Chinese Miners in the California Gold Rush: 1848–1888

Chinese Immigration and the Gold Rush

The 1848 discovery of gold in California attracted miners from throughout the nation and of diverse backgrounds, all with the goal of striking it rich. Among them were individuals from other countries who believed this would be a far better opportunity than their present way of life. These included the Chinese, who were drawn together by a common language and culture and settled in camps along the tributaries of the Yuba and Bear Rivers. The 1852 census recorded 3,396 Chinese living in Nevada County. By 1880, they constituted 22% of California's mining population and represented the largest single nationality engaged in mining. The Chinese, who made significant contributions to the economy, trade, and industry, were first appreciated and then disdained, ridiculed, and discriminated against because of their strong work ethic.

The news of the gold discovery was sent via trading vessels across the Pacific Ocean. The information spread quickly from the shipping docks at Hong Kong throughout mainland China. By 1851, 25,000 Chinese had left their homes for California — the land of gum saan, or "gold mountain." The majority of these emigrants were part of a larger exodus of people leaving China's southeast Guangdong, or Canton, Province in search of better economic opportunities and political freedom (McClain, 1994).

From Welcome to Resentment: Anti-Chinese Legislation

At first, Californians welcomed the Chinese. For a number of years, they provided a convenient supply of labor. As late as 1868, the Burlingame Treaty between the United States and China encouraged free immigration between the two countries. However, completion of the first transcontinental railroad after the Civil War brought more white laborers into the West (Quaife, 1949, p. 126). Not only did custom, habit, and language isolate these unusual immigrants from native-born Americans, but white miners soon came to resent the hard work and thriftiness of these new Asian arrivals and their willingness to work longer hours for lower wages. This deflated the price of labor in the gold fields, which led rapidly to anti-Chinese riots and discriminatory legislation.

By 1852, the California legislature passed a foreign miners' tax. In the following year, anti-Chinese riots and demonstrations erupted in San Francisco. These were followed in 1855 by California legislation that levied a fifty-dollar head tax on all Chinese immigrants. With all these difficulties, the good-natured and bewildered Chinese could do little to help themselves (McClain, 1994).

There was a strong movement to expel all Chinese and bar them from entering the country, but this effort was vetoed by President Hayes. The controversy continued in the press and in the legislature, but the principles of the American Constitution overruled the desired legislation. The country was open to everyone, and the Chinese were entitled to equal rights (Borthwick, 1998, p. 232). In some areas of the mines, however, miners ran things their own way and did not allow the Chinese to join them. The Asians were not usually bothered, however, because they worked such poor digging areas that it was not worth the effort to drive them out (Seager, 1959, p. 49).

Legal Exclusion and Labor Exploitation

When not employed by mining companies, the Chinese patiently reworked mining districts that Americans had abandoned. For this allowance, they were required to pay a small monthly tax for approximately twenty years. Their worst concern was their lack of legal rights. They were not permitted to vote or to testify in court for or against a white man. As a result, Americans killed them or took their gold without fear of punishment, until the federal courts struck down most of the varied anti-Chinese state and municipal laws in the 1870s (Fessler, 1974).

There were also instances in which Chinese men of higher social classes directed the work and paid common laborers very poor wages. A Chinese worker could be hired for two, or at most three, dollars a day by any individual who thought his labor worth that amount. However, workers were likely paid at an even lower rate. It was well known that whole shiploads of Chinese came to the United States under a form of bondage to wealthy countrymen in San Francisco, who, as soon as the workers arrived, shipped them to the mines under the charge of an agent. They were then kept completely under control and largely outside the protections of American law (Fessler, 1974).