The Shadow of the Anti-Chinese Expulsions in Squak Valley
Court testimony reveals a night of armed intimidation and a lethal 'misunderstanding' at a hop farm in 1885.
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.
In the courtroom, Samuel Robertson testified regarding the events at the hop farm in Squak Valley on September 7th, 1885. Robertson recounted how he and several others, including Perry Bayne and Dan Hughes, had congregated at Tibbett's store, which served as a local post office and gathering place. Armed with Winchester rifles, the group sought to 'drive the Chinamen out' of the valley, citing opposition to Wold Brothers' introduction of cheap labor. Robertson detailed how he obtained a gun from an Indian man named 'Joe' and how the group eventually proceeded to the hop house where Chinese laborers were stationed. As they approached the fence, shots were fired. Robertson claimed he acted in self-defense, but the defense argued that the shooting was a result of a confrontation where they had merely intended to intimidate the laborers into leaving. The testimony paints a picture of a coordinated, armed effort to forcibly remove laborers during the peak of the hop-picking season, a campaign that culminated in a deadly exchange of gunfire.
“I told Jim Graham to come and go with us to Wold's, as we were going up to drive the Chinamen out.”
This 1885 testimony documents the 'anti-coolie' riots that swept the Pacific Northwest. It serves as a stark reminder that Seattle's current labor and housing tensions are not new; the same rhetoric about 'cheap labor' destroying local livelihoods was used to fuel the violent forced expulsions of Chinese communities across Washington territory over a century ago.
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