The Steamer Wilmington’s Illegal Cargo
A ship captain faces federal charges for allegedly importing Japanese contract laborers to work on his vessel.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Captain John Ross, master of the steamer Wilmington, who was arrested on July 14 for bringing foreign labor under contract into this country, waived a hearing yesterday before Commissioner Emery and was bound over to the United States court in the sum of $500. The offense laid at Captain Ross’s door is the hiring of a party of Japanese laborers in Victoria and bringing them into this port to unload his vessel. He claims by way of defense that they were shipped as sailors, which, if true, will clear him of the charge. The offense is covered by section 4 of an act of Congress passed February 26, 1885, which prohibits the importation of alien labor under contract.
“The offense laid at Captain Ross’s door is the hiring of a party of Japs in Victoria and bringing them into this port to unload his vessel.”
This 1892 case reflects the intersection of federal labor policy and the era’s exclusionary atmosphere. While labor laws have evolved, the tension between imported labor, local wage standards, and national policy remains a persistent feature of the Pacific Northwest’s political discourse.
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