In Pursuit of Gold: Chinese American Miners and Merchants in the American West
296
In Pursuit of Gold: Chinese American Miners and Merchants in the American West
296Paperback(1st Edition)
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Overview
While most research has focused on Chinese miners in California, this book is the first extensive study of Chinese experiences in the towns of John Day in Oregon and Tuscarora, Island Mountain, and Gold Creek in Nevada. Chung illustrates the relationships between miners and merchants within the communities and in the larger context of immigration, arguing that the leaders of the Chinese and non-Chinese communities worked together to create economic interdependence and to short-circuit many of the hostilities and tensions that plagued other mining towns.
Peppered with fascinating details about these communities from the intricacies of Chinese gambling games to the techniques of hydraulic mining, In Pursuit of Gold draws on a wealth of historical materials, including immigration records, census manuscripts, legal documents, newspapers, memoirs, and manuscript collections. Chung supplements this historical research with invaluable first-hand observations of artifacts that she experienced in archaeological digs and restoration efforts at several of the sites of the former booming mining towns.
In clear, analytical prose, Chung expertly characterizes the movement of Chinese miners into Oregon and Nevada, the heyday of their mining efforts in the region, and the decline of the communities due to changes in the mining industry. Highlighting the positive experiences and friendships many of the immigrants had in these relatively isolated mining communities, In Pursuit of Gold also suggests comparisons with the Chinese diaspora in other locations such as British Columbia and South Africa.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780252080548 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Illinois Press |
| Publication date: | 09/10/2014 |
| Series: | Asian American Experience |
| Edition description: | 1st Edition |
| Pages: | 296 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
IN PURSUIT OF GOLD
Chinese American Miners and Merchants in the American WestBy Sue Fawn Chung
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
Copyright © 2011 Board of Trustees of the University of IllinoisAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-252-03628-6
Introduction
Tens of thousands of Chinese came to the United States in pursuit of gold in the late nineteenth century. A popular late nineteenth-century Cantonese song described how "the Spirit of Money" graced a miner's home so that "in one blink" he had become a rich young man with gold and silver, no longer facing a desperate financial situation. Few Chinese gold seekers were that fortunate however, and most faced many adversities. By examining the miners and merchants living in three small, relatively isolated, predominantly Chinese mining towns and other contemporary mining camps scattered throughout the American West, some insights into their lives has been possible: what their experiences were and how they compared to other Chinese mining communities, what Chinese traditions and practices they preserved, if and how they were financially successful, and what contributions they made to the development of the American West. Despite discriminatory laws and anti-Chinese movements, some merchants and miners flourished, bought and sold land, businesses, and mining claims, and remained in the United States for many decades.The miners and merchants in the three towns of John Day, Oregon; Tuscarora, Nevada; and Island Mountain, Nevada, were selected for this study because the Chinese were among the early miners there; during the formative years in the history of the towns, they constituted the majority of the town's residents. The towns were established after the initial gold rush, so some of the Chinese miners and merchants had lived in other American mining towns and were probably familiar with some American ways. The three towns were in relatively isolated, mountainous areas having inhospitable weather: snow and cold in the winter, and heat in the summer. The climate and terrain were very different from the tropical, humid, and hilly southeastern China and adjustments to the environment had to be made quickly. The difficulty in reaching these mountainous places by wagon or foot meant that all of the residents became interdependent upon one another and were not caught up in the whirlwind of anti-Chinese rhetoric that was characteristic of larger EuroAmerican dominated mining towns. The influence of "outsiders" often was limited.
The Chinese helped build the towns and irrigation ditches and made the area productive—at first for mining, and later for agricultural production. They paid taxes and other fees that contributed to the funds of local and state governments. They purchased food products and other items from the local community members, especially EuroAmerican store owners and farmers, and supported the freighters who transported goods to and from the mining towns. In general during this early period between 1850 and 1900 they were not driven out of these three towns and they did not have their homes burned, common occurrences elsewhere.
The leaders of the communities, both EuroAmerican and Chinese, were not hostile toward each other and laid a foundation for a more harmonious atmosphere that was not found in most other mining towns during a time of virulent anti-Chinese sentiment. The limited size of the Chinese population permitted a closer examination of these communities over time through census data, archaeological finds, government records, oral interviews, and newspapers. These Chinese taught the other ethnic groups in the community about Chinese culture, foods, and beliefs, and had the opportunity to learn more about America than some of their fellow countrymen. In at least one town, their relationship with Native Americans involved recreational activities and even some marriages. In all of the towns, at least one Chinese resident remained there long after mining declined and could not be considered a "sojourner." In some ways the merchants and miners in these towns were similar to other gold miners and merchants in the Chinese diaspora but in many cases, as discussed in the conclusion, there were differences—so many previously held generalizations are not valid.
When the California gold fields began to be depleted in the mid-1850s, miners searched for new deposits. The two closest, uncharted territories were Oregon to the north and Nevada to the east. Like the EuroAmerican miners, the Chinese explored these areas and in the mid-1850s a substantial number of them began mining outside of California.
The mining communities in California have been studied and have not been considered in depth in this work because in all of the famous towns, the Chinese represented a minority of the population. At the same time it is important to note that California's mining laws and anti-Chinese movements influenced most of the mining communities in the American West. With the mid-1850s gold decline and completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, the California miners, both Chinese and EuroAmerican, moved to Oregon, Nevada, Idaho, Washington, British Columbia, Montana, and elsewhere in search of new sites. EuroAmericans brought with them the prejudice and racism against the Chinese that had developed in California and that contributed to the violence that the Chinese immigrants often encountered.
The Chinese were not unlike other immigrants in their dreams of instant wealth, new opportunities, and a better life. Until the late nineteenth century when gold mining was primarily taken over by large corporations with expensive machinery, the Chinese were involved in ephemeral placer mining, sometimes with the use of hydraulic equipment, throughout the American West, and sometimes into more capital-intensive quartz mining. A few brought with them some prior knowledge of mining techniques. The Chinese immigrants had a reputation of working hard as individuals or in groups, or for mine owners as wage laborers. Their success at making a profit from abandoned claims became legendary in the gold fields. But few have found answers as to how this was possible.
They faced enormous challenges from hostile miners who wrote anti-Chinese regulations to govern their districts and influenced state and federal legislation. When economic depression and high unemployment affected the EuroAmerican miners, they targeted the Chinese as a major cause of their plight because of the low wages paid them. In the 1870s Chinese miners earned $1.30 to $2 per day, with skilled miners earning $3 per day and foremen getting $4 to $10 dollars per day.5 Ditch diggers, working ten to twelve hours per day, were paid $2.25 to $3 per day. EuroAmerican miners generally earned twice as much, but to compete with the Chinese they sometimes received only $2.75 without board. The low wages gave the Chinese an image of "cheap" workers, but a closer study of payroll records of the period may indicate otherwise when wages were not averaged but viewed in terms of work classification.
The Chinese presence coincided with a growing "color" consciousness that developed prior to and after the Civil War and the founding of labor unions whose leaders found a common enemy of the working man—the Chinese—that expanded union membership, united the new members, and helped them gain the support of aspiring politicians and many newspaper men. In this period of social Darwinism, a belief in the superiority of the white man, the influx of "different looking" new immigrants from eastern Europe, the growing nonmainstream religious groups such as Jews and Mormons, and the development of nativism and racism led to the Chinese becoming a scapegoat in anti-Chinese campaigns that were part of a larger phenomenon.
The miners' relationship to Chinese merchants played an important role in their lives. Sometimes these merchants left fragmentary records in these or other locations that provide information about what probably occurred. The merchants, who usually were literate in Chinese (e.g., could read and write) and who knew some English, often were the leaders of the community and interfaced with the EuroAmerican community leaders. They frequently acted as labor brokers, dealt with the "boss headman" of teams of miners who worked for Chinese owners/investors or EuroAmerican mine owners, and provided goods for both independent and company miners. Most also had non-Chinese customers. The merchant's main profits came from the goods sold to the miners and the monthly credit extended at the general store as was done in China. They ordered goods from China and, as in the case of Lem Hong Ng of Island Mountain, sent items used by the Cantonese to China in a continuing trans-Pacific trade. The cost of transporting goods from China to the Pacific Coast towns and cities was very reasonable because the ships carrying heavy loads like lumber to China did not want to return to the United States empty or with light loads, so items like altars and deities for temples and association headquarters, clothing, foodstuffs, dishware, and wooden rocker boxes used by miners were inexpensively shipped to Chinese American stores. Often goods were sold on credit, which had to be paid in full by Chinese New Year, in keeping with Chinese tradition. Many merchants had some rudimentary knowledge of American laws so they could advise the miners and contact the Chinese associations or EuroAmerican lawyers if there was trouble that had to be solved on the larger scale. They also might pay the taxes and other fees on behalf of the miners, an amount deducted from the miners' wages. They updated the miners on changes in the American laws. Some also participated in mining. They played a critical role in the pursuit of gold.
Because the miners themselves left few written records, a variety of sources and approaches, especially historical, archaeological, and sociological, on the topic have been used. Immigration and business records; census manuscripts (also called population schedules); archaeological site reports; newspaper articles; memoirs; oral histories; local, state, and federal records; laws; and summaries of legal judgments provided the foundation for this study. More often than not, examples of the experiences of the Chinese miners and merchants were selected from documents describing the situation in other locations that were probably similar. Although generalizations can be made, the importance of the individual and his accomplishments has been recognized.
The Bureau of the Census provided basic information. Census summaries and census manuscripts were not always accurate but gave an indication of the number of Chinese in any given location. The number of Chinese miners fluctuated between 1860 and 1880. In 1860 California's Chinese population was 34,933 out of a state total of 379,994; some 24,282 of the Chinese were miners. Miners in Oregon and Nevada were not a significant number until the 1870 census. In 1870 California's Chinese population rose to 49,277 (of which 9,087 were miners) out of a state total of 560,247. Based on tabulations from the census manuscript for 1870 (as opposed to the summaries), economist Ping Chiu counted 14,415 Chinese miners and historian Sucheng Chan tallied a higher figure of 16,000 for California. The count probably did not include the 75 to 150 Chinese who lived and worked in the isolated, mountainous, rich mining community of present-day Hite's Cove, Mariposa County, not far from Yosemite. They were too far away and isolated for the census taker to count. In 1870 Oregon's Chinese population was 3,330 out of a state total of 90,923, of which 1,516 of the Chinese, or 45.5 percent, were miners, mostly concentrated in mountainous eastern Oregon. Oregon's total number of miners was 2,476 so the Chinese represented a large percentage and played a major role in the development of Oregon's early mining history. In 1870 Nevada's Chinese population was 3,123, or 7.3 percent of the total state's population of 42,491, with only 228 Chinese listed as miners. In the 1870s mining was a major occupation for both Oregon and Nevada and continued to be so in the 1880s.
The profile of the overall population changed in between 1880 and 1890, the height of the Chinese population in the American West. California was still the primary place of residence for the Chinese. In 1880 California saw its largest Chinese population growth, an increase from 25,855 (1870) to 75,132. Economic historian Ping Chiu counted 15,055 Chinese as miners. Nevada had a total of 8,241 miners but only 343 Chinese miners (out of a total Chinese population of 5,416 [8.7 percent] of the state's total population of 62,266). The census takers in Nevada were careful about who deserved the coveted title of "miner": a person who worked in a mine, did placer mining, or worked for a mining company full time. Moreover, only one occupation could be listed, so if an individual was only a half-time miner, he was not labeled a miner. If the newspapers and other literature were even somewhat accurate, then these Nevada census figures were far below the actual number of Chinese miners. Just as the Chinese were very visible in Nevada, in 1880 the Chinese population in Oregon grew to 9,510 with 3,965 Chinese miners who worked primarily in eastern Oregon. In comparison, although Idaho had a large Chinese population of 4,274 in 1870, anti-Chinese movements and mining declines saw a substantial drop in the Chinese population from 3,379 to 2,007 between 1880 and 1890. By 1880 the character of the mining industry changed as the majority of miners either worked for EuroAmerican or Chinese mining companies, leaving few of the independent miners of the 1860s and 1870s.
This study utilized the United States Bureau of the census manuscripts for 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 that have been microfilmed by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Service and the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) online database of individuals living in Nevada prior to 1930. The critical 1890 census manuscript for the West was accidentally destroyed in a fire, creating an important gap in information. All scholars have agreed that the census manuscripts provided an inaccurate snapshot of the Chinese individuals in their communities and yet they have been the only indicators of the residents of communities. Census figures differed greatly from the estimates published in the local newspapers and from statistical analyses done by scholars like Sucheng Chan. The 1860 census of Chinese in eastern Washington counted 420 Chinese east of the Cascades while the Oregonian (Portland) estimated 1,000 to 1,200 Chinese miners in Oregon, the same general region, in 1857. This kind of difference in figures existed in most locations throughout the American West because it was so difficult to count the Chinese, in part owing to the difficulty in spelling their names or obtaining the other information required for the census. If the census taker could not obtain the data from a Chinese "headman," he often opted not to count the Chinese at all. During the decades before 1880 (and even afterwards in some cases), it was easier to not count them or simply list them as "Chinese" or "Chinaman" with no additional information, as was done, for example, in the case of Nez Perce County, Idaho, in 1870 and the 1875 Nevada state census for Elko County.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from IN PURSUIT OF GOLD by Sue Fawn Chung Copyright © 2011 by Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Foreword Roger Daniels ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction xv
Note on transliteration of Names xxix
1 The Coming and Early Challenges 1
2 Onward to Eastern Oregon 46
3 Eastward to Northeastern Nevada: Tuscarora 82
4 Farther East: Island Mountain and Gold Creek 122
Conclusion 171
Notes 185
Bibliography 215
Index 243