Chinese in North America Research Committee
VIOLENCE 排华暴力事件

There is already a large literature on anti-Chinese violence in North America during the 19th and early 20th centuries: an important recent example is Jean Pfaelzer's Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans (2007).   We do not propose to recaptulate this literature here, and in any case we feel that Chinese-American historiography is not greatly in need of still more victim narratives.  And yet we also feel that modern residents of our liberal, ethnically sensitive, politically correct region must be reminded that the Pacific Northwest has not always been that way.  As the following map shows, in the late 19th century our region was in the forefront of American intolerance, racism, and vicious persecution of non-white peoples, especially the Chinese. 
The 1886 anti-Chinese riot in Seattle saw many white Seattlites behave shamefully and some, like Judge Thomas Burke, behave heroically.  Drawing from Harper's Magazine
Detail of picture on left: The fleeing Chinese,presented as comically wringing their hands and falling down, are protected by Governor Squire's resolute Home Guard, composed of local citizens and University of Washington students
Detail from picture on right.  More than half of Seattle's Chinese was forced onto ships before the city government can intervene
All Chinese in Seattle are told they will be expelled from the city the next day.  They will be allowed to take only what they can carry.  As in Tacoma the year before, actual violence is minimized at this stage, although those refusing are threatened with death.  Drawing from West Shore Magazine.
One of the heroes of the day was Judge Thomas Burke, who stood between the angry mob and their would-be Chinese victims with a shotgun (here, a revolver) in his hands.  He gave at least three speeches to the mob, saying that he was an Irishman just like them, that he sympathized, and that he was sure they would respect the law unlike the hooligans of Tacoma. West Shore Magazine 
The Seattle Anti-Chinese Riot, March 1886 西雅图唐人街华人受辱
The attempt to expel all Chinese from Seattle was orchestrated by the Knights of Labor, who hoped to repeat their success at Tacoma in December of the previous year.  In Seattle,the attempt was only partially successful. Whereas in Tacoma the mayor and many of the leading citizens had helped in expelling the Chinese, and even took pride in what they called the "Tacoma Solution," Seattle's leaders opposed the idea, partly from principle and partly out of fear of what else a rioting mob might do.   These pictures are from Harper's Magazine and West Shore Magazine. In both cases the artist must have worked partly from photographs. (No.16 in the map above).
Judge Burke, two decades later
The Deep Creek Massacre, 1887 爱达荷州蛇河深渊31华人矿工浴血

The outbreak of anti-Chinese violence in 1885 and 1886 had been politically motivated.  Much of it was organized by loose groupings of labor unions under the leadership of the Knights of Labor.  The Deep Creek Massacre, by contrast, seems to have been motivated chiefly by a desire for gold, although the events of 1885-6 undoubtedly helped to convince the perpetrators that they could get away with it. (See 30 in the map above).

















34 Chinese gold miners were slaughtered by a gang of outlaws at Deep Creek on the Snake River, at the border between Idaho and Oregon.  In June 2009, the editors took part in a river trip organized by the Historical Museum of St. Gertrude in Cottonwood, Idaho, to visit the massacre site.  Several of the participants knew far more about the massacre than we, including Greg Nokes, one of the world's leading researchers on the subject.  Those interested should look at Nokes' website, http://www.rgregorynokes.com, and at his book, due out in October:

   R Gregory Nokes, Massacred for Gold, The Chinese in Hells Canyon, Oregon State University Press, 2009

[The book came out on schedule and is said to be selling briskly.  We are not surprised: it is well written, authoritative, and fascinating--a fine example of the work of a stubborn, skilled investigative reporter]

The only contribution the editors made during the St. Gertrude Museum trip was an offering of rice wine to the spirits of the deceased.  Whereas most Chinese miners in the western U.S. came from the Taishanese-speaking Four County region west of Macao, those at Deep Creek were Cantonese speakers from Panyu County, south of Guangzhou.  As the family of one of the editors comes from Panyu as well, this probably marked the first time that the victims of the massacre could be addressed by a fellow countryman in their own dialect.

A second new book on the massacre is due to be in print by early next year,

   Dana Hand, Deep Creek: A Novel, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. 

Dana Hand is in reality the pen name of a two-person team of well known teacher-writers from Princeton University, Will Howarth and Anne Matthews.  For more information, see http://www.dana-hand.com/

There are a number of articles on the massacre and at least one other book:

   Mark Highberger, Snake River Massacre, Bear Creek Press, Wallowa, Or., 2000, 48 pages. 

The editors have not seen it.
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The Rock Springs Massacre, 1885 怀俄明州石泉28华矿工遭毒手

Wikipedia has just produced an excellent brief description of the massacre, its causes, and its consequences.  See No. 8 in the map above,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Springs_massacre

We will not attempt for now to improve on the Wiki version, which estimates that at least 28 Chinese miners were killed  by the rioters on September 2, 1885, in a coal mining area owned by the Union Pacific Railroad in southwestern Wyoming.  The Wiki version may be overcautious when it tries to deflect blame from the national Knights of Labor organization.  We ourselves see no reason to try to protect the thuggish reputation of the Knights, who were behind so much anti-Chinese violence in the late 19th and even early 20th century.

A few photographs of that part of Wyoming will be added here in due course.  For an image of the massacre it is hard to beat this picture from Harpers Weekly:












And the effect of the massacre in the eyes of the world is summed up succinctly in one of Thomas Nast's cartoons, also from Harpers Weekly:
















Better quality images from the original publication will be inserted here soon,  but these make the point well enough. 
It was a horrifying business and a disgrace to white Americans
"Feeling against the Chinese was strong in all northwestern coastal cities at that time, so local residents did not hesitate to pick up arms and turn back a group of about 30 of these foreigners before they even entered the valley.  Another larger party had already set up camp at the hop yards, however, and would not leave under threats, so on the next night a posse of five whites and two Indians entered the area and shot up the tents, killing and wounding several Chinese.  This strong approach to the situation accomplished the desired result in a hurry, because all the Orientals were gone by the next day.  Some half-hearted legal action was later attempted in Seattle against the assailants. but it never came to anything ..."

The Fish article is on file at the Issaquah Historical Society.  Other data comes from  Brad Asher, "The Night They Came to Kill Chinamen," Wild West Magazine and Leonard H. Mattingly's "The Massacre at Wold Farm," in the Issaquah Historical Society's Newsletter, 1992.  The location of the massacre is still unclear.  The one on 4th Avenue is just one of several good camping places near the creek within the 160 acres that formerly belonged to the Wolds.  Erica Maniez, Director of the Issaquah History Museums, tells  the editors that the photographer-historian Tim Grayhavens has made real progress in pinning down the exact location of the massacre site.  We agree that his suggested location is convincing.  See http://www.what-you-see.com/washington/issaquah.htm
On September 7 1885, only five days after the massacre at Rock Springs, a group of Washington whites and Indians decided to copy their peers in Wyoming by eliminating Chinese laborers from competition, this time as pickers in the hop fields of the rich Squak Valley, which was then called Gilman and is now Issaquah.  How many joined the anti-Chinese mob is unclear: about 10 started out at night from the store of George Tibbets, the local justice of the peace.  A few seem to have dropped out while several Indian hop pickers decided to take part and 20-odd onlookers trailed along behind.  Everyone had brought guns.  The Chinese, who had already put in a day or two of picking in the hop fields of the Wold brothers, were asleep in their tents.  There were about 30 Chinese in all. (See No. 10 in the map above).
The Squak (Issaquah) Massacre, 1885 华盛顿州依砂呱3华工帐篷遇害
At about 9:30 the group reached the Chinese camp, spread out to surround it on three sides, and opened fire.  The tents were riddled with bullets.  Those Chinese who were not dead or badly wounded fled across the creek.  When they came back 15 minutes later they found the attackers gone, three of their compatriots seriously wounded, and three others dead or dying.  The names of the dead were Fung Yue, Mong Gow, and Yeng San.  The latter said to Gong Heng San, "I am sorry.  Got a son home.  Too young.  No one to send him money," before he died.

Seven men, including two Indians and five whites, were brought to trial in spite of Justice Tibbetts efforts to hush the massacre up.  One Chinese, Gong Heng San, was finally allowed to testify after proving he was a Christian and hence bound by his oath.  His testimony and that of a cooperating white witness made no difference, however.  The attackers were acquitted of murder and convicted instead of rioting, being fined $500.  The community expressed no regrets for the killings.

As late as 1962, local sentiment was still on the side of the murderers, several of whom still had descendants in the Issaquah area.  An article published in that year by Edwards R. Fish and illustrated by Harriet Fish, "The Past at Present in Issaquah, Washington," summarizes the incident in this way:
Indians Picking Hops on Wold' Brothers Farm
Possible massacre site: between 4th Ave and Issaquah Creek, north of Holly St.
Issaquah Creek at the possible massacre site, south of Juniper St Bridge
Fish's attitude toward his fellow townsmen's atrocity may seem strange,  And yet other Issaquahans too continued for decades to minimize or even justify the crime.  An example is the account given by Bessie Crane, a lifelong resident of what in 1963 she still called the Squak Valley.  Although only three years old at the time of the massacre, she seems to have heard much about it from her parents and neighbors

"It seemed that we had no more than got settled than things began to happen.  A neighbor came in one evening and wanted to borrow father's .45 Colt revolver.  He had heard there was going to be some excitement at the Wold's hop fields.  One man got the bright idea of bringing in Chinamen as cheap labor for hop picking.  During the afternoon about forty Chinese had marched over the hills and pitched their tents on the Wold farm.  That night a mob of the farmers tried to drive them out by threats.  The following day another party of about thirty Chinamen were met at the entrance of the Valley by an armed party of white men. They were turned back and made no attempt to enter.

"That night five white men and a few Indians attacked the Chinese camp on the Wold farm.  After firing a number of shots into the tents they fled, leaving three dead and several wounded Chinese.  The survivors fled back over the hills faster than they came in.

"Father had told his neighbor that he better stay out of that mess.,  He had refused him the loan of the forty-five, but he found it missing from the hook where it hung.  The man returned it the following day with a sheepish grin – said he couldn't miss all the fun.  We had no more Chinese trouble in the Valley." 

Bessie Wilson Crane, Memoirs, Issaquah, 1963.  Mimeograph duplication by Issaquah Library, King County Library System.

An interesting fact: the massacre occurred while Issaquah Creek's spectacular annual run of king and chinook salmon was under way. Those Chinese who escaped across the creek must have waded through thickly packed swimming, spawning, and dying fish.




This map is based mainly on secondary sources, among them Jean Pfaelzer's Driven Out (2008) and articles in Arif Dirlik ed., Chinese on the American Frontier (2001).   Together with the following list, it will evolve over the next few months as primary sources, when those exist, are checked.  Current version: 10/27/09

1.   1866  Owyhee River, SE Oregon.  40-50 Chinese miners killed by Paiute Indians; one boy survived.
2.   1867, Apr  Snake River, OR.  Some Chinese attacked by Indians.
3.   1875  Near Chelan Falls along Columbia River, WA.  Indians kill Chinese miners.
4.   1879, Feb  Loon Creek (nr Salmon River), ID.  5 Chinese miners killed.  Sheepeater Shoshones blamed.
5.   1880  Denver, CO.  Chinatown gutted, 1 Chinese killed.
6.   1882, Apr  Camas Creek, Lewiston, ID.  Three Chinese miners murdered.
7.   1885  Pierce in Clearwater River area, ID.  5 Chinese miners lynched.
27. 1885, Apr   Anaconda, MT.  5-6 Chinese killed.
8.   1885, Sep  Rock Springs, Wyoming.  28 Chinese miners murdered, 16 injured
10. 1885, Sep  Squak Valley, Issaquah, WA.  3 Chinese hop pickers murdered & 4 wounded by whites and Indians
13. 1885  Newcastle, WA.  Chinese coal miners’ barracks burnt.
15. 1885, Nov  Tacoma, WA.  Chinese in Tacoma driven out; 2-3 die of exposure that night.
16. 1886, Feb  Seattle, WA.  Many Chinese forced to leave town; one white rioter killed by militia. 
17. 1886, Apr   Albina, OR.  Chinese woodcutters raided; they leave for Portland.
18. 1886, Mar   Portland, OR.  Chinatown buildings burnt.
19. 1886. Olympia, WA.  Chinese attacked; many leave for Vancouver BC
20. 1886, Mar  Oregon City, OR.  Chinese driven out & killed.
21. 1886, Mar  Mt. Tabor, OR.  Chinese attacked.
22. 1886, Mar  Pt Townsend, WA.  2 Chinese attacked & killed.
23. 1886          Chehalis, WA.  Mass murder on Chinese.
24. 1886, Aug  Douglas Island, Alaska.  Chinese driven from the island. 
25. 1886, Apr   Almy, Wyoming. 
26. 1886  Orofino, ID.   5 Chinese killed. 
29. 1887  Vancouver, B.C.  Anti-Chinese riot.
30. 1887, May Deep Creek, Snake River, OR.  About 31 Chinese miners slaughtered.
31. 1907  Vancouver, B.C,  Anti-Chinese & Japanese riot.
32. 1885, Feb  Eureka, CA.  Chinese made to leave in 24 hours, Chinatown destroyed.
33. 1886. North San Juan, CA.  Chinatown burned
34. 1886, Nov  Sawyers Bar, CA. Chinese dwellings burned. 
35. 1886  Millville, CA.  Chinese dwellings raided.
36. 1886, Jan   Redding, CA.  Chinatown burned
37. 1886, Aug  Yreka, CA..  Chinatown burned
38. 1886, Jun   Truckee, NV.  Chinatown burned
39. 1887. Colusa, CA.  Ho Ah Heung lynched
40. 1903, Sept Tonopah, Nevada.  Chinatown attacked, Wing Sing was killed.
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Anti-Chinese Incidents in the Northwest: Preliminary Map
Incidents shown by with red squares took place during the 'drivong out" decade,  1866-1889.
1866-1889年间美洲西北角发生排华事件地点
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Portland Tries (and Fails at) Purging All Chinese, March 1886
Woo Gen's memories of the riot: a 1924 interview

" ... And then when these China riots came I got to give up my business because I cannot sell my cigars.  During that time the China riot ruined every Chinaman, including some of the finest residences in Seattle.  They have some good citizens in Seattle.  I think the big work was done by Mr. Dave Kellog.  His brother used to be fire marshall. He get up in the morning and he see this China riot and he went to the fire engine at Columbia Street.  He went in and the fire men try to stop him from ringing the bell.  He says, "I got orders from my brother."  He called all this home guard so the home guard is turn out all over in town and protect the Chinese if he can.  The only thing I see in the street I see from my window.  I see Mr. William H. White.   He was United States Attorney then.  He says to the mob, "as long I am prosecuting attorney in this city, you people have to get back to Tacoma."  He fight hard.  On account of that they didn't drive all the Chinaman out of Seattle.  But they did in Tacoma."

"... Judge Burke and Judge Harris said, "... You stay in Seattle.  We try to protect all you people as we can.  If anyone tries to break your door you just kill him."  I get my gun ready and my axe ready and if anyone come, why, I try to kill him.  So these mob drove all the other Chinese out from other Chinese houses, but they didn't come near me.  I think I am one of the very few to stay here.  ..." Survey of Race Relations [27-183], University of Chicago, July 1924.  
Racist elements in Portland attempted to drive all Chinese out of the city in March of 1886, as they had already done in Tacoma and Seattle a month or so before.  In Portland the anti-Chinese gangs did not succeed, although many Chinese in and around the city were beaten and robbed.  Whether the white citizens of Portland were more tolerant than those of Tacoma and Seattle is debatable.  However, the chief Portland newspaper, the Oregonian, followed a generally tolerant line, in sharp contrast with the scurrilously racist Tacoma Ledger.  Portland's mayor, John Gates, offered even more of a contrast with Tacoma's mayor, R. Jacob Weisbach.  Whereas Weisbach was a ringleader in the anti-Chinese events of October 1885 (and indeed took credit as a deviser of the infamous "Tacoma Solution"), Gates ignored the threats of the mob, reputedly affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan as well as the Knights of Labor, and instructed the police and militia to defend the Chinese, by armed force if necessary. 
Chin Bong remembers 1886 in Portland: a 1924 interview

"...Few years after I come, they drive out Chinese out of Portland.  When I in Portland, I stayed very close to my store.  My store outside Chinese town, in white district, so when they drive Chinese out of Portland, they no touch me, they forget all about I in Portland.  But they very cruel, very mean to Chinaman at that time in Portland.  And they drive them out.  I was glad that I was in American district."
..." Chin Bong, Survey of Race Relations [27-172], University of Chicago, Aug.1924
The result, commemorated by one of Thomas Nast's superb cartoons for Harper's Weekly, was protection for the Chinese and a reputation for fairness and safety that drew many Chinese to Portland over the next decade.
A single death record was prepared for all three Chinese killed at Squak. "Cause of Death: Gunshot Wounds.  Duraton of Illness: Short"  The certificate was made out by King County's Health Officer, based on information supplied by the County Coroner, Dawson.  From King County Archives, Seattle
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Haskell came to the Congress at the invitation of one of his IWA followers, Daniel Cronin.  An official Knights of Labor organizer, Cronin had been involved in the driving-out of Chinese from Eureka in February 1885.  The Eureka events, the first of their kind on the continent, became a model for many similar expulsions during the next two years.  Cronin was given to citing his experience in Eureka as a credential for his activity in Washington.  In September 1885, a few days after the Rock Springs Massacre, he presented a copy of the Knights' anti-Chinese "charter" to Mayor R. Jacob Weisbach of Tacoma, a German immigrant who was already a member of the Knights.  Two months later, Weisbach would become a leader in Tacoma's Chinese expulsion, the so-called Tacoma Solution.  Whether Cronin advised Weisbach during the expulsion is not clear, but Cronin was one of the Seattle-based anti-Chinese leaders who were indicted together with Weisbach and his henchmen by a federal grand jury in Vancouver (Washington).  This added to his prestige among delegates to the Anti-Chinese Congress, who hailed him as a martyr to their cause.

Neither Haskell nor Cronin seem to have had a taste for the violence they preached.  Haskell went back to California shortly after the Congress ended in mid-February, 1886.  Cronin stayed on for a while but, perhaps due to the danger of rearrest, remained behind the scenes during the anti-Chinese riots in Seattle and Portland of March, 1886.  In April he was in San Francisco, where he gave a speech at a meeting of the International Workmen's Association and several other labor groups, including the Knights of Labor-affiliated Coast Seamen's Union.  In it he revealed that the real target of his activities in the Northwest had been not the Chinese but the capitalist system itself: "There is a greater evil than the Chinese.  Although there is not a Chinese at present in the town of Tacoma, the people there have discovered no radical change in the workingmen's condition.  It is, therefore, plain that an evil more deep-seated than the Chinese must be sought, namely the present system of labor." (see Chronicle article cited below).

Openly revolutionary rhetoric like this may have displeased Grand Master Powderly, and no one in the Knights can have been happy that their efforts in Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland resulted in repeated intervention by the U.S. Army.  Many Knights must also have been angered at Cronin's public admission that competition by Chinese laborers was not such a serious problem after all.  Whatever the reason, Powderly soon withdrew Cronin's commission as organizer for the Knights. Cronin disappears from history after that.

Haskell too, by then a vociferous critic and bitter enemy of Powderly, had been forced out of the Coast Seamen's Union and the Knights by 1888.  He lost interest in union politics at about that time, allowed the IWA to disintegrate, and for the next five years devoted his energies to a utopian community he had founded in the Sierras, the Kaweah Colony.  Whether Kaweah was anti-Chinese, like the contemporary utopian community of Port Angeles in Washington, is not clear.  Perhaps Haskell, like Cronin, had discovered that he too did not dislike Chinamen all that much anyway.

Powderly, less mercurial in temperament and more steadfast in his hatreds, was appointed Commissioner General of Immigration by President McKinley in 1897.  Continuing to work at the Bureau of Immigration until 1921 gave him ample scope to become one of the worst enemies that Chinese in the United States would ever know.

On Haskell   Kevin Star, Endangered dreams: the Great Depression in California, 1996; Craig Phelan, Grand Master Workman: Terence Powderly and the Knights of Labor, 2000; Miriam Allen De Ford, They Were San Franciscans, 1941; New York Times 1886-02-12 p 5, 1886-02-13, p 1, 1886-02-14 p2; for Haskell in Eureka, Jean Pfaelzer, Driven Out, 2008, pp 14-7

On Cronin -- Wikipedia; Carlos A Schwantes,  "Protest in a Promised Land: Unemployment, Disinheritance, and the Origin of Labor Militancy in the Pacific Northwest, 1885-1886;" The Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 4. (Oct., 1982), pp. 373-390; C. J. Lind, The Chinese Must Go," Tacoma News-Tribune, 1972-02-08; San Francisco Chronicle 1886-04-11 p 10.
The Anti-Chinese Conspirators 煽动排华主谋人

Considering that so much violence against Chinese occurred in so many parts of California and the Northwest during the years 1875-1877, anyone would think that there was a connection -- that the similarity of scenarios and speeches by anti-Chinese elements points to central planning and control.  But who were these planners?  The obvious candidates are the leaders of the Knights of Labor, an organization with a strongly racist ideology and the influence, size, and geographic reach needed to pull such a conspiracy off. 

The only problem with such a theory is the Knights' long-standing distaste for actual violence.  Grand Master Workman Terence Powdermaker, the leader of the Knights, was strongly opposed to the dynamite-throwing favored by radical socialists and nihilists.  Most authorities agree that he was effective in suppressing the violent tendencies of his more extreme followers.
But then how to explain the many riots, killings, and drivings-out of the Chinese in 1885-1887?.  One possibility is that they were planned by a secretive, violent extremist group, the International Workingmen's Association, operating within the larger Knights of Labor.  The West Coast (and only active American) branch of the IWA, originally British, was founded by one Burnette Haskell, a  California lawyer.  He set it up as a series of cells, much like those favored by European radicals, and seems to have maintained a high level of internal secrecy.   Curiously, in view of the internationalist ideology of his movement, he adopted the anti-Chinese stance of rank-and-file members of the Knights.  In 1883-84 he organized a IWA affiliate in Eureka, where it played a key role in driving out Chinese in February, 1885.  In February, 1886 he appeared as a leader at the Knights of Labor's Anti-Chinese Congress in Portland, where he was acclaimed as the Chairman of the key Committee on Resolutions and gave interviews to the press describing how Chinese would soon be driven out of Portland.
Burnette Haskell
Terence V Powderly
"Anaconda Letter: Four Chinamen Blown into Eternity (04-16, p 4)

"Following upon the heels of this __ event was one of the most dastardly, diabolic and successful attempts upon human life ever made in Montana.  A little after __ o'clock a loud explosion startled the whole town.  This was followed in four or five minutes by another, still louder and, as it proved, more destructive in its character.  The place was now thoroughly aroused and men flocked from every direction  to the point __ which the explosions __ __.  Your correspondent was among the first upon the ground.  A heart sickening scene presented itself.  Two dead Chinamen blown out of shape and beyond recognition, another in the agonies of death, a fourth mortally wounded, and four others more of less wounded were lying among the logs and debris of a completely demolished building.

"The facts as I gathered them are as follows.  The building which was situated on front street two blocks below Main was used as a wash house, and at the time of the explosion contained eight Chinamen. 

"Some FIEND OF FIENDS in human shape had placed two sticks of giant powder [a dynamite-like high explosive – eds.] under the building—one near its front and the other near its rear.  The fuses to each were cut at different lengths, the one near the rear of the structure being the shorter.  At this end of the building a Chinaman was over the tub washing clothes.  At the first explosion the unfortunate heathen was blown out and struck the ground dead.  The others were sleeping in the front room of the building.  One of them immediately arose and struck a match.  He had just lighted a lamp when the second explosion occurred, killing him and wounding the others as above noted.  Drs. Gleason and Hardenbrook who were soon upon the ground took one of the poor unfortunates into an adjoining building and, while they were dressing his wounds, his spirit took its everlasting flight to the boson of Confucius. Another pf the victims is probably dead by this time while two others may live a day or two longer.

"CORONER M ____  came up from Deer Lodge on the evening train to hold an inquest upon the remains of the dead Chinamen,  At this writing, the verdict of the jury is not known.  But it is questionable whether any facts will be elicited which may lead to the apprehension of the perpetrators of this most dastardly and unprovoked murder.  The building and the one adjoining it, which is also run by Chinamen, are owned by Joe Loong.  The restaurant was not injured.

"A narrow alley separates these buildings from a fine large brick structure owned by Mr. Quigley.  This building is used as a saloon.  At the time of the explosion a __ lively stud poker game was running in it and several men were leaning __ the bar.  The shock broke every glass in the double door and front windows.  The inmates instead __ running out __ __ the rear __ __.  this act doubtless saved the lived of many of them.  Had they run out and back to the alley when the second explosion took place a larger death tool would be recorded.  [1½ more paragraphs; unintelligible]"

"Anaconda Explosion (04-17,p 4)

"Since the letter of yesterday morning, published in the Miner, no new facts have been developed in regard to the cause of the explosion in Anaconda.  There are several theories concerning the affair—one that the deed was done by friends of two men who were sent to the country jail recently for breaking into the house which was blowing up, pillaging it, throwing beer kegs through the window, and beating one of the inmates unmercifully.  Another theory is that the place was an opium joint, and that one or two young white girls had been induced to enter it; that while there they were persuaded into smoking opium, and that other and greater evils resulted; that it was for this reason that the place was blown up.  There is no positive evidence in regard to either of these theories, and the last one mentioned seems hardly probable, as the Chinamen could not but know that such an act in Montana would surely result in their death.  Parties who were in Anaconda since the explosion say the men killed were horribly mangled and that the two men yet living are expected to die.  As first they were not supposed to be much hurt, as no wounds were apparent, but it has since been ascertained that they are seriously injured internally."
The Anaconda Explosions, April 1885: The First Organized Labor Murders or Private Revenge?  阿纳孔达五華工遇害 - 是谋杀?是报复?

The following two articles appeared in the Butte (Montana) Daily Miner on April 16 and 17, 1885.  By far the most complete descriptions of the explosions, they have not been republished since 1885.  The only available images of the newspaper are very difficult to read.  Anaconda, incidentally, is about 30 miles from Butte.
The great smelter smoke stack at Anaconda, said to be the tallest free-standing masonry structure in the world, surrounded by slag and mining debris.  Built in 1911, the stack postdates the Chinese period at Anaconda.  Photo from Wikipedia Commons
Were the killings connected with organized labor's anti-Chinese movement, which was already active in much of the West?  Possibly.  The early stages of the West Coast anti-Chinese campaign were widely reported in Montana, and five months later, the local Knights of Labor ordered all Chinese to leave Butte and Anaconda by October 1.  Those in Anaconda left immediately, although at least some of those in Butte stayed.  Chinese cooks and waiters in Anaconda were all replaced by Knights (New York Times 1885-09-21, p 1; 1885-11-07, p 3 )

Most newspapers mention a detail that was skipped by the Miner: that the murderers were professional wood choppers, producing firewood for sale.  There had been previous trouble between white and Chinese wood choppers.  In 1881, according to the Helena (MT) Daily Independent (1881-12-20), "a band of over a hundred Chinamen were chopping wood near Blacktail gulch at seventy-five cents per cord.  This was less than half the price charged by the whites.  It was understood that on Saturday about one hundred wood-choppers near Butte banded together and started for the Chinese camp with the avowed purpose of 'seeing it out.' " Hence, it seems possible that labor issues did play a role in the killings, although personal motives seem also to have been involved.

A later article by the Times (1901-07-10, p 1) states that the Chinese government was seeking compensation for the killing and expulsion of Chinese that took place in Butte in 1886.  Those killings may actually have been those that occurred at Anaconda in April, 1885.
The Chinese were not all driven out of Butte.  They stayed until the 1970s or 80s, producing both the noted Chinese-American historian, Rose Hum Lee, and also a Chinatown that included this building, now the home of the Mai Wah Museum.
The story was picked up in brief notices by a number of national and regional newspapers, including the New York Sun (1885-04-17, p 2); the San Francisco Chronicle (1885-04-21, p 3), the Maysville (KY) Daily Evening Bulletin (1885-04-18, p 1), and the Syracuse (NY) Standard (1885-04-19, p 2).  The New York Times, on the other hand, did not pay attention until September 1886, when the Chinese government claimed indemnity for the killings (1886-09-04, p 5). Interestingly, the Times stated that only two Chinese laundrymen were killed.

The non-Montana newspapers seem to have accepted the theory that the attackers were seeking revenge for their imprisonment, paying no attention to the Daily Miner's enticingly racist fantasy about white girls lured into smoking opium and experiencing "other and greater evils."
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Coal and Ethnic Cleansing: Driving Chinese from Washington's Mines

Coal was a more dangerous ethnic flashpoint than was gold during the driving-out years in the Pacific Northwest, 1885 and 1886.  For one thing, coal was of much more interest to the Knight of Labor.  Coal mines tended to be bigger than gold mines, to employ more men, and to be owned and run by big-city corporations, all of which made them optimal targets for organizing by labor unions.  From the 1880s onward, the owners/managers of such mines regularly sought to hire Chinese.  Just as regularly, the unions objected, often violently.  Wyoming's Rock Creek Massacre, supported by (and probably organized by elements within) the Knights of Labor, featured white and Chinese coal miners employed by the mining division of the Union Pacific Railroad.  
In Washington State too, much anti-Chinese violence in 1885 and 1886 was coal mine-related.  All of it took place at mines in the Pacific Coal Region of Washington State, on the western flanks of the Cascades: at Coal Creek, Newcastle, Renton, Black Diamond, Franklin, and Carbonado.  Together with coalmines at Nanaimo and Cumberland on Vancouver Island, those Washington mines fueled most steam ships on the West Coast, as well as the majority of railroad locomotives and coal gas plants west of the Sierras and Cascades

It is interesting to note that that Coal Creek and Issaquah, the site of the Squak Massacre, are on opposite sides of Cougar Mountain and less than five miles apart.  The first attacks on Chinese miners at Coal Creek and Newcastle, one mile further downhill, were made on September 11, four days after the Squak shootings of September 7.  Whether any of the same people were involved is unclear, but there can be no doubt that whites and Chinese at Coal Creek-Newcastle were intimately familiar with the Squak events.

The Coal Creek-Newcastle attack was carried out by heavily armed,
masked white men: “They came to the place where he [Robert Wood, a white employee of the mine who became a witness for the government] was at work and took hold of a Chinaman employed there and took him away with them towards the house, which was soon thereafter destroyed.  Violence was used against the Chinese, and one of them was choked by a person in a mask.”  [Note 1] .


By September 29, according to the New York Times, all Chinese workers at coal mines in the Coal Creek-Newcastle-Renton area had been discharged.  The cause was threats against both Chinese and mine owners.  On the same day, delegates from several mining areas, including Renton, Black Diamond, Newcastle. and—perhaps significantly—Squak/Issaquah attended a widely publicized anti-Chinese meeting in Seattle, sponsored by the Knights of Labor. [Note 2]

On October 12, "strong efforts" were made to intimidate Chinese employed at the Franklin (and presumably the neighboring Black Diamond) coal mines.    At Franklin, a building from which the Chinese had been expelled was burned. [Note 3]

By February 13, 1886, the expulsion gangs having moved further south, Chinese had been removed from Southern Paciifc Railroad's coal mines at Carbonado. 

Chinese coal sorters at Newcastle Mine, Washington, 1884
Note 1: "Report of the Governor of Washington Territory," in Report of the
    Secretary of the Interior for ... 1886.  Washington: Government Printing
    Office, 1886, Vol II, pp 901, 911
Note 2: New York Times 1885-09-30, p 1; Sacramento Record-Union 1885-09-24 p 1
Note 3: "Governor's Report" 1886, p 866.
Note 4 Squire to Endicott, Sec''y of War.  "Governor's Report" 1886: p 859
    For a summary of the coal-related geology of western Washington, see http://www.washington.edu/uwired/outreach/cspn/Website/Course%20Index/Lessons/15/15.html
    The Newcastle mine picture is from Ernest Ingersoll, "From the Fraser to the Columbia," Harper's Monthly, May 1884, p 875
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The Connection between the Squak Massacre and the Coal Creek Expulsion 

It is usual to consider that the killing of the Squak hop-pickers was an isolated rural event, with local causes and, in spite of the Chinese-depriving-us-of-jobs rhetoric used, unconnected with the contemporary anti-Chinese campaign of the Knights of Labor.  Most historians have discounted the idea of a connection even though the expulsion of Chinese from Coal Creek, unquestionably carried out by the Knights, happened only five days after the Squak Massacre and only five miles away.

Now, however, there is direct evidence of a connection.  The following article appeared in the anti-Chinese and pro-labor Sacramento Daily Record-Union on September 11, 1885, the same day as the Coal Creek events. 
"The Attack on the Chinese Hop-Pickers

"Seattle, September 10th -- Five white men--Percy Bayne, Sam Robertson, Jos. Day, M. D.Rumsey, and D. W. Hughes--and two Indians were arrested and brought to this city this morning, charged with conspiracy in the massacre of the Chinese at Squak.  It appears that a regular conspiracy had been formed to drive the Chinese from Squak Valley.  The plan was first to visit the Chinese camp at the mines and Coal Creek, and then to attack those in the hop field.  This plan partially failed through the weakening of some of the conspirators, and the hop-pickers' camp only was attacked..."  (Record-Union, 1885-09-11, p 4)
Though based in California, the newspaper seems to have had excellent sources in Washington.  Its staff may have known in advance that another attack on Coal Creek was planned for the day this article was published.
Mrs. H. Scovile's memories of the riot: a 1938 interview

"What I remember best about the early days in Seattle in the Chinese riots in 1886.

"My husband came home one Sunday morning and told me an officer from the Home Guards had come into the church and commanded all the men to report for duty at once.

"There were a number of Chinese in Seattle then, some running laundries, others having cigar stores, and so on.  The people of the town had become incensed at the idea of Orientals being allowed to carry on business when Americans needed work.

"The Committee of Fifteen had told the Chinese that they must go, get out of town, by a certain date.  A steamer from San Francisco would be in the harbor on that date, and they must go aboard.

"The Chinese began selling off their goods and equipment.  My husband and I decided to buy a laundry. We knew nothing about the laundry business but we thought we could learn.

"We bought the laundry and all the equipment for almost nothing, and opened for business.  We prospered, the business grew fast, and we never regretted buying a laundry at a bargain sale."

Mrs. Scovile, described as "an English type; stoutish, round-faced, rosy complexion. Interested in everything going on," was interviewed by Verna L. Stamolis as part of a WPA project.   Mrs. Scovile seems to have remembered her takeover of a Chinese business as just luck on her and her husband's part.  However, they would have had to move fast to choose a particular laundry and then "buy" it from the owner as he left, on one or two days' notice.  The Scoviles may well have joined in driving the owner out.

Library of Congress American Memory files, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?wpa:5:./temp/~ammem_gggc::