A Refugee's Flight Across Washington
A man forced to flee for his life across Eastern Washington finds himself branded a murderer by the very people he sought to aid.
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.
Mayor Cope today received a letter from a man signing 'A. Hughes, a native of Prince Edward island.' He says he was working in a camp on the Great Northern; that he prevented an American from hitting another Canadian, and then had a fight with a rough, who called him a North American Chinaman. He was driven from one camp to another through Eastern Washington, branded as a murderer, and several times had to flee for life and hide. At one time he had to subsist for two days on bunch grass. He finally reached Vancouver, B.C., penniless and exhausted.
“At one time he had to subsist for two days on bunch grass.”
This account captures the brutal, xenophobic climate of the 1890s Pacific Northwest, where the anti-Chinese sentiment was so pervasive that even a white settler could be targeted by using it as a slur. It serves as a stark reminder of the lawless, racialized tension of work camps in early Washington territory.
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