The Expulsion at Seattle: Vigilante Committees Force Out Chinese Residents
A report from the Seattle 'Committee of Fifteen' details their campaign to coerce the Chinese population to leave, as local business leaders and the 'Knights of Labor' consolidate power.
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.
At a mass meeting at the Opera House on the evening of November 7, 1885, reports were delivered regarding the removal of Chinese residents from Seattle and surrounding districts. The 'Committee of Fifteen,' elected at a meeting on October 31, reported that they had taken an census of Chinese households and informed them their presence was considered detrimental to the best interests of the country. Despite initial opposition from some business circles and church missions, the Committee asserted that they successfully coerced Chinese residents into leaving.
George Venable Smith, a speaker at the meeting, praised the 'united effort' of the community and dismissed concerns about federal intervention. The committee reported that Chinese residents were departing daily, many heading for Portland or returning to their homeland. The meeting concluded with resolutions to send delegates to an Anti-Chinese Congress in Olympia to continue the push for the complete removal of Chinese labor from the Pacific Coast. Mayor Henry L. Yesler issued a proclamation earlier in the day warning against violence and disorder, though the committee members claimed they had achieved their ends without the 'stretching of a single law.'
“The committee went to each of the Chinese houses in town, took a census of their grade, and gave them to understand that we, as citizens, could and would dispense with them.”
This report captures the height of the anti-Chinese movement in the 1880s, a period of violent xenophobia and forced expulsion that shaped Seattle's labor and political landscape. It resonates today as a chilling reminder of how organized, nativist rhetoric can permeate civic institutions to justify the systemic displacement of vulnerable communities.
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