The Expulsion from Seattle
While Washington Territory’s leaders exchanged telegrams regarding the forced removal of Chinese residents from Tacoma, the Seattle press reported on the 'peaceable' but total displacement of the city's Chinese population.
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 anti-Chinese agitation which has so stirred the people of Seattle for the past few weeks now bids fair to end more happily. The Chinese are going. They are going peaceably. There has been no riot, no bloodshed, no lawless acts but they are going. Their leaders have promised that they will depart as rapidly as possible. The laborers will go at once. Those possessing property will dispose of it as rapidly as it can be done. All are going. In a few weeks, or at most a few months, a Chinaman will be a curiosity in Seattle. In arriving at this agreement no blood has been shed, no blow has been struck. The Chinese simply realized that they were not wanted by any class of people. They realized that if they remained, they could hope to have no trade relations with the people of the city. They were afraid of the future, and they concluded to bow gracefully to the inevitable. Let their going be thoroughly peaceful; let all good citizens do what they can to assist them in preparing for their departure and let us all feel grateful for this happy solution of a problem which seemed insoluble.
“The Chinese simply realized that they were not wanted by any class of people... they concluded to bow gracefully to the inevitable.”
This 1885 report documents the 'Seattle method' of ethnic cleansing, which utilized economic intimidation rather than open violence to force an entire community out of the city. Today’s housing and demographic crises often hide similar exclusionary pressures, reminding us that displacement can be enforced through social and economic ostracization just as effectively as by force.
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