Violence and Racial Tension in the Labor Camp
A physical altercation between a white cowboy and a Chinese cook over breakfast coffee results in a stabbing and a manhunt.
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.
Word was brought to the city on Friday last that George Morris, one of the cowboys in the employ of P. J. Flint, had been dangerously stabbed by the Chinaman who cooked for the camp. It seems that the boys had been making life a burden for the Chinaman, who told Mr. Flint that he couldn’t stand it any longer; but Mr. Flint persuaded him to stay, and told his men to let the Celestial alone. Some little difficulty occurred at the breakfast table Friday morning over the character of the coffee, and it resulted in Morris picking up a club and going for the Chinaman and the latter grabbing a long knife from the table, with which he made a lunge at Morris, the blade entering the breast near the left nipple, making a very ugly and dangerous wound. The Chinaman then went to his bunk, got his revolver and skipped. Dr. Heg was summoned, and the sheriff notified at once. The country has been pretty thoroughly scoured by officers and cowboys, but the Chinaman is still at large. Morris is in a precarious condition, but the doctor thinks he will pull through.
This incident exposes the brutal environment of late 19th-century labor camps, where systemic harassment of immigrant workers often pushed desperate individuals to defensive violence. Such reports highlight the pervasive racial tension in the Pacific Northwest during the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
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