Vigilantes Raid Chinese Miners in Black Diamond
A mob of armed, masked men forces Chinese laborers to flee their camp, marking a sharp escalation in regional anti-Chinese hostility.
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.
A gentleman who arrived from Black Diamond yesterday afternoon states that a raid was made on the Chinamen at that camp today night. The Oregon Improvement Company, which operates the mines, discharged all the Chinese employed in its mines. The Chinamen left work Saturday evening at section 12 and put in all day Sunday in packing up and getting ready to leave on Monday’s train for Seattle. Sunday night a number of masked men, armed with guns, approached the headquarters, frightened off the Chinamen and looted their camps, tools, blankets and outfits. No violence was attempted on the persons of the Chinamen, who were allowed to flee into the forest uninjured.
“A number of masked men, armed with guns, approached the headquarters, frightened off the Chinamen and looted their camps.”
This event was a precursor to the widespread anti-Chinese riots that would soon consume the region, reflecting the brutal reality of labor-backed exclusion campaigns. Today, Black Diamond remains a town defined by its coal-mining heritage, but it has reckoned little with this period of its history where racial cleansing was used as a tool to dictate labor markets.
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