U.S. Marshal Transports Prisoners to McNeil Island
A roundup of prisoners sent to the federal penitentiary highlights the era's aggressive and exclusionary legal climate.
Saturday night U.S. Marshal Hopkins arrived in New Tacoma with three prisoners en route to the U.S. Penitentiary on McNeil Island. They were sentenced at the recent term of court at Port Townsend, and go up for terms varying from six months to two years. Two of the prisoners were convicted of smuggling Chinamen across from British Columbia, and the third goes up for selling liquor to Indians. Marshal Hopkins took his men from here to Steilacoom by wagon, returning this morning with James Aula, who is under indictment for defrauding the revenue as a wholesale liquor dealer, and who will be tried at this term of court.
“Two of the prisoners were convicted of smuggling Chinamen across from British Columbia, and the third goes up for selling liquor to Indians.”
This reporting documents the harsh legal machinery used to enforce the anti-Chinese exclusion acts and colonial liquor restrictions of the 1880s, revealing how federal control was exerted over the Puget Sound region during the Territory's expansion.
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