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The juxtaposition of two images (American Tea Company & Ad) in handout
In order to understand how the “Chinese Must Go!” movement came about in the US – in order to understand why Chinese (like rats) were
to be exterminated -- during the late 1890s and early 1900s (see advertisement image with label “They Must Go!”)…
We began with the story of TEA.
Chinese Tea in World history: We talked about the growing demand for TEA in the west to emphasize the influence of
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Western expansionism into the East
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Global capitalism that drew China and rest of Asia into a global trade network
The migration of Chinese to the US, and Asians in the Americas, has its source in the growing demand for TEA.
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The China Trade
Clipper ship Southern Cross leaving Boston Harbor, 1851, by Fitz Hugh Lane
[The China Empress—first ship to leave America for China in 1784]
Due mostly to high consumer demand for tea, American merchants sought to establish trade with China.
First Chinese in US arrived through Clipper Trade out of Boston, long before California’s Gold Rush. Trade relations brought the Chinese to
California as early as the sixteenth century. The fledgling United States joined the China trade with the voyage of the Empress of China in
1784, and as trade between the two countries expanded, Chinese immigrants trickled into the United States.
Sailors and traders of the China Trade arrived in New York, an Atlantic port city, in the early 1800s. Also students brought in by missionaries
and Chinese for exotic people displays by PT Barnum. The boom years of the Clipper Ship Era began in 1843 as a result of the growing
demand for a more rapid delivery of tea from China.
Clipper Ship Era continued under the stimulating influence of the discovery of gold in California and Australia in 1848 and 1851.
[The Second Treaty of Paris in 1783 ceased Anglo-American hostilities after the American Revolutionary War and subsequently freed
American trade from British control. US found China.]
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Old China Trade in Massachusetts, Rhode Island (east coast)…
Men who had reaped great profits out of the Old China Trade:
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Port of Salem, Massachusetts, 1770s
John N. A. Griswold House, built in 1864 for an
American China trade merchant in Newport, Rhode Island
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William Henry Aspinwall
George Cabot
John Perkins Cushing (Belmont named after Perkins)
Elias Hasket Derby
Fanning & Coles
John Murray Forbes
Robert Bennet Forbes (Jamaica Plains, Boston - opium
trade)
Charles W. King
Abiel Abbot Low
Gideon Nye
Joseph Peabody
Thomas Handasyd Perkins
Russell Sturgis
John Renshaw Thomson
Israel Thorndike
William Shepard Wetmore
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Thirteen Factories, the Canton (Guangzhou) area where the first foreign trade was allowed in the 18th century English, Dutch, French, and
Danish
When TEA became expensive by the 1830s, British and American merchants addressed the rising cost of tea by trading in a new commodity
in China: OPIUM.
China opium addiction grew to catastrophic proportions. In order to stop illegal trade, China’s presiding Imperial Commissioner confiscated
and destroyed more than two million pounds of opium found in the western warehouses at Canton.
For this, the British went to WAR, concocting an excuse with which American leaders, including former US president John Quincy Adams,
fully concurred.
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OPIUM WARS
Location
Result
Territorial
changes
1839–1842, 1856–1860
China
Victory of the Western powers over China, resulting in the Treaty of Nanjing and the Treaties of Tientsin
Hong Kong Island and southern Kowloon ceded to the United Kingdom
WAR: Opium Wars, beginning in the 1840s, resulted in debilitating losses for China:
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Ports previously banned in China now forced open for trade
Hong Kong and Kowloon annexed by Britain – British Colony of Hong Kong until 1997
China lost control over the emigration of Chinese, which resulted in the large-scale shipment as indentured laborers to the
Caribbean and South America
[clip: Ancestors in the Americas – coolie trade to replace African slave trade]
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Migration of Chinese to the U.S.
Mid-1800s: it was around the same time with the arrival of coolies in the Caribbean and South America that the Chinese left for another part
of the Americas. The Chinese were the first nonwhite people who arrived in the U.S. en masse of their own free will.
The Chinese flocked to America in search of opportunities; most fled from their collapsing empire for political and economic reasons
resulting from domestic problems and western expansionism.
The Gold Rush (discovery of gold in spring/summer of 1948) occurred during a period of political, economic and social turmoil in China.
Poverty and opportunity pushed and pulled the Chinese to emigrate.
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Contributions to U.S. Economy and Society
Farming
Fishing, Monterey, California. 1875
"Work on the Last Mile of the Pacific Railroad "Across the Continent: The snow sheds on the
Central Pacific Railroad, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains"
Restaurants, laundry business,
Mining
Silk industry, California
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The Chinese were the first nonwhite foreigners who arrived en masse of their own free will, unlike shackled African Americans, who were
brought as slaves, or Native Americans, who were decimated in their own land. Yet like these other non-white peoples, Chinese immigrants
were prevented from owning property or becoming citizens. They were also subject to violent attacks and new laws enforced only against
them, such as the Foreign Miner's Tax.
Despite this treatment, we see how during the three decades encompassed by the film (1850-1882), Chinese labor became an essential
underpinning in the developing economy. In taxes from gold mining alone, the Chinese contributed up to 50% of the state's total revenue
by 1860. In addition to working on the transcontinental railroad that eventually linked the frontier west to markets back east [78-80% of
workforce were Chinese] , Chinese laborers hand-built aqueducts to transport water and timber, bridges and flood-control levees, and
some of the first wineries in the state, where they carved the storage caverns and constructed massive stone buildings.
The Chinese also reclaimed swamp land and transformed the Sacramento delta into one of the world's great farming lands. By 1870, three
quarters of the agricultural work force at every level in California were Chinese.
Many of their contributions can still be seen today in rural California, as the film shows. Yet, their contributions are missing from most
historical records, such as photographs of the building of the railroad and standard textbooks on the development of the west.
None of their contributions were perhaps more long lasting and significant to all Americans than their struggles to advance civil rights for
themselves and the immigrants that followed.
Denied the basic right of citizenship, the Chinese forged an alternative route to becoming Americans: they relentlessly pursued their rights
in America's courts. They turned to the justice system precisely because they understood and believed in the American promise of equality
and freedom.
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In California, the Chinese newcomers soon became an exploited work force.
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No voting rights
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No citizenship status
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Immigration Tax
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Laundry-operation fees
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Foreign Miner’s Tax enforced mainly against Chinese and Mexicans
[Political cartoon #1: Miss Columbus]
…and other legislation passed to limit their success
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Opposition in California was both immediate and strong.
During the Gold Rush, thousands of Americans from the East, where they had opposed European immigration, frequently came with nativist
attitudes.
And non-citizen, new immigrants from Europe (Ireland, Russia), who had suffered from Eastern nativism, saw that in attacking the Chinese,
they elevated their own shaky status to one of superiority.
In the 1870s, at a time of severe economic contraction, non- English speaking Chinese workers became an easy scapegoat.
Politically, Democrats and Republicans were running neck in neck in presidential elections, which means that, for a swing state like
California, their concerns and issues became exaggerated.
Across the last half of the 1870s, both Democrats and Republicans jumped onto this bandwagon of ANTI-CHINESE MOVEMENT.
[The next few political cartoons: INVASION, COMPETITION, DRAMATIZED RACIAL DIFFERENCE]
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"At last a workingman, a drayman, DENNIS KEARNEY, of San Francisco, immortalized by these words: 'We will have a new party, the
Workingman's Party. No great capitalist, no political trickster, no swindler or thief shall enter it. We will fill the offices with honest men who
will make laws to protect themselves. We will send the Chinese home, distribute the land of the grabber, tax the millionaire, make a law to
hang thieves of high as well as low degree, elevate the poor, and once more return to the simple virtue of honest republicanism.'
And he added, 'When the thieves hear these things they will shake in their boots. They will do all they can to divide and defeat us. They will
pervert the law to persecute us. They will try to cheat us, to count us out at the ballot-box, to bribe and corrupt the men we elect. They will
provoke us to riot if they can, and set the military upon us. We must arm. We must resolve to fight, if need be. We must stand by each other
to the death if necessary. We must swear that we will not be defeated. It is life or death. Either we must drive out the Chinese slave, and
humble the bloated aristocrat, or we shall soon be slaves ourselves. There is no other solution to the problem. It is death or victory. We
conquer or we perish. Arm! arm! and let our adversaries see that we are in earnest!'"
The Labor agitators, or, The battle for bread, pages 4 and 5
What accounts for Dennis Kearney's popularity?
What were the basic goals of the Workingmen's Party of California?
What role did opposition to Chinese play in the party's platform?
What methods did the party use in its pamphlet to denigrate Chinese immigrants?
What does the preceding passage suggest about the spirit of the Labor movement?
What was the relationship between anti-Chinese sentiment and the Labor movement?
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Dennis Kearny compared to Gaius Julius Caesar[2] July 100 BC[4] – 15 March 44 BC)[5] was a Roman general, statesman, Consul, and notable
author of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman
Empire. In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey formed a political alliance that was to dominate Roman politics for several years. Their
attempts to amass power through populist tactics were opposed by the conservative ruling class within the Roman Senate, among them
Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar's conquest of Gaul, completed by 51 BC, extended Rome's territory to the
English Channel and the Rhine. Caesar became the first Roman general to cross both when he built a bridge across the Rhine and conducted
the first invasion of Britain.
These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse the standing of Pompey, who had realigned himself
with the Senate after the death of Crassus in 53 BC. With the Gallic Wars concluded, the Senate ordered Caesar to lay down his military
command and return to Rome. Caesar refused, and marked his defiance in 49 BC by crossing the Rubicon with a legion, leaving his province
and illegally entering Roman territory under arms.[6] Civil war resulted, from which he emerged as the unrivaled leader of Rome.
After assuming control of government, Caesar began a program of social and governmental reforms, including the creation of the Julian
calendar. He centralised the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed "dictator in perpetuity". But the underlying political
conflicts had not been resolved, and on the Ides of March (15 March) 44 BC, Caesar was assassinated by a group of senators led by Marcus
Junius Brutus. A new series of civil wars broke out, and the constitutional government of the Republic was never restored. Caesar's
adopted heir Octavian, later known as Augustus, rose to sole power, and the era of the Roman Empire began.
13
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Thus, during the financially unstable 1870's, the Chinese became an ideal scapegoat: they were strangers, wore queues, kept to their own
kind, and were very productive (conditions not inspiring great love, especially among the American laboring class). Legislation, including
immigration taxes, and laundry-operation fees, passed in order to limit the success of the Chinese workers. Cartoons and other propaganda
reinforced the view that the Chinese "worked cheap and smelled bad" (Daniels 52); demonstrators marched with anti-Chinese slogans.
WE WANT NO SLAVES OR ARISTOCRATS
THE COOLIE LABOR SYSTEM LEAVES US NO ALTERNATIVE
STARVATION OR DISGRACE
MARK THE MAN WHO WOULD CRUSH US TO THE LEVEL OF THE MONGOLIAN SLAVE WE ALL VOTE
WOMEN'S RIGHTS AND NO MORE CHINESE CHAMBERMAIDS (Daniels, 38)
"A Statue for Our
Harbor"
(click on picture for an
enhanced view of the
head)
Courtesy of: Choy, Philip.
Dong, Lorraine. Hom,
Marlon. The Coming
Man. University of
Washington Press:
Seattle and London,
1994. Page:136
Racial tensions finally snapped in 1882, and Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, barring immigration for ten years; the Geary
Act extended the act for another ten years in 1892, and by the Extension Act of1904, the act was made permanent.
15
"The Last Load"
Courtesy of:Choy, Philip. Dong, Lorraine. Hom, Marlon. The Coming Man. University of Washington
Press: Seattle and London, 1994. Page:157
But immigration still went on, however, as the exclusion laws were frequently bypassed. After the
earthquake fires destroyed all family records in 1906, Chinese immigrants effectively donned false
names and identities, and came to their "relatives" already in the US as paper sons and daughters.
In response to this continuing Chinese influx, the city of San Francisco created a prison-like
detention center for incoming immigrants at Angel Island in 1910, where officials screened and
deported dubious incomers.
Americans justified their actions with two main claims. First, the Americans claimed that jobs
were scarce, and the Chinese were stealing the only jobs that there were because of there
willingness to work for smaller wages. Americans also claimed that the Chinese were sending too
much gold back to China-they believed that the wealth should remain within the United States
(Knoll 24). Anti-sentiments against the Chinese were high in the United States, however, Chinese continued to immigrate to the United
States. Not only was the majority of Chinese excluded from immigrating, however, the few Chinese that did immigrate were treated
inhumanely. Many of their customs and traditions were violated, they were insulted, they were imprisoned, beat and in some cases killed.
Why did we have to depart from our parents and loved ones and come to stay in a place far away from our homes? It is for no reason but to
make a living. In order to make a living here, we have to endure all year around drudgery and all kinds of hardship. We are in a state of
seeking shelter under another person's face, at the threat of being driven away at any moment. We have to swallow down the insults
hurled at us. (Knoll, 28)
The Chinese resented the fact that they were being discriminated against, yet they continued to immigrate to the United States because
they felt their opportunities in the United States were still better than in China.
For sixty-one years, the Chinese were excluded from entering the United States and becoming natural citizens when on December 17, 1943,
the United States Congress pass the Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act, which allowed Chinese to enter the United States legally once again.
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The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed mainly for political reasons rather than for human rights reasons. The main political reason was that
the Chinese became an ally of the United States extremely fast when World War II broke out. Since the Chinese were viewed as allies now,
the American government wanted to keep sentiments between the two countries high, so the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed, and
Angel Island no longer remained a detainment center for Chinese immigrants. This was a victory for people from China and ChineseAmericans; however, the American reputation remains tainted by its inhumane and racist exclusion policies towards the Chinese in the
latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century.