by unlawful proceedings, the Chinese have been forced to depart. This effort to expel them is now concentrated upon Portland. Here it will stop. Portland is a law-abiding city. It does not countenance rebellion. It will not suffer people who are here in pursuance of law and entitled to its protection to be driven away by force. … If they persist, the actors will be arrested if...

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