The Chinese in San Francisco and the Minig Region of California 1848-1858
The first decade of the Chinese experience in California gave rise to and formed the basis for the racial strife which was to engulf the Chinese during the last part of the nineteenth century. The ordeal of the Chinese miners and those in other occupations during that exciting, chaotic, and often dangerous decade of the California Gold Rush was an integral part of the social, economic, and political life of the burgeoning new state, and what tran­spired between the years of 1848 and 1858 in large measure set the tone and determined the nature of racial conflicts that succeeding generations of Californians would follow. The usefulness of the Chinese as whipping boy and scapegoat, or as what historian Alexander Saxton has characterized, the "indispensable enemy," had its beginnings in the 1850's and was nutured by race prejudice, unconstitutional treatment of minorities, political extremism, and nationalism. Previous attempts to trace the history of the Chinese in California have focused on the last three decades of the nineteenth century. Not enough attention has been given to the period of the 1850's which was the interval of the earliest bitterness and which finally gave rise to legal, popular, and criminal actions against the unwelcome newcomer. Increasing awareness of racial injustices in contemporary life makes it necessary to examine the record of racial conflict in California's period of infancy, and it is the intent of this paper to demonstrate how the conditions, experiences, expectations, and prophecies originating in the 1850's controlled the course and the intensity of the strife which was to explode with full force during the latter part of the nineteenth century. The story is part of the history of the American West and is undeniably an integral part of the present. This investigation will begin with the first docu­mented arrival of the Chinese in 1848 and will cover the placer mining period of the Gold Rush. Specifically, the scope of the investigation will include the following: why and how the Chinese came to California, what they found in the new land as sojourners, the reactions of the white population to these emigrants, and some thoughts concerning the end of the sojourners' dream as the decade came to a close.
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