By Catharine Melin-Moser
Great discoveries of gold set in motion a westward migration of 30,000 hopeful Americans to California in 1849. The event also encouraged a mass immigration of people from another continent. California’s gold rush coincided with the decline of the Qing Dynasty, the ruling empire of China since 1644. Plagued by floods, famine, political turmoil and rebellion,
Qing Dynasty could no longer sufficiently minister the needs of China’s lower social classes. Tens of thousands of Chinese men left their homeland and sailed overseas toward Gum
San, or “gold mountain,” the term they applied alternately to America, California, or San Francisco. Most disembarked at San Francisco from where they began their own mass entry into the California gold fields.
In the summer of 1862, gold strikes at Alder Gulch and Grasshopper Creek in present day Montana drew the first Chinese pioneers to the region. Most of them engaged in placer mining. Gathering loose gold from shallow water in streams and rivers required little financial investment and was an easier proposition than lode mining, by which gold ore was mined from hard rock. Describing the state of placer mining in Montana in 1867, James W. Taylor wrote in a government report: “The bulk of the auriferous treasure is now exhausted… the placers are worked over… the diggings now fall into the hands of the Chinese, who patiently glean the field abandoned by the whites.” Working in teams, the Chinese picked through the worked over placer claims. Most of the gold they collected was shipped to their families in China.
American miners, most of whom were poor and unpretentious, tolerated most ethnic groups except for Native Americans and Blacks, and the most hated, the Chinese. Miners objected to the influx of Chinese immigrants who created competition for the valuable mineral as well as jobs, and the foreigners accepted lower wages. Newspapers reported harassment, beatings, and even deaths of the Chinese at
the hands of the most agitated miners. In Denver in 1880, a mob killed one man as it destroyed most of the Chinatown. Five years later in Rock Springs, Wyoming, American miners wanting to drive out competition at the coal mines killed twenty-eight Chinese. Shortly after the Rock Springs attack, Seattle and Tacoma city fathers forcibly expelled hundreds of Chinese. In 1887 in Idaho, thirty-four Chinese were murdered for their gold. The violent citizenry of the Glendale silver camp in Montana scraped sagebrush and prickly pear cactus from a hilltop to make way for a cemetery. Time passed, and when nobody died, impatient miscreants “killed a Chinaman and buried him,” as told by one Montana historian.
Census takers for the 1870 Montana territorial census were prone to racial bias. Most of the 1,949 Chinese counted were recorded as “Chinaman.” Other residents are identified by their full name. Pointing to the “amoral and filthy habits” of the Chinese and their “extreme carelessness as to fires,” Virgina City citizens forced the Chinese to live in restricted areas. The territorial legislature illustrated its bias by enacting laws that excluded Chinese from certain pursuits and assessed specific taxes on the pursuits in which they could engage. For example, in 1872 the legislature tried to drive out the Chinese by passage of a bill that prohibited Chinese from holding titles to mining claims. While the legislature played to public sentiment, the Montana territorial Supreme Court struck down the bill.
With the building of the Northern Pacific railroad between 1881 and 1883, a new throng of Chinese found their way to Montana. In September of 1880, the Atlantis newspaper reported: “An agent… was looking up Chinese to work on the railway grade. The very moment that a foreign corporation attempts to put Chinese coolies to work in herds in this Territory, the said peons should be treated as their kind are at Leadville, Colorado, and Storey County, Nevada; just driven right back over the line and given to understand that it will be rather an unhealthy climate for them; if they attempt to return to Montana.” Despite the animosity, 15,000 Chinese laborers accepted employment to lay track in Montana, and by doing so, helped open the territory to large scale settlement and economic growth, and, ultimately, statehood. Upon completion of the Northern Pacific line, thousands of Chinese returned home. Those who stayed settled into occupations offered by budding communities.
The numbers of Chinese in America swelled to 100,000 by the early 1880s. Americans perceived Chinese dress and habits as queer, as was the long braid called a queue. They cooked their own kind of food and practiced their own form of religion. Most Chinese immigrant men were single and intent upon accumulating money and then returning to their homeland where they could then afford to marry and buy a parcel of land. They felt no urgency to assimilate into American society. They often formed their own settlements, or Chinatowns. As put
by a San Francisco newspaper, “the manners and habits of the Chinese are very repugnant to Americans in California. Of different language, blood, religion, and character, and inferior in most mental and bodily qualities, the Chinaman is looked upon by some as only a little superior to the Negro, and by others as somewhat inferior…”Labor unions emphasized ethnic differences and complained of economic competition. Congress listened. The passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 halted nearly all immigration of Chinese labor, and the Chinese already in America were refused American citizenship.
That same year, the newly elected mayor of Butte, Montana, used the slogan, “Down with Chinese Cheap Labor,” to launch his successful campaign. Two years later, in 1884, a circular posted in town ordered the Chinese to leave. That attempt to drive out the Chinese was unsuccessful as was the labor unions boycott of Chinese businesses in 1891-1892. In January 1897, labor leaders were ready to try again. Playing upon fears that Chinese stole jobs from whites and were to blame for Butte’s anemic economy, the leaders announced a boycott of Chinese businesses. This time, however, boycotters also resorted to intimidation against whites who frequented those businesses, and in the crosshairs as well, white businessmen who employed Chinese. Anti-Chinese banners, floats, and advertisements reminded everyone of the boycott. Because of this, 350 Chinese chose to leave Butte, but 300 refused to buckle. In fact, they coalesced and fought back. On April 15, 1897, four of Butte’s Chinese on behalf of themselves and all other Chinese in Silver Bow County sued several members representing the labor unions.
The Chinese prevailed in their lawsuit known as the Chinese Boycott Case. Victory in Silver Bow County court in 1900 included a permanent injunction against discriminatory practices from labor unions as well as a settlement for legal fees. When the defendants claimed that they were unable to pay, the Chinese pushed on to federal court. They appealed to the U.S State Department for financial redress, but in 1901, Secretary of State John Hay judged the suit as invalid.
One year after their victory, Congress extended the Chinese Exclusion Act indefinitely. The pathway to Gold Mountain would remain closed until 1943, the year the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed.