“The result of my investigation is herewith submitted, embodied in the statements of citizens resident there for long periods, and present on the day of the outrages—eyewitnesses, in fact, of one of the most murderous, cruel, and uncalled-for outrages ever perpetrated in any Christian country.” - Frederick Alonzo Bee Chinese Consul to San Francisco writing about the Rock Springs Massacre in 1885
In the 1880s, coal was the lifeblood of the Union Pacific Railroad. Along the length of the railroad tracks the steam engines required fuel and water.
Much of the route of the railroad was near the confluence of river systems with the gigantic coal beds of the West. Rock Springs in Wyoming Territory was blessed with an abundance of coal recoverable near the surface.
Unlike mines in the East, it sometimes was possible to produce large quantities of coal without expensive and dangerous deep shafts.
The Union Pacific Railroad operated several mines around which the town grew. As the company sought to develop large quantities of cheap coal, the mines were worked mainly with blasting agents combined with muscle power instead of fancy technology.
Being a collier, a coal miner, was a hard life. The mines had many dangers, the work was hard, and the conditions of employment were akin to wage slavery. Miners’ lives were controlled by their employers.
The company provided clothing, tools, food, and housing to the workers at high prices set by management. Miners were not paid by the hour but by the volume or weight of coal mined.
It took a lot of work to mine sufficient coal to get past the break-even point with the company. Sometimes the company controlled whether miners could move about freely, requiring passes to leave the community.
With the coming of the labor movement, the Union Pacific found itself often at odds with their employees as to conditions and wages.
As white employees swelled the ranks of unions like the Knights of Labor, the company cast around for a convenient way to break work stoppages and strikes.
They did not have to look far as there were thousands of Chinese laborers available. The Chinese generally did not join unions, and they worked for less money. Key elements for potential miner on miner violence soon fell into place.
Racism is a Swamp that Seeks to Entrap All Who Encounter it
The industrial and agriculture needs of the expansion of the West brought laborers from all over the world.
They brought with them their languages, customs, food, entertainments, religions, and their own brands of racism and ethnocentrism.
Rock Springs had a mix of Americans, Irish, British, Poles, Danes, and Chinese among others. While individuals could get along with one another there was a general reticence for the various groups to get along with one another.
The employers tended to keep the laborers working with their own. The employers did little to smooth over the dislike the employees had for one another. It served their agenda of controlling the workforce by keeping it disunited.
Along with Chinese laborers came a mostly Chinese support system. Goods and people were brought from China to support the laborers.
Chinese retailers, doctors, entrepreneurs, etc. came along to mine the Chinese miners and workers. Disputes between the Chinese were settled by the Clans rather than the U.S. courts. Well-established organized criminals, brought opium, prostitution, gambling, theft, and other criminal enterprises.
With China still controlling much of the laborers’ lives it was difficult for the Chinese to be absorbed into the American economy and social network in cases where that might have been an option.
Eventually coal companies implemented a system where the Chinese workers were given the preference of working the most productive and least dangerous chambers in the mine.
Many non-Chinese miners had the bitter experience of being let go so that industrious Chinese laborers could fill their places. Management pitted foreign miners against one another and American colliers. In doing so they fostered the conditions that pushed animosities to higher levels.
Anti-Chinese Societies
Western communities often hosted anti-Chinese societies and clubs. These groups pressed governments to implement a variety of draconian laws.
Among them were foreign miner taxes, police taxes, fishing taxes, vehicle taxes, and hospital taxes. There were charges for those who transported Chinese laborers. Many Chinese were forced to shave their ques.
They could be forbidden to discharge firearms, own property, carry vegetable baskets, work on public projects, testify in court against Caucasians, and return their dead to China.
There were notable violent episodes where mob violence was employed against the Chinese. On October 23, 1871, a shooting between Chinese criminals blew up on the following day into a gang war.
After a police officer was killed in the exchange of fire, a mob of non-Chinese Los Angelinos assembled and joined in the gunplay. A skirmish of several hours ensued. The Los Angelinos took one captured gangster from the police and hanged him.
The mob attempted to burn the Chinese out of their stronghold but, failing several times, assaulted the structure in a hail of gunfire. The Chinese toughs were shot, robbed, mutilated, and dragged into the streets.
The mob hanged fifteen men that day, at one point running out of rope and appropriating a clothesline for executions. Besides the hanged men, there were numerous corpses left in the street.
Chinese Immigration and the Election of 1880
James Garfield, a Republican, and Winfield Scott Hancock, a Democrat, faced off in one of the tightest elections in American history in 1880. The winner, Garfield, was alleged to support the expansion of cheap Chinese labor. He had ties with the Credit Mobilier Association, which was a major financier of the Union Pacific Railroad.
On Halloween 1880, two days before the presidential election, a mostly Democratic Anti-Chinese association expressed anger over the national issue of increased Chinese labor and started a saloon fight. The violence rapidly spread to other establishments.
In short order, roughly 3,000- 5,000 rioters razed Denver’s Chinatown.
Look Young, a Chinese youth, was removed from his home and lynched by the mob. Fleeing Chinese laborers and families were offered shelter in local homes, the jail, and businesses (including a brothel, saloons, and hotels.)
Few of the rioters were arrested and convicted. Many of the Chinese left Denver but enough remained to rebuild Chinatown.
The Rock Springs Horror
In 1882 ,the United States implemented the Chinese Exclusion Act, which suspended immigration by Chinese for ten years. The thousands of Chinese laborers already in the country were not deported.
They remained a bargain for the employers. The Rock Springs mines maintained a loose ratio of one white worker to three or four Chinese. It was an issue which did not set well with the white laborers. Through the 1870s, the payroll at the mines grew by hundreds but the ratio kept the white workers in a shrinking minority.
In 1885, at the Rock Springs coal mines, colliers were assigned locations within the mine to work as teams. However, disputes arose over who was assigned the best working areas. The mines preferred to put their most productive workers in the best mining chambers.
Chinese miners recognized their preferential status in the eyes of their employers and sometimes, on their own volition, took over prime mining chambers from non-Chinese colliers. Such an event occurred on September 1 when a dispute arose over new chambers for mine number six.
Chinese workers took over a chamber worked that day by Isaiah Whitehouse, a territorial legislature representative elect. That night a meeting was held in the Knights of Labor Hall, which appears to have increased the tension.
Despite there being plenty of witnesses, the facts of the day remain muddled and biased against the accounts of the Chinese.
On the morning of September 2, Whitehouse claimed to return to mine six to complete setting off the charges he had placed the previous day. Chinese colliers arrived early that morning and occupied his working chamber. Whitehouse claimed to have tried to resolve the issue through unsuccessful negotiation.
Chinese workers set off Whitehouse’s charges and loaded up the fruits of his work. When he protested. a Chinese collier insulted Whitehouse’s mother and attacked Isaiah with a pick. Whitehouse knocked his attacker to the ground. The sounds of the fighting brought colliers from both camps to the location where a general melee occurred.
Whitehouse was hit in the stomach with a pick. The union miners surrounded the man who laid Whitehouse low and avenged their leader with three pick blows into the Chinese collier’s skull mortally wounding the man.
The donnybrook lasted about half an hour and men from each side were bloodied and beaten. Several foremen arrived at the scene and helped escort the Chinese and their wounded out of the mine.
The Mobocrats Assemble
Mine Foreman James Evans arrived and attempted to calm the situation. He enlisted Whitehouse to assist in convincing the white colliers to return to work. They were not agreeable to cooperate.
“C’mon boys; we may as well finish it now” was shouted by one of the miners. The non-Chinese went to their homes and armed themselves with edged weapons and firearms.
The mob was intercepted on its march towards Chinatown by a few citizens who convinced the armed men to leave their weapons in a store. The ringing bell at the Knights of Labor Hall announced a special meeting where the mine number six men told their version of the events of the morning.
After the meeting the mob headed for the saloons. The Union Pacific closed the taverns and grocery stores. This may have accelerated the events that day. The effect was to cast the mob onto the streets.
They armed themselves and moved towards Chinatown. Anti-Chinese slogans filled the air. Even so there was little sense of alarm in Chinatown, which was celebrating a Chinese holiday.
By 2 p.m. the mob was reinforced with additional colliers and railroad workers. A rumor that Federal troops had been sent for propelled the mob to action. Roughly 150 rioters headed to Chinatown with a large crowd of onlookers following behind.
They bought all the ammunition in the King, Gagens, and Mathews gun store. The rioters fired warning shots along the way, stirring up their passions. Before the mob entered Chinatown, three members of the mob delivered a demand for the inhabitants of Chinatown to leave Rock Springs in one hour or suffer the consequences.
The Massacre
The illusion of a peaceful day was dispelled when a red flag was raised above Chinatown. This was the signal to all its inhabitants to return. Many Chinese hastened to gather up possessions before the hour ran out.
The full hour had not passed when a rumor swept through the mob that the Chinese were preparing defenses and arming themselves. The mob abruptly pushed forward, dividing into several groups, one positioning itself so no Chinese could escape.
The firing was sporadic at first but soon volleys of gunfire echoed through the town. Many Chinese were shot as they fled. Gunsmoke and that from burning buildings blanketed the town. Men, women, and children alike fled in terror. Some carried treasured possessions, but many had to abandon all to preserve life.
Terrified fugitives often encountered small parties of rioters. Sometimes these unfortunates were robbed and/or beaten. Other times they were shot. The violence of the mob was added to by the onlookers, including women who cruelly added their own gunfire to the violence.
An estimated 600-900 Chinese scattered in all directions. Appeals to shelter among uninvolved citizens of Rock Springs were sometimes denied to the fugitives.
Safety resided in distance from the mob. It took about two hours for the mob to sweep through Chinatown the first time. It already was a scene from hell as flames licked the sky and corpses of the murdered residents littered the streets.
The fires spread adding several Chinese who had hidden out it their homes or cellars to the growing death toll. After a brief pause, a second sweep of the town by the mob finished Chinatown. Looting was widespread.
Many fugitives had no opportunity to retrieve their savings secreted somewhere in the Chinatown houses. The mob searched the mines to find any Chinese hiding in those places. They then visited the homes of individuals like foreman James Evans and convinced them to leave Rock Springs.
By evening the violence subsided in Rock Springs. Looting continued and the last of the buildings in Chinatown were burned. All around Rock Springs the desperate flight of the Chinese continued through the night. Temperatures dropped below freezing. Many fled all the way to Evanston. In Rock Springs between 51 and 79 buildings had been destroyed.
The cost in human lives is a matter of conjecture. The death toll was estimated to be between 28 and 51. Many Chinese families lost their savings and their possessions. One estimate suggested that there were approximately $150,000 in damages (roughly $4,881,000 in current value).
The Rock Spring Miners Newspaper reported, “All night long the sound of rifle and revolver was heard, and the surrounding hills were lit by the glare of the burning houses.”
The telegraph spread the word of the massacre. Sheriff Joseph Young arrived in Rock Springs in the final hours of the riot. Unable to pull together an effective posse, at 5 p.m. he contacted Territorial Governor Francis E. Warren and requested federal troops.
There was no territorial militia at that time, making the U.S. Army the only readily available peace keeping force available. Governor Warren sent a telegraph to General Oliver O. Howard, who passed the request on to his superiors.
Response of the Government
On September 3, Territorial Governor Warren and a group of dignitaries arrived in Rock Springs. The air was foul with the stench of death and burned corpses. Warren met with a delegation of rioters, who warned him that they would not permit Chinese workers to return to Rock Springs.
They meant to enforce this as they already were shooting at Chinese who approached the town attempting to return.
Ripples from the events in Rock Springs spread to Green River and Evanston. In Evanston, the Chinatown was protected by a cordon of deputies.
The Almy mine was closed. A mob organized, threatening to drive the Chinese away. There were labor stoppages and strikes at other locations.
With President Cleveland out of Washington, D.C., it took days to respond to the request for federal troops. On September 5, two companies (roughly eighty men) of federal soldiers arrived in Rock Springs.
On September 8, a reinforcement of eight companies of the 6th U.S. Infantry regiment boarded a special train to Evanston and Rock Springs. With their arrival the public disturbances came to an end.
Aftermath
Though the shooting had stopped the ramifications of the massacre were only beginning. The murders became an international incident and were protested by the Imperial Chinese government.
A formal apology was issued by the United States Government and reparations authorized. There were inquiries. Management tried to avoid blame for creating the conditions leading to the massacre.
Chinese laborers scattered by the violence were gathered up and returned to Rock Springs by rail. Many were forced to return to their razed homes.
The lucky managed to recover buried caches of coins that were missed by the looters. The returning Chinese stayed in a boxcar community as Chinatown was rebuilt. The military established Camp Pilot Butte.
The military remained there until 1899. The mines reopened with some difficulty nineteen days after the massacre.
Out of the roughly 150 members of the mob only sixteen were identified and arrested by Sheriff Young. The empaneled grand jury failed to return indictments as the court had ruled that testimony by Chinese was unreliable. Some of the mob leaders were not rehired. It was their only punishment.
News of the Rock Springs Massacre spread similar unrest. The day after news of the massacre was published in Seattle, (September 7 three Chinese hop farm laborers were murdered in nearby Squak Valley.
There was more violence to come as in the murder of roughly thirty-four Chinese Gold miners in 1887 in the Hells Canyon in Oregon. Calls for removal of the Chinese continued. Newspapers in the West often dodged affixing blame to the Union Pacific, who increased the numbers of Chinese colliers.
The importance of what one newspaper called the “Rock Springs Horror” is reflected in President Cleveland’s Message to Congress of December 8, 1855.
The President spent substantial time on the event, He repeated an unsubstantiated rumor that the murders were conducted by foreign workers, not Americans. He said: “…The recent outbreak in Wyoming Territory, where numbers of unoffending Chinamen, indisputably within the protection of the treaties and the law, were murdered by a mob, and the still more recent threatened outbreak of the same character in Washington Territory, are fresh in the minds of all, and there is apprehension lest the bitterness of feeling against the Mongolian race on the Pacific Slope may find vent in similar lawless demonstrations… Race prejudice is the chief factor in originating these disturbances, and it exists in a large part of our domain, jeopardizing our domestic peace and the good relationship we strive to maintain with China.”
Terry A. Del Bene can be reached at terrydelbene@me.com
