The Ghost in the Slough
The body of an unidentified Chinese man was discovered near Pioneer in a disturbing scene, underscoring the climate of violence against immigrants in the region.
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.
The body of a Chinese man was found yesterday in a slough near Pioneer. The page reports that the death was evidently a murder.
The body could not be identified. A woolen cloth was bound over the man’s mouth.
This brief, dehumanizing report from 1882 reflects the pervasive anti-Chinese sentiment that gripped the Pacific Northwest during the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Today, the site of the former Pioneer slough stands as a reminder of the violent exclusionary politics that shaped Seattle's early urban development and demographic history.
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