The Mob Rule That Swept Tacoma
While city leaders in Seattle urged calm, residents in Tacoma forcibly expelled the Chinese community, marking a dark escalation in the regional movement to purge Asian workers.
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.
Yesterday afternoon the Chinese shanties near Old Tacoma were reduced to ashes. The Chinese, who were escorted to Lake View on Tuesday afternoon, took the train for Portland. A few house servants, who remained at Tacoma, were notified by the Committee yesterday to leave. The people of Tacoma expect the Chinese to be out of their borders by the end of the week. This is in direct contrast to the situation in Seattle, where Governor Squire has issued a proclamation calling for restraint and warning against lawless outbursts.
“The committee of ten appointed by the first anti-Chinese Congress hereby calls a second anti-Chinese congress to be held at Olympia... to adopt a thorough system for further action towards excluding the Chinese from the Territory.”
This 1885 report documents the violent anti-Chinese 'Tacoma Method'—the systematic, extralegal expulsion of Asian immigrants from Puget Sound cities. It serves as a stark reminder of Seattle’s historical struggle with nativism and labor-market scapegoating, which still echoes in contemporary debates over immigration and community displacement.
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