The Chinatown Massacre – The Importance of Remembering History
by Pebbla Wallace, LACHS Board Member
The definition of the word “history” is generally defined as the study and documentation of the past. Since the founding of our country, there have been many notable, extraordinary, and remarkable historical events. But there have also been many disgraceful, deadly, and even atrocious events. One of the importance of history is to remember even the most horrendous historical events of the past so we can avoid repeating them. American writer and poet Maya Angelou described history perfectly when she said, “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” The events of October 24, 1871, were one of these horrific events that many have forgotten, and which need to be remembered – Los Angeles’ 1871 Chinese Massacre, the largest mass lynching in American History.
To fully appreciate the importance of this historical event, it is important to look back and understand the environment in which many new Chinese people lived and labored when first arriving in California, and later in Los Angeles before 1871.
California’s Gold Rush (early Chinese immigration). The first major wave of immigration to California by the Chinese began around the late 1840s to early 1850s during the California Gold Rush. This was mostly driven by poverty, hunger, famine, and harsh economic conditions in the southern part of China. Most of the early Chinese immigrants had no intention of staying in the United States permanently, they immigrated mainly for economic opportunities, and to bring money home to their families in China after working in the U.S. for a few years. Some worked as gold prospectors or for mining companies, while others catered to the miners by establishing laundries, restaurants, stores, and even hotels in the mining areas.
Anti-Chinese Sentiments and Laws. First and second-generation Americans already in California detested these new Chinese immigrants because they saw them as competition and accused them of squeezing them out of jobs. By 1850 anti-Chinese sentiments began to build even further in the mining camps, and the California Foreign Miners License Law took it over the edge. This was a discriminatory law that originally charged non-U.S. citizens $20 per month (which was only collected from Chinese people), equivalent to almost $700 today. The law was later reduced to $4.00 in 1852 and appealed in 1855, but by that time many of the Chinese in the area had left the mines because they refused to pay the license fee, and/or due to the Anti-Chinese violence they endured in the mines. Many moved and started businesses in various Chinatowns throughout California – including Chinatown in Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, leaving the gold mines did not relieve them from the epidemic of violent racists attacks that they endured throughout the West. Throughout California, the Chinese were forced out of their businesses, run out of town, beaten, and even tortured. Dr. Melissa May Borja from the University of Michigan states: "They were seen as a racial threat to a pure white America. They were depicted as a disease threat—a lot of anti-Chinese rhetoric hinged on portraying Chinese people as filthy and disease-ridden. They were also seen as a religious and moral threat as heathens who threatened a Christian America.”
They also had little legal support against violent crimes like murder and assault. This may be due in part to laws in California that prohibit Chinese people from testifying against a white person in court. This law was later reinforced in 1854 when the California Supreme Court overturned the murder conviction of George Hall (a white male) who murdered Ling Sing (a Chinese miner). The court rendered the following discriminatory decision: “…..a race of people whom nature has marked as inferior, and who are incapable of progress or intellectual development beyond a certain point, as their history has shown; differing in language, opinions, color, and physical conformation; between whom and ourselves nature has placed an impassable difference, is now presented, and for them is claimed, not only the right to swear away the life of a citizen, but the further privilege of participating with us in administering the affairs of our Government.” This law was finally appealed (by omission) in 1955.
Early Los Angeles. In 1850, Los Angeles was a small dusty dreary old town with mostly farming. The city was a magnet for gamblers, get-rich-quick artists, disillusioned miners, and the most hardened of criminals. Los Angeles recorded forty-four homicides between 1850 and 1851, and the murder rate in Los Angeles County was fifty times greater than in New York City. The population at the time was only 1,610 which included only two persons of Chinese ancestry. By 1870 the population had grown to over 5,728, with 172 Chinese. Of the 172 Chinese population in Los Angeles, more than half lived on a street in Chinatown called Calle de los Negros (commonly referred to as “Negro Alley”).
Calle de los Negros (1870)
Photo Credit: Security Pacific National Bank Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
Los Angeles’ First Chinatown. Los Angeles’ first Chinatown was centered around Alameda, Main, and Macy Street. One of the most popular streets in Chinatown was “Calle de los Negros,” an unpaved dusty narrow street approximately one block long between El Pueblo Plaza and Old Arcadia Street. The area was notorious for its many saloons, brothels, gambling halls, and violence. Many Chinese people lived in adobes along the street and worked as gardeners, farm laborers, cooks, and various other types of labor. There were also various Chinese businesses such as laundries, grocery merchants, vegetable markets, etc. One of the most respected Chinese businessmen in the area was Dr. Chee Long (Gene) Tong who was a physician and herbalist and was very popular among both Chinese and white patients.
Anti-Chinese tension and violence continued to permeate throughout Chinatown in the early 1870s. A series of articles and editorials in the local newspaper helped attribute to the climate of violence against the Chinese.
How it Started. Tension first started on March 7, 1871, among two rival Chinese factions. Lee Young and members of his faction went to the home of Hing Sing (a member of another faction) and kidnapped his wife Yut Ho. Friction between these two factions continued off and on until October 24, 1871, when a gunfight on “Negro Alley” broke out between several Chinese men from opposing factions. Police Officer Jesus Bilderrain accompanied by several deputized citizens attempted to arrest the men from the gunfight, but they resisted. Bilderrain was shot in the right shoulder and wrist, his brother received a bullet to the leg, and a deputized citizen named Robert Thompson was shot and killed. The shooters took cover in the Coronel Building, and chaos soon ensued.
The Massacre – Human Brutality at its Worst. Soon, word spread that Thompson had been killed, and a rumor began to spread that the Chinese were killing white people. A mob soon began to gather. The innocent Chinese residents took shelter and barricaded their doors and windows for protection. County Sheriff James Burns and several citizens later arrived, and attempted to stop a mob of approximately 500 – but they were overwhelmed. He called for a posse to assist him in handling the situation - but they did not respond. He also demanded the leader of the mob and others to disperse - again with no response. The mob was truly out of control. Then several members of the mob ascended to the roof of a building where many Chinese people were hiding and shot holes through the roof to gain access. Many attempted to run for their lives, taking refuge at the city jail and throughout the city – others were captured by the mob.
According to Harris Newmark who was a merchant in the area, ”News of the attacks and counter-attacks spread like wild-fire, 433 and a mob of a thousand or more frenzied beyond control, armed with pistols, guns, knives and ropes, and determined to avenge Thompson's murder, assembled in the neighborhood of the disturbance. A Chinese man, waving a hatchet, was seen trying to escape across Los Angeles Street, and Romo Sortorel captured him. The crowd was yelling “Hang him! shoot him!” He was dragged up Temple to New High street, where the familiar framework of the corral gates suggested its use as gallows. With the first suspension, the rope broke; but the second attempt to hang the prisoner was successful. Other Chinese men whose roofs had been smashed in, were rushed down Los Angeles Street to the south side of Commercial, and there, near Goller's wagon shop, between wagons stood on end, were hung.”[1]
The beloved Chinatown physician Dr. Chee Long (Gene) Tong was also murdered – but not before he was tortured. “Dr. Tong pled for his life, both in English and Spanish. He reminded them that he was innocent and had taken no part in the gun battle earlier that evening. He offered the mob both gold and silver if they would let him go. That only prompted them to rip open his pockets and search for gold coins, stripping him of his trousers in the process. Finding no money, someone raised a pistol while he pleaded desperately and they shot him through the mouth. The bullet tore off part of his face. Then they hanged him.”[2] But not before they cut off his finger to obtain the ring that he wore.
After this brutal massacre was over, many members of the mob were found in the local saloon having a celebratory drink. In the end, there were nineteen victims of this brutal massacre including one doctor, cooks, laundrymen, and various laborers (including two young boys). Only one of the victims is believed to even have participated in the original gunfight that started it all. Ten men from the mob of five-hundred were eventually charged and convicted, but their charges were overturned on a legal technicality. No one ever served any jail time for this brutal lynching of the nineteen Chinese men.
On October 25, 1871, the morning after this massacre, the bodies and the victims of this atrocity lay in the jail yard until the coroner’s inquest was concluded. Some of the bodies still had ropes attached to their necks, and their faces were smeared with blood and riddled with bullets.
Chinese Massacre Victims (1871)
Photo Credit: Security Pacific National Bank Collection/LA Public Library
Lynch Area (Temple & Spring) - Where many Chinese were Lynched
Photo Credit: Security Pacific Nat’l Bank/Los Angeles Public Library
The Aftermath. Despite the shame and disgrace of this event, Anti-Chinese sentiments and laws continued throughout the century. In 1875, a federal law called the Page Act was enacted to prohibit the entry of Chinese women into the United States. In 1876, an Anti-Coolie club was formed in Los Angeles with the sole purpose of discouraging Chinese labor and business. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was enacted that prohibited all immigration of Chinese and declared them ineligible for citizenship (overturned in 1943). But despite the hate-filled racial attacks and various laws against the Chinese community in Los Angeles, they still persevered and thrived despite these restrictions and laws. In 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Actwas passed, which eliminated restrictive national origin quotas and allowed Asian and Pacific Islanders to come to the United States with their families. As of 2010, the population of Chinese-Americans in the City of Angels numbered over 77,000 while the county numbered approximately 678,000.
Remembrance of this event. Today there are few remembrances left of this hateful act of 1871, and many Angelenos have never heard of the event. The lynching sites were paved over and are now the location of the LA Mall at Spring and Temple. The residences of the old Chinatown were evicted in 1933 to build Los Angeles Union Station. The only evidence of this event lies near 4th and Los Angeles Street (across from the Chinese American Museum) with a small plaque.
But there is still hope for a memorial of remembrance of this 1871 massacre. An 1871 Steering Committee has been formed with a team of civic and cultural leaders (Co-Chaired by former LA City Council member Michael Woo) to establish a proper memorial. The committee is tentatively planning to publicly issue a Request for Ideas (RFI) by late May that would officially launch a public design competition.
Chinese Massacre Plaque located across from the Chinese American Museum
[1] Newmark, Harris; Sixty Years in Southern California 1853-1913, Knickerbocker Press, 1916, p. 292
[2] Faragher, John Mack, “Eternity Street” W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2016, p. 277
LACHS Scholarship Presentation
LACHS 2021 Scholarship recipient Valeria Martinez of CSU Long Beach wrote the essay The Formula for a Massacre: Growing Stereotypes and Rising Tensions Towards the Chinese Community in the Late 1800s.
Her essay is available for download on our scholarship page and you can also watch her webinar here.